Dan Fante - Spitting Off Tall Buildings

I climbed the stairs and opened my door.

It was her in her green robe and nightgown. ‘Hello, Miss Von Hachten,’ I said, ‘here we are again.’

She was stoned again but not as stoned as before. And upset. ‘There’s somebody there, Bruno,’ she blurted. ‘God damn it! Some perv’s after me!’

‘What happened?’

Now she was yelling; ‘I’m moving out! It isn’t bad enough that I have to share my apartment with ten thousand fucking cockroach roommates, now there’s a goddam night stalker tip-toeing up and down the halls, probably rubbing his wang, licking my doorknob!’

She was way too loud for my hotel lobby. ‘Okay,’ I said, a finger to my lips. ‘Keep it down, okay.’

‘I hate this dump! I hate the cheap pink cretin wallpaper in the laundry room and the floral carpet!’

‘Hey!’

‘Okay, okay,’ she said, lowering her volume. ‘I heard someone, something. Either the sounds came from the fire escape or the hall bathroom next to my apartment. Just like last time – like somebody breathing hard, you know, humping the wall or something.’

‘Okay.’

‘Okay…what?

‘I’ll put you in another room for tonight.’

‘What about this: you go sleep up there! Tomorrow morning at trash collection time let the detectives sift through the dumpsters on Lexington Avenue and gather up your body parts.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Call 911!…Right now. Immediately!’

‘No cops, Ms. Von Hachten. They won’t come anyway.’

‘Then go investigate!’

‘Okay,’ I said, knowing I was hooked. ‘I’ll go look.’

I went back down to my apartment. In the closet I located the long house flashlight that Shi had told me to keep handy for emergencies; floods in the basement, boiler room malfunctions. Then I put on my jacket, tucking my pint of Ten High into the pocket.

On Ms. Von Hachten’s floor I looked in the stairwell at the opposite end of the hall. Nothing. Then, with her behind me, I climbed the next two flights to the top floor to make sure that the heavy door leading to the sundeck was closed and locked. She insisted that I go out on the roof and check, so I did. It was cold, maybe twenty degrees. I shone my light around, then came back in. Nothing.

Downstairs outside her apartment, I checked the hall bathroom. I pulled the shower curtain back and looked inside. It was okay. I checked the bathroom window. It was okay too. Secure. Nobody’d gotten in.

Inside Ms. Von Hachten’s living room her dog Bobo was fast asleep on the couch. I checked her closets. Nothing. Then I inspected the windows, wiggling the latches, undoing the security gadgets Shi had installed, then retightening them.

Ms. Von Hachten was on the couch next to Bobo, watching me, petting the dog. Her robe’s belt had come loose. Inside, I could make out the nipple of her chunky left breast as it pressed against her nightgown.

In front of her on the coffee table were half a dozen brown prescription vials. She picked one up, popped the plastic top, then let two blue triangle-shaped tablets slide down into her palm.

I was still cold from being outside on the roof. Shaking.

‘Hey, you’re chilled,’ she slurred. ‘Want a drink of something?’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Whatever you’ve got, I’ll take it straight up. No ice, no mix.’ I was looking at the bulging nipple of her big left tit. ‘You cold too?’

Ms. Von Hachten folded her robe closed then tied the belt. Her expression was odd. There was an attempt at a smile but not a real smile.

Dropping her pills on the table, she got up, wobbled, then headed toward the kitchen. At the doorway she stopped, spun back around like a breakdancer, then marched back to the couch, grunting as she flopped down. ‘I forgot,’ she said.

‘Forgot what?’

‘There was some…gin…I think…but I drank it.’

The robe was open again. The green silk nightgown was more than half way up her thighs.

I was smiling. Leering. ‘You’re coming apart there,’ I said. ‘Again.’ I pointed.

This time she made no effort to close the gown or cover her legs. Instead she locked eyes with me. ‘So…have you checked everything?’

I didn’t answer. I walked to the kitchen.

Next to the sink in the trash I spotted the empty fifth of vodka. I opened cupboard doors until I found the whiskey glasses, then I filled two with three fingers each from the pint in my jacket and returned to the livingroom.

I set her drink and my bottle down on the coffee table. ‘Anything else, Ms. Von Hachten? Laundry? Vacuuming? Your oven need cleaning?’

She was holding her glass, staring down at the bourbon, speaking quietly. ‘My mother has cancer. She’s back in Intensive Care. Aunt Liz says that this time she won’t be coming home. Mom’s fifty-eight. Not very old, is it?…to die.’

I couldn’t think what to say so I finished my drink. ‘Sorry,’ I finally said because that was all I could think of.

‘You bet, mister sensitive fucking Night Manager,’ she garbled. ‘Me too.’

It was enough.

I scooped up my jug and headed for the door. As it closed behind me she was yelling in a crazy, half-laugh; ‘Jeez, shorty, don’t go away mad…Let’s have another drink.’

Half an hour later, in bed, naked, I was smoking. There’d be no sleeping so I was trying to read. I had a new, open pint of whiskey next to my head on the night stand and I was almost drunk. My thoughts were fuzzy. I began playing with my dick. It got hard right away. I had a decision to make but I couldn’t seem to make it.

Finally, I got up, pulled my pants over the hard-on, stuck my feet in my shoes, flipped my shirt on over my head, and took a long slam at my bottle. On the way out I grabbed my keys.

‘Yes. What?’ a stoned voice demanded through the door after I’d knocked half a dozen times.

‘Miss Von Hachten? It’s Bruno, the Night Manager.’

‘I know who it is.’

‘Just checking on you.’

Again through the door the crazy laugh. ‘What took you so long?’

‘You okay?’

‘You’ve got a pass key, right?’

‘Yes I do.’

‘Use your pass key, Bruno.’

We never found out who was doing the spying but it stopped after that night.

Near the end of my third week on the job, Saturday, at ten minutes to shift-change time, as usual, I reported to the front desk before doing my rounds. Shi smiled and said hello in his manager’s whisper then told me that Jeffrey M. Mistofsky was in the building and wanted to have a staff meeting with the two of us.

Ms. Von Hachten was gone to Florida. Her mother had died and she had flown to Key West to be at the funeral with her aunt Liz. Me and Ms. Von Hachten had spent three or four nights together in all, whacked on booze and pills, fucking and sucking. Her hot button was watching me masturbate.

I’d let her come near my cock but I wouldn’t let her touch it or me. In five minutes she’d be crazy, begging. Lick me anywhere I said. A complete fuck monster.

Me and Shi closed up the front-desk grating and walked down the hall to Room 113, which was the room Mistofsky and Shi always used to have their private conferences.

Mistofsky was waiting for us, sitting on one of two desk chairs by the window. He motioned to me and my supervisor to sit down on the beds, then he handed Shi an envelope. Without looking at it Shi passed the envelope on to me. ‘Bruno,’ Shi whispered, ‘I speak on behalf of Mister Mistofsky and myself, in my position as General Manager of The East End Hotel. You are terminated. Effective today.’

I opened the envelope. The check in it was for my last full week, plus three days. Through Wednesday.

I looked at each of their faces. ‘Why’m I being fired?’