In fact it went practically like clockwork.
Mrs. Mahler stepped out of the elevator. The ghost swept toward her along the corridor. As he came even with her, he suddenly threw out an arm and began wrenching at her purse. I must have had my nose pressed against the narrow strip of glass in the stairway door, paralyzed, because I suddenly realized he was jerking his head at me. I pushed open the door and staggered towards them. My knees felt like wet rags.
I wasn't supposed to shout—he didn't want people sticking their heads out of their doors—but I did. I don't remember what I said. Something like, “Hey! You there!” Or something equally asinine. Then as I reached him, I received a whack in the head, and something wet trickled down my face.
The ghost vanished instantly, as mysteriously as his namesake (or my parents), and Mrs. Mahler was gushing over me, saying, “Thank you! Oh, my God! Thank you!"; and within seconds I was in her apartment, standing in the entryway while she scuttled about searching for bandages. In spite of the urgency, she paused long enough at a white plastic wall panel to punch in four digits—4044—so rattled she didn't think of screening the keypad from me. Then she pushed me down on a bench and began dabbing at my scalp with a tissue. I pulled the tissue from her fingers and began blotting up the “blood” myself.
"You poor man,” she bleated. “Can I get you anything? Water? Would you like some water?"
"Scotch,” I said. And added quickly: “I'm feeling faint."
While she went for the drink, I staggered into the bathroom, cleaned myself up, took several deep breaths, and emerged looking and feeling better.
"Just a scratch,” I assured her as she pressed the whiskey into my hand. It was a generous glassful, and I saw that she had poured one for herself.
"I know you!” she said at that moment, her face suddenly brightening. “You're our piano player. Your picture is downstairs in the lobby!"
I trailed a suddenly bubbly Mrs. Mahler into her living room.
* * * *
The suite was laid out no differently than many of the others in the hotel. What was unique about it was the atmosphere. I felt as if I were in a funeral home. Heavy draperies shut out the daylight; glowing lamps with tasseled shades dimly illuminated stern, dark furniture. Small carpets were laid over larger ones, and there were far too many cushions and throws in the room: You could have dropped a wineglass and not shattered it. The décor was dismal, the room depressing, but the woman had money, you could see that. Everything in the place, though gruesomely ugly, reeked of checkbooks and cold, hard cash. She waved me to a bilious green armchair, while she poured refills at an ebony cabinet with marquetry parrots squabbling on its doors.
The drinks prepared, she touched a switch before stepping away, causing small, scattered gallery lamps to wink on along the walls.
They didn't brighten the place, but I decided it wasn't like a funeral home after all, but like a stuffy museum. One of the walls had no less than seven murky old paintings hanging on it.
"Zum Wohl," she said, raising her glass. I didn't know what that meant. She might have been telling me where I could go. But I lifted my own glass, and we drank. She actually smacked her lips after downing the whiskey.
She lowered herself into a tall upholstered chair in front of a display case filled with Hummel figurines. Almost immediately she offended me.
"Have you ever given any thought to playing serious music, Mr. Hinks?"
I wanted to reply, And have you ever given any thought to having your double chins carved off or liposuctioned? But instead I said, “It's my living. It's serious enough to me."
"Oh, Gott. Now I have made you angry."
"Not at all.” I was too disgusted to be angry.
"It is just,” she said, “that when you play you do have such a very firm touch—what one might call a sense of conviction."
"I've never seen you in the lounge."
"No. I do not go in there. But your music carries through to the dining room, and for that reason I have heard you often. You play very well."
"Thank you, Mrs. Mahler,” I replied. I was remembering to be charming. “It's kind of you to say so."
"Ah. So you know my name?"
"I've heard it mentioned. You're very well thought of by the hotel management.” Before she could ask me what they were saying about her, I added, “To tell you the truth, I never thought I would wind up a musician. I always wanted to be painter. I wanted to interpret the world in line and color."
"Really?” She had just taken another guzzle of booze, and she brightened so suddenly I wondered for a moment if she had slipped something more than whiskey into her glass. “You are an aficionado of art then?"
"I love art. I always have."
She was out of her chair and had me by the arm before I scarcely knew what was happening. “You must look at my collection. I have some wonderful oils. Also some very fine watercolors. Come and see. Come and see!"
I allowed myself to be steered from one repulsive painting to another. In my opinion she had nothing there that even came close to resembling art. I found her paintings completely nauseating. All, that is, except for one. It seemed out of place among the others, which were heavy, turgid things that might have been painted with well-used axle grease.
By comparison it was a splash of gaiety, bright primary colors and geometric shapes. It seemed to be a fishing boat surrounded by curling waves, with stick-figure fishermen scooping fish up in baskets. There was a bright blue sky and a round yellow sun. It was like a child's painting, only more ambitious: a child's painting executed by a forty year old.
"You like this?” Mrs. Mahler asked. “So do I. It is by a Mexican artist, a very sympathetic fellow. It's what is called amate art."
"It's very ... colorful,” I said.
"It is, isn't it?"
We made the rounds, saw all the paintings, and wound up in the entryway once again. My glass was empty. It was time to go. As I went out the door she took my hand and said to me, “Thank you again, Mr. Hinks. Thank you so very much!"
As the door clicked shut behind me, it suddenly dawned on me she hadn't once mentioned calling the police or even the hotel manager.
* * * *
Downstairs I met the manager as I crossed the lobby, and I stopped him.
"The strangest thing just happened,” I told him. “Mrs. Mahler thanked me for saving her from a mugger."
He was aghast. “What? Here in my hotel? What does she mean?"
"I don't know,” I said. “She must be imagining things. I have no idea what she's talking about."
He practically mopped his brow. “Well, thank goodness for that."
We talked about older people, and the bugbear of Alzheimer's. When I left him I was fairly certain he would pay no attention to any complaint she made.
* * * *
Casper and Judy practically hugged me. They dragged me across the living room, sat me down at the dinette suite, and plunked a stack of heavy art books in front of me. It was insufferable. Intolerable. They kept at me for over an hour. “Is this one of the paintings, Melvin? Or this one? Think hard, Melvin, did you see anything like this?” Not for the first time I wished I were a larger man. I might have thrown the not-so-friendly ghost out the window and his stupid picture books right after him. But then, to my own amazement, a sudden flash of recognition struck me. “Turn back,” I said. “Turn back the page.” And there in living color, by God, was the fish picture, just as I had seen it on Mrs. Mahler's wall.
"Quick,” Judy barked at Casper, snapping her fingers, “hand me the concordance."
He handed her a tome the size and weight of a marble headstone. She rapidly flipped through the pages, ran her finger down a table of some kind, stopped, then slowly raised her head.
"Well?” he demanded. “What does it say about it?"
"That it's missing."
"Ah."
"Apparently it's one of a pair. The other is in the possession of a Texan—a Mrs. Hannah Marsh, who
bought it at auction in London six years ago for an estimated half million pounds."
The not-so-friendly ghost began to smile. He sank slowly back into the chair and raised his hands at the ceiling, thanking the powers that be. He looked like a man who has read the lottery numbers and suddenly realizes he's become wealthy.
"Melvin,” he said. “I have another job for you."
* * * *
That got me on my feet. I was furious and didn't care if they knew it. I told them we were square. That I had lived up to my end of the bargain. I said I wanted that video of me destroyed. Better yet, I wanted it in my hand so that I could destroy it!
The ghost sat swinging his head in slow, pitying motions. He wore the sort of look you bestow on a person who is just too stupid to live. If I'd had some way of wiping it off his face right then, I would have done it.
"Melvin, Melvin, Melvin,” he said. “You don't know anything, do you? You certainly don't know much about digital files or you'd realize I could have made thousands of copies by now. I could have e-mailed them around the world. You could be appearing on Facebook. There's no way in hell you can ever be certain that file won't pop up again somewhere. But there's one thing you can be sure of—” He leaned in at me. “—you are in this thing up to your neck. If you don't see it through, if you don't follow my directions implicitly, you are going to find yourself on the six o'clock news in color and stereophonic sound. And that's not just a threat. That's a promise."
* * * *
And so the very next day I found myself boosting a passkey from the maintenance room. It's shocking how many copies of room keys are floating around a hotel, ready to be put to use. The manager and assistant manager have them, of course, and the chambermaids. But also the maintenance staff. When water starts pouring out from under somebody's door, you don't want your plumber running around looking for a key.
I hurried on up to Mrs. Mahler's apartment, fitted the key into the lock, and let myself in. Then I went directly to the alarm panel and punched in the code: 4404 wasn't it? No. Wait a minute: 4044!
Whew!
Now, quickly, to the painting. Just zip it out cleanly with the box cutter, Casper had said, then wrap it around my body, under my clothes. It took only a minute. I buttoned my jacket around it.
Then I was letting myself out of the apartment, scarcely believing how quick and efficient I'd been. I wondered if I had been missing the boat—"plinking” out nauseating melodies for inebriates and flogging lousy prescription medicines. My God, I was even a second-rate dope peddler! For a moment I saw myself as an international art dealer, a man actually owning nightclubs, not laboring in them.
Then I was back at the Smith-Jones apartment, and again they hauled me inside. When I fumbled with my jacket fasteners, the ghost practically tore my lapels off.
He rushed the painting to the dinette table, and the two of them stood over it, practically drooling.
"This is it, sweetheart,” Casper said in an agitated voice. “We've done it. We'll never have to work again."
"But we will, anyway."
"Yes, we will,” he agreed.
They had done it? Those two? I wanted to bray with laughter. I had done just about everything, and they were practically dislocating their shoulders in their hurry to pat themselves on the back.
"So you'll be leaving now,” I said.
"Within the hour,” the ghost replied.
"What about my hundred thousand?"
"You'll have to trust us for it. We can't turn this painting into ready cash in some pawnshop at the corner of the street, you know."
"Trust you for it."
"I'm afraid so, yes."
I really wasn't that surprised. I had always suspected they would pull some wheeze on me. Still, no one likes to be cheated, and I had pushed it to the back of my mind. And now here was Casper as much as telling me I could kiss my hundred grand goodbye.
"Don't be disappointed, Melvin.” Miss Smith beamed one of her smiles at me.
I could have told her—but didn't—that disappointment is practically a way of life for me. I've lived each of my forty-one years like a man who is slowly being kicked to death. What's one more blow?
But I didn't have to like it.
"I need a drink,” I mumbled.
"That's fine. Fix one for all of us. We need to celebrate."
I went to the sideboard and found a bottle with three or four ounces of rum left in it. There were two cans of coke, one already opened and the contents flat. No ice, and I wasn't about to go and fetch any. Miss Smith's handbag sat on a grease-stained pizza box.
I carried the drinks over to the dinette table, they each took one, and Casper proposed a toast. “All's well that ends well,” he said with a smugly sentimental grin.
I drank. It wasn't over yet.
* * * *
As I was rolling my equipment into the lounge, the manager stopped me.
"Have you been following the local news?"
"No."
"One of our guests, Mr. Jones, has been in a car accident. I believe I saw you talking with him in the lounge a day or two ago..."
"Is it serious?” I asked.
"They aren't reporting the details. But he's been rushed to the hospital, as I understand it."
"Terrible,” I said. I almost clapped my hands. “What about his wife?"
"That woman wasn't his wife. But nobody seems to know. She wasn't in the car when the police and ambulance arrived."
Sly boots. She must have spotted me slipping Lorazepam out of her purse and into the drinks, and cleverly dumped hers. But she hadn't said a word to the ghost. That was interesting. I wanted to ask if the painting had vanished along with her, but didn't know how to put it without compromising myself.
"Well,” I said, “I'm very sorry to hear that."
He looked at me as if not quite sure how I meant it, then bustled away to greet some arriving guests.
On my first intermission I glanced up to see Mrs. Mahler gesturing at me from the lobby doorway. I strolled out to her and greeted her. I used so much cool charm on her, butter wouldn't melt in my mouth.
"I am very sorry,” she said in her heavy accent, “for taking you away from your work. But I thought you might be interested—something has happened."
I guided her to a chair by a potted plant and sat down with her.
"What do you mean?"
She glanced around. “The manager does not want this getting about, but I trust you, and you do have an interest. Besides, you are practically staff..."
I'm not staff, you old bat, I'm the featured performer, I wanted to say. But instead I smiled. “What is it?"
She dropped her voice even further.
"I have been robbed. Someone has robbed my apartment."
I listened with faked concern as she told me how some nefarious cretin had defeated her burglar alarm, and had then cut a painting from its frame and escaped with it.
"But that's terrible! Was it insured?"
She waved the suggestion away. “Oh no. There was no need for that. It was only a copy, you see. I didn't mention it to you, but after my husband died I had all the artwork copied and the originals stored. The painting was only worth a few hundred dollars."
The stupid cow. I could have pulled the chair out from under her. The painting a fake? After all I had gone through?
And then I thought of Miss Smith's face when she eventually stumbled upon this unpleasant fact. I imagined her scurrying away from the wrecked car, leaving the ghost to his fate, then flitting through the streets to her fence—or whatever you call an art expert who deals in items of questionable provenance. “I'm sorry, madam, but this is not a legitimate work. This is a copy. It is worth only..."
Yes, I was suddenly feeling much better.
Copyright © 2010 Jas R. Petrin
[Back to Table of Contents]
Fiction: DON'T REVEAL THE BEGINNING by John H. Dirckx
At dawn the sky sagged and simpered like a tainted ba
tch of waffle batter. Rills of water fed by thawing snow and ice chuckled in gutters and gurgled in sluices, but the morning breeze that plowed the surface of the river carried no promise of spring. As Jitzi Swa finished her two-block walk from the bus stop to the building where she worked, she noticed that Mr. Pyzegger's car was already in its place next to the back door—something of an oddity at this early hour.
Finding the alarm system switched off, she let herself in with her key. A stony silence reigned in the building. Lights shone through the open doorway of Mr. Pyzegger's office.
For ten seconds, and no more, she stood immobile and impassive at that doorway, surveying the scene within as she might have scanned a circuit analysis profile. Then she took her cell phone out of its holster and called the police.
* * * *
Detective Sergeant Cyrus Auburn had lived most of his thirty-six years in this city of a hundred fifty thousand people without ever suspecting the existence of Floodgate Lane, much less knowing where it was. A district of shabby apartment buildings and unprosperous-looking businesses huddled in a curve of the river just east of downtown. In its midst, Floodgate Lane took off from River Road at a right angle and promptly ended in a square court enclosed on three sides by a nondescript, windowless, half-subterranean structure of weathered brick.
The asphalt paving of the court was gradually crumbling to rubble. Patches of dirty snow lay along the foundation of the central section of the building where the sun never reached. Four cars, one of them a police cruiser, were parked in a row against a side wing. A huge steel trash receptacle skulked before the front door, half obscuring a sign that read andover group—delivery entrance. Auburn had to wait a full minute after pressing the bell push before being admitted by Patrolman Fritz Dollinger.
"Back here, Sergeant,” said Dollinger, motioning with a clipboard.
Traversing the entrance hall and turning to the left, they passed a large and brightly lighted area divided into about a dozen cubicles, each enclosing an elaborately equipped workstation with spotlights, racks of tools, cabinets of parts, and a computer. Technicians of both genders, seemingly all Asian, one to a station, were repairing or assembling what looked like cameras, cell phones, or some other kind of hand-held electronic device. The atmosphere was heavy with the scent of volatile solvents or adhesives. All was silence except for the occasional buzz or whine of a power tool or a burst of compressed air.
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