Manhattan Noir 2

by Lawrence Block

  And then he thought of the housekeeper.

  He ran from the haunted room downstairs and to a door that showed a crack of light. She came out to his knock. He smothered his excitement as best he could.

  “Will you tell me, madam,” he besought her, “who occupied the room I have before I came?”

  “Yes, sir. I can tell you again. ’Twas Sprowls and Mooney, as I said. Miss B’retta Sprowls it was in the theatres, but Missis Mooney she was. My house is well known for respectability. The marriage certificate hung, framed, on a nail over—”

  “What kind of a lady was Miss Sprowls—in looks, I mean?”

  “Why, black-haired, sir, short, and stout, with a comical face. They left a week ago Tuesday.”

  “And before they occupied it?”

  “Why, there was a single gentleman connected with the draying business. He left owing me a week. Before him was Missis Crowder and her two children, that stayed four months; and back of them was old Mr. Doyle, whose sons paid for him. He kept the room six months. That goes back a year, sir, and further I do not remember.”

  He thanked her and crept back to his room. The room was dead. The essence that had vivified it was gone. The perfume of mignonette had departed. In its place was the old, stale odour of mouldy house furniture, of atmosphere in storage.

  The ebbing of his hope drained his faith. He sat staring at the yellow, singing gaslight. Soon he walked to the bed and began to tear the sheets into strips. With the blade of his knife he drove them tightly into every crevice around windows and door. When all was snug and taut he turned out the light, turned the gas full on again, and laid himself gratefully upon the bed.

  It was Mrs. McCool’s night to go with the can for beer. So she fetched it and sat with Mrs. Purdy in one of those subterranean retreats where housekeepers foregather and the worm dieth seldom.

  “I rented out my third-floor-back this evening,” said Mrs. Purdy, across a fine circle of foam. “A young man took it. He went up to bed two hours ago.”

  “Now, did ye, Mrs. Purdy, ma’am?” said Mrs. McCool, with intense admiration. “You do be a wonder for rentin’ rooms of that kind. And did ye tell him, then?” she concluded in a husky whisper laden with mystery.

  “Rooms,” said Mrs. Purdy, in her furriest tones, “are furnished for to rent. I did not tell him, Mrs. McCool.”

  “’Tis right ye are, ma’am; ’tis by renting rooms we kape alive. Ye have the rale sense for business, ma’am. There be many people will rayjict the rentin’ of a room if they be tould a suicide has been after dyin’ in the bed of it.”

  “As you say, we has our living to be making,” remarked Mrs. Purdy.

  “Yis, ma’am; ’tis true. ’Tis just one wake ago this day I helped ye lay out the third floor, back. A pretty slip of a colleen she was to be killin’ herself wid the gas—a swate little face she had, Mrs. Purdy, ma’am.”

  “She’d a-been called handsome, as you say,” said Mrs. Purdy, assenting but critical, “but for that mole she had a-growin’ by her left eyebrow. Do fill up your glass again, Mrs. McCool.”

  SAILOR OFF THE BREMEN

  BY IRWIN SHAW

  West Village

  (Originally published in 1939)

  They sat in the small white kitchen, Ernest and Charley and Preminger and Dr. Stryker, all bunched around the porcelain-topped table, so that the kitchen seemed to be overflowing with men. Sally stood at the stove turning griddle-cakes over thoughtfully, listening intently to what Preminger was saying.

  “So,” Preminger said, carefully working his knife and fork, “everything was excellent. The comrades arrived, dressed like ladies and gentlemen at the opera, in evening gowns and what do you call them?”

  “Tuxedoes,” Charley said. “Black ties.”

  “Tuxedoes,” Preminger nodded, speaking with his precise educated German accent. “Very handsome people, mixing with all the other handsome people who came to say goodbye to their friends on the boat; everybody very gay, everybody with a little whisky on the breath; nobody would suspect they were Party members, they were so clean and upper class.” He laughed lightly at his own joke. He looked like a young boy from a nice Middle Western college, with crew-cut hair and a straight nose and blue eyes and an easy laugh. His laugh was a little high and short, and he talked fast, as though he wanted to get a great many words out to beat a certain deadline, but otherwise, being a Communist in Germany and a deck officer on the Bremen hadn’t made any obvious changes in him. “It is a wonderful thing,” he said, “how many pretty girls there are in the Party in the United States. Wonderful!”

  They all laughed, even Ernest, who put his hand up to cover the empty spaces in the front row of his teeth every time he smiled. His hand covered his mouth and the fingers cupped around the neat black patch over his eye, and he smiled secretly and swiftly behind that concealment, getting his merriment over with swiftly, so he could take his hand down and compose his face into its usual unmoved, distant expression, cultivated from the time he got out of the hospital. Sally watched him from the stove, knowing each step: the grudging smile, the hand, the consciousness and memory of deformity, the wrench to composure, the lie of peace when he took his hand down.

  She shook her head, dumped three brown cakes onto a plate.

  “Here,” she said, putting them before Preminger. “Better than Childs restaurant.”

  “Wonderful,” Preminger said, dousing them with syrup. “Each time I come to America I feast on these. There is nothing like it in the whole continent of Europe.”

  “All right,” Charley said, leaning out across the kitchen table, practically covering it, because he was so big, “finish the story.”

  “So I gave the signal,” Preminger said, waving his fork. “When everything was nice and ready, everybody having a good time, stewards running this way, that way, with champagne, a nice little signal and we had a very nice little demonstration. Nice signs, good loud yelling, the Nazi flag cut down, one, two, three, from the pole. The girls standing together singing like angels, everybody running there from all parts of the ship, everybody getting the idea very, very clear—a very nice little demonstration.” He smeared butter methodically on the top cake. “So then, the rough business. Expected. Naturally. After all, we all know it is no cocktail party for Lady Astor.” He pursed his lips and squinted at his plate, looking like a small boy making believe he’s the head of a family. “A little pushing, expected, maybe a little crack over the head here and there, expected. Justice comes with a headache these days, we all know that. But my people, the Germans. You must always expect the worst from them. They organize like lightning. Method. How to treat a riot on a ship. Every steward, every oiler, every sailor, was there in a minute and a half. Two men would hold a comrade, the other would beat him. Nothing left to accident.”

  “The hell with it,” Ernest said. “What’s the sense in going through the whole thing again? It’s all over.”

  “Shut up,” Charley said.

  “Two stewards got hold of Ernest,” Preminger said softly. “And another one did the beating. Stewards are worse than sailors. All day long they take orders, they hate the world. Ernest was unlucky. All the others did their jobs, but they were human beings. The steward is a member of the Nazi party. He is an Austrian; he is not a normal man.”

  “Sally,” Ernest said, “give Mr. Preminger some more milk.”

  “He kept hitting Ernest,” Preminger tapped absently on the porcelain top with his fork, “and he kept laughing and laughing.”

  “You know who he is?” Charley asked. “You’re sure you know who he is?”

  “I know who he is. He is twenty-five years old, very dark and good-looking, and he sleeps with at least two ladies a voyage.” Preminger slopped his milk around in the bottom of his glass. “His name is Lueger. He spies on the crew for the Nazis. He has sent two men already to concentration camps. He is a very serious character. He knew what he was doing,” Preminger said clearly, “when he kept hitting Ernest
in the eye. I tried to get to him, but I was in the middle of a thousand people, screaming and running. If something happens to that Lueger that will be a very good thing.”

  “Have a cigar,” Ernest said, pulling two out of his pocket.

  “Something will happen to him,” Charley said, taking a deep breath, and leaning back from the table. “Something will damn sure happen to him.”

  “You’re a dumb kid,” Ernest said, in the weary tone he used now in all serious discussions. “What do you prove if you beat up one stupid sailor?”

  “I don’t prove anything,” Charley said. “I don’t prove a goddamn thing. I am just going to have a good time with the boy that knocked my brother’s eye out. That’s all.”

  “It is not a personal thing,” Ernest said, in the tired voice. “It is the movement of Fascism. You don’t stop Fascism with a personal crusade against one German. If I thought it would do some good, I’d say, sure, go ahead …”

  “My brother, the Communist,” Charley said bitterly. “He goes out and he gets ruined and still he talks dialectics. The Red Saint with the long view. The long view gives me a pain in the ass. I am taking a very short view of Mr. Lueger. I am going to kick the living guts out of his belly. Preminger, what do you say?”

  “Speaking as a Party member,” Preminger said, “I approve of your brother’s attitude, Charley.”

  “Nuts,” Charley said.

  “Speaking as a man, Charley,” Preminger went on, “please put Lueger on his back for at least six months. Where is that cigar, Ernest?”

  Dr. Stryker spoke up in his dry, polite, dentist’s voice. “As you know,” he said, “I am not the type for violence.” Dr. Stryker weighed a hundred and thirty-three pounds and it was almost possible to see through his wrists, he was so frail. “But as Ernest’s friends, I think there would be a definite satisfaction for all of us, including Ernest, if this Lueger was taken care of. You may count on me for anything within my powers.” He was very scared, Dr. Stryker, and his voice was even drier than usual, but he spoke up after reasoning the whole thing out slowly and carefully, disregarding the fear, the worry, the possible great damage. “That is my opinion,” he said.

  “Sally,” Ernest said, “talk to these damn fools.”

  “I think,” Sally said slowly, looking steadily at her husband’s face, always stiffly composed now, like a corpse’s face, “I think they know what they’re talking about.”

  Ernest shrugged. “Emotionalism. A large useless gesture. You’re all tainted by Charley’s philosophy. He’s a football player. He has a football player’s philosophy. Somebody knocks you down, you knock him down, everything is fine.”

  “I want a glass of milk, too,” Charley said. “Please, Sally.”

  “Whom’re you playing this week?” Ernest said.

  “Georgetown.”

  “Won’t that be enough violence for one week?” Ernest asked.

  “Nope,” Charley said. “I’ll take care of Georgetown first, then Lueger.”

  “Anything I can do,” Dr. Stryker said. “Remember, anything I can do. I am at your service.”

  “The coach’ll be sore,” Ernest said, “if you get banged up, Charley.”

  “The hell with the coach. Please shut up, Ernest. I have got my stomachful of Communist tactics. No more. Get this in your head, Ernest.” Charley stood up and banged the table. “I am disregarding the class struggle, I am disregarding the education of the proletariat, I am disregarding the fact that you are a good Communist. I am acting strictly in the capacity of your brother. If you’d had any brains you would have stayed away from that lousy boat. You’re a painter, an artist, you make water colors, what the hell is it your business if lunatics’re running Germany? But all right. You’ve got no brains. You go and get your eye beat out. O.K. Now I step in. Purely personal. None of your business. Shut your trap. I will fix everything to my own satisfaction. Please go and lie down in the bedroom. We have arrangements to make here.”

  Ernest stood up, hiding his mouth, which was twitching, and walked into the bedroom and closed the door and lay down on the bed, in the dark, with his eye open.

  The next day, an hour before sailing time, Charley and Dr. Stryker and Sally went down to the Bremen, and boarded the ship on different gangplanks. They stood separately on the A Deck, up forward, waiting for Preminger. Preminger came, very boyish and crisp in his blue uniform, looked coldly past them, touched a steward on the arm, a dark, good-looking young steward, said something to him, and went aft. Charley and Dr. Stryker examined the steward closely, so that two weeks later, on a dark street, there would be no mistake, and left, leaving Sally there, smiling at Lueger.

  “Yes,” Sally said two weeks later, “it is very clear. I’ll have dinner with him, and I’ll go to a movie with him, and I’ll get him to take at least two drinks, and I’ll tell him I live on West Twelfth Street, near West Street. There is a whole block of apartment houses there, and I’ll get him down to West Twelfth Street between a quarter to one and one in the morning, and you’ll be waiting there, you and Stryker, under the Ninth Avenue L, and you’ll say, ‘Pardon me, can you direct me to Sheridan Square?’ and I’ll start running.”

  “That’s right,” Charley said, “that’s fine.” He blew reflectively on his huge hands, knotted and cleat-marked from last Saturday’s game. “That is the whole story for Mr. Lueger. You’ll go through with it now?” he asked. “You’re sure you can manage it?”

  “I’ll go through with it,” Sally said. “I had a long talk with him today when the boat came in. He is very … anxious. He likes small girls like me, he says, with black hair. I told him I lived alone, downtown. He looked at me very significantly. I know why he manages to sleep with two ladies a voyage, like Preminger says. I’ll manage it.”

  “What is Ernest going to do tonight?” Dr. Stryker asked. In the two weeks of waiting his voice had become so dry he had to swallow desperately every five words. “Somebody ought to take care of Ernest tonight.”

  “He’s going to Carnegie Hall tonight,” Sally said. “They’re playing Brahms and Debussy.”

  “That’s a good way to spend an evening,” Charley said. He opened his collar absently, and pulled down his tie. “The only place I can go with Ernest these days is the movies. It’s dark, so I don’t have to look at him.”

  “He’ll pull through,” Dr. Stryker said professionally. “I’m making him new teeth; he won’t be so self-conscious, he’ll adjust himself.”

  “He hardly paints any more,” Sally said. “He just sits around the house and looks at his old pictures.”

  “Mr. Lueger,” Charley said. “Our pal, Mr. Lueger.”

  “He carries a picture of Hitler,” Sally said. “In his watch. He showed me. He says he’s lonely.”

  “How big is he?” Stryker asked nervously.

  “He’s a large, strong man,” Sally said.

  “I think you ought to have an instrument of some kind, Charley,” Stryker said dryly. “Really, I do.”

  Charley laughed. He extended his two hands, palms up, the broken fingers curled a little, broad and muscular. “I want to do this with my own hands,” he said. “I want to take care of Mr. Lueger with my bare fists. I want it to be a very personal affair.”

  “There is no telling what …” Stryker said.

  “Don’t worry, Stryker,” Charley said. “Don’t worry one bit.”

  At twelve that night Sally and Lueger walked down Eighth Avenue from the Fourteenth Street subway station. Lueger held Sally’s arm as they walked, his fingers moving gently up and down, occasionally grasping tightly the loose cloth of her coat and the firm flesh of her arm just above the elbow.

  “Oh,” Sally said. “Don’t. That hurts.”

  Lueger laughed. “It does not hurt much,” he said. He pinched her playfully. “You don’t mind if it hurt, nevertheless,” he said. His English was very complicated, with a thick accent.

  “I mind,” Sally said. “Honest, I mind.”

 
“I like you,” he said, walking very close to her. “You are a good girl. You are made excellent. I am happy to accompany you home. You are sure you live alone?”

  “I’m sure,” Sally said. “Don’t worry. I would like a drink.”

  “Aaah,” Lueger said. “Waste time.”

  “I’ll pay for it,” Sally said. She had learned a lot about him in one evening. “My own money. Drinks for you and me.”

  “If you say so,” Lueger said, steering her into a bar. “One drink, because we have something to do tonight.” He pinched her hard and laughed, looking obliquely into her eyes with a kind of technical suggestiveness he used on the two ladies a voyage on the Bremen.

  Under the Ninth Avenue L on Twelfth Street, Charley and Dr. Stryker leaned against an elevated post, in deep shadow.

  “I … I …” Stryker said. Then he had to swallow to wet his throat so that the words would come out. “I wonder if they’re coming,” he said finally in a flat, high whisper.

  “They’ll come,” Charley said, keeping his eyes on the little triangular park up Twelfth Street where it joins Eighth Avenue. “That Sally has guts. That Sally loves my dumb brother like he was the President of the United States. As if he was a combination of Lenin and Michelangelo. And he had to go and get his eye batted out.”