this the gentleman in the pink-and-white striped shirt?” Leona sang. “Oh, is this the—”
“Not quite yet, my dear,” Charles said. “The pink-and-white striped shirt is still nestling in its birthday tissue in a box on my dressing table, with its five little brother shirts.”
“He did deliver them, then!” Leona cried. “Oh, Charles, I am so glad. I was so afraid that man would disappoint you. Oh, what a relief.”
“My shirtmaker has never failed me yet, Leona,” Charles said coldly.
Really, it was a task keeping Leona in check.
“Of course he hasn’t, Charles. He wouldn’t dare, would he, darling? But Charles, I want to tell you about my suit. It’s divine, and almost exactly like yours. It was so sweet of you to let your tailor make it for me. And from your special cloth, too. We’re going to look quite alike today, aren’t we? Almost like twins.”
“Almost like twins,” Charles echoed generously, because it did promise to be a very pleasant day. “You know, Leona, this is quite an event in my life. I’ve grown very fond of you in the last eight years, my dear.” He giggled gently. “How is the good George, by the way?”
“Oh, Charles, you know George. He trundled off an hour ago, just like a good little businessman. He’s probably sitting behind his desk already, telling some wretched creature to bring back the dinette set or be sued, or something. What a job for a man to have.”
George Harkey, Leona’s husband, was credit manager of one of New York’s larger and less fashionable department stores.
“Well, we all must work,” Charles said briskly, sitting up in bed. “And I should have been at my scribbling an hour ago. We meet at the Plaza, then. At twelve-fifteen. That will leave us ample time to lunch and still get to the theater by curtain time. All right, my dear?”
“Twelve-fifteen,” Leona said. “And Charles, I have a most amusing surprise for you.”
“Splendid, Leona. I adore surprises. Now I really must go, Leona. Goodbye.”
He replaced the phone, slid out of bed, wrapped himself in a dressing gown of thin gold wool—a gift from Leona—and plugged in his electric kettle, after assuring himself that it held enough water to make two cups of coffee. Leona and her friends would have been astonished at the absence of grace and charm in Charles’s domestic arrangements. They might even have been outraged, considering the stringent demands he made on their establishments. He puttered about, fetching a bottle of cream from his windowsill, measuring powdered instant coffee into his porcelain tumbler, and unwrapping a large, sticky delicatessen bun. Then he looked around for his morning newspapers. They were nowhere to be seen. He searched the room carefully, and at last, growing peevish, he even peered under his armchair, shook the window curtains, and pawed through his bed coverings. No sign of the papers. He was in the habit of buying the Times and the Tribune on his way home every night, and leaving them unopened, to read while he breakfasted.
Mike, the undersized, bespectacled elevator boy, who doubled as bellboy and porter, delivered the morning editions of the newspapers to the doors of other tenants in the hotel, but Charles was frugal, and refused to pay the small fee that this extra service cost. Now he was paperless, and his coffee was cooling. He gazed gloomily at the bun that had caused this disorder in his life—for there was no doubt in his mind that he had left the papers on the delicatessen counter the night before. His breakfast was ruined. Well, he wouldn’t let it be ruined.
Knotting the sash of his robe firmly around his small middle, he unlocked his door, opened it, and looked out into the hall. There, in front of the opposite door, were the Times and the Tribune.
Charles paused, looked, listened, dived across the hall, grabbed the papers, and bounded backward to his own door, which resisted him. Gently and treacherously, his door had locked itself. No use to wring the handle, no use to push, no use to peer in the keyhole. The door was locked. A faint sound issued from inside the room whose tenant he had just robbed. He sprinted for the elevator and rang. Mike would have a passkey. Mike would let him into his room, and he would be safe again. With horror, he realized that he was still clutching the newspapers in his arms, and that the elevator, shuddering with age and unwillingness, was climbing up to his floor. He rammed both papers down the front of his robe, wrapped his arms about himself as though he were cold, and, when Mike threw back the elevator door, said, “I seem to have locked myself out of my room, Mike—of all foolish things. Would you bring your passkey?”
“How come you got locked out?” Mike inquired loudly as he sauntered along behind Charles, swinging the keys on their large brass ring.
“I was looking for the maid. She forgot to leave me any soap. The inefficiency of that woman is quite monstrous.”
“You could of called the desk for your soap,” Mike said.
Oh, yes, Charles thought. I could have called the desk for my soap. And you could have brought my soap up. And I could have given you a tip. None of that, my lad. “Will you hurry with that door, please?” he said sharply. “I could catch my death of cold standing out here.”
Mike unlocked the door and pushed it open. Charles slipped past him, and turned to shoulder the door shut, but Mike, with one foot over the threshold, stood holding it open. He removed his spectacles, hawed breathily on them, and began to polish them on the section of his jacket that lay between his breast pocket and his dingy brass buttons. “You want I should bring you some soap?” he asked, and squinted into his spectacles before replacing them on his nose.
“Later,” Charles cried, seeing the door across the way begin to open.
Across the hall, a flannel-clad arm appeared and began to feel confidently around on the floor. Hypnotized, Charles watched the disembodied hand pluck blindly at the worn edge of the carpet. Above the arm, a tousled black head appeared, turned downward to the floor at first, and then turned up to reveal a pinched face full of sleep and bad temper.
“Why, good morning, Miss Carmichael!” Mike cried.
“Where the hell are my papers, Mike?” Miss Carmichael demanded, and, standing up, showed a tiny, spare figure enveloped in maroon flannel.
“Why, aren’t they there, Miss Carmichael? I left them there,” Mike said.
“Really,” Charles said, “you must excuse me.”
There was a second’s silence.
“Would you mind removing your body from my door?” he said, and saw the suspicion in Mike’s face turn to certainty.
“Why, certainly, Mr. Runyon,” Mike said. “I’ll do that little thing.”
Charles kicked the door shut, locked it, hurled the papers onto his bed, dashed into the bathroom, and turned the shower on full, to save his ears from the altercation that he knew must be taking place outside.
When he emerged from the bathroom, he was calmer. He wasted no time in regrets. What had been done had been done. The question was how to survive the morning’s absurd disaster with dignity.
He stepped into his shorts, which were of the same pink-and-white silk broadcloth as his new shirts. Then he lifted the papers from his bed to his desk and set about erasing Miss Carmichael’s name. No use. Mike evidently wrote with an iron nail dipped in ink. The name had soaked through to the second page, and partly to the third. Charles sat down, lit a cigarette, and thought. He couldn’t leave the papers here in the room, obviously. Mechanically, he put the bottle of cream out on the windowsill. Then, suddenly inspired, he returned to the desk and picked up the papers. Of course. What could be simpler than to drop the wretched things down into the limbo of broken beer bottles, rusty hairpins, and odd shoes that lay eight floors below his window? In that mess, they would never be noticed, if anyone ever looked out there.
He raised the window an inch or two, and then, just as he was preparing to slide the papers out, there was a flurry and a thump on the fire escape across