Don't Stop the Carnival Read Online Free PDF

piece of real estate like Gull Reef, with the hotel and these beaches and all, for fifty-five grand, do you? This thing has got to be worth two hundred fifty thousand dollars right now and at that it would be a steal."
     
     
"Lester, the ad said fifty-five thousand."
     
     
Atlas shook his head with tolerant patience. "It belongs to some native family. It's been handed down for generations. You'd have to round up about seventy-five people to even talk about a deal, and some of them can't hardly read and write, and some are in England, and some are God knows where. This banker says that back in 1928 some Englishman did round them up and he got a fifty-year lease and built this place for the American trade. Then 1929 came along and he went bust. The place went back to the goats and the rats and the lizards for twenty years and more. That's why it's got this crappy look. About eight years ago two fags came down from California and bought the lease, and fixed the joint up like it is now. That gondola and all the rest. Well, then, one of them fell in love with this Turk who opened a gift shop here, and the other California fruit got mad and stabbed the Turk-that banker told me all this-and the Turk survived and the two fags got reconciled, only they had to blow the island because this one was up for attempted murder, and that's when Mrs. Ball bought it. The upshot of it is, you're not buying anything but the last nineteen years of the lease. You got to get your dough out in that time."
     
     
Despite his fatigue, Paperman was laughing. "What happened to the Turk?"
     
     
"That's what I asked. He's still here, he's one of their leading citizens. He runs the Community Chest drive."
     
     
Paperman laughed harder.
     
     
"Norm, this thing has angles. Suppose you're sitting here on this reef with a nineteen-year lease, and a Sheraton or a Hilton comes along and wants in? This is the best site for a new tropical hotel I've ever seen. Those guys don't give a good god damn. They'll sink a hundred thousand in legal fees just to clear the title. They're apt to pay you anything you name for the lease, I mean a quarter of a million, three hundred thousand, who knows? Those bastards, they don't fool around.
     
     
"The other thing is, Norm, the Caribbean is a growth area. The smart money, I mean like the Rockefellers and some of the big Europeans, they're buying thousands and thousands of acres on some of these islands you never even heard of. They're looking fifty years ahead. That's how they operate, they think of the family two generations from now. In Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, the boom's hit already, prices are sky high. Amerigo's on the edge. You can still pick up the choice stuff reasonably, and when you get into the big wild patches over on the north side, from what old Llewellyn said there's some real bargains. But you got to be here. You got to be on hand when some old poop dies up in the hills and the stuff comes on the market. I like the idea of you and Henny being down here, keeping an eye out for things I might buy. Anything like that, I'd cut you both in, of course. A finder's fee."
     
     
Paperman was wide awake now, sitting up and hugging his naked knees. "Les, I don't know anything about real estate."
     
     
"Nothing to it. All you'd have to do is keep your ears open, and holler for me if something good turned up. No, this can be a good thing all around." Lester Atlas yawned and threw his cigar out over the porch. You've got to face up to it now. Do you really want to give up New York and come to the Caribbean? It won't be easy, you know." He pulled the cover off the bed and settled down on the sheets, yawning and moaning with pleasure. "Jesus, I'm tired. Say, how about that green bikini?"
     
     
"She has a face," Paperman said.
     
     
"Isn't it hell?" said Atlas. "Those goddam bikinis always cover the wrong part. Norm, this is fun. Maybe we'll both end up beachcombers."
     
     
He was snoring in a