each of the board members. The vampire’s 2008 tax return, on the other hand, had a suspicious reddish-brown stain on the front.
To make the day complete, after she’d gotten off the phone with the vampire, Jennifer’s phone went off with another all-caps CALL ME!! text message from one of their former buyers, a lawyer who’d bought into the top- drawer Oryx co-op for the panoramic views from the twenty-fourth-floor apartment. Now those were about to go away, thanks to a new development, and she was having fits.
“If the Landmarks Commission has approved the renovation, and there’s nothing in the zoning to stop it…” Jennifer said apologetically. She felt bad, but what could you do? That was Manhattan: you put one building up, somebody else put a bigger one up next door.
“My view was supposed to be protected!” Angela said. “It faces onto a freaking landmarked church!”
“I’m sorry. They’re going to preserve the exterior shell and put up a new building on the inside, mimicking the facade and carvings all the way up,” Jennifer said. “We could look for a new place for you, if you want?”
“How can I afford a new place with this millstone around my neck? Who is going to pay two million for a one bedroom with a view of a brick wall accessorized by carvings of smiley angels or whatever these guys are putting on their monstrosity?” Angela said. “No one, that’s who! Oh, my god, why did I buy at peak? I knew better!”
Of course, she hadn’t known better; nobody knew better; that was why it was peak. Jennifer said some comforting things with half a mind while she collated pages of the kitsune’s application, and got off the phone; then she stopped and picked the phone up again and called back. “Angela? Can you get a picture of the facade and e- mail it to me?”
“Granite countertops!” Hyde said. “I want some granite fucking countertops. None of this cheap Formica shit.”
“Okay,” Doug said, adding that to the list under
“That’s another thing, I want someplace where there’s a little goddamn fucking
“That wouldn’t be such a great idea,” Doug said.
“Fun, though,” Hyde said, sort of wistfully.
“So,” Doug said, getting off that subject, “can you tell me anything about what your, er … what Mr. Kell wants? He hasn’t been all that clear—”
“That asshole just wants to crawl under a rock and read books,” Hyde said. “Look at this—” He pointed to the particleboard bookshelves, sagging with hardbacks. “All this IKEA crap everywhere—Jesus. And this is a dream compared to what he had in here before those. Purple fucking built-ins! I had to take a sledgehammer to the whole pile of shit.”
He glared at the bookshelves and then abruptly heaved himself up off the whimpering couch and headed for them with his fists clenching and unclenching, like he couldn’t handle looking at them a second longer.
“So, you know,” Doug said hastily, “I do have a place I’d like you to take a look at…”
Hyde paused before reaching the bookcases, distracted. “Yeah? What the hell, let’s go now.”
“I don’t know if I can reach the broker—” Doug started.
“We can look at the outside,” Hyde said.
The vampire called her up less than a minute after Jennifer forwarded on the e-mail. “What the hell was that!” he yelled. “I almost dropped my iPhone in the gutter!”
“Really?” Jennifer said. “So—that actually hurt?”
“It was a picture of five million crosses!”
“Fantastic,” Jennifer said. “Can you meet me at Seventy-fifth and Third in half an hour?”
Getting Hyde into a taxi involved waiting fifteen minutes for one of the minivan ones to come by empty, but Doug was just fine with that: He spent the time frantically texting back and forth with Tom to get the selling broker down to the apartment in time to meet them. He didn’t completely trust Hyde not to just knock down the front door and go inside, otherwise.
He got a call back from the broker while they were heading downtown. “I just want to make sure you realize—” the guy said.
“Yes, I know,” Doug said. “It’s completely mint inside, though, right?”
“Oh, absolutely,” the broker said. “Architect-designed gut renovation.”
They got out in front of Marble Cemetery. One of the wispy, sad-eyed apparitions paused by the iron railing to watch as Hyde climbed out of the cab, which almost bounced as he finally stepped out. It looked up at him. Hyde glared down at it. “You want something, Casper?” he said. The apparition prudently whisked away.
“So Bowery is two blocks that way, and the Hells Angels club is on the next street over,” Doug said, leading the way to the townhouse next door.
“Looks small,” Hyde said, and he did have to duck his head to get through the front door, but inside the ceilings were ten feet. He stamped his foot experimentally. “What is this stuff?”
“Brazilian hardwood,” the selling broker said faintly, staring up at Hyde with rabbit-wide eyes.
“Maybe let’s take a look at the kitchen,” Doug said encouragingly. “Do you have an offering sheet?”
“Uh, yeah,” the broker said, still staring as he backed up slowly. “Right … this way…”
“All right, now this is fucking something,” Hyde said approvingly, coming into the kitchen. There was a long magnetic strip mounted on the wall with five or so chef’s knives stuck onto it. He picked off a cleaver and tossed it casually in his hand as the broker edged around him, pointing out the Miele appliances.
“And granite countertops, as requested,” Doug added.
“Let’s see the bathroom,” Hyde said. He didn’t leave the cleaver behind.
The master bath on the second floor had a big soaking tub and another small apparition hanging around outside the window, staring in with miserable empty eyes that spoke of endless despair and horrors beyond the grave. “Get lost,” Hyde told it, and it disappeared.
“So, the uh, the third-floor ceilings,” the broker said, stumbling over his words as they came out back to the staircase, “—a little lower, I’m not sure—”
“Maybe we could have Mr. Kell take a look?” Doug suggested to Hyde. “Assuming that you like the place so far.”
Hyde looked around and said, “Yeah, this is decent. But make sure that asshole doesn’t try to negotiate.” He gave his toothy grin to the selling broker, who shrank away. “I’ll handle that part.”
“Sure,” Doug said, and Hyde’s smile and shoulders curled in on themselves, and Kell was there, wobbling a little in his suddenly too-large clothing.
He looked around uncertainly and said, “I … I’m not sure. The front windows, on the street—anyone could see inside—”
“Why don’t we go upstairs?” Doug said, shepherding him onto the third floor.
Kell paused about halfway up, as the built-in bookcases came into view, before continuing up. “Well, those are nice,” he said.
“And the windows look on the cemetery back here,” Doug said. “Of course, I realize it’s a little inconvenient,” he added, and Kell looked at him. “Since Mr. Hyde won’t be able to get up to this floor.”
“Oh,” Kell said. “
Doug shook the selling broker’s hand as they left the house. “Will you be around later?” he said.
“Um,” the broker said, “could you … maybe not give my number to…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Doug said. “I’ll handle going between.”
The other broker looked relieved. “The seller is totally negotiable,” he added, throwing a look at the cemetery. A gardener was busy nearby, spraying a thin, clutching, revenant hand that was struggling out of an old grave.
