But he, he at least will live in better circumstances soon. In possession of himself for the first time in many weeks he leans forward intensely.
But it occurs to him in the midst of dialing that he has, so far, murdered his wife, his doctor, his business partner and the police inspector sent out for routine questioning on these murders and that he is very tired of hiding in a hotel room, becoming bored with the reduction he has made of his life. Figures. He needs more figures in his speculations, that is all. He cannot manipulate just the four of them forever.
“Pardon me,” he says to the desk clerk who has come politely on the line after the long hold. “Pardon me, but would you bring me another cup of coffee and maybe a bottle of scotch up here?” He has a relationship with the desk clerk. It is a familiar errand.
“And I’ll have something extra for you,” he adds cunningly to speed the little clerk on his errand and puts down the phone.
“Yes, sir, here it is,” the clerk says, entering a few moments later... and then falls dead with a .32 caliber bullet in his heart, falls dead on the sheets beside him and as he does so the doctor, the inspector, his wife and Robinson all turn to congratulate the clerk with relief on their faces and to welcome at last a new member into the club.
Crowded lives
Clark Howard
Sixth Avenue
(Originally published in 1989)
George Simms stood across the street on Sixth Avenue and looked at the old Algiers Hotel. It did not appear markedly different than he remembered it from years earlier. There were a couple of vagrants loitering outside and a few scruffy kids playing where previously a uniformed doorman would never have allowed, but the vagrants and the kids were there because the neighborhood had gone so far downhill. The hotel itself, twelve stories tall, standing formidably behind its marqueed entrance, was outwardly unchanged, as if its dignity, its style, might still be intact. George Simms knew, however, that inside would be a different story entirely.
When there was a lull in traffic, Simms crossed the street and tried five of the eight entry doors before he found one unlocked. Walking quietly across a marble floor, he stopped at the edge of the foyer and looked at the lobby. The Italian-marble columns were still there, and some leaded windows high up in the wall that faced an inner courtyard, but that was all that remained unscathed. Most of the mahogany wainscoting and pilasters was warped, scratched, scarred, or broken off. The velvet tapestries were dusty and torn. The carpeting was worn, ripped, curling up at the corners. A lot of the original lobby furniture was still there, overstuffed chairs and divans on which stylishly dressed women had once taken afternoon tea. The women sitting on them now, George Simms observed, wore sweatshirts and Levis, and drank their coffee out of cardboard cups. Their children, perhaps two dozen of them — like their mothers, of various colors — were playing on the worn carpet, hiding behind the torn tapestries, or scribbling on the mahogany with stubs of crayon. Off in the corners sat a few elderly persons who watched them silently.
Across the foyer, a stout, uniformed woman sat at an incongruous green-metal desk under a sign that read: ALL VISITORS MUST SIGN IN AND OUT. She had been watching Simms since he had walked in and finally said, “Can I help you?” Simms went over to her. “I’m supposed to go to work for Charlie Hosey.”
“You from the halfway house?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, you got to see Max Wallace first. He’s head of security on the premises. See the grand ballroom over there — those big doors that are chained shut? Go down the hall next to them — you’ll see his office.”
Simms threaded his way through the playing children, past the women whose conversation ceased as he went by, past the big ballroom doors which did have a length of chain connected to their brass handles by a padlock, and down a hall to a door that had assistant manager lettered into its mahogany surface and a plastic sign reading Security thumbtacked above it.
A black man dressed in starched, creased khaki, Max Wallace was thick but not fat, built like a fire hydrant, with eyes that riveted wherever they focused. As soon as Simms entered, they riveted on him. “Let’s see your assignment paper,” he said without preliminary.
Simms hesitated. “The job counselor at the halfway house said I was supposed to give that to Charlie Hosey.”
“I don’t care what the job counselor at the halfway house told you, bud. I’m in charge of these premises, not him. I want to see your assignment paper — now.” He held out a thick hand. Simms gave him the folded paper he wanted. Wallace’s laser eyes flicked over it. “General maintenance man,” he read, and grunted contemptuously. He tossed the paper back to Simms. “What’d you serve time for, Simms?” he asked, leaning forward, his words almost a challenge.
“You’re not allowed to ask me that,” Simms told him.
Wallace’s eyes flashed anger, but just for an instant. He sat back. “They tell you that at the halfway house?” he asked.
“Yes.” Simms wished he had a drink of water.
“Then I guess you also know that I can’t ask where you did your time, or even how much time you did — that right?”
“Yes. Right.”
“Well, since I’m not allowed to know anything about you, I’m going to tell you a few things about me. First of all, understand one thing: I’m in charge of everything and everybody inside these premises. The Algiers is a city welfare hotel. There are nearly three hundred indigent families living here, many of them just women with young children.” Wallace tilted his head with a coyness surprising for his size. “I guess you been away from women for quite a spell, haven’t you?”
Simms didn’t say anything. Wallace’s eyes narrowed. “Couldn’t be that you were away for rape, could it, Simms? I mean, it would be just like those halfway-house fools to put a rapist in a building full of women to try to prove he’s been re-ha-bil-i-tated. Is that it, Simms? You a rapo?”
“I told you, you’re not allowed to—”
“I heard you the first time.” Wallace pointed a threatening finger. “Every woman in this building is under my protection, Simms. I catch you out of line with any of them, you even look down one of their blouses when they bend over, and I’ll have your ass back in the slammer so quick you’ll think you never got out. Understand me?”
“I understand,” Simms said quietly. He was relieved when Wallace looked away long enough to pick up the phone and dial two digits.
“Charlie, this is Max,” he said. “Come to my office and get your new helper.” When he hung up, he sat far back in his swivel chair, the springs squeaking with his weight, and carefully unwrapped a large black cigar that could have been designed with him in mind. Lighting it with an old-fashioned flip-top Zippo, he released several puffs of pungent smoke into the close little office. As he removed the cigar from his teeth, he actually smiled.
“Maybe I misjudged you, Simms,” he said almost pleasantly. “Maybe you’re not a rapo, after all.” His smile, there for mere seconds, vanished and his voice turned harsh again. “Maybe you’re a child molester. A pervert. Is that what you are, Simms?”
George Simms didn’t have to worry about answering that one, because at that moment Charlie Hosey walked in.