Page 29 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
We found him standing in Cottage 12, one foot propped on a branch of the tree that had fallen in. His attention was homed in on his phone (it was either a satellite phone or just had one of those super-tough, make-believe-military cases), and he was texting—or maybe taking notes.
He was an older guy, probably in his fifties, wearing a navy golf shirt tucked into pressed khakis, and polished loafers over tan socks. He had the kind of round belly some men got at that age, from a few too many beers on the course followed by a few too many cocktails and steaks on the ‘nineteenth hole.’ Micah had worked with a lot of those guys. This one was a little rougher around the edges than the typical executive, though. His grey hair was cut in a severe brush cut, and the back of his neck had the cracked, baked red sheen that indicated a lot more time spent outside than a round of golf every weekend.
This guy was a general contractor, or something like that. Was he one of the people I’d scheduled quotes with, and had simply gotten the date of the appointment wrong?
“Can I help you?” I asked, trying to put just the right spin on the question so he knew I was not pleased but also so if he was here to do a quote—that had to be it, right?—we could still get that work done. Showing up and wandering around on his own would certainly be a strike against him in the decision process, but it didn’t necessarily disqualify him if his quote was reasonable.
Whatever he was doing, it truly had his entire focus. Wyatt and I had come up aging wooden steps onto an aging wooden porch; though we were both wearing sneakers and trying to be quiet, our super-sleuth skills were not so good we’d been silent on creaking wood. Yet my voice startled the guy. He stood straight in a rush and looked over at us with eyes momentarily round.
Then he remembered himself and speedily transformed into the kind of rural, good-ol’-boy businessman I encountered hundreds of times in my years in Arkansas. We lived in Little Rock, but in Arkansas, even the cities have a kind of rural sensibility.
“Well, hello there, little lady,” he said, putting on a Big Daddy grin. He held out a beefy right hand. “I’m Darryl Manfred. I see you had some trouble here.”
I made sure he saw me look at his hand, but I didn’t take it. That ‘little lady’ had sealed the deal on me not doing business with this guy no matter what.
Rather than shake with him, I asked, “What are you doing here? The Sea-Mist is closed. Also, it’s my private property.”
My refusal of his handshake put a serious dent in that Big Daddy smirk, but my last words recovered it a little. I didn’t understand why—at least not until he spoke again.
“See, that’s the thing. I was just about to ink a deal with the lady who owned this place before—your mother, I think that was.” He paused, expecting me to confirm his assumption. When I didn’t speak or otherwise indicate he was right, he went on, unperturbed. “Then she passed, and Mayor Holt started looking for you. But you let it sit and rot. Past coupl’a months, I’ve been in talks to buy this derelict property from the town. But here you are, right before we’re ready to put our deal in ink. Ain’t that convenient.”
Not even a nominal attempt to open with an offer to buy the place. He went straight to implying—almost outright saying—that he had a right to this place. He’d taken one look at me and decided I wasn’t worth any effort of persuasion. Straight to antagonism.
This guy wasn’t armed, but he was threatening. Not a physical threat, though; I didn’t see him trying to beat us up. Honestly, despite my suspicions that he would try to bully me, despite my wary sense of threat, I couldn’t see how he couldreallybe any kind of a danger. I had legally inherited the property. Also, the mayor had never made any suggestion to me about wanting to take it over if I wasn’t coming back, so this was the first I was hearing of a deal in the works to buy it—if he was even telling the truth. I didn’t see how he could hurt us.
Even so, menace came off the guy in waves. A whole bunch of gasbag posturing.
My kid was standing just behind me, and we were both holding metal sticks like weapons. All I wanted was for this intruder to get the fuck off our property; I wasn’t about to get into a debate with him about whether he was ... what? Entitled to buy a property that I didn’t want (was pretty sure I didn’t want) to sell? Uh, no. I’d have wanted him gone even if I’d had aFor Salesticker plastered across the sign on the highway.
“You need to get off my property right now, or I will call the sheriff.”
That nasty grin broke wide. “Cam Durbin? You go right ahead and give him a call. While you’re on the phone, you mind lettin’ him know I might be late for our tee time Saturday?”
“Get the fuck out of here, mister,” Wyatt growled at my shoulder.
Darryl Fuckface Manfred tilted his head with malignant curiosity. “Got your little boy thinkin’ he can protect you, hmm?” Shifting his eyes to Wyatt, he said, “You got a few more years, son, before you’ll scare more than a bunny in the yard.”
I pulled out my phone and saw I had three bars, so I keyed in 911 and put my finger on the green button. “You can tell the sheriff about your tee time when he gets here.”
Manfred put his hands up in anokay, okay, chill outgesture. “I guess I came on a little strong. I’m prepared to make you a real reasonable offer—same offer I made your mama, and now, with all this damage here, that offer is even better for you than it was for her. But I see you’re busy now, so I tell you what. I’ll get outta your hair, and we’ll talk again real soon.” He slid two fingers into the chest pocket of his shirt and pulled out a business card. It was grey and had a sheen to it, as if it were made of metal. Then he came toward us. “Here’s my contact info. You give me a call and we’ll talk about that offer.”
He held the card out to me, but I didn’t take it. I stood where I was, still wielding the softball bat, and stared at him. “Get. Out. Now.”
With a long, deep breath that was clearly meant to show me how close I was to making him erupt, he dropped the card at my feet. It hit the floor with a faintclang—it was, in fact, made of metal.
Wyatt and I stepped clear of the door, and Darryl Manfred strolled out of Cottage 12. We followed his ambling progressall the way through the property, to the parking lot. We stood before our cabin and watched him get into his Lexus, back out of the space, and finally drive away.
His business card was still on the floor of 12.
WYATT AND I WERE BOTHa little subdued after that strange and upsetting scene. We went into our cabin, and Wyatt wandered off to his bedroom.
I was far too amped after that confrontation to be still, so I took up a project in the living room—to clean and polish the walls. It’s a real log cabin, so the walls of most of the rooms look like the other side of the logs. They actually aren’t, there’s insulation and plaster lath between the actual logs and the inside of the cabin, so it’s just paneling, but that paneling is made out of actual half logs. We don’t paint them, we clean and polish like you would any good wood furniture. Anything we hang on the walls, we use wires and only screw into the joins between the logs.
Anyway, among the many things that needed work in that cabin, all the walls had so much dust it had adhered to the wood, so I meant to go room by room and get them gleaming again, and on that afternoon, I had a bolus of nervous energy to work off.
I was standing on the ladder, one foot on the wall so I could stretch to reach the top log, when Wyatt came into the room. He came over right away and grabbed the ladder as if it had been shaking beneath me. Maybe it had been, a little.
“You should’ve asked for help,” he said, “I was just organizing my comics.”
