The Cat of Christmas Past Read Free Page B

respond, but he did open his eyes. Maybe he was finally getting tired of my rambling and would be willing to engage in a two-way conversation. “You still here?” Pottage asked, as if to indicate he hadn’t heard a word I’d said. Not that I blamed him. Even I was getting tired of my endless chattering about nothing in particular.
    “I’m afraid so. I don’t suppose you have a phone? I’m supposed to call my friend when I want him to come pick me up, but the cell service is a bit sketchy.”
    “Why are you really here?” the man asked.
    “I told you, to return your cat.”
    He sat up straighter. “The cat comes and goes on his own timeline. If he brought you here it was for a reason. I’d like to know what that reason is.”
    I moved forward in my chair in an attempt to look taller and therefore more formidable. “I wanted to speak to you about the Bayview Apartments.”
    “What about them?”
    “I hear you plan to tear them down.”
    “So?” The man glared at me.
    “So, a lot of really wonderful people live in those apartments. If you tear them down they’ll be homeless.”
    The man sat forward and mimicked my body language. He might be old, but he was at least a foot taller than me, which made him look a tad more threatening than I was comfortable with.
    “The apartments have fallen into disrepair. I’ve been notified that I need to bring them up to code or they’ll be condemned. I chose to have them torn down instead, not that it’s any of your business.”
    I adjusted my position in my chair so I was farther away from the man’s dark stare. “Why don’t you just fix the place up? If you did you’d have a piece of property with increased value and the tenants wouldn’t have to move.”
    The man got up from his chair and slowly made his way across the room. He picked up a piece of paper and then walked back across the room to hand it to me. It was an invoice that I didn’t totally understand, though I did understand the large number at the bottom of the paper.
    “This is the estimate I was given when I inquired what it would take to bring the place up to the current code,” Pottage informed me.
    “Wow.”
    “If I spend this amount of money on that building I’ll need to double the rents in order to recover the cost. Not a single person living in the building could afford to have their rent doubled.”
    “No, I guess not,” I admitted.
    “The easiest solution to the problem is to tear the place down and sell off the land.”
    That did make sense from a business standpoint, but certainly not from a human one.
    “It might be hard to find a buyer,” I tried, even though I knew what I’d said was a bald-faced lie. The apartment building had been built on an oceanfront lot that had to be worth millions today.
    “I already have a buyer. He’s made me a strong offer. He plans to build condos in the spring.”
    “So why the rush? Why not wait until the spring to tear down the old apartment building? I’m sure we could work something out with the building inspector to give the tenants more notice.”
    “The buyer wants the tenants gone and the building removed before he’ll sign the final paperwork. He’s offered me an incentive to have the building torn down by the end of January.”
    “You have a lot of money,” I pointed out.
    “I do.”
    “Can’t you just fix up the place and let the tenants stay?”
    “As I said before, to recoup my expenses the rents would need to be so high none of the present tenants could afford them.”
    I hated to admit it, but the man had a point. A good one. The only reason the people who were in the building lived there was because it was the most affordable rental on the island. If the rents were doubled everyone would have to move anyway.
    “I realize it might not be the best business decision, but couldn’t you leave the rents the same?” I suggested. “At least for a while, until the people can make other plans.”
    “Why would I do that?”