The beautiful Deborah Lincoln took her attorney’s hand and squeezed it as she gazed raptly at Brody.
“… They want to buy the business,” Brody finished lamely, his thoughts galloping.
Yes, indeed, Deborah Lincoln. Yes, indeed, you need a man to comfort you in your hour of need. But why this pimp in mufti? Why not T. Jefferson Brody?
“I have an excellent offer to lay before you.” Brody gave the widow Lincoln his most honest, sincere smile.
Negotiations with Deborah Lincoln and attorney Jones took all of an hour. Brody offered $350,000, the attorney demanded $450,000. After some genteel give-and-take, Mrs. Lincoln graciously agreed to compromise at $400,000. Her attorney held her hand and looked into her eyes and tried to persuade her to demand more, but her mind was made up.
“Four hundred thousand is fair,” she said. “That’s about what Judson thought the business was worth.”
She gave Jones a gentle grin and squeezed his hand. When they weren’t looking his way, T. Jefferson Brody rolled his eyes heavenward.
It was agreed that tomorrow afternoon Mrs. Lincoln and Mr. Jones would come to Brody’s office to look over the lease assignments, bill of sale, and other documents. Brody would have the check ready.
After shaking hands all around, Brody was escorted from the room by the maid, who helped him with his coat and held the door for him.
Down on the sidewalk, with the door firmly closed behind him, Jefferson Brody permitted himself a big smile as he walked toward his car.
The door was opened by a young woman with a scarf around her head. “Yes.”
“I understand you have an apartment for rent?” Henry Charon raised his eyebrows hopefully.
“Yes. Come in, come in. It’s too cold out there. What is it, forty-five degrees?”
“Nearer fifty, I think.”
“It’s upstairs. A bedroom, bath, living room, and kitchenette. Fairly nice.”
They were standing in the hallway now. The New Hampshire Avenue building was old but fairly clean. The woman wore huge glasses in brown, hornrim frames, but the optical correction in the glass was so large that her eyes were comically enlarged. Charon found himself staring at those brown eyes, fascinated. She focused on one thing, then another, and he could plainly see every twitch of the muscles around her eyes.
“I’d like to see the apartment, please.”
“The rent’s nine hundred a month,” she apologized. She had a pleasant voice and spoke clearly, articulating every word precisely. “Really obscene, I know, but what can we do?”
Charon grimaced for her benefit, then said, “I’d like to see it.”
Her eyes reflected her empathy, then she turned and made for the stairs. “Just moving to town?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, you’ll like Washington. It’s so vibrant, so exciting! All the great ideas are here. This is such an intellectually stimulating city!”
The apartment was on the third floor. The living room faced the street, but the bedroom looked down on an alley that ran alongside the building. The grillwork of a fire escape was visible out the bedroom window, and he unlocked the sash, raised it, and stuck his head out. The fire escape went all the way to the roof.
He closed the window as his guide explained about the heat. Forced-air gas, no individual thermostats, temperature kept at sixty-five all winter.
“You must come look at the kitchen.” She led him on. “It’s small but intimate and reasonably equipped. Perfect for meals for two, but you could do food for four quite easily, six or eight in a pinch.”
“Very nice,” Henry Charon said, and opened the refrigerator and looked inside to humor her. “Very nice.”
She showed him the bathroom. Adequate hot water, he was assured.
“The neighbors?” he asked when they were standing in the living room.
“Well,” she said, lowering her voice as if to tell a secret. “Everyone who lives here is so very nice. Two doctoral students — I’m one of those — a Library of Congress researcher, a paralegal, a free-lance writer, and a public-interest attorney. Oh, and one librarian.”
“Ummm.”
“This is the only vacancy we’ve had in over a year. We’ve had five inquiries, but the landlord insisted on a hundred and fifty a month rent increase, which just puts it out of so many persons’ reach.”
“I can believe it.”
“The previous tenant died of AIDS.” She looked wistfully around the room, then turned those huge eyes on Charon. He stared into them. “It was so tragic. He suffered so. His friend just couldn’t afford to keep the apartment after he passed away.”
“I see.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“Consulting, mostly. Government stuff.”
He began asking questions just to hear her voice and watch the expressions in her eyes. She was studying political science, hoped to teach in a private university, got a break on her rent to manage the building, the neighborhood was quiet with only reasonable traffic, she had lived here for two years and grown up in Newton, Massachusetts, the corner grocery on the next street over was excellent. Her name was Grisella Clifton.
“Well,” Henry Charon sighed at last, reluctant to end the conversation. “You’ve sold me. I’ll take it.”
A half hour later she walked out the door with him. She paused by her car, a weathered VW bug. “I’m delighted you’ll be living here with us, Mr. Tackett.”
Henry Charon nodded and watched her maneuver the Volkswagen from its parking place. She kept both hands firmly on the wheel and leaned toward it until the moving plastic threatened to graze her nose. On the back of the car were a variety of bumper stickers: ONE WOMAN FOR PEACE, CHILDCARE BEFORE WARFARE, THIS CAR IS A NUCLEAR FREE ZONE.
On Wednesday afternoon Jefferson Brody concluded that Jeremiah Jones wasn’t much of a lawyer. While Mrs. Lincoln examined the original oil paintings on the paneled mahogany and the bronze nude that Brody had paid eleven thousand dollars for, Jones looked over the legal documents, asked two stupid questions, and flipped through the two full pages of representations and warranties that Mrs. Lincoln was asked to make as seller of the business without taking the time to read them carefully. Jones was a sheep, Brody decided. A black sheep, he chuckled to himself, pleased at his own wit.
Mrs. Lincoln signed the documents while Brody’s secretary watched. Then the secretary notarized the documents, carefully sealed them, and separated them into piles, one pile for Mrs. Lincoln and one for Brody’s clients, whose identities were, of course, still undisclosed. The documents merely transferred the business to the ABC Corporation, which was precisely one day old.
“You understand, I’m sure,” Brody commented to Jones, “why my clients have not given me the authority to reveal their identities.”
“Perfectly,” Jones said with a wave of his hand. “Happens all the time.”
Brody produced the cashier’s check of a New York bank in the amount of four hundred thousand dollars. After Jones had examined it, it went to Mrs. Lincoln, who merely glanced at it and folded it for her purse.
Jones glanced at his watch and stood. “I’d better run. I have an appointment at my office and I think I’m going to be late. Deborah, can you get home in a taxi?”
“Of course, Jeremiah. Oh, why don’t you take this check and have your secretary deposit it for me? Could you do that?”
“If you’ll make out a deposit slip.”
“Won’t take a minute.” Mrs. Lincoln got out her checkbook, carefully tore a deposit slip from the back, and noted the check number on it. Then she turned the check over and endorsed it. This didn’t take thirty seconds. She handed both pieces of paper to Jones. “Thank you so much.”
“Of course. I’ll call you.”
Jones shook hands with Brody and left.