Heads You Lose - Lisa Lutz [13]
For as long as Paul could remember, Lacey had been drawn to the elderly. “Because they don’t give a shit,” she explained. That was fortunate, since Mercer’s demographics were heavily skewed toward high school kids, retirees, and a whole lot of not much in between. Her friends from high school were off in San Francisco or New York, working the jobs they got with their college degrees.
“So I’ll take an ounce,” Sook said, getting down to business. “We lost Bernice but gained a nurse.”
“‘Lost her she quit smoking’ or ‘lost her she died’?” Paul asked.
“The latter. She had a good run,” Sook said, doing a little shrug. It was his usual response to a death at Mapleshade, and it was a safe bet that he felt that way about himself. Like most twice-widowed, Korea-vet, natureloving, gun-enthusiast, bilingual, weed-connoisseur great-grandfathers of five, he’d lived a full life.
Sook sold Paul and Lacey’s pot to a few residents, maybe half of the nurses, and at least one administrator. In return, the staff turned a blind eye when he ventured off the paved walking paths and into the woods, which provided plenty of shade despite a conspicuous lack of maples. They were also by far the best place around Mapleshade to be high.
“I gotta run,” said Paul. “I’m due at the Gardens.”
“All right. Thank Lace for the peaches. See you next month.” Then Sook’s face turned serious. “Hey, I hear Doc Holland split town,” he said. “Know why?”
“Nope. Why do you ask?”
“No big reason,” Sook said. “He owed me twenty bucks.”
Sook was a bad liar, but Paul let it go. He’d always thought bad liars were kind of like honest people—you always knew where you stood. Paul wasn’t big on judging people, as long as they didn’t try to take what belonged to him. And if they did, he’d care about getting it back, not about bringing them to justice. All he really wanted, he told himself, was his patch of land and the freedom to do his job. And maybe a bigger TV.
“Just in time for fight night,” said Lito, coming out to meet Paul’s truck.
When Paul shut off the engine, he could hear the Babalato brothers arguing somewhere inside We Care Gardens, the assisted-living facility they owned. Jay and his younger brother Marvello (Big Marv) Babalato had run the place since their mom died a decade back. Things had gotten so bad between them that the complex was now more or less divided into halves—two houses run by Jay and two by Marv. Paul was reminded yet again why Lito did such a thriving business around here: Anyone within earshot of the brothers would have a steady supply of negative energy to deal with. Listening to them, Lito just shook his head and got in the truck. He was Jay’s son, but he never took sides. No one did anymore.
We Care Gardens was just down the street from Mapleshade, and not by coincidence. It was perfectly positioned to receive people fresh off the Mapleshade tour and presentation, which concluded with a frank discussion of what Mapleshade would actually cost. In most cases, the sticker shock was still fresh as they pulled into the parking lot of the humbler, earthier alternative.
The Gardens’ four little houses might have been shambolic (disorderly), but they were surrounded by a well-maintained collection of tropical and native plants. Throughout the compound you could always smell home cooking—the one facet in which We Care towered over Mapleshade. Sook said he could sometimes smell the cooking from his room.
Paul assumed that Lito sold to some of his sisters, who made up most of the nursing staff, and maybe some of the residents, but his main customers were probably through his other job out at the airport, where Lito was the entire maintenance crew.
After some small talk, Lito bought two ounces, his usual.
“Hey, you mind dropping me out at the airport?” he asked. “My sister took my truck.”
“Sure, no problem,