It was a quiet ferry ride to Platt Island, mostly on account of the grisly cargo of 'soiled' mattresses in the bed of Jamie's truck. Ever so thrifty, the Platts were salvaging them for their metal frames which they used to make reinforced concrete 'multipurpose modules'. Dozens were used to shore up erosion prone sections of Platt Island and to cover the utility trench to Gilgo Island and hundreds more would likely be used at Lawson Cove. The king and queen sized 'modules' proved especially popular with installation artists as sculpture bases and Stacey's fabrication shop already had a buyer for the one from this lot.

The buyer, Jenny noted, wasn't to be told where their 'merchandise' came from and at least they wouldn't have to be hauled to the dump or left on the curb for all to see. Instead they were offloaded at another island owned by the Platts where their fabric casings were stripped and stuffed into barrels to be incinerated later. The naked box springs were lowered into forms and long cardboard tubes, methodically saved from the J P & C washroom paper towel dispensers, placed in the corner springs to make grip holes. Once covered in cement, you'd never know what they'd been.

You would never know that Platt manor had been an abandoned ruin a mere decade ago from its condition as a 'well-seasoned estate' today. The grounds had been raised high enough with fill for a decent lawn to take root with some of bushes growing man high in places. It was a carefully planned 'naturalistic' setting and Mister Platt seemed especially proud of the strings of vine creeping their way up the walls. Jenny was delighted to find that a few snails had set up housekeeping in the vegetable garden. Evelyn seemed to enjoy island life as well. Taking in the flickering remnants of our neighbors from the rooftop widow's walk, she let waft some lazy remarks about how she'd been attracted to Mister Platt in the first place on account of a visit to a college friend's island estate in the Carolinas whetting her appetite for that sort of living.

"Y'know... If memory serves me... you're standing on the very spot where we conceived Jennifer..."

Picture of twins casually sliding one step away from 'the spot' to the laughter of Arianna. Down in Jenny's room we showed her where Jenny most likely conceived her. The idea there was a point on this planet where she first came into existence actually fascinated the kid and she patted the spot with a sort of reverence.

"Mummy used to tell me about how she used to play with string when she was my age..."

It had been an interesting phase in Jenny's childhood. One of the things we brought up from our home on the range to our loft in The City was a little plaque of wood Jenny gave us. Mounted onto it was wishbone-shaped construction of two lengths of jump rope string spliced together at the base meant to represent the 'string of time' our existence will leave in the universe.

Years later, at the behest the Jederman Brethren's Jewish members, she created a sculpture to commemorate the Holocaust based on her string concept with strings of lengths representing the life spans of people before the Shoah occurred as best as could be determined by available figures. With the young gathered in the middle and the elder mounted at the edges, they were gathered together by a rusty metal band with the survivors sprouting out the top with those that had died in the then decade after liberation duly marked by a proportional length of string. The top mounting plate, looking like a shower head from the camps, was removable so that the outer lengths of string could be replaced to represent the those that continued to survive in an effect she hoped would eventually resembling a sheaf of harvested grain.

The 'strings of time'' that were the Platt, Von Platz and Van der Plaat family had gathered at the manor so we nudged Arianna away from her revered spot to come down and join them. With Christmas coming in the middle of the week this year and so much work to be done at Lawson Cove, they opted to hold a 'Solstice Feast' this year. The usual assortment of the latest Ryerson electronic gizmos were parceled out to the kids the latest being a prototype 'electronic tennis' game you hooked up to a television. It was based on the 'Pong' machine that had proved wildly popular in the clubhouse and the Electric Valve company had hoped to convince Atari to license them as their department store manufacturer. Ultimately, legal problems at Atari's end would queer the deal so the White Metal Cabinet would house one of the few Ryerson 'Pong' games ever made.

With so many relatives it'd be hard enough for the two of us to keep track but little Arianna was able to dope out that the 'Red haired one' hadn't shown herself at family gatherings for quite a spell now and was worried that maybe she'd 'moved in' with those kids she used to play with. She's not dead Jamie reassured her, he's just not going out with her anymore. Seems she was so sore at Jenny on account of the whole Riverbay mess she'd been taking it out on him. At any rate, his new job with the Long Island Railroad's grade elevation project meant he wouldn't be spending so much time in The City.

"I guess," Jenny observed with a hint of regret,"that means Amityville days as a small town in the middle of Long Island are finally over... Now we'll just be another fruit off the 'Big Apple's' tree..."

Save for the drone of passing motorboats, Platt Island remained in the splendid isolation we couldn't help remarking would be perfect for a hippie love colony. Tapping the floor with his heel, Jamie recalled the fate of Amityville's last 'love colony' founder.

So she went on her sulk and poor Jenny was stuck with a coat she couldn't enjoy wearing and couldn't return either on account of that just making Janice look like an even bigger heel. It would take a fourth 'Ides of March' tragedy for her to eventually dispose of that coat. Sometime that morning we'd dispatched a crew to cover this meeting of angry Harlem slum tenants. They'd had enough of getting the run-around from the tangled nest of property holding companies and having finally found their landlord, were heading out for a sit-in strike in his office.

In the meantime Jenny called us to cancel that evening's plans on account of having to fly Janice and Wesley to West Virginia to look in on his sister Sarah. It seems that some hunters had gotten on the property and despite the numerous warning signs, fired up at the house. Now Jenny had anticipated this sort of problem and has sections of thick plexiglas in areas she deemed especially vulnerable. Unfortunately, these nimrods assumed the worst when they heard the broken glass and Sarah's angry shouts and instead of trying to slip away unnoticed, decided instead to 'take care of' the witness'. Sarah was a hearty mountain girl but with three of them could only hope to make them pay a high price for the ground they wanted to take. They'd left her for dead but she'd taken enough of their own flesh in the exchange and were tracked down easily enough once help arrived.

She was still on the phone when the other story of the day arrived on her doorstep and we don't mean figuratively. All we could hear from our end was Jenny puzzling over the ruckus outside her office that got louder when somebody opened her door looking for 'Mister J. R. Platt'. We heard her identify herself and another voice yell 'close enough'. Following that were sounds of pushing and shoving to Jenny protests before someone in the mob gets on the phone, says 'She'll call you back' and hangs up. We immediately called Sheriff Misener to tell him that something's going down at the J P & C building and were about to head out the door ourselves when we get a call from Heather saying we'll never guess where she was. It was going to be one of those days.

We stayed put and listened in while the noisy mob sorted itself out and their ringleader came forward to state their case and present their list of demands. Jenny took a minute to go over their list before asking why they were coming to her over this as apart from this building the company didn't own any rental properties and neither did she.

"That's my signature all right... but this document's a forgery and I think I can prove it..."

She opened a desk drawer, pulled out some papers of her own and continued,"This deed is dated March fifteen of last year... at that time I was a 'guest' of Wentzel County and from what they tell me... was in no condition to sign anything. That's not to say somebody didn't show this under my nose when I wasn't looking... You better let me look at that again... That son of a bitch!"

The records showed that Drake and Van De Lay had been assembling the properties presumably to for another one of their carven-brick co-op projects. Unfortunately, the federal government recently stopped dishing out housing subsidies that made their projects feasible and The City's rent control laws meant that you couldn't just fix up the buildings you had. Even if the banks were willing to float you loan, you'd never bring in enough income to make it pay. Needless to say, Harlem was the last place in the world New York banks were willing to lend money to. In the better neighborhoods rent controlled buildings that weren't being torn down and replaced were converting to cooperative apartments in droves. In the lesser neighborhoods buildings that weren't getting torched for the insurance were simply being abandoned.

"I suppose," Jenny concluded,"I ought to at least look at the present Mister Drake has been so thoughtful to pick out for me..."

We met up with her at a hundred something and Lenox to look over her new holdings which included a full block walkup of five storeys over a ground floor of shops. It wasn't too awful looking and seemed to have most of its original trim in a part of town where cornices were being stripped wholesale. On the side streets were rows of those old 'dumbbell' tenements that in their day were supposed to be 'the answer' for low cost housing design but proved no better than what they replaced. Still, with decent care they could be made livable.

None of these building were even marginally livable. Unless maybe if you were vermin. Jenny had hardly gotten off the church bus they'd chartered when she kicks off one of her pumps to take out a rat that had been creeping up on a sleeping infant. She had to hop around on one foot while one of the boys on the stoop next to the baby's carriage returned her shoe but 'Miss Jennifer' did manage to make an effective first impression.

Jenny asked to see the worst of the worst and just going by the hallways, it was about what we'd expected for buildings that looked like they hadn't been touched by a carpenter's hand since the day they'd been built. It was dank and fetid with a curiously mixed odor of toilet mints and home cooking. Reaching up to what we thought was an old gaslight, we were surprised to find we'd jammed our finger into an open socket - a live open socket.

Our tour guide went on to explain that Con Ed had cut the power to the hallways when the super stopped paying the utility bills so light bulbs have been slowly disappearing.

The apartments we toured didn't look too bad - our college apartment had the same Depression-era fixtures - but the taps were anemic at best, the tubs looked bloodstained and even those toilets that worked looked like someone had been scrubbing the bowls with steel wool. The cellar was more disheartening as it seems that over the years ground water had been wicking its way up the walls, leaving salts behind and breaking off bits of the foundation walls. The same damp had corroded the ancient boiler and water heater giving the roaches and rats a nice little water spa. More alarming was an obvious sagging in the brickwork where the ground has subsided, and these buildings supposedly passed some sort of inspection a couple weeks ago.

"Still habitable... for now... but I can't see some these buildings lasting another winter... they can be saved... but... how badly do you guys want to live here?"

"If we thought we could do any better... do you think we would live here? Anyway it's not like anywhere we go isn't just gonna be another ghetto..."

"It's just that the work that's gotta be done... and more important the money that's gonna hafta be spent... hafta charge so much rent... might as well be paying a mortgage."

"Yeah... Like they're lending money in this neighborhood..."

"There's ways around that... In the first place... if the courts still say I'm the owner, my only liability would be for taxes and if you can put together something with your church... maybe set up a training program to fix the easy stuff. Oughta be some programs you can apply for... if not, there's tax shelter money and if not that... maybe I can hit up some of my mother's old socialite friends... Of course if I can't get clear title, this is all gonna be for nothing..."

"Say lady... can I ask you a question? Are you for real?"

"Well it's not like I'm gonna buy a whole block of flats just to piss off a bunch of total strangers... and then forget about it am I?"

"What I meant was... are you really gonna do all this?"

"No... You're going to. I can help you put together a business plan, maybe do some engineering work and I'll sign whatever I need to sign to make it all legal but this is going to be your project."

We should note that besides our crew were a couple independent lensmen in the crowd.

"Honey, that's why God invented lawyers. I assume you have representation? Look... You folks want a decent place to live and I'm an architect... If we can make this happen, everybody goes home happy. Some of us just won't hafta go too far... Anyway it's not like you don't know where I live... If it makes you feel any better, you can bring the cameras along..."

Cards were exchanged and plans were made to meet that Monday after which Jenny finally called the company exchange to get in touch with Jan and Wesley. This whole happening had taken up virtually the entire afternoon and they were in West Virginia already. To say Janice was furious would be putting it mildly. Poor Jenny had to hold the handset away from her head at the worst of Jan's tirade. In the end all she could say was that she'd been 'held up' adding testily, 'it'll be on the news.' With an empty belly and the one important task she was supposed to handle today having been taken care of, Jenny turned to our host to ask if there was a decent place nearby that took credit cards. If she did nothing else for them, she'd at least take the good Reverend Granger and a few of the hungrier members of his flock out for dinner.

Mamma Jocasta's House of Soul was like all the memories in the White Metal Cabinet gathered for dinner and conversation. From the pictures lining the wall and the blurb on the back of our menu, Miss Jocasta Stone was a 'half-breed' roadhouse singer of some note that got into the speakeasy business - with cathouse upstairs - sometime in the 'Twenties when her voice started giving out. Her daughter Edna, a Jazz Baby looker in her own right, now runs the place - though the cathouse part of the joint has since been torn down for off-street parking. As Jenny talked to the reverend we could see her sketching out a skyscraper 'addition' for the restaurant.

"I suppose with a name like Moses," Jenny posited,"you were practically obligated to lead people to the promised land..."

It's freaky how she can mimic Elizabeth wry British delivery.

"I suppose it does," he laughed, "Names can make the man sometimes... can break 'em too. What do you think your name has done for you?"

"Hard to say... Mother wanted to name me 'Gwendolyn' but Father wanted his first born's name to begin with a 'J'... They'd been separated and she wanted him back... so they worked it out."

"Worked it out?"

He took a long look at us while he pondered his next words settling on something about whether it's the case that someone's personality might adjust to fit their name or 'other' circumstances. Jenny, not seeing him stare at us, said something about her picking her last name when she was sixteen, explaining that legally she still had her mother's maiden name on account of her grandmother having her parent's marriage annulled while she was on the way and her being born before they could remarry.

"I must sound like a spoiled little rich girl... and I suppose in this neighborhood I am... but you know... I've always felt like I had to earn all the things that have been handed to me... like the buildings... You know what just occurred to me? If I was your landlord for the last year, who the hell have you been paying rent to and why isn't in my bank account? That's gotta be a sizable chunk of change. If I can get some of that back, that'd go a long way towards taking care of some of the little problems at least..."

Finished with her sketch, Jenny wheeled it around for the good reverend to have a look. She had set a twenty-three storey glass skyscraper atop a three storey platform with setbacks and angled corners to soften the masses. The platform looked to span the entire Lenox Avenue frontage with the shops on the ground floor under an open arcade formed by the next two storey. Going by the café tables on the roof of the platform she presumed a fairly sizable restaurant business on the lower four storeys.

"Way I see it... Midtown is getting pretty crowded and when the economy picks up companies will have to put their back offices somewhere... and with hardly anyone building there won't be a lot of new buildings going up in a while... If you're gonna have people working this far uptown you're gonna have to make it worth their while. Anyway... I like to do things with a little style."

It was a nice idea for the future but she had the here and now to deal with and that Monday was spent with the suits downtown at the Van der Plaat offices. Jenny had rounded up and brought in some of the old paperwork associated with her stint at Drake and Van De Lay to see if any of her signatures matched the one on the document. None did and it seems she never was under an exclusivity contract like Walter had claimed.

In the meantime Jenny had pulled Cheryl and several of J P & C's engineers off the Lawson Cove job to give 'her' buildings a more thorough going over and to shore up the more rickety parts of the foundation. At her own expense she had a hydrologist look into the problem of cellar damp. His report stated that a creek used to meander through the middle of the block back when this was farm land and that water was still percolating through its filled in bed. The affected cellars were given a coating of waterproofing paint to stave of any more damage until a permanent solution could be worked out. She also had the power restored to common areas with fresh light bulbs put in as well.

As if things couldn't get any more complicated, the New York press was having a field day portraying her as the Marie Antoinette of slumlords. With good old Albert Towley leading the way, they'd pawed through the Platt and Van der Plaat family assets to show the 'poor little rich girl' shuttling between her three mansions on her very own private 'jumbo jetliner' - carefully shooting the Van Der Plaat Airtours jet so as to hide the company logo - or lounging on her luxury yacht whilst moored offshore of the deluxe new resort she's having built as Dickensian street urchins duck from the shoes she whips at them when they displease her.

As incensed as Jenny was by yet another reaming from the Fourth Estate, it was the lack of response for Drake and Van De Lay that motivated her to call a press conference aboard the 'Memphis Belle' which was on a 'positioning' flight from Mac Arthur - Islip to Newark International so she could tell her side of the story.

Gesturing to the rows of empty seats she pointed out,"As you can plainly see... the uhm... 'jumbo jet' I supposedly own is in fact an ordinary charter airliner... if you guys are ever looking to pool your vacation money... I'm sure Bitsey and Brenda would be more than happy to set aside a few seats on their plane for you."

"Don't know if you remember the old Jimmy Stewart movie... the one where he's a senator and he finds out about some sort of graft... The party bosses from his state have to silence him so they cook up a scheme where they forge his signature on a deed and say he was the grafter... Always thought he should've called their bluff... say something like all he'd really wanted was land for his National Boys Camp and since they'd been good enough to provide it for him, he'd like to substitute his appropriations bill with one that merely authorized the camp he'd wanted to set up."

When asked why they would transfer property to her like she claimed they did Jenny replied...

"My father's company did some inspection work on behalf of the Riverbay tenants association... I can only guess this is his way of paying us back... I had also interned for that firm a little over a decade ago and there was a bit of a falling out..."

When asked if she had done any work at all on the buildings she replied...

"At the behest of the tenants association we've done some preliminary site inspection and emergency stabilization work but in the absence of a clear title, there's really not much more we can do at the present time... at least not within the confines of what the tenants could afford to pay for themselves in leu or rent."

When asked of her plans for the buildings she replied...

"Well obviously I'd like to fix them up... There's no reason in a civilized country like this that people should have to live like that... no reason at all... and that's the problem..."

As the jet flew over the northern end of Manhattan she continued...

"Thirty years ago the cities of Europe were being blitzed into rubble while our cities came through without so much as a scratch... If you look down there now... you might be able to pick out some empty lots and the shells of burnt out buildings... Seems to me that the people running this city would rather see it burned to rubble than own up to the abject failure of all their 'progressive' ideals..."

"Y'know... back during the Roosevelt administration, one of the provisions of the New Deal nobody talks about was that if just one Negro lived on the block the whole neighborhood was segregated... Couldn't get any kind of home loan if you were white... and this was years before blockbusting..."

"Right now... thanks to rent control laws, The City has lost more housing units in the last fifteen years to abandonment than exists in the entire city of Rochester... that's about a quarter million or so... In Harlem alone a little over a third of the population has moved away and The City owns more than half the buildings on account of unpaid taxes... Friend of mine up in the Bronx had to move out of her home when the buildings on either side of her were torched for the insurance."

"Funny thing about all this... years ago when I flirted with the idea of going into show business, somebody gave me the advice that if I ever started to make any money, I should think twice about investing it in real estate... Said the last thing I needed is to have my picture in the paper next to an article about some poor old lady getting evicted from her apartment. Of course, I would have to go and be an architect..."

As the rest of the reporters lingered around the tarmac, we had Heather gets some stock footage of of the tour group emplaning and of their baggage being loaded. Bitsey had shown up for this trip and we had Heather get some shots of her and Jenny talking to each other just so we'd have artsey images of two people conversing against the stark landscape of an airfield. At least with Jenny having told her side of the story first, it fell to Drake and Van De Lay to respond to her charges and they were still stonewalling. Posing with one of the most worn out toilets, the Good Reverend Granger got the quote of the day with, "Mister Drake need to piss or get off the pot!"

Such was the pace of civic administration that Arianna had returned from England for the summer break by the time Jenny managed to get a preliminary hearing. In the meantime she and Bitsey had set up a holding company with Reverend Granger in part to be able to apply for grants loans and donations but mostly so they'd have a corporate structure to charge expenses to as they began to mount. Figuring that Drake wanted to lure her into spending loads of cash before dropping the hammer on her but since the law allowed tenants to withhold rent in order to fix their own apartments, Jenny was still able to get some critical repairs done. For example, she was able to write off the structural framework needed to shore up the buckling foundations as 'repairs to basement tenant storage cages'.

Things were still at an impasse by the long Fourth of July weekend when Jenny called on the Montellis to source new plumbing fixtures for the apartments. They turned her on to a refurbishing company somewhere out in New Jersey that told her they could reglaze all the sinks, toilets and tubs and replace the hardware for a lower price than buying new. In addition they were able to offer a turnaround time fast enough to allow Jenny to start with fixtures from vacant apartments and by swapping old for renewed, have a steady supply of replacements as the job progressed.

It had been a fun cookout at the Montelli's Sea Cliff place and we'd planned on driving back into the city with Jenny and her family to watch the fireworks. Doug's friend Mike came along with us since we were driving our 'summer' Buick and Doug was still tooling around in that Fiat. With a video crew to keep track of, we'd had a commercial two-way radio system installed along with a Bearcat scanner for listening to the cops on their doughnut runs. Doug had a two-way in his car so he and Mike spent most of the trip giving each other the business along the way.

While waiting out the storm, Mike took the opportunity to ask Jenny about all the stuff he had seen on the news about her problems up in Harlem. Not only have Drake and Van De Lay been successful at ducking her process servers but the city was slapping her around with violations while dragging their feet on giving her a court date.

"If you don't mind my askin'... Why are you bustin' your hump for those people? You can call me prejudiced if you wanna but hey... it's not like they appreciate anything we do for them up there anyway..."

"I'm under no delusion that anything I do is gonna make people up there hate Whitey any less and I don't do things so that people will love me anyway. It's just that I don't like to see people getting kicked around like they've been. Nobody should have to live like that... not in this country. Anyway... with everyone bailing out on The City, these people want to make a stand. You hafta respect that."

Anyone willing to throw their lot with The City at this time really had to have an almost religious faith in the future. Things had started to turn a couple years ago but only now had most of the big construction projects had ended. Nothing was being built save for a few ongoing residential projects, a couple hospitals, a hotel for the United Nations and City Center. Business had gotten so bad that the Chrysler Building was in receivership as were half of its neighbors. At the Empire State Building, both the Edelson and Platt families had leases up for renewal and were able to negotiate fairly generous terms. Panorama obtained space for their video production division and the Burgundy Room was set another fifty years of entertaining clients.

We weren't particularly thrilled with the prospect of moving operations uptown - we'd had off-street parking next to our building and the isolation from the home offices had built an esprit de corps amongst our crew. N'eddie had been looking to 'consolidate operations' - meaning she wanted to keep a closer eye on whatever the hell we were doing now that we were making money for her. We didn't have to move right away so the space was let out to Jenny so she could hold planning session with the tenants association between inspection trips to Lawson Cove. Progress had been going fairly well despite a hurricane with the oddly fitting name of Eloise dumping nearly three feet of rain on Puerto Rico, drowning thirty-four people around the island in the process. Thankfully, the only casualties at Lawson Cove were a few equipment barges and a dredger - no people got hurt.

By this time TV Panorama had moved up to the ESB with Jenny taking some of the vacated space downtown to set up a 'field office' for her architectural practice. Taking a cue from her old man, she saw to it that Skidmore Ryerson-Platt took advantage of underutilized talent by drawing staff from amongst the engineering sororities. The City had since rezoned the loft district so Jenny was able to offer cheap and legal Manhattan lodging in Elizabeth's building for her 'coven' of draftsmen.

The first building plans to go on their tables was Lawson Cove's 'Puerto Amigo' hotel and convention center. Looking much like the Brasilia housing blocks we'd seen a decade ago, it was a fairly straightforward twelve storey stack of modular hotel rooms set at a jaunty angle away from the low structure holding the meeting rooms. Unlike most of the other concrete pillboxes being built she not only made liberal use of tropical colors but dressed up the normally blank side walls of the 'end cap' rooms with decorative breeze blocks. To break up the monotony of rows of balconies and to disguise a pattern shift caused by the change in width of the penthouse suites, she overlaid a diagonal grid of blue steel. More architectural flair went into the freeform shape of the lobby and porte-cochere.

Next on the docket were her Harlem apartments. Cheryl had suggested that the 'handles' of the dumbbell flats with their duplicative services cut away so the fifteen or so buildings on each side of the lot could 'unified' into single structures. She also suggested that since the stone foundations need replacing anyway it might be better to reset the buildings on steel or concrete cross-beams so the residents could have underground parking. If there was money to do that, Jenny wanted to bring Jamie on board as he'd gotten pretty good at weaving new construction into ancient structures.

Looking to give the buildings a unified presence, they leafed through a book on demolished City architecture for ideas. One which Cheryl liked most was a Grecian colonnade made from concrete and whose molds could be reused for that residential hotel Jenny wanted to build in Amityville. For some reason a throwback to the 'White City' movement didn't sit well with the residents but they did like Jenny's idea of reconstructing the old Rhinelander Garden townhomes' cast iron balconies.

Since Jenny still needed the original deeds we offered the idea of luring Walter into an interview about the novel new feature so that she could serve him with a subpoena but Jenny didn't think it was ethical to use the press in that sort of ruse and after some consultation with her legal department N'eddie had to concur. However the process server she'd been using had come up with the same idea but hadn't felt the need to clear it with her leaving it to a hastily called press conference where Walter waggled the offending document to the cameras for Jenny to find out what they'd done. Of course this was the first he'd heard of any property transfer issues and wondered why she didn't just call his offices to settle the matter. He also expressed concern over the ethics of disguising a process server as a member of the 'esteemed' press.

It was pure chance that we managed to get hold of the deeds. We were on our Hanukkah visit to Avi and Lisa at the 'summer house' and had pulled into the driveway just as the mailman was making his rounds next door. We didn't know the place had been sold so we lingered for a glimpse of our new neighbors. The door opened and a blonde lady stepped out to sign for the large manilla envelope he had for her. She'd almost shut the door but opened it again to return the envelope as the name on it didn't live there. The mailman apologized, explaining that he was new to the area and only just started on this route. As he walked to the street we backed up and stopped him at the edge of the driveway to ask the name on the envelope.

"Says Jennifer Platt... Hey... that wasn't one of those people that got killed was it?"

"No the DeFeos were the ones killed... She lived at the house before they moved in... that was ten years ago. We're friends of hers and we can give it to her if you want... but for future reference you should drop off any mail to the Platt Building up on Broadway... it's right next to the stereo place... Ya can't miss it."

"Too bad... for some reason I like getting mail for dead people... It's like they're still alive..."

His voice cut off and he just stood there like a cigar store indian when he got a better look at us so we had to break the spell with a, 'Yeah... we're twins' as we coaxed the envelope out of his hands.

Postmarked from a ZIP code in Texas a year ago, the packet had been sent by Peter Drake to that lodge in Glen Cove where he'd encountered Jenny the decade before. It sat in the 'dead letter' office for a spell before someone with an equally stale knowledge of Jenny's whereabouts forwarded it to her old Amityville address. From the attached documentation it seems dear old dad had signed the properties over to him either for taxes or to hide their assemblage or just to stick Peter with some kind of responsibilities. Peter had included a note saying that he didn't know The City well enough to judge whether he'd been 'saddled with a bum steer' or not and decided it wasn't worth the time out of his life to find out. Enclosed were a set of signed power-of-attorney forms and the instruction that she do with them as she saw fit adding that if, as he suspected, they were slum housing, she should 'do right by the poor people living there'.

So Peter Drake was able to stick it to his old man after all.

He'd also put Jenny in a deeper legal quagmire as she'd been laboring under the impression that she was the owner of the properties and not just a trustee. In order to clarify things, she had to put everything on hold until she could find him. Luck for once was finally taking her side because we found a tape of him at our TV Panorama desk being interviewed about his work on the cross Alaska pipeline project. He had been traveling so much that he didn't even notice that he'd never gotten any mail in regards and was happy to approve her plans. She'd have to wait a little while on the collected back rent on account of whatever checks the property management company sent him were likely piled up under the mail slot of his apartment in Texas.

It was a considerable sum of money so Jenny took it upon herself to fly all the way down to his place in Dallas, look for the key where Pete told her he'd hidden it and let herself in to collect his mail. She then flew up to Seattle where they met to have him endorse the lot of checks, totaling a little over three quarters of a million dollars, to the holding company she and the Good Reverend had set up. Not bad for a day's flying even if half would end up going for taxes, fines and fees.

Having taken no pay for herself, Jenny wanted to splurge a little so she drew fifteen hundred from the account to throw a party for the tenants association. They'd borne the brunt of this ordeal and despite the ministrations of the Good Reverend, their numbers had gotten considerably fewer over the last year. Jenny and Cheryl's reconstruction plans would impose more hardship in the coming months, so the night before Christmas was as good a time as any for a morale booster. While the reverend and his flock dined in the church basement, the two of them clambered up to the belfry for a look down at the 'promised land'. Being a relatively low-rise district, you could see for miles and while the view south, with the distant glow of Midtown across the vastness of Central Park, was spectacular, it also brought to mind that tantalizing flicker of Daisy Buchanan's dock light.

"Hundred fifty-eighth Street... That's Washington Heights I think... Poseur Irish kids up there used to call it 'White Harlem'... Might be able to see it from here... Look for Yankee Stadium, it'll be in the same line..."

All we could see were the undifferentiated procession of Seventh Avenue as it blended into the far off glimmer of the housing projects lining the Harlem River. Cheryl had a butt going while she considered the streetscape below but the air was so crisp we all looked like smokers.

"Man... if we could build... twenty... maybe thirty stories... we'd own this part of town!"

"Oh I don't know... Maybe it'd be nice to have one place on this island where the brownstones are safe from the 'ole wrecking ball..."

"From what I've seen on the news... vacant lots have a habit of turning up in this part of town all the time. They must come up here to spawn... but then... I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't have a design worked up already."

"Yeah... well we've got enough on our plate as it is. Wish we could finish this up so I can go home. I'm not getting any younger and little Arianna is getting to be a big girl now... and for a happily married woman, I'm getting a little tired of flying solo if y'know what I mean..."

"We could always go tadpoling up at Barbara's place..."

"That's Jan and Wesley's now... Besides... Barbara is going around with Scott's old man... and I just would not feel comfortable in the same pool with him. Be like swimming with mom and dad."

"You've never been comfortable anywhere..."

"Oh... I've had my moments of comfort and joy. Funny how things work out though... If I had gotten those deeds when I was supposed I would've sent 'em right back. Never wanted to be one of those do-gooder types... Had this violin teacher... biggest phony you could ever meet. Y'know the mother in Lolita... when she's showing her collection of art prints? Well she had this collection of African masks and pottery and blankets and things... From the way she'd go on about 'em, you'd think she was hoping the spirit of the people who crafted them would rub off on her. To this day, I can't be around dark-skinned people without thinking of that awful woman. My dad had some people from Africa up at the house... Showed 'em this pretty shawl she'd given me... They laughed and told me it was really a burial shroud. Man... I couldn't get that thing offa me fast enough!"

"Oh no... I'd been meaning to get rid of this damn coat..."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing... My sister wanted to buy something like this but mom had to go and get one for me last Christmas and she's been sulking about it all year. I'd tried to get rid of it by 'forgetting' it at some cloak room but I would hafta run into the only honest people left in this city. Then I was gonna give to some shivering street urchin... but wouldn't you know, everyone's fixed for winter wear this season. Now I just wanna chuck this damned thing into the wind..."

Not a Zephyr was stirring this evening so she let Cheryl take the coat off her hands, suggesting that if Janice ever asked about it, to say she'd gotten it for the cost of dry cleaning - Jenny's usual face saving way to dispose of unwanted clothing.

To spare herself the family drama this year, Jenny left that evening to observe the rest of the holiday season with husband and child at their Los Angeles home. She also managed to duck out in time to miss Reverend Granger's attempt to invite her down to the party. He'd wanted to thank her for all she'd done so far and introduce her to some community leaders. It was left to us to explain that she had a long flight ahead of her and no we didn't say anything about her violin teacher.

Jenny was back by the Epiphany with what would be the final external form for the project. Cast iron balconies were well suited for the three storey townhomes of the Rhinelander Gardens but on six storey tenements looked more like the cell blocks of Alcatraz. The colonnade was back but instead of going Greco-Roman, why not go with something like they used to have up at Saratoga Springs or over at Cape May in New Jersey? Old-timey stuff was coming back in favor and the spindly columns lent themselves easily to bright and cheery 'African' colors. She was given the go ahead to rework the plans and was ready with a presentation model for the final 'design freeze' meeting on the fourteenth.

To go along with the presentation model the firm had commissioned a full scale mock up of one of the new entry bays to show the delegation from the tenant's association. Along with Cheryl's idea of consolidating the service cores Jenny moved the apartment doors so they opened onto the light wells that were now decked over with metal and glass floors like Penn Station used to have. The same glass floors were used in the new main hallway which spanned only half the space vacated by the service core leaving an open space that was punctuated with a central staircase flanked by old timey metal cage elevators. Another pair of staircases flank the center one about halfway to the fire stairs at each end of the block. A set of skylights protected the long atrium space but so that people could retain back bedrooms, the area was technically left open to the weather.

Although it was in much better shape, the apartment block facing Lenox avenue wasn't forgotten. It would now house the utilities for the tenement rows as well as a common recreation room and laundromat. Balconies would also be installed to unify the look of all three buildings and there would be access to the garden courtyard as well. However, there weren't going to be any internal connections on account of the way apartments were configured in the Lenox block.

Cheryl laid out the tentative construction schedule where the front and rear façades would go up first as they included temporary stairs which would be needed for the second phase. The street façades would have the full length cast iron balconies behind a Saratoga-style colonnade. During construction of the service core they were to be left as open passages but would have privacy screens installed later. The garden façades were of a simpler design with a five storey tier of cantilevered balconies for every set of five combined buildings as well as a set of temporary stairs in between. Planned were made for the enlargement of window spaces front and rear but only enough money to cut and install access doors was currently budgeted.

Also planned for but not budgeted was the basement parking garage. Structural beams would be put in place so that the tenants could do the necessary demolition and landscaping work themselves at a later date. To keep costs down, much of the demolition work was to be done by able-bodied tenants on a 'sweat for equity' basis with 'payment' based on prevailing wages. So that elderly and disabled weren't left out, there was a provision for 'sweat equity' transferal. Also taken care of were a number of welfare recipients that would have to leave if the buildings went co-op. The holding company would buy their apartments, make needed improvements and sublet to them. To encourage self improvement, up to five years worth of rent could be applied to buying their apartment should they obtain gainful employment - even more if they did volunteer work on behalf of the project.

Financing was an adventure in itself given that the traditional funding sources of bank loans and government grants had all but dried up. Luckily, Jenny had long since learned not to rely on 'traditional' funding sources and was able to get her project contractor and several vendors to float most of their costs directly. Thanks to Panorama publications she was able to round up donations in exchange for publicity and Reverend Granger managed to work the party circuit for the rest.

Among the places they'd gone to was City National Bank and had an appointment with a lower level executive. When they arrived they were kicked upstairs to some wheel named Stanford Keach, who they were told, was especially interested in their project. He had stepped out but they were let into his office which his secretary noted, had a lovely view of the company's new headquarters going up across the street. Jenny was about to sit down when she caught a glimpse her old project book sitting on his desk.

Image of a girl trying to keep from cussing in front of a man of God.

Jenny seized up the project book and dumped in on the secretary's desk with the suggestion that her boss should've just left a burning cross on his deck 'so that the Good Reverend could join in the fun'. Naturally she stormed out of the office but rather than face that awkward stretch of time in the elevator vestibule waiting for the next car, made for the stairwell to hoof it for a flight or two. The poor reverend could only try to keep up with her.

"Do I even want to know what that was all about?"

"A dozen years ago... at my first job... boss confiscated my college dissertation. Said it was... 'company property'. Can't believe he would just leave it sitting there like that... like he was proud of it or something. This whole thing must've been a set-up all along..."

Reverend Granger had the elevator ride to the lobby to try and talk some sort of sense into Jenny but she decided that now was the time for her to end her association with the project. The important design work had be done already and there was no telling what other dirty tricks were in store. Of course he tried to talk her out of it, saying she shouldn't let him 'run her out of town' like that. She replied that Cheryl was better at construction supervision and that her Philadelphia in-laws had an ongoing project that needed her attention.

"Anyway," she assured him, "it's not like you don't know where to find me if something comes up."

"Okay... If that's how you want it.... I still can't help feeling this is all just a big misunderstanding... Like maybe... maybe he just saw your name and put two and two together..."

"I bet he's calling down to the lobby right now..."

"You can go back upstairs if you want to... but I'll be goin' out another door. After the scene I made I'd be no good to you anyhow. If you can hold off for a while I could see if my cousin Bitsey can help you with negotiations."

"Supposin' he was lookin' to 'fess up?"

"His lawyers would have kittens if he did. Wouldn't want to do business with that kind of person anyhow... Besides... confessions would fall under your jurisdiction."

Before venturing into the lobby, Jenny let her hair down from its scaffolding, put on her sunglasses then took off and shouldered her jacket for the walk to the Fifty-third Street door. She'd gone down enough flights to catch a different set of elevators from the ones that serviced the floor she'd been sent to so she was able to breeze past the receptionist waiting for her to emerge in the next vestibule over. For all anyone knew or cared Jenny was just another socialite come 'round to have a look at her trust fund portfolio. The Good Reverend's penguin get-up wasn't so easily camouflaged amongst the gray flannel set and was intercepted near the front door.

"Sir... I don't exactly know what happened... but they're in a real tizzy upstairs..."

While this was happening we'd been over on Lexington taking pictures of the work being done on their new building. Some of the boys had tried to talk us into walking the beam but we knew our limitations well enough to pass on that challenge. We did suggest that if they had a skateboard and a fire extinguisher, we could show 'em how to violate a few safety rules for laughs. They didn't so we showed off our new Tele-pager instead. We'd bought several of them for the TV Panorama crew but today we were using one so that Jenny could let us know when she and the Good Reverend were done upstairs and needed a ride home.

It was pure luck that we happened to catch a glimpse of a Jenny-like figure throwing herself into a cab over on Fifty-third. Sensing something was up we excused ourselves to chase after her. Even with city traffic we didn't catch up to her until about midway through the Park Avenue portal. With our better half doing the driving, all we had to do is reach out, rap on her window and do the 'roll it down we want to talk to you' hand gesture.

"Heyya kiddo... Thought you said you were sick of flying solo..."

"Had to walk off the program..."

"The fucker had that stupid book... right there on his desk...."

"Okay... so what happened to the padre?"

"Knowing men of the cloth... he's probably upstairs trying get their side of the story... Hey I forgot to give him this stuff..."

Jenny passed her portfolio bag over to our back seat and we parted ways. As her cab turned for the Park Avenue viaduct, we stayed on the Grand Central platform to blend in with the northbound traffic going around the station. We got back to the City National building in time for our Tele pager to go off. Filling us in on the story so far, the Good Reverend added that when he'd gone back up Mister Keach were all worried about a 'burning cross comment' that in the fog of being relayed got him thinking some fool had gone and made a racial remark.

"I told them my business associate had gotten upset over some book you'd left on the deck. Told him I'd probably lost one of the nicest persons you could ever work with on account. He said he was sorry about that because he wanted to ask her advice on something to do with that building going up and asked if I could ask her about it..."

"That's a lot of nerve... bad enough to steal someone's good idea... but then ask 'em to help you carry it to the car? That is just not cool."

""I know! Well I just told him that I didn't know a lot about the construction business... but it's been my experience that when given the choice between a cheap way of doing something and an expensive way... you're better off paying the two dollars now 'cause you gets what you pays for... and if it costs ya some... it's probably for a good reason... besides... you're only gonna end up having to do it the spendy way anyhow."

"So what... they weren't even thinking of helping out with the financing? That's pretty low..."

"Oh they made a proposal... but at this point I really didn't want to do business with 'em so I get up to leave. Musta thought I was negotiating with 'em so they made a better offer... I told them I would think about it. I tell you what... I have never seen someone get so upset so fast like she did... and you know in my line of work, I've had to break bad news to people more than once or twice."

"It's like the man said... it's those straws that hurt the most... Maybe we can talk to her."

Suffice it to say, she was too far gone for us to be able to talk to her, and we don't mean figuratively.

From her description of the architectural problem we'd half expected something like that 'Bitsey in the chamber of horrors' painting of she'd given to Elizabeth, but Jenny stuck to engineering a low ovoid dome open to the sea at one end that was ringed inside by a series of antechambers. With the naturalistic look of a cavern, the chambers housed 'bubbling spring' waterspas that were connected by channels to the main pool so couples could swim over from the 'tad-pool' for a modicum of privacy once they'd found another couple to 'spawn' with. The main pool featured a 'swim-up bar' to loosen things up and behind the antechambers were service corridors as well as bath and changing rooms so those drinks didn't have to back into the pool.

Jenny was remarkably pleased with her design considering that no-one was ever going to see much of it. As we said, the whole thing was to be buried under the golf course with the only visible sign of her work being the cave entrance. Wesley's sister Sarah was still recovering from that attack and everyone thought the tropical air might do her some good so Jenny commissioned her to do the 'rock-scaping' along the seaside cliff they were building. The dome interior was to be sprayed with gunnite to form artificial stalactites so you wouldn't even be able to make out the structure from inside the cave. At least Jenny would know it was there.

"Say... Didn't that friend of yours use to live in Amityville... like next door to your summer place?"

Heather brought this up during an early March story meeting.

"That was maybe ten years ago... why do ya ask?"

"She ever say anything about it being haunted?"

"Uhm... No-o-o-o-o... She did mention a hollow spot in our cellar where Al Capone mighta left us a souvenir... but nothin' about any ghosts. We got ghosts now?"

"Seems so... the people that bought that house next to yours... Y'know the one where all those killings happened? They're saying the place is haunted... had to move out and everything..."

"You don't say... didn't even know the place had been sold..."

"Ghosts are kinda lousy television don'tcha think? Kick it over to the ParaNorma desk. Maybe they can find somebody to come up with a thousand words..."

Heather looked a little disappointed but she let it pass and we moved onto other business. That afternoon we called Avi at the shop to see if he knew anything about a haunting next door. All he knew was that a family moved in sometime in December but he hadn't seen much of them and that sometimes people would come into the store and ask about the place. That had happened shortly after the DeFeo killings and again after the trial so maybe something was up again. We then put a call to J P & C exchange so we could track down Jenny and so we could get the local scuttlebutt from Madeline. She filled us in on the basics in that the new family had held a press conference at Ron DeFeo's lawyer's office back in January and they'd had this ghost hunting couple with a news crew up to look at the place last month.

"Oh I wouldn't put too much stock in the Warrens," Jenny cautioned when we got through to her,"I was over at the house a few weeks ago... for ParaNorma... Showed Lorraine this little toy car Mis'ess Kennedy gave me... For no good reason I'd been keeping in my purse all these years and I figured if she was any good she'd at least get it in the ballpark. Well... she was absolutely certain the thing belonged to one of the DeFeo kids. No... doubt... about it! I didn't have the heart to say anything... but I did ask her what would've stopped me from just plucking a car from the toy chest upstairs. She just smiled and said I was too honest to pull something like that."

"Didja tell her you used to live in the house... or did you let her try and guess?"

"No... it never came up. Which is funny because Mister Lutz owned the family surveying business and we've hired them on local jobs before."

"What.... you mean there are people on Long Island who's never heard of you?"

"Yeah.... I know... It's like I'm not the center of attention at all!"

"So whaddya wanna call this?"

"Hard to say... The Lutzes sounded like they were really spooked by something... I really don't figure them for flim-flam artists. As for the Warrens... well they coulda been my old violin teacher from the way they tell you what they think you wanna hear... I'd hafta go with 'not proven'..."

"Well we were thinking of sending somebody up to their next seance..."

"Dunno... we were saying the same thing at this morning's story meeting.... Say... You remember what station was at the last seance thingie?"

"Channel Five I think... The old DuMont station..."

As luck would have it, WNEW was one of the stations we had a deal to buy content from so we asked if they could send up a couple tapes worth of raw footage. At this point we figured this would probably blow over in a couple weeks but even so, we still might be able to slap together something for the Halloween show. The Puerto Rican kid they sent up with the tapes remembered seeing us the evening the DeFeo family was being hauled away.

"Funny thing," he mused, "I'm almost sure I saw that house before... like when I was little..."

"Whaddya mean? Like on TV?"

"Maybe... no... I was in the car with my mom... she was looking for this house... I don't remember what for... but I think... it had something to do with this lady who saved me from drowning that summer..."

The scenario we'd figured on was that a Harlem street gang would get the jump on us and Jenny but instead of robbing us, the kid would dramatically step forward saying that he remembered her saving his life and wanted to thank her. Real schmaltzy stuff, but movies'll do that to ya.

"By any chance... did this happen at a country club near Glen Cove? We remember something being on the news..."

"Huh? Yeah... but this was a dozen years ago..."

"We remember a lot of things... but then we were pretty close to the story... Our summer place is next door."

"Then you know the lady?"

"Know her? We've been to makeout parties with her! Made a movie with her too..."

"You know... I actually took a job at that country club hoping to run into her..."

It was pretty close to lunch time so he hung around while we skimmed through one reel of the story as aired. Unfortunately it looks like they used a film instead of video which meant the audio was on a separate reel and nothing was going to match. Crap. While we looked for Jenny, he told us about how all he'd remembered was swimming under water when 'some force' pulled him to the bottom and held him against something metal. When he came to, this lady was 'kissing' him.

"I thought I must've gone to the 'other side'... but then I hear my mother having one of her fits... I figured I hadn't gone anywhere."

He then admitted that he tried to cop a feel but was having trouble moving his arms. Those few minutes under the water cost him a over a year of physical therapy that his parents couldn't really afford but somehow managed to. It helped that Jenny's running off like she did made his ordeal newsworthy enough for people to send in donations. Strange the things that catch people's fancy - we could fill a whole hour just on the weird letters our little dog and pony show gets from the viewers. Hell, we could fill an issue of Gal-o-rama with all the nudie pictures sent in when one of our reporters added 'and naked pictures' as a joke after giving out the address for people to send in their cards and letters. It only happened once but we still got a rich haul on account.

"Hey, tell me about it... I go through the mail at Channel Five and you should see the muchachitas our anchorman gets! As long as I'm on this job, I don't gotta buy girlie mags anymore..."

"Y'know... If you can find it, you might want to check out the May issue of Gal-o-rama...... They're doing a feature on 'designing women'... One of our friends wanted to do 'something special' for her thirty-seventh birthday..."

As we described it, it was a pretty 'artsey' shoot with tour favorite picture being the one where a girl is dusted in white powder to portray a Grecian statue chipping herself out of the marble. Another one had a bevy of beauties forming the vaults, buttresses and arches of a cathedral. Salvador Dali would've been proud. We'd been shooting video of the session with the idea of releasing it as a programming for those newly minted owners of Sony's 'consumer friendly' Betamax video cassette recorders. We had some of that video if he wanted to see it, but..."

"I don't know... maybe it'd be a better idea if I let her stay a mystery..."

Of course having said that, Jenny pops her head into our office to say hi.

"Oh him... he's from Channel Five... brought some tapes from that last spook hunt back at your old place... Say, you're not gonna believe this... but you remember that kid who nearly drowned back in 'Sixty-four... that one up in Glen Cove?"

"No... not off hand... Why do you ask?"

She gave the kid a going over but couldn't place the face with any event she might recall. He had no idea who she was either and we weren't going to say anything... much.

"I'm sorry but that was a weird summer for me... Lotta things happened... and I'm still trying to sort it all out... I see you've already had lunch?"

"Yeah... so what'd you do about the 'Thing'?"

"It's parked downstairs... got a really nice spot in front of the building."

"Okay... so now you've got a plane parked up in Schenectady... They must be thrilled about that."

"No... copilot ferried it back to Republic and I took the 'Tac' home. Always did like that road... I think I might see if Arianna wants to go to Emma Willard... Be worth it just for the drive. Did you say Glen Cove?"

She gave him another looking over and just as he excused himself so he could to get back to work she brightened up.

"Oh yeah... Puerto Rican Day last June... You were one of the 'gofers' at the press tent... As I recall you'd seen me talking to Alberto Santos-Dumont and wanted me to introduce you to him... Didn't think I'd remember that didja?"

"Yeah yeah... you had a table at the job fair over in the park. You were saying something about not getting a lot of people because everybody was having too good a time."

"Y'know, they'd bought a whole rack of sheet pizzas to give away to anyone who filled out an application. Hardly anyone showed, so we got to take home as much as we could carry."

"Janice's kids went through most of the stuff I brought home... Wish we could've gotten more people but I suppose it worked out for the best..."

"So what were you hiring for anyway? I got some cousins who need a job..."

"My in-laws a resort development going up on the island and they had me scouting for hotel and foodservice people... and my dad's company was looking for anyone willing to do construction work over the summers... It a real screwy building season down there... You get most of your best work done on the cold days... Don't mind it myself... but then I surf and I can get in a few tasty waves on my lunch break."

"Speaking of lunch breaks," we warned, "you might wanna call the station and let 'em know where you are... and tell 'em we'll send the tapes back with our decision list later this afternoon."

Some time after he left Mister Santos-Dumont wandered into the office to join us and Jenny in looking over the tapes. Not knowing we'd talked to him, Alberto asked if we'd known that was the little kid Jenny had saved from drowning.

"That goes to show how old I'm getting... He was a little more than half my age back then and even grown up he's still half my age!"

"Hey, I've seen that photoshoot of yours... You're still quite the chicka if you don't mind my saying... I'm sure you'll be given a place of honor under kids mattresses all over this fine land."

"Oh, I'm so touched," she replied with that minky tone of hers, "but where will you boys be when I'm lookin' down the barrel of fifty?"

"With a body like yours? Gravity can only improve it. Anyway I've met your mother... and yeah, we'll still be saying rosaries on account of you." Turning to us, he changed the subject to Heather saying we didn't want to do anything on that 'haunted house on Long Island'.

"Not a lot to run with... Only thing on this tape is this old lady going around the house gettin' all woozy and waving her hands around every time she 'senses' some fool spirit... You were there Jenn... was there anything more than that?"

"No... not really... it was mostly... spot a ghost... have a spell... spot a ghost... have a spell... Left the tapes I made at the ParaNorma desk if you want me to run over and get 'em for ya."

We got Heather on the horn to have her fetch the tapes adding that we were thinking of having a pizza party this weekend at the 'summer house' and if she wanted to sign out one of the video outfits, maybe she could poke a nose into whatever was going on across the driveway.

"We'd go... but somehow we get the feeling it'd open up a whole 'nother can of worms if we show our kissers there."

"Didn't you guys ever see those Lutzes?"

"We saw the lady... She was getting the mail while we were pulling into the drive... We're pretty sure she didn't see us though... That's when all that paperwork for Jenny's building turned up."

"Say... if this story ever goes anywhere... we'd have a great angle if Jenny wanted to talk about her time living in that house."

"I don't know... not much of a story there... Only really lived there maybe a year and a half out of the five years we owned the place... and most of that was in one sort of sick bed or another."

Before Heather could get here with the tapes we got an interoffice memo from N'eddie addressed to every department head. Effective immediately there was to be a company-wide 'kill' on 'any and all stories about or related to the alleged haunting reports in the village of Amityville'. This decision had been made by 'senior management' - meaning Naomi's parents - on account of concern expressed by members of the community over the publicity already being generated by all the harum scarum stuff. The town was still getting over the DeFeo killings and it was generally felt that even proving that this was all a big hoax would give the supposed haunting more notice than it deserved.

"Y'know kids," Jenny observed, "I've been in and out of Panorama for years... I've never seen them lay the hammer down like this... but then we've never had a story this close to home."

"Yeah... well it's nice of them to pull the plug after we let that kid from Channel Five go back to the station... Suppose we'll hafta have Heather swing by with all these tapes on her way home."

Having only heard the tail end of our conversation, Heather said that she had the tapes 'right here' as she walked into the office. Handing her the inter-office memo, we told her she might as well give them back to Jenny as we weren't going to need them anymore.

"Well that's bullshit... So now we're letting the angry villagers decide what stories to cover?"

"That's still bullshit. Supposing it was some town in New Jersey? Would you give them the same consideration?"

"Probably not... But then we wouldn't have to run into those people at the store... Maybe I can talk to N'eddie... see what the score is."

She was in her dad's office and we arrived in time to catch the tail end of her argument. Fuming, 'I'll get naked right this minute!', she'd whipped her top off and was grabbing at her bra straps before he could stop her from completely disrobing.

"Is this a family fight or can anybody join in?"

"Jenny... dad wants to kill your pictorial..."

"Yeah... so?" Catching N'eddie look of disgust, Jenny added, "Any particular reason?"

"I just don't think a woman of your quality should have something like this on your permanent record... especially with a young girl..."

"You do know I've done a nude scene... on film..."

"So Naomi has told me... I still do not like it... I know your parents... how can I do this to them?"

"But you can do this to other people's little girls," Heather pointed out.

"It's different... those kind of girls... some of them have no other means to make a living... At least not without walking the streets. Anyway, I've never liked having this magazine under the company umbrella... but your mother says it makes us money so what can I do?"

"Well, it's your magazine... but some of those girls were kinda counting on the dough from this... Couldn't you just airbrush me out?"

"What? You don't pay them enough? You want I should take up a collection now?"

"It's not so much that... It's just that once we're done with the projects we've got I was planning on heading back to LA. Not a lot of work for us around here and I'm not exactly the greatest at lining up clients. Doesn't help that sombebody's been pulling strings around town..."

So the the upper-middlebrows at Foto Panorama would get a pictorial intended for the kind of people that reads a magazine with one hand otherwise occupied. At least Jenny would get her best pictures published and Poppa Edelson could sleep at nights. She left the room with a shrug and we moved on to other business. A few minutes later one of the boys at the Gal-o-rama desk got on the intercom to confirm whether they were supposed to hand Jenny back all the material related to her photoshoot. Heather was still in a fighting mood and a distracted Poppa Edelson okayed it without any further thought. Maybe a half hour later N'eddie gets some sort of omen and calls up the Foto Panorama desk to see if Jenny made the half dozen or so paces between the two office cubicles.

"No... she was over in the editing room for a while but Esther says she saw her leave... Why? Did she have something for us?"

Picture of four Jewish girls making a dash for the editing room.

The lack of a whirlwind of destruction was deceptive. Our first thought was to look for the tapes we'd made of the shoot. Sure enough they'd been loaded in VCRs and were at various stages of being recorded over. Of course we hit the stop buttons as fast as we could even though we had a pretty good idea she would've run them over the bulk eraser first. When she does something, she means it. It wasn't too surprising to find that the wastepaper basket was missing. All she needed now was a lighter and a ledge to sit out on. We opened a window and looked down, around and finally up to a ledge near the Burgundy room.

"Ahhh.... nuts... Looks like they're electing a new Pope..."

The destruction was nearly final by the time we got upstairs. The slides and negatives must've gone first. With an accompaniment of sniffling tears, she was now feeding the last of the photo proofs into the pyre. There was no question of trying to make a grab for them as Jenny was so close enough to the edge that any sudden move on our part might very well send her over the side. At any rate she was down to the last photo - her and Cheryl as a caryatids coming to life - before we could clamber out of the window. That had been the most time-consuming picture on account of all the body paint used to make their lower halves look like cast-iron and she seemed to waver at its irrevocable destruction. Holding the picture over the wastepaper basket, she watched as the image warped and distorted from the heat. Even with that thousand yard stare of hers, she still seemed to sense the presence of onlookers.

Looking as us and back as the flames, Jenny blubbered, "I didn't really want to do this... it was Cheryl that talked me into it... said it would be a 'bonding experience' for everyone at the firm."

"Story of my life... always seems to be some great big party next door... everyone's laughing and having a good time... and always... for some reason... I just... can't... join in... even if I'm the goddamn guest of honor! Especially..."

After a long spell of looking down at The City she added, "Oh hell..."

That was enough for us.

We made our move by hooking an arm around Jenny's back to pull her into us so that Heather and N'eddie could finish the job of dragging her bawlng mass back into the building. Having retreated to some corner of her mind, she offered no resistance or assistance to being manhandled into a corner of the Burgundy room. A lifetime of tears had piled up inside her and there was nothing left to do but ride out the storm of anguish as best as she could. Poppa Edelsen arrived with the building nurse and a needle full of sedatives but we had to wave him off on account of her problems with certain medications.

"You want I should call her a doctor?"

"No... just call our parents... at the ranch... we're taking her home..."