“We didn’t know we were gonna get a show,” the voice of Waylon Grimes replied.

“How would you like your face slapped all over this courtyard?” Miss Alice said.

“How’d you know I’m a guy who likes it rough? You charge extra for that?” Grimes said.

“What did you say? You repeat that! Right now! Say it again!”

“You promise to hit me?” Grimes said.

Clete walked through the shade of the foyer and into the courtyard, squinting in the glare at Grimes and a bald man who wore a suit and carried a clipboard in his hand.

“What do you think you’re doing, Waylon?” Clete said.

“Mr. Benoit here is our appraiser. Bix is thinking of buying you out, less the principal and the vig on your marker,” Grimes replied. “But this place looks like it has some serious problems. Right, Mr. Benoit?”

“You have some settling, Mr. Purcel,” the appraiser said. “You see those stress cracks in the arch over your foyer? I notice the same tension in the upper corners of your windows. I suspect you have trouble opening them, don’t you? That’s because your foundation may be sinking, or you may have Formosan termites eating through the concrete. There’s a possibility here of structural collapse.”

“The roof is caving in? People will be plunging through the floors?” Clete said.

“I don’t know if it would be that bad, but who knows?” Benoit said. He was smiling, his pate shiny in the sunlight. He seemed to be clenching his back teeth to prevent himself from swallowing. “Have you seen any buckling in the floors?”