The Specialty of the House

by Stanley Ellin

  By this time everyone in the room had gathered around the table, silently watching. Not many understood the game, Mrs Meeker knew, but all could follow the progress of the pegs moving along the scoreboard – Yaeger’s red peg now far ahead, her white peg pursuing it feebly.

  They played out the deal swiftly, the tension rising around them. Yaeger turned over his cards. ‘Fifteen two, four, six, and a pair makes eight.’ The pegboard clicked merrily as he measured off his eight points.

  Mrs Meeker matched his score and sighed with relief that at least she had held her own for that deal. Now for the crib, the two discards from each player, which was tallied to the dealer’s score. It took only a glance for her to see that there wasn’t a point in it. It was as if Yaeger had read her mind. Perhaps he had. He knew she would be discarding recklessly to make up lost ground, and he was prepared for that.

  She changed her tactics. At the halfway mark she made a little headway; then a lucky deal came her way, a twenty-point hand, and now the white peg was only a short distance behind the red one.

  But no sign of concern showed on Yaeger’s face.

  ‘Fifteen two,’ he said, ‘and a pair makes four.’

  It was not his face she should have been watching as he pegged his score. It was Polly who said to him with surprise, ‘Oh, no, you’ve only made four points. You’ve given yourself five,’ and reached for the red peg.

  Yaeger’s hand caught Polly’s wrist in a sudden hard grip – how hard was easy to tell from her look of alarm. Then the grip was immediately relaxed. Yaeger showed his teeth in a smile. ‘I’m sorry, dear. I thought it was your mistake, but you were right. Go ahead, put the peg where it belongs.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Polly in a strange voice. ‘I will.’ And after she had done so, Mrs Meeker saw with gratitude, Polly no longer leaned tenderly close to the man, her hand on his shoulder.

  There was not much else to be grateful for. Yaeger, his face growing taut with strain, his eyes narrowed, discarded flawlessly and played his cards brilliantly. Mrs Meeker, knowing that she must look as drawn with strain, drew even with him, and that was all. One point from victory, the two pegs stood side by side.

  One point, thought Mrs Meeker as she watched him gather the cards together and prepare to shuffle them. One point, and winner take all. Then realization suddenly burst on her. One point was needed, and there were two points waiting for her if—

  She tried to turn her eyes away from those supple, beautifully manicured fingers riffling the cards, riffling them again, but they held her spellbound. Yaeger dealt the first cards across the table, and Mrs Meeker barely had strength to place a hand protectively over them.

  ‘Two points’ penalty for not offering me a chance to cut the deck,’ she said, feeling as if she were about to faint. ‘And that means game to me.’

  It took Yaeger a moment to comprehend what had happened. Then he rose from his chair. ‘You old biddy,’ he whispered, ‘you tricked me into that.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘You tricked me into it. That means the bet is off. Nobody wins and nobody loses.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Mr Yaeger. You lost and must pay. I learned long ago by bitter experience that one must always pay his gambling debts.’

  ‘All right, if that’s the way you want it, consider yourself paid. And since Polly and I are getting married, consider this money your wedding present to us. Now Mr Michalik will take care of it. He’ll be very unhappy otherwise.’

  ‘Who cares about that?’ said Polly furiously. ‘As for marrying you—’

  Her voice failed. In his hand Michalik was holding a gun. It was not very large and it was not flourished with menace, but it was clearly and indisputably a gun ready for use. And it was, Mrs Meeker saw, one of Polly’s huge football players who almost indifferently knocked the gun out of Michalik’s hand. Others, even bigger and brawnier than the first, surrounded Michalik and took ungentle charge of him.

  ‘Little man,’ said the biggest and brawniest, Frank or Billy or whoever he was, ‘the party’s over. It’s time for you to go.’

  Michalik struggled wildly and futilely as he was borne to the door; but he managed to point a quivering finger at Yaeger.

  ‘Not without him!’ he cried. ‘You hear me? Not without him. Just give him to me. That’s all I want.’

  The news of Edward Yaeger’s murder broke in the Miami Beach Journal a few days later. Mrs Meeker read it with equanimity; Polly seemed badly shaken by it. No matter, thought Mrs Meeker comfortably, she’s young and healthy, and with Duff Peabody on hand for solace, she’ll soon recover. For herself, she went down to the shore to enjoy the familiar scene with new zest.

  She was there when Duff came scrambling down the sandy slope to the beach, bringing with him a tall, shy young man who seemed uncomfortably conscious of being in the presence of royalty.

  ‘This is Detective Morissey,’ Duff said. ‘After I saw the paper this morning I had a long talk with him. He’s working on the Yaeger case and wants to hear your story about what happened the other night. He just booked Michalik for the killing, and he thinks he can land Leo August as the one who gave the orders for it, if Michalik can be made to talk.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Mrs Meeker. ‘And what about the money?’

  ‘Oh, it’s all yours, ma’am,’ said Detective Morissey earnestly. ‘I mean, unofficially speaking, there sure won’t be anybody else to claim it. You can take my word it’s all yours.’ Then he said with concern, ‘Ma’am, hadn’t you better come away from there? You don’t have any shoes on and those things can sting like fury.’

  Mrs Meeker raised her eyebrows at the man-of-war drifting toward her on the ripples of the placid sea.

  ‘Not at all,’ she said graciously. ‘Really, these creatures are no trouble at all when you know how to handle them.’

  The Day the Thaw Came to 127

  Every winter the tenants of Number 127 would develop an almost maniacal desire for heat, for the sound of steam pipes clanking and radiators singing, for the delicious feeling of warmth enfolding them, penetrating the very bone. It was bad enough other times of the year what with the paint peeling, the plaster falling, the electricity failing, the woodwork rotting, and the water leaking; but these were troubles which, taken one by one, could be lived with. The absence of heat in the winter, however, was regarded by the tenants of 127 as no mere trouble. It was a disaster.

  In all fairness to the landlord it must be said that he did permit a few pieces of coal to be thrown into the furnace each day. Not quite enough to keep the blood from congealing, perhaps, but at least enough to keep the water pipes from freezing. One could detect these periods by placing an ungloved hand on the radiator and finding the metal a little less frigid than usual, but that was all.

  ‘In my opinion,’ said C-1 who was old and bearded and thus inclined to be philosophical, ‘no heat at all is better. That way we face reality. This way we are not encouraged to dream, to imagine a fantastic way of life where it is not necessary to wear an overcoat in the living room.’

  ‘But why not dream?’ demanded C-4 fiercely. He was a young man whose wife had a persistent cold in the head. ‘I tell you that some day you will hear these radiators sing like birds. Some day—!’

  ‘Enthusiast,’ said C-1, shaking his head pityingly. ‘Fanatic. Tell that to the landlord and see what it gets you.’

  But despite his pessimism, the tenants sustained themselves with the dream.

  ‘Some day,’ they said.

  ‘Even one day,’ said the more practical ones. ‘Just one little day when the fire roars in the furnace.’

  ‘Maybe Christmas Day.’

  ‘Maybe New Year’s.’

  ‘Dreamers,’ said C-1 sadly, combing his fingers through his long beard. ‘See what it gets you.’

  It was hard to dispute him. Uselessly, they all descended together on the office of the Department of Buildings. Together they stood in court to plead their cause. Together they banged on the rad
iators and went downstairs to demand their rights of the janitor.

  The janitor was a small, unshaven man who drank heavily and hated the tenants as much as he feared the landlord. In return for his meager services he was given free tenancy of a cubbyhole in the cellar next to the coal bin which he guarded like Cerberus.

  When the tenants knocked at his door, he would throw it open, then dance drunkenly around his little room, skipping from side to side, his fists flailing the air like a prizefighter’s.

  ‘Come on,’ he would shout, ‘I’m ready. One at a time or all together. I’m ready!’ he would cry, shadow-boxing furiously, and swinging his fists he would sometimes throw himself off balance and fall to the floor. Then he would crawl unsteadily to his feet and start the make-believe battle again.

  ‘Hit but not hurt,’ he would gasp. ‘Down but not out. Come on!’ until the tenants would leave in a rage.

  So nothing helped. And A-3 who had six children and worked as a busboy in an expensive restaurant said that he had it on good authority – the brother-in-law of the salad chef was a court clerk – that the landlord must be bribing city officials to close their eyes to his shortcomings.

  ‘From what I was told,’ said A-3 hopelessly, ‘this is not unusual for either landlords or city officials.’

  ‘Especially such a landlord as ours,’ said D-4 who was a stout widow with a mustache and a remarkably beautiful daughter.

  In truth, it was possible to believe anything about the landlord. On the first day of each month he came to collect rents, because one thing the law had impressed on the tenants of 127 was that rents must be paid, no matter their complaints. Tenants’ complaints were one thing, landlord’s rents another, and there must be no confusion between the two. So the landlord collected rents door by door, stirring up fury as he went by his arrogance, his duplicity, his very appearance.

  He was a short, fat man, so fat that when he sat down to write a receipt for the rent he had to lower his belly into his lap with his hands. His eyes were small and menacing. His mouth was pursed with disapproval. Worst of all, he had a tongue like a whiplash.

  ‘You’re cold?’ he told C-1. ‘Do you know why you’re cold? Because you’re an old man, that’s why. You think your beard will keep you warm? You think all the coal I burn will keep you warm? Never. What you should do, old man, is save your pennies and move to a fine house in the tropics. A beautiful hacienda with a heated swimming pool – that’s what you need at your age.’

  And to B-2 who worked as a butcher’s apprentice he said, ‘You’re cold even with all the heat I give you? Naturally. After working like a donkey in a refrigerator all day, how can you ever warm up?’

  B-1 especially angered him. ‘More heat?’ the landlord roared. ‘More painting, more everything? But you’re on relief, in case you forget. Relief. Taxpayer’s money – that’s what you’re living on. And I am a taxpayer. You ought to thank me for my money instead of making trouble. Try sleeping on a park bench tonight and see how warm you’ll be.’

  So each tenant in turn had his complaint used against him, although a few escaped more lightly. These the landlord would deal with humorously.

  ‘More heat?’ he would say, and look around the room with stupefaction. ‘But it’s unbearable here as it is. Look at me,’ he would say, tearing open his collar, ‘I can hardly breathe. I’m stifling. Please open the window before I faint.’

  Only with D-4 was he circumspect. There, sometimes the beautiful daughter of the stout widow would open the door to him, and when he saw her his eyes would glitter appreciatively. Not even the loudest complaints of D-4 disturbed him then, not even the slap in the face he once got from the beautiful daughter when he went so far as to pat her enticing behind.

  So the tenants of Number 127 lived with their dream.

  ‘Some day.’

  ‘One day – just one day when the furnace roars and the radiators sing.’

  ‘Christmas perhaps. Or do you think it will be New Year’s?’

  But again Christmas passed, and then New Year’s.

  ‘Dreamers,’ said C-1 who spent many daylight hours dozing in the public library over pictures of tropical islands. ‘You will be warm again when summer comes.’

  Even the visionary C-4, whose wife always had a cold in the head, found the dream growing dim. One day he brought home an electric heater, and for three minutes he and his wife stood before it, rejoicing in its radiance. Then the radiance suddenly vanished. The lights in the room went out. All the lights in the building went out.

  ‘Idiot,’ snarled the janitor as he replaced the fuse in the cellar. ‘Do you think the wiring here was made for fancy electric heaters? Do you know what a fuse costs? Wait until I tell the landlord about this.’

  But it was not the landlord who came to collect rents the next month. In his place came a young man as tall as the landlord was short, as thin as the landlord was fat, as gentle in manner as the landlord was ferocious. Behind his thick eyeglasses shone large, kindly, nearsighted eyes. Yet, to the astonishment of the tenants, he said that he was the landlord’s son.

  ‘Incredible,’ said C-1. ‘For a wolf to produce a lamb is altogether against nature. I suppose you resemble your mother?’

  The landlord’s son smiled sadly. ‘That would be hard to tell, since she died a long time ago. However, I must admit that my father and I seem to have very little in common.’

  ‘And how is he?’ C-1 asked hopefully. ‘Has something bad happened to him?’

  ‘No, he sent me in his place to learn the business. Since I will inherit it some day, he feels I should know how to manage it properly when the time comes.’

  ‘Would you like to start by hearing a few complaints?’ said C-1.

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Do you mean that?’ said C-1, clutching the young man’s arm.

  ‘Of course. I will write all your complaints in this notebook.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then I will give the notebook to my father.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said C-1. ‘Here is your rent and goodbye.’

  So it went from one tenant to the next, with the landlord’s son growing more pitiable and apologetic with each rebuff.

  ‘But what else can I do?’ he pleaded, holding out his notebook and pencil.

  ‘Tell the janitor to give us heat.’

  ‘I’m not allowed to tell the janitor anything.’

  ‘Then put some coal in the furnace yourself.’

  ‘I’m not allowed to.’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ said the tenants scornfully. ‘Here is your rent and goodbye.’

  At last the landlord’s son came to the door of D-4, the apartment of the stout widow with the mustache and the beautiful daughter. He knocked on the door, and the daughter opened it. He looked at her and turned pale with emotion. His knees buckled. He tried to speak but his voice failed him.

  ‘You are beautiful,’ he finally managed to whisper.

  She blushed and hung her head.

  ‘A vision,’ he said fervently. ‘From my childhood days I have been writing poetry. Now I know it was being written only for you.’

  She regarded him with wondering eyes. ‘But I don’t even know who you are.’

  ‘True, true. How stupid of me. I am the landlord’s son, come to collect the rent.’

  ‘And you write poetry?’

  ‘Yes, whenever I am inspired I write poetry. Here, look at the last page in my notebook. This was written only yesterday.’

  She read it. ‘It’s a real poem,’ she said with awe. ‘I never knew anybody who could write a real poem.’

  ‘It’s nothing. It needs a lot of work yet. But when it’s finished I’ll give it to you.’

  ‘To me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They swayed toward each other.

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’ whispered the beautiful daughter of D-4. ‘It’s cold here.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said the young man. ‘The front of the notebook is
for complaints.’

  Before long, all the tenants of Number 127 were buzzing with gossip about the landlord’s son and the beautiful daughter of D-4.

  ‘Every morning he sends her a poem in the mail.’

  ‘Every Saturday night he visits her.’

  ‘He’s madly in love with her.’

  ‘Why not?’ sighed B-2, the butcher’s apprentice, who was secretly in love with her himself.

  ‘And she returns his love.’

  ‘She is making a mistake,’ said B-2 gloomily. ‘He is a weakling without muscle. Now here is what I call muscle,’ he said, flexing his mighty biceps.

  ‘But,’ pointed out the elderly C-1, ‘with all of that, can you write one little poem?’

  They plied the widow of D-4 with questions.

  ‘It is true,’ she said. ‘Every Saturday night they sit on the couch in their overcoats and look at each other.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘No. He talks and she listens.’

  ‘You are to be commended,’ said C-1, nodding his beard. ‘Very few young girls have been brought up nowadays to listen.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ said the others. ‘Will they be married soon?’

  D-4 shook her head sadly. ‘I am afraid not. His father has told him he will be disinherited if he ever dares to marry a poor girl.’

  ‘What a monster!’

  ‘You have no idea,’ said D-4, her upper lip curled in a sneer which almost hid her mustache. ‘His father gives him nothing but threats and curses. The unfortunate boy doesn’t have money enough in his pocket to take my daughter to the movies.’

  ‘He should do something about it!’ cried the fiery C-4, the one whose wife always had a cold in the head, and whose electric heater stood useless in the corner of the closet.

  ‘But what?’ said D-4. ‘All he knows how to do is write poetry and collect rents. What can he do but wait for the day when he will inherit this house and the twelve others his father also owns?’

  ‘It shows you,’ said C-1 philosophically, ‘that being a landlord’s son is not all milk and honey.’