AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How do you know the morning is going to get worse?” I asked.
“Herbert called.”
I shut my eyes.
“It gets worse,” Bethany whispered.
“How?”
“He’s showing up today.”
“What?”
“He called an hour ago, Anna. To show up in an hour.”
Bethany cringed.
I heard the door open behind me.
I looked over my shoulder and watched as the asshole who called himself the landlord of the building entered my practice.
Without so much as a hello he walked over to the coffee machine and made himself a coffee.
“You know that’s generally for paying clients,” I said.
Herbert turned around and blew into the cup.
His narrow eyes and thick eyebrows made him look menacing.
His thinning hair caked with greasy hair product, slicked back like some mob guy.
Gray fuzz on his face that he considered to be facial hair.
Perfectly white, square teeth.
Faker than the tits on the stripper that got Steven hard last night.
“Generally when someone sees the person who lets them have a place to stay they say hello and thank you,” Herbert said.
“I pay my rent on time. No thanks needed, Herbert. What can I help you with?”
“Looking at market values again,” he said, clicking his tongue.
“You can’t raise my rent right now. We’re in a lease.”
“You’re in a lease,” he said. “I have a piece of paper with your signature on it. I can do whatever I want. Just a reminder.”
“So you called Bethany to tell her you were stopping by just to say this to me?”
“I like to keep people on their toes. So they don’t get too comfortable. This is my building.” Herbert sipped the coffee and then pointed to a wall. “Didn’t I tell you not to hang things up on the walls?”
“No. You said if I put nail holes in the walls, I needed to patch them up.”
“Well?”
“Well… I’m not planning on leaving here,” I said.
“We’ll see about that,” Herbert said. “Place might work better with something to offer. Get more foot traffic, you know? I’m thinking about redoing the entire building. Retail.”
