A Tan & Sandy Silence by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

was a vivacity, an air of enjoying life about her that made her attractive. Her hair was red-brown, her eyes a quick, gray-green, her teeth too large, and her upper lip too short for her to comfortably pull her mouth shut, so it remained parted, making her look vital and breathless instead of vacuous. She used more eye makeup than I care for.
    "Before I ask question one, Miss Dolan-"
    "Mrs. Dolan. But Jeannie, please. And you are ... ?
    "John Q. Public until I find out something."
    "John Q. Spy?"
    "No. I want to know who you represent, Jeannie."
    "Represent? I'm selling these condominium apartments as any fool can plainly-"
    "For whom?"
    "For Broll Enterprises."
    "I happen to know Harry. Do the skies clear now?"
    She tilted, frowned, then grinned. "Sure. If a realtor was handling this and you talked to me, then there'd have to be a commission paid, and you couldn't get a better price from Mr. Broil. There used to be a realtor handling it, but they didn't do so well, and I guess Mr. Broil decided this would be a better way. Can I sell you one of our penthouses today, sir? Mr. Public, sir?"
    "McGee. Travis McGee. I don't know whether I'm a live one or not. I'm doing some scouting for a friend. I'd like to look at one with two bedrooms and two baths just to get an idea."
    She took a sign out of her desk and propped it against the phone.'"Back in ten minutes. Please be seated." She locked her desk and we went up to the eighth floor. She chattered all the way up and all the way down the eighth floor corridor, telling me what a truly great place it was to live and how well constructed it was and how happy all the new residents were.
    She unlocked the door and swung it open with a flourish. She kept on chattering, following a couple of steps behind me as I went from room to room. After quite a while she ran out of chatter. "Well.... Don't you want to ask anything?"
    "The floor plan is efficient. The equipment looks pretty adequate. But the furniture and the carpeting and the decorating make me feel sort of sick, Jeannie."
    "A very expensive decorator did all our display apartments."
    "Yeck."
    "A lot of people are really turned on by it."
    "Yeck."
    "We've even sold some with all the decor intact, Just as you see it. The buyers insisted."
    "Still yeck."
    "And I think it is absolutely hideous, and it makes me feel queasy, too. It looks too sweet.
    Cotton candy and candy cane and ribbon candy. Yeck."
    "Got one just like this that hasn't been messed with?"
    "Down on five. Come along."
    We rode down three floors. The apartment was spotlessly clean and absolutely empty. She unlocked the sliding doors, and we went out onto the balcony and leaned against the railing.
    "If the answers to the other questions make sense, Jeannie, my friend might be interested, provided you don't show her that one up on eight."
    I asked the right questions. Was it long-term leasehold or actual ownership with undivided Page 20

    interest in the land? How much a year for taxes? How much for the maintenance contract? What were the escalation provisions in the maintenance contract? How much did utilities run? Would the apartment be managed, be rented if you wished when you were not using it?
    "How many apartments are there all told?"
    "Counting the penthouses-298."
    "How many unsold?"
    "Oh, very few, really."
    "How many?"
    "Well ... Harry might cut my throat all the way around to the back if I told anybody. But after all, you are my surgeon, and I have the scar to prove it. We've got thirty-six to go. I've been here a month and a half, and I get free rent in one of the models and a fifty-buck-a-week draw against a thousand dollars a sale. Between the two of us, Betsy and me, we've sold two."
    "So Harry Broll is hurting?"
    "Would your friend live here alone, Travis?"
    "It would just be more of a convenience for her than anything. She lives in the British Virgins. St.
    Kitts. She comes over here often, and she's thinking about getting an apartment. I imagine she'd use