He went out of the room, locking the door behind him, and went down the steps to the first floor. The linoleum on the stair treads was old and worn; he had noticed that when he'd taken the room two nights ago. But the reason he'd come all the way uptown here for a room was because he knew it'd be a lot cheaper than a hotel. So he wasn't about to start complaining about the worn linoleum, hell with that. So long as the bed was all right and didn't have anything crawling in it, why that was good enough for him. He was only paying four dollars a night for the room, you couldn't do much better than that unless you wanted to go down to Skid Row, he wasn't about to go sleeping with a bunch of drunken bums.
The landlady's apartment was on the ground floor at the end of the hall. The hall smelled nice and clean, she'd been scrubbing it on her hands and knees the day he'd taken the room, that was Tuesday. He'd known right off it was going to be a clean place without any bugs in the bed, that was the important thing, the bugs. Don't take no bed with bugs in it, his mother had said. He didn't know how you could tell if a bed had bugs in it until you got into the bed with them, and then it was probably too late to do anything about it, they'd eat you alive. But he figured the smell of that disinfectant in the hallway was a sure sign this lady was clean. She probably used something on the coils of the bedspring too, that was where the bugs hid. His mother always washed out the bedspring coils back home with a toothbrush and ammonia, he didn't know why ammonia, but he supposed it killed anything that was in there. Sometimes she sprayed them, too, with some kind of bug killer. She was very clean.
He wished he knew what time it was because he didn't want to get the landlady out of bed if it was too early in the morning. Well, he had to tell her he was leaving today, anyway, settle up with her. He lifted his hand and tentatively knocked on the door.
"Who is it?" she said.
Good. She was awake.
"It's me," he answered. "Mr. Broome."
"Just a minute, Mr. Broome," the landlady answered. He waited while she came to the door. Somewhere in the building, upstairs, he heard a toilet flush. The door opened.
"Good morning," he said.
"Good morning, Mr. Broome," the landlady said. Dougherty, that was her name. Agnes Dougherty, he remembered now.
"I hope I didn't wake you up, Mrs. Dougherty," he said.
"Nope, I was just having my breakfast," she answered. She was a small, thin woman wearing a faded wrapper imprinted with primroses. Her hair was in curlers. She reminded him of his mother, small like that. Don't ask me how I ever give birth to a young horse like you, his mother always said. It was kind of funny, when you thought of it, her so small.
"What was it you wanted, Mr. Broome?"
"Well, I'll be leaving today, and I thought-"
"Oh, so soon?"
"Well, I finished what I had to do here, you know, so-"
"What was that, Mr. Broome? Come in, won't you, have some coffee with me."
"Well, ma'am-"
"Come in, come in," she said in a perky sort of bright cheerful voice; she was really a very nice little lady.
"Okay," he said, "but only 'cause I have to come in anyway to settle up with you."
He went into the apartment and she closed the door behind him. The apartment smelled as clean as the hallway did, with the same strong disinfectant smell. The kitchen linoleum had been scrubbed bare in spots, so that the wooden floor beneath it showed through, and even the wood in those spots had been scrubbed almost white. A clean oilcloth with a seashell pattern covered the kitchen table.
"Sit down," Mrs. Dougherty said. "How do you like your coffee?"
"Well, ma'am, I usually have it black with three sugars." He chuckled and said, "My mother says I get my sweet tooth from my father. He died in a train accident when I was only seven."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Mrs. Dougherty said, bringing a clean cup to the table and then pouring it full to the brim with coffee.
"Well, 1 hardly remember him."
"Here's the sugar," she said, and moved the bowl toward him. She sat at the table opposite him, picking up a piece of toast she had bitten into before answering the door. Remembering her guest, she said, "Would you like some toast?"
"No, thank you, ma'am."
"Are you sure?"
"Well…"
"I'll make you some," she said, and rose and went to the counter near the sink where she took a slice of bread from its waxed wrapper and put it into the toaster. "Or would you like two slices?" she said.
He shrugged and smiled and said, "I guess I could eat two, ma'am."
"A healthy appetite's nothing to be ashamed of," she said, and put another slice of bread into the toaster. "Now," she said, and came back to the table. "You were telling me why you were here in the city."
"Oh, to sell our wares, ma'am."
"What wares?"
"We've got a woodworking shop, just a small one, you know."
"Who's we?"
"Oh, me and my brother."
"Where's that?"
"Up in Carey, do you know it?"
"I don't think so."
