6 *

enough room for two or three bedrooms upstairs.
With all the changes and departures from the artists’ original concepts, the one thing no tenant could ever alter was the inherent charm and grandeur of the building. Like the superb restaurant off the main lobby, the original atmosphere remained intact.

Janice’s first act upon entering the apartment was to double lock and bolt the door. After pouring Ivy’s Coke and sending her upstairs to do her homework, she poured herself a straight scotch. The man at the school had really rattled her. This was a new sensation for Janice. She realized that life was filled with pockets of danger, but thus far she had been spared.
She carried her scotch into the living room and sat in her favourite chair – an overstuffed antique rocker that had belonged to her grandmother. As she sipped the drink, her mind reformed the face, the expression in the man’s eyes as he stood looking down at Ivy. There was nothing sexual in his look, or depraved; it was more a look that spoke of great loss – sad, hopeless, desperate. That was it, desperate.
Janice shivered visibly and took a large swallow of scotch. She could feel the spreading, soothing, warming sensation of the alcohol throughout her body as she rose and walked to the window. Her eyes ferreted among the antlike figures scurrying about on the sidewalks far below. Might he be down there? Watching? Waiting? She would tell Bill about it as soon as he came home.
Sipping the last of her scotch, Janice turned from the window and gazed at the long length of the living room in the soft, waning light of the autumn afternoon. The thirty-eight-foot expanse of dark-stained pegged floor led the eye to a huge stuccoed walk-in fireplace, a practical, wood-burning, marshmallow-toasting fireplace that warmed their souls on cold winter evenings.