Devil You Know Read online

  “Hey!”

  Mike Chastain, the King Jock, their star quarterback with aspirations to Nôtre Dame, was tapping on the windows. Rose flipped him the bird.

  “Get out of there, Fiorello!”

  “When I’m done,” Rose snapped. It wasn’t done to cross Mike at this school; he was super-popular, the favorite of the blondes in white bobby-sox.

  “Bitch,” Mike snarled, turning away. Rose had turned him down for dates twice, even though her family was way too poor—which everyone knew—and he drove a BMW. Mike and his buddies had a bet on who was going to pop that cherry. He didn’t like the fact he hadn’t collected yet.

  Mike thought it was about time Rose got taught a lesson. She wasn’t even the super-brain anymore. Her grades were dreadful, and she kept getting sent up to Sister Heloise’s office. The teachers wouldn’t be so bothered about her now, now she wasn’t a scholarship prospect.

  Rose moved out of the booth, holding her notebook. Mike snatched it from her.

  “Give me that back!” Rose snarled, making a grab for it.

  Mike laughed and held it up out of reach.

  “Pay for it,” he said. “Give me a kiss.”

  “With your dogbreath?” Rose said. “I don’t think so.”

  A small crowd of kids had stopped walking through the hallway and were watching. Some of them giggled. Mike Chastain’s face darkened.

  “The price went up,” he said. “Now I want to feel up your tits.”

  “You asshole,” Rose said.

  “Let’s see what we got here.” Mike held the book up out of reach, taunting her. “Manhattan Real Estate Appraising. Option One Appraisals, Inc. Oooh.” He read out her notes in a singsong voice. “Norman Hubbard Appraisals. I think I see a pattern here. What are you having appraised, Fiorello? A house? Oh wait, you don’t have one, you got evicted.”

  “Fuck you,” Rose said.

  “Any time, baby.” He threw the notebook back at her—a teacher was heading their way. “Do you know how dumb you have to be to get evicted from a rent-controlled apartment? That was nice going by your parents there, Rose. Hey, I got fifty bucks whenever you want to supplement your father’s income. I got some friends that’d be interested too.”

  Rose reached across and slashed at him, her nails raking viciously across his cheek, drawing blood.

  Mike gasped and put his fingers to his face. The kids scattered, and Rose felt a heavy hand descend upon her shoulder.

  “Name?”

  “Rose Fiorello,” Rose muttered.

  The teacher was wearing a heavy tweed suit and a thunderous scowl. “Physical violence is cause for expulsion, Ms. Fiorello. Unless it was self-defense?”

  “I never touched her!” Mike started whining.

  “He didn’t hit me,” Rose said.

  “Go straight to Sister’s office, Ms. Fiorello. Right now.”

  *

  “You must really like this decor,” Sister Heloise said dryly. “You can’t seem to keep away from this office.”

  Rose mumbled something, but Sister wasn’t letting her get away with it. Her face was crinkled under the dark-blue habit and crisp white wimple, and the old eyes, green and watery, stared piercingly back at her.

  “Lift your head, girl. I’m going to give you my theory.” Sister lifted the sheet of paper in front of her. “Grade A student until eight months ago, when your father lost his business and you moved out of your apartment near here.”

  “We were evicted.”

  “Yes, I know,” Sister said unapologetically. “This is a school. Word gets around. Your teachers have been wondering about the drop in your grades, your lack of discipline and attentiveness; but they heard the children talking.”

  Rose smothered a small smile at hearing her classmates referred to as “children.”

  “But,” said Sister Heloise firmly, “to use a colloquial expression, I don’t buy it. You may be many things, Rose, such as stubborn and willful. But you are not lazy. You are also not responsive to stress. I do not subscribe to the fact that you have been traumatized by your family’s financial troubles. There is some other reason for your behavior. Now, what is it?”

  Rose found herself squirming a little on the burgundy leather armchair. She preferred the usual lecture and detention …

  “The reason for me hitting Mike Chastain was that he … said bad things about my father—”

  “You are neither stupid nor five years old,” Sister said firmly. “He insulted your father. If you want to carry on pretending to be stupid that’s your affair, but you will not do it in this office.”

  “Yes, Sister,” Rose said, taken aback. “He insulted him. And he then said I could make some money on the side by—by—”

  She looked at the nun’s habit and blushed.

  “I see,” Sister Heloise said. “Sounds as though he deserved it, but violence is not the answer.”

  Rose wasn’t sure she agreed with that. Violence had certainly made her feel better.

  “Why have you decided to stop trying to succeed here?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “I do assure you, young woman, I am not stupid.”

  Rose blushed and stammered. “I—I think school isn’t as important as—”

  “As what?”

  “As making money,” Rose admitted.

  Sister Heloise sighed.

  “First, man does not live on bread alone. Someone said that once. But I understand that the viewpoint is not as fashionable as it might be. Second, even if you are not cut out as a pure academic, staying in school, and in your case winning a scholarship to an Ivy League university, is a good plan even from a mercenary point of view.” Her eyes twinkled. “By taking one path, you will become a salaried employee who will be lucky to work your way up to middle management. By taking the other, you become a white-collar executive.”

  “There is a third path.” Rose had settled slightly in her chair, and, the old nun was relieved to see, was speaking to her as an equal.

  “Enlighten me.”

  “I could get a job and train in something and then become an entrepreneur when I learned the trade.”

  “I assume you have something in mind?”

  “Real estate,” Rose said, proudly.

  Sister’s eyebrows lifted a fraction more.

  “You sound very certain of that.”

  “I am.”

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” Sister Heloise said. “You can go ahead and get a part-time job. I will see to it that your homework is reduced. But not eliminated; you may have to study on weekends. However, I expect your grades to improve, starting tomorrow. You are going to go to college. And if your work and your attitude does not improve, I will call your parents and tell them everything before I expel you. I think their sorrow will be enough of a motivation for you to avoid that eventuality.”

  Rose grinned. “Thank you, Sister. I’ll be going to interviews tonight.”

  “Not tonight you won’t,” Sister said. “Tonight you have detention. We do not tolerate physical violence. That will be all, Miss Fiorello.”

  *

  Rose had six interviews before finally landing a job. It was out in Brooklyn, and she was to do filing and typing for two hours a night, cleaning the offices, and acting as a receptionist on Saturdays.

  She made the most of it. Small as her salary was, she banked it each week, and her work was efficient. Rose countered the mind-numbing tedium by racing to get each job done as fast as possible. After two weeks, her fingers flew over the keyboard, and she could assign a file to its proper place by merely glancing at it. This made time for what she really wanted to do, which was talk to the appraisers.

  “This is your ambition?” they asked, and Rose would answer sincerely, “Yes.”

  It wasn’t so hard to believe. The top appraisers wore fancy suits and drove nice cars. There was plenty of work; appraising values all over the Tri-State area. Many of the best guys worked nights, frantically typing up jobs,
trying to free up space in the day for even more appointments. Rose even saw one thirty-year-old, keen and ambitious, sleep in his office.

  But this was the go-getting Eighties. Nobody thought twice about it.

  “How do you work it out, though?” Rose kept asking.

  “I’ll tell you when I’ve got some time.” Keith Harding, the thirty-year-old, laughed. “I guess that’ll be the Tuesday after never, huh?”

  Eventually Rose started to pick it up. You got the address and square footage, went to the place, measured the dimensions, took photographs. Then you looked up “comps,” industry slang for comparable properties. You had to find out what properties in a similar area, of a similar type and size, had sold for over the past six months. Appraisers had contacts in the area—realtors’ offices, mortgage brokers—and they gave them this information.

  It didn’t matter what your house was worth—what someone would be willing to pay for it—only what the appraiser could prove.

  Everything came down to those comps.

  Of course, mortgage brokers and realtors were always desperate for the deal to go through. They would call every day, asking for a “juiced” number. Push the value up, say it’s worth more, or lose our business.

  This was illegal.

  It was also “S.O.P.”, or standard practice.

  If the appraiser listened, though, they took a risk with the bank. A mortgage went south based on your false value, and you could be sued. Losing your license was the least of it. You were then liable for millions.

  All for a hundred and fifty dollars.

  Good appraisers did more than measure and run comps, however. They were attuned to neighborhoods. They got a feel for housing, for rent rolls, for values, and shysters.

  Rose learned quickly.

  She got promoted. After a while, they let her take photos on Saturdays. She drove around houses in a banged-up secondhand Nissan belonging to her boss, snapped them, and got more money. The appraisers got used to her nagging and her questions.

  On Saturday nights Rose was often in the office, reading reports by lamplight, learning, soaking everything up.

  “Why don’t you buy something?” she asked Keith one day, when her courage was particularly high.

  He made a dismissive gesture. “My credit’s not great. Down payment is too big. And tenants are a pain. Who needs the headache?”

  Whomever she asked gave her the same answer: Who wanted that kind of hassle?

  I do, Rose thought.

  When she’d finished at Richmond Appraising, Rose would pore over her schoolbooks. She liked history best, and now she’d started paying attention again. She had to; Sister Heloise watched her like a hawk. Her grades shot back up to normal. When the time came for SATs, Rose aced them.

  Her parents were overjoyed. They expected her to get a scholarship, and so did Our Lady of Angels. The only problem was that Rose was falling asleep on her feet.

  After Sunday Mass, she used to sleep all day.

  And then Keith came to her with 22 Maple Leaf Drive.

  Eleven

  “Rose? I’d like for you to do this for me.”

  Keith was waving a sheet over at her. “It’s real simple, and I’m swamped.”

  Rose blinked. “But I’m not licensed.”

  “Ah, for this, you don’t need to be. It’s real simple, an estate sale. Just drive out to Mount Vernon and inspect the condition. We’re checking that the electricity is on and the floors are finished. Oh yeah, and that it’s got hot water. Just make a note on this sheet, take pictures, come back.” He winked at her. “I’ll give you a twenty-five-dollar bonus.”

  “Hey, thanks,” Rose said.

  What the hell, twenty-five dollars was worth having. She took the ratty car out to Mount Vernon.

  Twenty-two Maple Drive was run-down. It was in a seedy neighborhood, but one that she knew was improving; Bronxville was only a few blocks away. The place was semi-derelict, with grass uncut, debris in the front yard, and peeling paint.

  Rose took some snaps, trying to keep as much of the dirty yard out of the picture as she could. Then she rang the bell.

  “Yes?”

  A neat old lady in black answered the door. She was red-eyed, and it was clear she had been crying.

  “I’m sorry,” Rose said, feeling awkward. “I’m from Richmond Appraising. I can come back if this is a bad time for you, ma’am.”

  The old lady shook her head mutely and opened the door.

  “I’ll just be a second,” Rose said. She took out her flash camera and snapped at the floors, covered in what looked like new linoleum. The light was on; she took a picture of a lamp in the corner.

  “I just need to run the taps,” Rose said, shifting from foot to foot. “Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  “Would you like some coffee?” the old lady said.

  “No thank you, Mrs.—” Rose glanced surreptitiously at her file—“Mrs. Yablans.”

  “It’s no bother. I just put on a pot,” Mrs. Yablans said, sounding lonely.

  Rose knew this job had to be rushed back to the office.

  “Well, thank you,” she said. “That would be lovely.”

  *

  Over coffee and stale biscuits, which she took an agonizingly long time to bring out, Mrs. Yablans told Rose the story of the house.

  “It’s a three-family. My sister owned it, and she’s gone. I lived upstairs, and there’s a tenant on the top floor. It’s a real nice spot around here.”

  “You don’t want to stay?” Rose asked kindly. What could you say? She thought the old woman just wanted to talk. She had the air of having nobody to talk to.

  “I have friends in Connecticut. They have a place for me there. This house is too much for an old woman. The tenant upstairs is complaining, and I don’t have money to fix the place. Maria could deal with him, but now…”

  Her voice trailed off.

  “I bet you’ll be happier in Connecticut. I hope you’re getting a good price for it?”

  “To be honest with you, I don’t think so. I’m selling it for ninety. But the man has cash.”

  Rose balked. “Ninety? It needs some work, but it’s worth way more than that.”

  The words just jumped out of her mouth, and she flushed. She was supposed to work for the bank. But this old lady was getting ripped off, big-time.

  “He says I’ll never get market price for it, and if I wait he might not take it.”

  “It’s worth a hundred and ten. I’d buy it, if I had the down payment.” Rose looked around. “I could rent this out tomorrow and make money on it—it would be easy.”

  “I wish you could buy it,” the old woman said. “Do you really think he’s ripping me off?”

  Rose hesitated. She could lose her job for telling her the truth.

  “I absolutely do,” she said. “You’re grieving, you’re a senior citizen … Men like him prey on people like you. If you want my advice, Mrs. Yablans, don’t sell for a penny less than a hundred and five.”

  “What would you pay?”

  “A hundred and ten,” Rose said without hesitation. “You could get more, but only after you revamped it, which costs money.”

  “Maybe you could buy it.”

  Rose smiled. “Believe me, I’d love to. But all I have is good credit. I don’t have the down payment.”

  Mrs. Yablans sipped her coffee.

  “I’ve got it,” she said. “You know, I could lend it to you, if you could pay me back.”

  Rose felt her skin prickle. Inside the modest shirt-dress she’d put on, she was starting to sweat, even though it was cool in here.

  “I have savings,” she said. “I have six thousand. I could give you four, right off the bat. I’d need the other two to advertise for tenants and painting.”

  “So then I could lend you seven,” Mrs. Yablans said.

  Rose did the sums in her head. “I could pay you back in three years at fifteen percent interest.”

  “All righ
t,” Mrs. Yablans said.

  Rose stared at her. “Are you serious? You know you don’t have to do that.”

  “I know,” she said. “But you know, if you do pay me back, I make money.”

  Rose paused.

  “Can I take your telephone number, Mrs. Yablans?” she asked.

  Before she left the house, Rose checked the hot water was running. Twenty-five dollars was twenty-five dollars, after all.

  *

  “There’s a letter come for you, honey,” Daniella Fiorello said to her daughter.

  “Here.” Paul was standing by his wife, the thick, creamy envelope in his hand, franked with the Columbia crest.

  Rose looked at her parents and laughed. “Hey, no pressure, right?”

  “Willya open it, goddamn it!”

  “Paul!” Her mother hit her husband in the chest.

  “Well, I’m sorry,” he grumbled. “I been waiting all day for her to read it.”

  Rose flashed back to waiting for her father to open the envelope from Rothstein Realty, but that had been two years ago. She grinned at them, to make the memory go away, and ripped it open.

  Little leaflets about courses and sporting activities tumbled out on to the kitchen table.

  “Dear Ms. Fiorello,” she read, “We are happy to inform you—”

  “She got it! She got it!” Daniella shrieked, and then burst into tears.

  “That’s pretty great,” Paul Fiorello said, his voice thick. “Don’t that just about beat all.”

  Rose got a little choked up herself. College meant so much to her parents. And this wasn’t just college, this was Ivy League. Full scholarship, no board.

  She privately thought college would be a waste of her time, but so what. It would kill Mom and Dad if she turned this down. She didn’t think she’d seen her father genuinely happy since the day he closed the doors of Paul’s Famous Deli.

  “Isn’t it awesome?” she asked. “I can’t wait.”

  “Let’s go out to dinner to celebrate,” Paul suggested.

  Rose checked her watch. She had to be at the closing in five minutes.

  “I have a date, Pop. Can I take a rain-check for tomorrow?”