Condominium (11 page)

“How much more?”

“Justin thought maybe double?”

She had swiveled around on the bench. He walked a slow thoughtful circle and then sat on the foot of the kingsize bed and looked at her and shook his head sadly. “You disappoint me, honey. You really do.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“You are the brains, baby. Justin D. Denniver can’t use a urinal without an instruction book. You are supposed to be smarter than this kind of shit you pull on us. I won’t go into arguments, like
telling you this time we don’t need any zoning exceptions so there won’t be any public hearing, or telling you that interest charges and construction costs are so high, maybe Marty shouldn’t be taking the risk at all, or reminding you that the building industry in Palm County is so flat on its ass, out of the five commissioners we could probably get three in favor without any help from Justin at all. What you’re trying to pull isn’t worth argumentation. What you should know, and what you know already, is there are wheels within wheels within wheels. Harbour Pointe is twelve million to fifteen million, and the visible part of it is the Marliss Corporation. You two are taking. And you know what Marty wants in return, right? That minor work permit for the so-called scouring of the channel, and an extension of the time limit on the permit on the land clearing.”

“I
know
that. But Justin said …”

“Down, girl.” He sighed, smiled, shook his head sadly. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

Her mouth tightened. “What the hell kind of—”

“Shush, honey. Just listen. Marty and Benjie and Cole Kimber and me, we are not syndicate-type people. Take Azure Breeze, for example. A big project like that, it has to be a miracle of timing, not only getting all the permissions and certifications and so on, but getting it up on time. Big delays mean big losses. What happened there was bathroom fixtures. The crews were all ready to put them in, and the main supplier is struck, and also there is a trucking strike. Marty had found out that if he could steer the maintenance and service and supply contracts to local subsidiaries of a Miami corporation, they could solve problems for him, they said. He got in touch, and all the bathroom stuff came right through, because of some kind of arrangement with the unions. It’s a permanent relationship on all the projects now. It’s all clean
legal business, you understand, but the money behind it could have come out of Mafia links.”

She looked uncertain. “Just what are you trying to tell me?”

“Marty gets excited and does things on impulse. All the costs have been cranked into the formula on this Harbour Pointe project. I can’t guarantee that if I go back to him for another ten, he won’t complain that he’s being held up for more money by a local county honcho, and then there would be the danger somebody might overreact.”

She moistened her lips. “Like how?”

“There was that situation over in Hallandale, where a subcontractor was stalling a big project for more money, and persons unknown went in one night and rapped him and his wife on the skull, put them in the trunk of their Chrysler, drove it out into the boonies and lit it like a big gasoline lantern.”

She swallowed with obvious effort, tried to smile and said, “Come on, Lew, really!”

“Maybe he won’t get excited. Maybe he will think it’s worthwhile to pay you, but he certainly will find somebody else in the future, to do little favors. Nobody likes a gun in their ribs.”

“Well … maybe you better forget I said it.”

“The east coast people who take care of little problems for Marty do so as a way of cementing goodwill. From what I’ve observed, they seem to react badly to situations where people want to change an existing agreement.”

“All
right
, Lew,” she said angrily. “Just forget it. It was a rotten idea anyway. I won’t push that way again. Justin thought it was worth a try, that’s all. He needs money. He says business is terrible.”

“As a friend of both you nice people, I felt I had to speak up, just as long as there was any outside chance anything might …”

“You scared hell out of me, just as you wanted to do. Don’t worry about Jus. I’ll quiet him down.”

She got up and went to the long wardrobe and racked one of the sliding doors back, revealing a rainbow array of Justin Denniver’s sports jackets and slacks. She pushed them apart, sliding the clothes along the bar, revealing the little barrel safe cemented into the cinder-block wall behind the clothes at waist level. She bent over to see the combination as she turned the dial. She kept her legs straight. Her little tennis skirt hiked up in the back, revealing the white panties and the full round buttocks. He smiled, knowing that if she’d been alone she would most probably have squatted or knelt to work the combination. And he was reassured by a stirring tingle in his groin. He was glad to know that he might come back to life some day. She chunked the safe closed and spun the dial, backed out and stood up and rearranged the hangers.

He stood up as she turned, looking at her watch.

“I think we talked right through fried-egg time,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m really starving. What we’re down to is peanut-butter-sandwiches time.”

They went to the kitchen. He leaned against the counter and sipped a tall glass of milk as she assembled the two thick sandwiches.

“I bet I made forty-five thousand of these before the kids went off to school,” she said.

“What are they going to do this summer?”

“God knows. I think Midge wants to work at Disney World again if they’ll take her. Brud is looking for something that’ll grow meat and muscle.” She gave him his sandwich and said, “Do you ever think about getting married again, Lew?”

“If I can find a lady as smart as you I’ll get married and run for governor.”

“You always keep saying I’m so smart. Mostly all I’m good at is games. And what … we do. I mean what we used to do. We swore off. Right?”

He toasted the thought with a lift of his milk glass. “Absolutely right. Never again.”

“Lew? You know the money from my mother’s estate, that I put into certificates of deposit? Remember, over a year ago it was, I told you if Marty went ahead with Harbour Pointe, I wanted a predevelopment price on a real nice one?”

“I remember.”

“Well, if anybody counted me in, you better tell them to count me out.”

“You’re probably on some kind of list of people to be contacted, but no obligation was set up. Just say no thanks.”

“Would you buy one yourself?”

“No thanks.”

“That’s what I thought.”

It was time to go. He wiped away the crumbs with a paper napkin and kissed her on the temple. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, honey.”

“I guess I’m glad you did. Look, some hot day when you want a swim, you call me up, hear?”

Her face was earnest, her round green eyes without guile. “I’ll just do that,” he said. “Thanks, Molly girl.”

He backed out and drove around the circle and west on Bayview Terrace to the stop sign at the corner of Beach Drive. In his rear vision mirror he saw Molly Denniver right behind him in the Lincoln, wearing her big mirrored shades. He waved and she honked and they turned in opposite directions on Beach Drive.

•  •  •

When Lew Traff stepped off the elevator at the twelfth floor, the receptionist told him that Mr. Wannover, the Marliss accountant, wanted him to come to his office as soon as he got in.

Benjie Wannover was behind his desk, going over large work sheets, his fingers dancing across the keys of his big desk-top electronic calculator. Benjie was about fifty. He looked to be in the final stages of some wasting disease, gray, frail and transparent. In actuality he had ten children and a very contented wife. He ate like a timber wolf, played scratch golf and had never been sick a day in his life.

Benjie nodded Lew Traff into a chair, finished his calculations, tore the tape off, leaned back and studied the figures, then crumpled the tape and missed the wastebasket with it.

“I had Cole Kimber in here, funning me,” Benjie said. “He priced out the architect’s working drawings for Harbour Pointe twenty months ago, and he just priced them out again. Make a guess.”

“Hummm. Up twenty percent?”

“Twenty-one. Very damned good for a horseback guess. Okay. Take total costs and translate that into per-square-foot costs of the hundred and sixty-eight apartments. Total costs work out to $37.80 per square foot, and at an average 2,265 square feet per apartment, you’ve got $14,383,656. So I worked it backwards. We’ll have to see three million net before taxes. That means an average sale price of $103,474 per apartment. Call it from $85,000 to $125,000.”

Lew whistled. “Rich for the neighborhood. Gulf frontage, yes. But the Silverthorn tract is on the bay.”

“I know. I know. With the eleven-mil line of credit, we’ll have to take in three and a half million in advance payments on the units before completion.”

Lew said, “I think we ought to cut back. Different materials. Smaller units. Cut out one pool. Shrink the marina.”

“That’s what
you
think. And that’s what
I
think. But do you know what
he
says? He says we won’t compromise. He says we’ll go first class. And that decision could send the whole group right down the tube.”

“He’s got an instinct. He’s a winner.”

“So far. We had some other winners around Athens. And they’re in bankruptcy Chapter Eleven.”

“You are a pessimist, Benjie.”

“Me? I’m a very cheery guy. All I’ve got here is the figures. And they look terrible. Anyway, your problem is with Cole Kimber. He says the only way he’ll touch it is on straight cost plus. No upset price. He says that shortages could kill him, and he isn’t going to try to outguess them. He says he can make a nice little living with a shrunken crew, making repairs on the stuff he’s put up over the last ten years, and there’s no need for him to take a fat risk. So you have to draft a contract he’ll sign that won’t send Marty up the walls.”

“Maybe some kind of sliding scale on cost plus, the longer the delay the lower the percentage. I’ll talk to Cole first, then take a formula to Marty.”

“Sure. Oh, and he said to tell you to set up a closing on the Silverthorn tract. One million two hundred and fifty-two thousand. That’ll be the first draw on the established line downstairs. You should take the note down when you get a date for the closing, and make a transfer into Marliss Special Account, then you and Marty will both sign the check to the Silverthorn Trust.”

Lew Traff went down the corridor to his own office. His secretary was out sick. He punched an outside line and phoned Cole Kimber. They said he was expected back a little after four. He left
his number. He got out the Silverthorn file, but he could not keep his mind on the clauses of the option agreement. He closed his eyes and leaned back into one of his favorite fantasies, the one about the nuns and the haystack. But it wouldn’t come off. Their squeals and gigglings were on mylar tape. The straw was dynel. Up under the habits, the smooth young bodies were plastic, warmed with clever wires. It was trite, boring and mechanical, like a play which started as a hit but now, after two years, was about to fold.

He had hoped to avoid getting into the inventory. But he slid into it, helplessly. It happened too often lately. A portfolio of—hah!—stocks worth twenty-one thousand, and they had cost him a hundred and eighty. Maybe they’d come back. Before the century changed. Working off three notes at the bank. Working off a compromise settlement with the IRS. Forty thousand a year from Marty, plus maybe another forty in little side things that opened up on account of working with Marty. Where in Christ’s name did it all go? Taxes, and alimony to that pig, Adele. And eating out. And drinking out. And three fairly steady women: Margo, who was elegant and expensive and sexy and quarrelsome, and Ruthie, who was a lot handier, cheaper, rounder and more loving, and Molly Denniver, the water girl. And a rented apartment. And an ulcer, small. And some root-canal work needed. And an eye exam. And new glasses. Nothing at all in the whole wide world seemed worth a shit, but oh, God, the thought of losing it turned his belly to ice. Weird Martin Liss was going to blow the whole thing. He could feel it. Right down the tube. Marty and everybody close to him. Where the hell could he go? Could anybody use a shrewd-stupid shyster name of Lew Traff? Not after the disaster that was called Harbour Pointe.

He worked his way back to the nuns, snuggling into their haystack world, accepting the fact it was all plastic. Hell, anything was better than the inventory.

ROBERTA FISH, R.N.
, and her husband, Gilbert, a young administrator with the Palm County public school system, had rented Apartment 2-C for one year from a Mr. Horuck of Cincinnati, beginning February first when Mr. Horuck despaired of finding a seasonal tenant for a high weekly rent. Mr. Horuck was due to retire in three years and had been persuaded to buy an apartment at Golden Sands on the theory it could carry itself.

Bobbie Fish worked the 11
P.M
. to 7
A.M
. shift at Athens Memorial, on emergency-room duty. She was twenty-nine, five foot ten, a big-boned woman who tried, usually without success, to keep her weight under one fifty-five. She had glossy cropped black hair, deep blue eyes and black brows which met over the bridge of her nose, giving her a look of wearing a small perpetual scowl. She had pale flawless skin, endless energies and a full classic figure. With less jaw she could have been beautiful.

She got home in time to have coffee with Gil while he had his
breakfast. She was asleep by eight thirty and slept until three thirty when the bedside phone awakened her. Julian Higbee said, “You alone?”

“Yes.”

“Be right there.” He hung up before she could ask him to give her a few minutes to get organized. The phone had hauled her up out of nightmare depths. Nightmare seemed ever more frequent. People did such damned awful things to themselves and to each other. They were brought in during the long stained hours of the night, ripped and bloodied, smashed and slashed, charred and scalded, making monkey sounds and crow sounds and kitten sounds. Lately when she heard the rapid oncoming
weep-weep-weep
of the siren, racing toward the hospital, there was no quickening of mind and reflex, no challenge to save someone from dirty death. A sick weariness instead, a resignation, a distaste. They would all die anyway, soon enough. So wheel in your burden of agony and let Doctor Tucker and Nurse Fish dab away, exercising small skills and traditional remedies. “You and I,” Tucker said, his odd thin mouth with its little doll-teeth shaped into the imitation of a smile, “you and I, Bobbie baby, we get the absolute worst, the ones who won’t make it up to the O.R. unless we do our magic act first. The penalty of excellence, eh? Goddammit, nurse, find me a vein somewhere! How does that foot look?”