“LANA CALLED,” Albertine said, “and she thinks that we just might hook the water-sports consortium if we lower the asking price.”
“How much?”
“She doesn’t know, and she wouldn’t guess, but she said there is only one way to increase our chances of selling, and that is to lower the price.”
“Okay, what do you think?”
“Ten percent?”
“That seems like a lot.”
“Five percent?”
“One?”
“Okay, that ought to do it.”
OTTO AND ESTHER checked out, and they apologized for doing so, although they had already stayed longer than they should have, and they promised to return for the last reading, or the last couple of readings if they could arrange it. On the return trip, Tony T brought a new guest to the hotel, though. He was a small man, wiry, with darting eyes and a Spanish accent. He said that he had been passing through Babbington on his way to the Phantoms, the string of islands that stretches eastward from Montauk Point, and stopped for lunch at the Babbington diner. At the cash register, one of our flyers had caught his eye and he decided that Small’s Hotel might be as good a place as any to get away from it all for a couple of weeks, and “besides, it’s way closer than the Phantoms.” Albertine wrote the copy for those flyers. I think that she had intended to whip up a little more enthusiasm in the getaway-seeking community than this little fellow displayed. He signed the register Manuel Pedrera, but he told us to call him Ray, and we assured him that we would.
“Is there nude sunbathing?” Ray asked, jingling the key to his room.
I looked him up and down and said, “No.”
[to be continued]
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