Figgs & Phantoms (21 page)

“Let me remind you,” Barney Northrup said, “the rent here is cheaper than what your old house costs in upkeep.”

How would he know that, Jake wondered.

Grace stood before the front window where, beyond the road, beyond the trees, Lake Michigan lay calm and glistening. A lake view! Just wait until those so-called friends of hers with their classy houses see this place. The furniture would have to be reupholstered; no, she'd buy new furniture—beige velvet. And she'd have stationery made—blue with a deckle edge, her name and fancy address in swirling type across the top:
Grace Windsor Wexler, Sunset Towers on the Lake Shore.

Not every tenant-to-be was quite as overjoyed as Grace Windsor Wexler. Arriving in the late afternoon, Sydelle Pulaski looked up and saw only the dim, warped reflections of treetops and drifting clouds in the glass face of Sunset Towers.

“You're really in luck,” Barney Northrup said for the sixth and last time. “There's only one apartment left, but you'll love it. It was meant for you.” He flung open the door to a one-bedroom apartment in the rear. “Now, is that breathtaking or is that breathtaking?”

“Not especially,” Sydelle Pulaski replied as she blinked into the rays of the summer sun setting behind the parking lot. She had waited all these years for a place of her own, and here it was, in an elegant building where rich people lived. But she wanted a lake view.

“The front apartments are taken,” Barney Northrup said. “Besides, the rent's too steep for a secretary's salary. Believe me, you get the same luxuries here at a third of the price.”

At least the view from the side window was pleasant. “Are you sure nobody can see in?” Sydelle Pulaski asked.

“Absolutely,” Barney Northrup said, following her suspicious stare to the mansion on the north cliff. “That's just the old Westing house up there; it hasn't been lived in for fifteen years.”

“Well, I'll have to think it over.”

“I have twenty people begging for this apartment,” Barney Northrup said, lying through his buckteeth. “Take it or leave it.”

“I'll take it.”

Whoever, whatever else he was, Barney Northrup was a good salesman. In one day he had rented all of Sunset Towers to the people whose names were already printed on the mailboxes in an alcove off the lobby:

Who were these people, these specially selected tenants? They were mothers and fathers and children. A dressmaker, a secretary, an inventor, a doctor, a judge. And, oh yes, one was a bookie, one was a burglar, one was a bomber, and one was a mistake. Barney Northrup had rented one of the apartments to the wrong person.