Indeed, on his website John emphasizes that the mission of Argus Home Inspections, Inc., is not only to protect consumers from unwise investments but also to educate them about the properties they intend to purchase. The company is named for the all-seeing giant of Greek mythology. Its logo is elegant, designed by Diana’s artist cousin—a spray of blue peacock feathers, each tipped with a human eye.
“What’s that, I wonder.” The wife points at a conical hive at the crease of the porch ceiling.
“Wasp’s nest,” John reports. “You can get it down with a broom but they’ll keep coming back. Welcome to country life.” He lifts his clipboard and pencils a desultory note about the hive. “You’re from the city, aren’t you?”
“Mmm,” says the wife.
“Manhattan, yes,” the husband adds.
John nods. These two will be easy, reasonable clients. Something about the husband’s manner suggests a wish for swiftness. This is a formality for him, John suspects. The wife is easy in her own way: a wide-eyed beginner, trusting of John’s expertise and secretly confident that the house they’ve chosen is faultless. She has the crescent-shaped eyes of an optimist. Sky blue in color, these are eyes accustomed to admiring and being admired, that dare anyone to make them unhappy. If it weren’t for the tiny creases like gentle comb marks at their outer corners, John might mistake her for a very young woman.
As it happens, John does not really enjoy educating the consumer. He prefers inspections during which the client does not follow him like a lapdog, asking questions and taking notes. And he prefers most of all those clients who are too busy to even show up to an inspection, who take him at his word and are satisfied with a handwritten report. The truth is that John does his best work solo. Like a doctor making a diagnosis, he believes a good home inspector shines best when unmolested.
The three of them stand on the porch for a prolonged moment broken finally by the arrival of Lori Hatfield. Lori is John’s favorite broker. No other broker consistently refers clients to him, and he might even go as far as to call her a friend. He supposes that he has, without really intending to, seen her through some bad times. They’ve gone out for a few drinks in days past and found themselves trading heartaches. There has been no romantic angle to this whatsoever; Lori is a mousy woman in her fifties with a string of dirty pearls forever at her neck. But they respect each other. John knows her to be one of the few right-minded brokers, a woman with an intrinsic inability to profit from a customer’s ignorance. And Lori understands that John, too, is haunted by his own honesty. Other brokers hate him for the deals his inspections have ruined, but Lori knows that he is the consumer’s best friend, a kind of superhero who saves buyers from their own mistakes.
Reputations, after all, are everything in this field, and John carefully guards his own. He serves as vice president of the local branch of the American Society of Home Inspectors, dutifully collecting news for the quarterly newsletter. His colleagues think well of him. They know he adheres like flypaper to the ASHI code of ethics: integrity, honesty, objectivity. And he, in turn, knows all the guys in the business. He knows who is too lazy or chicken to climb on a customer’s roof; who overcharges for flashy computerized reports; who has been sued, lost his business, and been forced to change his name.
Lori slams the door of her Lexus and rushes up the front walk to her clients. “Sorry I’m late,” she wheezes. “David, Madeleine, I see you’ve met John.” She smiles toward him, her tired eyes smudged with liner. Dog hair is visible on her black pants and, from beneath a colorful neck scarf, the dingy pearls peek out. John pictures her applying makeup in the car with a shaky hand.
“He’s one of the best,” she says.
John does not know the asking price of this house, but he is certain it will be high enough to make Lori’s year. He blinks and breaks her gaze. “Well, should we get going? I’ll start with the roof.”
He ambles to his GMC, hauls the articulated folding ladder from the back, and braces it against the front elevation of the house. His first step on the ladder is unsteady, and for a moment he feels fatigue overtake him, the undertow of his sleepless night. By the third and fourth steps he regains his composure and scales the rest of the ladder as effortlessly as a lemur. His footing established on the roof, he looks down to his audience and sees the tops of their heads, triangulated, as they chat among themselves. A gust of laughter reaches his ears. Not one of them looks up to where he balances on an eave. Quickly, he takes in the condition of the roof. Standard three-tab asphalt shingles, two layers, unremarkable.
“It’s really one of the most desirable neighborhoods in town,” Lori is saying as he returns to the ground. “I think you’ve made a great choice.”