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I fired up my trusty Mustang and made the detour to Compton’s house on the Upper East Side. Then I headed north on the 101. Deadbeats tend to be centrally located. Certain neighborhoods and certain enclaves, being run-down and cheap, apparently attract like-minded individuals. Perhaps some people, even those in the crudest circumstances, were still living beyond their means and therefore got sued, served, and summoned to court by those to whom they were indebted. I could imagine a population of the fiscally irresponsible exchanging tricks of the trade: promises, partial payments, talk of checks in the mail, bank errors, and lost envelopes. These were the people who imagined they were somehow exempt from accountability. Most matters that passed through my hands spoke of those who felt entitled to swindle and deceive. They cheated their employers, stiffed their landlords, and blew off their bills. Why not? Going after them took time and money and netted their creditors little. People without assets are bulletproof. You can threaten all you like, but there’s nothing to collect.
I circled the four-building complex, checking the space in the carport assigned to Apartment 18. Empty. Either they’d sold their vehicle (assuming they had one to begin with) or they were out on a happy Saturday jaunt. I continued around the block and pulled up across the street from their apartment. I took a paperback mystery novel from my shoulder bag and found my place. I read in the peace and quiet of my car, glancing up at intervals to see if the Guffeys had come home.
At 3:20, sure enough, I heard a car rattling and coughing like an old crop duster on approach. I looked up in time to see a banged-up Chevrolet sedan turn down the alleyway and into the Guffeys’ carport. The vehicle resembled many I’ve seen advertised by vintage-car nuts who buy and sell “classic” cars composed entirely of rust and dings. Dismantled, the parts were worth more than the whole. Jackie Guffey and a man I pegged as her husband came around the corner of the building with their arms loaded with bulging plastic bags from a nearby discount store. Their failure to pay their rent must have given them lots of extra cash to spend. I waited until they’d disappeared into the apartment and then I got out of my car.
I crossed the street, climbed the stairs, and knocked on their door. Alas, no one deigned to respond. “Jackie? Are you in there?”
After a moment, I heard a muffled “No.”
I squinted at the door. “Is that Patty?”
Silence.
I said, “Is Grant home?”
Silence.
“Anyone?”
I took out a roll of duct tape and affixed the notice of unlawful detainer to the front door. I knocked on the door again and said, “Mail’s here.”
On my way home, I slid by the row of boxes outside the main post office and sent a second copy of the notice to the Guffeys by first-class mail.
Monday morning, I woke early, feeling anxious and out of sorts. Henry’s quarrel with Charlotte had unsettled me. I lay on my back, covers pulled up to my chin, and stared up at the clear Plexiglas skylight above my bed. Still dark as pitch outside, but I could see a sprinkling of stars so I knew the sky was clear.
I have a low tolerance for conflict. As an only child, I got along with myself very well, thanks. I was happy being in my room alone, where I could color in my coloring book, using the crayons from my 64-shade box with the sharpener built right in. Many coloring books were dumb, but my aunt made a point of purchasing the better specimens. I could also play with my teddy bear, whose mouth would lever open if you pressed a button under its chin. I’d feed the bear hard candy and then turn him over and undo the zipper in his back. I’d remove the candy from the little metal box that passed for a tummy and eat it myself. The bear never complained. This is still my notion of a perfect relationship.
School was a source of great suffering to me, but once I learned to read, I disappeared into books, where I was a happy visitor to all the worlds that sprang full-blown from the printed page. My parents died when I was five, and Aunt Gin, who took over the parenting, was as unsociable as I. She had a few friends, but I can’t say she was intimate with anyone. As a result, I grew up ill prepared for disagreements, differences of opinion, clashes of will, or the need for compromise. I can handle contention in my professional life, but if a personal relationship turns testy, I head for the door. It’s simply easier that way. This explains why I’ve been married and divorced twice and why I don’t anticipate making the same mistake again. The spat between Henry and Charlotte was making my stomach hurt.
At 5:36, having abandoned the notion of going back to sleep, I rolled out of bed and into my ru
I walked the last few blocks home, taking the time to review events. I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to talk to Henry about his falling out with Charlotte, which ran in an endless loop in my head. On reflection, what snagged my attention was the little side trip their argument had taken. Charlotte was convinced Solana Rojas had played a part in the rift between them. That bothered me. Without Solana’s help, there was no way Gus could manage living on his own. He was dependent on her. We were all of us dependent on her because she’d stepped into the breach, shouldering the burden of his care. That put her in a position of power, which was cause for concern. How easy it would be for her to take advantage of him.
I’d turned up no hint of trouble in the course of the background check, but even if Solana’s record was spotless, people can and do change. She was in her early sixties and maybe she hadn’t set anything aside for her retirement years. Gus might not be worth a lot, but he might have more than she did. Financial inequity is a powerful goad. Dishonest folks like nothing better than to shift assets out of the pockets of those who have them and into their own.
I turned the corner from Bay onto Albanil, pausing as I passed Gus’s place. Lights were on in the living room, but there was no sign of Solana and no sign of him. I glanced at the Dumpster as I passed. The grungy wall-to-wall carpeting had been ripped up and lay over the discards like a blanket of brown snow. I surveyed the remaining rubbish, as I did most days. It looked like Solana had tipped the contents of a wastebasket into the Dumpster. The avalanche of falling paper had separated, sliding into various crevices and cra
I tilted my head. There was an envelope with red line around the rim caught in a fold of the wall-to-wall carpeting. I reached down and retrieved it, taking a closer look. The envelope was addressed to Augustus Vronsky and bore the return address of Pacific Gas and Electric. The flap was still sealed. This was one of Gus’s utility bills. The red rim suggested a certain stern reprimand, and I was guessing his payment was overdue. What was this doing in the trash?