“Why do you want to see him?” Sounding defensive.
“I just need to ask him a couple of things,” I said. “No big deal.”
She hesitated. “He’s rewiring a house down on Ward, right near the harbor, around the corner from your place. It’s a huge reno.”
“Got an address?”
She didn’t have the number, but said I wouldn’t be able to miss the place. If the house was being totally remodeled, there’d be a Dumpster out front, and of course, it wasn’t hard to spot Theo’s truck, what with his name being on the side and that set of plastic testicles dangling from the back bumper.
“That it?” Sally asked.
“Yeah, for now.”
“Thing is, I was going to give you a call. Doug went home.”
“What, is he sick?”
“I don’t think it was like that. He didn’t even call the office to tell me. I got a call from KF. He said Doug got a call, he thinks from his wife, and flew out of there like a bat out of hell.”
“No idea what happened?”
“I tried him on his cell and he talked to me for like three seconds. He said, ‘They’re taking my house. And that was it.’ ”
“Shit,” I said. “Okay, look, I’m going to take a ride by there and see what’s going on.”
“Let me know, okay?”
“Sure.”
I kept on 95, going past the Connecticut Post Mall on my left, and got off at Woodmont Road. Five minutes after that, I was pulling up in front of Doug and Betsy Pinder’s place.
The front yard was in total disarray.
It looked as though the Pinders had decided to move, had gathered all their possessions in front of the house in a matter of minutes, and then canceled the moving van.
There was a dresser with drawers hanging out, half-open suitcases with clothes spilling everywhere, pots and pans scattered on the grass, a Rubbermaid cutlery holder sitting on the sidewalk. Three kitchen chairs, a television, DVD player, a scattering of DVD cases. An end table, lamps on their sides. It was as though someone knew they had ten minutes to empty the house before it blew up, and this was what they’d managed to save.
But the house had not blown up. It was still standing. But there was a new lock affixed to the door, and some official-looking notice stapled to it.
Wandering about, in the midst of this wreckage, like people scavenging for mementos in a house that’s just been ravaged by a tornado, were Doug and Betsy Pinder. She was doing more crying than looking, and Doug was just standing there, slumped and pale, appearing to be somewhere between dumbfounded and in shock.
I got out of the truck and walked up the drive, past Doug’s old truck and Betsy’s Infiniti. Whatever authorities had come and brought things to a head this way were long gone.
“Hey,” I said. Betsy, standing by one of the metal and vinyl chairs from their kitchen set, looked at me through teary eyes, then turned away.
Doug glanced up and said, “Oh, Glenny. Sorry, I had to leave the site.”
“What’s happened here, Doug?”
“They locked us out,” he said, his voice breaking. “The sons of bitches locked us out of our own home.”
“And you let them,” Betsy snapped. “You didn’t do a goddamn thing to stop them.”
“What the hell was I supposed to do?” he shouted at her. “Did you want me to shoot them? Was that what you wanted me to do?”
I put my hand on Doug’s arm. “Tell me what happened.”
Now he turned on me. “And no thanks to you,” he said. “I came to you for help and you didn’t give a shit.”
“Whatever kind of trouble you’re in,” I said, keeping my voice low and calm, “I don’t think a week or two of advance pay was going to solve it. You know that and I know that. So what happened?”
“They foreclosed,” he said. “They came in and kicked us out.”
“That kind of thing doesn’t happen overnight,” I said. “You have to be at least, what, three months behind on your mortgage? And they send a letter, and put a note on your door and-”
“You think I didn’t see it coming? Why the hell do you think I was asking you for help?” He shook his head. “I should have made that call about you.”
“All that unopened mail, all those bills,” I said, ignoring his last comment. “Maybe a few of the warnings were in there.”
“What the hell am I going to do?” he said, waving his arms at his belongings. “What the hell are we going to do?”
“Oh great, now you’re thinking about a plan,” Betsy sniped. “Too bad you hadn’t been thinking about something a little sooner, Einstein.”
Doug glared at her. “Yeah, you’re totally blameless. You didn’t have a goddamn thing to do with this. How could you? You were never home. You were at the mall. ”
Betsy’s eyes filled with rage. She pointed her finger at her husband and jabbed into the air repeatedly. “Maybe you should have manned up, taken control of the situation. Who’s supposed to have a handle on things? Huh? Who’s supposed to be some kind of a goddamn provider? You? Don’t make me laugh. When have you ever stepped up to the plate?”
“You know what you do?” he spat. “You don’t just suck the money out of me. You suck the life out of me, that’s what you do. I got nothing left. Nothing. You’ve got it all, babe. You’ve got all I ever had to give.”
“Really? Is that why now I’ve got nothing but shit? Because that’s all you’ve ever given me since-”
Doug moved on her. He had his hands out in front of him. He was going for her neck. Rather than run, Betsy stood, frozen in place, wide-eyed, as Doug bolted forward. He had about ten feet to close between them, which gave me enough time to get my arms around him from behind before he could latch onto Betsy.
“Doug!” I shouted into his ear. “Doug!”
He tried to wrestle away from me. He was a strong, wiry guy, like most people who work in construction. But I was just as fit, and I’d locked my fingers together on his chest, pinning his arms in place. He squirmed around for a second or two, then went docile.
Once Betsy saw that he was under control, she resumed her taunting, that finger jabbing into the air again. “You think this is what I wanted? You think I like standing out on my own goddamn lawn, can’t get into my home? You think-”
“Betsy!” I shouted. “Shut up!”
“And who the hell do you think you-”
“Both of you! Just shut up for a second.”
Betsy lowered the finger as I released my grip on Doug. “Look,” I said, “I get it. You’re upset and want to kill each other. If that’s what you want to do, maybe I should just let you. God knows I got enough other things to deal with. But it’s not going to solve your problem. You need to deal with the situation.”
“Easy for you to say,” Doug said.
I’d had enough. “Listen to me, you dumb son of a bitch. You’ve known this day was coming. You can blame Betsy, or me, or Sally for not bailing you out, but the fact is you and Betsy own this mess.” I turned on Betsy. “Same goes for you. You can either deal with this mess now and try to get your life back together, or you can stand out here screaming at each other. Which is it?”
Betsy had tears in her eyes. “He wouldn’t even open the bills. He just stuffed them in a drawer.”
Doug countered, “What was the point of opening them? It’s not like we could pay them.” To me, he said, “They ripped us off. The banks. They sold us a bill of goods. Said we could get this place for, like, nothing down, then when it came time to renew, they’re all like, Hey, we told you this was going to happen. But they didn’t, Glenny, the bastards didn’t tell us anything like that. Those fucking bankers, they take government bailouts and give themselves fat fucking bonuses and people like us get screwed!”
“Doug,” I said, too tired to say anything else.
He picked up the stack of DVDs and threw them across the yard, flinging them like Frisbees. Then he grabbed a kitchen chair and smashed it several times into the dresser. Betsy and I stood back and let him do it. When he
