Comfort Station

by Donald E. Westlake

  On the floor, beneath the twentieth mattress, there was found a single pea.

  No one said anything at the time, but Carolina noted the glances she received the rest of that schoolday, and fortunately had the presence of mind to report the incident to her parents that evening.

  Her father turned white—not that he’d ever really been red. Putting down his dinner shovel, “We are undone,” he said. And, “We must flee.”

  Suiting action to words, the family fled that very night to Paris, where all became cab drivers, until the onslaught of the Nazi hordes forced them once more to flee, this time across the mighty Atlantic Ocean to the New World, where the family members split up, each finding his own niche in the Land of Opportunity. Carolina’s father became a famed Hollywood director, the man who did the gypsy number in the middle of every Abbott and Costello movie, until the castanets drove him insane and one memorable day he flung himself and his Stutz Bearcat into the sea off Big Sur.

  Carolina’s mother became an internationally known Washington hostess and also had a nice line of frozen cookies. Her older brother went into psychiatry and was never seen again, the younger brother opened a factory which supplies pencils to William F. Buckley, and the family prefers not to discuss Carolina’s sisters. As to Carolina herself, she became an aircraft and engine mechanic out at Kennedy International Airport, crossroads of a million private lives, most of them at the same time.

  And she married. Oh, it seemed like a good idea at the time, when big, bluff, handsome Derek Weiss came into her life. Looking at him across the table in the candle-lit restaurant, she thought, He’s a man. He’s all man. Perfectly true, and she was a woman. And so they got married.

  Perhaps it would have been all right if they’d had children. Perhaps it would have been all right if they’d had more in common. But there she was in her Eastern Air Lines coveralls out to Kennedy Airport, and where was Derek? Derek, a high-powered attorney, was usually down in Washington arguing cases before the Supreme Court, crossroads of a million private lives.

  But it might still have been all right if big, bluff, handsome Roland Redwing hadn’t come into her life. Looking at him across the table in the candle-lit restaurant, she thought, He’s a man. He’s all man. True again, and she was still a woman. And so they went to a lot of motels, crossroads of a million private lives.

  What she didn’t know, of course—and it’s a violation of point-of-view to tell this but what the hell—what she didn’t know was that Roland Redwing was a confirmed bigamist, a man who traveled from city to city, from state to state, taking lonely wealthy women away from their husbands, marrying them, and leaving them sadder, wiser, and much, much poorer. Under a wide variety of aliases, Roland Redwing was wanted in every state in the Union and several European nations as well. Roland Redwing really was the crossroads of a million private lives.

  And Roland Redwing, at this very moment, was in custody out in Merrick, Long Island, having been spotted by an alert rookie cop who’d recognized him from his wanted poster at the station. (Actually, the alert rookie cop had thought he was arresting Milton “Mad Dog” Mendelsohn, who did bear a superficial resemblance to Roland Redwing—they both had receding foreheads—and by the time Roland realized the mistake he’d already given up and confessed all.)

  None of this, howsomever, did Carolina know, and so she continued to sit in the cramped stall with her valpack and wait for Roland, believing he would get here at any moment and the two of them would flee together forever to the sunlit Caribbean with all of Derek’s money, which was in the valpack.

  Entering the men-only Comfort Station had not been at all difficult, as Roland had promised. Disguising her femininity by wearing a set of love beads around her neck, Carolina had simply worn her own clothing and hair, and had entered with no questions asked, and none answered. And now here she was.

  And where, she wondered, was Roland?

  6:15 P.M.

  FINGERS FOGELHEIMER LOOKED AT his watch: it was five minutes to six. Taking advantage of the rush-hour confusion all around him, Fingers hurried across the sidewalk, carrying his attaché case, and ducked into the Bryant Park Comfort Station. Had he been seen by any of the boys? He didn’t think so.

  In the attaché case, filling it so the sides of the case bulged like the body of a hippopotamus, was a manuscript. Fingers Fogelheimer had written it, evenings and weekends over the last three years, whenever he had a moment or two away from his regular job, which was one-of-the-boys in the Flatbush-Canarsie mob. Now the manuscript was done, a publisher was eagerly waiting to publish it, a paperback house was eagerly waiting to reprint it, and a motion-picture company was eagerly waiting to make a movie reminiscent of it. And they would all pay, pay through the nose. Fingers Fogelheimer had finally hit it big.

  If he wasn’t caught first by the boys.

  Eustace “Fingers” Fogelheimer had grown up with your usual disadvantaged background leading so often to crime, as it had done in this particular instance as well. That his father was a drunk was Fingers’ first clue to his probable future, and his mother’s improbable sweetness, endless patience, and voluminous bromides served as a strong confirmation. Still, Fingers hoped he might yet be the exception that proved the rule—as his mother might have put it—until that fateful day when’ he’d come home to discover his brother had become a priest. From that moment, Fingers Fogelheimer knew his doom was sealed: the very next day, he went and joined the Flatbush-Canarsie mob.

  Through the years, being one of the boys had been a generally okay way to make a living, and if it hadn’t been for this manuscript now bursting the bonds of this attaché case, no doubt Fingers would have gone on with the mob right up till retirement. Unfortunately, however, Fingers tended to be a brooder, and one of the things he tended to brood about was the bad press that organized crime kept getting from the newspapers.

  “If the general public understood the situation,” he used to brood, “they wouldn’t bad-mouth us like this all the time.” But of course the general public didn’t really understand the situation, and how could they? Who had ever explained to the general public just what the situation was?

  Then one day, Fingers thought: “Why not me?”

  Why not indeed? Pursuing the thought, Fingers realized he could write a book, a big fat book that would explain the situation to the general public. But how to get the general public to read this big fat book? That was the problem. The general public usually tended to shy away from big fat books that explained the situation. Any situation.

  Then one day, Fingers had an inspiration: “I’ll make believe it’s a novel!”

  And thus it came about. The novel, titled Underworld, ran seven million words and completely explained the situation. And never stopped pretending it was a novel.

  What Fingers did was, he took all the different kinds of problems and crises that could possibly arise in the different facets of the mob’s operation, and he pretended that all of these crises had occurred at the exact same time, over the same three-day period. Watching the different facets of the mob react to all of these crisis situations, the book demonstrated just how the mob was organized and what its operations were like.

  As to the characters in the book, Fingers decided to give them all problems at home, very middle-class middle-aged problems so that the middle-class middle-aged people who would read the book would be able to identify with the characters, which saved a lot of trouble in developing characterization. Switching back and forth from character to character, and within each character’s section switching back and forth between the mob crisis and the personal problem, Fingers gradually developed a panorama of the modern world a hundred miles wide and a silly millimeter deep.

  Unfortunately, just as he was about to deliver the final draft of the manuscript, some of the mob bigwigs found out about the book—publishers and mob bigwigs play bridge together all the time, that’s how they found out—and got it into their heads it was an exposé. Fingers tried to expl
ain it wasn’t an exposé, it was simply a matter of trying to demonstrate to the general public some of the problems and difficulties being faced by their men in organized crime, but the mob bigwigs couldn’t see it that way, and Fingers had just narrowly escaped with his life and his manuscript.

  And now he was on the run. If he could get to his publisher’s office, he knew he’d be safe. In the meantime, he had taken cover here in the Bryant Park Comfort Station, where he would lie low for an hour or two until the boys drifted away to look for him in some other part of the city.

  Looking around, Fingers saw nothing very interesting. Through a door, he could see one bozo sitting on a chair in a closet, counting paper towels. Another bozo was standing at the sinks, his hands in warm water, his expression glazed as he mumbled at his reflection in the mirror.

  What about the stalls? He could see feet under the doors of numbers 1, 2, and 5. Down at the far end was Number 8: he went down there, toting the attaché case, and locked himself inside.

  7:00 P.M.

  AN OVERVIEW OF THE Bryant Park Comfort Station would be a difficult thing to achieve, though one might climb one of the none-too-sturdy-looking trees in Bryant Park. But still, there would be the roof in the way. And today, with the third day of rain drenching an already-drenched city, the people inside could be grateful for that roof, you may be sure of that.

  But let us, in imagination, strip away that roof and view the Bryant Park Comfort Station from above, seeing all the actors in today’s drama at once, each in his or her specified place in the scheme of things, in the construction of a tapestry the complexity of which probably isn’t at all appreciated or understood by the general public.

  Well. Be that as it may. Looking down at this point from on high, we see below us the magnificent central office of the New York Public Library, with its stone lions out front. And behind: Bryant Park, extending from the rear door of the library westward to Sixth Avenue, and from the south side of West 42nd Street southward to West 40th Street. (There is no West 41st Street here, though there is elsewhere in Manhattan, which really gets the out-of-towners. Such fun!)

  However. Narrowing the range of our bird’s-eye view, we see, along the northern perimeter of Bryant Park, just off the West 42nd Street sidewalk, the small square stone building we have come to know and love during these many months together, the Bryant Park Comfort Station. Without its roof. Or that is to say, with an invisible roof, so the people inside don’t get rained on.

  Ah, the people inside. Gazing down through the invisible roof, we see Mo Mowgli hard at work in the storage closet, back bowed with responsibility. Out in the main operations area, Arbogast Smith has switched his station back to the “urinals” again and is standing there with his forehead pressed against the cool tile as he mumbles to himself. In Stall Number 1, clutching his satchel to his chest and wondering when on earth Floozey is going to arrive, is the absconding bookkeeper, Herbert Q. Luminous. Unknown to him, in the very next stall, the one numbered 2, clutching her valpack to her chest and wondering when on earth Roland is going to arrive, is Carolina Weiss, former Russian countess now A & E mechanic, who has no idea of the existence of Herbert Q. Luminous one scant partition away. Stalls 3 and 4 do not concern us, but in Stall Number 5, clutching his diamond-studded chest to his chest and wondering when it will be safe to amscray out of here, sits onetime dictator now amateur transit specialist General Ramon San Martinez Tortilla, knowing nothing of the occupants of stalls 1 and 2. (And what is that he is writing on the stall walls, over and over, his expression wistful and sad? GUACAMOLE.) Tippy-toeing past stalls 6 and 7, we come to Stall 8, where, clutching his attach case to his chest and knowing nothing of any of the other dramas being played out in this small building today, Fingers Fogelheimer waits for the protective blanket of darkness to blanket him protectively so he can make his life-and-death dash for his publisher’s office over on Third Avenue.

  But what is this? The scene shifts to the street outside the Comfort Station: the Crosstown bus has once more safely threaded the perils of Metropolis and is coming to a safe and sane stop at the curb. Fred Dingbat, still filling in for the absent Seward Looby, has completed his thirteenth consecutive hour at the controls of the mighty GM Citycruiser, and is ready to go on as long as the emergency requires him to stay in the driver’s seat. Pride and training tell, as they always do.

  But what is this? Off Fred Dingbat’s bus, this trip, and into the rain which is pelting down onto the city from the sky, which is above the city, drenching an already-drenched city, step four swarthy men in London Fog raincoats. All have pencil moustaches. They stand on the soaked sidewalk as Fred Dingbat steers the mighty omnibus back into the swirl of evening traffic. Rain dribbles down the backs of their necks.

  But what is this? A shadowy figure separates itself from the shadowy figures of trees in Bryant Park. A swarthy man in a London Fog raincoat with a pencil moustache, he hurries quickly to the little group of swarthy men in London Fog raincoats with pencil moustaches, and the five converse together in rapid undertones. In Spanish.

  But what is this? The five figures turn as one man. They move as one man to the entrance to the Bryant Park Comfort Station. They enter as one man. Then they become five men again, separating, spreading out in all directions through the room like a group of men spreading out through a room.

  One of them bumps inadvertently into Arbogast Smith, whom he had taken to be a phantasmagoria. “It was a long time ago that I remembered my mother got the phone call …” Arbogast began, but the man cut him off with a guttural “Por favor, gringo.”

  Within Stall Number 5, General Tortilla, half-dozing, came suddenly alert at the sound of his native tongue. Bending way down, a tough thing for a little fat guy like that to do, he peered under the bottom of the door. “Madre Dios!” he exclaimed under his breath when he saw the five swarthy men in London Fog raincoats with pencil moustaches who had spread out in all directions through the room.

  Sitting up again, General Tortilla pondered his future, which was beginning to look shorter than his past, and much less imponderable. What to do?

  Well, the first thing to do was get rid of the diamonds. They would definitely prove he’d intended to run away. Without them, he just might be able to talk his way out of all this.

  To think was to act. General Tortilla at once ripped all the diamonds out of all the decorations spread all over his chest, and when he was done he had a thick fistful of diamonds. But what to do with them? Swallow them? No: it would take too long, and might be dangerous to the digestive tract.

  Hide them, then. Looking this way and that in the narrow stall, General Tortilla discovered that at just about head height in the wall behind him one tile was loose. Swiftly removing it, he discovered behind it an open space just large enough for the diamonds. Swiftly placing the diamonds in the open space, he swiftly returned the tile to its original position and swiftly assured himself the tampering did not show. Perhaps, he promised himself, someday he would be able to return for those diamonds.

  But what is this? Unknown to General Tortilla, he has placed the diamonds on a two-by-four cross-stud which slants down just slightly to the left. The diamonds having been jiggled when the general replaced the tile, they now begin to roll along the two-by-four, one at a time and then two and three and four, until all are rolling slowly down the slight incline of the two-by-four, only to be stopped by a pair of heavy nails incompletely driven through the piece of wood, so that a portion of each nail still jutted above the ligneous surface, just far enough to stop the motion of the diamonds.

  But what is this? Within Stall Number 2, Carolina Weiss cocks her head. What sound is that she hears? A faint tock-tock-ing, like a one-handed clock, the noise coming from behind her. Turning her head, she noticed a loose tile, which she curiously removed.

  “Well, well,” Carolina murmured to herself. “Shiny mothballs!” Having a moth problem with her valpack, Carolina promptly removed the diamonds from the space behind th
e loose tile and stuffed them into the valpack.

  Meanwhile, the five swarthy men in London Fog raincoats with pencil moustaches have closed in on Stall Number 5, behind the door of which General Tortilla crouches, sweating behind his pencil moustache, waiting for the inevitable discovery.

  The door is flung open! “Just finishing!” the General cries gaily, emerging. “It’s all yours!” He makes for the exit.

  As one man, the five leap forward and knock General Tortilla flat.

  From his closet, Mo Mowgli comes promptly forward, prepared to deal with this emergency just as efficiently as any man with agonizing problems at home to distract him.

  From the urinals, Arbogast Smith approaches, not sure that felonious assault lies within his jurisdiction on this assignment, but feeling anyway that he should make his presence felt. Show the flag, as it were.