Destroyer 84 - Ground Zero by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

Author:Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Connors "Con" Swindell was not having a good day.

In truth, he wasn't having a good year. The way things were going, he was well on his way to having a terrible decade.

It had all been so different back in the seventies and eighties, when he had been one of the giants in condomania.

As if it were yesterday, Con Swindell remembered those halcyon days. Especially the forever-golden moment the cabalistic word "condominium" had been whispered in his ear.

"Condoleum?" he had sputtered, perplexed.

"No, condominium."

"Condolonium," Swindell repeated, blinking.

It had been a real-estate conference in Phoenix. The man who whispered in his ear added, "It's the greatest thing to hit real estate since the thirty-year fixed-rate mortgage."

"Condomonium?" Con said, still struggling with the unfamiliar word.

"Condominiums," Morgan Mullaney repeated, a slight edge creeping into his usually smooth salesman's voice. He was in the high end of the residential market. Strictly penthouses and mansions. Nothing less than six-figure transactions.

"Why don't we just call them cons-just to get through the conversation?" Swindell had suggested, wondering if this guy was trying to snooker him somehow.

"How about condos?" Mullaney suggested. " 'Cons' sounds a little shady. No offense, you understand."

"None taken," said Connors Swindell, who had made a lateral career slide from used cars into real estate. He happened to have been sucked into buying some worthless Florida land back in the early sixties. Then Disney World had been hatched and Connors cashed in his worthless land for big bucks. He got out of used cars and traded up to fine homes. He had been trading up ever since, feeding the voracious public appetite for the American dream's ultimate aspiration, a home of one's own.

"So," he asked on that long-ago day, "what exactly are condos?"

Connors Swindell found himself being led to a display booth. There was a scale model of a Spanish-style apartment house tended by a busty blond. He had trouble keeping his eyes on the model.

"Nice," he said. "But I'm in private homes. Rentals are a pain. I like to sell 'em and walk away. Let the banks worry about whether the suckers are good for the mortgage."

"This, my friend, is no mere apartment house."

"Looks like one. Bigger than some, smaller than most. So what?"

"What would you say if I told you that this baby will generate more income than a comparable apartment house would if you rented it out for fifty years straight?"

"Where you plan on building it-Beverly Hills?"

"Burbank."

"Burbank! You're dreaming!"

"No, I'm developing. I'm in development now, Con. Condominium development."

"There's that word again," Swindell mumbled, staring at the apartment-house model. "How's it work?"

"Very simply. Inside and out, it looks just like a common apartment house. But you don't rent out the units."

Swindell licked his teeth. "How do you make money, then?"

"You sell them."

"Sell apartments?"

"No, sell condos," Mullaney said, detaching the plastic-stucco facade from the model building.

Swindell leaned over to peer inside. He saw tiny apartments containing tiny people seated on tiny furniture.

"I don't get it," he remarked. "Looks like an ordinary apartment to me."

"Look, why do people rent?"

" 'Cause they can't afford to buy.

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