We went in. No secretary. No lobby. The room was about the size of the men’s restroom at the YMCA and it was mostly taken up with desk and chairs and file cabinets and a word processor. On the wall were framed degrees and certificates that vouched for Florida Grange’s professional abilities.
Florida Grange was sitting behind her desk. She smiled when we came in and stood up and extended her hand, first to Leonard, then to me. When I shook it, the two large silver bracelets on her wrist rattled together.
She was wearing a short snow-white dress that made her chocolate skin and long kinky black hair radiant. I figured her for thirty years old, maybe thirty-five at the outside. Sweet chocolate in a smooth white wrapper.
I felt a bit self-conscious being there with her, wearing the clothes I’d slept in. I had brushed my teeth with some of Uncle Chester’s toothpaste and my forefinger.
We took seats and Florida Grange sat back behind the desk and picked up a folder and said, “This is simple and won’t take long. But it is a private matter, Mr. Pine.”
She smiled at me when she said that, just to make sure I didn’t break out crying.
“Me and Hap ain’t that private. Nothing you got to say he can’t hear. You already said I get the house and some money. There anything else?”
“It’s a matter of how much… You’re right, Mr. Pine. I’m being melodramatic.”
“Leonard. I don’t like to be called Mr. Pine. Call him Hap.”
“Very well, Leonard. It’s not a complicated will, so I’m going to forgo all the formality, if you don’t mind?”
“I don’t know,” Leonard said. “I live for formality. I don’t get some of it, I might get depressed.”
She smiled at him. I wished she’d smile at me that way. “He left you the house and some money. One hundred thousand dollars.”
Maybe that’s why she didn’t smile at me the same way. I didn’t have one hundred thousand dollars.
“Where in hell did he get money like that?” Leonard said. “He was a security guard when he was working.”
She shrugged. “If he’d been saving a while, that’s not that unusual. Perhaps he had some bonds come due. Whatever, you inherited that much money. I’ll arrange for you to receive it. One last thing, he left you this envelope and its contents.”
She opened her desk drawer and removed a thick manila envelope. She handed it to Leonard. He opened it and peeked inside. He gave it to me. I peeked inside. There were a lot of newspaper clippings in there. I saw that one was a coupon for a dollar off a pizza. Good. We liked pizza.
I shook the envelope. Something heavy moved inside. I held the envelope so that whatever it was slid out through the clippings and into my palm.
It was a key. I gave it to Leonard.
“Looks like a safety-deposit box,” he said.
“My thoughts exactly,” I said.
“Goddamn, Doc!” came a clear voice through the wall.
Florida Grange, Attorney at Law, looked embarrassed, said, “I don’t think he’s a very good dentist. People yell a lot.”
“That’s all right,” Leonard said. “We don’t plan to use him.”
“I keep planning to move,” she said.
Leonard said, “Which was Uncle Chester’s bank, you know?”
“Certainly. LaBorde, Main and North.”
Leonard nodded, put the key back in the envelope. “You said you didn’t know him, but you’re his lawyer. You talked to him. You must have got some kind of impression.”
“I met him about a month ago,” she said. “He came to me and wanted me to handle his affairs.”
“Did he seem sick?” Leonard asked.
“He seemed stressed. Like he was having some troubles. He thought he had Alzheimer’s. He said that much.”
“And did he?”
“I don’t know. But he thought he did. He wanted to square things up in case his mind was going or his time was up. That’s the way he expressed it.”
“What I’m really asking is, did he say anything about me, other than what I inherited?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right,” Leonard said, but I could tell it wasn’t all right.
“I guess you know this, he shot a number of people a few months back. Or so the story goes.”
“What?”
“I don’t mean he killed anyone. I heard about it through the grapevine. I’m originally from that part of town. Where your uncle lived. My mama still lives there. Seems your uncle had some trouble with the people next door. Supposed to be a crack house.”
“It is,” Leonard said.
“Someone over there was playing around, shot some bottles off a post in his yard. I suppose they were talking about a bottle tree.”
“They were,” Leonard said.
“Your uncle was on his porch when it happened and a shot almost hit him he said, so he got his shotgun and went over there and shot some men on the porch. He had rat shot in the gun. Way it worked out, the police showed up and he got hauled in and the men went to the hospital to get the shot picked out. Your uncle was let go, and far as I know, it wasn’t even in the papers.”
“Happened in nigger town is why,” Leonard said. “Bunch of niggers popping one another isn’t news to the peckerwoods. They expect it.”
“I suppose,” Florida Grange said. “Anyway, that’s something I can tell you about him, but that’s about all.”
I could tell Leonard was secretly pleased. It fit his memory of his Uncle Chester. Strong and upright, didn’t take shit from anyone.
Grange had him fill out some papers and gave him some to take with him. By the time they were finished, the dentist drill had begun to whine.
“I’m sorry,” Florida Grange said. “Let’s go out in the hall.”
We went. Leonard said, “I guess I don’t really have anything else to ask, Miss Grange. Sorry I pulled you out here.”
“I’m tired of the drill anyway,” she said. “And if you’re going by Leonard, call me Florida.”
“OK, Florida. Thanks.”
“You have any other questions, give me a call,” she said.
“Is it OK I ask a question?” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Anyone significant in your life right now?”
“Not really.”
“Any possibility of me taking you to dinner?”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Collins.”
“I clean up pretty good.”
“I’m sure you do, but I think not. Thanks for asking.”
On the way down in the elevator, Leonard said, “Hap Collins, Lady Killer.”
6.
In the car, while Leonard drove, I looked through the contents of the envelope.
“Anything there mean anything?” Leonard asked.
“Got a bunch of pizza coupons. Some for Burger King. And you get real hungry, we can buy one dinner, get one free at Lupe’s Mexican Restaurant.”
“That’s it? Coupons?”
“Yep.”
“Christ, he must have been losing it.”
“I don’t know. Coupons save lots of money. I use them. I figured up once I’d saved enough on what I’d normally have spent on stuff to buy a used television set.”
“Color?”
“Black and white. But I bought some Diet Pepsi and pork skins instead.”
“Coupons seem a strange thing for Uncle Chester to give to a lawyer to hold for me. He could have left that stuff on the kitchen table.”
“Maybe he wasn’t thinking correctly. Coupons could have taken on valuable import. And the key was with them.”
“Goes to a bank safety-deposit box, I figure.”
“You said that, Sherlock.”
“We’ll check it out right now.”
“Leonard?”
“Yeah.”
“These coupons, I just noticed, they’re a couple years expired.”
Inside the LaBorde Main-and-North First National Bank, I took a chair and Leonard spoke to a clerk. The clerk sent him to a gray-haired lady at a desk. Leonard leaned on his cane and showed her the key and some of the papers Florida Grange had given him. The lady nodded, gave him back the key, got up, and walked him to a barred doorway. A guard inside the bars was signaled. He opened the door and Leonard went inside and the guard locked it behind him. A few moments later, Leonard was let out carrying a large manila envelope and a larger parcel wrapped in brown paper and twine.