Condominium Read online

  Praise for

  John D. MacDonald

  “MacDonald isn’t simply popular; he’s also good.”

  —ROGER EBERT

  “MacDonald’s books are narcotic and, once hooked, a reader can’t kick the habit until the supply runs out.”

  —Chicago Tribune Book World

  “John D. MacDonald remains one of my idols.”

  —DONALD WESTLAKE

  “The Dickens of mid-century America—popular, prolific and … conscience-ridden about his environment … a thoroughly American author.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “It will be for his crisply written, smoothly plotted mysteries that MacDonald will be remembered.”

  —USA Today

  “MacDonald had the marvelous ability to create attention-getting characters who doubled as social critics. In MacDonald novels, it is the rule rather than the exception to find, in the midst of violence and mayhem, a sentence, a paragraph, or several pages of rumination on love, morality, religion, architecture, politics, business, the general state of the world or of Florida.”

  —Sarasota Herald-Tribune

  Condominium is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  2014 Random House Trade Paperbacks Edition

  Copyright © 1977 by John D. MacDonald

  Copyright renewed 2005 by Maynard MacDonald

  Foreword copyright © 2013 by Dean Koontz

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Originally published in hardcover in the United States by J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, PA, in 1977.

  ISBN 978-0-8129-8530-6

  eBook ISBN 978-0-307-82724-1

  www.atrandom.com

  Cover design: Joe Montgomery

  Cover photograph: Scott B Smith/Getty

  v3.1

  This book is dedicated to these people who were part of the good years in Sarasota and were washed away:

  Bill Adams • Walter and Margo Anderson • George and Nancy Albee • Chick Austin • Fran Barley • Bart Bartholomew • Les Baylis • Cosby Bernard • Glen Berry • Karl Bickel • Gertie Blassingame • Don Boomhower • Rosemary Bouden • Ross Boyer • Dave and Sally Boylston • Smyth Brohard • Mary Lawrence Brown • Charles Brundage • Vic Butterfield • Carl Carmer • Tom Chamales • John Z. Clarke • Gabe Cohn • Jack Coldwell • Roy Cook • Jon Corbino • Tom and Betty Crisp • Ben Currier • Pelham Curtis • Oscar Delano • Bill Dobson • A. B. Edwards • Lee Eggers • Janet Elvgren • Ray Englert • Roger Flory • Sandy French • David Gray • Martin Griffin • Miss Charlie Hagerman • Randy Hagerman • Phill Hall • Bebe Hamel • Pop Harbert • Jack Hasson • Alden Hatch • Larry Heller • Edward Burlingame Hill • T. Dana Hill • Al Hirshberg • Russ Hollander • Lew Hughes • Kent Innes • Iz Jenkins • Harold Johnstone • Mack Kantor • Carleton Kelsey • Warren Kemp • Nick Kenny • Jim Kicklighter • Verman Kimbrough • Bill Kip • Reggie Lacatta • Larry LaCava • Jack and Liz Lambie • Ed Langer • Hilton Leech • Larry Lehman • Ray Littrell • John Logan • Jean Ludwig • Jim McCague • Les McFarlane • Eddie Marable • Richard A. A. Martin • Walter Martin • Joe Marx • Murray Mathews • Nappy Matthews • Mike Matusak • Pat McClerkin • Crete McCourtney •Johns McCulley • Oliver McGowan • Kent McKinley • Bill Moise • Bert Montressor • Herman Myers • John Newell • Wally Norton • Bruff Olin • Gordon Palmer • Emmy Pete • Glenn Potter • Mel Potter • Harris Powers • Ted Pratt • Jay and Helen Protas • Ralph Putthoff • Frank Rampola • Loring Raoul • Felix Reisenberg • Jack Rhoades • Willy Robarts • Bill Rogers • Harry Saddler • Bill and Janet Scher • Dave Scobie • Taylor Scott • Ernie Sears • Squire Sessler • Alvord Sheen • Eddie Shields • Karl Shrode • Ned Skinner • Jean Spanos • Warren Spurge • Lois Steinmetz • Becky Sterling • George Storm • Elmer Sulzer • Hank Taylor • Lyle Thompson • Rosie Tombs • Maximilliano Truzzi • Bert Twitchell • Louise Utz • Bill and Laura Van Cleef • Ted Wacker • Paul Waner • David Ward • Bill Watkins • Joyce West • Dorsey Wittington • Fred Woltman • Ed Younker

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  The Singular John D. MacDonald

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  “It’s a very dangerous thing to go so long between hurricanes. It just causes a larger number of incredulous people—nonbelievers.”

  —Dr. Robert H. Simpson, former director National Hurricane Center Miami, Florida

  The Singular John D. MacDonald

  Dean Koontz

  WHEN I WAS IN COLLEGE, I had a friend, Harry Recard, who was smart, funny, and a demon card player. Harry was a successful history major, while I passed more time playing pinochle than I spent in class. For the three and a half years that I required to graduate, I heard Harry rave about this writer named John D. MacDonald, “John D” to his most ardent readers. Of the two of us, Harry was the better card player and just generally the cooler one. Consequently, I was protective of my position, as an English major, to be the better judge of literature, don’t you know. I remained reluctant to give John D a look.

  Having read mostly science fiction, I found many of my professors’ assigned authors markedly less exciting than Robert Heinlein and Theodore Sturgeon, but I was determined to read the right thing. For every Flannery O’Connor whose work I could race through with delight, there were three like Virginia Woolf, who made me want to throw their books off a high cliff and leap after them. Nevertheless, I continued to shun Harry’s beloved John D.

  Five or six years after college, I was a full-time writer with numerous credits in science fiction, struggling to move into suspense and mainstream work. I was making progress but not fast enough to suit me. By now I knew that John D was widely admired, and I finally sat down with one of his books. In the next thirty days, I read thirty-four of them. The singular voice and style of the man overwhelmed me, and the next novel I wrote was such an embarrassingly slavish imitation of a MacDonald tale that I had to throw away the manuscript.

  I apologized to Harry for doubting him. He was so p
leased to hear me proclaiming the joys of John D that he only said “I told you so” on, oh, twenty or thirty occasions.

  Over the years, I have read every novel by John D at least three times, some of them twice that often. His ability to evoke a time and place—mostly Florida but also the industrial Midwest, Las Vegas, and elsewhere—was wonderful, and he could get inside an occupation to give you the details and the feel of it like few other writers I’ve ever read. His pacing was superb, the flow of his prose irresistible, and his suspense watch-spring tight.

  Of all his manifest strengths as a writer, however, I am most in awe of his ability to create characters who are as real as anyone I’ve met in life. John D sometimes paused in the headlong rush of his story to spin out pages of background on a character. At first when this happened, I grumbled about getting on with the story. But I soon discovered that he could make the character so fascinating that when the story began to race forward again, I wanted it to slow down so I could learn more about this person who so intrigued and/or delighted me. There have been many good suspense novelists in recent decades, but in my experience, none has produced characters with as much humanity and truth as those in MacDonald’s work.

  Like most who have found this author, I am an admirer of his Travis McGee series, which features a first-person narrator as good as any in the history of suspense fiction and better than most. But I love the standalone novels even more. Cry Hard, Cry Fast. Where Is Janice Gantry? The Last One Left. A Key to the Suite. The Drowner. The Damned. A Bullet for Cinderella. The Only Girl in the Game. The Crossroads. All These Condemned. Those are not my only favorites, just a few of them, and many deal with interesting businesses and occupations. Mr. MacDonald’s work gives the reader deep and abiding pleasure for many reasons, not the least of which is that it portrays the contemporary life of his day with as much grace and fidelity as any writer of the period, and thus it also provides compelling social history.

  In 1985, when my publisher, Putnam, wanted to send advance proof copies of Strangers to Mr. MacDonald among others, I literally grew shaky at the thought of him reading it. I suggested that they shouldn’t send it to him, that, as famous and prolific as he was, the proof would be an imposition on him; in truth, I feared that he would find the novel unsatisfying. Putnam sent it to him anyway, and he gave us an enthusiastic endorsement. In addition, he wrote to me separately, in an avuncular tone, kindly advising me how to avoid some of the pitfalls of the publishing business, and he wrote to my publisher asking her to please carefully consider the packaging of the book and not condemn it to the horror genre. She more or less condemned it to the genre anyway, but I took his advice to heart.

  In my experience, John D. MacDonald, the man, was as kind and thoughtful as his fiction would lead you to believe that he must be. That a writer’s work accurately reflects his soul is a rarer thing than you might imagine, but in his case, the reflection is clear and true. For that reason, it has been a special honor, in fact a grace, to be asked to write this introduction.

  Reader, prepare to be enchanted by the books of John D. MacDonald. And Harry, I am not as much of an idiot as I was in years gone by—though I know you won’t let me get away with claiming not to be to any degree an idiot anymore.

  1

  HOWARD ELBRIGHT FINALLY FOUND Julian Higbee, the condominium manager, lounging against a concrete column, staring toward the pool area where two young women were taking turns diving from the low board.

  “Excuse me,” Elbright said. “The girl in the office thought you were maybe by the tennis courts. That’s where I looked first.”

  Higbee, the manager, did not respond in any way. He just stood there beside Elbright, big brown arms folded, thick brown ankles crossed. He was a large and meaty fellow, and on all areas not covered by his pale blue sports shirt and his dark blue shorts, his sun-darkened hide was fuzzed with sun-bleached white hairs. On his solid jowls the hair was pale stubble. Though obviously too young a fellow for a hairpiece, his auburn hair was so carefully coifed to sweep across his forehead just above eyebrow level, it looked glossy and wiglike.

  Howard Elbright wondered if the fellow could be deaf and also lack peripheral vision. Alternatively, there was the possibility that Elbright himself had become invisible and inaudible, condemned forever to wander around this bright Florida island trying to join incomprehensible conversations, trying to get people to take his money in exchange for indestructible plastic merchandise. It seemed to him he had been having dreams like that lately.

  “Excuse me!” he said.

  Without turning toward him, Higbee said, “The so-called girl in the office is my wife. She is Mrs. Higbee. Lorrie Higbee.” He spoke in a curiously loud voice, accenting every syllable, as if accustomed to speaking to the semi-deaf.

  “I didn’t mean any—”

  “What it was about the tennis courts, it was Colonel Simmins that lives in One-G. It was Colonel Simmins telling me there are ripples in the west service court, in the second of our two tennis courts, and his serve bounces funny. He made me watch his serve bouncing funny. Okay, so it bounces funny. So, like I told him, everybody’s serve bounces funny.” He spun so suddenly that he startled Howard Elbright. “Fair for one, fair for all! Right?” Julian Higbee shouted.

  “I’m not a tennis player myself.”

  “What he should do, I told him, like I tell everybody: Take it up with your Association. That’s what they are there for. That’s what you elected them for. Then if they want something done, they’ll come to me and they’ll ask me if I can get it done. Right?”

  “I guess that’s right.”

  The manager put his big brown hand out. “My name is Julian Higbee, sir. I am the manager here. If you are interested in purchasing, there are only two units left here at beautiful Golden Sands. Five-A and Six-E. Every apartment has a breathtaking view of the Gulf of Mexico. If you are interested in renting, I can show you a wide assortment of beautifully furnished—”

  “We’re in Four-C.”

  Higbee went blank and then grinned. “That’s right! I knew I’d seen you before somewhere. Moved in day before yesterday, right?”

  “No. Ten days ago. May third, exactly.”

  “Congratulations on finding a new and rewarding life-style, Mister.… Don’t tell me. Please don’t tell me.” Higbee closed his eyes, bowed his head, made a fist and pressed the back of his fist to his lips. He made a barely audible humming sound. “Elmore!” he yelled. “I never fail.”

  “It’s very close. Elmore. Elbright.”

  “It’s close enough, Mr. Elmore. What’s on your mind?”

  “I’ve got a list.”

  “A list? A list of what?”

  “A list of things that have to be fixed. In Four-C.”

  “Have to be fixed? That’s very strong language. Are you making a threat of some kind, Mr. Elmore?”

  “Elbright. No threats. I just mean that you move into a new place, little things are always wrong and sooner or later they have to be fixed to make the place livable. For example, the air conditioning is—”

  “Let’s go to my office and I’ll get out your file.”

  Higbee led the way through the parking garage. Golden Sands was an eight-story building. The parking garage, the entrance foyer and the manager’s office and apartment were on the ground floor. The floor above that was called the first floor. There were seven apartments on each floor, but, because of penthouse patios, only five apartments on the top floor. Forty-seven, plus the manager’s efficiency. It was a pale concrete building, one apartment thick, shaped like an angular boomerang. It stood on four cramped acres of land, its rear convexity backing upon an impenetrable jungle of water oak, palmetto, mangrove and miscellaneous vines and bushes. Its concave front faced the constant noisy traffic on two-lane Beach Drive and, at a greater distance, the space between two taller beach-front condominiums and, beyond them, the wide blue Gulf of Mexico.

  Higbee stopped suddenly, turned and put a big hand on Howard
Elbright’s shoulder, and turned him to the left and said, “Look at that! Damn it to hell, will you look at that?”

  Elbright stared in the indicated direction, saw only a silver gray Oldsmobile parked with its nose toward the concrete wall of one of the storage enclosures.

  “Don’t you see it?” Higbee demanded. He took a steel tape out of his pocket and went to the Oldsmobile. A rear wheel was on the orange dividing line. He measured the amount of overhang, then went to the front of the car and measured the distance from the bumper to the wall.

  “This is Hascoll’s car. Five-F. This time he’s slopped fourteen inches over the side line, and he’s eight inches short of the wall. You know what that does? When there’s a car over there, nobody can get by to these next two spaces, right? Then what happens? I’m watching the television and somebody comes crying they can’t park their damned car. I told him once, I told him thirty times, if his old lady doesn’t know how to park a car, he should park it for her. Is it too much to ask? Keep it between the lines. Touch the wall with the front bumper. Is that too much to ask? I’m telling you, you people have just got to learn how to park your cars.”

  Howard Elbright stared up at the young man’s angry face. Howard felt his ears heat up and felt his neck swell. He knew he was not supposed to let himself get angry.

  “Did you say ‘you people’? Was that your phrase, Higbee?”

  “What am I supposed to call you people?”

  “Residents. Owners. With respect rather than derision.”

  “Rather than what?”

  “Derision, contempt. I help pay your salary, do I not?”

  “You pay for management, Mr. Elmore.”

  “Elbright. Then shouldn’t you make an effort to please the owners here?”

  “Why should I? Oh, I see. Look, you got it wrong. I don’t work for you people. I work for the Gulfway Management Corporation. And Gulfway has got a twenty-year contract to manage this place. Me and Lorrie work for Gulfway. That’s the people I got to please. There’s no use you getting uptight about me, Mr. Elmore. You people can’t do anything about me. Maybe you’re better off with me than the next guy they send over here. You want to know how it works, why don’t you talk with Mr. McGinnity. Seven-B. Pete McGinnity. He’s president of the board of directors of the Golden Sands Association. He doesn’t like it any better than you do. But there it is. Come on, let’s get this list business over with.”