“I couldn’t …”
“You have to. Things are going to be rough, Shirl. You’re going to need it more than his family. There’s no record of it. It’s yours by right.”
He put the money on the end table and she looked at it. “I suppose I should. That sister of his has enough without this. But we better split it—”
“No,” he said flatly, just as the dull buzz of the announcer signaled that someone had opened the outer door from the hall.
“Department of Hospitals,” a voice said and Tab could see two men in white uniforms on the TV screen inset near the door. They were carrying a stretcher. He went to let them in.
6
“How long you gonna be, Charlie?”
“That’s my business—you just hold the fort until I get back,” the doorman grunted, and looked the uniformed guard over with what he liked to think was a military eye. “I seen a lot better-looking gold buttons in my time.”
“Have a heart, Charlie, you know they’re just plastic. They’ll fall to pieces if I try to rub on them.”
In the loosely organized hierarchy of employees in Chelsea Park, Charlie was the unquestioned leader. It wasn’t a matter of salary—this was probably the smallest part of his income but a matter of position and industry. He was the one who saw the tenants most often and he lost nothing by this advantage. His contacts outside the buildings were the best and he could get anything the residents wanted—for a price. All the tenants liked him and called him Charlie. All the employees hated him and he had never heard what they called him.
Charlie’s basement apartment came with the job, though the management would have been more than a little surprised at the number of improvements that had been made. An ancient air-conditioner wheezed and hammered and lowered the temperature at least ten degrees. Two decades of cast-off and restored furniture contributed a note of mixed color, while an impressive number of locked cabinets covered the walls. These contained a large collection of packaged food and bottled drink none of which Charlie touched himself, but instead resold at a substantial markup to the tenants. Not the least of the improvements was the absence of both a water and an electric meter; the building management unsuspectedly financed both of these major expenses for Charlie.
Two keys were needed to open the door and both were chained to his belt. He went in and hung his uniform coat carefully in the closet, then put on a clean but much-patched sport shirt. The new elevator boy was still asleep in the big double bed and he kicked the frame of the bed with his number-fourteen shoe.
“Get up. You go to work in an hour.”
Reluctantly, still half asleep, the boy crawled out of the bedclothes and stood there, naked and slim, scratching at his ribs. Charlie smiled in pleasant memory of the previous night and smacked the boy lightly on his lean buttock.
“You’re going to be all right, kid,” he said. “Just take care of old Charlie, and Charlie will take care of you.”
“Sure, Mr. Charlie, sure,” the boy said, forcing interest into his voice. This whole thing was new to him and he still didn’t like it very much, but it got him the job. He smiled coyly.
“That’s enough of that,” Charlie said and slapped the boy again, but this time hard enough to leave a red print on the white skin. “Just make sure the door is locked behind you when you go, and keep your mouth shut on the job.” He went out.
The street was a lot hotter than he had thought it would be, so he whistled for a cab. This morning’s work should net him enough to pay for a dozen cabs. Two empty pedicabs raced for his business and he sent the first one away because the driver was too runty and thin; Charlie was in a hurry and he weighed 240 pounds.
“Empire State Building, Thirty-Fourth Street entrance. And make some time.”
“In this weather?” the driver grunted, standing on the pedals and lurching the creaking machine into motion. “You want to kill me, general?”
“Die. It won’t bother me. I’ll give you a D for the trip.”
“You want me to die by starving, maybe? That much won’t take you as far as Fifth Avenue.”
They haggled the price most of the trip, twisting their way through the crowded streets, shouting to be heard above the unending noise of the city, a sound they were both so used to that they weren’t even aware of it.
Because of the power shortage and lack of replacement parts there was only one elevator running in the Empire State Building, and this one went only as high as the twenty-fifth floor. After that you walked. Charlie climbed two flights and nodded to the bodyguard who sat at the foot of the stairs to the next floor. He had been here before and the man knew him, as did the three other guards at the head of the stairs. One of them unlocked the door for him.