A little action, a little diamond

Chapter 8

I unlocked the door to the little office above the Starbucks at 5:45. The street was bustling with early diners, families with Soccer League kids in tow after practice going out for a pizza and Cokes, and office workers getting out of the small office buildings along Sanville Road, picking up a couple of items before heading home.  The fall air was sweet, and the evening would be light for at least another hour, inviting the town residents to enjoy the last of Indian Summer in Northern California.  Even in this economy there was still money for a latte, or some specialty cheese to go with the evening cocktail.

 Loan Brokerage was neatly lettered in gold on black on a brass plate next to the outside door.  Nothing said “Lisa” on it.  I didn’t usually use this office for sharking clients, and definitely not local ones.  The last thing I needed was an indiscreet comment at a PTA meeting.  Anything local, I met them at my Lisa’s Loans office in Fremont.  Less classy, less convenient, but a whole lot safer.  I was taking a risk here, but I thought it would be okay.  Besides, I hadn’t had a prospect in a while. 

A an intercom with a buzzer button next to the sign allowed me to let my clients in upon arrival while keeping the street level door locked.  Granted there was almost no crime in Sanville, but given my work, it never hurt to be careful.  Up a flight of stairs, my clients would meet the glass door to the actual office.  Again, in discreet lettering, my “loan brokerage” announced itself.  It was, I had to admit, a somewhat unusual form of loan brokerage, but when you came right down to it, how different was it? 

In fact, I have a real estate license, and can act as a main-stream loan broker, arranging conventional mortgages for clients looking to buy or refinance their homes.  Five years ago, before the bubble burst, that kind of work was so prevalent that even I did some bona-fide brokering. 

We all know what really happened.  The bubble burst, and suddenly, the housing values lost steam like a balloon losing air.  No one could refinance, no one could sell, and foreclosures became rampant. 

With all those loan failures, of course, there were no longer any conventional loans to be brokered.  But in the “unconventional” loan market, also known as hard-money lending, we, ahem, loan sharks were suddenly very, very much in demand.  It pays to be counter-cyclical, I always say. 

John knew nothing of my extra-curricular lending, which is surprising when you realize that he knows more about economics than most professionals.  As the economy slowly turned sour, he was grateful that I still had the occasional loan to broker, and he was relieved that while his practice had slowed, mine was still vibrant and healthy.  With two kids in college, that was a major relief.

I was early to the meeting with Catherine.  I am always early to meetings in my office.  It is unprofessional to arrive, panting, at the last moment, as if the intended client is the only one you have.  In my business, appearance of propriety is vital.

I had changed out of the clothing I had worn to Mike’s casino.  For one thing, when I go to collect, I always wear athletic shoes and clothing that will stretch and let me move easily.  One never knows if one will be required to perform some athletic feat in the course of collection, just as I had done today.  I regretted the snapping of Mike’s arm.  I hoped that it could be set without surgery.

I was now wearing grey slacks, a white silk blouse, and pearl earrings.  Though my pumps were elegantly slim, they were still rubber soled.  I didn’t want to hobble myself unnecessarily.  I had pinned my auburn hair into a loose bun.  I wore blush and mascara, and a little foundation to ease the years away. 

When the buzzer sounded I verified that it was Catherine and buzzed her through.  I tried to imagine what she would look like, based on her voice and her urgency.  When the door opened, I congratulated myself.  I had hit most of the details.  I stood up to shake her hand, and to measure her height with my own.  She was tall, maybe five eight, and blonde.  I knew she would be blonde, and her hair was in what I call the Sanville bob:  straight, curling in just below her chin, no bangs.  Her eyes were green, though, not blue, and she was younger than I had guessed.  She was probably in her very early thirties, if that.  Maybe late twenties.  And she had a stunning figure.

At her height, she could carry weight I would never have attempted, but where I was lean and wiry, she was curvy and feminine.  There was not an ounce of misplaced fat on her body, but where the good Lord had deemed us to be round, she was global.  And it looked natural, as round above as below.  She wore a shirt-waist in light blue, with pink trim, and beige sandals, perfect Sanville wear, but on her the effect was of a goddess in suburbia.  Fortunately for my self-esteem, her hand was ice-cold and wet.

“Catherine, Lisa,” I said, my voice a little harder than I intended.

Catherine sat at the edge of the chair, fingering her Prada handbag.  I would consider taking that for collateral.  I pulled out a client-intake sheet.  “Do you want to fill this out, or give me the information?” I asked.  She raised her eyebrows slightly, not realizing how much easier it is to lie when you have control of the pen.  I handed her the sheet and my pen.  She bent to the work. 

At the usual spot she paused, and looked back at me.  “Reason for loan” was a critical juncture in the application.  Unlike mainstream lenders, I lent my own money, and I lent it to people who had screwed up somehow, and couldn’t go anywhere else.  Yes, I had them over a barrel, but they could change the balance of power more easily than they realized.  I was like a bail bondsman in a sense, trusting the untrustworthy, and taking measures to make my trust justified.  And that involved invading their privacy, more than just a little. 

“Why do you want the loan?” I said clearly.

She nibbled the end of the pen.  She was unbelievably beautiful.  “To pay a debt,” she finally said, very softly. 

“To whom?”  I was relentless.  Grammatical, but tough.

“Why do you need to know?” she asked, showing a little backbone.

“Look at it this way, Catherine.  I am about to put in process a loan that will hand you a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on Tuesday.  I’ve never met you before, we aren’t going to go to a title company, or put a deed of trust on your house, and I’m not going to get paid back for six weeks.  I need to trust you, and to trust you I’ve got to know a little about you.  So, how about you answer my questions, be reasonably honest with me, and if you check out, you’ll get your money.  And if you don’t, you won’t.  I couldn’t care less about your private life.  Do you think that people come to me to borrow for reasons they could publish in their alumni magazine?”

Catherine shook her head.  I could see the tough love getting through to her.  But she still had her pride.  I had to break her of that.  Loan sharking is a brutal business.  Look at Mike.

“Fine,” she whispered.  “I need the money for a gambling debt.”

My eyebrows shot up.  I’d guessed wrong again.  I had figured cocaine, or a lover, or blackmail, but not gambling.  “Mesa Casino type gambling?”

It was her turn to look surprised. “Oh, no.  Mesa makes you post your money first, then you can gamble.  You can’t gamble more than you’ve got on file.”  So she was an habituée.  “This is a lot worse.”

“Tell me.”  At this point, I was just curious. 

“I’m embarrassed.”

“Of course you are.  Everyone who sits in that chair is embarrassed.  If they aren’t, they don’t get their loan.  I mean, if someone is desperate enough to come to me, they had better not be crowing about it.”

I don’t know what made me open up to her like that, but she seemed to appreciate it.  “It’s ugly, but here goes. 

“Obviously, I’ve been to Mesa, and to Coblentz, and to Caipa Tribe Casinos, since I know how they work.  But I wasn’t always a compulsive gambler.  I used to love to go up to Tahoe, play the slots, play twenty-one, craps, but I was always under control, just doing it for fun.  My girlfriends and I would go up a couple of times a year, have a few lemon-drops, play some games, and fool around with guys.  That’s how I met my husband.

“Mickey was a security specialist.  I mean, he is a security specialist, but he was a specialist at one of the biggies up there.”  She mentioned a name that was nationally synonymous with high stakes gambling.  “He’s a brain, not a body.  You know, someone in security whose job it was to set up, or implement a security plan, not a goon that stood guard.

“I was up there, three and a half years ago, on one of the trips with my gals, and we were a little loaded.  After we’d spent our cash, I wanted to keep playing.  I went to the booth, and offered my credit card.  That’s usually plenty, and I had lots of room on it.  They took it, but when they came back, it was with a couple of goons in suits.  They said my card was stolen, and they told me to follow them into a back room. 

“I was scared.  My friends were still in the bar, waiting for me, and I had drunk a fair amount, but I wasn’t completely wasted.  I knew that I didn’t have a stolen card, and I was afraid to follow them.  I told them I was going to tell my friends what was going on, and come right back.  They were having none of it.  Next thing I knew I was surrounded by three of these huge goons, and they were talking really softly to me.  If I didn’t want to make a scene, I would follow them quietly.  They were sure this could all be worked out privately.  I was terrified, but didn’t know what else to do.

“So I went with them, and next thing I knew I was in a little room with two of these creeps, and they were leering at me.  One kept licking his lips, and repeating ‘juicy, juicy’ over and over.  The other guy thought it was pretty funny, but he was obviously in charge.  The net of it was that they were going to run a charge for instant cash on my account, and if it came up paid, they’d give me the card back.  If it didn’t, they were calling the cops.

“Now I knew that the card wasn’t stolen, so I said, go ahead.  Run it.  The saner of the two gave me a form to sign, and I did.  He ran the charge, it okayed a thousand dollars, and they took it to the cage.  He came back with the grand, and I thought he would give it to me.  Instead, he cut my card up in front of me, and told me to get out of the casino within five minutes, or I would be arrested for scamming them.  And if I tried to cancel the charge, they had the form I’d signed, saying I had received a thousand dollars cash.  I was screwed.

“The lip-licker opened the door for me to leave, but he said, before I left I had to give him a kiss.  I told him to go to hell, and he shut the door again.  Finally, I gave in, and with my teeth clenched, I let him kiss me.  As he did he pinched my ass so hard it left a bruise, but I didn’t care, I was so eager to get out of there. 

“Imagine how surprised I was when my way was blocked by another suit.  This one, though, said something like, ‘Thanks.  We’ll take it from there.’  It was Mickey.  And he had recorded the whole thing.  It was a sting, and they caught the two jerks red-handed.  Apparently, the cashier at the cage had been told to watch for a tall blonde who would say exactly what I said, and let the sting begin. 

“Mickey explained the whole thing, and when the gal who was supposed to run the sting showed up, we all had a good laugh.  Mickey and I got married six months later.”

I was mesmerized.  “Wow.  That’s quite a tale.  But it doesn’t answer my question.”  There was a lot more substance to this Sanville honey than I had thought, though.

“Yeah, sorry, I got sidetracked.  I haven’t been able to tell this story to anyone, except Mickey of course, since I moved here.  Not exactly the most understanding of communities.”

I shook my head in agreement.  John and I had raised our two kids here, for better or for worse, but the pressure to conform, to achieve, and to never let the world see the cracks in your armor was intense in this upscale suburb.  Not a happy place for someone with a past.

“Mickey’s work takes him to casinos all over the world.  He doesn’t want me to gamble, he says it’s all a sucker’s bet.  But everywhere he goes, it’s a casino.  We’ve agreed on some limits, and I’ve been gambling at the best. 

“But when the bug finally bites, it bites deep.  I won a lot, and I loved having the money that my dull job at the college had never given me.  Mickey makes an incredible living, but I always feel like it’s his money.  So, once we moved here, and we started trying to start a family, I didn’t travel so much with him anymore.  I got lonely, I got bored.  I didn’t know anyone, and I don’t work at my job at the college anymore since we had been doing all that traveling, and besides, Mickey makes enough that I don’t really have to work, but I liked having my own money.  So I started to go to card parlors.  I couldn’t tell Mickey, of course.  And one thing led to another.  And now, I’m in the hole for a hundred thousand dollars, and if I don’t pay up by Tuesday…”

She trailed off.  But that was the question that I was asking.  “If you don’t pay up by Tuesday, who will do what?”

“Pappalou will tell Mickey.”

Pappalou.  The most disreputable gambling host in Northern California.  She must be deeply addicted.  “And if he tells your Mickey, what will Mickey do?”

There were tears in her eyes.  “I don’t know, divorce me, something.”

“There has to be more than that.”

She stared past me, out the window, to the greening hills beyond Sanville.  “I need to have a baby.  I need to have a baby, and if Mickey leaves me, I won’t.  He can’t find out.  He can’t.  Please, please, Lisa.  Let me show you the diamond.  Please lend me that money!  Please!”

“How are you going to pay it back to me?  With more gambling?”

She turned her beautiful green eyes on me.  “No.  I will have the money.  I am guaranteed at least that much, but it will not come for six weeks.  I am certain of it.  And if not, there is the diamond.”

I sighed.  “Okay.  Let’s see the rock.”