When the Wicked Rest (#14) - paperback

Chapter 1

“What’re those?” Dorothy Givens asked.

Fred Tresko leaned forward and dropped a hand onto a stack of yellow documents sitting at the corner of his desk. “You know what these are.”

She scooted to the edge of her chair so she could read the header on the top paper. “Thirty-day notices?”

“Don’t act surprised. We gotta do this to make sure no Gonzaga snotnose can buy one of those tenants another month. If that happens and the snow falls, we’re screwed. We’ll have to wait until spring.”

Dorothy slid the top document out from under Fred’s hand. As she read, she muttered, “I never thought.”

Fred fell back into his swivel chair. It groaned and squeaked under his weight. “Are you kidding?”

She glanced up.

He asked, “What did you think we’ve been doing these past two years?” The question was filled with derisive nonbelief.

Embarrassed, Dorothy turned away and pretended to examine Fred’s industry awards on the wall.

“Well?”

She continued to stare at the framed certificates. “You know how things are. I just thought maybe it might not happen. That maybe there might be a reprieve or something.”

The swivel chair moaned as Fred leaned forward again. “You mean you want the Hope to stay the way it is?”

She might have answered honestly if that question didn’t contain more of his derision. Dorothy looked down at the final eviction notice. The legal words blurred together.

Fred Tresko folded his arms and leaned on the edge of his desk. “Because of the housing shortage, the market is hot.”

Not looking directly at him, she said, “I know.”

“For nearly a decade.”

“I know that, too, Fred.”

Dorothy hated when he spoke to her in this manner. He ran Sterling Management and was her employer. She’d learned plenty from the man in their years together, but there were times when Fred Tresko lectured people as if they were obstinate children and he was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse.

“Demand for housing is at an all-time high,” Fred continued. “Marry that with the city council’s delusions to implement socialistic rent controls, and what’ve you got?”

She knew, but no matter what word she selected, Fred would pick another just to show he was smarter. Therefore, she remained quiet and simply shrugged.

“Urgency.” He slapped his hands together, and Dorothy looked up. It was an involuntary reaction, and she regretted it immediately. Fred’s eyes narrowed now that they’d contacted hers. “Goddamned urgency is what we’ve got. How did you not know that?”

Another shrug.

“That’s why we’ve had to work so closely with those commie bastards. Give them all sorts of concessions and do an ass-kissing dance any time one of them calls. I’ll tell you what.” He pointed at her. “Whenever one of them found a camera, they’d wring their hands about what we were doing,” Fred wrung his hands and made a sorrowful face.

Dorothy looked down again. Maintaining eye contact with Fred only encouraged him to rant. She needed to let it peter out, or she’d be there for an hour.

“But, oh boy, get them behind doors, and it was a different story. They loved how this project would clean up that cesspool. They loved what it would mean to the neighborhood and the city’s coffers. Duplicitous bastards.”

His voice had softened, and the engine for the anti-council express seemed to be losing steam. Had she continued to feign interest in his tirade, he would have moved onto some other soapbox—perhaps the tax implications of the whole thing. She hated when he talked about taxes.

Fred harrumphed. “Why this town wants to be like Seattle is beyond me. Give these people the power to vote, and what do they do? They vote morons into positions of authority.” He grunted as if to signal the end of his diatribe.

She noticed the ticking of the clock on the wall. Fred began tapping in rhythm with the second hand. Dorothy looked up to find him studying her.

“Now,” Fred said, “it’s time for us to do our jobs and get that building cleaned out.”

“Where are those people going to live?”

Fred shifted his weight, and his chair creaked its displeasure. “Not our problem.”

“But that’s a hundred and three apartments.”

“Only seventy-two. The rest were smart enough to leave when we warned them.”

“Well—”

“Our job isn’t to play social worker, Dorothy—”

“I know—”

“Our job is to help the property owner make money.”

“But—”

“But what?” Fred snapped.

Dorothy stiffened. She didn’t know how to respond. She turned away from Fred’s reddening face.

“Well?”

She offered, “This seems sudden,” and regretted the words as soon as they passed her lips.

“Are you serious? This is in no way sudden. It’s thirty-one days until Halloween, and we announced this event more than two years ago. Everybody’s been on month-to-month leases for that whole time.”

Dorothy’s shoulders slumped. She did not look forward to delivering any of these notices.

“Twenty-four months,” Fred said and tapped his desk harder. “Twenty-four months we’ve talked about this, yet seventy-two residents hung around until we have to push them out.”

“A number of them were foreign families desperate for a place to live.”

“They could have gone elsewhere.”

“But the housing shortage. You said.”

Fred waved her off. “We posted notices in the lobby. From day one. Over seven hundred days ago. And any time one of them got ripped down, you replaced them. Am I right?”

Dorothy reluctantly nodded. She or one of her staff had repeatedly replaced the ripped-down notices over the last two years.

“And still seventy-two stubborn and, might I add, foolish people decided to make us evict them. They caused this situation. Not us. This is their fault. Well, I’ll tell you what. If they want us to be the bad guy, that’s fine by me. We can do that.”

Dorothy didn’t want to be the bad guy. “I never really believed it would come to this.”

Fred clucked his tongue. “Don’t be naïve. Certified letters went out Friday, so the tenants should be getting them today. If they check their mail. That’s why you,” he pointed at her, “need to post these,” he stabbed the stack of yellow notices with the same finger, “on every door.”

“Yeah.”

“There are enough in here for the vacant units, too. I don’t want some mealy-mouthed lawyer saying we didn’t give proper notice to every damn tenant.”

“Even Lester?”

Lester was the owner of the Lamplighter, the bar on the lower level of the Hope.

“Oh, no,” Fred said. “I’ll deliver Lester’s personally. That sumbitch is going to be a pleasure to evict.” He tapped the stack of notices again. “There’re extras to put on the restroom doors, too. Don’t chintz out with where you hang them. Above and beyond. Got it?”

Dorothy nodded.

“Any questions?”

She felt silly asking it, but she did anyway. “Are they tearing it down?”

“Tearing it down?”

Lowering her head, she almost whispered. “For the new hotel.”

“The fuck?”

“Never mind.”

“Tear it down? No one is tearing anything down.”

She kept her head lowered but lifted her eyes to him—the way a beat dog begs the forgiveness of its owner. “But some in the building have said—”

“You’re listening to junkies and life’s other losers? How would they have any idea what’s going on? No wonder you thought this day would never come.” Fred rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Dorothy, think, will you? Why would anyone tear it down? Construction costs are out the ass. No, they’re going to gut the Hope to its bones and then start from the inside out.”

“That’s what I thought.” She had thought that, but so many in the building seemed certain it was getting torn down that she had begun to question what she knew.
Fred continued. “Two years ago, Mrs. Caldwell signed a master lease for the building with a developer out of Portland. I already told you this.”

She nodded. He had explained it before, but she dealt daily with short-term apartment leases, not commercial contracts.

“It’s a forty-year deal,” Fred continued, “with a slew of options on the backend. Good for her, good for her estate, and good for the developer. But she can’t turn it over until the building gets an enema. Understand?”

Dorothy winced, but she got his meaning. Her eyes hovered on the notice she still held. She had yet to put it back on the stack.

“You got another question,” he said. “I can see it. Go ahead and ask. I don’t want you wandering around in that building listening to those ding-dongs.”

This question didn’t feel silly, but still she whispered. “What about me?”

“Huh?”

Dorothy straightened, pulled her shoulders back, and repeated, “What about me?”

Fred crossed his arms over his belly. “What about you?”

“I have an apartment there. And my job.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“What about Anita and Earl?”

“Don’t worry about Anita and Earl. They’re not your concern.”

She looked away. Dorothy cared deeply for Anita and didn’t know what the woman planned to do after this. Earl was a cantankerous man who made caring for him hard. She worried about him, but in a Christian way, not the friendship manner she had with Anita.

“You,” Fred said, “you’re the onsite manager, so you’ll be taken care of. Trust me. The developer’s gonna need your help, too.”

Dorothy cocked her head. “How do you know?”

“What do you mean, how do I know? I know. I’ve been around these things before. They’ll need your help finding where things are. Helping the subs learn their way around. Direct them to turn-offs and electrical panels. Whatever they need.”

“That sounds like a better job for Earl, him being the maintenance man and all.”

Fred’s face pinched. “Earl Ricci is not a people person. Quite frankly, I’m glad we don’t have to work with him anymore. After the contractor gets set up and firing on all cylinders, I’ll find something permanent for you.”

“Do you promise?”

“Oh, yeah.” Fred Tresko closed his eyes and nodded. “Definitely. For sure. You’re my girl.”