“Will you?” I asked.
“Didn’t I say so?”
I knew that wouldn’t do me any good, so I looked the guy up. He was a real nice fellow. Big guy, pleasant round face, real friendly.
“Hello,” he said. “Looking for somebody?”
“Looking for a job like this,” I said. “I used to take care of a building in Toledo. I hit town a couple of days ago, and thought I might locate something.”
“Ain’t a bad town,” he said, “if you can stand the winters.”
“Can’t be worse than Chicago,” I said. “I was out there a couple of years.”
“Pretty bad when the wind and snow come off the lake.”
“Don’t know a place about like this that could use a man, do you?”
“Can’t rightly say I do. Ain’t many like this around.”
“How long you had this?”
“Close to a year now. And I aim to be here a few more. It’s a comfortable place. Boss ain’t hard to please, so long as you keep your nose clean.”
“You hear about a spot like it, lemme know.”
“How’m I gonna let you know?”
“I’ll double-check you,” I said.
I had about seven bucks left out of my nineteen. I didn’t have any time to fool around. I made out on an egg sandwich and a cup of Java that night and then I bought a pint. Next afternoon I stopped by again.
“Hi,” he says. “Locate anything?”
“Nothing but nothing,” I said. “You sure you don’t know a similar place I could try?”
“Wish I could for your sake. Why don’t you try down the docks? You might catch on loading grain. Only the season’s out now. The lake’s still froze tight.”
“I don’t want a dock job. This is the kind of place I’d like.”
“Better look some other neighborhood then. Ain’t nothing in this area I can bring to mind.”
I brought out the pint from my pocket, unscrewed the top and took a drink. I held it out to him.
His eyes glistened and he licked his lips. “I better not,” he said.
“What’s the matter?”
“Sort of gives me trouble, mostly.”
“Well, in that case, you’re right. Better not.”
I tilted it up to my lips like I was drinking again but I was tonguing the bottle and nothing went down my throat. Then I put it back in my pocket.
“Getting colder out there,” I said. “Little nip sort of helps in this weather.”
“Thass right,” he agreed.
He took a look at the heater. It was a cinch, an oil burner with a thermostat a baby could have run.
“Might better give ’em a little more heat if it’s turning off cold,” he said.
“Right,” I said.
I brought the bottle out again, put it to my mouth and tilted it. Then I took it down, put the cap back on and put it away. He watched it like it was the fourth ace in the deck and he had one in the hole.
“Gonna get pretty cold tonight,” I said. “Little drink feels good in this weather.”
He didn’t say anything.
After awhile I pulled the bottle again and went through the motions of having another shot.
“Maybe just—” he said and stopped.
“No, I wouldn’t if it don’t agree with you,” I said.
“Just a nip wouldn’t hurt if it’s gonna be cold.”
“Yeah, you’ve got something there. Just a little one, then.”
I handed him the bottle. He turned it up and took a short drink.
“Oil burner don’t warm a basement up good like an old coal furnace used to,” he said. “Man can stand a little something to warm his insides down here.”
“You said it.” I tilted the bottle again but didn’t drink.
This time I didn’t put the bottle away. After a few minutes he held out his hand for it. This time he took a real drink.
Then we passed it back and forth. I didn’t drink but he did. In less than an hour it was empty. He’d had the whole pint except the first drink I’d taken. He staggered when he went to look at the thermostatic control.
“Why don’t you take a little rest?” I asked him.
The door to his little room was open. I led him in and put him down on the single bed. He mumbled something about a few winks and turned over. I went outside the room and waited a few minutes. When I looked in again he was asleep.
I went over to the thermostat. I had in mind dropping it down and cooling the place off but when I looked at it I had a better idea. I pushed it up close to 90, which was more like what a drunk would do with the cold coming in.
I stepped outside. You know Buffalo. It was getting colder when I came in, like I said, but it was still bright and sunny. Now the sky was all smoke-gray and the snow was coming down. That’s the way it is up there. It snows before you can drop the hat.
I walked around in it for about an hour and a half. Then I went back into the basement. He was still asleep. There were a few drops left in the bottle. I spilled them over his collar and shirt and laid the bottle by him on the bed.
Then I went just outside the street door and waited. I figured something would happen soon.
It did. Before long I heard the door from the apartments upstairs open and the owner yelled, “Hey, Grimm, what the hell’s going on down there? The place is steaming.”
I let him hear me open the door and came in like from the outside.
“Hello,” I called. “Where are you, Jake?”
“Who’s that?” yelled the owner.
“It’s me,” and I got where he could see me.
“Oh, you,” he said. “I remember you, asking for a job.”
“Where’s Jake?” I asked.
“That’s what I want to know. The place is cooking.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s hotter up there than the hinges of hell. I want to find Jake, so he can see what’s wrong.”
“Come on, let’s take a look.”
I wanted him down to see everything for himself. When he got down the steps I walked over to the control.
“Well, no wonder,” I said in big surprise. “He’s got this thing shoved up nearly to ninety.”
“What?” he screamed.
“See for yourself,” I said. “Here, I’ll take care of it. Man, that could be dangerous. He could blow his boilers that way.”
“Where is he?” he screeched.
I knew he’d find out soon enough, so I let him look for himself. He went to the open door of the room and there was Jake, dead to the world.
The owner went in, saw him, saw the bottle and said, “That does it. I gave him every chance, but he can’t let the stuff alone. When he comes near blowing up the place, he’s finished.”
P. S. I got the job. It was a lousy trick, but I wanted in.
Like he said, it was a real nice, comfortable spot. My little basement room wasn’t anything you’d entertain Queen Elizabeth in, but it was good enough for me. The work was a cinch. All I had to do was regulate the heater, look after a few big lockers where the people upstairs could keep their bags or trunks if they didn’t want them in their rooms, keep the halls upstairs clean and take out the trash every day.
I didn’t even have to worry about the rooms. They had a housekeeper sleeping in the end room on the second floor who did them. She made a pass or two at me the first two days I was on the job, but she was a slob. I let her alone and then she let me alone.
The owner lived in the front apartment on the third floor corner and that was about the only one you could really call an apartment.
I saw it one day when Maggie, the housekeeper, was cleaning it up. A big room with heavy red curtains and one of those big oversize beds with the same heavy red covers, big easy chairs and couches, a 24-inch blond mahogany TV set, leopard skin rugs and things. A fancy bath you could run the four-forty in and a classy kitchenette and dinette.