Syndrome Part 23

What's it all for?

Unknown to the world--but, unfortunately, known to his wife, Eileen-- Winston Bartlett had a natural son. And that son, now in his own career, despised Bartlett. It was one of many sorrows he had long since learned to bear.

All the same, he increasingly regretted that he had made such a botch of their relations.h.i.+p. The man who was his natural son had done very well for himself professionally, had plenty of drive. And in fact Bartlett believed he himself deserved some of the credit for that. What he had done was let the boy fend for himself, which was exactly how Bartlett was raised. Make it with your own two hands. How else are you supposed to develop any character?

And it had worked. The pity was, he now hated Winston Bartlett's guts.

But Bartlett had begun thinking more and more about a legacy. What if he could make peace with that son and bring him into the business?

Right now the closest thing he had to a son was Grant Hampton, and Hampton was a little too slick and expedient. Bartlett knew a gold- standard hustler when he saw one.

The more he thought about it, the more he was convincing himself to make his natural son his sole heir.

a.s.suming there was anything left to pa.s.s on.

_Monday, April 6

11:20 A.M.

_

"Mr. Bartlett asked me to give you this," Kenji Noda said handing her a large manila envelope as they stepped off the

elevator. "It's a copy of the original plans. And also, there's a blueprint for the current layout, along with measurements."

She took it, looking him over again as she did. There was something very fluid about his motions. He could have been a dancer. There was a softness about him, and yet you got an unmistakable sense of inner strength. She suspected he had something to do with Bartlett's incredible collection of j.a.panese _katana_. He looked like he could have a connoisseur's eye.

She walked into the below-stairs service s.p.a.ce and looked around. The back part, which was the kitchen, had stone walls that had been whitewashed. There also were two ma.s.sive fireplaces, which, she a.s.sumed, had once housed coal-burning stoves. Large grease-and-soot- covered gas ranges were there now.

But the s.p.a.ce was fabulous. Ma.s.sive load-bearing columns went down the center, and a part.i.tion separated the front half of the s.p.a.ce from the back. The front traditionally would have been the nursery and sewing room, in short, the maids' working quarters.

She turned to the man Bartlett had called Ken.

"Does Mr. Bartlett have a cook?" she asked. "This kitchen doesn't look used."

"No," he said. "Actually, he almost never dines here, and Mrs. Bartlett has her meals delivered from various restaurants. Though she does go out sometimes as well."

This was the first time she had heard any mention of Eileen Bartlett.

"She resides on the top two floors," he went on. "She has her own dining room up there, where she takes her meals, along with an efficiency kitchen."

So the Bartletts did live completely separate lives. That explained a lot.

"Okay," she said, "I want to look around and get a feeling for the s.p.a.ce and start putting together some ideas." She was starting to focus on the job. The ceiling was lower than upstairs, but still the s.p.a.ce had enormous possibilities. "Off the top, I'd probably suggest we open this out. Remove that dividing wall and make a great room. With the right kind of kitchen, this could be a marvelous contemporary s.p.a.ce for semiformal dining and entertaining." a.s.suming, she thought, Winston Bartlett actually wanted a renovated s.p.a.ce to entertain. She still had the nagging suspicion that he just wanted her. "I'd use materials that have a really warm tone."

Mix different materials for the different parts of the kitchen and the room, she thought. The cabinets could be mahogany, to echo the extensive use of that wood upstairs, and the walls around the stove area and the fireplaces could be an earth- colored slate. And that look could be accented with polished granite countertops in a slightly darker hue. There would need to be a high-Btu stove, probably a big Viking, with a slate backsplash all around. A couple of stainless-steel Sub- Zero refrigerators and a large Bosch dishwasher could be s.p.a.ced along in the slate and granite. And if Bartlett wanted it, there could be a place for a temperature-controlled wine cellar. High-end design.

There also would need to be a large stone island--say a Brandy Craig-- with a couple of sinks and--depending on what he wanted--maybe another high Btu stovetop there.

She turned to Ken. "If you have something else to do ... I just need to walk around and live in this s.p.a.ce a little. Then I want to make some notes on the plans. Possibly take a few photos."

"Take your time," he said. "I'll be upstairs."

He disappeared into the elevator, with his curious catlike gait, and was gone in an instant.

As she looked around she realized the thing that was missing was light.

Wait a minute, she thought, there must be a garden at the rear of this building. There are windows in the front, so why aren't there any at the back?

She turned to examine the back wall. It was, in fact, clearly of recent origin, and there was a door at one side. She walked over to the door, which was locked with a thumb latch, and opened it.

And sure enough, behind the building was an unkempt s.p.a.ce the width of the building that ran back for a good thirty or thirty-five feet. When she stepped out into the late-morning suns.h.i.+ne and looked at the back of the building, she realized there also was a row of windows facing the garden that had been bricked shut. What a travesty.

The whole design would depend on whether those windows could be reopened. But if Bartlett would allow it, then there were tremendous possibilities. With all this light, you could--

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?" came a raspy, oversmoked voice from behind her.

"Are you his new tart? We agreed he would never bring his wh.o.r.es here."

Ally turned to see a tall, willowy woman, who appeared to be in her mid-sixties. She had shoulder-length blond hair, clearly out of a bottle, and a layer of pancake makeup that looked as though it had been applied by a mortician.

"Perhaps it would be helpful if I introduced myself." She squeezed past the woman in the doorway and walked over to the counter, where she had left her bag. She extracted a business card and presented it.

The woman squinted at it, obviously having trouble making out the print.

"I work with the design firm Citis.p.a.ce, and I was asked by Mr. Bartlett to give him an estimate for some renovations." She had quickly acquired the sense that the less said to this woman, the better.

"I'm his wife and I still don't know who the h.e.l.l you are." She squinted at Ally a moment, then glanced back at the card. "What is . .

. Citis.p.a.ce?"

"It's an interior-design firm."

"What are you, then? Some kind of decorator?" She grasped the door to steady herself and Ally suddenly wondered if she was slightly tipsy.

"Actually, what we do is probably closer to architecture."

Ally was collecting her belongings, hoping to get out before Eileen Bartlett decided to do something crazy.

"This is the first I've heard about all this." She turned and slammed the rear door.

"Mind if I ask you a question?" Ally said. "Do you have any idea why those back windows were bricked over?"

"It's for security," she said. "No one is ever down here."

That's obvious, Ally thought, which is why this job is so odd. This s.p.a.ce clearly isn't being used now, and the social dynamic here doesn't bode well for a lot of cozy entertaining and dinner parties in the foreseeable future. So why is he spending money to renovate? And in this big hurry? And he just happened to pick me to do this as an audition for designing an entire museum. No, this whole thing definitely does not compute.

But of course it does. The job is a blatant bribe. To b.u.t.ter me up for something.