Chapter 8 - Six Families
At Mercer Street, the apartments were far from vacant. A grandmother watered tomato plants beside unit two. Two brothers carried a bicycle upstairs. A young mother in a grocery-store uniform opened her door holding a sleepy child.
"Mr. Vega said our rent wouldn't jump just because the neighborhood got fancy," she told Ricardo. "But yesterday we got this."
She handed him an eviction notice. It bore a property manager's logo Ricardo recognized from the proposed sale. The deadline was ten days away.
Leah photographed the notices. "These may not be enforceable. But they're designed to scare people into leaving before anyone asks questions."
"Some already did," said Mr. Hollis from unit four. "Two families packed up this morning."
Ricardo walked into the workshop, where his father had taught apprentices to turn broken chairs into something sturdy again. He had invested more in new trucks than in this place. He had called it sentimental, an old man's hobby. Now he saw how much depended on those scarred workbenches.
His phone rang. Celeste.
"You embarrassed me in front of the neighbors," she said. "People are talking."
"Good. Maybe they'll talk to investigators too."
"Brendan says your company is nearly insolvent. When the bank finds out what you approved, you'll wish you'd handled this privately."
"I approved nothing."
She laughed softly. "You keep telling yourself that."
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The call ended. A tenant came running from the alley, shouting that someone had cut the water supply to the apartments.
Ricardo followed him and found the main valve chained shut with a new padlock.
