Stephen Dixon - 14 Stories

“What is it, love?” the boy’s mother said, coming out of the bedroom. “Oh, excuse me,” and she turned and quickly buttoned up her bathrobe. “You should’ve told me you were with someone, Warren.”

“It was sort of emergency — that’s why I forgot.”

The man was thinking And I always thought she was so flat and skinny, I don’t know why. Seen her on the stairs maybe three four times in a year and always thought she had a body like a boy and even looked like one with her short hair and always sneakers and slacks. But good Christ what a figure.

“I was up on the roof watching the pigeons when someone tried to shoot me, ma.”

“Something like that, Mrs. Lang. I was climbing the steps when Warren was running down, and I asked what was wrong and he said the same thing he told you. Here it is,” and he opened his fist and showed her the bullet.

“You sure he didn’t just plant that thing up there? You didn’t, did you, Warren?”

“Well because of his frightened look when he was running down, I tended to believe him. Nobody could impersonate such a scare — not even an actor. You think you should call the police?”

“My God, what a neighborhood. Boys being shot at on roofs. Shopkeepers hiring police dogs. Addicts, these filthy addicts making us all fearful to walk into our own homes. Are you sure that’s a bullet — what’s your name, please?”

“William Singerton. I’m a neighbor, one floor right below you. In fact, we have the exact same apartment layout I see, though your stove and refrigerator are bigger.”

“If you think his story’s authentic, Mr. Singerton. I mean, even if someone was only shooting the pigeons, I suppose you should still call the police.” Mr. Singerton dialed Operator.

“Hear that?” the hotel detective said.

“Hear what?” Anna said.

“Phone falling. I heard the short tingling like from the bell inside a phone when it falls. Came from one of the rooms down there,” and they walked to the three doors at the end of the corridor.

“‘Dear Mom,’ the letter starts off with,” the young woman said. “It’s to this Gene fellow’s mother, and the writing seems very legible and intelligent.”

“Let me see,” Ron said.

“First you got to let go of my arm.”

“I told you, Loey: we’re locked like this forever and ever no matter what adversities we face. Now let me see the letter.”

“Not till you release me.”

“I’ll release you if you kiss me once on the cheek, once where my eyebrows meet, and once right here, smack dab on it,” and he touched his lips.

She kissed him on all three spots. “Now release me.”

“Not until you hand me the letter. Because what I failed to mention about me is also your main disadvantage: you’re linked for life to a liar.”

“Then neither of us is going to read it,” and she stuck the letter into her coat pocket.

“Hello? I said, hello? I said, this is Mrs. Vega, your hotel operator, may I help you?” She signaled the operator seated beside her to remove her earphones. “What should I do? 1403’s breathing pretty heavy into the receiver but not answering me.”

“Maybe they accidentally knocked over the phone while they were making love. That happens. Check with Desk if it’s a couple staying there, or someone with a small child.”

“What should I tell the breather?”

“Say ‘Hold on,’ that’s all. ‘Hold on’ and then call down and ask who’s in 1403. Also ask if the guest’s got a dog or cat, which could also be the problem.”

“Thanks, Andrea. I only hope I can be as much help to the girl who takes over from me when I go.”

“The girl who takes over from you is going to be a machine, dearie — a computer with a recorded sweet voice and perfect brain. Why do you think I’m leaving the profession after so long? Not only because you never meet anyone but the janitor, cooped up in this cell, but for another reason that the job’s getting extinct. For you it’s fine because you need a couple years’ wages till your husband says ‘Let’s have a baby.’ But for me, a lifetime worker — I know that, there’s no family or man in my future — this profession’s dying out quickly. Like the ink pen. Like the elevator operator.”

“Like the elevator operator. That’s true. They haven’t any in this hotel, do they?” and she rang the desk clerk.

“A phone drop?” the woman guest in 1402 said. “Since when does management have to send up a detective to see about a phone being dropped?”

“It’s related to something else — a possible accident on the floor.”

She called out “Leonard? Did you recently drop a telephone on the floor?” and a man yelled back through the closed bathroom door “Not unless I did and didn’t know about it.”

“What’s the trouble if I may ask?” the woman said. “I’m worried now.”

“Don’t be. It’s only that Anna here—”

“How do you do, ma’am,” Anna said.

“Anna thought she heard a noise like a gunshot go off before, though it could have been a car backfire or sound effects from a TV show.”

“Leonard,” she yelled, “did you hear anything like a gunshot before? Something that wasn’t a car backfiring or from a television show?”

“I did,” Leonard said through the door. “From right where I’m sitting. But I didn’t know what to figure with this town, so I forgot about it. Why, is someone hurt?”

Over the phone the desk sergeant took down the name, address, apartment and telephone number of Mrs. Lang. “You sure someone will be home when we get there?” he said.

“We’ll stay here till the police come,” Mr. Singerton said.

“What’s your connection with the mother and the boy?”

“A neighbor.”

“A neighbor around the neighborhood, in the building or a roomer in Mrs. Lang’s apartment?”

“In the building, though I don’t see what bearing that has on the matter. When the questions get that personal I sort of feel I shouldn’t have gotten involved.”

“All right,” the sergeant said. “Just stay where you are and a man will be right over. And don’t touch the bullet. Leave everything in its place.”

“He said not to touch the bullet,” Mr. Singerton said to Mrs. Lang, opening his fist and showing her the bullet. “What do you think they’ll do when they find out I did?”

“Why don’t you put it back where you found it?” Warren said.

“With my prints all over it? Besides, if they find out, I’ll get in more trouble that way.”

“Wipe them off why don’t you, but I told you not to touch it.”

“Thank you. He told me . If I’d been smart I should have let him pass when he came flying downstairs. I never should have left my flat for cigarettes — never should have been smoking, in fact. Cancer I’ll get, and also a jail sentence. In fact, I never should have taken my first puff when I was young and everyone said don’t take your first puff, Willy, because it will lead to bad things. Little did they know. Do you smoke, Warren?”

“Me? I’m only ten.”

“Well don’t, you hear? Don’t even experiment. Take my troubles with the police now as an example why not to.”

“‘Dear Mom,’” Loey read. “‘I’m sorry for what sadness to you and disrespect for the family my death this way will cause you, but all I ask is that you try not to be too sad and try to understand me. I’ve thought about killing myself for more than a year now. I tried to work things out for myself many other ways, but everything I did always made things even worse, which you know for me is really not too hard to believe. After the business went, Sarah and the kids went soon after that and it was just too much for me. And then all my so-called friends went. I suppose they thought I’d sponge on them or else be too maudlin a person to be with, now that my business and wife and—’ I can’t go on,” Loey said. She gave the note to Ron, began crying. He unhooked his arm from hers and said “Maybe this letter isn’t a joke at all.”