Frank is a fanatic about paying his taxes.
He calls it “the Capone factor.”
“Al Capone,” Frank once said to Herbie Goldstein, “ran the biggest bootlegging operation in history, bribed cops, judges, and politicians, kidnapped, tortured, and murdered people in broad daylight on the streets of Chicago, and what did he go to jail for? Income tax evasion.”
It’s as true now as it was then, Frank thinks-you can do aboutanything in this country as long as you kick up to the feds. Uncle wants his taste, and as long as he gets it, you can pretty much do what you want as long as you don’t rub it in Uncle’s nose.
Frank is meticulous on both counts.
He pays his taxes and does nothing to draw attention to himself. If The Nickel comes up with a deduction that’s even on the edge, Frank nixes it. The last thing in the world he wants is an audit. And Frank doesn’t even go near the businesses that attract the feds’ attention-garbage, construction, bars, porno. No, he’s just Frank the Bait Guy and his side endeavors are all totally legit. He works his linen supply, his fish, his rental properties.
Renters are a pain, especially in a beach community where people tend to be somewhat transient, anyway. People come to the beach thinking it’s paradise and that they’re going to spend all day beachcombing and all night partying, and they forget that somewhere in all that they still have to make a living.
They always think they can make the rent, and then find that they can’t, so what they do is move in a roommate or five, very often people they met at a bar, who may or may not have the rent money on the first of the month.
Not that Frank doesn’t counsel them-he does. When he’s taking their application, he goes over first month/last month/damage deposit. He gets a credit check, a bank statement, and references, and more than half the time tells them that they just can’t afford to live by the beach.
But the young people didn’t come to Californianot to live by the beach, so they get some roommates and dive into an obligation they can’t handle. The result is that Frank has a lot of turnaround, and turnaround is the bane of rental-property management. It means cleaning costs, repairs, advertising, interviewing, credit checks, and running down references and employment. On the other hand, you do collect the last month’s rent and the damage deposit, because the kids always damage the place, usually as a result of a party.
Frank has the whole enchilada on his plate this afternoon. He has to show an apartment and interview a couple of young ladies who will be either waitresses or strippers, or waitresses who will soon decide that there’s more money in stripping. Then there’s a kitchen upgrade he wants to check in on. Then he has to check on the cleaning of an apartment that’s in transition, and make sure that the carpet cleaners havesteamed the vomit stains left by the previous tenants/party animals out of the carpet.
He shows the two young ladies the apartment. They’re strippers all right, and a nice semi-married lesbian couple, so Frank doesn’t have to worry about their ability to pay the rent or about them having skanky guys from the strip clubs moving in. They want the place and he takes their deposit on the spot. The credit check will be a formality and he’ll give the club a quick call to confirm employment.
Next, he hustles over to the condo to check on the kitchen upgrade, which looks pretty good with the new Sub-Zero refrigerator-freezer and flat-surface stovetop. After that, he takes a walk around the outside to make sure the landscapers and gardeners are keeping the place up, whereupon he notices that the ice plant needs a little trimming.
Then he goes “opportunity shopping,” scouting the neighborhood for rental properties that have good locations but look a little shabby or rundown. Maybe they need a coat of paint, or the lawn has been neglected, or a window screen is torn and hasn’t been fixed. He makes a note of their addresses and will track down their ownership, because maybe the owners might need a manager or a change of managers. Or maybe they’re tired of the work that comes with ownership and might be looking to sell low.
He finds three or four possibilities.
Then he heads over to Ajax Linen Supply, plops down in the old wooden rolling chair behind the Steelcase desk, and reviews the week’s orders. The Marine House order on kitchen towels is down 20 percent, and he makes a note to find out if Ozzie has started selling some of his own towels along with the company’s. But the orders from the rest of the customers are the same or up, so probably it’s something specific to the Marine House, and he makes a note to drop by there and find out what’s what. He makes a quick check of the day’s receipts, then heads down to the docks to the Sciorelli Fish Company offices, where he reviews and compares the price of yellowfin tuna with that of his competitors, and then decides that they can reduce the price by two cents a pound for their prime customers.
“They’re buying at this price,” Sciorelli argues. “They’re happy.”
“I want them tostay happy,” Frank says. “I don’t want them looking around for the better deal. We’llgive them the better deal, keep their eyes from wandering.” He also tells Sciorelli to buy as much of the Mexican shrimp as he can get-the storm is going to keep the shrimp boats in for a week or so and thecamarones will be getting prime price.
Things change and they don’t, he thinks as he gets in the van and heads back toward OB Pier. My daughter is going to be a doctor, but we’re still selling tuna. And there are other things that don’t change, he thinks as he drives to Little Italy, right up the hill from the airport-I’m still fixing things in the old house.
6
The old house is just that-an old house, something that’s getting more and more rare in downtown San Diego, even over here in Little Italy, which used to be a neighborhood of old, well-kept single-family homes but is now giving way to condo buildings, office buildings, trendy little hotels, and parking structures to service the airport.
Frank’s old house is a beautiful two-story Victorian, white with yellow trim. He parks in the narrow driveway, hops out of the van, and finds the right key on his big chain. He has the key in the lock when Patty opens it from the inside, as if she heard the van pulling up, which maybe she did.
“Took you long enough,” she says as she lets him in.
She can still get to me, Frank thinks as he feels a pang of annoyance. And something else, too. Patty is still an attractive woman. She’s gotten a little matronly, maybe, around the hips, but she’s kept herself in good shape, and those brown almond-shaped eyes still have a way of, well, getting to him.
“I’m here now,” he says, kissing her on the cheek. He walks past her into the kitchen, where one half of the deep double sink looks like high tide in a Third World harbor someplace.
“It’s not working,” Patty says, coming in behind him.
“I can see that,” Frank says. He sniffs the air. “Are you making gnocchi?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And did you peel all the potatoes and try to put them down the disposal?” Frank asks as he rolls up his sleeve, plunges his hand into the dirty water, and feels around the drain.
“Potato peels are garbage,” Patty says. “I tried to dispose of the garbage. Isn’t that what a garbage disposal is supposed to do?”
“It’s ‘garbage disposal,’” Frank says. “Not ‘garbage dispose-all.’ I mean, you don’t put tin cans down there, do you? Ordo you?”
“You want some coffee?” she asks. “I’ll make some fresh.”
“Sounds good, thanks.”
He goes to a hallway closet to get his tool chest. They go through this routine every time. She’ll make some fresh, weak coffee in the Krups maker that he bought her and that she refuses to learn how to run properly, and he’ll take a polite sip while he works and then leave the rest in the cup. Frank has discovered that rituals like this are even more important to a peaceful relationship when you’re divorced than when you were actually married.