A Manhattan Ghost Story (19 page)

I was sixteen, I think, and had been smitten by a girl named Astelle. She was a year younger than I, had blossomed early and could have passed for eighteen. In my clumsy, adolescent way, I flirted with her for a month or so, and at last she invited me to her house. “It’s in Granger. You know where that is?” she asked.

I said yes.

“Good. You come up there sometime. Meet my people.”

“Your mom and dad?” I asked.

“Uh-huh. And everyone else. Come up any time, Abner.”

So, when that blizzard struck, I thought it was as good a time as any, because she’d doubtless be stuck there, in Granger, with her people.

I tried to call her, found that her family didn’t have a phone, put on all the warm clothes I could—and still be able to walk—and set out on Route 45, north out of the Bangor to Granger. I was going to meet Astelle, and “her people.” I thought that was awfully romantic. And I thought that nearly freezing to death doing it would be romantic, too, and would impress Astelle.

It did. It impressed the hell out of her. And if I could have gotten her alone, away from “her people,” I’m quite certain she would have let me know just
how
impressed she really was. But I was suffering from frostbite when I got there, and I was exhausted besides, and “her people”—all twenty of them, various aunts and uncles and cousins and a grandfather or two, all living in three big, gray farmhouses on two acres of land (because, as someone said then, “There’s security in numbers, Abner.”)—were friendly and concerned and happy, and some of the strangest people I have ever met. They were also quite aware of just why I’d come to Granger. “She’s a little too young yet, Abner,” one of the women whispered to me—one of Astelle’s aunts, I think.

“Too young for what?” I said.

“For screwing,” she answered simply.

“Oh,” I said, “yes. I know she is.”

But, even to this day, I think of that weekend and that visit and that blizzard as the very soul of romanticism, and I think that I would do it all over again.

Which is what I was doing, of course, that night twenty years later, when the snowstorm struck New York. I was going to meet Phyllis’ people.

I didn’t believe that I’d have any trouble finding them.

CHAPTER NINE

From the second floor window of the house across the street, the child I had first seen there a week earlier was watching me. The woman was watching, too. They nodded cordially, in unison, as I came out of Art’s house, and I nodded back, from the top of the front porch steps.

It was dark, of course, and a sharp, stiff wind was pushing the snowfall frantically about. But I felt warmth from that window. From the light there—a kind of dull orange-yellow light—and from the child, herself. And from the woman. And I remembered:
They are all there, in those houses, on those streets
… and so I said to myself that if I was in search of Phyllis’ people, that was as likely a place to start as any. In that house.

So I crossed to it, went up the steps—I tripped on them; they were slippery from ice and snow—went through the front doors to the foyer, tried the second set of doors, found them locked.

I checked the directory. There were four names listed for the second floor. There was a Braniff, which didn’t seem to fit that woman and child, a Kindheit, which surely didn’t fit, a Thomas Ross, an M.S. Arnoni, which I decided was a possibility, and someone named Anja Schone—Finnish, I guessed, and promising. I pressed the button next to “M.S. Arnoni” and the speaker squawked back almost at once.

“Yes?” It was a woman’s voice.

I grinned, bent over, said hello into the speaker.

“Hello,” she said. “What do you want?”

“I’m the man from across the street.”

“Is that of some importance to me?” she said.

“I don’t know. I think it could be. I saw—” I stopped. What was I going to say?—
I saw you in your window
. What if this was not that woman?

“You saw what?” she said.

“I saw your name here. On the directory.” I was beginning to feel uncomfortable, cold, stupid. It was, after all, past 2:00
A.M
. and the chances were excellent that I’d gotten this woman out of bed.

“And?” she coaxed.

I said, “Are you M.S. Arnoni?”

“No. M.S. Arnoni is
dead
.” She emphasized the word. “I’m his sister.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Did you know him?”

 “Yes. A little. Not very well.”

“Then why did you ask if I was him?”

“Sorry?”

“If you knew him, you’d know well enough that I was not
him
, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess that’s true.”

“So you’re lying?”

I hesitated, then answered sheepishly, “Yes, I am. I’m sorry. I was looking for someone else. I’m sorry.”

“You apologize too much. Would you like to come up?”

“I don’t think so. Thank you. I’m tired—”

“You can come up. We’ll talk. We’ll get to know each other. One doesn’t often get strangers calling at two in the morning. You have a nice voice.”

“Thank you. So do you.”

“I’ve cultivated it. I used to be an actress.”

“Did you?”

“Some time ago, of course. Hold on.”

A moment later, the door buzzed. I stared at it a second, reached for it; the buzzing stopped. I pressed the button for M.S. Arnoni again.

“Yes?” she said.

I leaned over and said very apologetically into the speaker, “I’m sorry; I didn’t get to the door in time.”

“You’re the man from across the street?”

“Yes.”

“Hold on.”

The door buzzed again, very briefly. I grabbed for it. Too late. I pressed M.S. Arnoni’s button.

 “Yes?”

I leaned over, said into the speaker, “This is the man from across the street. I’m afraid I didn’t get the door then, either. You didn’t let it buzz long enough.”

“Oh. Do you want to try again?”

“Yes. If you don’t mind.”

“Hold on.”

It buzzed once more. I grabbed for it, got it, pulled. The buzzing stopped a fraction of a second before the door unlocked. “Jesus,” I whispered, and rang for M.S. Arnoni again.

“Yes?” she said.

“I’m awfully sorry, but I missed it again.”

“Who’s this—The man from across the street?”

“Yes, it is.”

“You’re not very quick, are you?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“I don’t like slow men.”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of being slow—”

“I like
quickness
—” the speaker broke up on the word, she’d said it so loud—”I like speed and strength. You’ll have to go away now.”

“Sorry?”

“Go away now!” I heard a click.

“Are you there?” I said into the speaker. Nothing. “Miss Arnoni, are you there?” Still nothing. “Is anybody there? Anybody at
all
?” Nothing.

I straightened, considered, pressed the button next to “Anja Schone,” waited. Nothing. I pressed it again, waited. Still nothing. I turned to leave.

“Who is it?” I heard from the speaker. It was a man’s voice. I hesitated, my hand on the door’s push-plate. I looked back. “Who
is
this?!” the man insisted.

I pushed the door open and went outside.

When I was at the sidewalk, I looked back. The woman and the child still were at their window. They nodded again. I nodded back. Then I hurried down the street, toward Fifth Avenue, my hands thrust into my pants pockets for warmth, and my legs moving me along in short, fast, careful steps so I wouldn’t slip again.

When I got to Fifth Avenue, I realized, after a few moments, that the storm was much worse than it had appeared from Art’s bedroom window, that it would probably go into the record books. I could hear an occasional car on the avenue, now and then I could see the diffused yellow glow of headlights. But my ears were beginning to ache from the blast of wind and snow on them, and my forehead was getting numb, and because I was wearing only sneakers, my feet were starting to feel like blocks of wood. I decided, reluctantly, that I had done something abominably stupid. Romantic, perhaps, but stupid, so I turned to go back to the apartment. And heard, “Mister?” very faintly, from a couple of feet to my right. I looked. I saw the dark outline of a child there, his features obscured by the blowing snow.

“Hello,” I shouted, to be heard above the storm.

“Mister?” he said again, no louder.

I extended my hand, felt his hand—in a knit mitten—take mine. “Who are you?” I shouted, and through a quick break in the wind and blowing snow I could see that he was dressed for the storm, in a long, dark ski-jacket—I guessed that it was dark blue—dark pants, and what appeared to be white snowmobiler’s boots. “Who are you?” I shouted again.

“Ronnie,” he shouted back. “I want you to take me home.”

“Whose home?”

“My home.”

The storm began to wind down then.

“And where is that, Ronnie?”

The wind began to sputter, as if it were a car running out of gas, and the snow got heavier and wetter.

“Over there,” Ronnie said, and nodded to his right, south, down Fifth Avenue. “On 76th Street, near Lexington, next to the Catholic Church, I want you to take me home.”

“Yes,” I said at once. “Yes, I will.”

“Thank you,” he said. I could see him clearly now, because the storm had all but died. He smiled up at me; he was a round-faced boy with very large eyes, a small nose, lots of tight, dark curls, and his smile was big, engaging, and contagious. I smiled back.

“Are you one of them, Ronnie?” I said.

“Sure,” he said, and let go of my hand. “Sure I’m one of them.” And he ran off, south, down Fifth Avenue, across 75th Street, and 74th Street, and that’s where I lost sight of him.

I didn’t call after him. I decided that it would doubtless do no good anyway. I stuck my hands into my pockets and I started walking south, down Fifth Avenue, toward 76th Street. I thought it was turning out to be a promising night. The snowfall was now fat and luxurious, even warming somehow, and the wind had calmed to a whisper. What few cars there were on the avenue had lots of room to maneuver, and so were quiet. The sidewalks were empty, too, the new snow untouched, white, and fresh-looking where the square bright fluorescence of an occasional storefront touched it. And there was a crisp, almost clean smell in the air that was tinged only slightly by the sharp smells of traffic. I decided that the quick storm had washed the air.

My feet still felt like blocks of wood, though, and it was not a feeling I liked, of course, but it made me less aware of how cold they were, and I thought that I could walk half a dozen street blocks like that.

Which was just about as far as they took me—to 76th Street and Lexington Avenue, to St. Jean Baptiste Church. The building next door to it was a graybrick, flat-top, row house, art-deco in style, three stories tall. And there were footprints in the snow, leading up the steps, to the front door.

It was about 4:00
A.M.
, I guessed, and traffic was beginning to pick up slightly. Now and again a yellow cab cruised down Lexington Avenue toward midtown Manhattan, and I could hear the grumbling of a garbage truck a block away, the clattering of garbage cans, someone shouting a block or so in the opposite direction—the sounds of Manhattan very early in the morning.

In the art-deco row house, one light was on, in the third floor, in the center of the left-hand side of the building. I could see a lamp in that window, and the top of an upholstered chair. Nothing else.

I went up the steps of the row house, to the front doors, then inside. The doors beyond the foyer were standing open, and beyond them was darkness punctuated only by the dirty cream-colored shapes of couches and chairs set up in what obviously was the lobby. The building, I thought, was not unlike the building on East 95th Street, where I’d met the Pellaprats, or, for that matter, the whorehouse on East 80th. It was a place where I could find some of Phyllis’s people and where, in a way, I could get closer to her.

And that made me happy.

One of the chairs in the lobby was facing away from me. It was big and overstuffed, and as I moved closer to it, I realized that someone was sitting in it. I could see a dark, bare forearm, a hand lying flat, fingers outstretched, and I could faintly hear a soft, rhythmic, wheezing noise.

It was that wheezing noise that scared me. In the early morning darkness, in the lobby of that art-deco row house, with Manhattan asleep around me, it was a very melodramatic noise, and it would have been comical, had it not been something I could
hear
.

Something, goddamnit, that was in the same
room
with me.

It changed.

It slowed.

It stopped.

I whispered to myself, “What am I doing here?” And heard, as if in response, from that overstuffed chair, “Tha’s a good question, my man.”

I ran. Back out to 76th Street, over to Park Avenue, west to Madison Avenue, to Fifth Avenue, through the early morning darkness—Manhattan at last waking around me—north to 79th Street, to Art’s apartment house, up the stairs, so my lungs felt like they were filled with cement and my legs as if nails had been driven into every muscle.

And, at last, into Art’s apartment. Which was still hot and dry.

And I slammed the door shut, locked it, put my back against it, and realized that, at last, I had nearly been scared to death.

At the Hammet Mausoleum, Halloween, 1965

“It’s the not knowing, Abner, that I don’t like. It makes me itchy uncomfortable. Joe Hammmmettt, Joe Hammmmettt. Speak to us, Joe. Give us a sign. Know what I’m talking about, Abner?”

“Sure I do. I’m not stupid.”

“Just ignorant. We’re all of us ignorant though. Even old Joe Hammet, I bet. You know, you get hold of a spook—I mean if we ever did—and once you finish peein’ your pants and catchin’ your breath, what’s the first thing you’d wanta know?—You’d wanta know
How is it over there?
Or you’d wanta know
What’s it all mean?
”

“What’s what all mean, Sam?”