"Where someone like Janet's concerned, well, Mark was a lot like that.
All you can really do when someone's doing that to themselves is say:
"Look," and then tell them what you think. And then I don't really know what you do I guess you just hope for the best. And so I told her quite frankly I don't mind telling this to you, either, because it kind of worries me, living in the same building with her too, my life's also on the line. She goes up in smoke some night, I could go up with her.
So that was also on my mind.
"I went up and I knocked on her door, and I told her that this bothered me and all, her falling asleep like that I did not say "passing out," even though that's what I really think it was because I know she smokes. I told her: "What bothers me here is actually a lot more than the noise from the TV anna neighbors complaining a result that they can't sleep. Because you can turn the TV set down, and I know that now you're aware of this problem, you will do that. And then they wont be awake and complain. But what really bothers me about this is the fact you smoke. You fall asleep here inna chair some night, you've got a cigarette going, it could be a real fire hazard here. That could be a dangerous thing."
"And then what I said to her was this: "Now we do allow tenants who smoke to smoke in this building. We don't say that they can't do it.
Even though we know that can cost us some business sometimes, people just refuse to rent apartments from us if we allow smoking. But we think ordinarily what you do up here's your business, as long's you're living here. It's your place; you should be able, do what you want in it.
'"As long's you don't disturb nobody else; that's the one major rule.
It's your health, not mine that you've got to think of, and if that's the decision you've reached, well then, it's all right by me.
'"But I still have to tell you at the same time if we find there's been some kind of an incident up here some night because you fell asleep in that chair there and set the place on fire, smoke detectors in here went off or maybe even the ones out in the hallway started to go off, and the fire department hasta come, well, God forbid that anything should happen to you wind up inna hospital, smoke inhalation, something. Because if you haven't thought about that, you should give it some thought fire inna night is a serious thing. But even if something that bad doesn't happen, I can tell you right this minute what it is going to do is make a big change in how we look at things around here. And what we decide then we can let you do in here."
"I think it got through to her. Looked like it penetrated anyway. But like I say, you never know. All I can say's we haven't had any problems with her since then for a while. Nothing I've heard about anyway, and if there is one I generally do."
"Yeah," Merrion said. "Well, what we've been hearing down the courthouse is that she'd been keeping pretty steady company up here recently with a guy we're not all that sure's a wholesome influence.
Just the opposite, in fact. You understand: we have to be concerned.
So that was what made me decide I ought to come up here today and take a look around."
"Oh, that would've been right, you heard that," Brody said. "She has been. That would be Lowell you mean. Lowell Chappelle. He's been here a few times; seen him around here several times."
"You'd know what he looks like, then," Merrion said. This's a guy you'd recognize, then, you were to see him again? Does he also have a car, truck or something? See, I couldn't tell just by lookin' around here this morning, by looking at what's parked around in front if the guy's around. And I was, you know, you start thinkin': "Well, what am I gonna run into here, I go up this woman's apartment? Am I gonna find this guy in there, have him to deal with, I go into this woman's apartment?" He's got a reputation of being a pretty violent type of guy."
"Oh, yeah, I've seen him, good many times," Brody said. "But now you ask me, I don't think I've ever seen him driving anything. Seem like he'd almost have to, have something to get around in. Can't you check with the state police? I should think you could do that."
"I did," Merrion lied, kicking himself for not having thought of it, 'they report no listing for him."
"Well," Brody said, 'if he's got someone else's jalopy I couldn't tell you what it is or if it's here. I guess I must've never seen him in it.
"But now him, far as he's concerned: that's a whole other thing here.
I've seen him a lot. Fairly big guy, he is, stands out in your mind.
Big face." Brody cupped his hands beside his cheeks and puffed, bunching his jaw muscles as well. "Like this, okay? Only he's like this all the time. The man has a very big face. Sort of dark-skinned.
Might be one of those part-Indian people or something; you know how you see those guys in movies. Real black hair, not much grey. Probably about my age or so, at least; maybe a little older. Keeps himself in good shape. Looks like he's always doing something, doesn't want you getting in his way."
"Not a guy you'd pick to mess with," Merrion said.
"No," Brody said, 'definitely not. I believe what you said about him being a violent person. The guy definitely looks it. Of course I'm not the kind of guy that likes to go around, you know, picking fights with people. But if I was that kind of guy, I wouldn't pick one with this Lowell character. Not if I wanted to win it. He looks like he'd be mean, someone got him going."
"Yeah," Merrion said. "Well anyway, basically what I wonder if you'd do for me here is get your passkey and come back to fourteen with me and let me in, so that I can see if my friend Janet's in there decided she's not coming to the door today, got her curlers in or something."
Brody looked worried. "I dunno," he said. "I dunno if I should do that. See, you may not know this, but since you trust guys had this whole thing changed around and so forth, eight, ten years ago? Brought the new management in? Well, since they came in here and I hadda start reporting to them, Valley Better, they hadda different way of doing things. They put in different rules. So, you may not know this, but they've gotten very strict about that kind of thing. Lettin' people into the apartments I mean, except vacant ones we're showing. They don't want it done.
"Basically what they're now telling us is: "We don't want this going on, here, anymore, so stop doing it. And don't be calling up alia time and asking is it all right. Because the answer is: "It's not."
They're very clear on this. And as you know, this job and all, it means a lot to me and I don't want to lose it. Give them any reason to decide I'm too much trouble so they're getting rid of me."
Merrion took one step forward so that about eighteen inches of space at the threshold remained between him and Brody. He spoke pleasantly, in a low voice. "Steve, you work for Valley Better Residences, Inc. And Valley Better works for me, all right? So we understand each other here, I am one of the people who own Fourmen's Realty Trust. Fourmen's Realty owns this building, understand that, Steve? Valley Better just runs it for us, collects the rents, pays the taxes, and hires you to work for us.
"Most of the time we are pretty smart people," Merrion said, 'if I do say so myself. Except sometimes. Sometimes we do something fairly stupid, as even we have to admit. After we've cleaned up the mess we made because we acted stupid instead of smart.
"Steve, this morning's one of those times, for me. This morning I did something stupid and created a minor problem for myself. Now I want you to help me get out of it. That way I wont have to spend the whole rest of the day thinking how stupid I was this morning."
Brody looked extremely worried. "What did you do, Mister Merrion?" he said.
Merrion heaved a great sigh. "I parked my car across the street. Then I waited until all the other cars behind me at the light, all of them went by, and I got out and shut the door and locked it. I looked both ways, and then when I was sure the coast was clear — after maybe I'd let eight, nine cars go by, in both directions I came across the street and in through the front door. Let it close behind me. Then I climbed the stairs up to the third floor and I knocked on the door of apartme
nt fourteen, where Janet LeClerc lives. As I've already told you, I knocked twice. She didn't answer. So then I came down and knocked on your door, but unlike Janet, you came to your door. And then everything that came after that, all the rest of it you know."
Brody's rumpled face displayed real pain. "Mister Merrion," he said,
"I don't understand. I have to tell you that."
"Understand what?" Merrion said. "Tell me what you don't: understand. Maybe I can help you out."
"What you did stupid," Brody said. "What did you do that made i the big mess you now want me to get you out of?" '{"I already told you," Merrion said. "I stood beside my car after I parked it. I don't know exactly how long I stood there but it was certainly long enough to give Janet time enough to glance out of her window and spot me. She may not recognize my car, but she's certainly seen enough of me to recognize me on sight. And I stupidly gave her the time to do it before I made it into the building.
"So she probably knows I'm here. And since she doesn't want to see me or talk to me, she didn't come to the door. Instead when I knocked she ignored me. It didn't occur to her to turn off the TV, she isn't very smart, but this morning it looks to me as though I've been a little dumber'n she has. I alerted her to the fact that the next person who banged on her door was going to be me. So that's the mess I want you to get me out of. Come upstairs with me now and use your passkey to let me into her place. So I can do what I came here to do, which is see what the hell's going on."
"You don't think I'll get in trouble?" Brody said.
"I'm sure you wont," Merrion said. "I'm an officer of the court acting in the course of official business, my official duties, the supervision of a defendant who has charges pending before the court in which I happen to be the chief magistrate. And in the second place, in addition to that, I am also a beneficial shareholder of a property interest in this building, to a part of which I am directing you as an employee of its management agency to admit me, in order that I may enter upon and inspect the premises. Thereof.
"That satisfy you, Steve? I got at least two heavy-duty rights to get into that apartment. Either one of them oughta do nicely."
"Okay, then," Brody said, stepping forward and pulling the door shut behind him, 'but it's purely on your say-so I'm doin' this. I'm still not sure about it."
"Don't worry," Merrion said. "Nothing'll happen to you. I can almost guarantee it. Something may happen to me, everything doesn't turn out to be the way I hope, up there… but that's nothing that needs to concern you. All you need to do is make sure you got your right key with you now the one that'll open her door?"
Brody nodded, patting the snap-ring at his belt. "Gotter right here," he said "With me, all times. Never can tell when you'll need to go in.
Somebody's locked themselves out, or someone else locked them out, any hour day or night, and the first they do's come lookin' for you, let them back in. Found that out myself at the very beginning, three or four times all it took. The simplest way's the only way: carry it with you, all times. Save yourself all of that grief."
Merrion let him by and then followed him up the four flights of stairs leading to the third floor. He remembered Larry Lane denouncing the increasing difficulty of climbing them as his cancer worsened and weakened him. "Takes me about twenty minutes, make it up this place.
Have to stop and rest five times, once on the landing, second floor, and halfway up each flight. And it's all my fault.
"We're building the place," he said, "Fiddle told us we should bite the bullet, invest in an elevator. Then wed get older, quieter tenants, be able, charge higher rent than we could with just the stairs. Four grand more I think he said it would've cost us. I was against it: too much money. Got the others to turn him down. "Nothing doing," I said,
"no unnecessary features. If we can get along without it, then it must be we don't need it. Whatever it'd cost would be therefore too much dough." Now here I am, livin' in the place. Wasn't banking on that when I said "no elevator." Don't like that decision at all."
Ten feet along the landing from the top of the staircase they stopped at the door with the 14 on it. They could hear an announcer promise joyfully that "Good Morning, America' would 'be right back after these few brief announcements from your local stations, so please, don't you dare go away."
Brody, unsnapping the key-ring from his belt-loop, used his left hand to knock hard on the door. "Miss LeClerc?" he spoke in a newly-authoritative voice. "You in there now, Miss LeClerc? This's me, Mister Brody. You gotta answer me now, if you are. Haven't got any choice in this now. Come to the door now, and let me in. I gotta right to go in there, you know, anytime, make an inspection, during all reasonable times. This's one of those times. Got a passkey right here in my hand."
There was no response. From the TV a different voice, a woman's, compared the degrees of headache pain relief she claimed to get from Tylenol and 'just plain aspirin, or just plain ibuprofen, either."
Brody pounded on the door four more times. "Plus which I have got Mister Ambrose Merrion from the courthouse here with me, and I know you know him, and I've got to tell you, he's very concerned about you. He told me how concerned he is now about you, and that's why he's up here today. And all the other people down there at the courthouse with him there, how concerned they also are about you and what might be going on with you in there. So we got to come in, that is, he does, take a look around. So come on now and open the door."
"Stop talking and open the thing," Merrion said.
Brody thumped the door three more times. There was no response. He looked down at the bunch of keys in his right hand and began to paw through them with his left forefinger. "Miss LeClerc, now?" he said.
"Come on, Miss LeClerc. Stop fooling around with us here. We know you're in there. We know you haven't gone out. I always see you, see you and hear you, whenever you go to the store, and I didn't today, yet, so we know that you're still in there.
"So come to the door, please now, willya? Make life a little easier on all of us here. We got to come in, take a look at your premises, and we got to do this today."
"Steve," Merrion said.
Brody selected the passkey from among the bunch and inserted it into the lock. "See, Miss LeClerc?" he said. "You can hear that, can't you? That was me out here in the hall, doing just what I told you I'd have to do, even though I don't wanna; putting the key in the lock. You see what you force me to do here? You wont open the door, when I ask you to in a nice way? You force me to open the door up myself like this, which I don't like having to do."
"Stop talking and unlock the damned door," Merrion said. "Horsing around with this broad."
Brody seemed not to hear. He raised his voice. "And why is that, I'm asking you, that I am doing this? Well, you have left me no choice.
Have you? Aren't you the one? Of course you are; and you have to know it, too, I think. Which I by the way have to say that I think is very unfair of you here."
"Openah fuckin' door," Merrion said, forcing the words through clenched teeth.
The lock snapped open. Brody turned the knob and pushed the door. It was hinged on the left and stopped against something made of wood behind it. "Bookcases," Brody said, muttered, allowing Merrion to brush by him and enter the apartment. "Dunno if you recall how it was back when you were visitin' Larry Lane, but they didn't have 'em then.
But alia units got these bookcases in 'em now. Dunno why they bothered."
To the right of the door there was an oval maple table with four straight chairs grouped around it. There was a Boston Herald tabloid folded in half at the corner of the table. The air carried a heavy cargo of stale tobacco smoke, something combining fatty meat and cheese, tomato and beans that had been cooked too long at too high a temperature, human perspiration, stale beer and something else. Piss is what it is, human fucking piss. The apartment smelled as though the toilet hadn't been flushed regularly. Fucking hopeless people, can't even handle indoor plumbing. Fucking hopeless bastards. In
the center of the table there was a beige china bowl with two white envelopes face-down in it. There was a key-ring with four keys splayed out on the table.
Straight ahead there was a small square kitchen alcove lighted by two casement windows over a double stainless-steel sink. The refrigerator flanked the cabinets suspended from the ceiling on the left and the electric stove occupied the space under them on the right. There were a few dishes unevenly stacked on the counter next to the sink; the handles of tableware protruded between them. On the stove there were two matte-grey saucepans, one of them with something brownish-yellow caked on the side of it, along with a frying pan dull with a scalloped rime of greyish grease around its edge. The area was enclosed by a waist-high partition wide enough to double as a snack counter; two wooden stools stood under its overhang. There were four round anodized aluminum ashtrays on it, red, gold, green and blue; all of them had been used. There were four packs of Winston Lights on it, three of them opened, and several lottery scratch tickets scattered along it.
There was an uncapped 1.75 litre jug of Old Russia vodka at the furthest end, the one nearest the interior wall at the left of the kitchen area. There was a yellow wall telephone set mounted above the end of the counter.
Next to it there was a white wall with a door opening onto a dim interior hallway leading away toward the southwesterly corner of the front of the building. Visible beyond it was a door ajar on a blue-tiled wall and the shower-curtained end of a bathtub. The rug on the floor of the living-room area was a dark-green swirled-embossed pattern. It was soiled and had not been recently vacuumed. Against the wall there was a bulky two-cushion sofa-bed, the seat cushions high, much thicker than the back-rest. It was upholstered in a nubby maroon fabric with a decorative silver thread. At each end there was a square table made of dark wood. The one at the end of the couch furthest from the door held a lamp with a base made of a foot-tall china model of a pink-dressed and picture-hatted, apple-cheeked country girl; she wore white socks and black mary janes and displayed a white-toothed grin between parted ruby lips. There were four empty Coors beer bottles around her. The table at the end nearest the door held a lamp with a base made of a foot-tall china model of a freckle-cheeked, barefooted farm boy wearing blue bib bed overalls and a straw hat. He was carrying a bamboo fishing pole jagged where the tip had broken off and grinning between parted ruby lips. There were two Coors beer bottles standing next to him and one on its side in front of him.
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