Bodies of Work, copyright 2008, 2009, by Etienne. All rights reserved.
If the idea of two men loving each other and expressing that love in a sexual manner offends you, then you have clearly come to the wrong place. Feel free to leave.
With special thanks for the editing skills of the talented TalonRider.
From Chapter 15:
They both sported stunned expressions after we told them. We made absolutely certain that they understood the need for ground rules, especially about hauling other kids around.
“Guys,” I said, “Mike and I know that you are careful drivers, and we trust you. If you had some of your friends in that car and a drunk driver hit you and somebody got killed, we could be sued.”
“Your mother is going to sign a document releasing us from liability over and above the insurance policy if you get hurt in that car, but that won’t stop somebody from suing us, or for that matter her, if something bad happens,” Mike said.
They voiced their agreement.
“How much does the insurance cost?” Zeke said.
We told him the monthly amount.
“That much?”
“Until you reach your 26th birthday,” Mike said.
“So, guys,” I said, “what do you say?”
“I say we’d better get busy and go job-hunting,” Zeb said.
They hugged us, thanked us, and went down to the yard to do the promised clean up.
Late Monday evening, they came over and slept in the guest bedroom so they could drive us to the airport early Tuesday morning, and twelve hours later, we were home in Jacksonville.
Bodies of Work
-16-
Energized by the long weekend in the mountains, I threw myself into the mountain of work waiting on my desk. After lunch I called Janet to my office, and she brought me up to date on things.
When she had finished briefing me, she said, “Lou, what do you know about Carl’s personal life?”
“A little, why?”
“Has he gotten himself a girlfriend, do you think?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because he acts a lot like somebody who’s in love,” she said.
“I haven’t noticed him being all starry eyed or anything like that.”
“It’s not that.”
“What, then?”
“I don’t know, Lou,” she said, “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s definitely something there.”
“What are the rest of the guys saying?”
“Nada.”
“You’ve asked them?”
“Indirectly,” she said.
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I didn’t want to seem nosy.”
“Sergeant,” I said, “let me get this straight. You are intensely curious about his love life, if any, so much so that you’ve been asking around, but you don’t want to go straight to the source.”
“When you put it that way, I guess I am being nosy, aren’t I?” she said, looking sheepish.
“Your choice of words, Sergeant. Give it some time, if our boy has something to tell us, he’ll get around to it when he’s ready.”
After she left, I got up and closed the door to my office, and called Carl. He wasn’t at his desk, so I paged him.
My phone rang a couple of minutes later.
“You wanted me, Lou,” Carl said.
“Got any plans for lunch?”
“Actually I’m meeting Jim for lunch.”
“Where?”
“Food Court at the Landing.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“No, why?” he said.
“Tell you about it over lunch,” I said.
The Jacksonville Landing was a food/shopping complex that had been built downtown on the riverfront some twenty years previously. It was a Rouse project, and had been modeled more or less after their more famous, and more successful, Baltimore Harbor complex. It had seen its ups and downs over the years, and suffered from a lack of adequate parking, but was still a pleasant place to go. A water taxi service ferried people back and forth across the river from the Landing to hotels and restaurants on the other side.
When I got downtown, I got lucky and found a spot in a parking lot only two blocks from the Landing. Carl and Jim were already sitting at a table in the food court, so I went to one of the sandwich shops and placed my order.
I pulled up a chair at their table, set my tray down, and said, “Fancy meeting you guys here.”
“Yeah,” Jim said. “Small world.”
“What’s up, Lou?” Carl said.
“I had an interesting conversation with the Sergeant earlier,” I said. I recited the conversation as best I could remember it.
“Shit,” he said. “What do you think I should do?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“What do you think she will do?” Jim said.
“She’s female, curious, and a very good investigator,” I said. “If I know her, she will worry at this like a dog with a bone.”
“Yeah,” Carl said, “she would, wouldn’t she?”
“Do you mean she might start following Carl around?” Jim said.
“I don’t really think it would come to that, but sooner or later she’s going to run into the two of you out in public somewhere. By the second or third time that happens, she’ll put the pieces of the puzzle together.”
“I’ve been thinking about subletting my apartment,” Carl said, “and moving in with Jim. I’m at his place nine nights out of ten anyway. What if I introduce him as my roommate?”
“Does his apartment have one or two bedrooms?” I said.
“Two,” Jim said.
“That’ll probably work for now,” I said, “and you’ve never really talked much about your dating habits in the past, at least as far as I know.”
“Not very much,” he said.
“What about you, Jim. Are you out at work?”
“I haven’t exactly jumped up on top of my desk and announced it to everyone,” he said, “but my immediate supervisor knows, as do a couple of co-workers. So far it hasn’t been a problem.”
“Are you suggesting that I come out, Lou?” Carl said.
“Not at all, but maybe you should keep it in the back of your mind as an option for the future.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I do get kinda tired of playing games all the time.”
“We all get tired of that, Carl, which is one of the reasons I went public five years ago.”
“George,” Jim said, “what do you think would happen if you told the Sergeant about Carl and me? Could she keep it a secret?”
“That might just be the answer,” I said. “When she solves a problem, she tends to move on to the next one.”
“Let me think about that,” Carl said.
“Sure,” I said.
We finished our lunch in silence, and I went back to work.
Friday evening, as I was just about to walk out the door, Janet came in.
“Got a minute, Boss?”
“For you, always.”
She came in and closed the door behind her.
“What’s up, Sergeant?”
“Carl and I had to go out on an investigation, today,” she said.
“And?”
“On the way back in the car, he told me that he’s gay, and has a boyfriend.”
“Well that certainly answers the question you asked me earlier this week, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she said, “but it shocked the crap out of me.”
“Didn’t see that one coming, did you?”
“Not even close. You knew all along, didn’t you?”
“Yes I did, but I know how to keep a secret. The question is, do you?”
“Oh yeah. I promised him not to say anything to anyone, unless he decides to go public.”
“It may never come to that,” I said. “In many ways, Carl is still coming to grips with who he is. Bear in mind that he just figured out he was gay a few months ago. Meanwhile, keep your ears to the ground, and if the other guys start talking, let me know.”
“Sure, Lou,” she said.
We walked out of the building together, and down to the parking lot. I had several errands to run, so I didn’t go straight home. Eventually my cell phone rang.
“Car 54, where are you?”
“Running some errands, babe. Is dinner ready?”
“Thirty minutes ago.”
“I have one more stop to make,” I said, “see you shortly.”
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t ask, and I won’t tell.”
“Okay, bye.”
When I got home, I slipped quietly to a point just out of visual range from the kitchen door, raised my voice a bit, and said, “Hold out your hands, and close your eyes. I’d suggest you sit down in a chair, as well.”
“Okay,” he said from the kitchen.
I walked to the kitchen table where he was sitting, and placed a small bundle in his hands. He opened his eyes.
“Holy shit,” he said, “what’s this?”
“This,” I said, “is an eight week old purebred Irish setter, with blood lines that I’m told have at least one national champion in them. Why don’t you get acquainted with him while I bring in his gear.”
It took three trips to the truck to retrieve a doggie bed, a collapsible crate, food and water bowls, a bag of puppy food, and a few toys.
“You picked up all that stuff and the dog after work today?” Mike said.
“I did most of it on my lunch hour, and ate on the fly.”
I set up the crate in the laundry room, and put the doggie bed inside the crate. It was a perfect fit. In the kitchen, I rinsed out the two stainless steel bowls and filled one of them with water. Placing it on the floor, I said, “Let’s see if he knows what to do with this.”
Mike set the puppy on the floor and pointed him at the bowl. He waddled over to it, sniffed a few times, and started lapping at the water.
While the pup was drinking, Mike hugged me and kissed me thoroughly.
“Thanks, babe, this was a nice surprise.”
“Well, you said you’d never had a dog, and now you do,” I said. “What do you want to name him?”
“Well, he’s little, and has red hair, so how about Thorin Oakenshield?”
“After the king of the dwarves in The Hobbit?”
“Yeah, and we can call him Thor for short.”
“Babe, you do realize that he won’t stay little,” I said. “In a year or two, he’ll weigh well over fifty pounds.”
“That’s okay, I still like the name.”
“Then Thor it is.”
“I’ve never housebroken a dog,” he said, “have you?”
“No, but I’ve read up on it.”
“What do we do?”
I explained how crate training worked.
“That seems a bit cruel,” he said, “confining this little cutie in a cage overnight.”
“It’s called a crate,” I said, “and he’ll also be put it in every time we leave him alone in the house. In a very short time, he will look on that crate as his special place, and he won’t mess it up unless we leave him in it too long. That in turn will teach him to hold it until he’s taken for a walk.”
“Okay, I guess that makes sense.”
“Trust me on this one,” I said. “In addition to reading about it, I’ve talked to a few people about this over the last few days.”
Thor had stopped lapping up water.
“Put his collar on, and we’ll take him out in the back yard on a leash,” I said. “He needs to get used to relieving himself back there.”
Mike picked up the pup and managed to get the little collar in place. I handed him the leash, and we walked out on to the patio, and through the door beside the garage. In the back yard, Mike set Thor on the grass, and we watched him begin to explore.
I walked carefully around the perimeter of the yard, examining the fence, until I had made a complete circuit and was again standing beside Mike.
“What was that all about?”
“Just looking along the bottom of the fence to make sure there were no low spots he might be able to squeeze under,” I said.
“Were there?”
“Two or three. Before we let him out here on his own, we have to take some preventive measures.”
“Okay.”
Thor led Mike over to the hedge nearest Frances’ yard, and took a dump between the border grass and the viburnum.
“Good boy,” I said, and I walked over and patted him on the head.
“What are we going to do with him Thanksgiving week?”
“Take him with us, of course. I’ll borrow a cat carrier from Deb, and he can ride in it. When we get there, we can pick up a crate to leave in the cabin, or better yet, pick up another one here and throw it in the truck.”
“Yeah, that’ll work.”
We walked around the yard for another few minutes, and just before we went inside the house, the pup watered one small plot of grass.
“Where did you get him?”.
“There is a well-known breeder of Setters on the north side of town. When I went out there to look at the puppies, there were only three available. This little guy was lying on the floor of the kennel, and his brother and sister were standing on him. I picked him up in my arms, he snuggled up against me and said ‘take me home with you.’ That was all it took.”
“Was he expensive?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
Having a dog in the house, especially a puppy, imposed a certain routine on our lives, not that we didn’t already have one. We took him out in the yard just before bedtime, and again, the minute we got up in the morning. I went to Home Depot over the weekend and purchased a small length of fencing. In the yard, I took heavy-duty wire cutters and cut the fence into strips about six inches wide, and as long as necessary. By the time I finished securing the strips in place, I was satisfied that even if he were so inclined, Thor could not crawl under the fence anywhere. Digging under it would be a different story altogether, but there were a lot of trees in the back yard and they had extensive root systems.
The Saturday before Thanksgiving, we were on the road by six. Thor seemed content to curl up on a couple of our old sweatshirts in the cat carrier, which fit nicely behind the seats. We stopped every couple of hours at a rest area and walked him just in case he needed to do anything.
In Waynesville, I stopped at Bi-Lo and did the shopping, while Mike stayed in the truck with Thor. I went through the market carefully, stocking up on enough groceries to last us a week or so, including extra rolls of paper towels, which were a must to clean up behind a pup who was still accident prone. At the cabin, we pulled the truck into the garage and unloaded everything.
“Where’s the car?” Mike said.
“Remember, the boys are working late at their new jobs, and we told them they could take it home with them.”
“Oh, yeah. I guess that slipped my mind.”
Zeb and Zeke had been using computers at their school to maintain e-mail contact with us.
“Is just my imagination or is this place an awful lot cleaner than it ought to be?” Mike said.
“Take three guesses, and the first two don’t count.”
“Lucinda is showing us her appreciation.”
“That would be my guess.”
“Why don’t you take Thor for a tour of the yard while I set up his gear?”
“Will do.”
I found the leash, sat down on the sofa, and called Thor over to me. He immediately came over and tried to climb into my lap, but his little legs weren’t quite long enough. I picked him up and held him in my lap while I secured the leash. On the deck, I found that I had to pick him up and carry him downstairs for the same reason - legs too short.
After he had taken care of business, I encouraged him to try the steps, and he gamely made it all the way to the top, if somewhat slowly. In the cabin, I removed the leash, and he trotted to the kitchen and found his water bowl. After that, he went to the crate, and curled up in his bed.
I started a fire going in the fireplace while Mike put dinner together. After dinner, we spread a comforter and some pillows on the floor in front of the fireplace, and lay back to enjoy it. We were side by side on the comforter until Thor decided he needed to get in the act, and nudged his way between us.
Eventually the fire died down, and it was bedtime. Mike took Thor outside to take care of business, and I made certain that the fire screen was secure. When they came inside, the pup trotted obediently to his bed, and curled up.
We plugged in a night light over the counter, went down the hallway, and crawled in bed.
A little later, Mike said, “There hasn’t been a peep out of him since we put him to bed.”
“Babe, we got lucky with this little guy. I’ve heard all too many horror stories about new puppies whining and fussing all through the night.”
It was quite cold when I took Thor outside early the next morning, but he didn’t seem to mind, probably because he had his own fur coat. We were sitting at the kitchen table after breakfast, nursing a final cup of coffee when Thor perked his head up and trotted to the windows overlooking the deck. The dog had better ears than I did. Then we heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs, so I went to the door. It was Lucinda Hawkins.
I opened the door for her, and said, “Good morning.”
“Mornin,” she said, “I just stopped by to see if you boys needed anything.” She looked down at her feet. “What’s this?”
I picked Thor up, “This is Thor. He’s the newest addition to our little family.”
“He’s so cute, and so little.”
“He’s going to get a lot bigger.”
Mike had walked up to where we were talking. “I guess we have you to thank for the place being so clean,” he said.
“It was the least I could do. Thanks to you boys, Zeb and Zeke are bringing home regular paychecks.”
“How do they like their jobs?” I said. One of them was working at McDonald’s, and the other just down the street at Wendy’s.
“They like them well enough, and they really like the money.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“I expect they’ll be along later to tell you all about it,” she said, “but I wanted to give you this.” She reached into a pocket, and produced a wad of bills.
“What’s this?” I said, as she handed me the wad of bills.
“One months payment on the car insurance.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but this could have waited a bit if they need money for clothes or anything.”
“No it couldn’t. A deal’s a deal, and they’ve got to learn to keep their bargains.”
“In that case,” thanks again, “I said.”
“Can we offer you a cup of coffee?” Mike said.
“Thanks, but I have to get to the hotel. Sunday morning’s my quiet time to make out work schedules.”
She patted Thor on the head, and left.
“Ready to walk up the mountain, big guy?” I said to Mike.
“What about Junior?”
“Way ahead of you,” I said. I went to the bedroom, and looked in my small suitcase. When I returned, I was wearing a backpack.
“What’s that for?”
I turned around, and said, “See if the little guy likes it in there?”
He picked Thor up, and placed him in the back pack.
“Go look in the bathroom mirror,” he said.
I went to the bathroom, and with my back to the mirror, looked over my shoulder. Thor was peering out of the backpack, a somewhat puzzled expression on his little face.
I went to the great room. Mike was holding the camera. “This is a Kodak moment, if ever there was one,” he said.
“Put the leash on him, just in case,” I said. “I’ll probably carry him up the mountain and let him walk back down.”
A few minutes later, we were headed up the road.
“This sort of reminds me of Big Red,” Mike said.
“Big Red?”
“The Disney movie about the kid and the Irish Setter.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Remember when the kid went into the mountains to find the dogs, and came back down with a litter of puppies hanging out of his backpack?”
“Gosh. I had totally forgotten that. Maybe my subconscious mind remembered.”
“Stranger things have happened.”
We walked up the mountain, with Mike checking on my passenger once in a while. By the time we had reached the top, he reported that Thor was sound asleep. When we reached the last downhill stretch on the way back, Mike lifted Thor out of the backpack, and set him on the road. He trotted happily along beside us the rest of the way.
The boys stopped by to see us on their way to work, and were quite taken with Thor.
“Car running okay?” I said.
“You bet,” Zeb said.
“Come have a look,” Zeke said.
We followed them outside and inspected the car. It had been polished within an inch of its life, and the interior was immaculate.
“You guys put us to shame,” Mike said. “We never kept it that clean.”
We celebrated Thanksgiving by going to the Thanksgiving buffet at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville. The quality and quantity of food on display was overwhelming. We went straight to the cabin, took the dog for a walk, and crawled in bed for a nice long nap. Needless to say, we were not alone in the bed.
We decided we had better jog up the mountain later, to offset our over-indulgence. We left Thor in his crate while we did so, thinking that the backpack would bounce a lot from the motion produced by jogging.
I was at my desk bright and early Monday morning, fresh from the Y, and began working my way through a stack of reports. The phone rang, and I picked it up.
“Good morning George,” the voice said, “Nick Metaxas here.”
“Hi Nick. What’s up?”
“Got time to have lunch with the new SAC for Jacksonville?”
“Sure. Glad to hear they got rid of the prick, do I know the new guy?”
“You should,” he said, “I heard through the grapevine that you and your Captain recommended him.”
“They gave it to you? Well done, Nick.”
“Can you meet me at 12:30?”
“Sure. Where?”
“Are you familiar with the Athens café?”
“It’s one of my favorites, although I haven’t been in a while.”
“See you there, then.”
When I go Greek, I almost always go for the combination platter, so I can have a little bit of several favorites. I munched my way through delicious helpings of spanakopita, mousaka, and dolmathes, while Nick brought me up to date on the changes in his office.
When he had finished, I said, “What happened to the late and unlamented SAC?”
“He’s been demoted, and he’s working in a small city in North Dakota.”
“It couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy. What’s the latest on our murders for hire report?”
“Glad you asked,” he said. “Take a look at this.”
He handed me a three page report which I began to read.
When I had finished, I said, “Forty of the people who hired the killer have either been indicted or convicted. That’s not bad.”
“That’s not the best part,” he said. “This is not for publication, but we expect to obtain indictments of several members of the crime family within a few weeks.”
“Can I tell my Captain, and the Sheriff?”
“Those two, but nobody else, please.”
“No problem. Any leads on the actual killer?”
“We don’t know where he is, but we know some of the places he’s been. For example, we’re 99% certain that he had a cabin in a remote spot in the mountains of Montana. From the look of things, his bosses tracked him to it, and torched the place.”
“When was this?” I said.
“A few weeks before the guy left you that packet of information.”
“His note did say that they were hot on his trail. Where do you think he is?”
“Probably somewhere south of the equator, in a country with whom we do not have an extradition treaty,” he said, “or a country who will refuse to extradite anyone wanted for a capital crime. The guy’s been very clever when it comes to keeping his picture from being taken. The few pictures we found were just a bit blurry. Add to that the fact that he’s in drag, and it adds up to an impossibility.”
As soon as I got to the office, I took Nick’s report to Captain Bridges, and handed it to him.
“Where did you get this?” he said.
“From the new SAC.”
“I hadn’t heard about that, who is he?”
“The guy we recommended, Nick Metaxas.”
“And the prick?”
“Banished to West Bumfuck North Dakota or somewhere like that.”
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” he said with a smile.
“There’s more, but it’s not in writing and it’s for your ears and the Sheriff’s ears only.” I told him about the pending indictments.
“I’ll call upstairs, and let him know.”
December came and sped by without anything significant happening. We dealt with the usual murder and mayhem, but there were no major cases. We learned from AccuWeather that North Carolina had experienced some freezing rain, and there was a slight chance that we might see some snow at Christmas.
We set up a large tree in the living room, and invited Carl and Jim and two other couples over to the house for a small party on the Sunday evening of the Luminaria.
The Riverside-Avondale Preservation group had been promoting an annual Luminaria event every year for a couple of decades, and it had grown hugely. On a Sunday in mid to late December, there would be as many as 40,000 white paper bags weighted with a bit of sand and containing small candles. The candles were lit at dusk, and people came from all over the city to see the spectacle. Horse-drawn carriages offered rides for a fee, and the major thoroughfares through the area were jammed with cars. The event had almost become a victim of its own tremendous success.
We served our guests wine and cheese, and a selection of sandwiches. Around eight or nine, we left the house, and walked around the neighborhood, admiring the Christmas decorations and the Luminaria candles.
Three days before Christmas, we loaded the truck and pointed it north. Thor had gotten just a bit too big to be comfortable in a cat carrier, so we snugged a fair sized cardboard box behind one of the seats, and encouraged him to stay in it for the drive. We had, by then, been through a few weeks of obedience training with him and he responded to commands very well, most of the time. In the truck, he tended to curl up in a ball and go to sleep before we had driven very far.
The mountains looked different with all of the non-evergreen trees bare. You could see all of the rocks and other features that were hidden in the summertime. The road up to our cabin was quite accessible. I couldn’t tell whether it had been salted or not. Being a native of Florida, I didn’t understand a great deal about the process.
At the cabin, we built a fire the minute we unpacked. The twins had turned the heat on for us on their way to work, so the place was comfortable, the fire adding an element of coziness. We had brought a box of decorations, and an artificial tree with us, and by the time we went to bed, we were humming ‘it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.’
Mike and I got up fairly early Christmas morning, and exchanged gifts. We had also gotten a few toys and treats for Thor, but only let him have them one at a time. Around midmorning, Thor’s ears perked up and he trotted to the door, which we now knew meant that someone was coming. The boys were at the door a minute later, followed by Lucinda.
“Merry Christmas,” I said, as I let them in.
They returned the greeting, and bent down to pet Thor, who was bouncing around, clamoring for attention.
Mike walked up to us, and said, “If you guys will go look above the fireplace, you’ll find some things with your names on them.”
They hurried to the fireplace to look. A row of stockings was hanging from the mantle. There were five of them labeled, Mike, George, Thor, Zeb, and Zeke.
I walked to the tree and retrieved a small box, and handed it to Lucinda.
“If we’d known you were coming by, we would have had a stocking for you, too,” I said.
“You shouldn’t have,” she said, and then she raised her voice, “Zeb, Zeke, give George and Mike what you brought them.”
Zeb handed me an envelope, and Zeke handed one to Mike.
“It’s not much,” they said.
“Guys,” I said, “it’s truly the thought that counts.”
They had given us each a bundle of gift certificates for McDonald’s and Wendy’s.
“You know we’ll make good use of them,” Mike said.
The boys brought the contents of their stockings over to us.
“Thanks,” they said.
We had gotten each of them a good pair of goggles for swimming.
“You can use them next time you come to Jacksonville,” Mike said.
“What’d you get, Ma?” Zeb said.
She finished opening the package, smiled with pleasure, and said, “Perfume.”
“Have a seat,” I said.
“We can’t stay,” Lucinda said, “we’re on the way to Bob and Martha’s to eat, and I promised to help her with the fixings.”
“What are you guys doing?” Zeke said.
“We’re going to have Christmas Brunch at the Grove Park Inn over in Asheville,” Mike said.
“And then we’re going to come back here and run up and down the mountain twice to work it off,” I said.
“Yeah,” Mike said, “they put on a real spread.”
“So I’ve heard,” she said.
The boys were sitting on the floor, playing with Thor.
Lucinda said, “Zeb, why don’t you and Zeke take the dog for a short walk. I want to talk to George and Mike for a minute.”
“Sure, Ma,” Zeke said.
“His leash is hanging from a hook right beside the door,” I said.
The boys found the leash, clipped it to Thor’s collar, and took him out the door.
“We can sit at the kitchen table,” Mike said.
We walked to the table and sat down.
“What’s on your mind?” I said.
“I keep worrying about those two,” she said, “and what would happen to them if something happened to me.”
“You’re a young woman,” I said.
“Their Daddy was only 40,” she said, “and look what happened to him.”
“Point taken,” I said.
“Anyway, I’ve decided what to do,” she said. “Bob Plott is going to have his lawyer draw up some papers naming you boys Guardian for Zeb and Zeke if something happens to me. That is if you don’t mind.”
“Why should we mind,” I said. “Those boys are like little brothers to us.”
“I’m touched that you would think of us,” Mike said.
“Truth be told, we’ve got a heap of relations in this county,” she said, “but you boys are the first two grown men I’ve ever known them to get close to, much less hug.”
“Lucinda,” I said, “all I can say is that Mike and I are genuinely touched that you would trust us.”
“And we hope to God it never comes to that,” Mike said.
She said, “Thank you,” and gave a little sigh of relief. “You don’t know what a load off my mind this is.”
The door opened, and Thor came bounding into the room, followed by the boys.
“Did he do his business?” I said.
“Yeah,” Zeb said, “he did number one several times, and then went into the bushes and did number two.”
“He does that at home, too,” Mike said, “he seems to like to squat in the bushes, I don’t know why.”
“Ready to go to cousin Bob’s?” Lucinda said.
“Sure,” Zeke said.
We walked out to the steps with them, and all three of them hugged us before they went down the steps.
“Did you see that coming?” I said, when we were inside.
“No, but it makes sense.”
“Yeah, I suppose it does. Ready to make yourself pretty for Brunch?”
“Only if you’ll fuck me first.”
“Race you.”
Christmas Brunch at the Grove Park Inn was even better and the food more plentiful than Thanksgiving had been, if such a thing is possible. In addition, the hotel held an annual Gingerbread House contest at Christmas, and the entries were on display in one of the large meeting rooms. We were absolutely amazed at what people had accomplished with gingerbread and frosting. Some of the entries were nothing short of awesome.
As we had after the Thanksgiving buffet, we jogged up the mountain a few hours after we had eaten.
All good things must come to an end, and we were soon home in the warm weather and into our usual routines a couple of days later. We celebrated New Years Eve quietly at home, although we did stay up just long enough to watch the ball drop on television.
Toward the end of January, I began getting serious about closing the books on the rental properties for the previous year. On the evening that I finished that project, I printed out the results, and handed them to Mike.
He studied the printouts for a while, and said, “We need some more write-offs.”
“No shit, sherlock.”
“On the other hand it’s nice that we haven’t been hit too hard with repair and maintenance expenses for the past few months,” he said.
“There is that,” I said. “The good news is that by the time the accountant waves his magic wand and adds depreciation and other stuff, we’ll be okay.”
“In any case, the cash flow is very positive.”
“It is that,” I said. “We’re building up a nice little reserve fund for contingencies.”
The winter dragged along, as it usually did in northeast Florida, with a few warm days, followed by a few cold days, and a lot of gloomy weather. I was beginning to look forward to our planned week in the mountains at the end of April, especially because we had canceled our monthly weekend trips for the rest of the winter.
The most exciting thing Mike and I had in March done was to participate in the River Run. We trained heavily for it, and performed well. Unless you are a seeded entrant in a big-time race, you are basically running to out-perform your personal best, which we both did, coming in with an impressive, for us, average time of something less than eight minutes per mile.
The dreariness of winter was exacerbated by the fact that we were having a lull in major crimes in Duval County. Of course, that was a good thing, but it also meant a certain lack of enthusiasm on the Job.
That lull had extended into the early Spring. What we needed, I thought, while sitting at my desk one day in early April, was a series of homicides or something. How sick is that, I thought, I’m sitting at my desk on a Friday morning, lamenting the fact that people aren’t hacking each other up and my team doesn’t have quite enough excitement.
In the midst of this inward analysis, my phone rang. It was Mike.
“Can you take off an hour early, and meet me at the bank?” he said.
“As long as nobody climbs up on top of a tower with an assault rifle and starts blasting away,” I said. “Why?”
“Don’t ask, and I won’t tell.”
“Okay.”
Mike was waiting for me in the lobby of the bank when I got there a few minutes before four.
“What’s going on?” I said, the minute I sat down beside him.
“We are about to be offered a golden opportunity,” he said.
“Explain please.”
“Just wait.”
A secretary came over to us, and said, “Mr. Todd will see you now.”
We followed her into our banker’s office. Mike Todd was just a few years older that we were, and not unattractive. I had gotten to know him slightly after the closing on the cabin, but most of our dealings with him were handled by Mike.
“Mike, George,” the banker said, rising to shake our hands. “Have a seat, and I’ll get right to the point.”
“Good,” I said, “because I’m totally in the dark.”
“Mike didn’t tell you anything?” he said.
“Not a word.”
“Okay,” he said, “here’s the deal. The bank has just taken a deed in lieu of foreclosure for four rental properties in Riverside and Avondale. The guy was a slumlord wanna-be, and he made every mistake in the book. He didn’t qualify his tenants. He failed to properly maintain the properties, and when people moved out because of that, he rented to an even lower class of people who cared even less about maintenance and upkeep. That sent him in a downward cash flow spiral and he finally couldn’t make his mortgage payments. I want to fix the properties up and place them on the market, because I know I can turn a profit in time, but my board is very conservative, and they want to recover the bank’s investment right away.”
“So you’re offering the properties to us?” I said.
“Absolutely,” he said.
“And at a distressed price,” Mike said.
“How distressed?” I said.
He told me.
“That sounds pretty distressed, all right,” I said. “Tell us more.”
He gave us a rundown on the properties along with pictures.
“They need a lot of work,” Mike said, “most of it cosmetic. I think we can have all four of these houses ready to rent by the end of summer, maybe even one a month.”
“How long do we have to decide?” I said.
“I’d like an answer by next Wednesday,” the banker said. “There’s at least one other person I know might be interested, and the board is on my case about this deal.”
“Then I guess we’d better get busy, and have a look,” I said.
The banker drove us to each property, and we did a careful walk through. I had borrowed a yellow pad from him, and I made careful notes along the way. Mike had brought the digital camera with him, and he took dozens of pictures of each house, inside and out.
The banker took us to his office to talk about the properties.
“Properly fixed up,” the banker said, “the loan value of these properties should be high enough to cover the cost of renovations, with a significant surplus.”
“And you’d be willing to lend us 100% of that amount?” I said.
“The board wants to recover its cost, and the two of you are highly acceptable from the standpoint of risk,” he said. “Besides which, even at that amount the loan would only be about 80% of appraised value when the renovations are complete.”
“We know what you want for the properties, but you haven’t mentioned the amount you’re willing to lend,” Mike said.
The banker tossed out a number.
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“Not even close, George,” he said. “All my board cares about is getting out from under the potential loss.”
I looked at Mike and we nodded at each other simultaneously.
“Then, subject to an expert inspection, we’ll go for it,” Mike said.
“Ditto,” I said, “with one condition.”
“What?” the banker said.
“I don’t want to start making mortgage payments until the renovations are completed and we are getting some cash flow out of the properties.”
“Have you a date in mind?”
“November 10th.”
“How about September 10th?” he said.
“October 10th would be better,” I said.
“Deal,” the banker said.
“How long will it take to have them inspected?” I said.
“Ten days, maximum,” the banker said.
“And after that, to close?” Mike said.
“Another ten days, more or less.”
“Fill out a contract,” Mike said.
Thirty minutes later, we signed a tentative offer to purchase the four properties, subject to inspection and approval of loans in the amounts indicated.
I followed Mike home, and we took Thor for a walk in the back yard.
“As soon as the baby has taken care of business,” Mike said, “let’s go have dinner and celebrate.”
“Sure,” I said. “Any place in particular?”
“It’s Friday, isn’t that lasagna night?”
“Works for me.”
We got Thor settled down in his crate, and went to the restaurant. Over Greek salad, lasagna, and garlic bread, we discussed the deal.
“Babe,” Mike said, “with your abilities and knowledge of renovations, and my skill as a gofer, we can create some real sweat equity in these houses.”
“I’m thinking we should make the twins an offer they can’t refuse.”
“And that would be?”
“As soon as school is out next month, they can haul ass down here and start painting,” I said.
“I like it,” he said. “They get much needed work, and we save a significant amount on the job.”
“I’ll call a couple of painting contractors tomorrow,” I said, “and get the estimates rolling.”
“I think you’re as excited about this as I am,” he said.
“I’m thinking about cash flow,” I said. “At the rates Mike Todd quoted us, all we have to do is keep two of those houses rented, and the mortgage is covered. The third one will take care of taxes and insurance, and the fourth one is gravy.”
“Works for me,” he said.
“There is one thing I want to do, however.”
“What?”
“I think half of the rent from the fourth house should go into our contingency fund, and the other half should go toward paying down the mortgage on our house.”
“I don’t have a problem with that,” he said.
“Good,” I said, “because I would like to see us in that house, free and clear, as quickly as possible. That will give us a huge security blanket.”
“Agreed.”
“Are you through with your dinner?”
“Sure.”
“Then why are we sitting here, when we can go home and celebrate in bed.”
“Race you.”
Despite being more than a bit wound up, we were asleep by eleven. Three hours later, I was standing at the checkout counter of a convenience store, looking down at two very dead bodies.
Be careful what you wish for, I thought, remembering what I had been thinking recently.
“Does this look familiar, Lou?” Janet said.
“Now that you mention it, Sergeant,” I said, “it does sort of.”
“I’ll bet you lunch that when we look at the surveillance tapes, we’ll see the same two guys,” she said.
“No bets on that,” I said, “and you’d better have somebody start digging through unsolved convenience store robberies, and see how many more of them these guys have done.”
I got home a couple of hours later, crawled in bed, and snuggled up against Mike, although I had to pick Thor up and put him in his bed before I could. We had moved it to a corner of the master bedroom, when we decided he was housebroken. I somehow managed to go right back to sleep. I woke up to the sensation of my face being licked, and then smelled coffee.
Thor was responsible for the licking, and Mike was standing beside the bed holding a cup of coffee.
“What time is it?” I said.
“Nine.”
“Shit,” I said. “You should have gotten me up.”
“Why? You were up in the middle of the night, and I figured you needed sleep.”
“What about the Y?”
“It’ll still be there tomorrow.”
I took the cup of coffee from him, and carried it in the bathroom with me. Later, over a second cup and breakfast, I said, “I hate to say this, but I’ve got to go in for a couple of hours.”
“I sort of figured that,” he said, “so I’ve already called the painting guys. We might have estimates after lunch.”
“I thought those guys only worked half a day on Saturday.”
“When they smell that much work, they make exceptions.”
“Ah.”
“Bad one last night?” he said.
“No worse that most. Convenience store. Clerk and one customer dead. Looks like we’ve got a string of them on our hands, all by the same perps.”
“You go do what we taxpayers pay you for,” he said. “The baby and I will hold down the fort.”
The baby in question was sitting on the floor beside the table, showing us his best begging pose. I held a small piece of bagel in the air just above his head, and he took it gently from my fingers. He gulped it down, and went back to the pose.
“He always wants more,” I said.
“Don’t we all?”
At the office, I spent an hour reviewing the reports from the previous night making notes as I went. After that, I looked at the reports of three other hold-ups that Janet and I suspected might be by the same perps, and made more notes. I drafted a preliminary summary and plan of action, and sent it to her, copying the Captain, and went home with a clear conscience.
After lunch, I crawled in bed and napped for a while. Mike had a couple of errands to run, and I allowed Thor to curl up on the corner of the bed. I woke up refreshed a couple of hours later, and after a stop in the bathroom, I went in search of Mike. I found him in the den watching television.
“What’s that you’re watching?” I said. There were pictures, but he had the sound muted.
“Remember when I set the recorder to tape the Carnival Parade in Rio?”
“So?”
“That was a couple of months or more ago, and we never got around to watching it.”
“Enjoying the half-naked men, are you?”
“Too right,” he said. “Let me start it over again.”
“While you do that, I’m going to get some tea. Want anything?”
“Tea sounds good.”
I went to the kitchen, filled two glasses with ice, and filled them with tea. Thor, as usual, had followed me to the kitchen, and was standing on the floor next to me, looking hopeful. I retrieved a dog biscuit and said, “Sit.”
He sat, and took the biscuit when I gave it to him.
In the den, I handed Mike his tea, and sat down beside him on the sofa. The parade was interesting, but a little bit of that sort of thing goes a long way with me. I had very nearly lost interest, when the camera turned from the parade and began to pan the spectators across the street, slowly zooming in on their faces as it did.
Something caught my eye, and I said, “Stop.”
“What?”
“Stop and go back a bit,” I said. “Give me the remote.”
He handed it to me, and I ran the tape back a bit. Then I played it forward in slow motion until I found what I was looking for. I hit pause.
“Recognize anyone?” I said.
“Holy fucking shit, that looks like Monique.”
“He’s dyed his hair,” I said, “and it’s a lot longer, but that is almost certainly Bob Jones.”
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The Jacksonville Landing
http://www.jacksonvillelanding.com/
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Author’s note: Bodies of Work will conclude after a few more chapters, but not to worry - George and Mike have already had another excellent adventure. Watch for the story of murdered drag queens - Drag and Drop will begin as soon as the current story has been posted. And yes, for those of you who have asked, the twins will be a part of our guys’ lives in the new story as well.
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-To be continued-
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Your feedback, as always, is appreciated, be it good, bad, or indifferent.
My stories can be found on the following site:
http://tickiestories.us/Etienne_m.htm
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