Читаем Fall and Rise полностью

“You want to speak to someone, on this floor, now?”

“Is this a public pay phone?”

“Yes. In a public hallway. You didn’t know when you called?”

“Is this three-two-six, ten eighty-eight?”

“It’s a senior citizen home, lady; you almost now made me break a leg answering this. I thought it was an emergency the way you rang.”

“I’m very sorry. Someone gave me this number for a Daniel Krin.”

“Maybe on another floor. Because I know all the first and last names on this one and Daniel and Krin aren’t it. This is the fifth.”

“Really, sir, I’m sorry for waking you up—”

“You didn’t. I was out walking; I couldn’t sleep.”

“I’m still sorry, but please answer me so I won’t have to call back and possibly disturb you again: is this three-two-six, ten eighty-eight?”

“I’ll say this much to you. You call that number again and I’m not in as good a position to answer it then, you’ll wake up everyone but the deaf and almost dead ones on this floor. The walls and doors are that thin, even if they were supposed to be built as, catch this, self-contained soundproof apartment like units. I know because I was one of the original tenants to move in to this papier-mâché house, but you can be sure the owners never thought I’d live this long to tell it.”

“Thank you. Goodnight and sleep well,” and I hang up.

I write on Leonard’s page, under the original phone number: “326-1098, 328-1098, 328-1088.” Only four? Thought there’d be more. I write all four numbers this time, original one first, which I cross out. Only four. Which should I dial next? Start with the second and if no answer or the wrong number, go down one more. I dial. Phone’s picked up on the first ring.

“Helene Winiker?”

“Hi. What took me so long was I dialed two of the other possible numbers—”

“Which one it turn out to be?”

“Twenty-six, ten ninety-eight.”

“That would’ve been the second number I called. But everyone’s got his own system. Yours next time might work on the first shot while mine would hit it on the fourth. Not that I’m complaining, now that you’re here.”

“The first number was always busy.”

“Then I would’ve gone right to the next one — and this is also no complaint — because the busy number never would’ve been mine.”

“I thought you might have found another dime in your pocket or borrowed one and were calling me or someone else. Anyway, I called the second number, but it didn’t answer, so I thought the second one not answering might be because you stepped away from the phone. So I called the busy one again and when it was still busy, called the one I thought you might have stepped away from—”

“Why would I have? I was waiting for your call.”

“I thought for something; I didn’t know for what. Hot coffee because you were cold.”

“I have no money.”

“I forgot. And it shouldn’t be me apologizing. Not you either—maybe—if you’re really in a hole. But still, when someone you don’t know calls you at two o’clock—”

“I know. I apologize. I didn’t mean to have you explain — I thought I was doing my best not to—”

“Anyway, the person who didn’t answer the first time, now answered, so I was right calling that number back. But he kept talking. It was a nursing home and I’d waked him and now he wouldn’t let me go, nor would he tell me if you were at this place — in the lobby, not in one of the living units upstairs — so that’s what also kept me so long. He was such a sad old man that I didn’t have the heart to hang up on him.”

“You were right. And I shouldn’t expect anything and I didn’t, but do appreciate that you called back. And you mentioned something about my being cold? Here comes my next big pitch for sympathy.”

“You are cold.”

“I’m freezing my life off out here, or the last two-fifths of it. It’s an enclosed booth, thank God — a relic of a distant civilization that still works, which won’t stop it from being torn out and made obsolete and maybe with me in it — but it’s still very cold. It’d be very very if the policemen hadn’t given me an old sweater they kept a few of in their car for such occasions. If it were up to me — if there were no disturbed souls out here — but I shouldn’t go on so holier-than-sanctimonious-thou about it. I won’t.”

“No — what about the disturbed souls?”

“If there were none out here, or homeless, myself excluded, I’d heat them — all these booths. Even if there are these people here — hell, let a disturbed homeless man sleep standing up or huddled on the floor of one, and even provided with a night’s food rations and a tissue packet with a space blanket in it and a Wash and Dry for an extra bit of cleanness and warmth.”

“And the vandals? All you need is to make those booths more inviting than they are. Not that I don’t sympathize with what you say, half serious as it was, and that we couldn’t talk seriously about how there should always be free homes for the homeless and food for the foodless and so forth. But let’s not. You’re cold and keyless and I’m exhausted and maybe to you heartless. But why didn’t you go inside to make your calls, if any places are open now?”