The Landlord. Kristin Hunter

moved on beyond them, beyond weatherstripping, to dreams of his house of the future.

      One day, the present tenants gone, he would strip the place of its apartments, remake it into the residence he would by then deserve. By then he would be able to allow himself a pleasure palace arranged to permit the endless play of light on textures and furnished to indulge all the whims of a restless, robust mind. Then he would leave his dank death-cell in the Trejour Apartments, no longer needing Borden in the same building to reassure him, tell him over and over again that he was real, and good, and deserved things. There would be no more screams into the phone in the middle of the night.

      “Borden! Borden, are you up there?”

      “Yes, Elgar.” —Always patient, even when awakened at three in the morning. Couldn’t he ever get upset? “I’m here, and you’re there, aren’t you?”

      “Christ, I know I’m here, you incredible idiot.”

      “Good. Then good night, Elgar. Go to sleep.”

      The click, and Elgar would let loose a stream of spluttering curses, yet be somehow satisfied by the exchange, and able to sleep at last.

      Someday he wouldn’t need Borden always handy to shore him up and undermine him at the same time. Steadying him with his right hand, while with his left he was draining Elgar of dreams and memories, making him paler, pushing him toward disappearance. And charging him twenty-five dollars an hour for the bloodletting.

      Elgar sucked in his breath, squinted his eyes shut, and concentrated on seeing the house as it would be someday. His house, an extension of himself, in that fine future when he would have a self to extend.

      . . . Rip out the stairs and partitions, recess the second story into a gallery bedroom opening on a balcony, give the first-floor living room a three-story cathedral ceiling. One starkly beautiful light fixture that he would commission, a dancing constellation of lights visible at night through three stories of glass. Of course he would have to curtain that fall of glass, at from twenty-five to fifty bucks a yard, and . . .

      His father’s hand, pinched with penury in the midst of its millions, unable to replace anything until it frayed and fell apart, clamped down clawlike on Elgar’s before it could react to the lovely, crunchy feel of that fabric. An unbelievable shade of goldy-green, it slithered away into the dank subterrain of dreams that would never be realized.

      Certainly nothing so lush and lovely would ever see the light of day on the cut-rate counters of J. P. Enders and Co., Seven Branches, Never Undersold. From all seven branches a clammy sea of plastic billowed forth endlessly to curtain the world, for J. P. Enders was the Junk Emporium, and he, Elgar Enders, was the son and heir of the Emperor of Junk. Try as he might, he could not abdicate the throne.

      Measure he must.

       2

      Even at a distance Elgar’s house stood out from all the others, rising tall and clean as the Washington Monument from a surrounding shambles of shingled lean-tos and upended brick coffins, with the good balanced architecture that had sold him, wide, well-placed windows, a fanlighted prince of a door.

      The real estate salesman had assured him, over and over, that the tenants were good, steady, reliable types. None had lived there less than five years. One couple had been there twenty-five years.

      He’d added, with odious chumminess, “Can you imagine the ignorance of those people? By now they’ve paid enough rent to buy the house four times over. Best value on our list, too. I approached them, but they weren’t interested. That’s why I prefer dealing with a businessman.”

      —A white man, you mean, had been Elgar’s reaction. And I suppose, since slimy reptiles like you also come under that classification, we are expected to have everything in common.

      He’d bought on the spot, rather than submit to the rest of the salestalk. No need for dickering, anyway. It was a good buy.

      —An excellent buy, he amended, moving closer to admire the gracefully proportioned windows. Congratulating himself on his astute judgment of property values, his shrewd eye for a bargain, Elgar almost overlooked a startling new development.

      Each window now contained a large, boldly printed sign.

      What the hell?

      Elgar kicked the front door open and stormed into the vestibule.

      “This property is not zoned commercial, do you understand?” he raged. “It’s residential!”

      In the vestibule, a brick-complexioned dwarf with a curly black mop regarded Elgar blandly from its perch on a fire-red scooter.

      “I Walla Chee Cho Chee,” it chirped. “Gimme nickel.”

      “Who is Madam Margarita?” demanded Elgar. “Where does Fanny live?”

      “I Walla Chee Cho Chee,” the dwarf repeated sweetly. “Gimme nickel.”

      “Oho,” said Elgar. “An extortionist. I know your type. Just why should I give you a nickel, Walter Shoji? Just because you have the largest, darkest, most lamplike eyes I’ve ever seen? Don’t you know that’s the beginning of creeping socialism? Don’t you know how bad socialism is? Do you want to grow up without a shred or particle of individual initiative?”

      It was a good imitation of Fathaw, even to the rasping whine in the voice. Elgar held up a shiny dime.

      “On the other hand,” he lectured, “let me demonstrate to you the advantages of earning your bread. You see this? This is worth two nickels. And it is all yours if you will tell me which apartment belongs to Madam Margarita and which to Miss Fanny.”

      “You the new rent man?”

      “Never mind who I am. I am your Uncle Sam, if you must know. Who are Margarita and Fanny?”

      “Don’t know no Marita. Fanny my mama. I Walla Chee Cho Chee.”

      Or something like that. Then, in a maneuver that would have done credit to an Olympic skiing champion, the kid leaped, plucked the dime from Elgar’s fingers, and sailed out of the door on his scooter.

      “Gone buy me two green yum-yums,” he tossed over his shoulder. “I love green yum-yums. Yum-yum man, he go soon. I hurry. ’Bye, rent man.”

      There was such lyrical sweetness in the voice uttering this foreign-sounding babble that Elgar was suddenly homesick for the South Sea islands he had never seen, until he realized how thoroughly he had been tricked.

      He turned helplessly, masticating his rage, and studied the names which were variously scribbled, printed, and embossed on the mailboxes. Copee. Perkins. Cumberson. And, in raised gold script letters, P. Eldridge DuBois. Elgar copied each name onto the cover of a separate rent book, using the laborious block printing that was the only thing he had taken away from his desperate years at day school. That P. Eldridge character. Hmmm. Elgar smelled trouble there.

      He went outside again and stared at the signs for a full five minutes, deliberately allowing his fury to build to a molten froth as he read:

       Madam Margarita

       Readings $2

       Ring 2 Bell

       (If No Anser Ring 1 Bell)

      and:

       Fanny Hair Styling

       $3 Up

       Ring 1 Bell

       (If No Anser Ring 2 Bell)

      Obviously, there was collusion at work here. A conspiracy among his tenants to ruin him. Elgar went back into the vestibule and rang all the bells. Simultaneously, steadily, with the full, unforgiving pressure of his arm.

      There was an immediate response that made him jump. It came from the third mailbox, the only one