Parts Unknown by Rex Burns Page A

city program of loan guarantees for investors willing to develop low-income housing. I helped her qualify for the program.”
    “When was this?”
    “About four years ago.”
    “Do the rentals have price ceilings?”
    “Of course. One seventy-five a month for a single, up to a maximum of two fifty a month for large families. I understand there are no vacancies.”
    “Do you know who handled her home purchase?”
    “That was an owner-sold property. We talked it over and I gave her some advice on how to arrange the financing, but essentially it went through the lending company and that was it.”
    “Did she put down one third on that, too?”
    “I advised against that—the interest there is tax deductible. I told her she would come out ahead with a low down payment on a thirty-year fixed rate. I don’t know whether she took my advice or not.”
    “How much did the house cost?”
    “Somewhere in the one nineties; I can’t remember exactly.”
    “She was able to afford that?”
    “She said she could handle the payments, and as far as I know, she has. You’ll have to verify that with the loan company, not with me.”
    I thanked Mrs. White and headed for my next stop, the Associated Medical Pavilion on Downing Street. The name had echoed familiarly, and I stood a minute or two staring at the bronze letters mounted on a heavy wooden sign. But the connection wouldn’t come. The building showed busy Downing a windowless brick wall and some bushes, but the sidewalk leading down the front revealed brick, glass, and chrome. The main entry was halfway down the facade, recessed for shade from the summer sun and open to the low winter sun for warmth and coziness. A series of concrete benches lined the walk, separated by carefully tended grass and flowers, and I wondered if Mrs. Chiquichano had the lawn care franchise as well. A receptionist learned that I was neither patient nor drug salesman and frowned as she glanced down an appointment book crowded with names in every fifteen-minute slot.
    “I called earlier and made an appointment with Dr. Matheney,” I reminded her.
    She looked in another book. “Oh, yes. Just a moment, please.”
    She lifted a phone to talk to someone, and I listened to the muted background music and tried to pick out the melody among the curlicues of tinkling notes. The scattering of patients leafed through magazines and politely ignored one another.
    A series of bronze plates on the waiting room wall named the doctors and their specialties, most of which seemed to deal with allergies and internal medicine. Matheney’s name was listed under Immunology and Surgery. I guessed that as in many medical groups, the doctors here had private patients and were also on call at nearby Warner Memorial. Those private cases too complex to be handled at the clinic were transferred to the hospital and its more extensive care facilities. It was a familiar symbiotic arrangement and one that seemed very profitable as well. The building itself had been designed for its purpose as a clinic, with—I found out shortly—smaller waiting areas near the office of each specialist, looked after by each doctor’s nurse. Examining rooms emphasized comfort and privacy, hallways stressed womblike security and warmth, and the doctors’ offices, if they were all like Matheney’s, breathed a sigh of order, competence, and wealth. The patient knew he was getting the best.
    “Mr. Kirk! How may I help you today?”
    Morris Matheney was very tall, with an Abe Lincoln beard and large horn-rimmed glasses that magnified eyes as brown and soft as a collie’s. His hair swept back from brow and temples in a billowing gray puff that increased his height. His hand, when he shook mine, was strong and hairless and so polished by scrubbing that its skin looked like a taut surgical glove. I explained about Mrs. Chiquichano while he listened with fingers laced and thumbs against his lips.
    “Yes. I remember her. She provided janitorial