I am anxious to meet Silas, the new guy in town, who we hope will sort out all our mysteries. We spoke briefly by phone last evening and agreed to get started early today looking at apartments for him. Silas obviously wants to cram as much into his day as possible.
I arrive early at the Golden Pillar hotel and am enjoying the morning activity in the lobby.
Silas shows up right on time. After talking to him on the phone, I easily pick him from the crowd. We quickly exchange pleasantries without much in the way of small talk — he clearly isn’t into small talk.
I hadn’t eaten breakfast and asked if he would like to partake at the hotel.
“No, no,” he says. “I’ll eat later. Let’s get started.”
I am starving at this point, but, you know, the client comes first. I tell him we’re making four stops this morning. His face turns pained.
“Four?” he asks, incredulously. “Why four?”
“Well,” I say, my stomach reprioritizing its discontent from hunger to nerves. “I just … well, it’s just a solid sample of what’s currently on the market, that’s all.”
He nods and waives his hands as if to say “fine, fine.”
We step out of the hotel and into the bright sun.
“I’m in the Mercedes over here,” I tell him, motioning to my car parked across the street.
“That’s fine – I’ll follow,” he says. “After you.”
He ducks into what looks like a Suburu, something standard and practical that I don’t recognize, nor care to, and motions for me to go ahead.
A terse sort, for sure. All business.
First Stop
The first apartment is a quarter of one of our spectacular Victorians on River Road, one of the original mansions that had been turned into condos. The exterior – an exquisite country-blue – fits well into the Historic District – as it must, of course. Inside, it’s a modern living space with a steel fridge, hardwood floors, three bedrooms – sun-splashed for days.
“I can see you coming home here after a long workday and relaxing with a little music, maybe sip a scotch? It is the priciest of the four, of course, at three thousand, but think of what you can do with all this beautiful space …”
He shakes his head. “Too much,” he says.
“The rent or the space?” I ask. A man of few words.
“Both,” he says, then walks out the front door toward his car.
I close the lock box, turn around toward the curb, and he’s already in his car, waiting, staring straight ahead.
What is his deal? I wonder as I lead him to the next apartment – a scenario, I realize, where he may feel more at home: the Middle Valley Sheriffs’ Apartments, a converted jailhouse directly across the street from his office.
Locking It Up
An unusual residence for an unusual man, I think as we pull up alongside the building. He realizes that, from here, he can see his office from the curb.
I locate the lockbox and pull out the key. The original investors had their own management group for 10 years and only recently opted to list publicly, so this is a first for me. There aren’t many properties here in town that I haven’t seen, but this was one of them.
In keeping with the jailhouse theme, there were plenty of bars around – on the windows, delineating rooms, mounted on the exposed brick walls. I must say I found it rather spooky and dark, much like what I’d always envisioned a jail cell to be. It was almost like being underground.
“What is the rent again?” Silas asks.
“Fifteen hundred,” I say.
He grins. So I guess he is human after all.
“How many more do we need to see?”
I shuffle through my papers to find the listings. “Just these two.”
Silas takes them from my hands and glances at each before handing them back.
“No and no,” he says. “I’ll take this. Where do I sign?”
I explain to him that I’ll have to draw up the papers and that he’ll have to have first and last month’s rent as well as a security deposit. He is unfazed.
“Bring it by my office this afternoon, if you will, and we’ll finish up. I gotta get back.” He extends his hand and smiles. “Thanks.”
With that, he crossed the street and disappeared into the Courthouse.
Jenny Page