The Night Remembers

4

Ordinarily, young Master Banister comes on Saturday morning, which is when the BMWs and the Porsches and the Volvos invade our neighborhood. These are the lawyers and CPAs and doctors who own the apartment buildings that have bloomed in the wake of the old Victorian houses that once made Third Avenue so spectacular on sunny Sunday drives. “Rental property” is the correct term. Fill up the apartments and you not only get your bank payment made for you, you also make enough net income to invest in other rental property. Pretty soon you can afford to hire somebody like me as your live-in manager.

Anyway, young Master Banister arrived late that Wednesday afternoon, just as the skies turned black and a chill rain began to fall. He and his wife were, he said, headed for Chicago, some sort of Northwestern class reunion, and he needed to check things out with me now since he wouldn’t be here Saturday. He hoped, he said, I didn’t mind that he’d forgotten to call me in advance.

He brought, as usual, his checklist in the form of a single page of a small leatherbound notebook that he flipped through after carefully wetting the tip of one finger. He was approximately thirty-five with a short earnest haircut, black earnest horn-rim eyeglasses, an earnest white button-down shirt, an earnest blue five-button cardigan sweater, and a pair of earnest chinos that complemented his very earnest black and white saddle shoes. It was the wrong sissy touch, those shoes on a man his age, and it told me more than I wanted to know about young Master Banister.

“Why don’t I run it down apartment by apartment?”

“Fine,” I said.

“Mrs. Knapp in A?”

“Still complaining that her faucet leaks and keeps her awake.”

“We checked it. It doesn’t leak any more than all the others.”

“All right.”

“Mrs. Hester in B?”

“Nothing going on there.”

“She still has the cat?”

“Yes.”

“She get it declawed yet?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“I told her otherwise you’d evict her.”

“You really want to make me the bad guy here, don’t you? Is it my fault she’s legally blind?”

“She just didn’t want to hurt the cat. She said it would be like somebody ripping off her fingernails.”

“Hardly.”

“You want to ask me about C?”

“Is Mr. Wylie still playing that country western music so loud?”

“Yes, but Mrs. Gamble says she doesn’t mind any more. She said she’s gotten used to it.”

“Fine. D?”

“I still don’t think she’s a hooker.”

“You ever take a close look at her?”

“Of course I have. She’s an attractive young woman.”

“I still say she’s a hooker. When Cindy and I pulled in here a few weeks ago, I saw a man walking her out to the sidewalk and he gave her money.”

“Maybe it was her boyfriend.”

“Does she have a boyfriend?”

“Not that I know of. But then I don’t know everything.”

“Implying I do, Mr. Walsh?”

“You want to know about E?”

“Is this the woman who made that remark about me?”

“Yes. Mrs. Kramer.”

“She had no right to say what she did.”

“You broke in while she was on the toilet.”

“I hardly ‘broke in.’ I own this place. Plus, I didn’t know anybody was there.”

“Well, she hasn’t made any other remarks about you.”

“These people have just got to learn some respect.” The way he said “these people,” you knew he was talking about more than just the residents of The Alma. He meant all people who didn’t drive BMWs and who didn’t wear earnest black horn-rims and sissy saddle shoes.

“F?”

“F allegedly had the cockroaches?”

“Not allegedly. I saw them too.”

“Winter should be here soon enough.”

“And?”

“And winter usually takes care of cockroaches.”

“Not these cockroaches.”

He sighed. He wrote something in his little notebook. “I’ll have the Orkin man come out here and have a look. How about G?”

“No problems there. Mrs. Fetzer is very happy now that you put in a new window.”

“I didn’t break it in the first place.”

“I know. But neither did Mrs. Fetzer.”

“These people are going to learn someday that I can’t fix everything the vandals destroy.”

“It got pretty drafty without her window.”

“I suppose. H?”

“Mr. Odell says his hot water heater doesn’t work.”

“He’s nuts.”

“I know he’s nuts, but that’s a separate issue.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning (a) he probably is legally insane. Meaning (b) that his hot water heater doesn’t work.”

“Do you know how much those cost these days?”

“Do you know how much a hassle it is taking a shower in cold water especially when you’re in your eighties?”

“Just ducky. They don’t want me to make any money in this place, do they?”

“Would you like to know about I?”

He sighed again. “I suppose they need a roof or something.”

“I is fine.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“How about J?”

“J is the Randalls and they’ve still got the same old complaint.”

“They’re the ones with the dishwasher.”

“Right. The dishwasher that doesn’t work,” I said.

“Just tell them to give me a little time.”

“Mr. Banister, they’ve been waiting a year and a half.”

“These people just have no conception of what things cost.”

“Right,” I said.

“What about K? Still empty?”

“Afraid so. I’m talking to a nurse from St. Luke’s Hospital. Just split from her husband and needs a place fast. She seemed to like what she saw, except all the hanging doorknobs sort of scare her a little.”

“I told you to fix those.”

“I’m not a handyman, Mr. Banister. I told you that when I took the job.”

“Then what do I pay you for?”

“You don’t pay me. You give me half my rent free for handling all the complaints and making sure that everybody stays reasonably pacified. In a way, it’s a glorified security job.”

“There are plenty of people who would like this position if you don’t.”

“Not when they add up the number of muggings, stabbings, and break-ins that go on in this neighborhood in a single month.”

“Yes, and it’s people just like these tenants of mine who are committing all those crimes, too.”

“Mr. Banister, the average tenant here is sixty-five years old. You don’t find many muggers that age.”

“Well, no matter how old they are they manage to scare the hell out of my wife. She was telling these friends of ours the other night that everybody who lives here looks like one of the living dead.”

“Tell her I thank her for the kind words.”

He flushed. “Not you, Mr. Walsh. Not you. The others.”

I sighed and stood up. “You’re running late, no use keeping you.”

He smiled, trying to ease some of the anger. “They just have no conception of what I have to spend on this place. No conception at all.” He clucked and moved to the door. “You’re doing a good job, Mr. Walsh. I didn’t mean to imply that you’re not. I like having an ex-detective managing my place. Makes me sleep better at night. And I should tell you that goes for Cindy, too. She was telling some of her friends at the country club all about you the other night. What a dependable man you are.”

“I appreciate that.”

“I’m sorry we got a little testy today.”

“We get a little testy every day,” I said.

“I suppose it’s part of the job.”

“I suppose.”

Two minutes later he was in his red BMW and headed off to where people who wore saddle shoes preferred to live. He’d forgotten to ask about the other apartments, but there hadn’t been anything to report anyway.

I turned back from the parking lot just in time to see the bald, eighty-one-year-old Mr. Odell standing on his second-floor balcony giving the finger in the general direction of the departing BMW. “He’s a sissy bastard,” he called down to me.

“You get back inside, Mr. Odell. You forgot to put your shirt on and it’s thirty-six degrees.” In typical Iowa fashion, what had been an Indian summer day was now gray and cold.

“He’s a sissy bastard,” Mr. Odell repeated and went back inside. He had not only forgotten his shirt, he had also forgotten his dentures, thus somewhat spoiling the effect of his wrath.