C17 Resume 610

"Did that old lady and her granddaughter upstairs always live here? Have you seen the parents of the child? "

"No visitors came to them. The kid occasionally took money and asked me to buy them some daily necessities. He was very generous and gave me a lot of tips. I haven't seen much of the old woman, hardly ever come down, but there's a letter for her, and I slip it under her door on the first of every month. "

"What letter?"

"I can't read." The security guard threw up his hands.

I looked at the file rack on the TV and saw a few sparse letters inside.

"Give me her letter, and I'll bring it up."

The security guard was staring at the series without noticing what I was doing. I read Maria's letters one by one — most of them were credit card advertisements and notice of utilities.

A letter caught my attention.

The letter came from a very famous trust company.

Trust companies are so popular among the rich class in the United States that if a millionaire has assets worth more than $300 thousand, he or she can set up a living trust.

The living trust is to entrust your money to an institution for the rest of your life, and the institution will give the beneficiary a sum of money every month until your death in the form of a gift. The reason why he did this was to avoid taxes.

Inheritance taxes in the United States are quite high. For example, if parents leave their children a legacy of 1 million, the tax will be deducted by at least a few hundred thousand. But if you could find a trust company and give your child a few thousand dollars a month in the name of a gift, over time, he or she would be able to transfer 1 million dollars in full before his or her parents died.

At this point, I had no time to be polite or private. I quickly opened the letter — just as I had guessed, it contained a cheque for $50 thousand.

The beneficiary's name was Maria. Jones.

This kind of trust cheque should be sent to Maria's home on time every month.

And for the Trust Level, the name was: Johnson. H.

Johnson. H? It was a familiar name. I seem to have heard it not long ago.

Ding! With a violent shake, the elevator stopped on the sixth floor.

In my mind's eye, I saw the couple kissing in front of the town hall, and the line of scrawled calligraphy under the black-and-white photo:

Giving to Johnson. People who also loved life. Your faithful friend, Dovano.

Wasn't that the name of the previous tenant? The "neighbor" Maria talked about who had emigrated to Australia in a hurry over ten years ago, and did not even want a room full of treasures anymore?

Maria said that he had lost contact with him, yet received his cheque every month?

However, the name Johnson had a high usage rate in the Western World, which was equivalent to the name X Wei in China, X Army was the same, and H was only an abbreviation. I do not have sufficient evidence to prove that Johnson is the same as him.

The only way is to find out the full name of that Johnson at 610 and then call the trust company to verify their names. If they are really the same person, then I can prove to Lina that he is lying.

I have to go in again, 610.

In order not to alert me, I called home from the control room:

"Darling, what are you doing at home?"

"He's playing chess with Alpha."

"I have to work overtime today. I have two bank repayment forms on my desk that haven't been mailed. Today is the deadline for mailing it out. Can you go to the post office and mail it for me?"

"You careless bastard, alright, then I'll let Alpha go home first and help you mail it." Lina hung up.

I hid myself at the corner of the first floor lobby. After confirming that Lina was out, I turned around and went to the elevator.

As expected, the key to the 610 had not been returned to Maria yet. Grabbing the key, I effortlessly opened the door to 610.

It would take Lina about thirty minutes to go to the post office. I wanted to find the mysterious tenant's name within this period of time, so I entered the study room almost without thinking.

The study was elegant, with a Victorian lamp on the desk and several branded pens scattered on it. I frowned, this Johnson seemed to have evaporated into thin air, as though he took almost nothing with him.

I rummaged through the drawers and, with little effort, found a letterhead drawer, a very delicate camera, and a few rolls of undeveloped film.

The business letter had Johnson's full name: Johnson. Harkes.

Halix was the full name of H, and also Johnson's surname.

I took the letter home and dialed the trust company.

"Hello, I would like to modify my trust business. The beneficiary is Maria. "Jones."

"Okay. Are you the client?" A sweet female customer service voice.

"Yes." I lied.

"May I know your name?"

"Err …" Johnson. "Halikes." I read out the names of the 610 residents.

Then there was a silence on the other end of the line.

Maybe thirty seconds had passed, but I felt as if five minutes had passed.

To be honest, I'd rather I was wrong.

"Hello, Mr. Johnson, your name has been verified to be correct. What would you like to change? " That sweet voice sounded again.

I was right.

This customer who sent a cheque to Maria every month was really the same person as the previous tenant of 610. As expected, Maria lied to Lina. I knew this old thing wasn't normal. My heart leaped uncontrollably.

"Hello?" Are you still there? What do you need my help with? "

My mind started working quickly. How can I learn more about Maria?

"I... Actually, I am not Johnson, "I cleared my throat." I am the son of the beneficiary of this trust fund, Lady Maria. Maria died last week. So I want to ask what we're going to do now. "

I don't even know how I came to make this up. These words were completely irrelevant.

What should he do? What else could he do? If he died, he would terminate the trust! I wanted to slap myself.

"Oh, I'm sorry for you," the female customer service said. "But according to our contract, you don't need to change the trust to become the next beneficiary — the first beneficiary of Mr. Johnson's trust is his wife, Lady Maria. The second beneficiary is Lady Maria's son, you, sir."

I was too stunned to speak.

Madame?

So they were husband and wife?

The 610's tenant suddenly became Maria's husband from being a so-called immigrant from an American in Australia. My brain couldn't wrap its head around this.

"Is the address my father registered at the Joshua Tower?"

"Wait a minute, please. Your father once registered the Joshua Building, but most recently, a year ago, he registered a different address."

"Can you give me his new address?"

After copying Johnson's address and hanging up the phone, I fell into deep thought.

If Maria had a husband, why would he lie?

If he was already divorced, why would Johnson continue sending money to Maria to avoid taxes?

Something was wrong.

Maria did not live with Johnson.

It was obvious that all the decorations had been decided by one person, and there was nothing of a woman in the house.

Which couple would live in an apartment alone?

If they were truly husband and wife, how could they not even have a picture of each other?

It occurred to me that the heavily dampened rolls of film and the camera in the drawer might be saved if they were delivered to the studio.

I hurried back to 610's study and stuffed the film and camera into my bag.

As he was walking out of the study and passing by the bedroom, he suddenly saw a figure flashing in the bedroom.

"Who?!" I jumped and cried out.

No one answered.

I peered cautiously into the bedroom.

It was a full-length mirror.

Because of the angle, I hadn't been able to see the mirror when I entered the bedroom from the living room. It was only when I passed through the bedroom from the study that the mirror had been able to see me.

I went in and looked at the mirror and saw that it was a sliding door with a cubicle inside.

The cubicle was decorated in the same way as the outside. The only difference was that there were no windows, only a bed and a bedside table.

The bed was against the wall, and there was a chain nailed to the wall. The length of the chain reached the middle of the bed, and there was a pair of handcuffs on the chain.

I can think of the use of these handcuffs, except for some perverted abuse games, of locking up the person sleeping in this bed.

The drawer of the bedside table was filled with colorful medicine bottles. Some of them were health products while others were prescription drugs. Almost all of these drugs are stimulants, and they have only one effect — to stimulate the central nervous system, to recover energy and drive sleep away.

Could it be that Johnson was afraid to sleep as well? This thought flashed across his mind.

Did he also fear that once he fell asleep, the thing he feared the most would turn into a nightmare and drive him to death?

I looked at the pair of rusty handcuffs. If Johnson suffered the same fate as me, he probably would have been sleeping here ever since he started to have nightmares. Furthermore, he would have had himself shackled to prevent himself from dying before he fell asleep. If my guess was right, it proved once again that my nightmares were not coincidences, but rather the frequent occurrence of residents on this floor.