The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction on Tor.com

by Various

  I climb the stairs and the steps go creak-creak-creak, because they are made of old tired wood. I feel sad for these stairs, for they bear a lot of feet and soon they will retire like Madame Rosa. It is enough to bring tears to my eyes. Then I decide the tears come from inhaling Carl's chemicals, because it is not natural to consider a stairway's feelings. I think it is time to go into an upstairs room and open the window. That is where I am, taking the air, when a doll comes in.

  She is a cute little doll, more than somewhat. If she goes into show business, she can be the lead singer at the Hot Box and not even have to sing if she does not wish to. She can just stand onstage, and every guy will applaud. This is a doll who can walk down Wall Street and get twenty proposals of marriage, even on a Sunday. She is the type of doll who can marry a banker, run off with a saxophone player, and if she returns, the banker will take her back. This is the Babe Ruth of dolls, the Empire State Building, though she is short and weighs maybe ninety pounds with her hat on.

  I cannot remember ever seeing this doll, and she is not the type of doll I forget. But I hear talk of a new doll at Madame Rosa's, and many guys say she is the cat's meow. I pay no attention because every new doll at Madame Rosa's is called the cat's meow. This time, however, it seems more than just talk, and more than just meowing.

  The only reason for this doll to be here is that she runs when the spaceman starts shooting, but now she is back for some article she leaves behind. I guess she comes up the rear stairway because I hear no creak-creak-creak, and anyhow, if she meets Carl in the front lobby, he will tell her to keep out and not to walk across his fresh-mopped floor.

  "Hello," I say and introduce myself. She says hello too and tells me to call her Kitty.

  Usually when I meet such a doll, I will shoot the breeze with her as long as I can. Tonight, however, Mr. J. Edgar Hoover may already be riding a train from Washington, D.C. to Penn Station, and the train may have one car for bloodhounds and another for scientists or the other way around. I also cannot forget that guys will soon deliver certain materials that I need for all the trimmings, and these are not the type of materials to leave unguarded. I tell Kitty, "If you are here to pick up something, it is best you get it and go. This is not a place to be an hour from now."

  She says, "Where can I go? I am new in town. I have no friends I can stay with."

  I nearly say if she walks down Wall Street, she will have twenty friends to choose from. But on second thought, I do not want her to leave. I spend time with dolls off and on, but more off than on, since many guys have better clothes and fuller pockets than me. My last doll leaves me for a shoe salesman, and it is a hard blow when a doll decides you are lower than a guy who spends all day on his knees. Kitty, however, gives me a hopeful smile as if I am the guy to solve her problems. She is not the only doll at Madame Rosa's who uses such smiles, but I can almost believe it is her natural face and not something she practices in the mirror. "All right," I say, "stick around. I have a little work to do, but when I finish, we will go to Jack Fogarty's for a sip of the old grape and you can tell me your life story."

  She gives me another smile and I decide I will go downstairs to gather all the roses and cupcakes, and I will bring them to Kitty so she will smile at me again. However, when I get downstairs, everything is gone and Carl says it is in trash cans. Usually, I am glad Carl works fast, but tonight it is more irksome than somewhat.

  Carl tells me the trash cans are in my truck parked out front. I think maybe I can check the cans to see if the wrapped-up nylons and bottled-up champagne are still good after a visit to the trash. But the spaceman is in one of the trash cans too, and he will drip green blood on everything. A doll like Kitty may be offended by gifts with space blood on them, so I will have to wait and find something she appreciates.

  Carl says a delivery came for me and it is waiting behind the candy counter. When I look, I see two wooden crates. One is stuffed with feather pillows and one is not. The one without pillows holds twenty sticks of dynamite. The other holds four bottles of nitro, which are put to bed on nice soft pillows because nitro gets sore if someone wakes it accidentally.

  The dynamite and nitro will be the trimmings at the end of the sweep. First, Carl cleans everything he can, so there is almost nothing Mr. Hoover can find. Then I add the finishing touch, for in the Great War, Uncle Sam teaches me how to clean things the army way. This is why Carl and I can beat the bloodhounds and scientists: first we clean nicely, then we clean hard. If you do not believe me, ask Shiv-Eye Sam, who is a free man thanks to my services.

  So I pile the explosives in the middle of the lobby, while Carl wipes up the last smears of icing and rose petals. I once ask Carl if he cares that he makes things spick-and-span, then I make them explode. He says he does not mind because cleaning never lasts, no matter what. In fact, Carl says when something gets dirty after he cleans it, he is happy because he can clean it again. Then, after he cleans some building a zillion times, it finally falls down, if not from nitro, then from termites or wrecking balls. This does not make Carl blue, because there is always something to clean somewhere else.

  From this, you can see Carl is a philosopher of cleanology. I like listening to his ideas but I can never repeat them, for the guys at Mindy's do not welcome discussions of philosophy. However, being in the cleaning business myself, I am glad that the profession has depths.

  I get the explosives ready, then I have a thought. Maybe Kitty will enjoy being the one to set off the blast. I know several dolls who ask, "Can I fire your equalizer?" and we go down to the dump and I help hold their arms steady and they shoot at tin cans or even rats. Some dolls laugh, all nutty with excitement. I imagine Kitty laughing and going nutty, and that will indeed be something to see. Furthermore, blasting a building may excite a doll even more than blasting a can of tomatoes. So I make a few changes to my setup, and when I am done I have a very long fuse such as Kitty can light from a safe distance.

  "Are you finished?" I ask Carl.

  He says he still has things to do, but I know they will not matter. Carl swings a broom faster than any man alive, but when everything is as clean as my pockets after a poker game, Carl keeps finding dust that only he can see. He will spend hours swabbing woodwork with a toothbrush. I always tell Carl when he is through, because he never admits enough is enough. I look around Madame Rosa's lobby and see everything shining like a dancer's tiara. "This is jake," I say to Carl. "You can go back to Macy's. But stay ready in case we get another call. In other cities, spacemen shoot up many establishments like Madame Rosa's, so we may soon get more business."

  Carl asks, "Does anyone know what these spacemen are up to?"

  "Many guys will give you answers," I say, "but they are talking through their hats. Nobody knows why spacemen come all the way from Mars or Jupiter just to kill dolls who are friendly for cupcakes. Maybe a spaceman boss loses his doll to a busboy, and it drives him screwy. He shoots all the dolls on Jupiter, but it does not make him feel better, so he sends his spacemen here to shoot some more."

  "That is bad," Carl says, looking grim. I never see Carl look this way. He never laughs, but never frowns either. Philosophers do not get worked up. But now Carl turns as sober as an undertaker and says, "This spaceman boss must stop. He is breaking rules."

  I say, "Do not worry, Carl, I am talking through my hat like everyone else. I just invent this spaceman boss. Go back to your job and if we get another call, I will send Nine Toes Jackie to fetch you."

  Carl still looks down in the mouth, but he packs up and leaves. I wait for him to go, then I head upstairs creak-creak-creak. I have the fuse in my hand because I want to say to Kitty, "Guess what this is." When she cannot guess, we will follow the fuse all the way downstairs and when we get to the bottom I will put my hands over her eyes. I will lead her into the middle of the lobby and she will keep guessing until I take my hands away and she sees the pile of dynamite. I will say, "Surprise!," and maybe she will be scared, but I think she will get excited
once she understands. She will light the fuse, then we will drive a safe distance away in my truck and watch the fireworks.

  That is my plan. The fuse is long enough to reach Kitty's room, but when I get there, I do not say, "Guess what this is." I say nothing because it is like I forget how Kitty looks, and I see her again for the first time. I do not remember how big her eyes are. I do not remember how well she fits under her hat. I remember she is cute and a dish and an eyeful, but I do not recall that the sight of her makes me stop breathing. It is a good thing the fuse does not light in my hand without a match.

  I can gawp at her forever, except I hear a creak-creak-creak coming up the stairs. I look down the corridor, and who do I see but a guy wearing a green fedora like Shiv-Eye Sam's and a face no different from the spaceman outside in a trash can. This is not the same guy because he has no bullet holes, but maybe spacemen all are twins, or turned out on assembly lines like Mr. Ford's Model Ts.

  The spaceman walks with his hands out, palms forward, as if he is blind and worries he will bump into a wall. His palms glow red like the tip of a cigarette. I only see the glow for a second, because as soon as the guy turns my direction, he stops holding out his palms and instead reaches fast under his jacket. I know what he is reaching for because I am reaching for the same thing. I am also ducking inside Kitty's room so that when the spaceman goes bangity-bang-bang-bang, I do not inhale any bullets.

  Some guys might say I have an edge in this situation, because I am inside a room and shooting around the doorway, while the spaceman is in an open corridor. Furthermore, the spaceman does not take cover, but runs down the hall towards me without even dodging side to side. On the other hand, I plug the spaceman with all my shots, and he is not even somewhat impressed. In fact, it is like I am shooting a railway train, which keeps rolling down the track despite the little holes I make in it. When my Roscoe is empty, I just have time to slam the door and turn the bolt before the spaceman begins pounding on it with the butt of his pistol.

  "Kitty," I say, "it will please me no end if this room has a fire escape."

  "Why, yes it does," she says.

  She stands beside the window, looking out. The window is up all the way, the way I myself open it earlier. "Out you go," I tell Kitty. "As fast as you can." I help her over the sill, but Kitty is not dressed for speedy climbing, owing to tightnesses of clothing with which I formerly have no beef. I wish to make her go more quickly but cannot think of how to do that without being fresh. I do not wish to be fresh because it is important to treat a doll like a lady.

  Since I cannot make Kitty hurry, I run back to the door and lean against it to prevent the spaceman from bashing his way in. We are lucky this guy does not think to shoot off the lock, but perhaps they do not have locks on Jupiter. The spaceman just beats on the door, and the door is good and solid, for in Madame Rosa's it is not unusual for guys to beat on doors, yelling at the dolls inside. Madame Rosa makes sure her doors are strong, but even so, I do not know how long this one will last, as the spaceman hammers the wood with his equalizer. I look around for a chair I can prop under the knob, when I catch sight of something I forget in all the excitement: the fuse. I do not remember dropping it, but there it is on the floor, running under the door and back to the lobby.

  There may be reasons not to light this fuse, just as there are reasons to go to church instead of crap games, but I am such a guy as prefers to roll the dice. I pull out my Ronson and flick up a flame which starts the fuse fizzing. Then I run to the window in the hope that Kitty is finally on the ground. She is close enough. As I squirrel down the ladder, I think of the spaceman seeing the fuse come burning under the door. He can put out the fuse if he wants, but maybe this is another thing they do not have on Jupiter, and he will let it burn because he does not know better.

  The fire escape puts us down in an alley. I tell Kitty, "We wish to be farther from Madame Rosa's. Let us get to my truck and drive elsewhere as quickly as we can."

  Kitty does not try to argue or ask questions. She is the best kind of doll. I take her arm and hurry her away, but I keep my ears open because I expect to hear the spaceman clanking down the fire escape any second. The sound does not come, and I no longer hear him banging on the door. Maybe the spaceman finally gets into Kitty's room and is now standing dumb, trying to puzzle out where we are. It is hard to believe this spaceman does not know we leave through the window, but Shiv-Eye Sam has a guy who cannot outthink a loaf of bread, and still this guy performs all Sam's errands. New York bosses are often partial to guys with no thoughts in their noggins. Maybe the spaceman boss is like that too.

  Kitty and I circle to the front of the building. I see that Carl parks my truck right outside Madame Rosa's door, and this puts me into a quandary. Having your truck as close as possible is good when you are carrying heavy trash cans, but not when there is a stack of explosives inside the lobby and when you do not know if the fuse is still burning or how much time is left. "Kitty," I say, "it is best if you walk to the far corner, or maybe a block beyond. I will bring my truck to pick you up." Once again, Kitty smiles and goes along with what I say. She is truly a peach and a half. She walks up the street to where she will be safe, while I hurry to my truck and get in.

  I am just about to start the engine when Madame Rosa's front door slams open. The spaceman is there and he holds up his hands, palms out like he did before. His palms glow as bright as two stoplights, and he turns in the doorway, aiming himself this way and that as if he is searching for something.

  Then comes a light much brighter than stoplights, and a bang accompanies it, loud enough to break an elephant's eardrums. The fuse has run its eight furlongs, so now the dynamite and nitro provide a big photo finish. They blow the spaceman out the doorway as if he is the man in the circus who gets shot from the cannon, and he sails across the street to smack a building on the other side. I do not actually see him hit, because I am too busy seeing the windows of my truck break into a zillion pieces. The guy who sells me this truck tells me it has safety glass, but if so, it is the same type of safety you get from safe bets with Five Ace McQueen. I am cut more than somewhat and covered with chunks of windshield. On the other hand, although the truck rocks as hard as a cradle swung by Big Butch, it does not actually tip over. It steadies on its wheels, and the engine even starts when I give it a try.

  I do a U-turn and am heading to pick up Kitty when I see the spaceman lying in the street. Six bullets from my rod failed to slow him, but twenty sticks of dynamite do not take no for an answer. I hop from the truck and sling the guy's body in the back, because this is one more thing I do not wish Mr. J. Edgar Hoover to find. Then I go collect Kitty and we leave the vicinity, since cops and firemen will soon arrive, and as a good citizen, I do not wish to get in the way of their duties.

  * * *

  Kitty and I end up in Jack Fogarty’s speakeasy, with the truck parked in Jack's back alley. A truck missing its windows and burned black on one side is not something to leave on the open street, especially when the truck contains items you prefer to hide from the police. Fortunately, the police never notice anything in Jack's back alley. It is like Jack's alley is invisible to them, which is a remarkable phenomenon some professor ought to investigate. Anyway, this is not the first time I put my truck behind Jack's due to adverse circumstances, and Jack is happy to have it there, in exchange for a parking fee.

  My fee also buys me a table, where Kitty and I get to know each other. The table is in a dark corner, but every guy in the club keeps looking at Kitty like she is under a spotlight. At first, this makes me hot under the collar, but soon I forget everyone else except Kitty. I believe her perfume really is French.

  We talk about everything. I do not speak easily to persons of a female nature, but with Kitty, words flow like Niagara Falls. Also like Niagara Falls, it only runs in one direction. Every time I say, "So tell me about yourself," somehow I end up spilling more of my own story and hearing none of hers.

  Finally, I say, "Kit
ty, if you are new on our Island of Manhattan, where do you come from?" She says she travels here and there doing this and that, from which I conclude she is maybe no stranger to establishments like Madame Rosa's and this is something she prefers not to discuss. Looking at her, I do not care how many cupcakes she eats before she meets me and I tell her so. I am just interested in what she does, where she goes, and such. So she tells me she has just come from Atlantic City, and before that Cincinnati, and before that Chicago.

  "Oh," I say. Those are the same cities where spacemen make their calls, and as soon as Kitty gets to New York, the spacemen come too. I remember the spaceman out front at Madame Rosa's, and how his palms go as red as the light on a police car when it races in pursuit of persons of interest. "Kitty," I say, "do you think the spacemen are chasing you?"

  She says, "That is goofy. I am a perfectly ordinary human and spacemen cannot be interested in me."

  Before you can say, "Speak of the devil," a guy walks in wearing a green fedora. I do not wish to keep encountering this individual. I am running out of trash cans. Furthermore, there is a limit on the number of shootouts that can happen in public places before someone gets hurt. As if to illustrate this point, the guy in the green fedora pulls out a John Roscoe and fires it, taking off a citizen's ear. Luckily, it is only a waiter and not a good waiter at that, because once I order a juniper sundae from him and he does not understand what I mean.

  Still, letting loose with a Roscoe in Jack Fogarty's is an impolite thing to do. Jack's patrons disapprove of bad manners, and those who carry their own Roscoes, which includes everybody, all pull out their pieces and return fire. This makes for a heated atmosphere, because after many hours of imbibing this and that, most citizens do not aim carefully when they shoot. It is good that Kitty and I sit in a corner, for only a few bullets come our way and they are just casual passers-by with no bad temper behind them. Still, accidents happen, so I hurry Kitty out the back door.