The Mysterious Disappearence of Leon (18 page)

Sunset Towers faced east and had no towers. This glittery, glassy apartment house stood alone on the Lake Michigan shore five stories high. Five empty stories high.

Then one day (it happened to be the Fourth of July), a most uncommon-looking delivery boy rode around town slipping letters under the doors of the chosen tenants-to-be. The letters were signed
Barney Northrup
.

The delivery boy was sixty-two years old, and there was no such person as Barney Northrup.

Dear Lucky One:

Here it is—the apartment you’ve always dreamed of, at a rent you can afford, in the newest, most luxurious building on Lake Michigan:

SUNSET TOWERS

• Picture windows in every room

• Uniformed doorman, maid service

• Central air conditioning, hi-speed elevator

• Exclusive neighborhood, near excellent schools

• Etc., etc.

You have to see it to believe it. But these unbelievably elegant apartments will be shown by appointment only. So hurry, there are only a few left!!! Call me now at 276-7474 for this once-in-a-lifetime offer.

Your servant,
Barney Northrup

P.S. I am also renting ideal space for:

• Doctor’s office in lobby

• Coffee shop with entrance from parking lot

• Hi-class restaurant on entire top floor

Six letters were delivered, just six. Six appointments were made, and one by one, family by family, talk, talk, talk, Barney Northrup led the tours around and about Sunset Towers.

“Take a look at all that glass. One-way glass,ʺ Barney Northrup said. ”You can see out, nobody can see in.ʺ

Looking up, the Wexlers (the first appointment of the day) were blinded by the blast of morning sun that flashed off the face of the building.

“See those chandeliers? Crystal!” Barney Northrup said, slicking his black moustache and straightening his hand-painted tie in the lobby’s mirrored wall. “How about this carpeting? Three inches thick!”

ʺGorgeous,ʺ Mrs. Wexler replied, clutching her husband’s arm as her high heels wobbled in the deep plush pile. She, too, managed an approving glance in the mirror before the elevator door opened.

ʺYoure really in luck,ʺ Barney Northrup said. “There’s only one apartment left, but you’ll love it. It was meant for you.ʺ He flung open the door to 3D. ”Now, is that breathtaking, or is that breathtaking?”

Mrs. Wexler gasped; it was breathtaking, all right. Two walls of the living room were floor-to-ceiling glass. Following Barney Northrup’s lead, she ooh-ed and aah-ed her joyous way through the entire apartment.

Her trailing husband was less enthusiastic. “What’s this, a bedroom or a closet?” Jake Wexler asked, peering into the last room.

“It’s a bedroom, of course,” his wife replied.

“It looks like a closet.”

“Oh Jake, this apartment is perfect for us, just perfect,” Grace Wexler argued in a whining coo. The third bedroom was a trifle small, but it would do just fine for Turtle. “And think what it means having your office in the lobby, Jake; no more driving to and from work, no more mowing the lawn or shoveling snow.”

“Let me remind you,” Barney Northrup said, ”the rent here is cheaper than what your old house costs in upkeep.”

How would he know that, Jake wondered.

Grace stood before the front window where, beyond the road, beyond the trees, Lake Michigan lay calm and glistening. A lake view! Just wait until those so-called friends of hers with their classy houses see this place. The furniture would have to be reupholstered; no, she’d buy new furniture—beige velvet. And she’d have stationery made—blue with a deckle edge, her name and fancy address in swirling type across the top:
Grace Windsor Wexler, Sunset Towers on the Lake Shore
.

Not every tenant-to-be was quite as overjoyed as Grace Windsor Wexler. Arriving in the late afternoon, Sydelle Pulaski looked up and saw only the dim, warped reflections of treetops and drifting clouds in the glass face of Sunset Towers.

“Youʹre really in luck,” Barney Northrup said for the sixth and last time. “There’s only one apartment left, but you’ll love it. It was meant for you.” He flung open the door to a one-bedroom apartment in the rear. “Now, is that breathtaking or is that breathtaking?”

“Not especially,” Sydelle Pulaski replied as she blinked into the rays of the summer sun setting behind the parking lot. She had waited all these years for a place of her own, and here it was, in an elegant building where rich people lived. But she wanted a lake view.

“The front apartments are taken,” Barney Northrup said.”Besides, the rent’s too steep for a secretary’s salary. Believe me, you get the same luxuries here at a third of the price.”

At least the view from the side window was pleasant. “Are you sure nobody can see in?” Sydelle Pulaski asked.

“Absolutely,” Barney Northrup said, following her suspicious stare to the mansion on the north cliff. “That’s just the old Westing house up there; it hasn’t been lived in for fifteen years.”

“Well, I’ll have to think it over.”

“I have twenty people begging for this apartment,ʺ Barney Northrup said, lying through his buckteeth. ”Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it.”

Whoever, whatever else he was, Barney Northrup was a good salesman. In one day he had rented all of Sunset Towers to the people whose names were already printed on the mailboxes in an alcove off the lobby:

OFFICE ❑
Dr. Wexler
LOBBY ❑
Theodorakis Coffee Shop
2C ❑
F. Baumbach
2D ❑
Theodorakis
3C ❑
S. Pulaski
3D ❑
Wexler
4C ❑
Hoo
4D ❑
J. J. Ford
5 ❑
Shin Hoo’s Restaurant

Who were these people, these specially selected tenants? They were mothers and fathers and children. A dressmaker, a secretary, an inventor, a doctor, a judge. And, oh yes, one was a bookie, one was a burglar, one was a bomber, and one was a mistake. Barney Northrup had rented one of the apartments to the wrong person.

■ GHOSTS OR WORSE ■

2

ON SEPTEMBER FIRST, the chosen ones (and the mistake) moved in. A wire fence had been erected along the north side of the building; on it a sign warned:

NO TRESPASSING—
Property of the Westing estate
.

The newly paved driveway curved sharply and doubled back on itself rather than breach the city-county line. Sunset Towers stood at the far edge of town.

On September second, Shin Hoo’s Restaurant, specializing in authentic Chinese cuisine, held its grand opening. Only three people came. It was, indeed, an exclusive neighborhood; too exclusive for Mr. Hoo. However, the less expensive coffee shop that opened on the parking lot was kept busy serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner to tenants “ordering up” and to workers from nearby Westingtown.

Sunset Towers was a quiet, well-run building, and (except for the grumbling Mr. Hoo) the people who lived there seemed content. Neighbor greeted neighbor with “Good morning” or “Good evening” or a friendly smile, and grappled with small problems behind closed doors.

The big problems were yet to come.

Now it was the end of October. A cold, raw wind whipped dead leaves about the ankles of the four people grouped in the Sunset Towers driveway, but not one of them shivered. Not yet.

The stocky, broad-shouldered man in the doormanʹs uniform, standing with feet spread, fists on hips, was Sandy McSouthers. The two slim, trim high-school seniors, shielding their eyes against the stinging chill, were Theo Theodorakis and Doug Hoo. The small, wiry man pointing to the house on the hill was Otis Amber, the sixty-two-year-old delivery boy.

They faced north, gaping like statues cast in the moment of discovery, until Turtle Wexler, her kite tail of a braid flying behind her, raced her bicycle into the driveway. “Look! Look, there’s smoke—there’s smoke coming from the chimney of the Westing house.”

The others had seen it. What did she think they were looking at anyway?

Turtle leaned on the handlebars, panting for breath. (Sunset Towers was near excellent schools, as Barney Northrup had promised, but the junior high was four miles away.) “Do you think—do you think old man Westing’s up there?”

“Naw,” Otis Amber, the old delivery boy, answered. “Nobody’s seen him for years. Supposed to be living on a private island in the South Seas, he is; but most folks say he’s dead.

Long-gone dead. They say his corpse is still up there in that big old house. They say his body is sprawled out on a fancy Oriental rug, and his flesh is rotting off those mean bones, and maggots are creeping in his eye sockets and crawling out his nose holes.” The delivery boy added a high-pitched he-he-he to the gruesome details.

Now someone shivered. It was Turtle.

“Serves him right,” Sandy said. At other times a cheery fellow, the doorman often complained bitterly about having been fired from his job of twenty years in the Westing paper mill. ”But somebody must be up there. Somebody alive, that is.” He pushed back the gold-braided cap and squinted at the house through his steel-framed glasses as if expecting the curling smoke to write the answer in the autumn air. “Maybe it’s those kids again. No, it couldn’t be.”

“What kids?” the three kids wanted to know.

“Why those two unfortunate fellas from Westingtown.”

“What unfortunate fellas?” The three heads twisted from the doorman to the delivery boy. Doug Hoo ducked Turtle’s whizzing braid. Touch her precious pigtail, even by accident, and she’ll kick you in the shins, the brat. He couldn’t chance an injury to his legs, not with the big meet coming. The track star began to jog in place.