New York - The Novel

temper, however. He must remain calm.
    “So what’s the problem?” he asked.
    “He lives on West End Avenue,” said Vorpal.
    “He has for years. Lots of good people live on West End.”
    “I’d have preferred Central Park West.”
    “There are some quite exclusive buildings on West End, you know.”
    “His isn’t one of them,” said Vorpal drily.
    “His references look all right. Here’s one from a trustee of Mount Sinai—those are very important people. This guy Anderson’s a big hitter.”
    “Yes. As a professional reference, excellent. But as a social reference, not so good.”
    “Why?”
    “Anderson lives in a town house. And Caruso’s other social reference comes from out of town.” Vorpal shook his head. “What we like to see is a reference from someone who lives in, and is preferably on the board of, a very good building. A building like ours. Someone who has the same fit.”
    “I see.”
    “I’m looking for clubs, Gorham, for people with a significant social presence in the city, for big charitable donations. And I don’t see them—I don’t see them at all. I don’t even see a country club. This application lacks …” he searched for a word, “substance.”
    “I could write him a reference,” said Gorham wickedly.
    Vorpal’s face suggested that, in his private estimation, that might not have been enough. But his answer was more clever.
    “I find it significant that he didn’t ask you, or one of his many patients like you, to do so.”
    “Anything else?” asked Master.
    “There is the question of money.”
    “Okay.”
    “We have always been an all-cash building, of course.”
    Many buildings allowed you to have a mortgage for half the price of your apartment. That wasn’t a bad idea. Financial stability was good. Lesser buildings might allow sixty or even seventy percent mortgages. By the time you got to ninety percent debt, you were really trash. But the top buildings, the ruthless enclaves, didn’t allow any debt at all. If you needed to borrow money to buy your apartment, then you didn’t belong. Go and take out a mortgage on your country house if that was the kind of thing you liked to do.
    “There seems to be no problem with cash. The Carusos have plenty—I happen to know that his wife inherited money some years ago. Actually, their financial disclosures look pretty good.”
    As well as the usual bank references and tax returns, the co-op demanded more than usually detailed statements of assets. Prospective buyers couldn’t fake them out. All the good co-op boards left applicants exposed when it came to their personal finances, but Vorpal and Bandersnatch wanted them totally naked.
    “Hmm. Pretty good, but maybe not good enough. As you know, Gorham, the building has always looked for a comfortable margin here. On the basic level, we want to be quite sure there won’t be any difficulty with the monthly maintenance, which for Caruso’s apartment runs six thousand a month now, or with any assessments the board may need to impose. But we like evidence of solidness. We have for a long time now required that people can prove assets of maybe two or three times the value of the apartment they’re buying.”
    “I’ve always thought that a little harsh.”
    “Well, I think, and Jim thinks, that in the current climate we can do a little better.”
    “Better?”
    “What we’re really looking for here is five times assets.”
    “You want Caruso to have twenty-five million dollars?”
    “I think we can get that.”
    “Hell, John, I don’t have twenty-five million dollars.”
    “Your family’s been here seventy years. We like that.”
    “But you want the new people to have that kind of money?”
    “Those are the kind of people we want.”
    “Do you have twenty-five million dollars, John?”
    Maggie gave him a warning look. This question was a bad idea. But Gorham wasn’t going to back down.
    “John, do you know what Groucho Marx said about clubs? ‘I don’t want to belong to a club that takes people like me.’ Are you sure we’re not straying into Groucho Marx territory here?”
    “Other buildings are the same, Gorham. You’re out of date. There’s at least one building on this avenue that insists on ten times assets.”
    “You mean, you’d need fifty million dollars before they let you in?”
    “That’s exactly what I mean. You should know that, Gorham.”
    Gorham said nothing. Actually, he did have some idea how things were going, though