The Little Old Lady, Part 4

Chapter Four.

The light through the windows at the front of the lobby had grown long and yellow by the time Mr. Barnes and the little old lady sat, all the move-ins completed, basking in the glow of their recent success.

“I can't believe,” Mr. Barnes said, for the fiftieth time, “we actually pulled this off.”

“I tried to tell you,” the little old lady said.

“... Can't believe,” Mr. Barnes repeated, before the little old lady could launch into her speech again. He'd heard her 'I-told-you-so' speech as many times as he'd expressed his disbelief. Truth be told, there wasn't much more to say. All that remained now was for life to return to its old monotone torpor. The little old lady began to think about butter and pancakes again. She wondered where John Barr was now.

But Mr. Barnes had never been a good discussion partner when it came to breakfast food. The little old lady had learned long ago that he preferred bacon-egg-and-cheese bagels to pancakes. A decision she couldn't understand—but religious fanatics everywhere know that forcing someone to change their mind on a deep conviction is harder than it looks at first.

And so, after repeating the same phrases they'd been saying all day a few more times, the little old lady finally decided to head upstairs for the night. Mr. Barnes took that as his cue to head back to his home, as well. He couldn't wait to tell his wife. Not being a religious fanatic, he'd yet to learn that she wasn't going to change her mind for him. She'd been overjoyed to hear that he was selling the building. She wanted to move to Hawaii.

Dusk became night as the little old lady tooled around in her apartment, rearranging things, changing the channel on the TV, and wondering if any of her new neighbors liked pancakes. She almost whipped up a batch, she was so bored.

So she was glad when bedtime rolled around. She donned her silk nightgown and slid into her twin bed. Despite having nothing to do now, she fell asleep with a contended, satisfied smile on her face.

The next morning, she awoke determined to add something to her own apartment. It had remained much the same for nigh on a decade, now, and she was ready to add a splash of excitement to her life. It had been years since she'd done anything exciting, and the adventure of the last few days had reawakened in her a need to do interesting things.

Examining her apartment, she abandoned the idea of going furniture shopping—though that would have given her a great excuse to go talk to some of her new neighbors. No, instead—and she grinned when the idea struck her—she was going to add a window box garden to her apartment. She put on her hat, with the single flower wilting from the brim, a linen blouse, and capri pants, and set out for the elevator. Primping in the mirror before she left, she felt good enough to dance and click her heels, had her knees not gone years ago.

The bus station at the corner nearest the apartment building played host to four or five people. A Korean woman with a miniature shopping cart stood beside a very fat black man in a cook's uniform and the clean-cut girl who now lived two floors above her.

“Well, hello there, young thing,” the little old woman said as she approached. She had her purse slung over one shoulder. The girl turned to see who'd spoken.

“Oh, hey,” the girl said. “You're the lady from downstairs. The one who got us the place. Hey, meant to say before, but thanks a lot. This place is a total upgrade from where we were staying. I mean, Dylan's a genius, y'know? But he's not great with, like, living spaces.”

“Oh, you know men don't know anything about how to make a home,” the little old lady said. “That's why God made women.”

“Wow,” the girl said. “You're pretty old-school.”

The little old lady blushed just a little, taking it as a compliment. “Well, somebody's got to teach the young people what it means to be respectable in this world. You know, my husband fought in the Vietnam War. He was a Marine.”

“Did he ever kill anybody?” the girl asked.

“Oh, yes. He killed lots of godless Communists. It was a point of pride, for him. He always said he was the deadliest man in the platoon. He talked about it all the time.”

“That's kinda... scary,” the girl said.

“And what about you, young lady? How did you end up with Dylan and his friends?”

“Oh, well, that's a long story,” the girl said, sounding a little reluctant.

“Don't be shy... what was your name?”

“Flower. I'm Flower.”

“What odd names these young people give their children,” the little old lady said yet again.

“Oh, Flower's not the name my parents gave me. They named me Britney. But I just wanted... I just wanted to be free, you know? They were so stuck in, like, monotony. A house and a mortgage and two cars and all that. It was lame, y'know?”

“I think it's highly respectable to have all those things. It's a sign you've made good, I think.”

“That's that old-school way of thinking. The world is different now. We don't have to do all that stuff anymore. Why don't people just...” Flower's eyes grew dreamy. She seemed to stare at a place above the little old lady's head, and her voice softened. “Why don't people just do what makes them happy, instead of what society says we're supposed to do? Society doesn't know what makes me happy. It just... makes up rules for us.”

“Sounds to me like someone has a crush on Dylan,” the little old lady said with a knowing smile.

“No,” Flower said, defensive. “It isn't like that at all. I mean, he's great...”

“... And such a sweet voice. And all that gorgeous hair,” the little old lady said, her smile a little mischievous now.

“You're making fun of me,” Flower said.

“I've been around the block a few times, young lady. And I was your age, once upon a time. I know what I see when you two look at each other. Nothing wrong with it, at all. You two make a nice couple, I think.”

“That's not what I'm talking about, though,” Flower said. “I thought this stuff even before I met Dylan. He just thinks the same way, is all.”

“Oh, okay...” the little old lady said, sing-song.

“I'm gonna quit talking to you if you're gonna keep doing that. It's not cool. I'm trying to talk about real stuff, here, lady.”

The little old lady just smiled. Taking this as encouragement, Flower went on.

“I mean, what about sunsets, great music, good friends—real friends, not just people who are in the same tax bracket as you and belong to the same golf club...”

“... Boys with gray eyes who write songs...”

“That's it. I'm not talking to you anymore.” Flower turned away, huffy. She folded her arms in front of her and stared pointedly in the other direction. The little old lady noticed that the fat black man had been watching the two of them, an ironic half-smile on his face.

“Young love,” he boomed, giggling to himself. Flower shot him a look that was something like hate. The bus pulled up to the curb.

“Oh, come on, Flower,” the little old lady said as she got into the line for the bus. “We're just teasing.”

But instead of getting in line, Flower huffed away, a sour expression on her face. “You guys are as bad as my parents.”

The little old lady shot the fat black man a look. He shrugged, and got on the bus. The little old lady followed just behind him.

The little old lady watched Flower disappear back into the apartment building through the bus window. The bus hissed, then pulled out from the curb into traffic. The apartment building disappeared behind her, and the little old lady all but forgot about Flower, the hippies, and everybody else in the apartment. She was thinking about flowers, boxes, and windows, mostly.

The bus had to stop when a few police cars, lights flashing and sirens blaring, came hurtling the other way. The driver pulled the bus over towards the side of the road, and most of the cars behind and ahead of the bus did likewise. The little old lady watched them go, but she didn't really notice them. She was still thinkig about flowers.

The little old lady spent most of the day with her florid thoughts. She got off the bus a few blocks down the road, near a nursery she'd been to once before. Heading inside, she wandered from display to display, inside and outside, sniffing flowers, inspecting prices, and annoying the sales people with her many questions.

“How do you think these roses would go with a white couch?”

“I like to eat pancakes for breakfast. Do you think the smell of these gardenias would go with the scent of frying pancakes?”

“What sort of medicinal properties do these cacti have?”

“Lady, just, like, Google this stuff. I don't have answers to any of those questions,” the middle-aged woman in the company vest finally said. “White goes with everything. I don't think anyone's ever asked me if a flower's scent will make pancakes smell better. You don't eat cacti. Unless you're trying to hallucinate, that is. And these are definitely not that type of cacti. I repeat—do not eat anything we have for sale, here.”

Feeling a little put out by what she felt was a rather rude reception, the little old lady wandered off to look at flowers without the help of the nursery staff. But employees in red vests had eyes on her. Discussing it among themselves, later, they became increasingly sure she was senile.

The little old lady, of course, heard none of this, so once she'd gotten over how rude that saleslady had been—and she seemed so nice, at first, the little old lady thought—she hummed and sashayed her way up and down the aisles of plants and little trees for sale.

Eventually, when spending more time thinking about her decision seemed to be getting her nowhere, she finally settled on a tray of white gardenias. She liked the way they smelled, and she felt like they would go well with her couch. She still wasn't sure how the smell would go with pancakes but, she reflected, they were going to be in a window box, so she probably wouldn't be able to smell them from her kitchen table anyway.

“We'll just have to come back for more flowers for the kitchen table,” she thought. “Some flowers that do go with the smell of pancakes.”

Feeling good about her plan, she headed through the checkout line, paid for her gardenias, and went back to wait for the bus.

She was the only one at the bus stop this time, and the first bus that was slated to stop there actually just went right on by. The little old lady alost dropped her gardenias trying to wave down the bus driver. He didn't seem to notice, even when she shouted a curse word after the vanishing bus.

Shaking her head, she went and sat at the bench under the little enclave meant to protect waiting bus riders from the elements. She sat there for nearly fifteen minutes before another bus came by.

Frightened that this bus would also fail to stop, the little old lady actually stepped out in front of it. The bus driver slammed on his brakes, and everyone inside—who wasn't sitting down—jolted forward. The little old lady saw the bus driver, angry in his seat, but he let her on nonetheless.

“What you trying to do?” he said in his Mexican accent as she put her token into the slot. The little old lady gave him a prim look.

“The last bus driver wouldn't even stop for me. I have to get home somehow.”

“Whatever, lady. Just don't cause any more trouble while you're on my bus,” he said, and settled down grumpily a little further into his seat.

A handsome young man with long brown hair gave up his seat for the little old lady. She gave him a gracious smile as she sat down. Soon she was lost in a daydream, mentally assembling her window box, admiring her new flowers, and inviting Albert over to see how just great they looked.

Even in her daydream, though, Albert didn't really appreciate the flowers. He kept talking about gotshun... shotgun ammunition and government agents. Eventually, she kicked imaginary Albert out of her imaginary apartment and went to find imaginary Mr. Barnes.

By the time her internal drama was concluding, the bus was arriving at her stop. She noticed almost too late, and leaned over a woman in a nurse's outfit—who was none too pleased to be making the little old lady's close acquaintance so abruptly, and be spattered with potting soil and gardenia petals—to pull the cord on the bus.

But she made it. At the last second, she made it. Feeling she'd had an altogether successful day, she gave the bus a little wave as it tootled away in a cloud of hydrocarbons. She started up the steps to the apartment building.

That was when it struck her—an intuition, not anything she could really put a finger on—that something was wrong.

She hurried up the steps and set the tray of gardenias down to put her key in the lock on the double glass doors. She held the door open with one foot while she picked up the gardenias, and almost lost her balance trying to jolt through the door.

She succeeded, however, in entering the building without losing either the gardenias or her precarious balance. The feeling would not leave her, however, that something was wrong. She didn't see, at least not with any conscious part of her mind, the two bulletholes in the door of the left elevator, or the hand grenade someone had left in the middle of the lobby floor. But her intuition was strong, so she walked over to peek in through Mr. Barnes' open office door.

He was bent over paperwork, as usual. But the little old lady's already powerful sense of something awry grew yet more powerful when she saw her landlord.

His greasy hair was even more disheveled that it usually was. And he looked more slumped than usual, somehow. The curve of his shoulders had grown visibly rounder, as if he'd aged several decades in the last few hours.

“Mr. Barnes...?” the little old lady said, still holding her tray of gardenias in both hands.

“Mrs. Dean,” Mr. Barnes said, looking up. He looked tired... even more tired than he usually did. The circles under his eyes stood out in stark relief against his pale skin.

“Are you okay? Is everything all right?”

Mr. Barnes didn't speak for what felt like a long time. Finally, he cleared his throat.

“I wouldn't get too settled in,” he said.

“What do you mean? I live here.”

“Not for long.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” The little old lady's heart beat rapidly in her chest. She didn't have time to put the thoughts together, but a deep-down part of her already knew what Mr. Barnes meant.

“Everybody's gone, Mrs. Dean.”

“What do you mean? Who? Where? What happened?”

“All the tenants. Every last one of them. They're all gone.”

“What?!” The gardenias dropped to the floor. Potting soil spattered. Behind his desk, Mr. Barnes stood. He came around the desk and out the door of his office to stand right in front of the little old lady.

“Today was the worst day of my entire life,” he said.

“Mr. Barnes... I'm so confused... I...” She couldn't even finish her sentence. “What on earth happened? You must tell me, at once!”

“Why don't you come have a seat.” He didn't even seem to notice the gardenias and the potting soil all over the floor, even though he'd left footprints in the soil when he came up to the old lady.

He turned and headed back into his office. Tentatively, her heart still pounding in her chest, the little old lady followed.

Mr. Barnes motioned for her to sit in the chair. The one she always sat in. She lowered herself into it, slowly, never taking her eyes off her landlord. He sat behind his desk, put his palms together in front of his mouth—almost as if he were about to start praying—and sat that way for a while, just breathing in and out.

“Well, aren't you going to tell me what happened?” the little old lady said, all indignance and fear.

“Okay, so here's what happened.

--

“That girl, the one who came here with all the hippies—Flower, yeah; the one with the attitude. She paid for the security deposit and her first and last month's rent with a credit card. I was so happy to have tenants in the building that it never occurred to me to ask for her ID, or even to check the name on the card. As you may have guessed, her name isn't Flower. Yeah, Britney, exactly. I guess she told you. Britney Sheldon, to be precise. And Britney Sheldon, it turns out, ran away from her parents two weeks ago. They live outside San Diego, and when she took off, she headed up here. She fell in with Dylan and his friends. I guess she wanted to live the life of a hippie. Whatever. It's neither here nor there, really. Turns out, when Britney ran away from her parents, one of their credit cards vanished, too. The cops put out an amber alert, but her parents didn't have a lot of faith in the police to get their daughter back. When they realized that she'd taken one of their credit cards, instead of canceling it, like most people would, they just decided to wait, and see where she'd use it. They knew she didn't really have any money.

“And, big surprise, they're pretty wealthy people. Britney's gotten very used to a high standard of living. Her parents figured she'd get tired of poverty before long, and then she'd use the credit card. They told the credit card company to call them the instant that happened. She's only sixteen years old—and apparently not the brightest. It never occurred to her that as soon as she charged something to the card, she'd give her location away. So, she paid for the apartment, and the card company called the parents. The parents called the cops. And the cops?” He paused. “They came here.”

“That doesn't really explain much,” the little old lady said, her voice still sharp with bitterness. “What does that have to do with the other tenants?”

“This is where things get really insane. I swear, I'm never managing another property as long as I live. I'll flip burgers until the day I die, but I am never, ever getting back into this business...”

“Shut up and tell me what happened!”

“Okay, okay.” Mr. Barnes sighed heavily before going on. “The cops arrived shortly after you went out this morning. Four or five cop cars, with their sirens going nuts and everything. They pounded on the door and demanded to be let in, said they had a report that a runaway was hiding out in this building. I said I didn't know anything about it, and they said they'd be the judge of that. I still don't understand what that was supposed to mean. How could they judge if I...”

“Mr. Barnes,” the little old lady growled. “Get on with it!”

“They told me they had a warrant to search the building for the runaway. I said sure, do whatever you want—I don't want any trouble. So they asked me which units were occupied, and I told them. They headed upstairs, knocked on your door, then broke it down when you didn't answer. I tried to explain that you were an old lady and there was no way that you were a runaway from some wealthy San Diego family, but they told me to shut up and made me stand facing the wall while they searched your apartment. I'm afraid—it's a bit of a mess up there. When you weren't in, they started searching the other apartments. They found all the hippies, and they took Britney with them. She didn't want to go, so they tazed her a few times, put her in handcuffs, and carried her down to the car.”

“But the hippies weren't the first people they found. The first person they found was Geraldine. And when they realized that Britney was sixteen, and living in the same building with Geraldine, they arrested her, too, for violating the terms of her parole. She's not supposed to live within, whatever, a thousand feet of any minors. That's why she's been homeless—there's nowhere that's a thousand feet from all minors. Or, at least, practically nowhere. So one of them hauls Geraldine down here, and she's protesting that it's all just a big misunderstanding, and she had no idea—blah, blah, blah...”

“Poor Geraldine,” the little old lady said, shaking her head sadly.

“Poor Geraldine? What about me? I had to stand there facing the wall while these cops practically broke down everybody's door...”

“What about Cralbert? He didn't commit any crimes.”

“Yeah, about that. Pretty much the opposite, actually. They were taking Geraldine down the stairs, and Albert heard them from his apartment. He came out to see what was going on. And I don't know what the hell he was doing in that apartment of his, but when he came out to investigate, he was wearing this fishing vest kind of a thing... it had all these grenades hanging from it, like he was going to war or something. And he just happened to be holding a land mine.

“When the cops saw him, they almost forgot about Geraldine. They all had their weapons out in a second, yelling obscenities and threatening to blast Albert to kingdom come unless he put down his weapons and surrendered. Turns out, that canvas bag Albert was so paranoid about? It was full of guns, bombs, grenades, C4... the guy was a walking weapons depot.

“And he's not the kind of guy who listens when the cops tell him to do something. He threw the landmine down, and charged off in the other direction, yelling. But he was stuttering so bad, and messing up his words.... nobody had any idea what he was saying. The cops asked me after the fact if he was retarded. I said I didn't think so—so they started making fun of me, asking me if I was retarded. It's been the worst day, I swear...

“Anyway, the cops take off after Albert. They can all see the land mine sitting there, so of course none of them step on it—thank God. Can you imagine? Two of them tackle Albert, and he's trying to get a grenade off a hook on his vest. They tazed him, too. Five, six, seven times—I don't really know. I was still standing facing the wall. Albert was yelling, though, I could hear that. The cops kept telling him to surrender, but he just kept grunting. I peeked around to see four of them carrying him, and another one leading Geraldine. Each cop had a limb. Albert still had all his grenades on him, so after they got Geraldine in the car, the fifth cop took all his grenades.

“The other hippies all split when the cops took Britney. I guess that Dylan is a pretty big drug dealer. That's what they told me when they found the gold bars, anyway. They took those, too. They said they had to take them as evidence because they were suspicious that they were actually drug money.

“I don't know why I thought telling them that the gold bars actually came from Albert was a good idea. They laughed and said that now they'd definitely have to take them, because Dylan might be a drug dealer, but Albert was a nut and probably a terrorist.

“So they're all gone. Every last one of them. I have no tenants, and no money, and I'm selling this building like I should have weeks ago. The lawyers are already on their way over to sign the paperwork.”

The little old lady said nothing. For the first time in decades, she was truly speechless.

“But...” was all she could manage for what felt like several minutes. Mr. Barnes looked at her, sorrow written on his forehead. But a moment later, he couldn't meet her gaze anymore, and he looked down at where his hands lay on his desk. “So you're just... giving up?” the old lady finally said.

“What am I supposed to do, Mrs. Dean?”

“What about our plans? What about going out and getting more tenants? There's no way we could just... do it again? It only took us one day to get those three...”

“And those three almost got me thrown in jail several times over. You're lucky I'm even here to tell you what happened. It could have been me in the back of one of those cop cars.”

“You? You didn't commit any crimes—did you?”

“Not really. But everything that was going on here was right on the edge of illegal. I didn't mind it when Albert was handing me suitcases full of gold... but he wanted to put bombs and machine guns all over the building. Do you know what kind of charges they file for things like that? The man's a lunatic. I'll be surprised if he ever gets out of prison.

“And Geraldine? What was I thinking, putting up a sex offender in my building? She's homeless because every other property manager on the planet must be smarter than me. My wife was right all along; this building has been more trouble than it's worth for years, now. I'm sorry, Mrs. Dean. I'm selling the building.”

“You can't... you can't do this!” the little old lady shrieked, jumping up from her chair and all but shooting fire from her eyes at her landlord. “I've lived here for so long! Where am I supposed to go?”

“... Mom?” someone said from the doorway of the office. The little old lady whirled around at the sound of the vaguely familiar voice to see the last person she'd ever have expected to see just then.

“Tommy?”

“Hey, Mom. How's it going? They told me your building was getting sold and you'd need a place to stay. I came down to take you with me, at least until we can get you set up somewhere new.”

“This is not fair!” The little old lady shook her head, her mouth open. But no more words would come out. Reasons tripped over each other trying to get from her brain to her mouth; the end result was something like a cross between a whine and a hum. She looked from Mr. Barnes to her son and back again. They were both looking at her with the calm resignation of a decision already made.

“I'm sorry,” Mr. Barnes said again.

“You're not sorry in the slightest! This was your plan from the beginning, wasn't it? Get rid of an old lady who nobody ever visits anymore! Call her son, who hasn't talked to her in months, to come down here and pretend like he cares...”

“Mom, calm down,” Thomas Dean said, taking a step towards the whirling dervish that was his ancient mother. “We're gonna figure this out. This is not the end of the world.”

“What would you know about it?” the little old lady snapped. “Not like you've been around! What have you been doing that was so much more important than talking to your mother? After your father and I raised you, broke our backs working to make sure you had clothes to wear and food to eat! This is how I get repaid? These are the fruits of my labors?”

The little old lady ran on, poison spewing from her mouth. She had ample helpings for both her son and her landlord. The two stood quietly and took it. Tommy tried to interrupt a few times, but the little old lady would not listen to a word that he had to say.

She was shaking her head violently to punctuate each point she made, but her rampage died abruptly when she saw two men of similar height with slicked hair and dark suits appear behind her son.

“Mr. Barnes?” the one on the left said. “I'm Bradley Knowles and this is Thornton Hayweather. We're here on behalf of the Mistview Corporation. We had an appointment at 6:30?” Apparently having heard the little old lady, he raised an eyebrow at her. “I hope we are not... interrupting anything?”

“No, come in,” Mr. Barnes said softly. The little old lady said nothing, but her eyes followed the two men as they took their seats in the two chairs in front of Mr. Barnes' desk. The little old lady was standing more or less between the two. She watched the one called Thornton Hayweather slap his briefcase down on the desk and flip open the clasps. He didn't need secret combination locks on his briefcase, though, because this briefcase held no gold bars. Instead, he slid out a manilla folder, and set it carefully beside his briefcase. He clipped the case closed and set it down beside his chair, opened the manilla folder, and slid a single sheet of paper, lined with text, towards Mr. Barnes. A pen appeared from inside Bradley Knowles' suit. He set it lightly atop the single sheet of paper. Mr. Barnes looked down at the contract in front of him. The little old lady looked down at Mr. Barnes.

They froze like that for a moment, each alone with their thoughts, the two men in suits silent and implacable. The little old lady thought about pancakes. She thought about Albert Crenshaw and the hippies with their instruments, Geraldine Caldera and her forbidden love for one of her students. She clenched her teeth together, and her breath came loud through her nose.

Mr. Barnes picked up the pen and scribbled his signature on the line at the bottom of the page. Thornton Hayweather slid a second document his way, identical to the first, and he signed that one, too. Thornton took back the second document, slid it back into the manilla folder, and put his briefcase back on the desk. When he opened the clasps to replace the folder, the little old lady turned away and put her face in her hands. Her son came towards her, arms outstretched, but the little old lady put out a hand to stop him, and buried her head in one shoulder.

The two men stood, and shook Mr. Barnes' hand one after the other.

“Thank you for your business, Mr. Barnes. We will wire the money to the account now, as promised. Please inform all of your tenants that they must be out of the building within 72 hours.”

And with that, the two turned and strode from the little windowless cube that Mr. Barnes had once called his office.

“Wait...” the little old lady said, raising her tear-streaked face from her hands.

The two men turned, question marks on their faces.

“Yes?” Bradley Knowles said.

“What are you going to do with the building, once it's yours?”

“Well, technically, it's already ours,” Thornton Hayweather said in a rich baritone.

“But once the tenants have been evicted, we intend to demolish the building. The property is far more valuable than the building itself. We have retained an architecture firm to design an office building to occupy the property.”

The little old lady moved as if to speak, but then she dropped her head instead. As she stared at the floor, the two men again turned on their heels and vanished out the door. The little old lady heard one of the double glass front doors swing shut a moment later.

“Well,” her son said, trying to sound helpful, “I suppose that's that.”

The little old lady said nothing.

“We'd better get going, Mom. We can come back tomorrow and collect your things. Just grab whatever you need for the night and let's get out of here. No sense dwelling on what's done.”

The little old lady looked at him, but all the poison, all the fire were gone from her face. He took her hand, and she followed him willingly to the elevator.

Mr. Barnes sat alone in his office, staring at the empty doorway, then at the paperwork down at his desk. The paperwork he'd never have to worry about again. He should have felt liberated, he thought. His wife had told him that he would, once the sale was done and the building was out from under his care. Instead, he felt emptiness, like an old, even if not particularly well-loved, friend had passed away.

The little old lady and her son had already collected a single suitcase of necessaries and gone out the front doors by the time Mr. Barnes stood, collecting his jacket, his briefcase, his keys, and gave one last look around his office. He sighed a heavy sigh, briefcase in hand and his jacket over his arm, before he left the apartment building and headed to his car.