I wrote a check for twenty-four hundred dollars from my private checking account and pushed it across the desk.

She stamped the page, slipped the top copy into a blue folder, and unlocked a small metal drawer under her desk.

“Here are your two door cards and the brass key to the mailbox in the lobby,” she said.

“Unit nine-fourteen is on the north side of the building.”

I took the keys, grabbed my black coat, and rode the elevator up to the ninth floor.

The corporate apartment was compact and spotless.