A Manhattan Ghost Story (17 page)

The driver of the truck, a beefy, dark-haired guy, was walking very slowly toward the car with a big, shiteating grin on his face. When he got to the car he leaned over, looked in the driver’s window—which had been hastily rolled up—and said tightly, the shiteating grin still on his face, “Your ass is grass, my friend, and I’m the mower.” The man I was with put his hand inside his suit jacket; I saw something gleam darkly in there. He said to the truck driver, “I don’t want any trouble here.?

“You already got it!” bellowed the truck driver.

” ‘Cuz I’m on an errand of mercy,” said the man I was with, and nodded at me.

The truck driver bent over and looked at me; his grin broadened. The man I was with grabbed hold of the thing inside his jacket.

And I frantically tried the door again. It opened. I looked dumbly at it a moment and scrambled from the car.

I saw a woman coming my way. She was wearing a long, red wool coat and carrying a large, black purse, and she was staring disapprovingly at me. I stared back a moment, then looked at the Chevy again. I saw that it was down on the right front end, as if one of its springs was broken, and that its right rear tire was going flat. When I leaned over, I saw that the car was empty, and I realized that it could easily have been just one of the thousands of junked cars that litter New York City’s streets.

“I’d find a
decent
home if I were you,” said the woman in the red wool coat.

I turned to her. “Yes,” I said. “I have one,” and she turned her head and quickened her pace to get away from me.

I saw no truck, either, and no murderous driver with a shiteating grin on his face.

I saw Madison Avenue.

I saw, across the street, a furniture store called Rick’s Rattan and Wicker, and next door to it a little bar called Raoul’s, and next to it a place that sold cigars and men’s magazines.

And I saw people moving purposefully about, eyes straight ahead usually, heads down a little. It is the way New Yorkers walk, as if they’re going someplace and are already late getting there.

Go, answer the door, peer through the little security peephole at whoever has come to call. You see a face, a smile perhaps, a pair of eyes. And they tell you—open the door. Or they tell you—do not open the door. But if you have shut yourself up on the wrong side of that peephole for too long, they tell you very little. Only what is within arm’s reach, not what is above, or below, or to the sides, or behind that smiling face.

At the Hammet Mausoleum, Halloween, 1965

“Hey, Joe Hammet, Joe Hammet, come to us, Joe Hammet.” Sam was trying to speak the way he’d heard mediums speak on TV, in a kind of high sing-song voice but he couldn’t help grinning at the same time, which got me to grinning, too. “Hey, Joe Hammet,” he went on, and glanced slowly about the room as he spoke, “you old fruit, come on,
tauuulk
to us,
tauuulk
to us.” He stopped, listened a moment, went on, “Give us a sign, Joe Hammet, anything, give us a sign.” He looked at me. “What you grinning at, Abner? This is fucking serious business, here.”

“Sorry,” I said, and forced myself to stop grinning.

“Good,” Sam said, and went on, “A sign, Joe, a sign. Tell us it’s a nice day.”

“A nice day, Sam?”

“Sure, he said it all the time. Coulda been raining buckets and he woulda said, ‘Boy, it’s a nice day.’ “

“Oh.”

“So if we hear ‘It’s a nice day,’ we’ll know it’s him.
Habits
, Abner, like I said.”

“Uh-huh, then how do you know you won’t get a nun?”

“A what?”

“A nun—you know, a sister.”

“Whose sister?”

“A
nun
, Sam. A Catholic nun.”

“Why would I get a Catholic nun?”

“Forget it.”

“Anybody ever tell you you got a sense of humor like a stone, Abner?”

“Yeah.
You
have.”

“Well, you do. You say these incredibly dumb things, and you think they’re so fucking funny, and they’re not. I’m only tellin’ you this ‘cuz I’m your friend, Abner—”

 “Okay, okay, can we get on with the seance?”

“This ain’t a seance.”

“Whatever it is—can we get on with it; I gotta get home.”

“Sure, Abner. In a moment.” He lifted a cheek, grunted; nothing happened. He smiled. “Must be all dried up, Abner.”

“Could be,” I said. “That’s disrespectful, you know.”

“Joe
Hammmmm
et, Joe
Hammmmm
et!”

“Christ,” I whispered.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are. Is it a nice day, Joe? Is it a nice day over there?”

CHAPTER SIX

I saw Phyllis, too. I saw a black woman anyway, across Madison Avenue, near the corner of East 80th Street. A patch of sunlight was on her, and she was wearing what Phyllis always wore—a white, waistlength fake mink coat, white, stacked heel boots, and a green silk, mid-calf-length dress.

Her face was obscured by sunlight, I guessed, but I got the idea that she was staring at me, and I stared back. After several minutes, I said her name to myself. “Phyllis.”

She turned away.

“Phyllis!” I called.

She vanished down East 80th Street.

“Phyllis!” I called again, and made my way around the front of the Chevy, moved cautiously into the street with my arm extended, palm out. A big Lincoln came to a quick, reluctant halt inches from me, it’s driver cursing.

“Please,” I murmured. “Please.”

Traffic was slow and I made it easily across the street to the other side, then to the corner of East 80th. I saw the woman I hoped was Phyllis half a block away, and I smiled and ran hard to catch her.

“Phyllis!” I called repeatedly as I ran.

She did not turn her head.

I gained on her very quickly. She was starting up the steps of a brick apartment house when I caught up with her; I stopped at the bottom of the steps.

“Phyllis!” I said.

She turned. She said to me, smiling a big, willing smile, “Whatchoo want with Phyllis, honey, when you can have some time wif me?”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Her face was lined and aged, the nostrils flared, the mouth hard, the eyes flat and tired.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, and added, “I thought you were someone else.”

She smiled again, playfully. “I ain’t no one else, honey—I ain’t never been no one else.”

Her voice was Phyllis’, almost. It was brassier, less appealing and, like the eyes, a little tired. She went on, “But I can be whoever you want me to be.”

“No,” I said, not unkindly. “No. I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

She shrugged, turned, walked up the steps and into the apartment house. I stood in front of it for quite some time waiting for her to come out:
That is Phyllis!
I told myself.
That is my Phyllis! Coming apart.

I waited quite a while for her. Fifteen minutes, at least.

But she did not come out.

So I went in.

My odyssey began there, I think. In that house.

The front door—solid oak painted a dull violet, which put it in sharp contrast with the red brick of the building itself—was unlocked. It opened onto a long and dimly lit hallway that appeared to run the entire length of the building. There were six doors on either side of this hallway, each painted the same dull violet as the front door. Beside each of these doors stood a spindle-legged, dark wood washstand with a white porcelain wash basin and matching pitcher. Several women dressed in bra and panties were washing themselves—around the pubic area especially, and when they did this, they pulled the waistband of their panties down—when I came in. A short, blonde woman with a large nose and an excess of makeup looked up, smiled in the same way that the woman I’d hoped was Phyllis had smiled, and said, “You want me? I ain’t taken.”

“I’m looking for someone,” I told her. She was wearing a pair of black lace panties, a black garter belt, bra. The effect would have been appealing, had it not been for a large, blue-black bruise on the inside of her right thigh and the fact that her skin was very pale, almost white. “I thought I saw her come in here,” I went on.

The woman dried herself off with a cream-colored towel from the washstand, come over to me, put her hands flat on my chest. She was even shorter than I had first guessed, no more than five feet tall, and she smelled strongly of soap.

“You won’t find better than me,” she cooed, and made a show of licking her lips; I noted that her tongue was nearly as pale as her skin and that it apparently was dry, too, because it left no sheen of moisture on her lips. “I’m tight; I’m good—you come with me and find out. I want you come with me and find out.”

“No,” I said, my voice low. “Thank you. No.”

She licked her lips again and her knee came up slowly and cautiously into my groin.

I told her, “Please, don’t do that.”

She kept doing it.

I grabbed hold of her wrists, hard, and tried to push her away. I couldn’t. She said again, “I’m tight; I’m good—you come with me and find out; I want you to come with me and find out.”

“Thank you,” I said, and I heard a little tremor in my voice. “Thank you. No. Some other time. Some other time, soon.”

“I’m clean, too,” she said. “I’m tight; I’m good; I’m clean—you come with me and find out.”

I looked past her, down the hallway. Several other women were staring at us. One of them—an older woman with stiff black hair and thin legs—was smiling at us, as if amused, and another woman, in the act of cleaning herself, looked at me very much as the girls hailing a taxi had, with quiet and studied indifference.

The short woman still had her knee in my groin and her hands on my chest. I gripped her wrists harder, hoping to push her away, but it was impossible. I felt, strangely, as if I had just come into a room filled with flies and they were beginning to alight on me.

I said to the short woman, trying hard for a soothing tone and missing it, I think, “Tell me your name. I want to know your name.”

The question made her smile gratefully. “You wanta know my name? You really wanta know my name?”

“Yes,” I said.

“My name’s Sheila.”

“That’s a nice name. I’ve always like that name.”

Her smile broadened. She looked very pleased; her knee lowered from my groin. “Yeah,” she said, “ain’t it?”

And from behind her I heard, “Sheila!”

I looked. I saw only that the older woman with the thin legs and the other woman were both furiously involved in cleaning themselves now. I felt Sheila’s muscles loosen and I let go of her wrists. She slid away from me, her mouth open a little, her eyes wide, as if she had been surprised, and she backed away slowly, without much grace, as though she was having trouble making her legs work properly.

I heard again, “Sheila!” It was a young man’s voice, I guessed, someone in his late teens, and it had a distinct tone of forced authority to it.

He appeared then, from within a room several doors down the hallway. He was eighteen, perhaps nineteen, and was several inches shorter than I, with a head of unruly, brown hair, small, dark eyes, and a grin on his round, pink face that was like the grin I’d seen on the face of the murderous truck driver—a kind of slick shiteating grin which seemed to announce loudly that he was very happy with himself.

He said to me, “Ain’t this great? Ain’t this fantastic?” and came forward a few steps, looked back, toward the women still cleaning themselves; he held his right hand up, snapped his fingers. The women disappeared quickly into their rooms. “Ain’t it great?” he said again. Then the grin left his face abruptly. “You got to keep ‘em in line, that’s all. It ain’t hard. Shit, it wouldn’t be, would it? Which one you want? You want Sheila?”

“I’m looking for someone,” I said.

He ignored me. “I got one named Ruth, and one named Cathy, and one named Wilhelmina; she’s my favorite.”

I felt myself backing away, toward the door.

“Course, they’re all just marking time, you know,” the boy said. “You ask ‘em; they’ll tell ya—hey, where you goin’?”

I reached behind, found a doorknob, I assumed it was the one to the front door.

“You gotta pay first,” the boy called frantically.

I turned the knob. “Thank you, no,” I murmured, and pushed the door open, my eyes still on the boy. I felt a pair of hands at my waist, from behind. I glanced around, saw a flat, gray face, a mound of dark brown hair, a set of gray teeth.

The boy called “And besides, she’s all done, so you ain’t gonna have no fun with her.” I looked at him again; he came forward. “Let me,” he said, and straight-armed the woman. She stumbled back, into her room. “Jesus,” the boy whispered; he smelled abominably of beer and sweat. “Christ almighty!” And he shut the door, though clearly with effort, as if the woman were pulling on the other side of it. He got a key from his pocket, locked the door, grinned at me again. “She’s
leavin’
tomorrow, early; so
you
can’t
have
her,” he said. His grin altered. ” ‘Less of course, you like ‘em that way.”

I told him again that I was looking for someone. And again he ignored me. He said, “Some guys do. I try to keep ‘em out, but it’s hard, it’s hard—you can’t keep the sickies out; there’s no way you can keep ‘em out, not all of ‘em. Some get through; the live ones get through—”

“Please,” I cut in, “I need your help.”

“Can’t,” he said. “I want to; really, I want to. But I go out that door—” he nodded glumly at the front door—”and you got a real loony on your hands. I mean a real class A loony. In here—hey, it’s okay. I like it. Kind of a feast for the eyes. Most of the time. Till they start comin’ apart, you know. Then it ain’t so good. Then you gotta start cleanin’ up after ‘em, you know, and they start gettin’ real desperate, real horny, ‘cuz they’re desperate, you know, and then you gotta kinda keep the door locked when you’re takin’ your naps. But the rest of the time—” His grin reappeared suddenly. “It’s great. It’s fantastic, better than watchin’ my sister and her goddamned girlfriend, that’s for sure. I mean, you gotta be a real wacko—” He stopped. His grin faded; he lowered his eyes, took a deep breath, scratched idly at the inside of his elbow. “Damned place’s got lice,” he murmured. “Every day, every
fuckin’ day
, I gotta take a fuckin’ shower with fuckin’ lye soap to get rid of the fuckin’ lice. Damn it all to hell—”