Transits (3 page)

Roy knows the man is asking far too much and he guesses that the man knows it too. As he considers the LPs he could buy with twenty American dollars, Alice flips through the pages, stopping at Ehlrich's feature, which is tastefully but predictably illustrated with the quintessential profile shot of Eleanora Sinclair in performance at Café Society circa 1948. Roy's romantic inclination is to agree with the man, to buy the magazine on the spot. The newsman winks at him. Roy reciprocates in order to appease the man, then checks his watch impatiently. Beneath them, the sidewalk rumbles and Alice looks up.

“The stop is right there,” says the man. “You can make it if you run.”

Alice returns the magazine, grabs Roy's hand, and leads him in the direction of the descending stairs.

“You're not going to buy it?” the man calls after them.

On the cramped train, pressed close to Roy, Alice speaks into his ear.

“The last time I looked at the magazine he told me I didn't need to pay in cash, that I could settle up another way.”

By 98
^th
Street their car is nearly empty. Roy looks over his shoulder and observes two women seated at the back. One is black, tall and poised. Her companion, by comparison, is pale and diminutive. Both wear stilettos, too much make-up, and tight, revealing skirts despite the damp November air. Roy nudges Alice and gestures with his eyes.

“Don't you have whores where you're from?” she asks.

“I suppose so,” says Roy. “Not that I've ever had to pay for it.” Alice pinches his arm.

At the next stop Roy follows Alice off the train and into the failing daylight. They must walk north for several blocks and when Roy suggests perhaps they got off a stop too early Alice responds that he gets to see more of the city this way. When they reach 138
^th
they come to a diner with a painted sign that reads “The Bridgeview,” and as Roy looks for the bridge, Alice opens the door and motions for him to follow.

Roy notices, uneasily, as they seat themselves in a vacant booth, the two women from the subway sitting across the aisle.

“Don't you want to find the place first?”

Alice shakes her head. “It should just be another half a block down.”

“Aren't you nervous? I can never eat when I'm nervous.”

“Then just have coffee.”

“I never said I was nervous. I just thought that you might be.”

As soon as they are seated, a young black man in a white t-shirt approaches and says “Mmm hmm?”

“Just a coffee.”

“Grilled cheese and fries.”

Roy turns up his nose. Alice swings her foot under the table and taps him on the shin.

When the waiter has come and gone again and his coffee cup is filled, Roy discreetly pours in whiskey. He is not so discreet so as Alice will not notice, for she looks directly at him, and at the appearance of the flask her foot touches his leg once more. Roy drinks, and as he lowers the cup from his lips he smiles until he looks around the restaurant and in the back corner he sees what cannot be. Beyond the haze of the warmth in Roy's stomach and the grease in the air sits the Houston Street newsman. The newsman smokes a cigarillo and has removed his watch cap to reveal his balding head. In front of him is a steaming bowl and a cup like the one Roy holds in his hand. The man pays no attention to these things for he looks intently across the room, his gaze fixed in the direction of the booth across from Roy. Roy averts his eyes and watches Alice toy with the packets of milk on his saucer. He leans in and whispers, “The man from the newsstand is sitting in the far corner.”

“How is that possible?”

Roy shakes his head and looks again, not because he is unsure of what he has seen, but because he cannot help but look. When Alice goes to the rest room, Roy turns in the direction in which the newsman directs his gaze. On the wall behind the women hangs a framed photograph of someone who looks an awful lot like Art Beazley. The black prostitute, Roy concludes, is in fact male. She is also better dressed than her companion, and from a distance, decidedly the more attractive of the two. The shorter woman wears a white felt hat with a turned down brim that might have once been stylish, but has lost its shape and given its owner a pitiable, juvenile look.

The waiter places Alice's sandwich on the table. “We're closing in fifteen minutes.”

“Is that Art Beazley in that photo?” Roy asks.

“None other than.” The waiter fills his cup without asking.

As Alice returns from the restroom, she takes a good look at the man sitting in the corner.

“What's he doing here?”

Roy shrugs his shoulders. “Having dinner?”

“Has he seen us?”

“I don't think so. He's got other things on his mind.” Roy nods in the direction of the prostitutes.

Alice looks over, immediately averts her eyes, and half-heartedly swallows a mouthful of her sandwich.

Roy smiles and says, “I think the tall one's more your type.”

Alice places her napkin on her plate and wraps her scarf around her face.

“You find it cold in here?” asks Roy.

“I'm going. I don't want to stay here any longer.” Alice puts on her coat. “I'll meet you at my place afterwards. You can find your way back from here?”

“You sure you don't want me to come along? I'd like to see this studio.”

“You'll just make me uncomfortable. I'll let you listen to the recording as soon as I get home. One of us has to stay and settle the tab. ”

Alice leaves, and a moment later the prostitutes make their way
to the cash. As the shorter woman asks the waiter for a pack of Pall Malls, the newsman approaches, puts his arm around her, and tries to kiss her. When she protests he grasps her by the arm and with his other hand he produces his wallet and insists on paying for her. The waiter points to him, then to the door. The man swears and pounds the counter with his fist as the few remaining customers look up. Before the waiter can emerge from behind the counter, the transvestite steps in and removes the newsman's hand from the girl's arm.

As the two prostitutes walk out, the waiter blocks the newsman's path and says, “Best wait here until they're gone.”

The newsman throws his hands in the air and at that moment from the dimness of the street there is a panicked scream and then what Roy imagines must be the sound of a gun, and then silence. The newsman runs out the front door. By the time Roy follows, the man is kneeling beside the body of the girl, which lies motionless on the sidewalk. There is a dark trickle running from her mouth to her chin. There are tears in the newsman's eyes and he does not notice Roy. There is no sign of the girl's companion and there is no sign of Alice. In the distance is the sound of sirens and as Roy hurries down the street. He is out of breath when he reaches the corner where the studio should be and is greeted by a graffiti covered façade with plywood over its windows and a door that does not open.

Up the street, a bearded man with no laces in his boots has never heard of a place called Silhouette Studios, and is in need of thirty-five cents. Roy reaches into his pocket and hands the man a quarter. The man smiles.

“Check the book in the phone booth around the corner.”

Roy finds the booth, where all the directory pages between ‘Q' and ‘V' have been torn out. He picks up the phone, not knowing whom he intends to call. He reaches a hand into his empty pocket, and then slams the phone into the receiver in frustration. From the top of the phone something falls to the ground that is immediately familiar to Roy, though in the twilight he does not recognize it as Alice's address book until he holds it close to his face. It is open to the page on which the phone number for Silhouette Studios is written. Roy closes the book and attempts to place it in the inside pocket of his coat, which holds his half-empty flask. He shoves the bottom half of the book into his right outer pocket as he makes his way back to 138
^th
.

The girl's body no longer lies on the sidewalk. Neither is there an ambulance, or a police car, or a sign that anything at all has happened. Roy tries the door to the diner and finds it locked. Inside the waiter mops the floor. When Roy bangs on the window with his fist the waiter mutters something inaudible and points to the “Closed” sign on the door. Roy works his way down the street, trying every door along the way.

The fifth door is unlocked. Inside is a musty, narrow, high-ceilinged storeroom. Light from a single bare bulb illuminates a closed door at the end of the room. The walls are lined with metal shelves piled with old newspapers and magazines that spill out onto the floor. From behind the door at the back of the room there comes a sound and Roy decides he does not want to wait for the door to open. On his way out, he stumbles over a stack of
New Yorker
s and sends them scattering. Someone yells at him from behind.

Roy finds a train waiting at the bottom of the 135
^th
St. stairs. He struggles through the turnstile and onto the nearest car without pausing to find out where the train is bound. Roy collapses in a seat and tries to still his shaking hands. Across the isle, reading a copy of the
Amsterdam News
, sits the waiter from the restaurant.

“Excuse me.”

The waiter looks up, sees Roy, and turns back to his paper.

“Could you tell me where I could find Silhouette Studios?”

The waiter's expression softens. “You're on the wrong side of town. You want
West
138th. Get off at the next stop, turn yourself around. You play?”

“No. Not really. My girlfriend sings.”

“Does she now? That's alright.” The man turns back to his paper, humming a tune that Roy does not recognize.

“Thank you,” says Roy, as he gets off the train.

“Mmm hmm,” says the man.

Roy surveys the platform while he awaits the southbound train. The faces around him are turned away as he tips his flask to his lips.

One hour after Alice walks out of the diner, Roy sits in an uncomfortable chair in the lobby of Silhouette Studios, his head in his hands. The radiator ticks with heat. There is an empty water cooler, a half-empty coffeepot, a table covered with scribbled sheet music,
and the withered leaves of a dying aspidistra. There are framed 45's on the wall, and above a closed, padded door is an illuminated sign which reads “Recording: Do Not Enter.” Roy wants to look around. He wants to examine the sheet music, to read the labels on the 45's, but his stomach and his head will not allow it. From the direction of the control room drifts the sounds of the session.

Oh, if you wouldn't mind,
I'd find it divine,
if I could tickle your funny bone.
Some girls like to dance
to be gently romanced,
but I'd like to tickle your funny bone.
No need to be shy,
better to moan than to cry,
oh so sweetly I'd tickle your funny bone.
Twenty dollars no less,
just a drop, not a mess,
such a treat when I tickle your funny bone.

The voice that sings is not Alice's voice and the song makes Roy want to leave. There is a piano break, and the padded door opens to reveal a squat, rumpled man with horn-rimmed glasses and rolled-up sleeves. He looks at Roy, raises his eyebrows.

“I'm looking for Alice Alderson,” says Roy.

“Alderson… Alderson. Called to get directions, said she'd be late, never showed.”

***

It is not until Roy returns to the empty apartment and checks the answering machine that he realizes her address book is no longer in his coat pocket.

“Listen,” says the voice on the machine, “meet me back at the storeroom on 138
^th
and I'll tell you where to find her. Don't tell no one where you're going and don't bring no one with you.”

Roy barely makes it into the bathroom before he vomits.

He lies on the rumpled sheets of Alice's unmade bed. The apartment is of little comfort without her. It is as cold and indifferent to Roy's presence as the rest of the city. His head aches. He rolls over, opens the drawer of Alice's bedside table, and scrounges for a bottle. His hand falls on a photograph, and when he examines it in the dim bedroom light, he sees Alice standing in a park in the summer heat, her arm around another woman. Both women are smiling and there is something about the one who is not Alice that makes Roy return the photo to the bottom of the drawer. He swallows two tablets from the bottle, drinks the little water he can manage to keep down, puts on his coat, and is back on the street, on his way to the underground.

The motion of the train makes his head spin and he is relieved to get off at 135
^th
, though he does not look forward to what must follow. This time he knocks on the door, and the newsman, cigarillo between his lips, greets him, and as a gesture of good faith, returns Alice's address book. Roy is curious to know what has happened to the prostitute, but he has come for Alice, for this is the pretence upon which the newsman has summoned him. The man hands him a small, limp package the size of a woman's purse, wrapped in newsprint and bound with string. “You need to make a delivery,” the man says. “You deliver this for me.”

Roy's head throbs, and it is hard for him to stand, though he dare do nothing else. He wonders what might happen if he were to vomit on the magazines strewn about the floor.

“And then you will tell me where Alice is?”

The man smiles sadly, and nods, as if he would tell Roy then and there where Alice is, but he cannot because there is something Roy must do first.

“You deliver this to the river. Go down to the bridge and put this in the river, and I'll tell you where she is.”

Roy wants to know why the man doesn't do it himself, how he will know if Roy has done it, and the newsman says, “I'll know,” without Roy having to ask.

Outside, away from the lingering scent of cigarillos, Roy makes his way towards the bridge, which the newsman has told him he will find at the end of 138
^th
. It should make for a short, brisk walk, but there is substance in Roy's blood, and fear, that make the walk otherwise.
To steel his resolve, Roy imagines that he is of another era; a young hustler making a name for himself in the big city, all keyed up on dope with nothing to lose, running errands for some racket fronting as a late-night delicatessen. Past the Bridgeview, past the boarded-up facade on the corner, until in the distance there is the darkness of the Harlem River.