6.

The silver mercedes was registered to Perry Alderson, whose address was in fact the Mt. Auburn Street building, unit 112, a condo above the garage where he’d parked. I got out my brown Harris tweed jacket, put it on over a black turtleneck, added a notebook and a camera, and drove over to Cambridge. I left my car with Richie the doorman at the Charles Hotel, and walked through the light rain over to Perry Alderson’s building. There was a woman at the concierge desk in the lobby. I smiled at her. A smile rich with warm sincerity.

“Hi,” I said.

She was red-haired and pale-faced and, had she allowed any of it to show, she might have had a good body. But she was shrouded in one of those voluminous ankle-length dresses that seem to be part of the municipal code in Cambridge. So the condition of her body remained moot.

“Hello,” she said.

“I’m writing a piece on urban living for Metropolis magazine,”

I said. “I was in Chicago last week, Near North, you know. And next week I’m in DC doing Georgetown.”

“Really?” she said.

“Boston this week,” I said. “Cambridge and the Back Bay.”

“And you want to write about this building?”

“I sure do. It’s a beauty.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you bother the residents,” she said.

“Oh, God no,” I said. “Of course not. I don’t need to. I was a guest here once, Mr. Perry Alderson, and I have pictures of his apartment and a lot of stuff I can use. But the fact-checkers are on my case. I remember I was on the first floor, number onetwelve, but I can’t remember, was it the last one at the end of the corridor?”

“That’s all?” she said.

“Absolutely,” I said. “I have that, and I’m in business. Take a few exterior shots. Be out of your hair.”

“Mr. Alderson is the last door on the left,” she said. I looked down the corridor past the elevators.

“On the left,” I said. “I would have sworn it was at the end.”

“Mr. Alderson is on the left, sir,” she said fi rmly.

“What a memory,” I said. “Some journalist. May I take your picture?”

She almost blushed.

“Photography is not permitted, sir, in the lobby, without permission of the condominium board.”

“Of course,” I said. “Of course. Can you do me one small favor?”

“Well, that would depend,” she said. “Wouldn’t it?”

“I’m going to sort of hedge this story a little, and I’m hoping this conversation could just be ours?”

“I am not a talker, sir,” she said.

“I knew that,” I said. “Beautiful yet mysterious.”

This time she did blush. I winked at her debonairly, and walked away. The Compleat Journalist.

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