14 Stories

by Stephen Dixon

  “Is that room still on the line?”

  She switched 1403 off Hold, heard the same kind of heavy breathing, said “Hello? Mr. Randall? This is Mrs. Vega again, your hotel operator. Is anything wrong? I said, is anything wrong?” She switched 1403 to Hold and said “Still on it, Mr. Hire, breathing just as regularly. Being new here I don’t want to be advising you your business, but I really think something’s the matter.”

  Mr. Hire dialed the hotel detective’s extension, but nobody was in. He checked in his book of private listings, called Operator and told her to page Detective Feuer on his pocket pager and have him contact Mr. Hire on extension 78 regarding a possible hotel accident.

  “Hello?” Mrs. Vega said in his head, “is anything the matter, 1403? If it is then say so. Say ‘Help’ if you can’t say anything else. Well if this is Mr. Randall and anything is wrong with you, then someone’s coming right up, Mr. Randall. I’m sure they’ll be right there.”

  Someone knocked, rang the bell. “Mr. Randall, you in?” a man said. “Better use the passkey,” another man said. “What did he look like?” the first man said. “I don’t know,” a woman said, “I never saw him. When I brought him his towels, he was in the bedroom. When I brought up glasses and ice for whiskey, he was in the bathroom. He left a good tip both times, though. And never any noise from him till now, sir.” The door opened. Lots of legs and stockings and shoes. “Oh God,” the woman said. “Oh God, oh God,” and she ran screaming down the long hall. She knocked over her cleaning cart. Doors in the corridor opened, heads looked out. “What’s all the commotion about?” a woman guest said. “What’s with this hotel?” a male guest said. “Noisy—the worst,” and he slammed his door. “The doctor will be here shortly, Mr. Randall,” a man kneeling beside him said. I’m the hotel manager. Try and rest. Don’t speak.”

  “Now you say you picked up this bullet on the roof here?” the policeman said.

  “I didn’t pick it up,” Warren said. “He did,” pointing to Mr. Singerton. “I told him not to, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “You should have known better, Mr. Singerton.”

  “I probably did, but got overeager. I wanted to see if the boy was telling the truth. If the bullet was warm, recently fired.”

  “The sun—lots of things could have warmed it. Not hoping there’s a next time—please be more careful? For now I’ll report it, and if anything comes in about a shooting here around the time Warren mentioned, then your phoning might be some use.” He got up. “Thanks for the coffee, Mrs. Lang.”

  “Not at all. You finished also, Mr. Singerton?”

  “Finished.” He handed her his mug, gave a dirty look to Warren.

  “I’m sorry,” Warren said to him. “I forgot.”

  “Forgot what?” the policeman said.

  “Oh, I forgot I wasn’t supposed to say anything about how I wasn’t supposed to tell him how I told him not to touch the bullet on the roof. That it was evidence.”

  Ron caught up with Loey in a drugstore. She was sitting at the counter spooning the whipped cream off a hot chocolate into her mouth. He sat beside her, showed a handful of pieces of torn note. “I think I got every one of them. And I still believe his mother should get it.”

  “Let’s forget we ever read it, Ron. Ever found it?”

  “How? Just by pushing it out of our heads? And why try and forget something that maybe really is a joke and now an even bigger one on us because we took it so seriously. And then maybe the man who wrote it was telling the truth but hasn’t killed himself yet. I just thought of that. Maybe he’s right this moment planning to kill himself tonight or tomorrow morning and this note fell out of his pocket and by phoning the police we can still stop him. That is, if it isn’t a joke.”

  “It isn’t a joke.”

  The fountain man said “Did I hear you say something about someone’s suicide note?”

  “Not mine or hers, or maybe nobody’s. We’re not sure. You have a phone we can call the police on?”

  “Go through the rear door there into the hotel lobby. They got plenty, all supervised. Ours have all been ripped or kicked out.”

  “A man, you should’ve seen him,” Anna said in the female employees’ washroom. “Room an ugly mess, blood all over his face, a black hole in the side of his cheek, half his ear off as all chewed through. I saw it once and ran as I never did. A Mr. Randall.”

  “Randall?” a typist in Accounting said. “No, I didn’t see his bill today. What room number?”

  “1403. Such a clean nice man. I never saw him once since his two days here, but he gave me big tips all the times I came in his room. Once for extra towels. He yelled out to me from the bedroom he liked to bathe a lot. And a second for glasses and ice for whiskey. And one more time just now I remember. What was it again? He called Service to bring up two real down or no-rubber pillows, and he tipped me for that also. Left the money right where the used whiskey glasses were.”

  “That’s something I’ve always been curious about. Because I can’t see how you girls can know for sure what change lying around when you’re cleaning up is for a tip and what change was left by mistake.”

  “We don’t. But if you want to make enough living at our job, then you have to think all change lying around except on the bed or dresser, if all his other pocket things are there also, is yours. That is, if there’s only one pile of change and it doesn’t come up to a lot more than a dollar for one day let’s say, but just to around fifty to a dollar in cents. But if it has odd pennies in the change, meaning one to four but not five or ten exact, then we also don’t take. Then we think the change was left by accident, because no tipper leaves odd pennies.”

  Easy, easy, EASY, Mr. Randall thought as he was being lifted onto the stretcher. He wanted to say they were handling his head much too roughly, wheeling the stretcher much too hard. “Easy,” he finally said, “or I die.”

  “Were you planning anything for dinner tonight?” Mr. Singerton said.

  “Same as always: something nothing for Warren and me.”

  “Like to eat out then? This might seem strange—how it started off I mean—though I have seen you on the stairway.”

  “Seen you also. You must work nights, because the only times I’ve seen you is during the day.”

  “I write technical brochures, so I can work home as long as I hand in my copy at the specified time.”

  “To work in your apartment and get well paid for it would be the best kind of work I’d like to do. But I don’t know anything about writing except for letters. Plus a journal I’ve been keeping on and off since Warren was born.”

  “To me the worst thing about other people’s journals is that I can’t read them. I’m a born snoop.”

  “That’s probably why you picked up the bullet when Warren told you not to.”

  “I knew it had to be something,” Warren said.

  “You still want to go out?” Mr. Singerton said. “I can pick you up at six.”

  “That’s foolish,” she said. “If I lived below you then I could see you coming to my door, but not when I’m one floor above. I’ll ring your bell when I’m ready.”

  “But that wouldn’t be proper,” he said.

  “First saw it on the car hood,” Ron said on the phone, “just laying there. It’s a bit ripped up now, but I got all the pieces and with Scotch tape I think you could read it. My girlfriend just didn’t want to believe the note. Did the guy die?”

  “Last we heard, he was living,” the detective said. “You stay there and I’ll have a man get the note.”

  “He’s still alive,” Ron said to Loey. “Shot himself right in the head. I wonder what kind of gun he used.”

  She grabbed most of the note which Ron had assembled on the counter, and ran out of the drugstore. Ron ran after her, shouted “You crazy? You want us both thrown in jail? The cops have my name. They’re coming now to get the note. Bring it back, goddamn you,” but she got in a cab and one by one threw the pieces out of th
e window as the car drove away.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Randall,” the intern said in the ambulance, and covered Mr. Randall’s face with the top of the blanket.

  “You were right, Bonnie,” Andrea said, removing her earphones. “Desk phoned for me to locate fourteenth-floor service to clean up 1403. That Mr. Randall. A suicide.”

  Bonnie closed her eyes, was silent, tears came, said “I knew it. That breathing wasn’t natural. It didn’t sound like sleep or sex or dogs, cats or anything. It truly sounded like someone dying,” and she imitated the sounds she heard on the phone. “Like that.”

  “If you ask me it still sounds like sex,” Andrea said. She rang fourteenth-floor service and got Anna on the phone. “Anna, this is Andrea. Mr. Hire wants for you to go to 1403 and clean up the room. I’m sorry, but there’s been a suicide there, love.” Anna hung up. Andrea called back. “Anna, you feeling sick from what I told you? You see, Mr. Hire wants the room cleaned up immediately. He tried reaching you himself but you weren’t in. They’ll be police up there, so he wants you to try and do your best and clean around them. The fourteenth is your floor, isn’t it?”

  A policeman was looking at the two suicide notes when the chambermaid walked into the room. One was addressed to “Mrs. Sarah Randall, my former wife.” He read: “I have nothing unkind to say to you, Sarah, nor anything that is kind. Do what you think best in disclosing the news of my death to the children. Word it any way, I don’t care. You were always good with them—with words. I hate writing letters like this. Any letters. I haven’t much money left and only a few questionable stocks and the insurance policies, and they are of course all for you and the children. Also, everything I can’t think about right now, like the car. It’s parked in this hotel garage in my name. The parking spot is row L, space 16, if I recall correctly. And everything in our old apartment which might turn out to be more trouble in disposing than they are monetarily worth. Always my love. I’m also sorry for the difficulties my death will most naturally cause you, and for the fact that I am leaving you theoretically impoverished because of the cutting off of my monthly payments. As for the children’s shame and/or grief and/or realization later on in life as to the kind of maniacal blood that might be running through their blood if yours isn’t hopefully dominant; I am of course absolutely despondent about that too. I love them. I pray they get a more sensible father. Love, Eugene.”

  And the letter to his friend: “I’ve informed Sarah that everything I own, including cash, stocks, policies and apartment possessions are hers to do with as she wishes. My bank is City Central. I don’t remember the account number for either my savings or checking accounts, but I’m sure a bank official will be able to provide them to you without much trouble. The savings should be all of $150, the check account balance possibly twice that. I’ve neglected to keep my bank records straight this past week, but I’m sure that figure ($300) is close. The car’s all paid up as of two months ago and has a bluebook value of $425. It’s in this hotel garage, row L, space 16. The hotel, which you probably know, is the Continental. I suppose all this makes you the executor of my vast estate. Sorry, for that burden, Harris. My best to you, Whitney, the children. Things were good and not so complicated for me when they were going good, but I think you’d be the last person in the world to ask or even desire an explanation, right? Always my best for our many years of friendship and my regrets for our recent falling-out. Gene.”

  “It’s all yours, miss,” one of the policemen said, and they left the room.

  “Why me?” Anna said in the empty room. “Of all people, why me? Why not the maid on the twelfth, for instance? Why couldn’t they bring her here for the job instead of asking the one maid who already saw that poor man? It’d only be one flight up for her, and she has a strong stomach for everything she’s always said and she didn’t have to see that poor man. That dumb man. Shooting himself like that. Causing everybody else who comes after him all these troubles and heartaches and extra work. Like cleaning up after him. Always I have to clean up after these kind. Never a suicide yet. Thank God never one before on this floor. And shooting out a window, which makes no sense. It’s crazy.”

  She called up the hotel repair shop. “Could you please send up a window man to put in a new window in 1403? And hurry, please.”

  She wrote on a list: “New ashtray, new lamp.” These she could get easily from Stock. She swept up the pieces of broken window glass and china and dumped them in the can on her cleaning cart. But the blood? “Oh you unfeeling man. What do I do about getting rid of your blood? Soap and water won’t work. The stain’s been on the carpet too long. I know. I don’t have to test. You need something else to get it out.”

  She phoned Mr. Hire. “Please, Mr. Hire, I don’t like the job you told Andrea to give me in 1403. I can’t clean up this room. I can’t even stay in this room. Just the thought of that poor man lying where he was on the floor where I saw him before, me first with the detective and Mr. Reece, is enough to make me sick. Please take me off. Call Harriet who works on the twelfth or that new girl on the fifteenth. They can come up or down on the elevator and use my cart. And I also don’t know how to clean up dried bloodstains. Maybe that makes me a very bad chambermaid, Mr. Hire, but I never can stand the sight of blood. I can’t even stand the sight of my own blood. I can’t even hardly take care of my daughter when she gets hurt and spills lots of blood. Please take me off, Mr. Hire. I just can’t do it.”

  SIGNATURES

  I’m walking along the streets, on my way from this place to not particularly that, when a man stops me. “You in show business?”

  “No.”

  “You look like you are.”

  “You made the same mistake a month ago when I was on a subway token line.”

  “That so? See any stars around?”

  “They’re probably all inside. You’re the guy who collects celebrity signatures.”

  “That’s right.” He’s looking around, hasn’t time to talk.

  “Doing all right by it?”

  “I make out.”

  “This your best block?”

  “What? Fifty-seventh? Good, but that’s all. Hey there, Mr. Jones,” he says to a man coming out of the restaurant we’re in front of Mr. Jones stops. The man goes over to him. They talk. Mr. Jones signs one of the three-by-five-inch sheets of paper the man’s taken out of a leather pouch. “Thanks, Mr. Jones.”

  “Anytime,” and he hails a cab.

  “Oh don’t you worry, I’ll catch you again.”

  “As I said, Henry, anytime.”

  Henry looks at me, starts away, comes back. “You sure you’re not in show business or famous of any kind?”

  “Positive.”

  “Let me be the judge of that. What do you do?”

  “Paint.”

  “Billboards? The town red? Real paint?”

  “Pictures, pictures.”

  “Let me have your signature.”

  “I don’t want to give it out.”

  “Everyone obliges me with their signature. Senators. Prime ministers. The uncrowned King of Spain. Let me have it.”

  “I can’t write.”

  “I’m not asking for a message. Just your name.”

  “My signature’s never the same. It changes from day to day.”

  “That’ll make it even more valuable. Each a rarity unto itself.”

  “My hand hurts. The other one can’t even scrawl. You haven’t paper long enough to fit my last name. I’m sorry.”

  “I’ve had hard ones but never like you. You know Kit Gristead?”

  “No.”

  “The Delicious Miss Kit. Movies. Television. Everything. The stage. Not now but always.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “Everybody has. My dead uncle fifty years in the grave didn’t, but everybody alive since she was maybe five including I’ll bet faraway aborigines who don’t even know their own president’s name. Well she came up to me when I didn’t see her and asked for one of
these papers to sign. Then she said ‘Next time I don’t want to have to beg you, Henry.’”

  “I don’t want my signature getting around and maybe being forged.”

  “No forgers. I sell them to signature dealers. Reputable men. If they’re good, they’re mounted in frames or pressed into see-through paperweights or individual or whole sets of plastic dinner plates and go for a high price. If they’re just fair to almost nobody, they’re put in a fancy shoe box in the dealer’s store and go for anywhere from three to eight a dollar. Besides, whose signatures are more known than the present treasury secretary and treasurer’s who when they were in town I also happened to get each to sign, and no checks of theirs have ever been forged.”

  “When I become somebody, I’ll sign.”

  “My trick’s to get you before you become somebody. Then when you do make it I check out your name with my files and the older the date you signed it, the more your signature’s worth. If you never become somebody you’re in my file for life, so what’s there to lose? If I die, my files are burned.”

  “I’ll draw a little picture on your paper; that’s all I’ll do.”

  “I collect signatures, not art.”

  “If I become semi-or permanently famous my drawing will be worth a lot more money than just my name.”

  “To a museum or gallery, but those aren’t the ones I deal with. My man wants from me full names and dates and maybe your moniker if it’s a familiar one, but no more. Hold it. How you doing, Mr. Wilson?” he says to a man walking past with a boy, a girl, and a dog.

  “Hello, Henry.”

  “Sign your name for me today?”

  “Anything you say. What’s today, the fourth?” He signs.

  “Who’s he?” the boy asks his father.

  “Somebody you could say is famous in his own right.”

  “I’m not famous. You are. Even your kids are more famous than me and probably even your dog. Any of them in show business yet?”

  “She is. He isn’t. The dog does commercials.”