Chapter 4: The Lawyer
By noon the branch manager had placed the niece on administrative leave pending internal review, and Arthur’s counsel had a courier on the way to the landlord’s office with a letter that did not waste adjectives.
The controlling agreements, the payment history, and the amended penalty language were attached. So was a preservation demand for every communication between the landlord, his attorney, and any bank employee regarding Lena Moroz’s unit. Arthur did not attend the delivery. He sat in a diner with Lena and Maya while the child colored on the back of a placemat and Lena watched the door as if paper itself might arrive armed.
The landlord’s first response was delay. The second was a counter-narrative: confusion, clerical error, a willingness to “discuss” reinstatement if Lena signed a release. Arthur’s lawyer answered that discussion would occur in a room with a record, and that a release was an interesting request from people who had locked a woman and child out of a home she had finished paying for the week before. The niece’s involvement elevated the matter from private greed to something regulators and the bank’s own compliance team preferred not to ignore.
