Chapter 3 #2
Genevieve starts nodding halfway into Margie’s question. For all that she’s dressed for leisure, she seems the sort who moves at a fast pace. “Yes. New law passed last year. How old is your building?”
I shoot Margie an exasperated look and say, “Prewar. Probably 1910s?”
“The walls are so thin she can hear everything her neighbor is doing. It’s like he’s squatting on her coffee table,” Margie offers.
“Hm. Prewar buildings are usually pretty decent in terms of soundproofing, since it’s all concrete and plaster. Your apartment and your neighbor’s may have been a single unit originally. It’s not Sheetrock, the wall?”
I shake my head, though I’m not entirely sure.
“Hmm, so here’s what I’d recommend.” She pauses.
“Off the record. I am not your lawyer; you are not my client.” She picks up a small plate and begins grazing at the table, adding raw veggies and a dollop of dressing as she waits for me to nod my understanding.
“There should be an ‘accident’ that somehow opens up a hole on your side of the wall in question. You were moving furniture or something, and bumped the wall, and oops, there we go. Just enough for the city inspector to see what’s going on in there.
The city can’t force these grandfathered-in buildings to bring things up to code unless a defect is made apparent.
That hole is how you make that happen for your apartment.
If a defect is made apparent, not only does the landlord have to address it, your security deposit can’t get tapped for the original damage.
” She smiles and pops a small cherry tomato into her mouth.
I gnaw at my lip. This is dumb. There is no way I will do any of this. And yet… “Would it even help, though? With my problem, I mean. Like, do they have to do any soundproofing or—”
She waves a hand. “They’d have to make it so that the wall between your apartment and your neighbor’s is the same as what goes up in new apartments in the city.
Anything they do will improve your situation.
I’d bet if the noise is as bad as you say, that wall was either illegally put up, or it was put up so long ago it’s bound to be problematic. So the building fixes it, and—”
She shrugs. “Good fences make good neighbors.”
“There you go, Pen. You’re welcome. Problem solved,” Margie says.
“Who has a problem?” Lucas Webb walks up to the table, and despite the fact that I’ve never been the fangirl type, I find myself flushing a deep crimson.
He is even more dazzling in person, close up, than he is on TV.
His sexy buzz cut is the perfect minimalist frame for that face of his, all jutting cheekbones and symmetrical beauty, and his costly blue suit hugs his sculpted body.
He’s shorter than I realized, about my height at 5’ 6” or so. But God is he delicious.
“Lucas, this is my best friend, Penny. Penny, meet Lucas. Penny had a legal question, and Gen was kind enough to help out.” Margie catches my eye, and I see her repress a smile.
Lucas tilts his head and reaches out a hand.
I put mine in his, but he doesn’t shake it, just holds. And I thank every deity on the planet that I got a manicure on my lunch break today. His eyes, the color of warm tropical waters, are appraising. “Legal advice? Everything okay, I hope. Divorce?”
I shake my head vigorously. “I’m not married.” I’ve evidently been inhabited by the spirit of Marilyn Monroe. I clear my throat. And because I babble like a lunatic when nervous, I add, “It’s for a murder. Actually. The advice.”
Lucas Webb’s lips, slightly pouty when he’s rocking his Resting Hot Face, stretch into a smile, and he releases my hand. I feel the loss keenly. “Oh, no. Who’d you eliminate?”
“No one. It hasn’t happened yet. It’s premeditated. I’m premeditating it now.”
He laughs, and someone calls his name. He nods in acknowledgment, and his mouth twists when he looks back at me. “It was very nice meeting you, Penny.”
The specter of Marilyn wheezes out a response, my brain functioning on autopilot.
Genevieve makes her goodbyes, and I find my eyes straying to Lucas, not hearing whatever Margie just said until she’s standing shoulder to shoulder with me, stabbing at me with her salad fork. “Earth to Penny. My God, you’re in bad shape today. Is the murder-victim-to-be your neighbor or me?”
“Both,” I say, huffing out a laugh. “My head is killing me.”
“Need to build back your tolerance.”
“And by the way, why would you tell Lucas fucking Webb I had a legal question? I didn’t know what to say without sounding ridiculous.”
“So instead of telling the truth, you yammered like my grandma dipping into the cooking sherry,” Margie says drily. She smiles fully at my disgruntled look.
“Dead meat, Marjorie.”
Across the space, someone wheels a camera by, and Lucas is once again visible, laughing with the director. I gush out a sigh.
Margie follows my gaze and points with her fork. “He’s very into redheads. If I get you that for Christmas, do I get a stay of execution?”
I purposely turn away, like someone regretfully waving away the dessert menu.