Someone's Watching, page 11
Judy looked through the windows. Most of them had plain white shades drawn down, but the shades on two front windows were raised about halfway. He stood beside her and peered in too. There was a small dresser and a single bedframe without a mattress in this room. The walls were bare, except for the graffiti and smudge marks.
“Now this looks more like the other deserted hotels I’ve seen,” he said. “I guess they only keep up parts of the main building. I bet the old man rarely comes out here.”
“I wouldn’t want to stay here,” Judy said. “Are all the help’s quarters like this in all the hotels?”
“You don’t spend much time in it anyway, just sleep actually, and maybe a card game. There was always a big card game going. I remember this one kid, Bernie Kaufman. He lost all the money he made for half of the summer in a night of card playing. I thought he was going to kill himself that night. The game went on and on until five in the morning.”
“And then they went to work?”
“Had to be in the dining room an hour and a half later.”
“You did that too?”
“No, I hated cards. Still do. And after what I saw happen to this guy, I was too terrified to ever play. I think the other guys cheated him, although I never knew for sure. Imagine working like that for half a summer and then losing it all in one night.”
“His parents must’ve killed him.”
“He was working for college tuition too. I wonder what the upstairs is like here,” he said and tried to open the window. It was locked.
“I’ve got to go to the bathroom anyway,” Judy said. He nodded and they started back. They could just see a piece of the back road that ran past the front of the hotel. He heard the sound of a car and touched her arm.
“Down,” he said. They crouched, but he was able to catch a glimpse of what he thought was a police patrol car as it went by. “Okay,” he said, standing.
“Was it anything?”
“No,” he said, but he hesitated so he could study the road for a few more moments. Instinctively she looked up at the third-floor window again. She was positive that the opening in the curtain was wider than before. Her heart began to beat quickly. “Come on,” he said.
Reluctantly she followed him back into the main building of the old hotel.
The girl almost saw him; he was sure of it. But he liked looking at her. He saw the boy hug her in the pool and then kiss her. That boy was lucky. Maybe he could get the girl to like him, too, if he could just talk to her. She would smile at him and let him touch her hair. Then she would kiss him too.
Would she let him touch her hidden places? The very idea both terrified and excited him. Thinking about her hidden places made him want to touch himself. He didn’t understand why that was, but he did it and it felt good. He had seen men and women touch each other in the hidden places, but he had never touched a girl that way.
What if this girl let this boy do it? he wondered. It could happen and he could see it happen. He made a fist with his right hand and drove it rhythmically against the palm of his left hand.
He didn’t like this boy at all, he decided. He reminded him too much of other boys, boys who used to make fun of him. Why couldn’t the girl have come here by herself? Why did she have to come here with him?
Still, something could happen to the boy, couldn’t it? Maybe something heavy would fall on his head. He laughed and rocked back and forth on his buttocks as he embraced his legs and pulled them toward his body. Something could squash him like the boulder he used to squash the rabbit. He had carried that boulder up to the fifth floor and waited by the window near the end of the corridor. That big gray rabbit came to the same spot as always. When it was right below him, he had dropped the boulder and . . . splat.
He’d run down all the flights of stairs to rush out to see it. He couldn’t believe how flat the rabbit’s body was. Its eyes rolled out like marbles. Would the boy’s eyes roll out like that? he wondered. Maybe. Splat. He laughed.
When Frank awoke late in the morning, Elaine had already left for work. At first the pain in the back of his head was a dull ache, but as he sat up and the dizziness returned, the pain sharpened and intensified, especially where the skin had been sewn together. He cursed and got out of bed, his physical agony reminding him of his need for vengeance.
He went as quickly as he could to Marty’s and Judy’s rooms, but a look into both revealed that neither had been in since he went to sleep. He went downstairs and drank some of the coffee Elaine had made. He had no appetite and he was even impatient with the time it took him to drink the coffee. He sat there strumming the table with his right hand and thought. Where would that bastard go? He settled on Jack Martin’s kid.
Sure, he thought. Jack Martin worked as a security guard over at the Monticello Racetrack and then did the late-night shift at the Pines Hotel security gate in South Fallsburg. Barbara, his wife, waited on tables at the Wonder Bar in Old Falls until the wee hours. With neither of them home most of the night, it would be easy for those two bastards to sneak into the house. Tony Martin was one of Marty’s steady buddies.
He looked up Martin’s number in the phone book. If Jack answered, he would ask him to check it out. He’d tell him not to let the kids know he was asking. Then he’d go over there and he’d . . .
He’d handle Marty quickly, belting him right in the teeth. He would just walk over to him and drive a left uppercut into the kid’s jaw. It might break a few teeth, but the kid deserved it. If the bastard didn’t go right down, he’d punch him again—a one-two blow like he’d delivered on Mike Tooey over at the Hot-Cha Club last spring. That old son of a bitch went ass backwards over the patio railing and fell face down on the road.
After he finished off his bastard son, he would go after Judy. He’d tell her the whole thing was her fault. She’d been teasin’ him and comin’ on. What’d she expect? There was only one way to treat a cockteaser and that was to fuck her good and hard so she’d know what it was like to raise a man’s flag. Then he’d give her another lesson. Afterward, neither of those two would say a damn thing because they’d be scared shitless of what else he would do.
His sexual fantasy drove him to move faster. He dialed Martin’s number and waited. The phone rang and rang. He was about to hang up when he heard Jack Martin’s tired voice.
“Fuck you,” Martin said before he had even said a word, and hung up. Frank cursed and dialed again. Again it rang and rang. This time he spoke quickly as soon as Martin picked up the receiver.
“It’s Frank O’Neil. I’m lookin’ for my boy.”
“You bastard.”
“Come on, Jack.”
“There ain’t nobody here.”
“How do you know? He run away with some money,” he added quickly. “He and your boy . . .”
“Son of a bitch.” Frank heard Jack put the receiver down. He heard his wife’s muffled voice in the background. After a few moments Martin returned. “My son’s asleep and there ain’t nobody here. Now fuck off,” he added and hung up.
Frank squeezed the receiver until his hand hurt. Then he bashed the phone back on its cradle. The anger and the effort brought a wave of pain into his head, which tightened around his temples like a vise. He grimaced, tears coming into his eyes.
Where the hell were they? he wondered. They had to come back soon and when they did . . . he grew tired just anticipating. Take another nap, he thought. Rest up, so when they return, I’ll have the strength.
8
Marty waited in the lobby while Judy went to the bathroom. The old man wasn’t in sight, but every once in a while he heard some sounds that seemed to be coming from upstairs. He imagined that the old man was up there doing something to get his hotel ready. Marty thought that Pop Levine’s senility was keeping him alive. In his world of illusion, he had to be active and healthy. Thinking about it from that viewpoint, Marty realized that it would be tragic for the old man to be cured of his senility. Like the Lady of Shalott in the poem of the same name, a poem he had loved, the old man would die if he faced reality. Perhaps that was why his people left him here. Here he would go on living; in an old-age home he would quickly die.
He got up from the small couch and looked out one of the front windows, peering at the road to see if the police car would return. There wasn’t a soul out there, not a movement. He wondered how he would feel if the police did come for them. Would the story be in the newspapers? What would his old schoolteachers think? He could just hear it now, because he had heard it said about others (even others who had done far less than he had done): “He wasn’t a particularly bright boy, but he didn’t get into any serious trouble. I knew he had a bad home life, but none of us expected this.”
What would his friends think? He envisioned Buzzy and Tony coming to visit him in prison. The scene brought a smile to his face because he figured they would say something stupid like, “You want us to help you escape or what?”
Then he thought about Elaine. What if she came looking for them? That might be a different story. Perhaps she didn’t believe whatever tale Frank made up; perhaps they’d had a bad fight and she’d decided to take their side.
Actually the chances were better that no one would come looking for them. Everyone would just expect them to show up somewhere soon. The police would make only a small effort, especially the local yokels. They had their hands full as it was with an incoming summer population. They were certainly not going to run a door-to-door search because Frank O’Neil asked them to.
“Anything out there?” Judy said, coming in behind him.
“Nothin’. A dog could sleep out on that road and not move for days.”
She sprawled on the small couch in front of him and folded her arms over her stomach. He sat down across from her in one of the big, soft chairs. They just looked at each other for a moment, and then she looked up at the ceiling. He slouched down farther and pressed the palms of his hands together.
He realized that she had come out of yesterday’s violence a lot better than he’d expected. It also occurred to him that she might be in some sort of state of shock. Maybe in another day or two she would snap out of it and be a basket case or something.
“I never asked you. What was it like going to school up at Liberty?”
“It was okay.”
“Did you have a lot of friends?”
“No.”
“Any boyfriends?”
She looked at him to see if he was serious. “Nobody special this year.”
“What’dya mean, ‘nobody special’?”
“I didn’t go steady or nothin’.”
“What about last year?”
“I went with a boy named Tommy Wilson.”
“What happened?” She shrugged. “Why did you break up with him?”
“He just started going with Debbie Cassidy.”
“What did you do?”
“I took his picture out of my wallet and burned it on the electric stove. It caught fire and burned so fast it singed my fingers before I could drop it in the sink.” He laughed. “Did you have any special girlfriend?”
“No.”
“What about Diane Taylor?”
“Who told you about that?”
“Linda Minarsky.”
“Boy, you two sure did a lot of talking about me.” He saw that she was waiting to hear, so he said, “We went together for a while and then she moved to California. I was in junior high. It wasn’t anything.”
“Ever write to her?”
“Nope. No point to it. She moved to California and I knew I wasn’t ever going to see her again.”
“Was she very pretty?”
“I’d say more like cute.” He saw that made Judy happy. “She wrote poetry.”
“I have no talent,” Judy said quickly. “I can’t do anything.” She turned on her back again.
“Who told you that?”
“I just know it. No one has to tell me I haven’t any.”
“Sure you do. Everybody’s got some talent. Look at me. I’ve got the talent to screw things up all the time.”
“You don’t screw things up.”
“Yeah, well . . . I guess I’m good with my hands. When I wanna be, that is.”
“I can’t do anything. I can’t sing; I can’t paint; I can’t write poems.”
“How do you know you can’t sing? Were you ever in the chorus?”
“I was going to take it last year, but . . .”
“But you didn’t even try, I know. I’m sure you never tried out for a school musical.”
“No. I was in a play in the seventh grade, a play in class,” she said, “but it was a very small part.”
“So what, you still did something. I bet you could sing very well if you tried.”
“I can’t.”
“You never know until you try,” he insisted. “Hey, don’t you know there’s a singer with your name?” She turned to him again. “Yeah, Judy Collins. Hey, you’ve got a singer’s name; maybe you’ll be a singer.”
“That’s silly.”
“Not any sillier than not trying or dreaming. Listen,” he said, “at Levine’s Mountain House, all of your fantasies come true.”
She studied him standing there with his hands high, his head tilted back, and his eyes closed. He was just pretending for her right now, but she had this nagging suspicion that he believed what he was saying. Somehow he had developed the idea that this was a magical place. Or else—and this was an idea that was making her increasingly nervous—this place was magical.
“Marty,” she said, intending to ask him about it. But before she could say anything, old man Levine appeared in the dining room doorway.
“I want you should set up a table in the dining room,” he said. “I have to start taking my meals with my guests.”
Judy and Marty looked at him and then at each other. He closed the door and disappeared in the dining room.
“Marty?”
“C’mon,” he said. “I’ll set up a table like he wants.”
“You’re kidding. Wait a minute. This is getting very weird, don’t you think?”
“Harmless. Besides,” he added, deliberately avoiding her concern again, “you should see how it’s done. You said you wanted to work in a hotel someday.”
“But what happens when no guests appear?” He shrugged.
“We’ll change again and pretend to be guests. I don’t know. C’mon.”
When they entered the dining room, they saw Pop Levine at the far right corner table. He gestured that he wanted that table to be the one. Marty nodded and went into the kitchen to get a clean tablecloth and napkins. Judy waited in the doorway.
“Make four settings,” Pop Levine said as Marty smoothed out the tablecloth. He set out place settings for four while the old man stood by like an inspecting general. “Good. Tonight the Bienstocks will sit with us.”
“The Bienstocks?” Judy asked. Marty smiled widely at her.
“A wholesale butcher,” Pop Levine said and then lowered his voice to a loud whisper, “from Brooklyn. Worth a million dollars easy.”
“The owner’s table is like the captain’s table on a luxury liner,” Marty explained. “It’s an honor to be asked to sit here for a meal. Don’t worry, Pop,” he said, turning to the old man, “I’ll be sure to give special service tonight.”
“It’s important,” the old man said and raised his right forefinger. With his eyes wide and his head tilted, he looked comical. Marty had a hard time holding back a laugh. Judy just stared. The old man froze like that for a moment and then dropped his arm quickly. It was as though he could jump from one time period to another as quickly as people changed channels on their television sets. “It’s time for lunch,” he said. “Come, we’ll have some borscht.” He started for the kitchen.
“Borscht?” Judy whispered. “I never had it. What is it?”
“It’s just beet soup,” Marty said. They followed the old man into the kitchen.
“Ugh.”
“It’s not so bad. Why do you think they used to call this area the Borscht Belt?”
“The Borscht Belt,” Pop Levine said, hearing only the last few words. He turned around.
“Why did they call it that?” Judy asked.
“You ask such a question? Sit, sit,” he said, pointing to the table. He started for the refrigerator to his left, talking as he took out the jar of borscht and the container of sour cream. “Borscht has always been a staple food for Jewish families. My father told me it was invented in Russia, but my mother said Poland. Who knows?” He pulled his shoulders up and tilted his head. He brought the jar and container to the table and went for bowls and spoons. “When people first came up here, they brought their borscht kettles along, and the small boardinghouses and tourist houses that later became hotels all served borscht. So we became known as the Borscht Belt. My daughter should ask such a question,” he repeated, looking at Judy and shaking his head.
“The young people. What do they know?” Marty said.
Pop Levine nodded and smiled. “No one likes to hear about the old days anymore,” he said.
“I do,” Marty said. “I think it’s interesting.”
The old man shook the jar to stir up the strips of beets and then opened it and poured some in each bowl. He went over to a drawer under one of the counters and came back with a loaf of rye bread.
“That looks fresh,” Judy said. “How did he get that?”
“I don’t know. Delivery boy maybe,” Marty said quickly. They watched him scoop sour cream into the borscht and then dip a piece of rye bread into it. The juice ran down the sides of his chin.
“Eat, eat,” he said. Marty reached for the sour cream. Judy took half a tablespoon of borscht and tasted it. “We started here with only eight rooms,” he said, gesturing widely. “Our boarders learned about us from word of mouth. You think we put our name in the papers in those days? Who had money for such things?”
“Word of mouth was enough?” Marty asked.
“It was enough, it was enough. Once a boarder learned about my wife’s cooking . . . it was enough. Besides cooking, she entertained as well.”
