Found A Homeless Genius To Save My Company novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Cedar Lane

Loyd's house has new locks and his wife's furniture is going into a truck; Rex buys the piano, and Loyd's heart gives out on the lawn.

Loyd directed me to Cedar Lane without looking at the map.

It was a street of old brick houses with deep porches and bare maples.

His was the white two-story at the end with a green door.

A moving truck sat in front of it with the ramp down.

"That's not right," Loyd said.

Two men in gray coveralls came out the green door carrying a floral sofa between them.

I recognized it before he told me.

"My wife picked that out in 1994," he said. "It took her six weeks."

I parked behind the truck and got out.

Loyd followed more slowly, holding the banker's box against his chest.

He went up the walk to his own front door, took a key from his pocket, and tried it in the lock.

It wouldn't turn.

He tried it three times and then stood there with the key in his hand.

"They changed the locks," I said.

"Tuesday," said a voice behind us. "I told the locksmith to do it Tuesday."

Lorna came around the side of the truck with a clipboard.

She had on the cream blazer and a long gray coat, and her strawberry-blond bun hadn't loosened since the lobby.

"You can't be here," she said. "This property is part of the estate sale."

"This is my house," Loyd said.

"It's a company asset. You pledged it, Dad. Along with everything else."

"Ma'am," I said, "where's he supposed to sleep?"

"I don't know." She said it like a time of day. "He's good at finding places."

Neighbors had come out onto their porches, and a woman in a purple parka stood at the end of the walk.

The movers came back for another load, and I saw what they were carrying next.

A black upright piano, scratched on one leg, with a music stand still folded on top.

Loyd made a noise I won't forget.

"That's hers," he said. "She played it every night, even the night before her first chemo."

"It's appraised at four thousand dollars," Lorna said. "It's going to a dealer."

"How much do you want for it?" I said.

She turned to look at me properly for the first time.

"I'm sorry?"

"The piano. Name it."

"It's not for sale to a stranger."

"Everything on that truck is for sale to somebody." I took out my checkbook. "Twenty thousand."

The movers stopped moving.

"Twenty thousand for a piano worth four."

"Then you're making a profit." I tore the check off and handed it to the nearest man. "Put it on the porch. Don't scratch it."

They set the piano down on the walk and looked at Lorna, who didn't say no.

"You don't know what you're buying," she said quietly.

"I'm not buying it for me."

That was when Grady's black SUV pulled up behind my rental.

He got out, saw the scene, and put his phone away.

"Dad," he said. "I thought we'd agreed you wouldn't come here."

"We didn't agree to anything," Loyd said. "You sent me a letter."

"I sent you a notice."

Grady straightened his cuffs and raised his voice so the whole street could hear.

"Everyone, my father is not well, and the family is dealing with a painful matter."

"He stole eleven million dollars from his own employees."

"Our mother's name is on the company, and he sold her good name to cover it."

A hush fell over the lawn.

The woman in the purple parka took a step back.

"I never took a dime for myself," Loyd said.

His voice was thin.

"Then show us where it went."

"I can't."

"Because you can't." Grady's smile was small and terrible. "Because there's nothing to show."

Loyd opened his mouth.

I saw it happen before it did.

His face went the color of paper.

His hand slid up his jacket to his chest, and the banker's box dropped out of his arms.

The model plane skidded across the walk.

"Loyd."

I got to him as his knees went.

He was heavy and he was falling, and I caught him under the arms and went down with him on the cold concrete.

"Call 911," I said.

Nobody moved.

"Call 911!"

The woman in the purple parka had her phone out and was already dialing.

Lorna stood with the clipboard against her ribs and her mouth open.

Grady looked at his father on the ground and checked his watch.

"He's off the company plan as of Monday," he said. "If you ride with him, you'll want to bring your own card."

I looked up at him.

The ambulance took four minutes.

I rode in the back with Loyd's head against my knee and an oxygen mask over his face.

At the hospital, they wheeled him through a double door and a nurse in blue scrubs stopped me with a clipboard of her own.

"Are you family?"

"Yes," I said.

It was out before I'd thought.

"We need his ID." She handed me a brown leather billfold with a cracked corner.

"There's a card in the front pocket. It looks like an emergency contact."

I took it from her.

It was a small white index card, soft as cloth with age.

The pencil had faded to a silver gray.

The handwriting was a child's, careful and slanted and pressed too hard.

"If you are hurt call Rex Corbett," it said, and under it the number of the Wichita youth shelter where I'd been living.

I had written it myself when I was twelve years old.

He had carried it in his wallet every day since.

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