CHAPTER 1
My name is Frank. Security guard by night. Super by day. I install security systems on the side. Sort of a jack of all trades. I'm twenty-eight. Six two, one eighty, brown and brown. Look like a model. That's why I have a regular date with the pizza delivery guy every Friday night.
The security job is with a construction company doing a big job in the middle of the city. I have worked for them since I got out of the military. They leave the equipment on site and they were having problems with small larcenies that added up to more than my salary, but the kicker was when the thief started taking the big stuff. That was when they hired me. The contractor is a friend of my brother who is also a contractor. He hooked us up. I figured out who the thief was and caught him at it. He is still in jail.
The apartment complex is good-sized. 168 units. Three buildings with fifty-six units each. The first two floors with eight two bedroom units and w/d hookups. The third and fourth floors have twelve one bedroom units with w/d hookups. The fifth floor has sixteen hotel room-type efficiencies. Top floor has a laundry room next to the elevator. A fourth building encloses a quad. The fourth building is the parking garage. It also has a weight room and small indoor pool, the office and storage units, and unexpectedly, a professional kitchen and community room that never gets used.
Eighteen units are in arrears and two of those are in the middle of the eviction process. Carly Knowles owes the most and is the furthest along in the eviction process. She has ten days to come up with the money and she's not going to do it. Her car was repossessed three months ago and she hasn't paid her utility bills in longer than that. She's going to end up on the streets. The property owner says she has to go. He has a business to run. I get to do the dirty work. That's why I get paid the big bucks. Insert snide smile here.
I live in a corner efficiency on the top floor of B Building. The corner ones are the best because they have more windows. Carly lives across the hall and one down from me. She has a panoramic view of the city stretching out across the river. I am on the side that overlooks the quad and the other buildings so I can keep an eye on things.
She's been complaining about a stopped up sink and a few other things for months now, but why should I fix them if she is not paying rent? She stopped complaining after she missed the second payment, but today I go to see what needs to be fixed so a new tenant can move in. So I tote my book bag full of my most used tools across the hall and knock on her door.
No answer. She is either not home, or is afraid it is me and doesn't want to answer the door. I can let myself into any apartment during reasonable hours in order to attend to emergencies or routine work orders that tenants have filled out. It is written into the lease agreement. So I try the door and then insert my master. And oh my, oh my...
At first I thought I would have to call the cops for a suicide, but then I saw her writhing around... Then I thought someone broke into her apartment and raped her... No... I walked across the room and studied more closely...
My name is Carly. I am twenty-four. I was raised in DFW but now I live in Oklahoma City. My mom never married. She just spit out kids like a pez dispenser. I have no idea who my dad is. My mom had four other kids to take care of, all by different dads, all of which left before or soon after the kids were born. I had dreams of being a nurse and was going to OU and working part-time amassing debt. Then I thought that was ridiculous and quit school to work full time. The only problem is that when you quit school you have to pay off your loans. I was making pretty good money waitressing, but one day I showed up at work to find a sign on the door that the restaurant was closed... They never called us. The phone was disconnected. No severance check. No references.
I looked for work almost non-stop. I hadn't saved any money because I was living paycheck to paycheck and trying to pay for my school loans. I wasn't irresponsible with my money either. I only got what I needed. Better than my mom. She spent everything she got from the government on booze and pedicures. She dressed like a clothes horse and had her hair dyed, styled and permed while we kids went without food and clothes. I didn't want to be like her. I wanted to pay my own way. I babysat as a teenager and got a job as a cashier in a grocery store when I was sixteen. Saved up for my own car. No booze or drugs for me. I left. I left town. I didn't want to have her using me. And I called social services so the other kids could have a chance. She just wanted them for the paycheck.
After the restaurant closed I found a part-time job at a daycare center, but that wasn't going to pay the bills. Then one day I went to the parking garage at the apartment and my car was gone.
Frank Mahone was in the office and I told him it had been stolen. He said, 'Yeah, by the repo company.' That was embarrassing, but I wasn't going to let him see me cry. I have been avoiding him since then.
No car made it a lot harder to look for a job and the bus lines were impossible to get to the daycare center. I had to leave at four in the morning to get there on time. Then I got the flu from one of the kids and they didn't want me to work sick. Part-time - no work, no pay.
So, I have been looking. Really, I have. It is a little stressful for me. I feel like I am drowning.
Fortunately I have a pastime for relieving stress.
One of those old white-washed wrought iron beds. The headboard is high in the middle and curved down to the corner posts. The bottom is straight across. It is a queen.