A blond-bearded man around thirty sat at the dining room table with a pretty teenage girl. On the table were textbooks, stacks of paper and pencils. No phone or device.Old-school academics?
They both looked up. He smiled. She didn’t.
Walt Swanson said, “Keep up the studying, Keisha. They’re visiting your dad.”
The young man said, “Maybe we should go back to the family room.”
Keisha bit her lip. Said, “Sure,” and collected the study materials.
“Tutoring,” said the young man, as he passed us. “Not that she needs it much.”
Keisha rolled her eyes. “AP calculus.”
The tutor said, “No worries, you’ll ace it.”
As the two of them walked around the staircase, Swanson pointed left where a heavyset gray-bearded man sat in an electric wheelchair, eyes shut, buds in his ears, iPad in his lap. A café au lait complexion was dotted with freckles. The hands were huge and still, with well-tended nails that glinted.
Listening to something that made his body sway gently.
He wore a starched, blue-striped, button-down shirt, cream silk slacks, and blue velvet bedroom slippers with gold lion’s heads embroidered on the toes.
Swanson said, “That’s his thing. Music. All day.”
Milo motioned Swanson over to the vacated dining room. On a sideboard was a gold-framed photo of Gerald Boykins, a pretty blond woman ten years his junior, and Keisha. From the girl’s age, taken five or so years ago.
Milo said, “The wife still around?”
Swanson said, “They’re married but I don’t see her much. She’s off somewhere now, don’t ask me where. Nice lady when she’s here. I think she was some sort of beauty queen.”
“What’s with the chair?”
“Some kind of stroke deal, half a year ago. Ask me, he’s not that messed up, I’ve seen him walk when he needs to. But his energy’s low so he wheels himself around a lot. Sits around mostly. Like I said, music.”
“Anything else you wanna tell us?”
“Nah, like I said, it’s super-quiet.”
“Why does he need you?”
“They don’t tell me that,” said Swanson. “I’m assuming something in his past. Or maybe he’s just nervous, being Black around here.”
Milo looked over at Gerald Boykins. “You wanna wake him up or should we?”
Swanson smiled. “I vote for you. He’ll probably get pissed off that I let you in but so be it. If they send me to another job so be that, too. If they hassle or can me, I can always go to another agency.”
“Nothing like confidence,” said Milo.
“You bet,” said Swanson. “Got the pension, anything else is gravy. And compared with the real job, this is babysitting bullshit.”
“You mentioned his past.”
“What I was told is he made his money in music, that hip-hop crap. You know the type does that. Maybe he pissed someone off. I don’t know. Or care.”
Anger had crept into his voice. Boredom can only take you so far.
Milo said, “He used to be a Compton Crip.”
Swanson’s eyes widened. “Huh, go know. He’s pretty conservative now. Politically, I mean. Sometimes he says stuff and I can’t find anything I disagree with.”
