Horrible Imaginings

by Fritz Leiber

  The apartment tree boasted many mirrors, a luxury note like its silver-arabesqued gray wallpaper. There was a large one opposite each elevator door and there were three in the lobby.

  As he ended each flight, Ramsey would look down the long alley corridor, make a U-turn, and walk back to the landing (glancing into the short corridor and the elevator landing, which were lit by a central third moon and one large window), all this while facing the long front corridor, then make another U-turn and start down the next flight.

  (He did discover one difference between the floors. He counted steps going down, and while there were nineteen between the fourteenth and the twelfth floors, there were only seventeen between all the other pairs. So the cage had to travel a foot and a bit farther to make that Fourteen-Twelve journey; it didn’t just seem to take longer, it did. So much for tired elevators!)

  So it went for nine floors.

  But when he made his U-turn onto the third floor he saw that the front corridor’s full moon had been extinguished, throwing a gloom on the whole passageway, while silhouetted against the wired glass at the far end was a swayed, slender figure looking very much like that of the Vanishing Lady. He couldn’t make out her pale triangle of face or gleaming eyes because there was no front light on her; she was only shaped darkness, yet he was sure it was she.

  In walking the length of the landing, however, there was time to think that if he continued on beyond the stairs, it would be an undeniable declaration of his intention to meet her, he’d have to keep going, he had no other excuse; also, there’d be the unpleasant impression of him closing in ominously, relentlessly, on a lone trapped female.

  As he advanced she waited at the tunnel’s end, silent and unmoving, a shaped darkness.

  He made his customary turn, keeping on down the stairs. He felt so wrenched by what was happening that he hardly knew what he was thinking or even feeling, except his heart was thudding and his lungs were gasping as if he’d just, walked ten stories upstairs instead of down.

  It wasn’t until he had turned into the second floor and seen through the stairwell, cut off by ceiling, the workshoes and twill pants of Clancy, the manager, faced away from him in the lobby, that he got himself in hand. He instantly turned and retraced his steps with frantic haste. He’d flinched away again, just when he’d sworn he wouldn’t! Why, there were a dozen questions he could politely ask her to justify his close approach. Could he be of assistance? Was she looking for one of the tenants? some apartment number? Etcetera.

  But even as he rehearsed these phrases, he had a sinking feeling of what he was going to find on Three.

  He was right. There was no longer a figure among the shadows filling the dark front corridor.

  And then, even as he was straining his eyes to make sure, with a flicker and a flash the full moon came on again and shone steadily.

  Showing no one at all.

  Ramsey didn’t look any further but hurried back down the stairs. He wanted to be with people, anyone, just people in the street.

  But Mr. Clancy was still in the lobby, communing with himself. Ramsey suddenly felt he simply had to share at least part of the story of the Vanishing Lady with someone.

  So he told Clancy about the defective light bulb inside the front globe on Three, how it had started to act like a globe that’s near the end of its lifetime, arcing and going off and on by itself, unreliable. Only then did he, as if idly, an afterthought, mention the woman he’d seen and then got to wondering about and gone back and not seen, adding that be thought he’d also seen her in the lobby once or twice before.

  He hadn’t anticipated the swift seriousness of the manager’s reaction. Ramsey’d hardly more than mentioned the woman when the ex-fireman asked sharply, “Did she look like a bum? I mean, for a woman—”

  Ramsey told him that no, she didn’t, but he hadn’t more than sketched his story when the other said, “Look, Mr. Ryker, I’d like to go up and check this out right away. You said she was all in black, didn’t you? Yeah. Well, look, you stay here, would you do that? And just take notice if anybody comes down. I won’t be long.”

  And he got in the elevator, which had been waiting there, and went up. To Four or Five, or maybe Six, Ramsey judged from the cage’s noises and the medium-short time the telltale flared before winking out. He imagined that Clancy would leave it there and then hunt down the floors one by one, using the stairs.

  Pretty soon Clancy did reappear by way of the stairs, looking thoughtful. “No” he said, “she’s not there anymore, at least not in the bottom half of the building—and I don’t see her doing a lot of climbing. Maybe she got somebody to take her in, or maybe it was just one of the tenants. Or...?” He looked a question at Ramsey, who shook his head and said, “No, nobody came down the stairs or elevator.”

  The manager nodded and then shook his own head slowly. “I don’t know, maybe I’m getting too suspicious,” he said. “I don’t know how much you’ve noticed, Mr. Ryker, living way on top, but from time to time this building is troubled by bums—winos and street people from south of here—trying to get inside and shelter here, especially in winter, maybe go to sleep in a corner. Most of them are men, of course, but there’s an occasional woman bum.” He paused and chuckled reflectively. “Once we had an invasion of women bums, though they weren’t that exactly.”

  Ramsey looked at him expectantly.

  Clancy hesitated, glanced at Ramsey, and after another pause said, “That’s why we turn the buzzer system off at eleven at night and keep it off until eight in the morning. If we left it on, why, any time in the night a drunken wino would start buzzing apartments until he got one who’d buzz the door open (or he might push a dozen at once, so somebody’d be sure to buzz the door), and once he was inside, he’d hunt himself up an out-of-the-way spot where he could sleep it off and be warm. And if he had cigarettes, he’d start smoking them to put him to sleep, dropping the matches anywhere, but mostly under things. There’s where your biggest danger is—fire. Or he’d get an idea and start bothering tenants, ringing theirs bells and knocking on their doors, and then anything could happen. Even with the buzzer system off, some of them get in. They’ll stand beside the street door and then follow a couple that’s late getting home, or the same with the newsboy delivering the morning paper before it’s light. Not following them directly, you see, but using a foot (sometimes a cane or crutch) to block the door just before it locks itself, and then coming in soon as the coast’s clear.”

  Ramsey nodded several times appreciatively, but then pressed the other with “But you were going to tell me something about an invasion of female bums?”

  “Oh, that,” Clancy said doubtfully. A look at Ramsey seemed to reassure him. “That was before your time—you came here about five years ago, didn’t you? Yeah. Well, this happened... let’s see... about two years before that. The Mrs. and I generally don’t talk about it much to tenants, because it gives... gave the building a bad name. Not really any more now, though. Seven years and all’s forgotten, eh?”

  He broke off to greet respectfully a couple who passed by on their way upstairs. He turned back to Ramsey. “Well, anyway,” he continued more comfortably, “at this time I’m talking about, the Mrs. and I had been here ourselves only a year. Just about long enough to learn the ropes, at least some of them.

  “Now there’s one thing about a building like this I got to explain,” he interjected. “You never, or almost never, get any disappearances—you know, tenants sneaking their things out when they’re behind on the rent, or just walking out one day, leaving their things, and never coming back (maybe getting mugged to death, who knows?)—like happens all the time in those fleabag hotels and rooming houses south of us. Why, half of their renters are on dope or heavy medication to begin with, and come from prisons or from mental hospitals. Here you get a steadier sort of tenant, or at least the Mrs. and I try to make it be like that.

  “Well, back then, just about the steadiest tenant we had, though not the olde
st by any means, was a tall, thin, very handsome and distinguished-looking youngish chap, name of Arthur J. Stensor, third floor front. Very polite and soft-spoken, never raised his voice. Dark complected, but with blonde hair which he wore in a natural—not so common then; once I heard him referred to by another tenant as ‘that frizzy bleached Negro,’ and I thought they were being disrespectful. A sharp dresser but never flashy—he had class. He always wore a hat. Rent paid the first of the month in cash with never a miss. Rent for the garage space too—he kept a black Lincoln Continental in the basement that was always polished like glass; never used the front door much but went and came in that car. And his apartment was furnished to match: oil paintings in gold frames, silver statues, hi-fi, big-screen TV and the stuff to record programs and films off it when that cost, all sorts of fancy clocks and vases, silks and velvets, more stuff like that than you’d ever believe.

  “And when there was people with him, which wasn’t too often, they were as classy as he and his car and his apartment, especially the women—high society and always young. I remember once being in the third-floor hall one night when one of those stunners swept by me and he let her in, and thinking, ‘Well, if that filly was a call girl, she sure came from the best stable in town.’ Only I remember thinking at the same time that I was being disrespectful, because A. J. Stensor was just a little too respectable for even the classiest call girl. Which was a big joke on me considering what happened next.”

  “Which was?” Ramsey prompted, after they’d waited for a couple more tenants to go by.

  “Well, at first I didn’t connect it at all with Stensor,” Clancy responded, “though it’s true I hadn’t happened to see him for the last five or six days, which was sort of unusual, though not all that much so. Well, what happened was this invasion—no, goddammit! this epidemic—of good-looking hookers, mostly tall and skinny, or at least skinny, through the lower halls and lobby of this building. Some of them were dressed too respectable for hookers, but most of them wore the street uniform of the day—which was high heels, skintight blue jeans, long lace blouses worn outside the pants, and lots of bangles—and when you saw them talking together palsy-walsy, the respectable-looking and the not, you knew they all had to be.”

  “How did it first come to you?” Ramsey asked. “Tenants complain?”

  “A couple,” Clancy admitted. “Those old biddies who’ll report a young and good-looking woman on the principle that if she’s young and good-looking she can’t be up to any good purpose. But the really funny thing was that most of the reports of them came in just by way of gossip—either to me direct, or by way of the Mrs., which is how it usually works—like it was something strange and remarkable—which it was, all right! Questions too, such as what the hell they were all up to, which was a good one to ask, by the way. You see, they weren’t any of them doing anything to complain of. It was broad day and they certainly weren’t trying to pick anyone up, they weren’t plying their trade at all, you might say, they weren’t even smiling at anybody, especially men. No, they were just walking up and down and talking together, looking critical and angry more than anything, and very serious—like they’d picked our apartment building for a hookers’ convention, complete with debates, some sort of feminist or union thing, except they hadn’t bothered to inform the management. Oh, when I’d cough and ask a couple of them what they were doing, they’d throw me some excuse without looking at me—that they had a lunch date with a lady here but she didn’t seem to be in and they couldn’t wait, or that they were shopping for apartments but these weren’t suitable—and at the same time they’d start walking toward the street door, or toward the stairs if they were on the third or second floor, still gabbing together in private voices about whatever it was they were debating, and then they’d sweep out, still not noticing me even if I held the door for them.

  “And then, you know, in twenty minutes they’d be back inside! or at least I’d spot one of them that was. Some of them must have had front door keys, I remember thinking—and as it turned out later, some of them did.”

  By this time Mr. Clancy had warmed to his story and was giving out little chuckles with every other sentence, and he almost forgot to lower his voice next time a tenant passed.

  “There was one man they took notice of. I forgot about that. It could have given me a clue to what was happening, but I didn’t get it. We had a tenant then on one of the top floors who was tall and slim and rather good-looking—young-looking too, although he wasn’t—and always wore a hat. Well, I was in the lobby and four or five of the hookers had just come in the front door, debating of course, when this guy stepped out of the elevator and they all spotted him and made a rush for him. But when they got about a dozen feet away from him and he took off his hat—maybe to be polite, he looked a little scared, I don’t know what he thought—showing this wavy black hair which he kept dyed, the hookers all lost interest in him—as if he’d looked like someone they knew, but closer up turned out not to be (which was the case, though I still didn’t catch on then)—and they swept past him and on the stairs as if that was where they’d been rushing in the first place.

  “I tell you, that was some weird day. Hookers dressed all ways—classy-respectable, the tight-jeans and lacy-blouse uniform, mini-skirts, one in what looked like a kid’s sailor suit cut for a woman, a sad one all in black looking like something special for funerals... you know, maybe to give first aid to a newly bereaved husband or something.” He gave Ryker a quick look, continuing, “And although almost all of them were skinny, I recall there was a fat one wearing a mumu and swinging gracefully like a belly dancer.

  “The Mrs. was after me to call the police, but our owner sort of discourages that, and I couldn’t get him on the phone.

  “In the evening the hookers tapered off and I dropped into bed, all worn out from the action, the wife still after me to call the police, but I just conked out cold, and so the only one to see the last of the business was the newsboy when he came to deliver at four-thirty about. Later on he dropped back to see me, couldn’t wait to tell me about it.

  “Well, he was coming up to the building, it seems, pushing his shopping cart of morning papers, when he sees this crowd of good- looking women (he wasn’t wise to the hookers’ convention the day before) around the doorway, most of’ them young and all of them carrying expensive-looking objects—paintings, vases, silver statues of naked girls, copper kitchenware, gold clocks, that sort of stuff—like they were helping a wealthy friend move. Only there is a jam-up, two or three of them are trying to maneuver an oversize dolly through the door, and on that dolly is the biggest television set the kid ever saw and also the biggest record player.

  “A woman at the curb outside, who seems a leader, sort of very cool, is calling directions to them how to move it, close beside her is another woman, like her assistant or gopher maybe. The leader’s calling out directions, like I say, in a hushed voice, and the other women are watching, but they’re all very quiet, like you’d expect people to be at that hour of the morning, sober people at any rate, not wanting to wake the neighbors.

  “Well, the kid’s looking all around, every which way, trying ,to take in everything—there was a lot of interesting stuff to see, I gather, and more inside—when the gopher lady comes over and hunkers down beside him—he was a runt, that newsboy was, and ugly too—and wants to buy a morning paper. He hauls it out for her and she gives him a five-dollar bill and tells him to keep the change. He’s sort of embarrassed by that and drops his eyes, but she tells him not to mind, he’s a handsome boy and a good hardworking one, she wished she had one like him, and he deserves everything he gets, and she puts an arm around him and draws him close and all of a sudden his downcast eyes are looking inside her blouse front and he’s getting the most amazing anatomy lesson you could imagine.

  “He has some idea that they’re getting the dolly clear by now and that the other women are moving, but she’s going on whispering in his ear, her breath’s like stea
m, what a good boy he is and how grateful his parents must be, and his only worry, she’ll hug him so tight he won’t be able to look down her blouse.

  “After a bit she ends his anatomy lesson with a kiss that almost smothers him and then stands up. The women are all gone and the dolly’s vanishing around the next corner. Before she hurries after it, she says, ‘So long, kid. You got your bonus. Now deliver your papers.’

  “Which, after he got over his daze, is what he did, he said.

  “Well, of course, as soon as he mentioned the big television and player, I flashed on what I’d been missing all yesterday, though it was right in front of my eyes if I’d just looked. Why they’d been swarming on Three, why they rushed the guy from Seven and then lost interest in him when he took off his hat and they saw his hair was black dyed (instead of frizzy blonde), and why the hookers’ convention wasn’t still going on today. All that loot could have only come from one place—Stensor’s. In spite of him being so respectable, he’d been running a string of call girls all the time so that when he ran out on them owing them all money (I flashed on that at the same time), they’d collected the best way they knew how.

  “I ran to his apartment, and you know the door wasn’t even locked—one of them must have had a key to it too. Of course the place was stripped and of course no sign of Stensor.

  “Then I did call the police of course but not until I’d checked the basement. His black Continental was gone, but there was no way of telling for sure whether he’d taken it or the gals had got that too.