by Bill Bernico
“No, that’s all right,” Elliott said. “We can talk to him together at the house tonight. Tell him I should be home around five-thirty or so and ask him if he’d meet us then.” Elliott paused a moment and then added, “By the way, did Eric’s cousin, Penny call you about Olivia’s room? She told him that she’d like to look at the room and he gave her our home phone number.”
“Oh, yes,” Gloria said. “She’s coming over in an hour or so. Did you want to talk to her yourself, too?”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary. If Eric recommended her, that’s good enough for me. You can do the interview yourself. Call me after she’s gone and let me know how it went, would you?”
“Sure thing, Elliott,” Gloria said. “I’d better get off the phone. Other possible renters may be trying to call. I’ll see you tonight.”
Elliott had no sooner hung up his phone than his office door opened and a man let himself in. He looked at Elliott. “Mr. Cooper?” he said.
Elliott said that he was and invited the man to sit across from his desk. “How can I help you today?”
“Mr. Cooper, my name is David Morse,” he said.
Elliott extended his hand. He took a closer look at the man’s face and then shook his head. “You sure look different up close than you did in The Green Mile,” Elliott told him.
“Uh, no,” Morse said. “That the other David Morse. I don’t even look anything like him. But people do sometimes mistake me for a taller version of David Spade, if you know who he is?”
“Sure,” Elliott said. “I know the name and I can picture the face. I just can’t come up with anything that I’ve seen him in. I’m drawing a blank.”
“He was a regular on Saturday Night Live many years ago,” Morse explained. “And he played the title role in some goofy movie called, Joe Dirt.”
“Oh sure,” Elliott said. I remember. So, what is it I can do for you today, Mr. Morse?”
“Mr. Cooper,” Morse began. “I was just put out in the street by some bank who claimed to own the house I was living in.”
“Was the house in foreclosure?” Elliott asked.
“Not with me,” Morse said. “But apparently it was taken away from the previous owner when he quit making the mortgage payments.”
Elliott furrowed his brows. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Mr. Morse. How do I fit in here?”
“Let me explain,” Morse said. “A little better than a month ago I met a man in a bar and we started talking. One thing led to another and sooner or later we got around to the housing shortage in Los Angeles. Well, he tells me that he has a house he wants to rent out and when he told me the monthly rent amount, I almost fell out of my chair. It was ridiculously low and naturally I told him I was interested. He said he’d need the first and last month’s rent as well as a security deposit equal to another month’s rent. I agreed and told him I’d get to the bank in the morning and give him the money. He told me I could move in right away, since the house was empty.”
“So far, I don’t see a problem,” Elliott said.
“Neither did I,” Morse said. “Anyway, the next morning I met the man in front of the house he was talking about and he showed me through the place. It was perfect and I didn’t have to think twice about it. I handed him the money, which amounted to just over twenty-one hundred dollars.”
“Seven hundred dollars a month for an entire house?” Elliott said.
“That’s what I thought,” Morse said. “You can’t find a furnished room, let alone an apartment for that kind of money and that’s why I jumped at it. He led me to the kitchen and pulled out some sort of standard lease agreement and I signed it. I moved in that afternoon. It didn’t take long, since I didn’t have any furniture, but I spent this past month slowly furnishing the house. I was just getting settled in comfortably when I got a knock at my door. It was two police officers and some official from one of the local banks telling me I had to get out right away.”
“Didn’t you show them your lease?” Elliott asked.
“Yes, I did,” Morse explained. “The bank official took one look at it and then at me. He just shook his head and said, “Looks like another one.” When I asked him what he meant, he told me that the bank owned this house and that whoever leased it to me did not have the authority to do so and that I’d have to leave. I guess he thought it would be some sort of comfort to me to know that I wasn’t the only one to fall for this scheme. So you see, Mr. Cooper, I’m not only out my twenty-one hundred dollars, I also have to put all my furnishings in storage until I find another place to live.”
“I’m still not sure where I come in,” Elliott said. “What is it you think I can do for you, Mr. Morse?”
Morse sat upright in the chair and turned toward me. “I want you to find this crook and get my money back. And I want to see that man put behind bars.”
Elliott twisted in his chair, leaned back and crossed his legs. “Mr. Morse,” he said. “Before you get started on this quest of yours, I think it’s only fair to tell you that one, I may not be able to find this guy and two, you could be out twice as much money by the time this whole thing is settled.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Cooper?” Morse said.
“Well,” Elliott told him, “I get two hundred dollars a day for my services. If my hunt for your crook takes ten days or more, you will have spend more than the amount you’re trying to recoup. I could get lucky and find him the first day, but that is highly unlikely. And what if I did find him in just a few days and he no longer had your money? You can’t squeeze blood out of a beet. The courts could issue a judgment against him and order him to pay you back, but if he doesn’t have it, that would be as far as the courts would go to help you. Your crook might go to jail for a while, but you’d still be out your original twenty-one hundred dollars plus whatever you pay me, not to mention your court costs.”
“I see,” Morse said, sighing. “Looks like the law favors the criminals.”
“That they do,” Elliott said. “It’s not right, but those are the facts of life. So, now are you still sure that you want to pursue this thing?”
Morse ran his fingers thought his thick blonde hair and then buried his head in his hands. “Now I don’t know what to do,” he said.
“Let me put something into perspective,” Elliott told him. “If you paid me twenty-one hundred dollars, you could either get ten and a half days of my investigative time, or you could get three and a half months of rent.”
“Excuse me,” Morse said. “What are you talking about?”
Elliott leaned forward now, resting his elbows on his desk. “As it happens,” Elliott said, “My wife and I are in the process of renting out two bedrooms in our home that our two grown children have recently vacated. We’re asking six hundred fifty a month per room, furnished and with all utilities. We rented one of the rooms already, the one that was our daughter’s room. We still have our son’s former room vacant. If you think it’s something you’d like to consider, I’d be glad to show it to you.”
Morse shrugged and spread his hands. “Mr. Cooper,” he said, “you might have just talked yourself out of a client and into a tenant. When can I see this room?”
“How does right now work for you?” Elliott said.
“What about your business?” Morse said, gesturing around the room. “You’d have to close up your office, wouldn’t you?”
“No,” Elliott explained. “My son is right downstairs. He’s also my business partner. He can watch the office while we’re gone. We can stop downstairs on our way out and I can just tell him to go up and keep an eye on the place.”
“All right,” Morse said. “Let’s go.
Down on the street corner, Matt stood holding the one by four board overhead. He had just two sandwiches left on it. So far he’d given away ten of the wrapped sandwiches, each with an advertisement sticker on the plastic. As he turned in the opposite direction, he spun a little too fast and one of the wrapped sandwiches fell to the sidewal
k. As Matt turned to see where it had fallen, an old man in a ragged suit and scuffed shoes picked it up and examined it. The man had the five-day-old stubble of a typical street person. His eyes got big and he began licking his lips.
Matt turned toward the man, who was already holding the sandwich out in front of him, offering it back to Matt. Matt looked at the sandwich and then back at the man. “Go on,” Matt said. “You keep it.”
The old man smiled and quickly unwrapped the plastic covering. He bit into the sandwich and audibly sighed approval.
Matt got a certain amount of satisfaction from seeing someone so needy enjoying the food. He still had one more sandwich to give away with his next business card before he could forget this silly wager he’d made with Elliott and get back to work.
Elliott led David Morse out the front door of his building and walked toward the corner to find Matt standing there, still holding the board and trying to solicit business. Matt lowered the board when he saw his father coming his way. “Did you come to rub it in some more, Dad?” Matt said.
“Actually,” Elliott told him, “I’ve come to tell you that you’ve done enough and to go on back up to the office. Your obligation is fulfilled. Besides, I have to take Mr. Morse here back to the house to look at the room we’re trying to rent.”
Elliott turned and introduced David Morse to Matt. Morse shook Matt’s hand and said, “So I guess I’ll be looking at your old room, Matt.”
Matt sighed. “Looks like it. I spent most of my life in that room. I hope it serves you as well as it did me.”
“So do I,” Morse said.
“I should be back in an hour or so,” Elliott told Matt, and then looked at the contents of his sandwich board. “Looks like you even have one sandwich left over for yourself.”
Matt shook his head, grabbed the last sandwich and handed it to the homeless man, who had just finished the last morsel of that first sandwich. “Here you go,” he told the man. “You might want to save this one for later.”
The old man thanked Matt, but immediately unwrapped the second sandwich and bit into it.
“Or you could just eat it now,” Matt added, dropping the board to his side and carrying it back with him to the office.
Elliott led David Morse back to his car and drove him home. On the way he called Gloria and told her to expect him and his guest. A few minutes later, Elliott opened his front door and showed David Morse in. Gloria was there in the kitchen to meet them. Elliott introduced Morse to Gloria.
“You don’t look anything like you did in The Green Mile,” Gloria said.
Morse and Elliott exchanged a quick glance and the two men began laughing.
“Did I say something funny?” Gloria asked.
“Not really,” Morse told Gloria. “But it’s the same thing your husband said when I told him my name. Same name, different guy.”
“Well, I guess you’re eager to see the room,” Gloria said. “Come right this way.” She led David Morse to Matt’s old room and stepped aside, letting the man take in his surroundings.
Morse looked out the window to the back yard. He turned and sat on Matt’s bed, pressing down on the mattress with his hands before examining the four drawer dresser against the west wall. “Very nice,” he said. “Very homey, if that’s even a word. Yes, I think I could be quite comfortable here for a while.” He turned to Elliott, who was by now standing in the open doorway. “And you say it’s six hundred fifty dollars a month?”
Elliott nodded.
“Including utilities,” Gloria added.
Morse paused for just a few seconds and then smiled. “I’ll take it,” he said. “When can I move in?”
“Today, if you like,” Elliott said. “The only stipulation we have is a three month minimum so we don’t have to go through the listing and interviewing process again so soon. After that, you can decide month by month how long you’d like to stay.”
“Sounds agreeable to me,” Morse said, reaching into his suit pocket and producing a checkbook. He made out a check in the amount of nineteen hundred and fifty dollars, signed it, ripped it out of the checkbook and offered it to Elliott.
Elliott gestured toward Gloria. “You can just give that to my money manager,” he said. “Come on, I’ll drive you back to my office. I assume you have your car parked nearby.”
Morse shook his head. “I don’t have a car,” he explained. “I took a cab to your office.”
“Well then, where can I drop you, Mr. Morse?” Elliott said.
“Please call me David,” Morse said. “And if you wouldn’t mind dropping me at the Y.M.C.A. so I can get my things, that would be fine.”
“Sure,” Elliott said. “I’ll even drive you back here afterwards, but I must insist that you call me Elliott.”
“And you can call me Gloria,” Gloria added.
“It’s a deal,” Morse said, looking around at the room again. “You know, I think I’m going to like it here.”
Gloria’s face took on a surprised look. “Ooh,” she said. “I’d better call that other guy and tell him not to come now.” She excused herself and hurried to the kitchen phone.
“I’ll see you later,” Elliott said to Gloria as he led David back out to his car.
An hour later Elliott dropped David off in front of his house and waited until he saw Gloria let him back inside before he returned to his office. Matt was sitting behind his desk with a staple puller, removing the last of the staples from the side of his pine board. He looked up when he saw Elliott come in.
Matt dropped another staple into his trash can and then examined the board. “Got ‘em all,” he said. “Gotta keep this thing handy for the next bet that you’ll be losing.” Matt stood the board upright in the closet and returned to his desk. He looked over at Elliott. “So how’d you find a renter that fast?”
Elliott explained David Morse’s original reason for coming to see him.
“And you talked yourself out of a possible case?” Matt said.
“There’ll be more cases,” Elliott explained, “but good renters are a little harder to come by. Either way, I got his money.”
“There is that,” Matt agreed. “But what are we going to do for work now?”
The words had no sooner left Matt’s mouth when the office door opened and an old man in a ragged suit and scuffed shoes stepped in. He had the five-day-old stubble of a typical street person. Matt recognized him as the old man from the corner that he’d given his last two sandwiches to. Matt smiled at the man. “Well, hello again. Are you still hungry? I’m sorry I don’t have any more sandwiches, but I could probably find something for you in the refrigerator.”
The old man nodded. He looked over at Elliott and then back at Matt. “Did I hear you downstairs referring to this man as your father?”
“I guess you did,” Matt replied.
The old man turned toward Elliott and said, “Sir, you should be very proud of your son. While everyone else on the street passed me by without so much as a second glance, your son gave me what I needed most.”
“It was just a couple of sandwiches,” Matt said modestly.
“I’m not referring to the food, son,” the old man said. “What you gave me was renewed faith in my fellow man. I thank you for that.”
“You’re welcome, I guess,” Matt said, somewhat puzzled by now.
“I don’t think you understand,” the old man said. He reached into his pants pocket and produced a wallet. When he opened it, Matt’s mouth almost hit the floor. The wallet was overflowing with large denomination bills. The old man reached in and withdrew seven or eight of the bills and laid them on Matt’s desk. “Here, I want you to have this. You’ve earned it.”
“But…” Matt said.
“What’s going on here?” Elliott said.
Matt shrugged. “Beats me,” he said. “I thought I was just doing a kind deed for someone in need.”
The old man smiled broadly now. He had the most perfect smile Matt had ever seen. All of h
is teeth were shiny and white and they were all there. The smile didn’t match the rest of the craggy face.
“I guess you’d like some sort of explanation,” the old man said, gesturing toward Matt’s client chair. “May I sit down?”
“Please do,” Matt said, gesturing toward the chair.
Elliott rose from his desk and pulled his own client chair closer to Matt’s desk.
The old man began, “First off, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jonathan Taylor Sinclair. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”
“The only Sinclair I’ve ever heard of owns that Sinclair refinery in Long Beach,” Elliott said.
The old man said nothing, but just smiled.
“Is that you?” Elliott said.
Still the old man said nothing but just smiled and nodded.
“But why…?” Matt said.
“Why would I dress and look like this?” Sinclair said. “I suppose that’s what you’re wondering, isn’t it?”
“Uh, yeah,” Matt said. “I mean you bit into that sandwich like you really hadn’t eaten all day.”
“I hadn’t,” Sinclair said. “I wanted to know what it really felt like to be homeless and down on my luck, so I had my secretary go out and find these clothes for me. I stopped shaving five days ago and this morning my driver let me off downtown so I could begin my odyssey.”
“Kind of hard to get the feel of having nothing with a wad like that riding on your hip,” Elliott said. “I mean a real homeless person wouldn’t have such a cushion.”
“That’s true,” Sinclair said, “But I didn’t use any of it until just now.” He gestured toward the pile of bills he’d laid on Matt’s desk.
“So you just wanted to find out what life on the street felt like?” Matt said.
“That and I wanted to see if I could find a few good men still left in this cynical world we live in,” Sinclair said. “And I found several good men, you among them.”
“So now what?” Elliott said. “You going to go back and write a book about your experience on the street?”
“Not exactly,” Sinclair said. “But those men I told you about that I found today. They’re all going to be offered jobs in my company. I’ll see to it that none of them ever has to sleep on the street again.”