Kiss

20

The next morning Carver phoned from the Belle Grande lobby and had Hertz deliver a rental Ford to him. He assured the woman who brought the car that, despite his bad leg, he could drive a vehicle if it had an automatic transmission. She was dubious, but she filled out the paperwork and he signed for the car. It was a blue, medium-sized Taurus model he’d be able to wriggle in and out of okay with the cane.

He called Kemper Management and got the address of the Williams house on Naval by pretending to be a potential buyer of the property. Kemper Management also sold real estate, Carver was told, and would have the listing on the Williams house when and if the heirs decided to put it on the market.

The agent asked if he could meet Carver at the house, but Carver told him he wanted only to drive past and look the place over from the outside before thinking more about an offer. The agent didn’t ask Carver how he knew the property was managed by Kemper and might soon be for sale; he must have assumed Carver was a speculator with a running knowledge of such things who used the obituary pages as guides to potential cheap property purchases from heirs who usually didn’t mind taking several thousand dollars under market value. The difference in sale and asking price was divided evenly among the heirs and made little difference to them individually, and it eliminated the problem of keeping the property on the market for months while it ate up maintenance and interest money. Edwina had swung some deals like that for sellers in much the same position as the Williams heirs.

The Kemper agent had said the house was half a block off Saint Charles, a wide street upon which a streetcar line ran. Most of the homes in the vicinity of Naval Avenue and Saint Charles looked like plantation manor houses in their reincarnations of sumptuousness. Only a few were what might be described as run-down. After what had apparently been a period of decline, this was again one of the better addresses in New Orleans.

Carver waited for a green-and-red trolley to sway and clank past, then made a left turn onto Naval and drove slowly.

The houses on Naval Avenue were somewhat smaller than on Saint Charles, but still impressive and expensive. Several of them were being refurbished and had skeletal, crude scaffolding erected beside them. Two homes in the middle of the block were in terrible disrepair. The nearest of these was the Williams house.

Carver parked the Ford across the street, left the engine and air conditioner running, and looked closely at the house. It had to contain at least twenty rooms. The vast slate roof was broken by dormers and cupolas, and there was a wide, once elegant gallery porch that wrapped around the front and east side. Many of the spokes in the porch’s railing were missing or broken, and several separate entrances had been placed on the face of the house when it was divided into rental areas, without regard to architectural balance. The clapboard siding had been painted white long ago, but it was a mottled gray now and cracked and peeling.

Most of the windows had yellow shades pulled all the way down against the heat. It gave the impression that there was no one inside, though Carver knew there probably was, Wanda Pichet might be home, in the corner of her past that Kearny had given her and that Kearny’s children would now force her to leave.

The house was set well back from the street, and the grounds were overgrown with weeds. About twenty feet from the porch steps was a huge magnolia tree that shaded the front yard. It had to have been there when Kearny Williams and Wanda Pichet were children. Carver wondered if they’d played in its branches, hidden there together from the world.

He’d seen enough. He put the Ford in gear and drove toward Kemper Management on Maitland Avenue.

Carver explained to the receptionist at Kemper that he might be interested in a preliminary way in the Williams property; he wanted to talk to someone to get more information.

The receptionist was a young man with a toned-down punk hairdo and a gold stud in his ear, wearing a white shirt and tie. He referred Carver to a Mr. Clyde Arlan, who appeared within a few minutes and smiled and shook hands and ushered Carver into a small, square office without a window. Carver again used the name Frank Carter.

There was a brown-enameled steel desk with a glass top in the office, and two padded green chairs. On the wall was a large map of New Orleans with red dots plastered all over it. The dots were plastic or metal and stuck to the map in some way Carver couldn’t fathom; not pinned or taped. Glue, maybe? Magnetism? He assumed each dot represented property managed or listed by Kemper. On the opposite wall was a framed photo of Clyde Arlan posed formally with a pleasant-faced, plump woman and two preschool children who had blond hair and looked like identical twins.

“Nice family,” Carver said, lowering himself into one of the padded chairs.

Arlan grinned. He was in his mid-thirties, skinny, and had thinning sandy hair that had probably started off blond like his kids’. “Thanks. Those husky twins are almost four now.” He sounded especially proud to have fathered twins, as if it made him twice the man. “You the fella I talked to earlier on the phone about the Williams place?” He had a syrupy southern accent and made place two syllables.

“Me,” Carver said. “I heard it’ll be on the market soon and wanted some information.”

“Uh-huh. You an agent?”

“Not actually. An agent here would handle the transaction if I decided to buy. Mind you, I’m not anywhere near making a decision. I mean, the property isn’t even on the market.”

“It’ll be soon, though,” Clyde Arlan said. “Owner just died down in Florida and the heirs plan on selling it. It’s one of those rare old fine homes been in the same family for decades.”

Rare old fine homes. Carver liked that. “You sure about them planning to sell?”

“Uh-huh. One of them told me so just yesterday. We’ve got instructions to contract some work on the place to make it presentable for market, bring it up to code, then list it soon as the will’s probated.”

“How long will that take?”

Arlan shrugged. “Depends on the will.”

“ Is there a will?”

“Well, nobody seems quite sure. But one way or another, the family’ll inherit and they do intend to sell. We’ve managed the property for the last ten years. Some of the rent money went to support the owner at a retirement home down in Florida. The rest of it went into upkeep.”

“Any liens against the place?”

“There’s a second mortgage of twenty-five thousand, but that’s minuscule compared to how much the property’s worth. Woulda been sold a long time ago, only it had sentimental value for the owner.”

“What’ll the asking price be?”

Arlan flashed a cagey smile. He was trying to grow a mustache, Carver noticed. Just a shadow on his upper lip now. “Price hasn’t been talked about yet. But in that area, half a block off Saint Charles, and with that big lot, it won’t be cheap. It’s prime property. You know that, I’m sure.”

“Last thing I want is to seem nosy,” Carver said, “but which of the heirs will be handling the sale? I mean, which of them contacted you? I’d like to talk to him myself, just to be assured that when the time comes they’ll be open to an offer. Save everybody some wheel spinning.”

Arlan wasn’t sure he should give out that information. On the other hand, there was no point in sabotaging a possible deal. The wife and twins stared trustingly at him from the framed photograph.

“The heirs’ names were in the paper,” Carver pointed out. “All I’m asking is you save me some time. I’ll wait a decent interval, then go to the executor or the one handling matters and we’ll talk.”

“Guess there wouldn’t be any harm,” Arlan said. “The one that came here yesterday wasn’t a man, though, it was Mrs. Melba Lipp, the deceased’s daughter. There’s two kids, a son and a daughter. The mother’s dead.”

“How come they’re so eager to sell?” Carver asked.

“Don’t know that they are all that eager.” Salesman talk. Mrs. Lipp mighta just been in the neighborhood, figured she’d drop in and let us know the plans for the house.”

“I mean, the father isn’t even buried yet.”

“They got a need for the money, I suppose. Mrs. Lipp and her husband own a lounge down in the Quarter, Melba’s Place, and she’s been here before trying to borrow money against the property to put into the business. We had to explain we couldn’t do that, even if we would like to help them get into the black.” Arlan stared at his fingertips for a few seconds and tapped them on the desk, as if to make sure they still worked. “It’s not exactly right I should be telling you this, but I don’t want you going and putting your investment dollars elsewhere thinking the Williams place might not really be listed. It’ll be for sale and I’ll be the listing agent.”

“You know for a fact the lounge is in financial trouble?”

Arlan frowned. “I’d better not say any more about that. You want to leave me your card or phone number, so I can reach you when the property goes on the market?”

“I’ll get in touch with you, Mr. Arlan.” Carver stood up and they shook hands. “Thanks for your help. Everything you told me about the Williams family will stay confidential, and I promise if I do decide to make an offer you’ll be the sales agent.”

When an agent both listed and sold a property, it meant he didn’t split the commission. The frown left Arlan’s face and he was smiling when he showed Carver out. It was the same smile as when he’d ushered him into the office.

As he drove away in the Ford, Carver congratulated himself on being convincing. If he’d fooled Arlan as thoroughly as he thought, he owed his success to Edwina, who liked to talk about her work.

He glanced at his watch and saw that it was ten o’clock. They’d he holding a service and interring Kearny Williams in the family crypt about now. Carver knew they didn’t bury people in New Orleans, because of the swampy soil and grisly lessons learned long ago.

Jack and Melba Lipp would be at Kearny’s funeral, which meant Carver could go to their lounge in the French Quarter and not worry about being recognized by anyone from last night at the mortuary.

The lounge might be open, but it was too early for serious drinking. Too early to listen to jazz.

Maybe a cup of coffee and some answers.