The Flip

by Michael Phillip Cash

  “Which Shapiro? Father or son?”

  “I was on the phone with Doug Shapiro all morning. That should be enough for you to realize which one I want.”

  “I…I was working with Dulcie—”

  “Don’t give me your life story!” The line went dead, and Julie took a long look at her boss’s door. She would love to tell him where to put the file, but she got up to retrieve it. Joanne guarded his door like Charon at the gates of hell.

  “Shapiro?” Joanne held out a strong hand, her nails painted a deep power red.

  “The father. How was I supposed to know?”

  “He pays you to know,” Joanne snapped as she snatched the file, and then she went into the inner sanctum of Barry Wilson’s office.

  Dulcie, Joanne’s assistant, looked up sympathetically from her desk. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “You would think. Maybe I should add mind reader to my job description.”

  Dulcie shushed her with a kind smile, her chocolate-brown eyes dancing. Glancing around, she added, “They hear everything here. Be careful. He’s in a bad mood today.” She took out an energy bar and offered it to Julie, who shook her head no. Dulcie’s brown fingers with bright fuchsia nails stripped off the packaging, crumpling the wrapper and shooting it into the basket.

  Julie smiled with approval, clapped quietly, and said, “She scores.” A frown graced her brow. “He’s always in a bad mood. What makes you think today is any different?”

  “Well, it’s worse than usual.” She leaned closer. “It’s his wife,” she whispered. “I think she’s leaving him.”

  “Oops. That makes three. What’s he going to do now?”

  Dulcie got up and walked around the desk, discreetly looking around. “I’d watch out. I heard he likes to fish in his own pond, if you know what I mean.”

  “That’s not true. Number one was his college sweetheart, two was a flight attendant, and three—”

  “Came from accounting.”

  “Why didn’t I know that?” Julie wondered.

  “It was when you met Brad. You weren’t aware of too much. It was hard to have a coherent conversation with you.”

  “Yeah,” Julie replied. “Those were the days.”

  Joanne came out of the office and eyed the two younger girls. “Don’t you have anything better to do?” she demanded. They scattered apart, Julie leaving for her desk.

  Maybe they would make enough on the sale of this house so that she could leave here and devote herself to their flipping business. But, she thought dreamily, she did love the bones of that house.

  Chapter 2

  Brad cleared his throat, his eyes tearing from the smell of a dead rodent. Using his shovel, he scooped it up, but its bodily fluids had glued it to the floor. He gagged, ran up the stairs to escape out the front door, and hunkered down on the steps to deeply breathe in the crisp October air. The house was at the end of a long gravel drive at the top of a hill, overlooking the waters of Long Island Sound. The address read Bedlam Street, but it was actually almost a mile from the road, affording the occupants privacy. It was a big house, with clumsy additions added on through the ages and looking to him like a doughy-faced dowager. Sitting on the first step of the porch, he watched the gray waters of the sound, the autumn shades of the trees surrounding the bay like a bowl. Seagulls screeched, diving to pluck small mollusks from the shallow water and then dropping them on the beach to break apart. They protected their bounty, fighting off interlopers to feast on their seafood snack. His stomach rumbled, but he couldn’t eat. The musty smell of the basement killed any thought of lunch. His eyes were gritty with filth. This was by far the dirtiest flip they had attempted, and he longed to tell Julie to list it on eBay for a dollar more than they had paid for it, but he knew Julie had a bug about this house. She loved it, and he couldn’t understand why. It was old, dilapidated, and a monster of a repair. He’d almost lost his temper this morning when she rapped out fifty things that needed to be done. He didn’t need her to remind him; he knew what had to be done. He didn’t mind walking away from this project. He trotted to his truck, removed his thermos filled with coffee, took a healthy swig, and spit it into the bushes. It cleared the dust from his palate, and he swallowed a satisfying mouthful. His phone broke the peaceful silence. Glancing at the face, he saw that it was Julie, and he swiped it with a dirty finger to answer.

  “What’s up?” he asked, his throat gravelly.

  “You didn’t call me all day,” Julie said, a tone of plaintiveness in her voice.

  “I didn’t know I was expected to report in.”

  Julie sighed. “Brad, what’s wrong? We usually speak a few times a day. Look, day after tomorrow I’ll be there to help.”

  “I don’t even know if I want you to help, Jules. This place is disgusting. I just had to peel a decomposing rat off the floor. I don’t want you in the place.”

  “Honey, we are in this together. Look, it was a great price. If it works out well, we’ll make enough to buy two houses with the profit. Maybe I can quit my job,” she finished in a hopeful whisper.

  Brad was silent. It was a long-held dream. He didn’t like her boss, the sleazy son of a bitch. He never made eye contact with Brad. But the fact was, they got their medical and 401k there, plus her salary would keep them going until they could turn the flipping into a profitable business. Profitable meant that he could stop taking landscaping jobs in the spring and they would make enough to live off the flips. They had even discussed an income property, but they didn’t have enough to tie up their capital in a rental house. Her boss had been instrumental in helping them with their loans. If not for him and the generous terms he negotiated, none of this would have been possible. So far, they had only made enough to pay their bills and move on to the next house. They hadn’t accrued anything. Other than the small house they lived in, they had no real equity. They had a ways to go—especially when his truck died and they had to buy a slightly used pickup. The down payment had put a dent in their savings.

  “This is worse than the Tate house.” Two houses ago, they’d picked up an estate sale. The house hadn’t been touched for many years, and they had to rip out everything. They had made next to nothing, and it was one of their less successful ventures because they weren’t prepared for the extent of the damage. Julie knew he was reminding her of that fiasco.

  “We were rookies then,” she pleaded. “We know what we are doing now. The homes on that hill go for the high nines right now. We bought it for nothing.”

  “That’s because it’s worth nothing. I don’t have time. We only have the container until the end of the week, so I have to finish clearing out the garbage,” he snapped. He said a hasty goodbye and slid his phone into his back pocket. He looked up at the house, the sun’s rays glinting off the multicolored stained glass window. Hands on hips, he considered the building. It was butt ugly. He laughed, shaking his head as he walked up the front steps again to tackle the lower levels of hell, his new name for the basement of the house.

  He went down into the darkness, reaching up to find the string that lit the single lightbulb. He didn’t remember turning it off, he thought, as he stumbled into a pile of trash. His shin connected hard with the corner of a metal box, and Brad cursed loudly and fluently. The light flicked on, and he searched the room, his eyes wide. The hanging bulb swayed as though pushed, and Brad turned where he stood, looking for an intruder. Reaching up, he pulled the cord, extinguishing the light, and touched the hot bulb gingerly. Twisting it gently, he quickly determined it was not loose. He relit it, searching the ceiling to see if the connection to the fixture itself was compromised. It must be dicey wires, he reasoned. After all, the house was really old. He wondered how safe the wiring was, making a mental note to recheck all the connections. The light moved gently, painting peculiar shadows on the walls. The room was dim for sure, but a brightness illuminated the dark corners. Brad watched the pools of light speculatively, the hair on the back of his neck rising as the tensi
on grew. Hearing a footstep, he spun, his hand instinctively reaching for a firearm he no longer carried. His breath came in short gasps, and his eyes darted around the room, until he felt the vacuum of emptiness. Something fell, but he took in the nothingness of the space.

  There was the sound of metal scraping against metal on the other side of the room. Brad walked closer, gingerly putting his ear against the cool wall. Tapping the surface with his knuckle, he heard the emptiness of the other side. It was a secret room, a walled-up space, he thought with astonishment. He laughed uneasily when the old Edgar Allan Poe story popped into his mind—what was it? “The Tell-Tale Heart.” He wondered if he’d find a chained skeleton bolted to the wall. His fingers caressed the surface, looking for an opening. Another thump. Something fell on the hidden side. He banged on the wall, feeling foolish. There was a rumble of sound. Brad shrugged with impatience. Using his shovel as an ax, he hit the wall, breaking plaster, raining dust all over him. With all his might, he hit it again, pulverizing the ancient slat work under the wall to break into a vacant space. Stale air hit him in the face, and he created enough of an opening to slide into the pitch-black area through the rent in the wall. Placing his hands on either side of it, he lowered himself through the opening. The floor of the other side was a good five feet deeper than the basement.

  The flashlight in Brad’s phone illuminated the cave-like quality of the room. He hugged the wall, knowing he was deep in the ground, below the basement. He held up the light, the breath escaping from his lungs. The room was filled with rows and rows of boxes and crates. They were stacked nine feet high, some broken from the weight. The contents of two containers had spilled out; papers and knickknacks littered the dirt floor. He bent, his fingers going through the rubble to pick up a leather box, its binding cracked. He opened it to find an antique sewing kit, complete with colored thread that hadn’t seen the light of day for over 150 years. He shoved at a container lying sideways on the floor, jumping back, his heart racing, when a rat skittered over his booted foot. “Pussy,” he muttered, disgusted with himself. His face heated, and he wondered where all this unease was coming from. He had seen things during his four years overseas that would have broken his late mother’s heart, but had hardly rocked him. He couldn’t understand what unnerved him about this house. Reaching up, he pulled down a box, finding housewares, gloves, all kinds of delicate lacework, tablecloths, dishes, tools—it was a treasure trove of junk, the stuff of everyday life dating back to who knew when.

  He pulled out his phone and dialed the trash people, letting them know they had to pick up the filled Dumpster and replace it, and that he needed a larger one for at least another week. He slid out a credit card and read them the number to pay for the additional equipment. Going through this pile was going to add an extra week he really couldn’t afford. It meant delaying the repairs, which would result in showing the house later. Brad cursed, knowing that with winter around the corner, they might be stuck with this wreck, paying their contractor loan into the spring. It also meant they couldn’t afford to move on to the next house, so he cursed again. He looked at the four walls of the room. He was on the other side of the subbasement. He knocked on the wall, hearing its hollowness. Punching a hole through the plaster, he realized he was on the other side of the outside of the house. It was a secret room deep in the bowels of the house, sealed with plaster to be hidden away for perhaps a hundred years or so. He considered for what reason the room might have been walled off. There was a good chance they might find some valuables. Why else would there be a secret room? Perhaps they’d find some things to sell to compensate for the delays. He coughed, his throat clogging from the odor. Something had died in the room. Brad recognized the smell of decay. Probably a nest of dead rats, he thought grimly.

  Brad eyed the dusty boxes in the corner with distaste, but he knew he had no choice. Pushing them through the narrow opening and then carting them up the rickety staircase, he made a neat pile in the center of the parlor. Cold, damp air seeped in from outside; the salon echoed with emptiness. In the living room, there was a faint musty smell, and a giant rusty watermark stained the carved plaster of the ceiling. It was a huge area, with a scuffed parquet floor, the walls a depressing mahogany paneling. It was so big it probably had doubled as a ballroom. A filthy wooden dado spanned all the walls around the room, empty but for mice droppings. He wondered if these boxes contained all the knickknacks that had decorated it, for which the fussy Victorian era was famous. Flowered wallpaper hung in shreds over the high paneling. Hands on hips, Brad surveyed the exotic wood covering the walls almost to the high ceiling. He walked over to rap on the surface with his knuckle.

  Gerald, observing from the doorway, laughed deeply and said, “Knock, knock.”

  Brad cocked his head, as if he had heard something. “Boo,” he whispered to the empty room. They could get a nice few dollars for all this wood. He knew of a place in Connecticut that could probably sell it on consignment. Getting rid of it would certainly lighten up the room a bit. Victorians weren’t his thing. He preferred the clean lines of midcentury modern, with organic colors. The walls, painted dark gray and with their oppressive gothic woodwork, were overbearing. He and Julie did not see eye to eye on this style. But, now he had a group of boxes to investigate for anything interesting and worth keeping. He pulled over a builder’s paint can to sit on while he sifted through the many boxes.

  Most held clothing from the early twentieth century. He damn near had a heart attack after tearing one box open to find a moth-eaten fur wrap. It had six little rodent heads, with twelve glass eyes caught in a permanent look of surprise. “Ugh.” Gingerly, he picked it up with his index and thumb and threw it onto the growing pile of refuse. “Are you the guys responsible for all the mouse shit in here?” He laughed. The triangular faces stared at him blankly. He stood, scanned the room for an old towel, and threw it over the faces. “Rest in peace, you little suckers.”

  “If he throws away my fox stole, you are going to have to kill him,” Tessa said.

  “Me? Why me? I certainly don’t care. I hated that thing on you. It aged you dreadfully,” Gerald replied, seating himself on a box. “He really is making a mess here.”

  “You never even saw me in it. I got it after—”

  “Oh, Tessa, I saw you in it.”

  Tessa ignored him as she stared at Brad. “Look at his shoulders. I could just—”

  “You could just not,” Gerald corrected. “Not your place. He’s married.”

  “Since when did that matter?” Tessa sniffed. Coughing, she waved her graceful arms before her. “Oh, the dust.” She used to be a tall woman; people had called her robust. To Gerald, she was enchanting, with her masses of red-gold hair and mysterious gray eyes. She had porcelain skin with a hint of roses in her full cheeks. He never tired of staring at her—or at her magnificent bosom.

  “Cut it out, Tessa, you can’t breathe anymore. Stop waving. He doesn’t notice you.”

  “Yet.” Tessa looked at Gerald with a faint moue of distaste. He was still here, even after all these years. When was that man going to understand that she wasn’t interested in him? He was as boring now as he had been back then. Her narrowed eyes compared her companion’s lean form to the vital human stirring up all the dust, as well as her desires, in the parlor. She watched the fabric of Brad’s shirt tighten against the muscles of his taut shoulders. He brushed back his bothersome hair that fell against his damp face, the weak sunlight glinting off the sweat of his burnished forearms. Shivering with need, she licked her lips and exhaled deeply, turning into smoke to envelop Brad.

  Brad stood still, his features frozen. He looked around the room, cocking his head. What was that? Bands tightened around his chest, and for a minute his breathing became labored. He thought he must have pulled a muscle carrying up that last box. Stretching, he stood to spread his arms wide, trying to get air into his lungs, but he found it difficult to breathe. He leaned forward, attempting to relieve the pressure. M
aybe he was having a heart attack. His dad had died of heart disease. Sweat beaded his brow, and his hair slipped out of its ponytail to curtain his wet face.

  “Stop it. You’re choking him.” Gerald swirled around her.

  “But he feels so good,” Tessa purred, relishing the feel of human contact. “A few minutes ago, you were trying to scare him into leaving.”

  “A few minutes ago, he was sweeping up my newspapers. He’s a nuisance, but I don’t want to hurt him.” He watched her spirit glow as she sucked the strength from the young man. Tessa was intrigued, and that was bothersome. This one was almost too handsome, and that could turn into a problem.

  The room dimmed; as his sight narrowed to a pinprick, Brad thought for sure he was going to pass out.

  “He’s swooning.” Strong arms grabbed Tessa, forcing her to let go. She inflated, her eyes glowing red as she reared up in hatred.

  “Leave me alone, Gerald. You never let me have any fun.”

  “You were killing him, darling. I can’t let you hurt them,” he said as she flew up the chimney in a fury. “You don’t want the Sentinels to interfere, do you?” he called after her ominously. His voice echoed back to him. He chuckled, his rakish face smiling. He circled the interloper in a fine gray mist.

  “Handsome is as handsome does,” he said, admitting with a shake of his head that this was a rare specimen of male perfection. Why couldn’t he be fifty and bald? he speculated. This was going to be a problem. Tessa was attracted to this human, and he could see why. Materializing above the mortal, Gerald watched him struggle for air, hating the fact that he knew this man was vital and alive. Gerald was tired of being stuck here in this sort of limbo, waiting for Tessa. He really should just leave, he thought, as he dissolved into yellow smoke to follow Tessa up the chimney.

  The howling wind in the fireplace flue was the first thing Brad noticed as his breathing returned to normal. Doubled over, the crushing weight had disappeared with the same haste as it began. Whatever it was, he was fine now. No more burritos for breakfast, he thought. He was going back to egg whites. Clearing his throat, he shook his head; his pulse slowed to normal, and he decided he was just winded. What else could it be? He rested his hand on the dark wood mantel, feeling a strange vibration in its surface. This was getting too weird, he thought. He had to shake off the feelings of doom and gloom. He had work to do, and it wasn’t going to get done by itself. The longer they took with the flip, the more his wife would get attached to it. The sky was darker, rain was coming on, and he would have liked to finish tomorrow, but knew he had another good hour of work left. Saturday would be easier with the two of them going through the mountains of refuse. Julie would be able to tell whether some of this junk was valuable.