Читаем Fall and Rise полностью

“Yes. I’ll get him away. No, say something else, Sammy — show him you’re no kid; he’s twelve.” Sammy says nothing. “Never talks when I ask him to. Gurgles, sometimes moans or hums. Okay, Sammy,” and I put him on the bed, where he rolls over on his back, stretches, wants to be petted. “What about the glasses?” rubbing Sammy’s stomach.

“My eyeglasses. Got scratched, so I couldn’t use them anymore along with everything else going — wallet, keys, etcetera. Good thing I wasn’t also schlepping my one and only typewriter tonight or—”

“If they got your keys and wallet—”

“Only one man did and he wasn’t connected to the two who clubbed me, or receivered me, since that’s what it should be called. While one man held my arms back the other hit me with a receiver that had been cut from a pay phone. But the man who stole my coat with most of those things in it was just standing there — I thought another innocent observer who was going to watch me get receivered to death — after I’d stepped in to help this newsguy in his stand who was being roughed up and robbed.”

“Still, aren’t you afraid he’s not right this moment unlocking your door? He has your address and keys.”

“That’s what I told the policemen. They said to get a locksmith, but the phone numbers of all-night locksmiths they gave me and some others in the phonebook either didn’t answer or were answering machines or the two who did answer said they’d only open my door if I paid them cash on the line.”

“Then you shouldn’t have told the second one you had no cash till he opened it.”

“He might’ve got mad. You can’t get away with something like that in this city at one or two in the morning, and you ever see the tools locksmiths have? I’ve nothing to steal anyway except an old manual typewriter, twenty-dollar radio, lots of classical records with no player, and those other books of Hasenai’s and what I’ve already translated of them, which he’d never take or any of his pals would if he gave them my keys.”

“They won’t know you’ve nothing to steal till they get there. Then they’ll turn over your apartment looking for what you don’t have or they think you’re hiding and all the translations you’ve done could be destroyed.”

“I doubt anyone will come. Why wouldn’t they also think I got in with a spare key someplace and then bolted the door or had the money to have the lock changed tonight? And the guy who grabbed my coat off the sidewalk, where I threw it to defend myself more easily, was an elderly derelict and saw how furiously I defended myself once I got receivered on the head, so I’m sure he’ll be happy with just the coat and the wallet he didn’t expect to be in it.”

“After all you’ve gone through tonight, or say you did—”

“I did. If you saw me you’d know.”

“You’re a mess?”

“Worse. But nothing spilling out or that hasn’t dried by now, so I’ll live if I can find a place to bunk down.”

“I’m sure you will. But the police. They can’t take the door off for you or the lock?”

“The lock cylinder and they couldn’t because all the proof I had on me that I lived there was in the wallet. And to get the proof I have inside that I lived there, I needed proof on me that I lived inside.”

“Then this. You can’t expect me to do more. I’ll loan you enough cash to pay a locksmith to open the door.”

“Too late for that now, but thanks. Because ‘all-night’ doesn’t mean all night for them or to the two who answered.”

“I’ll make other calls for you. Meanwhile, you should start getting up here. I’ll find one, but you can’t just stay on the street.”

“Excuse me,” the operator says, “please deposit ten cents—”

“Miss, Miss,” I say, but she keeps talking and then begins repeating the message. “Give me your number there, Dan, quick.”

“Three-two-six, or eight — got that?” he says over the recorded voice. “One-zero, eight or nine I think it is — yes, eight or nine, and then eight. Thirty-two, six or eight, ten eight or nine. And then eight.”

“Give it again. I think I have it but—”

We’re cut off.

“326(8) 108(9)8,” I wrote on Leonard’s title page. I pick up the receiver, put it down. It’s too crazy. And he’s got to be lying. Head, phone, locksmiths, newsguy, coat snatcher, numbers scratched out, one and only book and so on, and I drop the manuscript and pen on the floor and shut the light, hoping he won’t call back. He does, I’ll say “No, goodnight,” hang up, pull the plug out of the jack and go to sleep.