Condominium

by John D. MacDonald

  Dru Bryne wheeled her stainless steel cart in. She put the big hot coffee urn on the table and plugged it in. McGinnity said coffee was off his list. Drusilla, with a deepening accent, asked him if she might bring him a nice cup of Irish tea, and he beamed and said that would be nice. She filled the other four cups, large cups, bone white and delicate. She put out the sugar and cream and the dish of scones and the dish of ginger cookies and the spoons and the small linen napkins. In her serving she managed, in some mysterious way which Martin had never been able to dissect, to make each man feel she was treating him in a more special way, to make each man feel he and she had some unspoken secret between them.

  As soon as she left to get McGinnity’s tea, Martin Liss became very sincere and slightly oratorical. “Gentlemen, a piece of my life went into all the planning and the accomplishment of Golden Sands. I am proud of it. It is a unique life-style, a unique and distinctive place to live. I feel that when I can bring together the dream and the reality, then I am making my contribution to the society in which we live. Golden Sands was one of those dreams, and now it is a reality. I want to tell you that even though I no longer have any legal or financial connection with it whatsoever, I will always feel a responsibility to give my advice and counsel to the directors of the Association, whoever they may be. That is why my door is open to you today. Now please tell me how I can be of any help to you.”

  Hadley Forrester was the first to recover. He even managed to look amused. “First, to explain our position, Mr. Liss, at Pete McGinnity’s direction Dave Dow and I have worked up a little presentation, which will show you the shape and size of the problem.”

  Martin smiled and nodded, and the little voice in the back of his skull said, Look out for this one, Marty.

  Forrester said, “Though we have been over this many times, I think we should all be looking at the figures along with Mr. Liss.” He handed out the sheets. “Every purchaser of an apartment made his decision to buy based upon average monthly charges of $81.50, or $978 a year. This was supposed to cover the management contract, the recreational lease, normal maintenance and incidentals. Now look at the next page. At the top are the fixed expenses, the contractual obligations of the Association, as made by the previous officers and directors. Following that total are the other, more flexible expenses: elevator maintenance, lawn and landscaping maintenance—which we had thought was covered in the management contract but isn’t—pool service, outside lighting, and so on and so on and so on. At the end there you will find a reasonable amount as a provision for reserves for future maintenance problems. All the bills are in. Everything has been analyzed and investigated. The annual budget is $91,000. Divide that by forty-five apartments, and the average monthly tab comes to $168.50.”

  “That much!” Martin Liss said, with warmth and concern.

  “In addition,” Forrester continued, “we find that you left us a little over eighty dollars in the Association checking account as of April first. We collected the full assessment from all owners last month and this month: $3,667.50 each month. These monies have been expended. Because the assessments were too small, we have a two-month deficit of $7,830. That means the bills that go out on June first will have to be for the new average figure of $168.50, plus an emergency assessment of $174 to catch up: $342.50 for the average apartment. We have to make a total assessment of $15,412.50, and our chances of collecting it all are slim. Our first question is this: Why were the old assessments so far out of line?”

  Drusilla brought McGinnity’s steaming tea and was warmly thanked.

  Marty Liss said, “Let me go way back. Let me give you the history of that $81.50 estimate. That figure was worked out when we were doing the original feasibility studies, over four years ago. Benjie worked it out. You all know Benjie Wannover. He has a very sharp pencil, usually. But in the beginning we were dealing with a density factor of twenty units per acre. Before we could lock everything up, the Planning Board recommended new densities to the County Commission and that whole area got reduced to twelve units per acre. It was originally planned for eighty units. That assessment was based on eighty units, and, I am frank to admit, we slipped up. We never revised it to apply to the forty-seven units we’ve got there. Let me tell you something else, my friends. I slipped up because I kept noticing that the cost of sales at Golden Sands was way too high, and I never got off my duff to check it out and find out why. You see, during that whole year the Marliss Corporation was picking up the slack between actual costs and assessments. And let me tell you, when there was only a dozen owners paying that $81.50 a month, the slack was very heavy. I should have gotten it boosted, but I was asleep at the switch.”

  David Dow cleared his throat and said, “And the lower assessment made it easier to sell the apartments, didn’t it?”

  Martin sipped his coffee and put the cup down, smiled, spread his hands and said, “Are we here to make childish accusations not based on fact, or are we here to solve problems?”

  “I don’t think David was making an accusation,” Forrester said. “I think he was stating a fact. We’ve come to ask your help in getting the assessments and the budget back to a reasonable size.”

  “In these days and times, and considering the location and the advantages, maybe the new budget is about right.”

  “We have people who can’t pay it,” McGinnity said.

  “Mister President McGinnity, the people have to pay it. It is that simple. In the Declaration you can read in black and white that failure to pay the assessment gives the Association a lien against the apartment in question. You four men have all got personal liability insurance at Association expense. You’ve got fidelity bonds likewise. So you are protected against suit. So what you have to do is move on the people who try to refuse to pay. Like my brother-in-law one time in Tenafly, a nice piece of property with a nice home and four great big beautiful elm trees. So all of a sudden the elm trees are dead of the Dutch elm disease and the town ordinance says they have to be removed and he has to pay. So it was twelve hundred dollars a tree, and a forty-eight-hundred-dollar lien against his house. He didn’t have the money, but he found it. When he found out what they could do to him, he had to find the money.”

  “We have mostly retired people on fixed incomes,” McGinnity said. “Some of them just can’t swing it.”

  Martin made a sad face. “In this life people are always biting off more than they can chew. Businesses go under. Cars get repossessed. If a person buys an expensive apartment and then can’t handle it because costs go up by eighty dollars more a month, then what kind of judgment did he use when he bought it? We all want to be our brother’s keeper, and I say it’s because too many times our brother needs a keeper. He needs somebody coming after him with a net.”

  “We’re getting away from the point,” Forrester said. “We want to question the morality, if not the legality, of the recreation lease agreement in the Declaration. The lease payments come to twelve thousand five hundred dollars a year, twenty-three dollars per apartment per month. It is a ninety-nine-year lease, with an escalator clause that ties the annual payments to the cost of living index. Over the life of the lease, that comes to one and a quarter million dollars. The lease covers the pool, the tennis courts and the dayroom. We want you to make it possible for the Association to buy those facilities. We have to maintain them as it is.”

  “Now how in the world could I do that?” asked Martin in blank astonishment. “I don’t own that lease.”

  “We pay the money to Investment Equities. Isn’t that one of your corporations?”

  Martin looked incredulous. “One of mine? What kind of a weird idea is that? What I am there is a minority stockholder. I have a little bit of stock only because a friend of mine runs it, name of Frank West, and he let me buy a little, not much. It’s an investment group, and it does okay. Developers get pinched, maybe oftener than other kinds of business. I’m willing to tell you that when Frank came to me to buy the recreation lease, I was glad to
get the cash money to pay off against my bank loan. The interest was killing me. I’m not at liberty to tell you what Frank paid for the lease. I’d say it was a good deal for him and a good deal for me. To do what you say, I would have to go to Frank with the money in my hand and buy that lease back. That would be the first thing. Would he sell? I doubt it. Where would I get the money? From the Golden Sands Association? Why don’t I tell you what he paid for it? Why not? It is like buying a bond that brings in twelve thousand five interest a year, with a little sweetening on account of the escalator. He paid a hundred and five thousand. If you can dig that much up, I promise I’ll try to buy that lease back. Otherwise …” He shrugged.

  After about twenty seconds of unhappy and thoughtful silence, Wasniak said, “Well, maybe you can do something about that management contract that runs for twenty years. We’ve got that clown Julian Higbee saddled on us who won’t do a single damned thing anybody asks.”

  “The way I size up Julian, I think he is willing to learn. I think he is anxious to do a good job for you. Your previous directors gave a lot of thought to the problem before they placed the contract with Gulfway Management, and we made it a long contract in order to get the most favorable terms. I don’t think you men realize what a good deal you have there. Because Julian and Lorrie also handle that thirty-unit Captiva House next to you there, it cuts the cost to Golden Sands. You want to bust the contract, throw the Higbees out and hire your own manager, right? You have no idea what you would be getting into. Julian is the sales agent and the rental agent. Lorrie keeps good books, clean and accurate. They make a good team. You hire people to do the same jobs, do you want to get into bonding, withholding, Social Security on them and the maids? You want to get into linen service, advertising, brochures: crap like that? I get the feeling there isn’t one of you men hunting for a full-time job running that place, and that’s what it is.”

  Hadley Forrester said, “The Higbees may be jewels beyond compare, and they may even be dirt cheap compared to some other arrangement, but it does make life difficult to have such an unresponsive slob listening to legitimate complaints. Though it is indirect, we do pay his salary, Mr. Liss. And he is a horse’s ass. Pete and I visited Gulfway Management and finally were allowed to talk to a Mr. Sullivan. His attitude was that we had a twenty-year contract with his company, an unbreakable contract, and he could give us as much or as little service as he felt like, and if we pestered him he would make sure it was less. It made us feel that when you placed that contract you did not have our best interests in mind.”

  Martin said, frowning, “That is not right! I will have a talk with Mr. Sullivan and see if I can change his attitude. If I can, I think you will find that Julian will become more cooperative.”

  “We would appreciate it,” Pete McGinnity said. “Let me get back to that fast shuffle you gave people who are going to be stung by that extra eighty-seven dollars a month. They’re not some kind of clowns getting into something over their head. Retirement money hardly ever is more than anybody needs. A person has an apartment, he pays the mortgage payments, the county taxes, the phone, the electric, insurance, television cable. These are going up. As you know. Let’s say John Doe, owner, is getting up there close to four hundred a month with everything he has to pay, and then we have to pop him with another eighty-seven on top of that. So all of a sudden he is paying fifty-five hundred a year for shelter, and if his retirement is nine or ten thousand, he is getting jammed pretty good.”

  “I can understand that,” Martin said, “I really can. And I can feel very sorry about John Doe getting mousetrapped by economic conditions. That’s why the Social Security keeps going up, to help out with his problems. What I said before, I’m very very sorry Benjie made such a bad estimate on the monthly assessment. I have to take part of the blame, but … Wait a minute! Maybe I can help. Investment Equities bought those last two apartments from us as of April first. Do I miss my guess, or is Frank West getting a free ride, just holding those two with no assessment until they’re sold?”

  “Free ride,” David Dow said. “I wrote two letters, but got no answer at all. My next move was going to be to hold back assessment money out of the recreation lease money.”

  “I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll negotiate with Frank West, and I can practically guarantee I can get him to pick up that money he should be paying in all fairness. He owes me a favor. Won’t that help the payments?”

  David Dow took a little calculator from his pocket. In a few moments he said, “If they will pick up their share of the accumulated deficit, average monthly payments will drop to $161.35, and the deficit payment drops to $166.60. So it will be $14.55 less per apartment on the June assessment. Not much.”

  “Anything at all is a help,” McGinnity said. “What else can you do for us, Mr. Liss?”

  Martin laughed. “Whoa! There’s no guarantee I can even do that much. All I say is there’s a pretty good chance. You have to understand, with Golden Sands I’ve got no more leverage. I’m all the way out of it. Being human, I want to have my projects turn out well. I want people to be happy living there. That’s why I’m trying to help.”

  Forrester stood up so suddenly he startled Martin Liss. He said, “Thank you for your time and your help, Mr. Liss. We’ll be leaving now. We know you’re a busy man.”

  “Please be in touch if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  The four supplicants rode slowly back out to Fiddler Key in Pete McGinnity’s air-conditioned Cadillac.

  “Well, couldn’t he just be mister nice guy?” Wasniak asked. “You say he didn’t have to see us at all.”

  “He didn’t,” Hadley Forrester said. “He took the money and ran. Golden Sands is ancient history to him. And I do not think Marty Liss goes around wasting his time advising strangers.”

  “So what’s the answer?” Pete asked.

  “He wants to calm us down. He wants us to live with our problem. We’ve got some kind of leverage we don’t know about.”

  “A strike?” Wasniak asked.

  Forrester thought a moment and gave a single harsh bark of laughter. “Jesus, Stan, maybe you hit it. What if we all, every owner, stopped paying the recreation lease and the management contract assessment? Could they dispossess everybody? Who would they sell the apartments to in this market? Think of the stink in the Athens Times Record. The wire services would pick it up.”

  “But what difference would that make to him?” Dave asked.

  “Good question. It might somehow screw up his next project. These things need lots of permissions. If there was a stink, it might give him political problems somehow. My friends, we are going to have to find out what he’s planning to do next.”

  “Nobody,” said Pete, “but nobody is ever going to get all the damn owners to get together on anything, ever. So Marty Liss shouldn’t worry.”

  • • •

  Five minutes after the directors left, Martin Liss had Frank West on the phone.

  “Frankie, I don’t see you at the club anymore. You tired of giving me your money? Or maybe you got smart and give up the game.”

  “I’ve been having this soreness in my shoulder, like bursitis but it isn’t that. Honest to God, I try to swing a club, it looks as funny as your swing, Marty. The doc told me to lay off awhile, and he’s giving me shots. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be back and whip your ass good any day now.”

  “You should wait so long. Look, what I called about, you got a couple of letters from Golden Sands about paying assessments on Five-A and Six-E.”

  “Wait a minute. Let me think. Oh sure, from some joker there signs CPA after his name, like it is going to make me pay up. Don’t worry about it, Marty. In the file I’ve got the letter from Benjie when he was a director there, saying the transfer to us is free of all assessments and so on and so on. Airtight. There’s nothing they can do.”

  “Frank, I got a two-word message for you. Pay them.”

  “Am I hearing what you said? Pay? Loo
k, I know it’s peanuts, a few hundred bucks, but unless we sell those two, assessments go on and on, and what the hell is the point anyway, when we don’t have to?”

  “The only point you have to know is I told you to pay them.”

  “But it just doesn’t—”

  “Some days, honest to Christ, you got nothing between your ears but dog shit. What makes you think I got to stay on the phone and discuss things with you? What’s this with wanting explanations? When I want something done, I tell you to do it, and all you have to do is go do it, you dumb fuck!”

  “Now, Marty—”

  “None of that either, West. All you do right now is you say to me, Yes, Mr. Liss, I’ll pay it.”

  “Yes, Mr. Liss. I’ll pay it.”

  “Frankie?”

  “Yes, Mr. Liss.”

  “Take care of that shoulder, and give my best to Fran and the kids.” Marty hung up and asked Drusilla to get hold of Sully. “And when you get him, hold him about three minutes before you put him through.”

  “I’ve got Mr. Sullivan on the line, sir.”

  “Well, well, well! What a real pleasure it is to me to talk to Mr. Sullivan the big shot in person! This is a real honor for me, such an important man.”

  “What’s with you, Marty? What’s this about?”

  “Two executives came to visit you. One was a vice-president of a manufacturing company. One was a partner in an important firm. I know how your mind works, Sully. These two guys have got more style, more class, more smarts than you have. That’s why you pissed on them.”

  “On who? Why would I do that? Who’s been lying?”

  “Why are you getting so excited?”

  “My God, Marty, I’m excited because I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about two friends of mine, two successful men I respect. Do you know about respect, Sully?”