Page 16 of Levi

“Upstairs with Mickey,” Tex says. “They’ll be down soon. Mickey’s in a mood because he wanted to help me grill tonight and Benji told him the grill is my department and Mickey is not allowed to ‘freelance with the brisket.’”

“Did Mickey accept that?”

“Mickey argued. Benji won because Mickey loves losing to Benji so much that losing is basically winning for him. They’re up there being engaged and annoying about it.”

I take a sip. Tex leans on the bar and watches me with that look, the one that means he already knows more than I’ve told him.

“Let me guess,” I say. “Benji talked.”

“Benji lives here and he came home this morning with an interesting story. He told Mickey. Mickey told Stormy. Stormy told Sheila. Sheila told me. So yes, by the time you walked through that door, every person in this bar knows that a man trashed your listing and you took him home.”

“That’s not what happened. I temporarily relocated him to my apartment for three hours during a showing.”

“You gave a stranger your apartment key,” Tex says.

“I gave a guy access to an alternate location while I conducted business.”

“Dante. You gave a stranger. Your apartment. Key.” Tex picks up a glass and starts polishing it.

“He didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Why is that your problem?”

“I couldn’t show the house with him sleeping on the couch.”

“You could’ve called me and I’d have sent Sheila straight over. She’d have had him off that couch in thirty seconds. Sheila has removed men the size of quarterbacks from barstools just by giving them the look. If you need a people exterminator, she’s the one to call. No job is too big for Sheila.”

“I handled it.”

“Yes, you sure did. By turning over your apartment to him. Which is not handling a problem. That’s adopting it. What name did you give him?”

“He already has a name. I’m not adopting him.”

Tex sets the glass down, and the smile is gone. Tex smiles for a living, same as I do, so I know what it means when one gets put away.

“Benji told Mickey about how he reacted when you woke him up,” Tex says. “Arms up. Covering his face. Before his eyes were open. That’s not a normal reaction.”

I don’t deny it. “I know.”

“What’s his name?”

“Levi. That’s all he told me. No last name, no explanation. He won’t talk and I didn’t push. His business is not my business.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Tex refills my glass without asking. “Stormy didn’t talk much when I found him. Barely at all. Wouldn’t give me his name. Wouldn’t tell me where he came from. Wouldn’t tell me anything. I fed him, let him sleep in the spare room and didn’t ask questions, because the questions weren’t mine to ask. The answers came when he was ready.”

“This is not the same situation, Tex. At all.”

“No. It’s not. Stormy was soaking wet on the side of a road in a hurricane, and your guy was passed out drunk on a couch in a multi-million-dollar house. Very different real estate.”

“He’s not my guy. Don’t call him that.”

“He’s in your apartment.”

“He was in my apartment. Past tense. I took him back to the house.”

“How’s the house holding up?”

“The HVAC is compromised, the smell is embedded, and the broker from Atlanta wants to bring his client next Saturday. If the house smells like cannabis when she walks in, I lose the sale and probably the relationship.”