"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Sweet Young Things" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

been in real estate long enough now to realize there were legitimate ways to make a
fortune by doing very little work; all it took was the same kind of planning he’d been
doing, and this time, no one could touch him.
But that was in the future. In the past, he’d left a trail of broken promises,
empty office suites, and people sobbing in their U-Haul trucks. When Fala looked
deeper, she also found one other thing he left behind: a gaggle of sweet young
things, all impoverished, who had ended up with the blame.
****
Fala could guess which homeowners Preston had approached; she certainly
knew which neighborhood they were in. But she didn’t want to go door-to-door.
That would make her suspicious, and she’d worked hard this last month avoiding
suspicion.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t made many inroads anywhere else either. Her
pawnshop had almost no clientele. The bar next-door was filled with elderly male
vets who had no room for a middle-aged female, no matter how slutty she dressed,
and the supper clubs were nearly empty, on the verge of closing.
She had made a few nodding acquaintances, but no one who would confide in
her. No one who would help. If anything, she was as suspicious as someone who
knocked on doors and offered cash; she hadn’t realized that Oregonians—especially
those in the old neighborhoods that had once been real cities—didn’t trust any
newcomer. Either you’d lived in the state most of your life, or you were an outsider,
pure and simple.
So she had to do it the risky way, which, she acknowledged late at night, was
the way she preferred. She’d set up for it from the beginning. The only way the
operation could work was if she covered all contingencies.
She called Preston’s new office, which sounded like a law firm, but could just
as easily be a brokerage firm or a mortgage broker or a group of certified public
accountants. No designation had been put after the names, and there wasn’t one on
the door. Just Herbert, Steinman, and Wilkes. Three very solid, very trustworthy
names.
When the new receptionist answered, Fala made herself sound hesitant. “I’m
calling about your signs?”
“Yes?” The receptionist was all business. “How can we help you?”
“It’s not me exactly,” Fala said. “It’s my grandma. She wanted me to call for
her.”
Then she put her hand over the phone and mumbled. She deepened her voice,
as if someone were responding, and kept twisting her hand, so that the receptionist
heard only voices and that scratchy clutchy sound of flesh against plastic.
“Sorry,” Fala said when she got back to the phone. “Is your sign really right?
Do you mean cash this week?”
“Yes, ma’am. We’ll buy your house from you, and pay you immediately.
There’ll be a lot of paperwork to sign. Does your grandmother own her home
outright?”
And so it went. The receptionist alternated between explaining the very familiar
procedure of a home sale done without the intervention of a real-estate agent or a
standard lender and adding little queries of her own: How much was the home
worth? Where was it located? What kind of condition was it in?
“Of course, we’ll have to inspect, but only after you talk to us. We prefer to
see you in person, just to make certain everything is on the up and up,” the
receptionist said.