the bottom.
He blinked at it. 'Hell, no. It's legit. It was sent in.'
'You ever stop to think what you're doing with an ad like that?'
'Hey, man, like we don't read, we just print 'em. It's a free country, right?
Lemme see that!' He grabbed the ad and peered at it, moving his lips. 'Oh, sure. That one. Funny, huh?'
'You realize someone just might look up that geek and believe in him?'
'Them's the breaks. Hey, look, why don't you fall downstairs outa my life?'
He thrust the paper back at me.
'I don't leave without the home phone number of this weirdo.'
He blinked at me, stunned, then laughed. 'That's Q/T information, like no one knows. You want to write him, sure. We pass mail on. Or he comes, picks it up.'
'This is an emergency. Someone's dead. Someone…' I ran out of gas and looked around at the ocean of paper on the floor and, without thinking about it, took out a box of small stick matches.
'Looks like a fire hazard here,' I said.
'What fire hazard?'
He glanced around at the year's growth of paper wadding, empty beer cans, dropped paper cups, and old hamburger wrappings. A look of immense pride overcame him. His eyes almost danced when he saw the five-or-six-quart wax milk cartons busy manufacturing penicillin on the window sills, next to some tossed men's jockey shorts that gave the place its real touch of class.
I struck a match to get his attention.
'Hey,' he said.
I blew out the first match, to show what a good sport I was, and when he made no further offer of help, lit a second.
'What if I dropped this on the floor?'
He gave the floor a second look around. The paper junk seethed and lapped at his ankles. If I had dropped the match the flames would have reached him in about five seconds.
'You ain't going to drop that,' he said.
'No?' I blew it out and lit a third.
'You got the goddamnedest sense of humor, don't you?'
I dropped the match.
He yelled and jumped.
I stepped on the flame before it could spread.
He took a deep breath and let it blast.
'Now you get the hell outa here! You…'
'Wait.' I lit a final match and crouched, guarding the flame, close down to a half-ton of wadded rewrites, old calling cards, torn envelopes.
I touched the flame here and there and the paper started burning.
'What in hell you want?'
'Just a phone number. That's all. I still won't have an address, so I can't get at the guy, trace him. But I do, damn it to hell, want that phone, or the whole place burns.'
I realized my own voice had gone up about ten decibels, to maniac. Fannie was fighting in my blood. A lot of other dead people were screaming in my breath, wanting out.
'Give it here!' I shouted.
The flames were spreading.
'Shit, man, stomp out the fire, you'll get the goddamn dumb number. Shit, hold on, jump!'
I jumped on the fire, dancing around. Smoke rose and the fire was out by the time Mr. Janus, the editor who faced two ways at once, found the number on his Rolodex.
'Here, goddamn it, here's the crapping number. Vermont four-five-five-five.
Got that? Four-five-five-five!'
I struck a final final match until he shoved the Rolodex card under my nose.
'Someone who loved you,' it read, and the telephone.
'Okay!' shrieked the editor.
I blew out the match. My shoulders sank with sudden relief.
Fannie, I thought, we'll get him now.
I must have said it out loud, for the editor, his face purple, sprayed me with his saliva. 'What you going to get?'
'Myself killed,' I said, going downstairs.
'I hope so!' I heard him yell.
I opened the door of the taxicab.
'Meter's ticking like crazy,' said Henry, in the back seat. 'Thank God I'm rich.'
'Be right with you.'
I beckoned the taxi driver to follow me out to a corner where there was an outdoor phone booth.
I hesitated for a long while, afraid to call the number, afraid someone might really answer.
What, I wondered, do you say to a murderer during suppertime?
I dialed the number. Someone who loved you, long ago. Who would answer a dumb ad like that? All of us, on the right night. The voice from the past, making you remember a familiar touch, a warm breath in the ear, a seizure of passion like a strike of lightning. Which of us is not vulnerable, I thought, when it comes to that three-in-the-morning voice. Or when you wake after midnight to find someone crying, and it's you, and tears on the chin and you didn't even know that during the night you had had a bad dream.
Someone who loved you.
Where is she now? Where is he? Still alive somewhere? It can't be. Too much time is gone. The one who loves me can't still be in the world somewhere. And yet? Why not, as I was doing, call?w I called three times and went back to sit with Henry in the back seat of the taxi, listening to the meter tick. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'That meter don't bother me. There's plenty of horses waiting and lots of lettuce up ahead. Go dial the number again, child.'
The child went to dial.
This time, a long way off in another country, it seemed, a self-appointed funeral director picked up the phone.
'Yes?' said a voice.
At last I gasped, 'Who's this?'
'For that matter, who's this?' said the guarded voice.
'What took you so long to get to the phone?' I could hear cars going by on the other end.
It was a phone booth in an alley somewhere in the city. Christ, I thought, he does as I do. He's using the nearest pay booth for his office.
'Well, if you're not going to say anything…' said the voice on the other end.
'Wait,' I said. I almost know your voice, I thought. Let me hear more. 'I saw your ad in Janus. Can you help me?'
The voice on the other end relaxed, pleased by my panic. 'I can help anyone, anywhere, anytime,' he said, easily. 'You one of the Lonelies?'
'What?' I cried.
'You one of the…'
Lonelies he had said. And that did it.
I was back at Crumley's, back in time, back on the big train in the cold rain rounding a curve. The voice on the phone was that voice in the night storm half a lifetime ago, saying its say about death and lonely,
