Chapter 5: Cash at the Counter

I didn't sleep much.

I sat at the billing computer and watched the red line on Unit 114.

By law, a declined payment is just a late payment. The tenant gets a grace period and a written notice.

Wilma mailed it in the morning, certified, to Shayla Rhoads at the address on the lease.

"Five days, and it's in default," she said. "Then he has to come and pay. Or she does."

"He can't. His cards are frozen."

"Then we'll see who he sends."

That evening Jubal called about the desk.

"The gouge is out," he said. "But you have to come see it. My daughter says it's rude to finish a job without the customer."

"Is that true?"

"She's seven. Everything she says is true."

His barn sat at the end of a gravel road past Ashland City, red board walls with a tin roof and a porch light on.

Half of it was a workshop. The other half was a kitchen, a long table and a loft where his daughter slept.

It smelled like linseed oil and cornbread.

His daughter met me at the door in a flannel shirt exactly like his, sleeves rolled four times.

"You have to wash your hands," she said. "We have rules."

"So do we. Inventory everything."

She thought about that.

"What's inventory?"

"Writing down everything you own so nobody can say it's theirs."

She looked at her father.

"I want to do that."

"Lord help us," Jubal said.

My father's desk stood under the work lights in the middle of the shop.

The gouge from the night of the move was gone. The walnut glowed.

I put both hands flat on the top.

The wood was warm from the lamps.

I could almost feel him there.

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