The Stars Shine Down by Sidney Sheldon Read Free Book Online Page A

own private world.
    He watched Lara as she worked around the boardinghouse, smiling, never complaining.
    “How long do you plan to stay with us?” Lara asked Cohn.
    “I’m not sure. It could be a week or a month or two…”
    Charles Cohn was a puzzle to Lara. He did not fit in with the other boarders at all. She tried to imagine what he did.He was certainly not a miner or a fisherman, and he did not look like a merchant. He seemed superior to the other boarders, better educated. He told Lara that he had tried to get into the one hotel in town but that it was full. Lara noticed that at mealtimes he ate almost nothing.
    “If you have a little fruit,” he would say, apologetically, “or some vegetables…”
    “Are you on some special kind of diet?” Lara asked.
    “In a way. I eat only kosher food, and I’m afraid Glace Bay doesn’t have any.”
    The next evening, when Charles Cohn sat down to supper, a p’ate of lamb chops was placed in front of him. He looked up at Lara in surprise. “I’m sorry. I can’t eat this,” he said. “J thought I explained…”
    Lara smiled. “You did. This is kosher.”
    “What?”
    “I found a kosher meat market in Sydney. The shochet there sold me this. Enjoy it. Your rent includes two meals a day. Tomorrow you’re having a steak.”
    From that time on, whenever Lara had a free moment, Cohn made it a point to talk to her, to draw her out. He was impressed by her quick intelligence and her independent spirit.
    One day Charles Cohn confided to Lara what he was doing in Glace Bay. “I’m an executive with Continental Supplies.” It was a famous national chain. “I’m here to find a location for our new store.”
    “That’s exciting,” Lara said. I knew he was in Glace Bay for some important reason. “You’re going to put up a building?”
    “No. We’ll find someone else to do that. We just lease our buildings.”
    At three o’clock in the morning Lara awakened out of a sound sleep and sat up in bed, her heart pounding wildly. Had it been a dream? No. Her mind was racing. She was too excited to go back to sleep.
    When Charles Cohn came out of his room for breakfast, Lara was waiting for him.
    “Mr. Cohn…I know a great place,” she blurted out.
    He stared at her, puzzled. “What?”
    “For the location you’re looking for.”
    “Oh? Where?”
    Lara evaded the question. “Let me ask you something. If I owned a location that you liked, and if I put up a building on it, would you agree to lease it from me for five years?”
    He shook his head. “That’s a rather hypothetical question, isn’t it?”
    “Would you?” Lara persisted.
    “Lara, what do you know about putting up a building?”
    “I wouldn’t be putting it up,” she said. “I’d hire an architect and a good construction firm to do that.”
    Charles Cohn was watching her closely. “I see. And where is this wonderful piece of land?”
    “I’ll show it to you,” Lara said. “Believe me, you’re going to love it. It’s perfect.”
    After breakfast Lara took Charles Cohn downtown. At the corner of Main and Commercial streets in the center of Glace Bay was a vacant square block. It was a site Cohn had examined two days earlier.
    “This is the location I had in mind,” Lara said.
    Cohn stood there, pretending to study it. “You have an ahf —a nose. It’s a very good location.”
    He had already made discreet inquiries and learned that the property was owned by a banker, Sean MacAllister. Cohn’s assignment was to locate a site, arrange for someone to constructthe building, and then lease it from them. It would not matter to the company who put up the building as long as its specifications were met.
    Cohn was studying Lara. She’s too young, he thought. It’s a foolish idea. And yet…“I found a kosher meat market in Sydney…Tomorrow you’re having a steak.” She had such rachmones —compassion.
    Lara was saying, excitedly, “If I could acquire this land and put up a building