Moorpark Palms - 26. Chapter 26

The first sign Denny was leaving was his abruptly swapping apartments with Meg and Quinn.
“My brother’s gone, and I don’t need the space,” he claimed.
“And we can always use it,” Meg told me. “Quinn likes to spread out.”
The extra hundred bucks a month wasn’t a problem, and telling the Bank Rep didn’t seem to bug Denny. So I figured he was still getting free rent.
As Denny hauled a clutch of tennis rackets into his latest digs, I looked around apartment 8. The broken windows had been replaced after Jimmy and Kalea left, but not much else was done. Denny didn’t seem to care. He opened the refrigerator and offered me a brew.
“Hoo boy!” he said. “I hate moving. But it’s a defense.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“New owners,” he explained. “New rules.”
And that’s how we found out. This time, there were no dawn letters.
I laughed. “When was the bank gonna tell us?”
He grinned. “Sorry... I kinda let that slip. It’s not quite final.”
“And you’re staying? That’s great.”
I hoped he’d start being manager again. But two days later, I came home and he was taking his name off the mailbox.
“They finally going to fix them?” I asked. We were still using the steel boxes, nailed to the wall.
“Not my problem. Not my job anymore. In a week, I’ll be outta here.”
“You quit?”
“Just the building, not my office. I couldn’t leave there. No one else knows what’s happening.”
“Then why are you moving out?” Despite everything, we all still liked Denny. When I told him that, he stopped for a moment. Then he shrugged.
“The new assholes only offered me forty bucks a month. Plus paying full rent. That’s not enough.”
It wasn’t. In two years, we’d gone from full managers with a free apartment, to half-rent, to squatters, and now to loose change.
“Where will you go?” I asked.
“We’ve got this building coming up that’s gonna lose a super. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
“That’s hard.”
“Nah, I’ve been carrying her for months – all because she flirts with me. Well, if she wants to stay, she can bunk with me in the super’s apartment. But it’s tiny.”
He said it without a smile, and I realized how unhappy he was. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him that way.
“What’s the new owner like?” I asked, largely to distract him.
“I didn’t meet the guy. Just his management goon. He’s the jerk who offered me bullshit.”
“Ask for more.”
“He said, ‘Take it or leave it.’.”
“What’ll they do to replace you?”
“Why? You interested?”
“HELL, NO!”
We laughed at that, and it was good to see him lighten up.
“You do enough work,” he admitted. “I told them that.”
“It keeps my mind off other stuff.”
“Then take the forty bucks.”
What could I say? That I’d seen the bunch of loonies who’d come through in the past two years, and I never wanted them – no matter how indirectly – as my keepers.
“The guy’ll be around again,” Denny went on. “He wants someone from the building. Never hurts to talk.”
I simply smiled.
Still, there was a message on my answering machine the next evening. “This is Barak. I represent the new owner.” His voice was deep and slightly accented. “Please call.” And he left a number.
I called to be polite. We spoke for maybe ten minutes. He made an offer. I said I wasn’t interested, but he still wanted to meet. “You know a lot about the building. I need to know exactly what.”
We met the following morning, before I left for work. Barak was my age or maybe slightly older. He was as friendly as the Bank Rep hadn’t been.
“Call me Bart,” he started.
“Where are you from?” I thought it was the Middle East but couldn’t be more specific. “Israel.” And so was the new owner.
“Amon Herzl,” he explained. “Really nice guy. Everyone likes him. He’ll be good for this place.”
“We could use an owner like that. For two years, it’s been a combat zone.”
“Why?”
“Let’s just say it’s been loosely run. And since the earthquake – except for what the bank has done – it hasn’t been run at all.”
He nodded. “But I’ve heard you take care of things.”
“I live here,” I explained. “When I moved in, I didn’t have much money, so I didn’t have much choice. Now I do and could leave, and I probably will, eventually. But I like a lot of the people. So as long as we stay, this place shouldn’t be a joke.”
“Just what we want in manager!” He was grinning.
“I’m not interested. Honest.”
“Everyone says you’d be great.”
“Who? Denny? No offense, but Denny thinks washing his car once a year makes him a clean freak.”
Bart laughed. “I’ve spoken with other people, too. You’re well recommended.”
“I appreciate that. And I’ll bet it was Sally. She’s the one who really knows everything.”
He nodded. “She told me a lot.” Then asked, “What do you think about Number 9?”
“Ed and Annie?” I considered what I actually thought. “They’d never been trouble, and both seem to be pretty hard workers. The only bad thing I remember is the noise from the kids. And only Edan’s left.”
Bart listened, the said, “Specifically, the woman.”
“Annie?”
He nodded. “She’s interested,” he went on. “From what I understand, her husband has a little problem with Vegas, so she could use the money.”
I thought for another moment. “She’d be fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“No one else thinks so. They say her daughter’s a menace, and if she can’t control her...”
I explained how responsible Franck was, and how much he helped.
“We’d like someone younger.”
“Annie’s my age.”
“I meant younger than her father.”
“And I meant he’d back her up. Franck’s not going to work as a manager. He makes too much in films.”
“She said he’s always broke.”
I laughed. “There’s something going on between those two that I can’t figure out. Maybe one of them’s lying... maybe both. But they’re both nice people, and I don’t think either’s ever been late with the rent.”
Bart shrugged. “The records are terrible. We only know what’s happened since the bank took over.”
These were treaty negotiations.
“There’s still no convincing you?” he finally asked.
I explained that I was happy at work, and it kept me very busy. “Picking weeds and changing light bulbs when I want is one thing. It’s not required.” I tried to think of another reason. “And I don’t need people calling me in the middle of the night.
“They wouldn’t have to. We have a twenty-four-hour line. And we have gardeners – men we’ve worked with for years. A pool company we trust. Trash collectors. A handyman and a plumber. All you have to do is check in once a week – to let us know how things are.”
“So you’re paying me to snitch?”
He laughed. “You’re very fast.”
I shrugged.,
“And no one wants you to spy,” he insisted. “But Amon just paid seven-hundred thousand dollars for this building, and there’s at least another fifty worth of work coming. Painting. A new roof. Drain pipes. This is a big investment for him, and we need someone we can trust.”
When he put it that way, it made more sense.
“Let me think,” I allowed. Then I added, “But I don’t want to be paid.”
That threw him. “Why not? It would be more than forty dollars. I offered that to get rid of that...”
He gestured toward Denny’s apartment, as if not wanting to say anything negative.
“Denny’s a good guy, too,” I told him. “It’s just a bad time.”
“You’re very diplomatic.”
“Maybe.” I tried to explain the situation further. “Look, I really don’t need the money. And if Annie does, and I’d be taking it from her...”
I didn’t want to tell him that Franck could probably buy the building, so I didn’t think he’d let his daughter and her family starve.
“Even more,” I went on, “it’s a small place. It doesn’t really need a manager. If you’re careful about who moves in – instead of doing what they’ve done and seemingly taking everyone who’s desperate – the building will run itself. We all know each other. We see each other every day because the apartments all open on the courtyard. Except for a couple of people who are very young – and most of the worst one are gone – we all get along.”
He listened and then said, “I still want you.”
I laughed at his persistence but told him I had to get to work.
“Think about it.”
“Okay,” I promised. “Give me the day.”
We shook hands, and I did think about it. I didn’t tell anyone and didn’t discuss it. I sort of let it all puddle somewhere in my mind, like the abstract thought of something I should do but didn’t want to. Finally, I realized that, while I absolutely didn’t want to be manager, I didn’t want anyone else to do the job badly.
“It’s like this,” I told Bart on the phone. “We’ve mainly had crazies in charge since I’ve been here. They may have been perfectly decent people, but when it came to getting things done, they were useless. Part of that was careless owners. There was no one to back up these managers, and I think you’ll be different. So, yeah, if you just need someone to watch quietly – to almost be invisible in the distance – then yeah, sure, I guess I’ll do it.”
He laughed. “You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”
“This is a big commitment. No matter how small you try to make it.”
“Then we’ll call you the Anti-Manager. The Manager With No Name.”
He laughed, and I had to laugh with him.
“It’s a deal,” I said.
I was still reluctant. But Bart laughed at everything I said. It’s hard to turn down someone who thinks you’re funny.
“You’re sure about the money?” he persisted.
“Absolutely. Give it to charity. Buy some new mailboxes.”
“You need mailboxes? See, that’s the kind of thing we need to know.”
I explained that what we’d been using had crumbled in the quake. And how – even before that – they’d always too small. “Our magazines were always shredded.”
“New mailboxes, next month,” he promised. “I’ll tell everyone it’s your present.”
“Please don’t say anything.”
But everyone knew. And I didn’t uselessly deny it.
The mailboxes weren’t all we got. Almost immediately, new painters arrived. This time, the sickly coral stucco went demurely off-white. The faded turquoise trim was painted out beige, which was matched on our doors. The roof was replaced. Drainspouts were added, and a new gazebo replaced what had been by the pool. When all the work was done, the place looked presentable – if slightly antiseptic.
“We should all be wearing red crosses,” Quinn joked when he saw me.
I laughed. “I thought it was me.”
“Nah, I told Meg last night, ‘Soon the Sisters Of Mercy will be selling candy by our pool.’”
We both laughed.
“We could take in orphans,” I suggested.
“You mean we haven’t?”
“It does look better,” Bobby admitted. “Maybe now I can bring home dates.”
“He’s been using motels,” Rob teased.
In return, Bobby flashed part of his butt.
“They fixed my garbage disposal!” Lindsay bragged. “It’s been dead, like, forever! I called that guy Bart, and this really cute handyman showed up the next morning.” She hesitated. “Do you know his name?”
I shook my head. We hadn’t met.
“I asked him,” Lindsay went on. “So did Claire. We’re both positive he said, ‘Urine!’”
I tried not to laugh. “Was he Israeli?”
“They all are.”
It was a community I didn’t know existed – all happily connected and extending beyond caring owners and seductive tradesman. The handyman’s name was Yaron. Within two weeks, Denny’s last apartment had new, Israeli tenants.
Denny left, taking only small stuff. “The place I’m going has everything but room.”
The guys all shook his hand. Some of the women hugged him – especially Claire and Lindsay. “Good luck,” everyone wished.
He laughed. “I may be around. I just hope things settle down at work. Give me a chance to catch up on my game.”
He swung an imaginary tennis racquet. His parting shot.
“I never did sleep with him,” Lindsay said, wistfully, as Denny tore off. “That might have been fun.”
“It was,” Claire said. Then she stuck out her tongue.
Lindsay forgave her. And the next day, she gave me the cigar box Pete had left.
“I forgot all about these. I guess they’re yours.”
I took the keys though I didn’t need them. Bart was changing all the locks. Instead, I gave them to Cyndi, figuring she could use them for crafts. Gluing odd things to picture frames was her latest hobby.
Annie had joined her and seemed happier doing that than in babysitting the building. “We can make jewelry!” they said, pawing through the box.
“I can’t believe people buy that crap,” Quinn whispered.
“You don’t go to enough garage sales,” Meg said.
Bart not only changed our locks, he also polished the brass numbers on our doors. I didn’t think they could ever shine again. And on Vic’s door, the painters carefully edged around Mickey. If anything, he looked better.