Condominium

by John D. MacDonald

  “Okay. One better than the one you had, then.”

  “But …”

  “Come on. I got the money up in my place. Come on.”

  “I can’t just leave it there like that,” he said and he went and picked up the mashed machine. He hesitated, and then carried the various pieces back to the ring bolt. The chain and lock had fallen to the cement floor. He wove the chain through the two wheels, the broken front fork, the drive chain. He stuffed the twisted drop handlebars into the mess, and balanced the broken carrier on top of it. He unstrapped his small tool kit, selected a wrench and took the black leather seat out of the ruins, freeing it from the support. He slipped his knapsack off and put the seat and tool kit into it and shouldered it back on. “Have to put the same seat on the new machine,” he explained. “I’ve put twenty-five hundred miles on this one. It’s just nicely broken in.”

  At the open door to the elevator he hesitated. “I really ought to take steps to get you off the highway, Mrs. Brasser, before you kill some innocent person.”

  “Look, you. I am a careful driver. You want a new bike or don’t you?”

  They rode up to the fourth floor and walked down the exterior walkway to 4-A. After considerable fumbling she discovered she was trying to open her door with her car key. She found the right key and opened the door and said, “Excuse, it’s kind of a mess.”

  He stood in the doorway and stared at the apartment. “What happened in here?”

  “Nothing happened in here. All that happened is that the girl that comes and picks up, Leanella, she’s had flu for two weeks, is all. Pick any chair, Roger, and dump the stuff off it and have a seat. Sure you don’t want a drink to steady your nerves? Now, what does it cost to get you a better bike. Hundred? Hundred and a half?”

  “My dear woman! That machine cost me two hundred and seventy-five dollars fourteen months ago. I have put a minimum of seventy dollars into custom improvements, and that does not allow anything for my time. Had someone on the street offered me four hundred dollars for that machine, I would have said no.”

  “Listen. Are you trying some kind of rip-off?”

  “I assure you—”

  “Those skinny bikes where you got to ride all bent over, they cost that much? Really?”

  “That was a Schwinn Voyageur, ten-speed, opaque blue, with a lugged frame, center pull brakes, rat-trap pedals—”

  “Okay, okay. Jesus! Settle for four hundred?”

  “I just told you no. There is a factor of mental anguish involved here. And my sense of duty, about phoning the authorities. I think I would now like to buy myself an eight-hundred-dollar machine.”

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  “Where’s your phone?”

  “Right over there. Well, it was right over there. What the hell? Oh, here it is, under this pair of slacks.”

  “I suppose I just dial operator and ask for the police.”

  “There’s a number in the front of the book, I think, but I looked for the book the other day for an hour and never did find it. I did find a shoe that had been missing. Woops!”

  “Careful! You are very drunk, madam.”

  “Not for this time of day, Roger. Go ahead and call.”

  “Thank you. I will.”

  “Hold it! You would, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Six hundred?”

  “No, and not seven hundred or seven hundred and fifty. In fact, in a very short time it is going up to eight hundred and twenty-five.”

  “You are trying to take advantage of a widow, you rotten stringy curly-haired old son of a bitch.”

  “Now it is eight twenty-five!”

  “All right! All right! Put the phone down. I’ll get my checkbook. Jesus! If I can find it.”

  She came out with her checkbook. She looked back through the stubs. It had been a long time since she had balanced it, but there should be at least three thousand left. She asked how he spelled his last name. She handed the check to him. He examined it, folded it once, put it in his shirt pocket and thanked her, gravely.

  “You know, Roger, you are one hard-nose old bassard. You are mean, you know that? What did you do for a living, sell orphans to the circus?”

  “College professor. I spent thirty years at Syracuse University.”

  “Teaching what? Blackmail?”

  “Comparative religion, madam.”

  “Sure you don’t want a drink?”

  “I must be off. Thank you for the generous settlement. Good day, Mrs. Brasser.”

  “Good day to you, professor. Don’t let the door bump you in the ass on the way out.”

  After he left she said, “Peggy, you’ve just been taken by that leathery old son of a bitch. It depressed you. What you need is a drink. A nice drink to cheer you up.” She went into the kitchen and opened the cabinet. No glasses. She selected one out of the sink and rinsed it out. She opened the refrigerator and found she had forgotten to make ice again. Have to remember the ice, dammit. The case of booze was on the floor by the liquor cabinet. The first two she started to lift were empties. The third was full. She cracked the seal, poured the tumbler half full, hesitated, filled it to within a half inch of the rim. She drank, leaning against the counter. She wobbled into the bedroom and sat on the side of her unmade bed. She hoisted the glass. “To you, Charley baby.” She drank. She put the glass on the bedside stand, an inch of liquor left in it. She lay back and closed her eyes and in ten seconds she began snoring.

  12

  AFTER LEW TRAFF reported back, saying that Fred Hildebert had personally put a freeze on the Marliss Corporation’s line of credit, Martin Liss forced a smile and said there had to be some mistake, that Fred would have had the courtesy to contact him first before doing a thing like that, and he would get hold of Fred right away and clear it up. Hell, Marliss and the Athens Bank and Trust Company had a special long-term relationship.

  Two days passed before Liss could get together with Hildebert. Neutral ground was selected, a corner table for two for lunch at the University Club on the top floor of the Palm Coast National Bank building, three blocks south of the Athens Bank and Trust Company. Hildebert was a tall, bald, thick-bodied man with a soft husky voice and glasses with lenses which made his blue eyes look huge and misted.

  “I don’t blame you for being sore, but let me give you some background on this, Marty. Things have changed very damned fast. The fat rosy ass has fallen off the economy. You have no idea the fits the FDIC examiners have been giving me. You have no idea the loans they have classified. You have no idea how deep we will have to dip into loan loss reserves. Off the record, I see a very bad statement coming out the end of the year. Frankly, we got too deep into resort construction, and we’ve got some very sorry loans we’re going to have to do something about. The reason—”

  “Fred, I am not interrupting you in any way. I am just reminding you right here in the middle of your speech that you made some nice interest money on the Marliss Corporation, and the last two projects, Golden Sands and Captiva House, they paid out right on time, and you picked up very nice sound mortgage paper on both of them, on good-value apartments.”

  “Marty, believe me, I am aware of that, and I wish all the developers had your ability and good sense. What I am trying to tell you, the examiners say we are too heavy on development loans. We’re not a giant bank. We’re a one-hundred-and-twenty-million-dollar bank. We were all set to go into a holding company situation when this construction collapse killed it.”

  “All the background is nice, Fred, and I’m glad you’re telling me, but in my office safe there is a piece of paper with your name on it, and it says I have an eleven-million line of credit.”

  “Some things take precedence.”

  “So what does that mean? I planned on the basis of that. I am one hundred and seventy-eight thousand dollars out of pocket so far, counting on that money. You want to make my loss up to me?”

  “Marty, Marty. Don’t get in
an uproar. Believe me, I understand your problem as if it was my own. Can I do something the examiners tell me not to do? And believe me, even if I could, the very best I could do for you would be nine point seven five percent. But there’s another reason why I can’t. You’d be over the bank limit for an individual borrower.”

  “The borrower is the Marliss Corporation!”

  “Which is you, Marty. You are the major stockholder. But what would take us over the limit is money owed the bank by two other businesses: Gulfway Management and Investment Equities. We’re holding their paper.”

  “But I have a very small interest in them. A few shares. Hell, I can sell those shares tomorrow and be out of both of them.”

  “Am I some kind of dummy, Marty?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Give me credit for knowing my own line of work. On account of the loans, I asked for and got a list of the shareholders in Gulfway Management and Investment Equities. So you are on the list for a few shares. And there is a corporation on the list with enough shares for control, in both companies. Right? A Miami-based outfit called Services Management Group, Incorporated. I have to follow through in my line of work. I had to ask a couple of favors of a couple of friends, but I came up with the shareholders in that Miami outfit, and what do I find?”

  “Okay, Fred. Okay.”

  “I find that the Marliss Corporation owns a large equity in Services Management Group.”

  “I said okay, didn’t I? What you should understand is that there are some other people in SMG with me, and they have the leverage to make sure I don’t get hung up by my suppliers and I don’t get hung up by any construction union. It’s like insurance to have them in there.”

  “Marty, it is one of the reasons I can’t honor that line of credit for eleven million. And I may be doing you a favor.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I mean this is a very bad time to get into anything that big. I went over the figures with Lew. With the empty condominium apartments, can you sell a hundred and sixty-eight of them at prices from eighty-five to a hundred and twenty-five on today’s market?”

  “Right this minute, no. But remember, if I move now, I’ll be selling them two years down the road, and I am betting things will be a lot better by then.”

  “Do you really want to go ahead with it?”

  “What do you think? Hell, yes!”

  “Well, there’s a way. I don’t know if you’ll go for the conditions. All I can do is get you and the other man together.”

  “I make it a rule never to give away pieces of my action.”

  “I know that.”

  “And I do not put myself personally on any paper I have to sign. I am on there only as an officer of a corporation.”

  “I know that, Marty. Let me put it this way. This friend of mine has certain problems and you have certain problems, and I think they fit together in a way that will help you both out.”

  “Explain to me.”

  “I’d rather he sketched it all in for you.”

  “Can I know his name, at least?”

  “Why not? His name is Sherman Grome and he is C.E.O. and Chairman of the Board of Equity Mortgage Management Shares, with headquarters in Atlanta.”

  “On the big board? The REIT?”

  “One and the same.”

  “A fellow who does some of my personal stuff, he says the REITs are heading into big trouble.”

  Fred Hildebert shrugged his big soft shoulders. “The ones without good management, certainly. Sherm is a very smart young man. He made a good record running a group of mutual funds, fantastic capital appreciation. When the Atlanta group put EMMS together they went shopping for the best talent they could find. Besides, Marty, why should you sweat about the future of the real estate investment trusts? What you want is their money.”

  “What makes you think this Sherm buddy of yours will want to loan money to build Harbour Pointe?”

  “I was talking to him about other matters and I brought up this problem of financing you and he seemed receptive. I told him the good record you have with us.”

  “What do I have to do? Go to Atlanta?”

  “Sherm has the use of a leased Lear. I’ll check with him and get back to you and make sure the time is okay with you.”

  “I’ll make myself available anytime, Fred. As a favor to you.”

  Sherman Grome was tall. He was very tan. He had a hard protruding shelf of brow above deep-set eyes. His hairdo was spray-shaped to cover his ears and most of his forehead. His nose was imperial. He wore a brushed denim leisure suit and a blue work shirt open at the throat. His manner was one of total indolent assurance and half-concealed amusement. He wore oval sunglasses with blue lenses. To get to the Athens Airport lounge they had to pass the car rental desks. The rental girls glanced at him, came to attention and stared. Sherm had the celebrity look.

  He said, “Thanks for the invitation, Mr. Liss, but I’m running on so tight a schedule, if we can find a quiet corner right here, we can see if there’s any way we can do business.”

  Mr. Grome was accompanied by a slight man in his middle years, plump, neat and expressionless, carrying a black dispatch case. Grome had not attempted to introduce him. There was a room beyond the lounge, roped off. “In there, Dud,” Grome said to his man. Dud intercepted the waitress. Marty saw her object, then accept what Dud gave her, and hurry to unhook the rope and let them in. She rehooked it and made no attempt to take an order, so evidently Dud had told her they would not need service. They sat at a round table by a big window. From his chair Martin Liss could look over toward the private plane area and see the white droop-nosed Lear parked near the end of the taxi strip.

  Without preamble Sherman Grome said, “Fred briefed me on your project, Mr. Liss. Since then I have verified his estimate of your ability with other persons and confirmed your track record. Is that the feasibility study there? Good. Dud, put it away and give it to me to look at on the way to Houston. I’ll use it as a basis for board approval, Mr. Liss, but that’s only a formality, you understand.”

  “Sure, but—”

  “Let me lay this out for you in its entirety. You estimated an eleven-million line of credit needed for your upcoming project, and you have related your needs to the construction loans and the unit sales as you go along. I suggest that EMMS loan you twelve million dollars immediately. At ten percent. Out of that twelve million you immediately pay us one million two hundred thousand dollars as prepaid interest for one year. We do not want any part of the loan amortized until after the second anniversary of the loan.”

  “But that gives me one hell of a—”

  “Not as bad an interest expense as it might look. You can estimate your cash requirements over your construction period and use the overage in the early stages to buy certificates of deposit for appropriate periods.”

  “In the Athens Bank and Trust?”

  “I have to put that kind of a string on it. However …”

  “I see what you mean. It still increases my cost of doing business.”

  “There’s something else I would like you to do.”

  “Such as?”

  “You are acquainted, of course, with Tropic Towers?”

  “South of the village. Who isn’t? A bad plan, bad design, bad construction, rotten administration, lousy sales job. Less than half sold, less than thirty percent occupancy. A disaster, Mr. Grome. The jerk who put that package together is bad news. Jerry Stalbo. From what I hear, he’s ready to jump off the top of it.”

  “He’s in default on a loan to us, a first-mortgage loan.”

  “How did you get suckered?”

  “Let’s say I had bad local advice. And I did not handle it personally. The amount outstanding is one point two million, plus a hundred thousand back interest. We’ve talked to Stalbo. He’ll sell out his equity for a hundred thousand cash.”

  “I should think so!”

  “He wanted more, but some associates have had discussions wit
h him.”

  “What has this got to do with me?”

  “You have a competent team, Mr. Liss, and a good track record. If you would form a new corporation to take over Tropic Towers and assume the existing first mortgage at the very favorable eight-percent rate, we would loan you an additional five hundred thousand at ten percent. You would use that money to buy out Stalbo, pay up the back interest and have some left as working capital.”

  “It’s a dog. I don’t see how you can even give away those empty condominiums.”

  “I think you could price them to move.”

  Martin Liss thought it over. He did not like the sound of it. It would be a joyless distraction. He shook his head slowly. “There would have to be some sweetening.”

  Sherman Grome looked at Dud and nodded. Dud got up and left, ducking under the rope with an unexpected agility. Grome had a disconcerting habit of looking directly at Martin Liss, unwaveringly, expressionlessly, motionlessly.

  Martin Liss knew he should wait Grome out. But the stillness and the silence of the large man unnerved him. “Some kind of sweetening,” he said unsteadily. “The deal narrows my margin and increases my risk.”

  “Who holds title to the option on the bayfront tract you plan to build on, Mr. Liss?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In what legal entity does the option reside?”

  “Oh. I own it. Me, personally. Martin Liss, citizen.”

  “Then you are setting up a personal capital gain?”

  “Nothing greedy. I paid twenty-eight thousand for the option twenty months ago. To buy for $1,252,000 more, from a bank as executor for an estate. The value is there. Even without the permissions, the zoning is okay so the value is there. With the land clearing and the boat-basin permissions going along with the deed, I am perfectly in the clear selling my option to the Marliss Corporation for two hundred and twenty-eight thousand, and let the corporation close.”

  “Or a million and twenty-eight?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding! A million capital gain on a twenty-eight-thousand-dollar option?”

  “You brought up sweetening, Liss.”