Fritz Leiber: Horrible Imaginings

“Oh, that,” Clancy said doubtfully. A look at Ramsey seemed to reassure him. “That was before your time—you came here about five years ago, didn’t you? Yeah. Well, this happened… let’s see… about two years before that. The Mrs. and I generally don’t talk about it much to tenants, because it gives… gave the building a bad name. Not really any more now, though. Seven years and all’s forgotten, eh?”

He broke off to greet respectfully a couple who passed by on their way upstairs. He turned back to Ramsey. “Well, anyway,” he continued more comfortably, “at this time I’m talking about, the Mrs. and I had been here ourselves only a year. Just about long enough to learn the ropes, at least some of them.

“Now there’s one thing about a building like this I got to explain,” he interjected. “You never, or almost never, get any disappearances—you know, tenants sneaking their things out when they’re behind on the rent, or just walking out one day, leaving their things, and never coming back (maybe getting mugged to death, who knows?)—like happens all the time in those fleabag hotels and rooming houses south of us. Why, half of their renters are on dope or heavy medication to begin with, and come from prisons or from mental hospitals. Here you get a steadier sort of tenant, or at least the Mrs. and I try to make it be like that.

“Well, back then, just about the steadiest tenant we had, though not the oldest by any means, was a tall, thin, very handsome and distinguished-looking youngish chap, name of Arthur J. Stensor, third floor front. Very polite and soft-spoken, never raised his voice. Dark complected, but with blonde hair which he wore in a natural—not so common then; once I heard him referred to by another tenant as ‘that frizzy bleached Negro,’ and I thought they were being disrespectful. A sharp dresser but never flashy—he had class. He always wore a hat. Rent paid the first of the month in cash with never a miss. Rent for the garage space too—he kept a black Lincoln Continental in the basement that was always polished like glass; never used the front door much but went and came in that car. And his apartment was furnished to match: oil paintings in gold frames, silver statues, hi-fi, big-screen TV and the stuff to record programs and films off it when that cost, all sorts of fancy clocks and vases, silks and velvets, more stuff like that than you’d ever believe.

“And when there was people with him, which wasn’t too often, they were as classy as he and his car and his apartment, especially the women—high society and always young. I remember once being in the third-floor hall one night when one of those stunners swept by me and he let her in, and thinking, ‘Well, if that filly was a call girl, she sure came from the best stable in town.’ Only I remember thinking at the same time that I was being disrespectful, because A. J. Stensor was just a little too respectable for even the classiest call girl. Which was a big joke on me considering what happened next.”

“Which was?” Ramsey prompted, after they’d waited for a couple more tenants to go by.

“Well, at first I didn’t connect it at all with Stensor,” Clancy responded, “though it’s true I hadn’t happened to see him for the last five or six days, which was sort of unusual, though not all that much so. Well, what happened was this invasion—no, goddammit! this epidemic —of good-looking hookers, mostly tall and skinny, or at least skinny, through the lower halls and lobby of this building. Some of them were dressed too respectable for hookers, but most of them wore the street uniform of the day—which was high heels, skintight blue jeans, long lace blouses worn outside the pants, and lots of bangles—and when you saw them talking together palsy-walsy, the respectable-looking and the not, you knew they all had to be.”

“How did it first come to you?” Ramsey asked. “Tenants complain?”

“A couple,” Clancy admitted. “Those old biddies who’ll report a young and good-looking woman on the principle that if she’s young and good-looking she can’t be up to any good purpose. But the really funny thing was that most of the reports of them came in just by way of gossip—either to me direct, or by way of the Mrs., which is how it usually works—like it was something strange and remarkable—which it was, all right! Questions too, such as what the hell they were all up to, which was a good one to ask, by the way. You see, they weren’t any of them doing anything to complain of. It was broad day and they certainly weren’t trying to pick anyone up, they weren’t plying their trade at all, you might say, they weren’t even smiling at anybody, especially men. No, they were just walking up and down and talking together, looking critical and angry more than anything, and very serious—like they’d picked our apartment building for a hookers’ convention, complete with debates, some sort of feminist or union thing, except they hadn’t bothered to inform the management. Oh, when I’d cough and ask a couple of them what they were doing, they’d throw me some excuse without looking at me—that they had a lunch date with a lady here but she didn’t seem to be in and they couldn’t wait, or that they were shopping for apartments but these weren’t suitable—and at the same time they’d start walking toward the street door, or toward the stairs if they were on the third or second floor, still gabbing together in private voices about whatever it was they were debating, and then they’d sweep out, still not noticing me even if I held the door for them.

“And then, you know, in twenty minutes they’d be back inside! or at least I’d spot one of them that was. Some of them must have had front door keys, I remember thinking—and as it turned out later, some of them did.”

By this time Mr. Clancy had warmed to his story and was giving out little chuckles with every other sentence, and he almost forgot to lower his voice next time a tenant passed.

“There was one man they took notice of. I forgot about that. It could have given me a clue to what was happening, but I didn’t get it. We had a tenant then on one of the top floors who was tall and slim and rather good-looking—young-looking too, although he wasn’t—and always wore a hat. Well, I was in the lobby and four or five of the hookers had just come in the front door, debating of course, when this guy stepped out of the elevator and they all spotted him and made a rush for him. But when they got about a dozen feet away from him and he took off his hat—maybe to be polite, he looked a little scared, I don’t know what he thought—showing this wavy black hair which he kept dyed, the hookers all lost interest in him—as if he’d looked like someone they knew, but closer up turned out not to be (which was the case, though I still didn’t catch on then)—and they swept past him and on the stairs as if that was where they’d been rushing in the first place.

“I tell you, that was some weird day. Hookers dressed all ways—classy-respectable, the tight-jeans and lacy-blouse uniform, mini-skirts, one in what looked like a kid’s sailor suit cut for a woman, a sad one all in black looking like something special for funerals… you know, maybe to give first aid to a newly bereaved husband or something.” He gave Ryker a quick look, continuing, “And although almost all of them were skinny, I recall there was a fat one wearing a mumu and swinging gracefully like a belly dancer.

“The Mrs. was after me to call the police, but our owner sort of discourages that, and I couldn’t get him on the phone.

“In the evening the hookers tapered off and I dropped into bed, all worn out from the action, the wife still after me to call the police, but I just conked out cold, and so the only one to see the last of the business was the newsboy when he came to deliver at four-thirty about. Later on he dropped back to see me, couldn’t wait to tell me about it.