All Gone by Stephen Dixon Page A

real estate office he might be interested in, think I should call him?’ and she said ‘I don’t think so because Mort hates any kind of stuffy office work,’ and I said ‘But it’s mostly outside in the sun among the birds and city trees,’ and she said ‘He still hates any kind of hard-core money-making work including artistic, but chance it and call him because this time who knows?’ So I’m calling. You think you’d mind working for us full-time for a month if I tell you what it is?”
    â€œI’d like some steady work after going through two jobs in a week.”
    â€œWonderful. We want someone to act as our rental agent for five recently renovated buildings in the Eighties on the West Side. They’re all close together so no hardship for you to get to, one from the other not a block apart. What you have to do is hang around the buildings and sometimes in the office in one of the vacant apartments where there’s a phone. So if people see our To Let signs on the buildings if you can’t grab the more interested-looking prospectives off the street—you’ll get the knack quick—they’ll call and you can be right down and around the corner or wherever to show them around. No pay. But one-third the rental fee if you rent the apartment. If the tenant refuses to pay the fee, since they might be wise we also own the building we’re acting as agents for, then fifty dollars for each apartment you rent and ten dollars more for a two- instead of a one-year lease. September’s the key month for renting, so you can clear a thousand minimum for a few weeks work and probably earn more. Sound okay?”
    I go to her office. It’s in the old General Motors building, top floor. The furniture looks like wood but is formica, the bright orange carpet clashes with the dark furniture and walls. The reception room’s unkempt: trash cans spilling over, ashtrays smelly and full, boxes of photocopy-machine paper on the chairs and couches, empty matchbooks and squashed soda straws on the floor. But the walls and pilasters are made of real oak from the old days and with decorations in the coffered ceiling around where the chandeliers must have hung looking like something out of a French chateau or New York turn-of-the-century townhouse.
    â€œMeet Larry, my boss,” Penny says.
    We go into his office. Larry’s sitting in a big chair behind a wide desk with his back to me but swivels around and puts some legal papers down and we shake hands. He’s about my age. “So sit down, sit down,” he says. “Like some coffee?”
    â€œNo thanks.”
    â€œIt’s from a Mr. Coffee maker and special Jamaican blend. No sweat in making it.”
    â€œHad a cup before I came.”
    â€œIt also makes hot water for tea.”
    â€œLeave him alone,” Penny says. “He doesn’t feel thirsty, don’t bug him.”
    â€œWho’s bugging? I’m being polite.”
    â€œI don’t want any, thanks,” I say. “Nice place you have here. Looks like where the GM chairman of the board himself might have worked.”
    â€œHey man, very close. This suite was for their president. It’s the penthouse. Where I sit is where he did. Let me show you his slide-away bar.” He presses a button under his desk and two cabinet doors open and a bar appears. “The liquor didn’t come with it. Like a drink?”
    â€œToo early.”
    â€œGood for you. You passed my only test. Too early for me also and I don’t want to employ a lush, especially for out there.”
    â€œSneaky,” Penny says.
    â€œWhy? I got rid of that other guy what’s his name, Pigmi-gansky—”
    â€œParmiagiano.”
    â€œParmesan cheese, okay, but I got rid of him the same way, didn’t I? And later we heard he was a lush and a half. Same job as yours he applied for, Mort, and nobody ever looked more