Chapter 8 Dante
I’m at the gate early to get him. The property management company finally produced a human, after three calls and an email with URGENT in the subject line.
Her name is Rebecca. She confirmed his rental is valid, one-month rental, nonrefundable, and that the owner never blocked a single date for showings.
There is nothing she can do, she’d said.
It’s confirmed, though by now I’m not surprised. Levi has a legal right to be in my listing for a month. The seller double-booked the property, rental income from one hand and a sale from the other, and told neither side.
He’s in Atlanta treating this house like an ATM with a Gulf view. The email to his attorney is already drafted, three paragraphs of professional language carrying enough implied litigation to ring my phone by Monday morning.
Levi is leaning on the white pillar in the cap and sunglasses, bandana at his throat, arms crossed. The back of his neck has gone raw red above the bandana from the walk. He looks marginally better than he did this morning, meaning upright and hydrated. He gets in without a word.
The heat crawls in with him. A bead of sweat lets go of his hairline and tracks down his temple, along the jaw, into the bandana, and I follow the trip. Then I put my eyes back on the road, where they belong.
We’re a mile down the road before he says anything, because a man like him can’t ride in a silent car for long.
“You always this quiet?” he asks.
“You got in without a word. I matched your energy level.”
“Huh.” He tugs the cap lower against the windshield sun. “Polite, and a quick study. They teach that at real estate school?”
“They teach you to read a room. Yours says hangover and no sunscreen.”
“Only one of those is your business,” he says.
“The store we’re headed to sells both. Aspirin by the register, sunscreen next to it.”
“I’ll bear it in mind.”
He does not bear it in mind. I already know that.
I drive him to the liquor store, where the lights are on because church is over.
He’s in and out in under five minutes, a man who shops like he’s robbing the place.
I watch him cross the lot with the sack riding his hip and that loose mountain roll in his walk.
I quit watching one stride before he reaches the door handle.
He sets the paper sack between his feet and doesn’t say thank you, and I pull out of the lot without expecting it.
The bottles clink when I turn back onto the highway.
“Don’t see any sunscreen in the bag,” I say.
“Wasn’t on the list.”
“The back of your neck is already burned. It’ll blister by tomorrow.”
“It’s a tan.”
“No, it’s a burn and you’ll feel it tomorrow.”
“Same difference.” He sets his head against the glass. “Tequila was the priority.”
“Clearly.”
We have a deal. The deal requires us working together, and neither of us pretends to enjoy it.
“The management company confirmed your booking,” I say. “It’s valid. One month rental. The seller should have told me.”
“You mean I’m not trespassing anymore.” He grins at me.
“You were never technically trespassing.”
“But you thought I was. Didn’t you?”
“I thought you were a rich kid whose daddy sent him to a beach house to dry out and you’d landed at the wrong address. It happens on this coast more than you’d think.”
“You’ve got the daddy part wrong,” he says, and turns back to the window. “My daddy only had a belt and a Bible. Definitely not a beach house.”
“Why don’t you have a car here?” I ask. “You don’t drive?”
“I drive fine. I’m an excellent driver if you must know. Taught myself at fourteen on mountain roads in a straight shift pickup truck.”
“Fourteen’s early.”
“I learned on whatever was in the yard. Wasn’t much traffic to hit.”
“Then why am I driving you around?”
“My license is a long story.”
“Where were those mountain roads?” I ask.
“Tennessee.”
His accent slides into place, and it explains the drawl and nothing else. I don’t ask. Asking is involvement, and involvement isn’t in my terms.
I pull into the driveway. “Tomorrow the crew seals the house for seven hours. You won’t be in it, so it shouldn’t be a problem for you. Seven-thirty, the curb. I’ll be here.”
“Seven-thirty? I swear, you people and your early mornings. What time do you go to bed? Eight?”
“The crew keeps banker’s hours. Take it up with them.”
“I’ll draft a letter.” He starts to get out and looks back. “The door better be wide open when I get back too.”
“It will be.”
He gets out with the sack, head down, walking slow. He’s halfway to the house when I lower the window.
“Hey, Levi.” He turns around. “Eat all the subs. Don’t let them go bad.”
“I know how sandwiches work, Dante.”
“You bought six of them this morning. I’m not confident you know how any of this works.”
He goes inside, and the front door stays wide open behind him.
The Roadhouse lot is thin for a Sunday afternoon, a few bikes and Tex’s truck around the side.
Inside, the bar is cool and half empty. Sheila is doing inventory with a clipboard.
Benji is at the bar with his laptop open to wedding spreadsheets, and Mickey is beside him in his chair, free hand resting on Benji’s leg.
Benji looks up. “How’s the tenant today?”
“Fed and liquored up.”
Benji raises his eyebrows at me and waits. He’s better at waiting than any closer I’ve ever worked against.
“He grocery-shops like a twelve-year-old,” I tell him. “Six subs, a key lime pie and four big bottles of Coke. Chips, beef jerky.”
“Sounds like a junk food junkie like me,” Benji says. “Does he not know how to grocery shop?”
“No idea. Maybe not.”
“That’s someone who’s been taken care of his entire life,” Benji says. “You can see it on him. Someone’s always been there to catch him.”
“Or handled. There’s a difference.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Taken care of means someone loved him. Handled means someone needed him functional.”
Benji closes the laptop. “Which one does he seem like to you?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. He’s a tenant with a paid booking, and in five days he’s invisible and the house gets sold. Then I don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
“Right. What else did you find out?”
“He learned to drive at fourteen in Tennessee and won’t say why he doesn’t now. A problem with his driver’s license. A long story, per the man himself.”
“Well, that’s three things you know about him,” Benji says. “He flinches awake. He won’t be in a room with a shut door. And his story’s a secret.”
“Don’t start, Benji. I came in to talk about the wedding timeline. Not about him.”
“No, you didn’t, but I’ll allow it this time only because I never get tired of talking about the wedding,” Benji says, and lets me go the way a cat lets a lizard go. To play with later.
Sheila sets an unsweetened tea in front of me. Tex comes out of the kitchen carrying a paper bag with grease spots already forming on the bottom, and plops it on the bar in front of me.
“Ribs,” he says. “Half rack, extra sauce. Stormy packed double cornbread because the guy sounds like he needs carbs.”
“What guy?”
“The sub sandwich guy. The one eating deli sandwiches when there’s a smoker on this property. I have ears. Big ears. I was listening from the kitchen. The kitchen made ribs, and these ribs need a home.”
“Tex, I’m not delivering ribs to him. He’s taking up too much of my time as it is.”
“Nobody asked you to deliver ribs. What you do with the ribs is your business.” He wipes his hands on his apron, and on the way back to the kitchen he says, “Man’s got to eat somewhere. Big Tex’s is somewhere.”
I finish the tea, leave money on the counter, and pick the bag up because leaving it would mean explaining why, and there’s no explanation that survives Benji’s curious eyes.
“Where are you going?” Benji asks. “Thought you were here to talk about the wedding.”
“I need to go,” I say. “There are calls I need to make.”
“The ribs are better hot,” Benji adds, not looking up from his spreadsheet.
“They’re going in my refrigerator. I’m eating them at home tonight. Alone.”
“Sure you are. Tell him I said hello.”