22

Kevin Wilson admitted to himself that it was almost impossible to concentrate on the drawings on his desk. He was looking at the landscaper’s sketches for the plantings in the lobby of 701 Carlton Place, as the new apartment complex would be called.

The name had been agreed upon only after a heated discussion with the directors of Jarrell International, the multibillion-dollar company that was financing the building. Several members of the board of directors had suggestions of names they thought would be more appropriate. Most of them were in the romantic or would-be historical vein, Windsor Arms, Camelot Towers, Le Versailles, Stonehenge, even New Amsterdam Court.

Kevin had listened with increasing impatience. Finally it had been his turn. “What is considered to be the most exclusive address in New York?” he had asked.

Seven of the eight board members named the same address on Park Avenue.

“Exactly,” Kevin had told them. “My point is that we’ve got a very expensive building to fill. As we speak, there are many very expensive residential buildings in Manhattan under construction. I don’t have to remind you that this is a tough economy, or that it’s our job to make our pitch to potential buyers a very special one. Our location is spectacular. Our views of the Hudson River and of the city are spectacular. But I want us to be able to tell our prospective buyers that when the name 701 Carlton Place is mentioned, everyone hearing that address will know that the person giving it is lucky enough to be living in a privileged location.”

I guess I carried the day, he thought as he turned his chair from the table to the desk, shaking his head. Dear God, if Pop were around what would he think if he heard that spiel? His grandfather had been the superintendent of the building next door to where he and his parents had lived. The name, Lancelot Towers, had been carved in stone over the six-story walk-up with its dreary railroad flats, creaking dumbwaiters, and ancient plumbing, on Webster Avenue in the Bronx.

Pop would have thought I was crazy, Kevin acknowledged, and so would Dad, if he were still alive. Mom is used to my salesmanship pitch by now. After Dad died, when I finally got her to move to East Fifty-seventh Street, she said I could sell a dead horse to a mounted policeman. Now she loves Manhattan. I swear she falls asleep at night humming “New York, New York.”

All these random thoughts are going nowhere, he acknowledged silently, as he leaned back in his chair. From down the hall he could hear the relentless sound of hammering and the shrill, ear-piercing whine of machines beginning to polish the marble floors.

To Kevin, the din of construction was more beautiful than hearing a symphony in Lincoln Center. From the time I was a kid, I told Dad I’d rather go to a construction site than to the zoo, he thought. Even then, I knew I wanted to design buildings.

The landscaper’s sketches weren’t right, he decided. He’ll have to start all over, or I’ll get someone else. I don’t want the entrance to look like a conservatory, Kevin thought. This guy just doesn’t get it.

The model apartments. Last night he had studied both Longe’s and Moreland’s submissions for hours. They were both mighty im pressive. He could understand why Bartley Longe was considered one of the foremost interior designers in the country. If he got the job, the apartments would be spectacular.

But Zan Moreland’s sketches were marvelously attractive, too. He could see how she had studied under Longe, but then broken off from his ideas to pursue her own. There was more warmth, more of a sense of this-is-my-home in the deft way she put small touches in her layouts. And she was 30 percent cheaper in her prices.

He admitted to himself that he had not been able to get her out of his mind. She was a beautiful woman, there was no doubt about that. Slender, even a shade too thin, those enormous hazel eyes dominating her face … Odd that she was so shy, almost to the point of diffidence, until she got into explaining her vision for the model apartments. Then it was as if a light turned on and her face and voice became animated.

When she left yesterday, I watched her walk out to the curb and hail a cab, Kevin thought. It had gotten so windy that I wondered if that suit she was wearing was warm enough for her, even though it had a fur collar. I had the feeling that a strong gust of wind would have knocked her to the ground.

There was a tap on the door of his office. Before he could respond, his secretary, Louise Kirk, was in the office and walking to his desk. “Let me guess. It’s exactly nine o’clock,” he said.

Louise, a forty-five-year-old pear-shaped dynamo, with a head of fluffy blond hair, was the wife of one of the construction chiefs. “Of course it is,” she replied briskly.

Kevin was sorry he had given Louise that opening. Now he hoped she wouldn’t repeat her oft-told comparison of herself to Eleanor Roosevelt. As Louise, a history buff, explained it, Eleanor was always exactly on time, “Even to the moment when she descended the stairs in the White House to arrive precisely when the ceremony at FDR’s casket in the East Room was about to begin.”

But today Louise clearly had other things on her mind. “Did you have a chance to read the papers?” she asked.

“No. The breakfast meeting started at seven o’clock,” Kevin reminded her.

“Well, then take a look at this.” Gleeful at being able to be the bearer of startling news, Louise laid the morning papers, the New York Post and the Daily News, on his desk. Both of them had a picture of Zan Moreland on the front page. Their headlines were similar, and sensational. Both alleged that Zan Moreland had kidnapped her own child.

Kevin stared at the photos in disbelief of what he was seeing. “Did you know her child was missing?” he asked Louise.

“No, I didn’t connect her name with it,” Louise said. “Don’t forget, I was in the main office yesterday. Of course, I knew the child’s name, Matthew Carpenter. The papers were full of the story when he disappeared, but as I remember they always referred to the mother as Alexandra. I didn’t put two and two together. What are you going to do about it, Kevin? She’s bound to be arrested. Should I return her sketches to her office?”

“I would say that we have no choice,” Kevin said quietly, then added, “The funny thing is I’d just about decided to give her the job.”