Jack Ewing
Serves You Right
After six years on the job, you still sweat out the first call. It often sets the tone for the day.
What's behind Door Number One?
Re-check the name and address. Yep, this is the place: a faded bungalow, identical to a dozen others along this block off La Cienega, within earshot of the Santa Monica Freeway. An overgrown banana tree in the front yard. Paint flakes away around Venetian-blinded windows. The screen door is warped, with enough holes in the mesh to admit an army of insects.
Knock with your right hand, keep the left behind your back.
After a moment, the door opens. A tiny gray-haired lady in a faded print dress and orthopedic shoes pushes the screen at you.
"Yes?" She smiles, blinking into bright sunlight.
Keep an eye out for a weapon on her, remembering the hag a couple years back that stuck you with a hatpin. "Leora Swenson?"
"Why, yes, I am." Her smile widens, reveals too-white teeth and too-pink gums.
"This is for you." Bring the folded paper forward and place it in her age-spotted hand.
She adjusts bifocals and reads her own name on the front where it says DEFENDANT. She stares at the fancy lettering, then looks up, her eyebrows coming together.
"What is it?"
"Summons and complaint, Miz Swenson." Check the copy in the breast pocket of your summer-weight suit coat. "Says here you owe the medical center 983 bucks and change. Didn't you hear from Stein & Fleisch, the collection attorneys, about this?"
"Yes, I received some letters." Her eyes fix on the paper in her hand. "But I threw them away."
Jeez, you think, some people are too dumb for words. "Why'd you do that?"
"I thought there must be some mistake. I was sure health insurance covered my operation."
Silently, you wonder what doctors took out or put in. Maybe they removed her brain. Must have--she ignored Stein & Fleisch.
Her wrinkles deepen. "How can this be?" she quavers. The summons wobbles in bony fingers that are all blue veins.
"Don't know anything about it," you say, as instructed. "I just hand out papers. Now, thing to do is call the lawyers. Number's on the back." Show her. "Call within thirty days or they can take you to court to get the dough."
"But I don't have a phone!" Her eyes beg for sympathy.
"Use a neighbor's. Or write the lawyers. But get in touch soon." Force a smile. "Believe me, lady, this is good advice."
She protests she doesn't get around so well. Her husband just died. She doesn't know where she'll get that kind of money. She barely gets by on Social Security. Her voice climbs on the Shrill-O-Meter. Before she starts crying, cut her off. You've heard it all before, hundreds of times, every excuse in the book. Even if you feel a little sorry for some of them, like this old lady, what are you gonna do? Pay their bills?
"Look, talk to the lawyers. They'll set up a payment schedule." Leave her standing there, like something carved out of soap.
Walk back to the car, around the corner. A sleek black sedan, it goes well with your expensive, steel gray suit. Together, they lend an official look that's not out of place in upscale neighborhoods, a look that gives you an edge in the low-rent districts.
Climbing in, you get the air conditioning going and fill out the required turn-in form attached to your copy of the summons. There are spaces to write in name of person served, address, date, time, and a thumbnail description: race, hair and eye color, approximate age, weight and height. This form is intended to check the process server's honesty, to discourage claiming successful service and collecting your fee-- when actually you've gone nowhere near the defendant's house and have trashed his paper to save yourself the bother.
You'd never do such a thing, of course, but you've heard about others in the trade who have cheated. A guy over in Ventura County allegedly got in trouble for putting down a "Chris Smith" he supposedly served as a white male, 40, 5'9", 150. Unfortunately, the real defendant turned out to be a twenty-something female, black, about 6'2" and 300 pounds.
Sign the completed form, swearing it's true, and put it in the glove box.
One down, twenty-nine to go. All arranged in rough geographical order--except for one you purposely put on the bottom--so you can hit each efficiently. But you'll still cover a hundred-fifty miles, easy, driving about a megalopolis crowded with double-digit millions of citizens, all sweltering in the grip of an unusually hot summer. It's going to be a busy day and, at a minimum of $25 per deadbeat, plus fifty cents per mile, a potentially profitable one.
The money's the only reason you stick with it. Wherever you go, you won't be welcome. Customers in their gated estates and penthouses, their suburban boxes, their ghetto shacks will all hate you for bringing bad news. And you'll hate them all right back with equal intensity--regardless of race, creed, color, national origin, or income--for the contempt that shows in their eyes. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. Pity the poor guy in line behind you, who has to repossess cars and couches and TVs.
Your next victim is a squat, pot-bellied, middle-aged white man in a sleeveless gray T-shirt with underarm sweat stains the size of dinner plates. Looks and smells like he was baptized in beer and has been swilling it nonstop ever since.
"Yeah?" he says, giving you the fish-eye from the doorway of his dinky rented walkup in El Segundo, spitting distance from LAX.
"Nyle Slick?" you shout over the roar of a departing plane.
"Yeah. So?" He scratches at three-day stubble and hitches up the crotch of his baggy pants.
"I'm here to give you this." Whip out the paper, stick it in his hand, and step back.
Mr. Slick stares at it stupidly before realizing what it is. He works himself into a huff in a half-minute. Purple-faced and panting curses, he tears the summons into tiny pieces and flings them after you. He slams the door, still airing his four-letter-word collection.
It all rolls off like rain sliding down a Turtle Wax shine. Long as they throw nothing but words and paper, who cares? Once you personally deliver the summons, the lucky recipient can wipe his butt with it, for all the good it will do. You'll still get paid. And the lawyers will still hound him.
Sylvia Maybon, in an apartment off Crenshaw in Inglewood, is a blowsy blonde, made up like a Kewpie doll, with lots of detailing around eyes and mouth. Her frilly robe falls open when she reaches to take the summons, as if she were doing an impromptu audition as a body double. "Oops," she says coyly, tucking back a rosy-tipped breast the size of a California grapefruit. She nibbles a corner of the paper, eyes locked on yours. "Thank you," she breathes, closing the door with both hands. Her robe parts again.