The District Manager (12 page)

“Okay!” she blurts out with soothing affirmation.

We are interrupted by a woman and a dog entering the kitchen.

“Mason, this is my mother, Joyce. Mom, this is Mason.”

“Nice to meet you, Mason.”

Will runs in, opens the pantry, and drags out a bag of dog food.

“Will, that dog eats so much,” Joyce says.

Will ignores the comment, spilling food over the bowl and onto the floor, which the dog sucks up like a vacuum cleaner.

“I guess Sargent is the only one you haven’t met yet,” Brenna says to me. Then she turns to her son. “Will, we’ll be leaving now. Don’t give Nana any trouble. Do you understand?”

“Sure,” he answers and scurries over to the kitchen table and starts setting up a game board. Sargent goes and lays at his feet. He is ignoring the adults in the room.

“Oh, he’ll be alright, sweetie,” Joyce says.

I want to be congenial to the boy. “Is that a checkerboard, Will?” Will doesn’t answer.

“Hey!” Brenna interjects. “Will, answer Mr. Mason.”

He rolls his eyes. “No sir, Mr. Mason, it’s a chessboard.”

“I’m impressed,” I declare. This obviously flatters both Brenna and her mom because they both look at each other with mutually self-satisfied smiles.

“I’m sure by the time he’s ten I won’t be able to follow him in a conversation about much of anything,” Joyce says, shaking her head in a self-deprecating fashion.

Brenna turns to me. “You ready?”

“Yeah, let’s roll.”

“Mom, call with any issues.”

“What, like if he starts reading Einstein or something?” Joyce jests.

She leads me from the kitchen to the hallway. Before we leave, Brenna flips on the outside light. The front door shuts behind us.

She turns towards me and places her white leather purse down on the mildewed pebbles that comprise her walkway. Her skin is glistening in the high summer’s weight. Crickets and frogs serenade the plump air.

She’s smiling as she glides closer…

I place my arm around her soft waist and pull her in. The dampness of our kiss is synonymous with the tropical night.

We’re off.

The old Expedition is doing its damnedest to keep the cab temperate.

Not much has been spoken between us as we hit the highway towards the big town.

That old friend Doubt is tapping on my shoulder, whispering worries in my ear.

“Do you have any of this band’s music that we can listen to?” Brenna asks, interrupting my imaginary detractor. Again, she’s sitting at a perfect right angle, like she’s in church or something. I’m finding it hard to keep my eyes on the road.

“Yeah, I do. Umm, here,” I instruct with my arm, trying to get it together. “Look behind the console, on the floor in the back you should find my CD case.”

“I guess your car is too old to play music off of your cell?”

“Oh, I never play music from my cell; in fact, I don’t really have any music on my cell.”

“Why not? It’s so much easier.”

“MP3s sound…
(I want to say ‘like shit,’ but I don’t want to cuss in front her—not yet)
they sound…like hell. They just don’t have the sound quality that CDs have…vinyl’s even better.”

“Oh, I guess I never notice things like that.”

“It’s actually interesting, really. For decades, science in tandem with artists, tried to perfect the sound of recorded music. Great advancements are made. Then, the CD is invented. It revolutionizes things. But, it also kills the music business—which, okay, maybe needed to go as it was rotten to the core. But, it also killed the art of sound: what so many had labored for so long to perfect.”

“Hmm, I never thought about it like that before, I just thought it made things more convenient.”

“It is. They are. Digitalization put sound in the cloud and made it like a thief in the night. Art, like everything else, was robbed for convenience.”

“Wow, that’s really…really insightful. You’re smart, Mason.”

She grabs the CD case and starts flipping through. “Is this it,
Wild Gift?”
she asks, discovering an orange CD with a big red X on it.

I give the affirmative and she pops it in. As the tunes jaggedly boogie out of the speakers, though sitting silent, she seems to enjoy it.

Downtown Houston has changed through the years. Like New York, it went through its rundown phase. But gradual gentrification has changed all of that. Two of the counties my boss represents were the products of white flight; at some point taking on a life of their own. Now, only the rich and well-to-do can afford to live in Downtown Houston. It, as well as its satellite neighbors, is as multicultural as any place on the planet. This is modern America at its most advanced. This is global Texas.

Parking is amazingly easy compared to Austin, where I was earlier in the week. The walk to the venue is no sweat: no pun intended. Standing in line to get admission, it’s obvious we are both overdressed. I don’t care. I place my arm around Brenna’s waist and we smile at one another.

The club has a few giant blowing fans placed strategically to keep the clammy night at bay. I nudge my nose against hers and smell the fresh, fruity, shower scent that surrounds her like a mist. I pucker my lips and lightly smooch her. She looks up at me with a mischievous grin.

What does this woman see in me?
I’m contemplating as the bouncer tears our tickets.

We go inside to discover we definitely stand out. The shadowy room bereft of chairs is filling with freaks: Liberty spikes, leather jackets, butch women. But everybody is cool. They’re just here to see the show. I quickly discover that we’re a part of a strange family. Or at least I am.

The show is killer. I’ve never heard X live but they sound as good as any of their recordings. The band is no more than thirty feet away—and we’re in the back. Guitarist Billy Zoom breaks into one of his fiery, rockabilly solos. Brenna is stoked.

“They’re awesome!” She continuously chants into my ear.

Amazingly, I’m keeping the Jack intake to a minimum. Brenna is sipping a glass of chardonnay.

The last set concludes, I go and buy her a t-shirt. We file out of the hot club into the hotter night. A mosquito lands on Brenna’s back and I swat it off, as we’re walking back to the car. Her flesh is covered in a film. When she’s not looking, I dry my hand against my cheek. We walk hand-in-hand to where the Expedition is parked.

“Are you sure you can’t get your mom to stay a little later?” I ask her as I turn the ignition key. I’m half buzzed and amped from the show. I’d like to stay out.

“No. Midnight is as late as she’ll stay. I’m sorry, Mason, I want to stay out too. It’s called, ‘being a single mom.’”

“I understand.” Suddenly, I feel like an asshole.

We’re talking about tonight’s band and music in general, the whole way back to the burbs. She really knows nothing, but this is good because I can play the authority on the subject, which she seems to like.

“I’ve never heard of any of those bands. But judging by tonight, I’d like to hear them,” she says, sincerely. When we pull up to a stoplight, she takes my right hand into hers. The light turns green and we drive on.

I’m parked outside her house and it’s time to say goodnight. I’ve always hated trying to kiss in a car—at least as the driver. I like using my right arm as a fulcrum, placing it on the gal’s face and moving her towards me. I’m simply not a southpaw. And I really haven’t had enough women to get good at it.

Awkwardly, we kiss. Our lips part.

“Well,” she says, plaintively, “I’ve got to relieve my mom. I’d invite you in, but she and Will are probably asleep and…”

“I understand,” I reply, awkwardly. “I really had a good time tonight. I’d like to see you again.”

Brenna has her hand on the door handle. She turns to get out, but then turns halfway back around and leans over the console. She grabs the back of my head and pulls my lips to hers. It’s only a peck.

“I would too,” she says, opening the door. “Night, Mason,” she innocently mutters as she waves goodbye, like a girl. I watch her white form flash from shadow to broken blue under the tree-inhibited moonlight as she makes her way up the walk. She turns and waves one last girly goodbye before vanishing inside.

Driving off, it strikes me that I really screwed up here.
I should have walked her to the door!

It was time to quit fucking around and get down to business. I’d let my emotions detour me long enough. I still hadn’t reviewed the file I’d purloined from Jules. Even though the boss had told me to cease and desist, I just couldn’t let it go…

It’s getting late here at the D.O. and I’m getting increasingly restless, as I want to get out of Dodge. The old bank where our office is located gets creepy at night. Now that the oil and gas company that shared the building with us has closed its doors, the creepiness seems to creep in earlier and earlier. But I’ve really nowhere to go as Keith has invited his reprobate new pals over to play cards and quarters.

It dawns on me that the boss knows nothing of Keith.
I think I should keep it that way.

The sun hasn’t quite set when I step out to go get a taco around the block. The pink horizon is fuzzy from the humidity.

It’s still so hot out that I’m not even across the street before wishing I’d driven the Expedition. Bob’s, the taco place, is only about fifty yards from our office.

Instead of scarfing down the food at the establishment, I decide to order it to go. This place ain’t no fast food joint—they make all their meals from scratch. So it takes a little longer.

The night is new as I vacate. Tejano music fades as the door closes behind me. I’m glad I decided not to eat there because there is nothing worse than a full stomach under summer heat. No matter how short the distance.

Back at my desk, I methodically remove the taco and the condiments. I place a napkin in my lap. As I chew the flour and meat, I stare off into oblivion, thinking about Jules’ file. All day I’ve avoided it. I purposefully went on numerous, unnecessary errands, deliberately not to be in the file’s proximity. But it’s time.

I finish the taco, and after throwing the brown paper bag into the wastebasket, I wash my hands in the bathroom. I’m drying them with a wad of paper towels when I stare down the short, dark hallway. The place is really still. I rush back in our office. I close the door behind me.

I’ve found that sound, any sound, helps with the creepiness of silence when you’re alone. It can be a fan, the A/C, music, anything. I pull up some X that I have on my computer. I grab the file from our filing cabinet, which is concealed in the solitary closet. With the music playing low, I start to examine the stolen property.

You can tell Jules is a numbers guy. He has all these miscellaneous pages with calculations scribbled on them. It looks like he was actually adding up his expenses associated with the whole dog debacle. There are several letters from the county courthouse, with attached deeds. Upon closer inspection, it turns out that there are other properties owned by Bowers Power, Inc. On the manila file is written, in bold black letters: BPI. It astonishes me that the Sheriff ’s Department could overlook something like this, particularly since much of the information it contains came from that same county’s courthouse.
Perhaps I’m not giving them the benefit of the doubt? Perhaps they copied the contents and returned the document?
But that doesn’t gel with what Mrs. Reynolds inferred when she asked me to clean up after myself.

Hell, I don’t know.
I continue.

I start to examine the deeds. Turns out that BPI also owns, what is known in these parts as the Old Adobe. The Old Adobe is a replica of some Colonial Spanish fort that was supposedly torn down so the stones and timber could be used for other purposes. Apparently this happened a long time ago, because the ‘new’ Old Adobe was built in the early part of the last century. Access to it is precarious as the river patterns have changed in the past hundred years. Now the sizeable structure is right smack dab in the flood plain. It literally sits in a shallow swamp. Few even know about it because it’s so out of the way.

As I cull further into the documents, I come across several handwritten letters as well as numerous printed emails. All of the letters are signed:
R. Sturnhauser.
Interestingly enough, as I try to read through what is clearly the handwriting of a man, I discover that many references are made regarding an “Ella.” What I can glean from the scribbling is that Ella is Jules’ wife. She seems to have some relation to R. Sturnhauser.

There is no return address on any of these letters from Sturnhauser.
Why?

As the pages turn, I am apparently getting to the meat of their correspondence, and the reason why these letters, which at first seem personal in nature, are included in this file: