I felt Wyatt needed to finally assert herself--she's still not as clearly defined as I'd like. Here, she steps up and stands up for herself, a new experience for Colton, too.  Money isn't everything, and Wyatt pretty much says so. And demands respect.

Can he keep up with this little firebrand? Well...yes...and no...

We took the Rover to the Chihuahua lady’s house—you remember her from the night of the fire, right? The little yappy one with the curlers in her hair?

She was there standing on her porch. And her hair looked the same as when she’d had her curlers in it. Old ladies crack me up sometimes—I’d seen that before, where they just pulled out the curlers and left the curls in little rows like that.

So she looked like some kind of cartoon character standing there in one of those old 50s looking house dresses with her skinny little arms locked in front of her like she was trying to look all tough. I felt a little sorry for her, actually. She was like a little fist all balled up against the whole world. And that can’t be a fun way to live your life. Though, it probably kept that hard little heart pumping pretty good, I guess.

She had this good looking kid next to her up there waiting, too. Okay, not really a kid. He was older than me, but only maybe in his early 20s. Kind of “former frat boy” looking guy in this “office casual” ensemble he didn’t look all that comfy in, to be honest.

 But he was that “all American boy” cute—that he knew for sure. You know, the ones with all the smarmy charm that some women still can’t see through. Or don’t even try to see through. I mean, they know they’re only one of many, but it’s all good. They get on the “A-list,” being with guys like that because everyone’s hoping he’ll tag along with her.

This one still had that, “Yeah, you know you love me, baby,” smile down pat. Which made me want to slap him, actually. Not the effect he was going for.

But he turned it up a few watts when he saw me and the girls. Stuck out his hand before I was even up the walk way.

“Paul Brooks!” he said when I got there. And he grabbed my hand and pumped my arm up and down like it was a handle or something. But his eyes were glued to the girls. Such a guy, this guy.

So I just said, “Colton James and company,” hoping he’d let go, which he did.

“Oh, I know! I’m a fan! A big fan!” he said. And then he sort of didn’t know where to go after that, so he grinned up at me and said, “Damn, you’re tall, huh?  Wow.”

And the little Chihuahua lady barked, “Well, I guess you’re not going to be much help.”

Which made Paul go all red in the face. He looked like a kicked puppy hoping the girls would still pet him, maybe, despite the fact that he’d just had his balls snatched off right in front of them.

“Well, lovely ladies, this is my grandmother, Johnette Brooks—Johnny, we call her,” he said. “And she’s the owner of the property. Gammy, you’ve met Colton. But this is…these are his…friends…”

I could tell he was struggling to figure out how to define us in a tasteful way. Or if he should even bother. But his “Gammy” wasn’t impressed. She raised her chin, folded her arms and said, “He’s in law school.”

And Paul flushed a little bit and said, “Yeah, she…asked me to tag along. Moral support, mostly.”

I felt the girls get a little tense. They pick up on everything and this definitely didn’t sit well with them.

But I said, “Keepin’ it real, huh?”

“Well, my specialty’s corporate law. But, hey, if you ever need somebody to help you keep it legal—“

“You got no lights,” Johnny cut in, staring at Wyatt this time.

Wyatt frowned and Johnny gave a little “tsk” and said, “Electric! It’s off! Went over there last night’n’ fiddled around, but it wasn’t the fuse box or anything—here!”

She held out a pink envelope from Tucson Electric and everybody standing there and passing by knew what that meant. And the girls’ hackles went up for sure then.

“How you git that?” Aisha asked. “You ain’t supposed to be messin’ around wit other peoples’ mail.”

Johnny glared back at her and said, “It was stickin’ out of the box. She lets it pile up all week—good thing I check sometimes. They steal mail around here.”

Wyatt took the envelope casually and said, “I sent it in a couple of days ago.”

“You let them know you sent it?” Johnny asked her, like Wyatt was a grandchild, too.

“I did. So that they’d give me an extension until my direct deposit cleared.”

“Well, it’s still off!” Brooks said.

Paul said, “Gammy,” and Aisha muttered something under her breath. Cat looked like she was about to say something out loud, but instead she just said, “Let’s…go have a look at what they’ve done so far. Just…us girls…”

I’d pointed out that Wyatt’s place was the next block over where all the construction stuff and police tape was. So they headed off down the block. But Aisha kept looking back at me as if to say, “Give her hell for me.”

“Gammy” looked up at Paul and said, “So, do what I brought you to do!”

Paul sighed and looked at me like he was about so say something he really wished I didn’t have to hear.

“Here’s the thing,” he said. “I guess…well, we should probably talk privately, her and me, actually, if…”

He was sort of waiting for my permission. But Wyatt raised her chin and said, “That’s what I brought him for.”

And Paul gave me another little nervous smile and said, “Well…she’s had a little trouble with—“

“Rent,” Wyatt told me. Me alone—turned her head and her body so it was clear she was only talking to me. Like she was trying to come clean before Johnny gave me the bad news.

But Johnny leapt right on it with, “From day one!”

Wyatt sighed, but continued to speak only to me.

“Yes. That’s correct. When I got my bank account after I moved down from the reservation, it took a while for my funds to be transferred. So when the check for the deposit and first month’s rent bounced, she added a fee for that. And it bounced again, because the initial check didn’t include that fee.”

Johnny pointed to the pink envelope with a bony finger.

“What’s your excuse for that?”

 Wyatt flushed slightly, but turned to Johnny coolly.

 “There is no excuse. But I’ve taken care of it, as I said.”

“Listen, I hear ya’,” Paul said, trying to be all smooth. He could see me fighting to hold back.

So he added, “Tough times. Tough times. But…well, it’s the lease, you know? The three strikes clause, I call it.”

He shook his head like he was all sad about it. Worst actor, ever, this guy.

So I said, “I take it she’s had her three strikes?”

He slid his fingers into his front pockets and shrugged.

“Well…a few more than three, actually. But this thing today…I mean, there coulda been all kinda black mold in there if we hadn’t gotten hold of a generator to run those big fans and all. And that cost us extra. There’s no telling whether the insurance’ll cover that.”

That sounded reasonable. So I folded my arms and settled down a little.

“So it’s pretty messed up in there then,” I said.

“In the living room, yeah. High pressure hoses, you know?” he told me. “Soaked the walls, the floor—her furniture, too. That’s not covered. Through our insurance, I mean.”

“It’s a mess, period,” Johnny said. “And I’ve had enough!”

Paul tried to Jedi mind trick me by sliding in there with a smooth smile and:

“She’s worried that it might not be cared for, you know? I mean, after all this work and…given…the way things were before. You can understand her concerns, right? As a businessman who owns a lot of property here in town.”

I was beginning to figure something out as he said that.

So I said, “Lemme run this by you—correct me if I’m wrong.”

Paul looked like he was scared to death, but I kept going.

“Now that the place is all fixed up, you figure why dink around with her when you could find somebody willing to pay a lot more, right? Am I warm?”

Paul shrugged and cleared his throat, before giving me, “Well, I mean, you gotta cut us a little slack here. It’s been an ongoing thing, as we’ve said. And this time, there’s the added complication that puts everything else you’ve done in jeopardy.”

“It was already in jeopardy!” Johnny said. “Wouldn’a burnt like that if she’d been taking care of the plants and whatnot like the Fire Marshall told her!”

Wyatt fell on her sword without a whimper.

“She’s absolutely right,” she said. “It’s my fault. All of it.”

Johnny puffed all up and went, “Well, there you are! She said it herself!”

I smiled at Paul and said, “Boy, she’s lovin’ this, isn’t she?”

“There’s that smart mouth again!” Johnny barked at me.

And I looked up and saw that the girls had come back within earshot. Like a little flock of hens staying close.

Paul raised his palms to Johnny and said, “Gammy, chillax, okay? You’re not helping.”

And then he looked at me and sighed and shrugged.

“Look, we can go take a look, if you want. I’m totally willing to hear you out on this. Totally!”

“What’s to hear?! It’s simple stuff!” Johnny yelled. “You come out, you turn the little thing, the irrigation comes on! You change the filters, look at the gutters, you check things--who doesn’t notice termite tubes?! Of course, they’re outside and she never goes outside! Except for good lookin’ kids half her age—shoulda sent my grandson over here sooner, huh?”

And Aisha snapped, “Ooooo, this woman gon’ work that last nerve in a minute.”

But Mike got hold of her arm and she managed to calm down a little.

So I looked at Paul and said, “Let’s give the house a look see. Then we’ll talk.”

He was so relieved that he led the parade. And when we got there, Wyatt stopped short and turned to me with this puzzled look on her face as if she thought we’d made a wrong turn.

The contractors we’d referred to Johnny for the job had put a whole new façade on it. Really nice looking brick red adobe. So it looked like one of those swanky restored houses down in the old barrios that all the tourists fall in love with after the Yuppies come in and fix them up. And drive up the prices so high that the descendants of the people who originally built them have to move out.

Yeah, I know, old story, but it still pisses me off.

The selling point from our contractor had been that it couldn’t burn like the old, wanna be wood siding had, if that Cody fool decided to come back and try it again. And the landscaping would be entirely foolproof, too.

There’d be cactus of all kinds, big, spiky yuccas, some Texas Ranger bushes and all this other stuff that didn’t need a lot of watering. And for a touch of color, they’d put in big Bougainvillea bushes—very popular in Tucson because they’re tough little mothers. You see the red clusters of flowers spilling over a lot of people’s fences and front yards.

Paul said, “Incredible, right? I didn’t even recognize it.”

Wyatt just walked on through the new gate once she figured out how to open it. They’d covered the old stone wall around the property with the same adobe stuff. And the cast iron gate was painted green and had these cool iguana looking things on it. The little latch was a bird of some sort, and you pulled him back so that his beak came out of the little circular thing so you could open the gate. I’m not explaining it all that well, but you get the idea.

“It’s too red,” Johnny said. “Looks like them damned…Crayola colored houses down in Mexico!”

“Well, this was Mexico, Gammy,” Paul informed her.

“And it’s about to be Mexico all over again, they don’t fix that damned border somehow!”

I said, “Wow” just because I couldn’t let her get away with that entirely. Paul turned redder than the clay then, too.

“I can’t support you when you say stuff like that,” he told her.

Wyatt was in the garden by then. Touching the red blooms gently. Like they were birds perched up on that bush. I liked that. And I hoped she was warming to the changes.

“And that was the worst idea they had, those gardener people of yours,” Johnny told me. “She’ll never water ‘em!”

It was Mike’s turn to explode then.

“Jeezus Christ, lady!” she cried. “What’s your problem exactly?”

“Who is this now?” Johnny asked.

“Your worst nightmare,” Mike said, raising that chin the way she did when she was good and pissed.

“Well, I’m not talkin’ to you,” Johnny said.

And I just looked down at my feet and let it rip. I figured Johnny had it coming.

And Mike said, “Oh, but you’re going to. ‘Cause I’m not gonna let you talk to her like that anymore, that’s for sure. So if you’ve got any more smart shit to say, say it to me, okay?”

“Listen here!” Johnny said. “I’m just a tired old woman hangin’ on by my fingernails! These damned properties are beginning to cost me more than they bring in now that they’re so old. So I need tenants who’ll pay attention to ‘em! You let one thing go, there’s a dozen more’ll blow up in your face later on!”

“Wait—you’re losing money on them?” Cat asked. Always the one to read between the lines in business matters…

And Johnny said, “Couple of ‘em, yes,” with this almost hopeful little look on her face.

“So how much you want for this one?” Aisha asked suddenly—that telepathy thing on blast between the three of them by then.

But then Wyatt held up her palms and said, “Whoa—wait.” Very firmly.

And when we all looked over at her, she said, “I won’t allow it. You hear me? All of you?”

“You won’t allow it?” Johnny barked.

And Paul finally raised his hand to her and said, “Stop it, wouldja?”

And then he looked at Aisha and said, “Just…say what you wanted to say.”

“Well, Lil Mama dun want me to,” Aisha said.

“No, I do not,” Wyatt said. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I made the mess. So it’s my responsibility. However it turns out.”

I have no idea why, but that gave me chills. In a good way. Like a proud papa, sort of. Watching his baby girl leap out of the nest and soar like an eagle.

Paul and Johnny weren’t too thrilled, though.

He said, “Well, I mean shouldn’t we hear her out first?”

Wyatt raised her chin that time.

“Is that why she brought you along? Hoping we’d take it off her hands?”

 That’s when all the tumblers clicked into place. She’d remembered something Che had said ‘way back when we she reported back to me about talking to Johnny.

So I smiled at Wyatt and said, “So…what do you think?”

“I won’t live in it afterwards.”

“Why?” Mike asked. “We wouldn’t be on your back all the time.”

“I know why,” Aisha said. “But baby, you wouldn’ owe us nothin’. It’d be jus’ the same.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” Wyatt said. “And I was going to look around for something else this summer anyway. If I’m having trouble paying rent now, I’ll never be able to keep up when she raises it based on all the work they’ve done. Especially after…well…”

She didn’t want to let on about DeGrazia closing. I honored that.

And when Aisha revved up to say something--probably about us having a place for her--I glanced over and she backed down right quick.

But Johnny said, “It’s not up to her to decide what I do with it!”

“No, it’s not,” I told her. “But it’s not up to us, either. Paul had it right the first time. It’s between you and her. I’ll do whatever she asks me to do.”

“That’s an awful lot of power to give a woman who can’t even pay her bills on time!”

I glanced over at Wyatt just to check and see if she was going to stand firm.

And she said, “If you want me to leave, I’ll leave. I’d like to stay until summer, if that’s possible. That’s when the lease is up.”

Aisha finally lost it.

“Papi, why she gon’ stan’ there’n’ take all this shit when we got all kinda places she could stay in? We got jobs, too, if she want ‘em.”

“Because she’s a grown ass woman,” I said. Which made the girls laugh. It was something we had all forgotten, a little bit. And would need to honor from now on—me, especially. BIG mental note to self…

But when I looked at Johnny again, she was that deer in the headlights we’re always talking about. Only she looked like she’d already been hit. Right in the gut.

“So…the deal’s off the table, then?” Paul asked, as if he knew he was in big trouble for not finessing this deal better.

But then Wyatt looked at me. And when I smiled, she asked Johnny, “Are you really interested in selling?”

And Paul smiled at me and said, “You are one a smooth operator, man.”

“Talk to the lady,” I said. And to the other ladies, I said, “Let’s go have that look see, shall we?”

 “Lemme just get it straight once and for all,” Paul said. “Sale’s on again, right?”

I smiled at him and said, “Tell you what. You handle your bidness right, you’re on the Vegas guest list.”

I figured he was owed a little sum sum for all the drama he’d been put through. Well, okay, to be honest, I just wanted to see his jaw drop just the way it did as soon as I said it.

He squeaked out, “You gotta be kidding me!”

“Opening night,VIP table, meet’n’greet, after. Good?”

I think dude jizzed his shorts right about then, honest to God. But then my red phone rang.

And the voice on the other end was so rattled by something or other that I didn’t even know who it was at first.