Rat-A-Tat: Short Blasts of Pulp

by Russ Anderson, Jr

  “Mac, look. Let’s end this farce. Miss Chopin is on your register. Therefore, I would say that the woman I am here to see is in this hotel.”

  That was it. Anyone who knew anything knew that our famous dame always checked into hotels using the name of Chopin. Her father’s favorite composer.

  “Sir, this is highly irregular—”

  I cut him off mid-sentence. “Ring her up Jeeves, or I go up myself.”

  Well, that must have done it. Because suddenly my adversary got a lift in his life and called up the woman who wasn’t there.

  “I’m sorry, sir… but there is no answer in Mrs. Rothman’s room.”

  “Well, try again.”

  “Really, we don’t treat our guests as such…”

  I leaned over the counter and looked my new favorite adversary in the face. “Well, try again!”

  As his pudgy fingers stabbed the phone dial I memorized the numbers he dialed. Before he gave me another lame excuse I proceeded to the elevator.

  “Sir! Sir! Where do you think that you’re going?”

  “I forgot to tell you, I’m actually from the health department and I had a report of weasels in this hotel. So, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll proceed upon my investigation.” I called back to him as I punched the top floor button to the suites.

  As the elevator door opened the little runt suddenly appeared at my side. I smiled as I looked down at him. Without the expanse of the front desk around him, he appeared even shorter to me.

  “Sir, this is highly irregular! You cannot just barge in our guests like this!”

  “Pal, like I told you before, I’m not barging in. She’s expecting me! I know it must be hard for you to fathom but I’m really not as repulsive as you think I am!”

  The runt took a deep breath as the elevator doors closed. “Sir, I regret to inform you that I will be forced to call Hotel security and even perhaps the police!”

  As he continued hyperventilating the doors opened and I proceeded out towards my destination, room 1304.

  Of course, when I reached the door the bulldog was breathing at my belt loops. I rapped on the door firmly. “Mrs. Rothman? It’s me, Jenkins.”

  No answer at the door. I rapped again.

  “Mrs. Rothman. Is everything all right?”

  Still no answer. I had no choice but to ask the bulldog for help.

  “Hey, Winfred. You got a key? This doesn’t seem right.” As I turned to address Mr. Personality I noticed the hotel dicks making a beeline towards me from down the hall.

  “Ahem. My name is not Winfred. And, of course I have a key. But if you think that I am going to let you—”

  I cut off Poindexter firmly. As I noticed the muscle closing in on me I figured I had to do something, and fast. It just didn’t feel right. This afternoon she was anxious to see me and now she wouldn’t answer the door. I had to get in there and I had to do it quick. I grabbed the runt around his tie with my right hand and I thrust my left in my jacket pocket and jabbed it in his gut.

  “Now, listen, Mortimer, or whatever you call yourself. I’ve got to get in that room. Got it? Now, either you let me in or I’ll have no choice but to pop that balloon you call a belly. Understand? Or do I have to spell it out to you?”

  I swear the air suddenly fouled as I delivered my message. Quickly, Llewellyn spoke.

  “Of course, of c-c-course sir. Allow me to open the door.” He fumbled with the keys as he looked at the security with a ‘back off’ look.

  Finally he opened the door and that’s where I found her on the bed.

  ***

  After I got done contemplating her dead body I made the scan of the room. Nothing looked out of place. There were no clothes strung out across the room, no empty bottles, not even an empty prescription container. The only thing in the room besides her dead body was the filled ashtray of cigarette butts.

  “Well, I hope you are satisfied Mr. Jenkins, is it? Our guest is dead. Apparently, by foul means, or perhaps you knew what we would find.”

  “Foul means, find? What are you implying Busby?”

  Tiny looked towards the muscle again. “Well, you obviously felt an urgent need to enter here. Who is to say that you didn’t set this up to feign innocence?”

  I laughed. Yes, I laughed loud and long. Willy here was definitely trying hard to pin this on me. I thought hard. If I didn’t come up with a motion otherwise he may have a point. I studied the room again and then I spotted it. It was a long shot but it was worth a try.

  “You mind if I have a smoke?”

  “Well, I suppose I couldn’t deny a man that.” Meanwhile he motioned towards his henchman waiting to pounce. As I reached for my cigarettes I underhandedly turned my cigarette case upside down and dumped what I had in my inside breast pocket.

  “Shoot. Looks I’m a tad absent minded. I’m all out. Say, you wouldn’t happen to have one. Would you?”

  Tiny looked at me sternly at first and then lightened up. “Certainly, Mr. Jenkins. Who am I to deny a guilty man?” As he spewed his diatribe he presented his cigarette case open to me.

  I took a cigarette from his case and held it between my fingers. As I pulled my lighter from my pocket my host eyed me steadily.

  “Thank you. I need this.” I struck the flint on my lighter and brought the cigarette to my nose. Yep, it was what I thought, a distinct odor hit my nose. I pretended to put the cigarette to my mouth and watched my host’s eyes. As much as he tried to hide it he smiled hard.

  Suddenly, I brought the cigarette from my mouth and closed the top of my lighter.

  “Nice. Now, do you want to tell me why?” I reached for my gun and leveled it at the clerk.

  “What? What do you mean? You’re mad! Mad! Security! Arrest this man!” the hotel dicks reached for their guns.

  “Boys, boys. Hang on. Give me a second. Will you? I’ll explain it all.”

  To their credit, they gave me a few. Now it was up to me.

  “You know, I thought it was a bit unusual when you wouldn’t let me come here. Then, I figured it out once I saw what was in here. You didn’t want me to see this. You know, you set it up well. There was nothing wrong with the room, not a thing. It looked as though she had just died. Then, then I noticed it. Now, I knew she was a smoker, but not that much. In fact, even though I didn’t know her I figured her for a casual smoker. You know the type; a dame that smokes just for the thrill of doing so, not because it was a habit, but because it was expected of her. So, when I came into the room I eventually noticed the ashtray and how it was more full than usual. As I did the calculations I knew there was no way she smoked that many cigarettes during the day, not with the way she only smoked occasionally. Especially without emptying the ashtray. It was then that I noticed that the cigarettes in the ashtray were not all the same. There were two distinct brands. And one brand was far less than the other.”

  Tiny started fidgeting badly now.

  “That’s when I figured to ask you for a cigarette. And, sure enough, you gave me the type of one that was solitary in the ashtray. Yep, the Camel that you gave me and her were tainted with poison. In fact, cyanide. I could tell by the odor, almonds. So, the only other question is why? Why would you poison her?”

  Myron started looking around nervously. “You’re nuts, you know that! Nuts! You’re right, why would I kill her? You’re the one who had to see her!”

  While he was starting to get more nervous I decided to go for broke. I walked over to the bed and reached out and touched the dead girl’s shoulder.

  “Don’t you dare touch her! You aren’t worthy! None of us are!” the runt started to scream at me.

  “None of us are? What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean, you deplorable troglodyte. No one!” with that Zippy leveled a small caliber at me. Figures that a small man would carry a small gun, but that’s another story.

  “Whoa… so, you did do this, didn’t you?”

  He furtively looked around, especially at the muscl
e. They, regardless of their blank looks, had finally begun to catch on and circle the noisy one. “No! I mean, yes! YES! I… I had to.” He faded off as he began his confession.

  His head dropped and his gun hand faded down. As I turned to look at him he suddenly came to alarmedly and leveled his gun once again at me.

  “Get away from her! She would never want you! No! She never wanted anyone! Especially not those of us who adored her!”

  I lifted my hand from the corpse slowly. As I surmised the area I figured that if necessary, I could take a hit from his pea shooter as long as it didn’t strike my vitals. I wanted to end this and quick. There was no telling what this madman could do. As he continued ranting I moved towards his right but he was quick. He caught me.

  “Where do you think you’re going? Huh? Let me tell you, she wouldn’t want you. Especially not you!”

  He waved his gun nervously around now. His eyes darted from the muscle back to me. I looked over at the boys and motioned them with my eyes. I figured as he rattled around I would gain my entry.

  When he turned to his left I purposely nudged the body. As he whipped around to see what was going on I saw my opening. I rolled my body in on him and blocked his gun hand. Before he could get a handle on what was happening I pinched the nerve above his wrist and caused him to drop his gun as I elbowed him across his jaw. He hit the floor like a sack of flour and the boys moved in to hold him.

  I picked up his pea shooter and stared him down as he struggled against the muscle’s holds.

  “So, come on. I figured it out. You had a thing for our girl. Didn’t you?”

  “Thing! Thing! Every two months she would come here. Every two months she would flirt with me and tell me that I was the only one who understood her, protected her! None of you meant anything. ANYTHING! That’s when I knew I had to protect her for good.”

  “For good? You mean?”

  “Yes, you stupid fool. For good from all of you, her worthless fans, her agent, the studios, her husbands, yes. All of you who pretend to understand and care for her.”

  With the weight of his confession leaving him he started to fade off. “No one can get to her anymore. No one…” I looked at the runt as the muscle dragged him off. Yep, you know, I could almost feel sorry for him. But, I won’t. Nope, he gets what all of them get. What he deserves.

  THE DOORMAN

  By Adam Lance Garcia

  Jim’s hands were gnarled wastelands of arthritis, the nails yellowed from decades of cigarettes. He kept all his teeth by the sheer grace of God, but his hair was thinning, the flattop buzzcut little more than a faded memory. His eyes were watery, pale blue grey only hinting at their once sharp turquoise. His skin was only tight around his midsection where the alcohol and bacon cheeseburgers had settled. The hotel changed his uniform every few years, and thus the prim black doorman’s suit was the only thing about Jim that could be called handsome. It was also the most uncomfortable thing he ever wore.

  “How long have you been with us, Jim?” the manager asked. He was a young kid, probably early fifties, Jim guessed. He came to the hotel from across town—from one of their competitors—to show them how to run a hotel. He had been there six months and Jim had watched him fire all the best spics and replaced them with chinks. Jim missed the days when it was only the micks he had to worry about. At least the hotel never hired any niggers.

  “Fifty-nine years, sir,” Jim said as politely as he could, wanting nothing more than to smash the fat young man’s face through a plate glass window. Jim felt this way about most people, but his hands weren’t what they used to be.

  The manager glanced at Jim’s file. He frowned. “You’ve been working here since you were sixteen?”

  Jim cracked a knuckle and nodded proudly. “Indeed, sir. The laws were less strict about a minor working the door than they are today. Started right after school.”

  “I take it you didn’t finish.”

  “No need, really. Not when I had a cushy job like this waiting for me.” Jim cracked another knuckle, relieving some of the pain. There wasn’t much else he could do about it.

  The doctor gave him some pills, but they were never strong enough. The bottle said take one a day, but he took five.

  “Mm. Of course.”

  The manager went on to ask him more questions. About Jim’s family; his hobbies. Jim didn’t have any family, not since the war. No pets, either; too much work. TV was the closest thing to a hobby, but these days there wasn’t ever anything good on. Jim wondered what it would look like if he popped the manager’s eyes out. The conversation was brief and the manager shook Jim’s twisted hand, thanked him for all his hard work and let him return to his shift.

  Most men would have left that meeting fearing for their jobs. Jim knew they wouldn’t fire an institution.

  He went outside for his eighth smoke of the day. It was only 9:50 in the morning.

  Jim was always disappointed when he went out to the street. When he was a boy the future promised him flying cars, but the cars still had wheels. The women’s skirts had gotten shorter, their collars lower, but Jim had no need for women.

  He lit his cigarette—Camels, the same brand he’d been buying since he was twenty-seven. He missed Joe Camel, but political correctness had ended the cartoon’s reign. Pity the pretty ones; they die so young.

  “Light?” a young man with a black mane of hair asked. He held out his cigarette tentatively. Jim noticed how well he dressed, a black suit with a white tie. Jim struck a match and lit the boy’s cigarette silently, watching how he breathed in the tobacco fumes.

  “Thank you,” the young man said. He measured Jim from top to bottom; Jim could feel his eyes and realized how much he liked how they felt. “You work here?”

  “Yes, sir. Almost sixty years.”

  “Mm. Quite a long time, eh? As a doorman, no less.”

  Jim took a long drag and shrugged. “Ain’t so bad. Easy enough. Don’t have to worry about nothing but the door.”

  The young man laughed. “No, I guess that’s true. But then again, we’re all worried about doors, aren’t we?”

  That didn’t make much sense to Jim, but Jim knew he wasn’t the brightest apple in the tree and laughed at it anyway. “I suppose we are,” he said.

  “Well, thank you for the light, my friend,” the young man said, turning away. Jim watched him walked a few feet before turning sharply to the left towards the hotel’s entrance. He went up to the door and looked to Jim with a lazy smile.

  “So, are you going to open the door for me or not?” the young man asked ruefully.

  Jim’s heart pattered and his eyebrows shot up. He threw down his cigarette and snuffed it out with his heel as rushed over to the entrance. “Yes, of course sir,” he said as he opened the door.

  The young man stepped into the lobby before half-turning back to Jim. “What’s your name, friend?”

  Jim bowed his head slightly. “Jim. Jim Craver, sir.”

  “Well, Mr. Craver, I shall see you around.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jim said with a toothy grin. “Yes you will, sir.”

  That night, for the first time in ages, Jim felt fire run through his loins. He enjoyed the sensation. As he lay on his back, his semen cooling on his spherical stomach, he tried to imagine the young man lying next to him, his white skin naked to the air, breathing heavily from pleasure, his ass sore from the fucking Jim had just given. Jim closed his eyes and sighed, it was a good dream. He wanted to whisper the man’s name until he realized he never learned it.

  “Tomorrow,” Jim said. “Tomorrow I’ll learn your name.”

  Jim got to work at the six the next morning.

  “What’s this you coming in so fucking early?” the tiny Mexican Jim dubbed “Sammy” said.

  “Got’s to make the rounds, Sammy, you know how it is. Big Boss Man wants us to look good. So I want to look good. Want to make him proud,” Jim said as he cracked his knuckles. He then unknowingly added, “I’m so nervous I even c
ut myself bad on the cheek.” Jim tried to wipe the scab away with a wet wad of toilet paper, successfully ripping open the wound so blood poured down the side of his face.

  “Jesus,” Sammy said, hissing as if he had suffered the cut himself, his eyes digging into the deep maroon scab. “You got to be more careful, Jim. Shit, with all them viruses and fuck flying around.”

  “Fine, fine, fine. Get your ass outside, doors need opening. I’ll be out. I’ll be out soon, sure that. Just one moment.”

  He stood in front of the mirror for a half hour, pressing wad after wad of toilet paper against the oozing wound until it finally stopped, leaving a large red welt on his face. It had been worse, he tried to remind himself as he went to the front door, it had been worse.

  The hours clocked by slowly and it was well into the afternoon before the young man finally came downstairs. Jim had already gone through his two packs by then; his lungs rattled and the blaze in the back of his throat refused to die. But he gave the young man a large yellow grin as he pulled open the door. The young man was wearing another handsome suit, perfectly tailored for his muscular form. Jim would have given anything to have been the man to have measured that body.

  “Good afternoon, sir.”

  “Afternoon, Mr. Craver. I see you’re on point today.”

  “Indeed, indeed, sir. Doorman’s gotta a job, they say, to worry about doors. Make sure you don’t. So, here you are, yes, off to a less worrisome day.”

  The young man smiled. “No, I won’t worry about these doors, Mr. Craver. Never worry about these doors. I’ve got my own to worry about. Bigger ones. Bigger ones with much behind them.”

  “If you ever need someone to worry about your doors, sir, you just give Jim a call. I will worry about your doors,” Jim said breathlessly.

  The young man smiled and placed a soft hand on Jim’s shoulder. “I will remember that Mr. Craver.”

  The touch shot through Jim, running down his system as if from a breaking dam.

  Jim watched the young man walk out through the front door, carefully observing how he reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a pack of smokes—Marlboros, Jim noted—and then place one thin white cigarette to his thin pale lips, lighting it with the grace of a movie star. Jim didn’t see the key fall out of the man’s pocket, but heard it’s chim-ching when it hit the ground. The young man never lost his stride, and by the time Jim ran out to pick up the key, the boy was gone—a wisp of smoke in the wind.