I halted midway into the musty-smelling lobby. The small space had been updated from its original Jazz Age decor to post-World War II kitsch. Worn velvet couches settled heavily onto the faded paisley carpeting. Dusty wall sconces cast their feeble light upward to reveal the cracked crown molding and a stained ceiling. The total effect wasAmerican Horror Storychic.
I pulled my attention to the clerk behind the counter. He wore a white button-up that had yellowed with age, topped by a crooked bow tie. He put his newspaper down and blinked at us expectantly.
“Welcome to the Fulbright.”
I ignored the greeting and asked, “Tall guy came in. Black, bald, scary-looking. Where did he go?”
The clerk’s tie bobbed, his brow furrowing in confusion. “How may I be of service?”
“Where?” I growled at him. Was this guy for real? Blinking his pale watery eyes, the clerk pointed to the elevator.
“Third floor.”
Forgoing the ancient elevator, I ran up the wide central staircase, yelling Abraham’s name. On the third floor, the big man appeared at the top of the stairs, frowning at me. “What are you doing here?”
An explosion rocked the building before I could answer. My vision came to reality. Dust, plaster, and Lyncus tumbled down the stairs. Abraham rolled, grabbing onto me to keep from falling the rest of the way down. We both fell but not far. Abraham’s tail curled around a banister to help right himself, his eyes glinting with his particular golden hue.
“Vision?” he asked.
I nodded. After assuring me that he was okay, Abraham shifted to his human form and dusted himself off. He led me back up to the third floor.
The dust clogged the air and stung my eyes. I stumbled on the ripped carpeting until Abraham grasped my elbow. The hallway was mostly intact, with two gaping holes where room doors had been.
Scrambling out of the nearest hole in the wall, two dust-covered young men half fell toward us. They righted themselves rather gleefully, coughing and sputtering.
“Holy shit, that was lit.” The taller one croaked, turning to his friend. “We shouldn’t have put the pie in the microwave. But awesome fireworks.”
I frowned at them. “This was a microwave mishap?” That didn’t sound right. My eyes narrowed as I waved away the plaster dust. “Are you high? You could have killed someone.”
“Sorry.” The second kid, looking no older than twenty, tripped into his friend as they stumbled away, both of them laughing as they picked their way through the rubble.
I suddenly felt like an old man, cursing at young whippersnappers. I was thirty-two. I shouldn’t even know what a whippersnapper was. Truthfully, I didn’t, but the grandpa in me had heard the term.
Abe and I stepped over debris to peer through the smoke at an opening where a door once was.
Inside, the adjoining wall between rooms was gone, its open studs jutting up from the floor like teeth. Water hissed from a busted sink faucet in the gaping bathroom. Wind whistled through the missing window frame, pulling the flaming drapes into the room. I ripped them down and stamped out the fire. The bed was askew and loaded with insulation and plaster. Abraham rushed to the spewing sink and shut the valve off under it.
A moan sounded from a pile of debris in the corner. Abraham lifted some of the bigger pieces of plaster while I pulled an elderly man out from underneath.
Old and frail, the man’s face was covered in plaster dust and scratches, his thin shoulders hunched over as he sat up, coughing violently. Finally settling, he looked up at us and muttered something unintelligible.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
In between coughing fits, he spoke a language I was unfamiliar with. Not that I’m a linguist or anything, but I could tell Spanish from French or Chinese. This was none of those. He was okay but moved slowly, working his knees one at a time. Bald except for a few strands of chalk-covered hair, he had bushy white eyebrows overlooking unusually alert eyes. The guy’s complexion had the lines and color of an ancient treasure map, and his lips caved inward in his toothless mouth.
Abraham answered him, speaking hesitantly but speeding up as the guy seemed to understand. I supposed when you lived as long as Abe did, you learned a few ancient languages. The old guy allowed us to help him out of the wrecked room.
I had called 911, and the paramedics met us at the top of the stairs with a gurney. Leaving the man in expert hands, we checked the rest of the floor. The damage was contained to the two rooms and hallway. This being the middle of the day,there were only a few folks who’d come out to investigate the noise. With nothing else on fire and no one else in danger, we regrouped back down in the lobby.
Seeing the fire and police had arrived, the long-term unusual residents scattered quickly, and it was just us and the cops. Abraham settled on one ratty couch. I took a club chair across from him. After assuring the cops we were all okay, I gave descriptions of the two idiots who caused the explosion.
After getting our contact information, the police moved upstairs to have a look around.
I’d found a small bar tucked off to the side of the lobby and they had an ancient coffee machine. More investigators arrived. Each time, the stupid desk clerk called out his welcome as though they were guests.
We sat quietly in the lobby, letting EMS do their thing. After wiping his face and hands of plaster dust, Abraham sipped his coffee.
“What about the two yahoos who started this?” he asked.
