Bowman on Broadway by Hartley Howard

Author:Hartley Howard
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448204670
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XI

Number 658 Jefferson Street was an uptown apartment block on the corner of Third Avenue. It had four floors, a red-and-white striped sunblind above the entrance, a ten by eight lobby paved with wood blocks, and a self-service elevator big enough for two people if they didn’t need to breathe. The elevator was an innovation; back in the days of yore when the building had been put up, folks walked—and liked it. Wooden stairs with polished, suicide treads revealed the march of time on the edge of every step, and the hand-rail was shiny from the massage of countless hands.

Old though the place was, it was by no means a dump. Respectability had preserved it like moth-balls preserve Lincoln’s frock coat—a respectability that exuded from every corner as if it had been built in with each brick. Nothing in the slightest degree off-colour could ever happen within those walls. Renting a love-nest would’ve been as easy as getting Stalin’s autograph with a bomb in your pocket.

The elevator stopped at the second landing with an air of indecision as though it had been all set for an extended trip. I got out and closed the gates. It shuddered, made a noise almost of relief, and rattled thankfully down out of sight. The bell-push was a single, disapproving eye drilling into the back of my neck as I walked on tiptoe to the door labelled 2a at the end of the passage.

A little button in a plastic socket said “Press.” When calling on a lady, I never refuse an invitation, so I pressed. On the other side of the door, something gave a discreet impersonation of a blow-fly trapped in a can of molasses. I took off my hat, put on my best smile, and waited.

Half a minute went by. I got tired of smiling at a button at about the same time as I got tired of waiting. I leaned on it again and listened to the blow-fly go through its antics once more. Behind me, the elevator climbed to an upper floor with the noise of a chronic asthmatic. It clanked to a halt, the gates rattled open, and I heard someone struggling to shut them again. After a while, sharp feet went click-clack on the floor above and a door closed.

Meanwhile, the buzzer kept on buzzing. Either no one was at home or they weren’t in a hospitable mood. One way or the other, it was annoying. Like the only avowed Nazi in Germany once confessed, my patience was becoming exhausted. I had a darn good mind to …

Whatever I had contemplated doing, I didn’t need to do it. As I took my finger off the button, a familiar voice said from somewhere inside the apartment, “Come in. I won’t keep you long. Sorry I didn’t hear you at first, but the water was making a lot of noise. …”

This was the kind of invitation that promised interesting developments. I did as I had been told and went in.

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