Ira Levin (26 page)

    Guy leaned around the bathroom door, half his face bearded with lather. He mouthed, "An apartment right-brace was She nodded.

    "Are you there?"

    "Yes," she said-switching hands on the phone as Guy sat beside her be he leaned to listen with her, holding his razor. "It's rent free, my angel! Four rooms in the Dakota, overlooking the park! You'll be in among the celebrities: Leonard Bernstein! Lauren Bacall! One of the Beatles is dickering for the apartment right next door!"

    They looked at each other.

    She looked ahead, grasping hair with her free hand.

    "Do you want to discuss it with Guy? Though what there is to discuss, I can't imagine. Seize the moment; there's another chap here waiting to call someone about it. I'll hold, I have a nickel, but I'm getting glared at. Oh, before I forget, Roast Mules? Exactly three minutes and twelve seconds by the clock."

    She lowered the handset a few inches.

    They looked at each other.

    "To," he said, "you can't possibly be thinking of letting a dream stand in the way. Nobody would! Rent free? The Dakota?" *5he looked ahead.

    T

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    I'm grateful to Alan Ladd Jr. and Andrew Wald for getting me off the couch and over to the computer, and to the following people for advice, patience, and friendship, at least two out of three in each instance: Adam and Tara Levin-Delson, Jed and Suzanne Levin, Nicholas Levin, Phyllis Westberg, Michaela Hamilton, Howard Rosenstone, Wendy Schmalz, Patricia Powell, Herbert E. Kaplan, Peter L. Felcher, Julius Medwin, and Ellie and Joe Busman.

    Roast Mules was laid upon me at a wedding seven years ago by a man I know only as the father of the actress Bebe Neuwirth. I cursed him for a long time-mildly, because of that daughter-but now I'm grateful to him too. The solution to the puzzle is honest and pleasing. Save your postage.

    T

    **ira levin was born in New York City in 1929. His six previous novels have all been international best-sellers and are in print today in most major languages. He has won two Edgar Allan Poe Awards.

    A playwright and lyricist as well as a novelist, he wrote both the longest-running thriller in Broadway history, Deathtrap, and the lyrics of the Barbra Streisand classic "He Touched Me." r

A NOTE ON THE TYPE

    The typeface used in this book is a version of Trump Medieval, originally designed in the 1950's by Georg Trump (1896-1985) for the Weber foundry in Stuttgart. Though not officially house designer, the prolific Trump over the years provided the foundry with much of its range of elegant types despite his busy teaching career and being called up in both world wars. Trump Medieval, his masterpiece, is an "old-style" face-that is, one based on Italian fonts of the Renaissance-its name notwithstanding. (trump may have meant the shaping of its serifs to be reminiscent of gothic architecture.) One noteworthy feature is the relative shortness of the uppercase letters, favored by German designers because the many capitals used in their language interfere with readability if full height. Trump Medieval also has a modified sloped roman instead of a true italic, perhaps to maintain a visual relationship with the distinctive serifs of the roman.