to lean down close to his face and say: “Almost anybody can pull my leg, but just to make sure, she’s a tall blond with careless eyes, huh?”
“I wouldn’t call them careless,” he said.
I held my face together while I said: “And just between the two of us this divorce stuff is a lot of hooey. It’s something else entirely, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said softly, “and something I don’t like more every minute I think about it. Here.”
He pulled something out of his pocket and dropped it into my hand. It was a flat key.
“No need for you to wait around in the hall, if I happen to be out. I have two of them. What time would you think you would come?”
“About four-thirty, the way it looks now. You sure you want to give me this key?”
“Why, we’re in the same racket,” he said, looking up at me innocently, or as innocently as he could look through a pair of dark glasses.
At the edge of the lobby I looked back. He sat there peacefully, with the half-smoked cigarette dead between his lips and the gaudy brown and yellow band on his hat looking as quiet as a cigarette ad on the back page of the Saturday Evening Post.
We were in the same racket. So I wouldn’t chisel him. Just like that. I could have the key to his apartment and go in and make myself at home. I could wear his slippers and drink his liquor and lift up his carpet and count the thousand dollar bills under it. We were in the same racket.
SEVEN
The Belfont Building was eight stories of nothing in particular that had got itself pinched off between a large green and chromium cut rate suit emporium and a three-story and basement garage that made a noise like lion cages at feeding time. The small dark narrow lobby was as dirty as a chicken yard. The building directory had a lot of vacant space on it. Only one of the names meant anything to me and I knew that one already. Opposite the directory a large sign tilted against the fake marble wall said:
Space for Renting Suitable for Cigar Stand. Apply Room
316.
There were two open-grill elevators but only one seemed to be running and that not busy. An old man sat inside it slack-jawed and watery-eyed on a piece of folded burlap on top of a wooden stool. He looked as if he had been sitting there since the Civil War and had come out of that badly.
I got in with him and said eight, and he wrestled the doors shut and cranked his buggy and we dragged upwards lurching. The old man breathed hard, as if he was carrying the elevator on his back.
I got out at my floor and started along the hallway and behind me the old man leaned out of the car and blew his nose with his fingers into a carton full of floor sweepings.
Elisha Morningstar’s office was at the back, opposite the firedoor. Two rooms, both lettered in flaked black paint on pebbled glass.
Elisha Morningstar. Numismatist.
The one farthest back said:
Entrance.
I turned the knob and went into a small narrow room with two windows, a shabby little typewriter desk, closed, a number of wall cases of tarnished coins in tilted slots with yellowed typewritten labels under them, two brown filing cases at the back against the wall, no curtains at the windows, and a dust gray floor carpet so threadbare that you wouldn’t notice the rips in it unless you tripped over one.
An inner wooden door was open at the back across from the filing cases, behind the little typewriter desk. Through the door came the small sounds a man makes when he isn’t doing anything at all. Then the dry voice of Elisha Morningstar called out:
“Come in, please. Come in.”
I went along and in. The inner office was just as small but had a lot more stuff in it. A green safe almost blocked off the front half. Beyond this a heavy old mahogany table against the entrance door held some dark books, some flabby old magazines, and a lot of dust. In the back wall a window was open a few inches, without effect on the musty smell. There was a hatrack with a greasy black felt hat on
“I wouldn’t call them careless,” he said.
I held my face together while I said: “And just between the two of us this divorce stuff is a lot of hooey. It’s something else entirely, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said softly, “and something I don’t like more every minute I think about it. Here.”
He pulled something out of his pocket and dropped it into my hand. It was a flat key.
“No need for you to wait around in the hall, if I happen to be out. I have two of them. What time would you think you would come?”
“About four-thirty, the way it looks now. You sure you want to give me this key?”
“Why, we’re in the same racket,” he said, looking up at me innocently, or as innocently as he could look through a pair of dark glasses.
At the edge of the lobby I looked back. He sat there peacefully, with the half-smoked cigarette dead between his lips and the gaudy brown and yellow band on his hat looking as quiet as a cigarette ad on the back page of the Saturday Evening Post.
We were in the same racket. So I wouldn’t chisel him. Just like that. I could have the key to his apartment and go in and make myself at home. I could wear his slippers and drink his liquor and lift up his carpet and count the thousand dollar bills under it. We were in the same racket.
SEVEN
The Belfont Building was eight stories of nothing in particular that had got itself pinched off between a large green and chromium cut rate suit emporium and a three-story and basement garage that made a noise like lion cages at feeding time. The small dark narrow lobby was as dirty as a chicken yard. The building directory had a lot of vacant space on it. Only one of the names meant anything to me and I knew that one already. Opposite the directory a large sign tilted against the fake marble wall said:
Space for Renting Suitable for Cigar Stand. Apply Room
316.
There were two open-grill elevators but only one seemed to be running and that not busy. An old man sat inside it slack-jawed and watery-eyed on a piece of folded burlap on top of a wooden stool. He looked as if he had been sitting there since the Civil War and had come out of that badly.
I got in with him and said eight, and he wrestled the doors shut and cranked his buggy and we dragged upwards lurching. The old man breathed hard, as if he was carrying the elevator on his back.
I got out at my floor and started along the hallway and behind me the old man leaned out of the car and blew his nose with his fingers into a carton full of floor sweepings.
Elisha Morningstar’s office was at the back, opposite the firedoor. Two rooms, both lettered in flaked black paint on pebbled glass.
Elisha Morningstar. Numismatist.
The one farthest back said:
Entrance.
I turned the knob and went into a small narrow room with two windows, a shabby little typewriter desk, closed, a number of wall cases of tarnished coins in tilted slots with yellowed typewritten labels under them, two brown filing cases at the back against the wall, no curtains at the windows, and a dust gray floor carpet so threadbare that you wouldn’t notice the rips in it unless you tripped over one.
An inner wooden door was open at the back across from the filing cases, behind the little typewriter desk. Through the door came the small sounds a man makes when he isn’t doing anything at all. Then the dry voice of Elisha Morningstar called out:
“Come in, please. Come in.”
I went along and in. The inner office was just as small but had a lot more stuff in it. A green safe almost blocked off the front half. Beyond this a heavy old mahogany table against the entrance door held some dark books, some flabby old magazines, and a lot of dust. In the back wall a window was open a few inches, without effect on the musty smell. There was a hatrack with a greasy black felt hat on
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