Page 17 of Crow
“Thanks, but I’m good.”
“Why don’t you get going so we can have some quiet around here?” Damon said.
“Why don’t you lighten the hell up?” Joey replied.
He turned back to his computer. “I wasn’t talking to you,” he grumbled.
“Ignore him,” Angie whispered. “Maybe I’ll see you when I get back.”
“Sounds good.”
She stepped over to her desk, picked up her purse, slung the strap over her shoulder, and walked out.
Madera Crossing was a four-story apartment house in the seedy part of town. From a distance, the stucco exterior and red tile roof looked like a villa on the Mexican Riviera, but once she pulled up to the building, dark brown patches and streaks of mold marred the once pristine white walls.
A native of Alina, Joey had told her that Madera Crossing had been a luxury residence back when it was built in the 1920s. Clare DuBois, a silent-movie actress, had purchased one of the penthouses and lived out her retirement in Alina.
By the looks of the rusty metal gates and faded ornamental wrought iron grilles over the windows, along with the weeds, overgrown shrubs, and broken window panes gaping everywhere, Angie couldn’t believe that the building had ever been anything but a dilapidated dump.
Opening her purse, she pulled out her iPad and made notations about the broken glass, the weeds, and the gate falling off its hinges before pulling open the double glass doors and entering the lobby.
Two large vermillion paintings of a matador silhouetted in black velvet along with several small prints of the desert in bloom hung against a peeling wall over a rust-colored couch with its stuffing escaping from its ripped cushions. A few armchairs dotted the room along with a scratched wooden coffee table and two floor lamps that had lost their shades.
A few women sat on the couch and watched their small children run around the room. When Angie smiled at them, they scowled and ran their eyes over her as if sizing her up, and then scowled some more. She walked over to the elevators, her heels clacking on the linoleum floor, and pushed theUPbutton. As she waited, she could see the reflection of the women on the bronze doors. They continued to stare at her until the doors opened and she stepped inside.
The pungent odor of urine permeated the elevator, and Angie held her breath as she jotted down more notes on the iPad. She stepped out on the third floor and walked slowly down the hallway looking for apartment 315. The overhead lighting was dim, and she suspected several of the fluorescent bulbs were burned out. A few cockroaches skittered across the floor, disappearing into the shadows of the doorways.
“I can’t stand Sonny Copeland,” she muttered under her breath while making notes about the roaches and the water stains on the ceiling and walls.
Sonny Copeland was the owner of Madera Crossing and had been approved a few years back for subsidized housing. The residents of the apartment building received vouchers from HUD, which, in turn, paid most of their rent to Copeland. The man was scum, and he balked at the very mention of putting any money into the property to make it more habitable for the low-income residents. To Angie, he was a slumlord—the worst possible kind of landlord anyone could be.
All of a sudden, one of the apartment doors flew open. Startled, she jumped back and let out a small yelp.
“Who are you?” a woman in her twenties asked. She wore skin-tight jeans and a low-cut sweater top.
Angie glanced at the numbers on the door: 311. “I work for the local HUD office,” she said.
The woman eyed her over, then said, “Come on in. I wanna show you something.”
“What’s your name?” Angie asked.
“Theresa Welton. I said to come inside.”
Due to the nature of her job, she hesitated and glanced down at the unit’s call log and referrals. She didn’t see any complaints from a Theresa Welton. Glancing back up, she stood rooted to the spot.
“What do you want me to see?”
“A broken window. It’s been busted for over a month. That bastard landlord keeps promising to fix it, but doesn’t. I have to tape cardboard over it to keep the cold out as best as I could so me and my kids don’t freeze, and the pipe under the kitchen sink drips nonstop so I constantly have to change the bucket.” Theresa reached into her jeans pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She tapped one out and slid the pack back into her pocket, then looked at Angie. “Oh, yeah … there are a ton of roaches, and that crazy-as-fuck neighbor down the hall”—she waved her hand toward one of the doors—“is always giving me shit. He’s a nutcase, and he hates everyone. I heard he has bedbugs, and there’s no fucking way I can afford to get new furniture if I get those in my place.” The lighter clicked, and she shielded the flame with both hands even though there wasn’t a draft in the hallway.
Angie took the opportunity to put a stop to the litany of complaints. She understood the woman’s frustration and her need to vent, but Angie couldn’t do much of anything at that moment.
“I’ll make sure your concerns are addressed. Mr. Copelandwillmake the repairs,” she said while tapping a slew of notes into her iPad.
“I don’t want no trouble with him,” she said, blowing out smoke in thick clouds. “I don’t want him to throw me out.”
Angie clutched the iPad against her chest. “It’s against the Fair Housing Act to evict you for filing a complaint.”
Theresa shook her head. “I’m not filing no complaint. Just forget what I said.” She stepped back into her apartment, and before Angie could respond, the door closed in her face.
