Traci Tyne Hilton - Mitzi Neuhaus 02 - Eminent Domain

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  “Get over here Mitzy,” Alonzo huffed.

  She ignored him.

  Alonzo cleared his throat. Like most men, he didn’t shift gears easily. He was in his business box. But women didn’t seem to get into boxes. Everything was always related to everything else all the time. Mitzy at work was not a different person from Mitzy after work.

  “Got a minute?” he said, trying to be more polite.

  Mitzy smiled. Alonzo was angry and it was totally believable because it was real.

  When she got close enough he whispered at her. “You realize the agents are going to collect these boxes as soon as they are full, right?” he asked.

  She responded in a much quieter whisper. “One can hope. Let’s not talk like this. Come to my place for lunch at noon, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay. When do you want these filled?”

  She resumed her normal talking voice, “Not until after the crew is gone. I don’t want to be in anyone’s way. Let’s fill them tonight after dinner.”

  Alonzo nodded at her. Something was going on, but it appeared that he couldn’t know what it was until lunch.

  At Mitzy’s condo she pecked his cheek with a kiss and ushered him back to his truck. They drove up the highway until they were out of town. He pulled over at a Lenny’s Burgers. “I think we can talk here.”

  “Yeah.” There were two truckers, a waitress and a cook. No one looked familiar and no one had caught up with them yet. “Make it quick.”

  “Pods are a pretense. We give the appearance of filling them, but in the dark of night we fill the vans that I scheduled. If it works right the agents will pick up the pods tomorrow at the earliest, but the furniture will already be on its way.”

  “What if they are watching us tonight?” Alonzo asked

  “We fill the pods. Then we leave. The vans will be there at midnight. The guys fill them and send them on their way.”

  “It’s too simple,” Alonzo stated.

  “Yeah. But right now only two cars are following us. We’ll go our separate ways and one car will follow each of us. The stuff will be in the pods, secured. I’m positive they will be thanking us for doing half of their work for them. They’ll see us tuck in for the night and probably go their merry way. No one shows up back at the inn until dawn. It’s been very handy having Carmella and Diego staying at my Baltimore rental.”

  “I guess so. But why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “Because you were so nice and mad I was able to talk all about the plans in a spontaneous and natural way. If we both knew about it we might have looked suspicious.” The door to the Lenny’s burger swung open and two men in nice suits walked in. Mitzy waved at them. “Care to join us?” she asked.

  The men ignored her and sat down at a booth, putting their heads quickly behind their menus.

  “We can’t be a very important case,” Alonzo said. “If this is the best they can do.”

  “I was kind of thinking the same thing. I don’t want to take them anymore seriously than they are taking us.”

  Alonzo and Mitzy finished their greasy lunch and left. They hurried just a bit so that the agents would have the irritation of having to bring their lunches with them in the unmarked black car.

  But they both had a lot of work to do so they drove back to the inn instead of wandering around town.

  Mitzy put a quick call into the Smythes to ask them how the house painting was going. Slowly but surely was the only answer she got. She chose to be happy with it and then went to work labeling furniture “NY” or “LA.”

  The second floor sitting room was used as a staging ground for the furniture. The pieces going to New York for consignment were verifiable antiques with actual patina. Nothing refinished, touched up, recovered or repaired. The star of the New York collection was a secretary with hutch, walnut exterior wood and yellow pine interior. It was high Victorian east coast construction with relatively simple fan carvings at the top and barley twist decoration on the edges. It had been thoroughly searched by Mitzy and Alonzo and then again by the agents. Mitzy had hoped its secondary, hidden drawers held some kind of great secret, but every time it had been gone through it was reconfirmed as completely empty. It was the perfect hiding place, but unused. She stuck the New York label on with a dab of rubber cement.

  The items going to Los Angeles were the ones that were damaged, or painted, or refinished. They were the pieces that looked like great antiques but were knock offs. 100 years old, some of them. But from department stores. Nailed together and showing their age. They were perfect for the movies. There were a few pieces that Mitzy grieved to see go, even though they were imperfect. She wished heartily that Joan, her stager, could have afforded some of them. There was an early 20th century sofa in the set that had been Portland made. It should have been invaluable in the city except that no one wanted it. Mitzy ran her hand down the curved back upholstered in gold velvet. It was a meaningless piece of furniture in Los Angeles but here in Portland it was history.

  Mitzy leaned over, with both hands on the back of the sofa now and gently tipped it so that it rested on its back with its graceful wooden feet parallel to the floor. Before she pinned the note with “LA” in sharpie to the sofa she had to do one thing. She had to remove the small myrtle wood box she had found hidden in the arm.

  It was a long, thin box that slid perfectly inside the wooden frame of the curved arm of the sofa. She slipped it out from its hiding place and into her Birken bag. She had been wondering if the box was made to fit that spot or if it had been a fortuitous coincidence. The agents who searched the furniture had run their hands over the sofa, feeling for anything amiss in the stuffing and they had removed the dust cloth from the bottom so they could search the springs. But they had assumed the back and the arms of the sofa to be so narrow that if something was hidden they would feel it through the velvet.

  Mitzy had decided not to help them find more than they could find on their own. But it was hard not to snicker when they passed over the one item in all of the furniture they may actually have wanted.

  When she had finished with her labeling, Mitzy went back outside. A white Taurus with a city of Portland logo on the side was just driving away. They had left a small stick planted by the mailbox with a sign. Mitzy read it, shook her head, and read it again.

  It was a notice for a town hall meeting in two nights. Subject: Proposal to run a tram line down Baltimore Street. Mitzy ran to the end of her driveway. She looked up and down the street. The only notice posted was the one in the dusky shadows under the cedar tree by the mailbox of the inn. She took a deep breath, ran back to the mailbox and uprooted the sign. She would need to go door to door with it, apparently.

  It was almost quitting time for most jobs and only two neighbors were home. But she let them read the sign and then encouraged them in no uncertain terms that they and their neighbors needed to make it to the meeting so their voices could be heard.

  One of the neighbors smiled condescendingly and told Mitzy she worked nights and couldn’t make it. The other said he was a renter and didn’t care.

  Mitzy replanted the sign at the curb, under a street light, but wasn’t confident that seeing the sign would make anyone care. She was sure she didn’t want a tram line down her quiet, residential Baltimore Street. She was as sure of it as she used to be sure that she didn’t want an inn in the VictorianMansion. She snapped a picture of the sign with her phone and scrolled through her calendar to see when she’d get a chance to show it to Alonzo. She was relieved to see she could catch him at the office in just a few hours.

  “What is this?” Alonzo asked in the office, looking at the picture on Mitzy’s phone.

  “That’s the sign for the neighborhood town hall. About the Baltimore Street Tram,” Mitzy said.

  “You have to go to the meeting. City Council knows you. They trust you.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I hate to take the time. But we need to find out just what the plan is. I say it could be good. Transporta
tion is a good thing.” Alonzo said.

  “So are roads. We want a road in front of our inn, not to mention all of the houses people intend to drive home to at night.” Mitzy said.

  “Yes, we agree. The people on either side of the street need to reach their driveways.” He was texting while he spoke to her, thumbs moving quickly on the numbers of his phone.

  “So how can they if a tram goes down the street?” Mitzy said. “Wouldn’t there need to be two tracks for the train? It would take up more than half of the road. At least one side of the road would need to be condemned, I’d think. But which side? Could they condemn the church? It’s on the historical register. It might have to be our side. Your sister lives there, in my rental house.”

  Alonzo looked up from his phone. “I highly doubt the city council will attempt to condemn half the houses on a street for the sake of a tram that could be put just about anywhere in town to the same purpose. I’m going to the meeting. Relax. Or come yourself.”

  “I have an open house that night.” Mitzy looked at her calendar. Only two important events in one whole week and both on the same night.

  “Send Sabrina.” Alonzo said.

  “I’d like to. But she can’t draw up a contract yet.” Mitzy replied, biting her lip.

  Alonzo lifted his thick eyebrow sarcastically. “Is there much risk of her needing to?”

  Mitzy slammed her calendar shut and stood up. “I’m getting a coffee.” She hoofed it over to Bean me Up Scotty’s and ordered a large, hot, and highly caffeinated beverage. She would sell two houses this week and Alonzo could deal with the tram all by himself.

  Mitzy turned from the coffee cart and bumped into Alonzo. “Sorry,” he said gruffly and wrapped his arm around her slender waist, careful to not spill her coffee. “Just be on call for Sabrina and come with me. There’s no traffic at that time. You could get back to write up a contract before anyone changed their mind.”

  Mitzy sighed and smiled. She loved the feeling of his beefy arm around her. And he was apologizing. She wondered if this was just how he acted when dating, or if he would always be thoughtful.

  “That could work,” she said. But she had already decided to reschedule the open house. She wanted to convince the Smythes to do a little landscaping anyway.

  “I know you’ll sell the house,” he said.

  “Okay. That’s enough. I forgive you. Just don’t say anything else. Nothing is moving and it hasn’t been for two years. But I’ve got a showing later, and I’ll sell that one as well. I’ll sell two homes this week.” Mitzy said, a challenge written on her face.

  “What if you don’t?” Alonzo asked with a smile.

  “If I don’t…I’ll give my share of the inn to Carmella.”

  “You must really hate working with me.” Alonzo said.

  “You won’t take that bet?” Mitzy lifted one eyebrow and gave him a half grin.

  “Not on your life. I’d much rather work with you than my sister. How about if you don’t sell them you…” He had a twinkle in his eye. But he paused, frowned and shook his head. “Did you realize you are the first woman I’ve dated since I became a Christian? I can think of all kinds of things I’d like to bet you, but none that I ought to do.” He stared deeply into her blue eyes, and shook his head. “Never mind the bet. I’d just lose the bet.”

  “Yes. You would,” Mitzy said. Having been a Christian her whole life, she was dying to know what he would have liked to bet. She bet it would have been fun. Maybe he could keep it in mind for the honeymoon. She grinned at him. A man with an imagination could make a good husband.

  They met at the inn again that night for a late night work party. Talk was still about the Tram.

  Mitzy was kneeling on the drop cloth, stirring a 5 gallon bucket of creamy paint with a long stick, her arms splattered with droplets of the bright color. “I can’t stand the idea of the tram,” she said making vicious circles with the stick. “It’s worse even than the idea of a hotel.”

  “But you were wrong about that,” Alonzo said. He stood on a ladder, his paint brush on the end of a long pole, painting the ceiling of the second floor sitting room.

  “I wasn’t wrong about it. The inn will change the atmosphere on Baltimore Street. If the inn is as successful as we hope it will be it will damage the street as much as I anticipated. It will increase the traffic on the street and the noise and eventually other businesses will move in. But I decided to work with you guys instead of against you. I won’t back out now. I’ll stick with ‘Team Hotel’.”

  “There is a difference between a hotel and an inn, Mitzy,” Carmella said. She was not in on the great furniture sneak away planned for the evening, but she had come to paint color samples on the walls so they could make design decisions.

  “Yes,” Mitzy said. “You can make a lot more money with a hotel.”

  Carmella laughed a high, nasal laugh. “But hotels have got no class.” She laughed again but in her natural deep-throated way.

  “We need to ask ourselves, is a tram classy or not? Will a tram increase business or ruin our location?”

  “You think it will ruin our location?” Alonzo said.

  “Of course,” Mitzy replied.

  “I say it could be good potentially. How far will the tram go? What lines does it connect to? Will the tram take guests of downtown entertainment from the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall to the front door of their inn for the night?”

  “Nope,” Mitzy said.

  “Why not?” Carmella asked, one painty hand on her hip, the other paused mid stroke on the wall.

  “Because Baltimore Street is one of the North-South options that will continue the North-South light rail from the mall on one side of town to the mall on the other. Milforth Street would be a better choice because it could have a stop at the community college,” Mitzy said.

  “But the East bound light rail connects with the new tramline. I know it does.”

  “Yes. But no one who needs a place to stay after watching the opera, or the symphony or Dr. Laura’s one woman show wants to get off on godforsaken Burnside and wait for their next train before getting to their room for the night. There are too many other places to stay.”

  “We will be the only inn made from a historical mansion. That’s why I had my eye on this one in the first place,” Carmella said, stroking the paint in gentle loving motions on the wall.

  “She’s right,” Alonzo said.

  “Can I get that in writing?” Carmella said.

  “You are right. We’re a destination. The only historic mansion hotel in town.”

  “Only because the Edgefield is in a suburb on the edge of town with a theatre, golf course and assortment of restaurants,” Mitzy said.

  “They don’t have a tram line connection to downtown,” Alonzo said.

  “Do I have to say Burnside again? Where old men get beat with baseball bats?” Mitzy said.

  “One time,” Carmella said.

  “One time so far. And what about the rest of the young tuff’s and prostitutes? Any plan that includes getting off the light rail on Burnside and waiting for your connection is a bad plan,” Mitzy said. She slapped paint on the wall with heavy thuds, splattering her clothes and face.

  “I’ll say it leaves something to be desired, but I won’t write it off entirely until I know more.”

  “We loaded the pods,” Alonzo said.

  Mitzy lifted an eyebrow. “Great. Did the trucks come by?”

  “Yup. We got the trucks off too.”

  “Mitzy!” Carmella ran breathless into the front hall. “Some guys in suits are wrapping your pods in crime tape.”

  “Crime tape?” Alonzo asked.

  “I asked them what was going on and they said they were sealing the pods to be removed. You gotta go talk with them,” Carmella had still not been let into the plan. Taking the pods, as far as she was concerned, was taking food out the mouth of her family.

  “I’ll go deal with them,” Alonzo said, striding out wit
h authority.

  Mitzy followed and asked, “What did you load the pods with?”

  Alonzo smirked but didn’t reply.

  Outside he stood, feet apart and arms crossed to confront the agents. “You can’t take those.”

  “As a matter of a fact, we can,” Agent Backman replied. “We have a warrant to seize your pods. We got it last night.”

  Alonzo turned his head away from them and hid his grin behind his hand. He caught Mitzy’s eye. She was standing back on the porch watching and stifling her own laughter. “You don’t want those pods,” Alonzo said.

  Agent Backman made no reply beyond an intensification of her glare.

  “The pods company is coming at eleven to remove them,” Agent Ted said.

  “Okay. Whatever,” Alonzo said, shrugging nonchalantly.

  “Spill it,” Backman demanded. “Where is the furniture?”

  Alonzo returned the agents steady eye contact. “You don’t have a warrant to seize the furniture,” he said. “You have a warrant to take the pods.”

  “What is in the pods?” she returned icily, jaw clenched.

  “Vintage porcelain,” Alonzo said.

  “Vintage…” Agent Backman looked back at the pods. “Old toilets?”

  “Yup,” Alonzo said with a snicker.

  “Open it up.” Backman demanded.

  Alonzo approached the portable storage units with a sarcastic air of caution. He rolled the yellow tape carefully as he unsealed the unit. He shook his keys dramatically as he selected the one for the padlock. He opened the pod and stepped back.