Moorpark Palms - 10. Chapter 10

Bret and Lola – the new manager and his not quite wife – “We lied a little” – moved into Apartment 10, a downstairs one-bedroom. The owners apparently no longer wanted to waste a two-bedroom apartment on hired help.
“Gotta pay for those lilies,” Claire joked.
Bret was slightly overbuilt and rode a dinged Suzuki. Lola drove a proper four-door Honda, but something in her walk lured Vic’s leers back to the courtyard. “The girls stopped swimming anyway,” he sulked.
“We’re only paying three-hundred,” Bret confided to me one Saturday afternoon. “For a five-fifty place. Does that seem fair?”
What could I tell him? That Gabe and Dottie had lived rent-free, or Younger Brother had wheedled half-off on a much larger apartment? “Better than paying all,” I said.
“We had a real problem getting a place,” he explained. “We have this cat.” He somehow made it sound like bragging.
“Is that a problem?”
“You better believe it! Our last landlord claimed Slash was The Feline From Hell!”
“Slash?”
“Yeah! No goofy plush toy for me. He looks like a young panther. Lola wanted to bob his balls, but you bet I fought.”
“She wasn’t fixing you.”
“You got that straight!”
And I swear he stroked his crotch.
Lola and Bret had been together since college and eventually planned to marry. “Got to grow up first,” Bret said, and I doubt he was talking about Lola.
“Cute guy,” I heard Claire tell Sally one evening, and it made me see Claire slightly differently. She’d always seemed too antiseptic for sex. Still, she wasn’t close to Vic’s reflection – I couldn’t picture her writhing behind shuttered windows. Though the first Sunday Bret disassembled his bike – shirtless and in cut-offs – Claire slowly hand-washed her car, something I’d never seen her do. Finished, it still needed washing. And she needed toweling down.
Bret good-naturedly worked around her growing puddles. Claire was pretty, especially wet. The hitch was always her precision. That afternoon, she muted that, swaying to her car’s radio while ruining its paint. Bret either truly loved his bike or adored Lola because he never lost focus.
Early the next month, the band’s newly fumigated apartment rented to Luba, a Russian seamstress. “One bedroom is where I sleep,” she explained. “One is where I work.” Her accent made easy-listening hard, but once I separated the syllables, I could interpret. Sally only pretended.
“Have you been here long?” I asked Luba, carefully using helping verbs.
“I just moved here.”
“To this country?”
“No! Here! Here!” She pointed forcefully at her front door.
“Not really polite,” Sally later confided.
I shrugged. “Maybe I wasn’t being clear.”
It turned out Luba had been in this country for several years, though – without subtitles – I couldn’t divine the exact number. She got citizenship through her husband, an Air Force sergeant.
“Dead,” she told me.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Why? You didn’t know him.”
Did I really want to know her?
The one-bedroom above Bret and Lola also rented – briefly. One bedroom turned out to be where Melissa both slept and worked.
I was drowsily reading after midnight Melissa’s first week when suddenly there were screams.
Murderous screams!
Rape screams!
Yanking on shoes, I lunged down the stairs and stood panting in the courtyard, wondering how best to help. I wasn’t alone. Beside me – watching lights flicker on Melissa’s bedroom curtains – were Vic, Bret, Lonnie, Dale, Eric, and a man I didn’t know – “Barry?” King Arthur never assembled a more chivalrous crew.
“Should we call the police?” Bret asked.
“They take forever,” Lonnie said.
“He could kill her!” Dale warned.
“Break down the door!” urged Vic.
“I have keys,” Bret remembered.
“Let’s go!” I said.
“He could have a gun!” Dale considered.
“There are seven of us,” Eric said.
“There were thousands at Normandy!” Vic returned.
But we were fearless. We started up the steps, practically in lock-step. Doing Good.
“Wait!” From the courtyard shadows below, a man we didn’t know – “Barry?” – called sharply.. “Maybe this isn’t what we think.” He pointed at the window. “Listen!”
Inside: “Yes!” (Scream!) “Yes!” (Scream!) “Yes!” (Scream!) “You’re soooo good, Silvio!” Silvio? (Scream!) “Soooo good!” (Scream!)
We scraggled back down the stairs – except for Vic, who angled for a better view.
“We should still call the police,” Bret said.
“We should get a cut!” insisted Lonnie.
“Shut up!” Claire screeched from her window – though fortunately not at us. Then we heard pounding on the wall that separated her bedroom from Melissa’s. When Claire again appeared, she belted: “That’s moving out in the morning!”
The screams – and now that we listened more intently, Silvio’s groans – never stopped.
“Do something!” Claire barked at Bret, her interest in him seemingly cold.
The college women had joined our party. The New Yorkers, too. They were all so hastily dressed that Vic nearly tripped, rushing down the stairs. Bret and Lonnie were typically shirtless, though at least Lonnie hadn’t brought his snake. Eric’s wife, Sue, and Lola stood in their respective doorways. Sally cautiously held open her screen. Luba was no doubt huddled in one of her bedrooms, conjuring visits of pogroms past. The Hungarians were probably readying their hound.
Finally, “Barry?” assaulted the balcony and walloped on Melissa’s door. “SHUT! THE!! FUCK!!! UP!!!!”
By the time his echo ceased, so had Melissa and Silvio.
We waited.
Nothing.
Silence.
Quiet laughter, below.
Then – from above – one small groan.
“Very nice,” Lola announced – before going inside. Light applause from the girls, then they disappeared.
“She’s out tomorrow,” Claire instructed.
“I’ll call the owners!” Bret promised, obedient.
“It takes a lot to evict people,” Vic cautioned – sounding just a little hopeful.
“There are ways.” This came from “Barry.” But before I could look at him clearly, he was gone. Compared to the rest of us, he’d seemed overdressed – jacket, tie, slacks, pin-striped shirt. Did the coat hide a shoulder holster? Nah. My imagination.
The next day, Melissa packed out.
“A huge truck came this morning,” Vic reported, probably one of many times that day. “Five movers. Tons of furniture – all shiny and black. They were out in an hour.”
“Her stay is a new Guinness record,” Lonnie cracked.
“I didn’t even have to tell her,” Bret added.
“Curious neighbors are so bad for business,” giggled Veronica, one of the UCLA girls.
“I wonder how much she charged?” asked Vic.
Surprisingly, “Barry” was also gone, though no one realized it till the end of the month. When his rent didn’t appear – the usual new fifties slipped under the manager’s door – Bret used his passkeys to see if something might be wrong.
“Door could be wired,” Vic cautioned.
It wasn’t – and the apartment was empty. The refrigerator was off and open. The stove seemed unused. Not even mold grew on the shower doors.
“Cool!” crowed Dale, the mechanic. “Ghostbusters!”
“But I could see lights from my living room,” Sally advised us. “Every night.”
“Like clockwork?” Vic inquired.
Sally nodded
“Maybe a timer.”
“Who’d keep a place he’d never use?” Jackie, one of the New Yorkers, wondered.
“As a mail drop?”
“Did he ever get mail?”
Everyone looked at Vic.
“Why would I know?” he said, defensively.
“Could he have slipped his things out at night?” Lisa, also from New York, asked.
Again, we turned to Vic.
“You think I never sleep?” he barked.
“Now if ‘Barry’ was a lady...” Teri joked.
“Fuck Off!!” Vic growled, then clumped loudly up our stairs, redundantly slamming his door.
“Hope you’re next,” Bret called softly.
“He’s not so bad,” Sally quickly defended.
“Maybe to you,” Bret allowed. “Every time I look at his window, he gives me the finger.”
Lonnie smirked.
“Funny,” I told Bret, “Vic says the same thing about you.”
Apartment 4 – the remaining studio – soon rented to Sheila, a software saleswoman. The following week Melissa’s temporary residence went to Wendi, a manager in Sheila’s company.
“We’re so happy to find a quiet building,” they told Bret.
“Pretty ladies, always welcome,” he laughed.
On that, Vic agreed.
Not long after, “Barry’s” apartment was also leased – to Helen, a sturdy, middle-aged nurse. Four huge men moved her in. “My sons,” she said proudly
“She must have started when she was ten,” Sally ventured.
“Says the great-grandma!” Claire teased.
Sally smiled tolerantly at Claire, flatly stating, “My daughters did that to me.”
“Full House,” Bret beamed, sliding the “Vacancy” plaque off the invasive sign the owners had cemented on the front lawn. He almost strutted, as though he’d rented the apartments by himself. And maybe he had. As usual, I’d been at busy at work.