Open Doors (Suncoast Society #27)(37)

When Derrick stuck his head around the corner of her office doorway, he stopped, then walked all the way inside. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing, except that Shayla’s article apparently gave us a ton of free advertising for the club.”

“That’s good, right? Most of them are, except for some real pieces of work.”

She crooked a finger at him to show him the whackadoodle e-mails. A scowl creased his brow as he scrolled through them.

“Shit,” he muttered. “That’s not the kind of attention I wanted.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”





Three weeks later, it was eight o’clock in the morning on a Monday. Derrick sat in his car and waited for Ed to pick up his call.

“We have a problem,” Derrick said by way of greeting.

“What?”

“I’m watching a group of about eight religious whackjobs with signs marching up and down in front of the club.”

No doubt they’d been inspired to activism by Shayla’s series of articles. The timing was too coincidental.

“Where are you?” Ed asked.

“I’m sitting in the parking lot at the club. I pulled into a space in front of one of the other units.”

“What do the signs say?”

He tried to read them. “One of them, it looks like it says ‘Get Sex Out of Sarasota.’”

Ed snickered. “They’re a little late for that.”

“This isn’t funny.” Dealing with crank e-mails was one thing.

This was another. This was unwanted attention drawn directly toward their members.

“Yeah, it is funny,” Ed said. “They’re on private property. Call your landlord, because that’s his job and why you guys set things up the way you did in the first place. Kel can have a trespass warrant issued on them. He needs to go order them to leave, then call deputies if they refuse. They’re a disruption to your business. Besides, they’re not even correct. You don’t allow sex in the club. It’s in the rules. Hence, why we have rules. Duh. Why are you there anyway?”

“I forgot my cell charger in the office Saturday. And you’re not helpful.”

“Yes, I am helpful. And the billable hours I’m not charging you right now is even more helpful. Call Kel.” Ed hung up on him.

With a sigh, Derrick started to pull up his friend’s number before he realized, duh, Kel might be at his office. He drove around the building and was relieved to see Kel’s car sitting parked in front of the unit.

He knocked. Kel frowned when he opened the door. “What’s going on?”

“I called Ed, and he told me to call you since you’re the landlord.” Derrick crooked a finger at him to follow and led the way back around the building, on foot. At the corner, they peeked around.

Derrick pointed at the scraggly group of protestors. “That’s the problem.”

“Oh, for f*ck’s sake, are you kidding me?” Kel charged ahead toward the group. Derrick stood there, watching from the safety of the building’s corner.

When Kel approached, they ignored him, at first. Until he ordered them to leave.

“Look, I’m the landlord. You’re disrupting my tenants’ business. I’m ordering you off my property.”

Derrick was wondering if he’d have to call the sheriff’s office himself. The guy who apparently was their ringleader, an older man, maybe in his late sixties or early seventies, with thinning and crazy-looking grey hair and dressed mismatched Goodwill finery, leaned in and brandished his sign at Kel.

“You’re the filthy Sodomite allowing this perversion to ruin our county?”

Kel’s calm response nearly made Derrick burst out laughing. “Well, for starters, no, I’m not a Sodomite. I’m a Sarasotan. Secondly, not sure what you’re up in arms about, because this isn’t a sex club.”

“We read those filthy articles about this place. It’s an abomination!”

Okay, that’s probably one of the crazies who e-mailed us a couple of weeks ago. Not many people dropped the A-bomb in average conversations.

Kel wasn’t swayed. “Then you also read—unless your reading comprehension is as bad as your listening skills appear to be—that they don’t allow sex, alcohol, or drugs in their club. Leave. Now. Before I call the cops.”

“Oh, you just call them! I’ll be happy to talk to them and get this den of evil shut down!”

Derrick watched Kel snort as his friend whipped out his phone. “Dude, that schtick is sooo retro. Next thing you’ll be telling me is Dungeons and Dragons is the gateway to hell. I’m calling the sheriff’s office. Last chance. You are trespassing.”

The guy and his followers, now gathered behind him, remained defiant.

Kel put the phone up to his ear and stepped away, catching Derrick’s eye as he answered the phone. “No, this isn’t an emergency… Yes, I’ll hold.”

He turned to the ringleader. “FYI, the club has all their proper zoning permits, occupational licenses, and business licenses. They also file their state sales taxes and federal income taxes in proper fashion… Yes, I need a deputy to respond to issue trespass warnings. I’m a commercial complex landlord. There are protestors disrupting businesses, and they refuse to obey my orders to leave…”