Trial and Terror by Franklin W. Dixon Read Free Book Online Page A

asked Frank.
    â€œSure,” Frank said. “I’ll just tell the other ten thousand people to move over.”
    It was a relief to both Hardys when the doors finally opened at their stop uptown. Frank and Joe climbed a flight of steps and stood at thecorner of Thirty-fourth Street and Sixth Avenue. The intersection was filled with people and cars, and across the street Frank spotted Macy’s, the world’s largest department store.
    After walking a block and passing through a revolving door, the Hardys entered a lobby gleaming with polished black marble. This was the Empire State Building, but Frank and Joe were not there for sightseeing. The night before, they had learned from the telephone directory that this was where Fred Garfein’s office was located.
    The brothers rode a fast elevator to the seventy-ninth floor and entered a reception area. Frank told a secretary he and Joe wanted to speak with Garfein as part of a high school journalism project. The secretary spoke into an intercom box, a voice answered, then the secretary pointed at a door.
    Beyond the door the Hardys found themselves in an office where vast windows showed a panoramic view of the city below. Fred Garfein was a middle-aged man with gray hair who looked tiny in comparison to the massive mahogany desk he sat behind.
    â€œI don’t understand what it is you kids want,” Garfein said gruffly, “but since I’m a nice guy, I’ll give you five minutes of my valuable time.”
    â€œWe understand,” Frank said, taking a seat across from Garfein, “that you’ve been trying to evict some of the tenants at four seventy-twoWest Twenty-second Street. So you can renovate the apartments and charge higher rents.”
    â€œEverybody thinks us landlords are such villains,” Garfein said. “But let me tell you what’s not fair. The city’s rent regulations.”
    â€œIn what way?” Frank asked.
    â€œThe city says you can only raise the rent a small percent every time a tenant renews a lease,” Garfein explained. “As a result, you’ve got all these old people who have been living in their apartments for twenty, thirty years, and they’re paying rents way below the market value. That means the landlord loses money on those apartments.”
    â€œBut—” Frank started.
    â€œWait until I’m finished,” Garfein said, waving a hand. “In any other business a businessman has a right to charge whatever he wants. If a person is selling toys or gourmet food or dental floss, he can charge whatever the market will bear. That’s the way this country is supposed to work. But the city won’t let you do the same thing with apartments. And that, my friends, is not fair.”
    â€œThe difference is—” Frank tried to say.
    â€œAnd,” Garfein continued, “if I’m forced to charge low rents on some of my apartments, that means I have to charge extra high rents on the other apartments in my fifteen buildings. So not only are these laws unfair to landlords, they’re also unfair to the tenants who end up paying outrageously high rents.”
    â€œExcept—” Frank said.
    â€œAnd if I can’t get people to pay those outrageously high rents,” Garfein kept on, “that means I have to sell a building to cut my losses. But let me tell you something. That building on Twenty-second Street is prime real estate that I worked hard to buy, and I have no intention of selling it!”
    Joe was standing at one of the windows, watching the conversation. Far below, people hurrying along the sidewalks appeared the size of insects. Joe figured that was probably just the way Fred Garfein viewed them.
    â€œDoes it bother you that elderly people, or artists, or people who have lost their jobs could lose their homes?” Joe asked Garfein.
    â€œStop, please, you’re making me cry,” Garfein said, swinging his feet onto