Impossible Things (26 page)

“I doubt if we’ll be able to,” Stewart said crisply from the foot of the stairs. “I should imagine we’ll be in negotiations all night.”

They went out. Chris hesitated a moment and then
started to run back up the stairs to get dressed so she could go with them.

“Wait,” Mr. Nagisha said from the door of his apartment. “I have something to give you.” She came back down the stairs, stepping carefully over the laid-out cards, and he handed her a folded paper.

“What is it?” Chris said.

“An eviction notice. You are in violation of your lease.”

“I am not,” she said, unfolding the paper. “How am I in violation?”

“Subletting without landlord’s permission to a person not a relative and withholding of rent.”

“What? You mean Mr. Okeefenokee? I didn’t sublet my apartment to him. NASA requisitioned it, and Stewart paid you. I saw him. Nobody withheld any rent, and if you’re talking about Mr. Hutchins, Mr. Okeefenokee was the one who asked him to stay with him. If you think he should be paying rent, too, you’ll have to talk to NASA.”

“I have evidence. You must be out by seven o’clock tomorrow morning. I have rented your apartment to other tenants.”

“What kind of evidence?”

He flourished a chip at her, and for a minute Chris thought it was the missing recording of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” but Mr. Nagisha walked past the old man, stepping squarely on the cards, and up to the landing, where he stuck the chip into the TV.

The title, “Orphans of the Stairs” appeared in front of the screen followed by a shot of the apartment building. A voice-over, which sounded suspiciously like the redheaded interviewer, said, “Inside this building is one of the apartments NASA has requisitioned so the aliens will have a place to live. But what about all those people on Sony who
don’t have
a place to live? Today I met two of them.” The interviewer appeared on the landing with
Molly and Bets in their navy-sailor dresses. They curtsied as he introduced them, all their dimples showing.

Mr. Nagisha fast-forwarded and then stopped. The interviewer said, “Let’s see these budding performers in action,” and Molly and Bets clomped out in their wooden shoes. Mr. Nagisha fast-forwarded it before they could get started on “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” He stopped it.

“Spielberg, are you out there?” the interview said. “All these two talented tots ask is a chance to break into show biz.”

He hit the fast-forward button, and when he stopped the chip again, Molly was saying, “Thyee and the alien have thith whole apartment, but thyee won’t let uth use the bathroom or the phone or anything, even if we’re eckthpecting an important call from our agent.”

“And then last night she kicked us out of her room,” Bets said, stepping neatly in front of Molly. “We just wanted to sleep on the floor.” She began a pretty pout and then seemed to realize that if she stopped talking, Molly would jump in, and added hastily, “I think she wanted us out of there so she could be alone with him.”

“Who?” the interviewer said, his ears perking up. “The alien?”

“Of courth not,” Molly said, putting her arm up so it was in front of Bets’s face. “Mr. Negeethya doethn’t know it, but thyee rented her apartment to thith other guy.”

“His name’s Hutchins,” Bets said, wrestling Molly’s arm down to where she could see over it. “We saw him give her the rent. It was a whole bunch of yen. She’s not supposed to rent to anybody without telling Mr. Nagisha.”

“He wasn’t paying me rent,” Chris said. “He took some money out of my purse to pay for breakfast. He was giving me my change.”

The scene in front of the TV cut suddenly to Chris trying to shut the door on the interviewer’s foot. “The occupant
of the apartment, Ms. Christine Arthur, was unavailable for comment,” the interviewer said.

“I did not rent my room to Mr. Hutchins,” Chris said. “Mr. Okeefenokee asked him to stay. He doesn’t understand English very well, and he thought ‘room’ meant any available space and …”

“Evidence,” Mr. Nagisha said.

“Look, I’m sure we can clear this whole thing up if you’ll just let me call Stewart.”

The interviewer said, peering over Molly’s and Bets’s simpering faces, “When this reporter checked with NASA, they had no record of having requisitioned Ms. Arthur’s apartment, which raises further questions about the alleged alien and Ms. Arthur’s refusal to sublet to …” Mr. Nagisha popped the chip out of the TV and stepped over the old man in the baseball cap. “Seven o’clock,” he said, and went into his apartment and shut the door.

“Molly and Bets are mad at me because they think I stole their chip recorder,” Chris shouted at the door. “They told me they’d get even.”

The door stayed shut. The old man in the baseball cap looked up blankly and then went back to laying out his cards. He’ll never get anywhere without the diamonds, Chris thought irrelevantly, and tore back upstairs, clutching the eviction notice, and tried to call Stewart.

The blond woman who was always laying papers on Stewart’s desk for him to sign told her that he couldn’t come to the phone. “Have him call me as soon as you can,” Chris told her. “This is an emergency!”

She got dressed and tried again. This time the call wouldn’t go through. She stared at the screen for a while and then grabbed the eviction notice and her purse and ran downstairs. At the bottom of the steps she collided with Charmaine’s lawyer. He was swinging a tassel idly in one hand and whistling.

“Hey!” he said. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Mr. Nagisha’s having me evicted because of Hutchins. I’ve got to go find him.”

“And leave your apartment? If you leave, you’re liable to find your furniture out on the stairs when you get back.” He looked at the eviction notice. “You go back upstairs and sit tight. I’ll go try to talk Mr. Nagisha out of this. If it doesn’t work, I’ll go find Hutchins for you. Go on. Mr. Nagisha’s probably already changing the locks.”

Chris tore back upstairs, hopelessly scattering the old man’s cards. “I’m sorry,” she said breathlessly. “You wouldn’t have won anyway. Your diamonds are in Mr. Okeefenokee’s room.”

The locks hadn’t been changed, but the door was standing open. Molly and Bets were in the living room, arranging their dolls on the couch.

“I get the bedroom,” Molly said. “You can thleep in the hammock.”

“
I
get the bedroom,” Bets said.

“Out,” Chris said. Both of the little girls turned to look at her in surprise.

“Didn’t Mr. Nagisha talk to you?” Bets said. “This isn’t your apartment anymore. It’s ours.”

“Either you get out or I’m knocking those pearly little front teeth of yours down your throats, and then we’ll see how many parts you get.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Bets said, but she grabbed one of her dolls by the arm and clutched two others to her stomach. Molly scooped up the rest of them, and they trooped out. “We’re moving in at theven o’clock and you’d better be out of here by then,” Molly said.

Chris locked the door and shoved a chair against it. She tried Stewart again, and then the operator, but she still couldn’t get through. Charmaine’s lawyer came up to tell her he hadn’t gotten anywhere with Mr. Nagisha. He didn’t sound particularly worried, but he said he was going up to NASA to look for Hutchins and Okee. “You don’t have to barricade yourself in,” he said, pointing at
the chair. “Just don’t leave. And keep trying to get in touch with Hutchins from this end.”

“I will,” she promised, trying to think where Mr. Okeefenokee might have put her subvocalizer. As soon as Charmaine’s lawyer was gone, she went into Mr. Okeefenokee’s room to look for it. She looked through the bento-bako boxes and under the bed and in the baby buggy, and then started in on the endless stacks of boxes. I wonder how he planned on getting all this home, she thought, sticking her hand inside the roller skates.

The phone rang. It was Hutchins. “I’ve only got a minute,” he said rapidly. “Have you found the subvocalizer yet? Okee doesn’t have it. They did a metals search on him when we came in. I asked him where he put it, and he said, and I quote, ‘You put on. Closing. Hahnahmoon.’ Do you realize what that means? There isn’t any space program. He hasn’t understood a word we’ve been saying.”

“Pete, you’ve got to come back right away,” she said to the suddenly blank screen. “I’m being evicted.” She prodded the
reinstate
button until an operator came onscreen. “I was just cut off,” she said, and gave her Stewart’s number. This time the phone rang. And went on ringing. Chris let it ring twenty-eight times and then went back into the bedroom and sat down on the bed.

She picked up the list Mr. Okeefenokee had written. He had checked off “time alone” and “closing” and crossed off “neck.” The only thing left on the list was “hahnahmoon,” which he had spelled the way he pronounced it.

“Honeymoon,” Chris said out loud. “I wonder what he thinks that means.” She picked up the old man’s diamonds and took them out to him, but he was asleep again, stretched out across the stairs, his baseball cap in his hands. Chris sat down on the step above him and shuffled the diamonds into his deck. The phone rang.

It was Stewart. “I’m being evicted,” Chris said before they could be cut off.

“Evicted?” he said, looking horrified. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. Mr. Nagisha claims I withheld rent from him.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Stewart said. “I paid him myself when Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh moved in.”

“He’s not talking about Mr. Okeefenokee. He’s talking about Hutchins. You’ve got to tell him to come back here so he can explain to Mr. Nagisha that he wasn’t paying me rent, he was just giving me back my change from breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” Stewart said. “How long has Hutchins been over there?”

“Two days. He’s got to come explain that Mr. Okeefenokee was the one who asked him to stay. And you’ve got to bring over the requisition forms that show my apartment was requisitioned by NASA.”

“I’ll be right over,” he said hurriedly.

“Bring Hutchins with you. And Mr. Okeefenokee.”

“I can’t do that,” he said.

“I know they’re in negotiations, but they’ve got to talk to Mr. Nagisha. What if I have Mr. Nagisha come up here and they can talk to him on the phone?”

“That won’t work either.”

“Why not?”

“They’re on their way down to Houston. They left on the shuttle half an hour ago.”

“ ’Scuse me,” Charmaine said, and came into the living room, wearing her pink smock and carrying the red paper umbrella Mr. Okeefenokee had given her. She switched on the light. “I didn’t knock ’cause I thought you might be asleep. Did you know Molly’s got a key to your apartment?”

Chris nodded numbly. “Hutchins is gone.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said. She sat down on the couch beside Chris. “How long have you been sitting here in the dark?”

“I don’t know. What time is it?”

“Three o’clock.”

“They’re probably in Houston by now. I hope Hutchins didn’t get shuttle lag.”

“You look pretty lagged yourself. Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”

“I can’t. I’m being evicted.”

“Yeah, I know that, too. My lawyer stopped by Luigi’s to tell me what had happened. The way I figure it, your prospective buyer figured he better get rid of Hutchins before he made you a better offer.” She put her arm around Chris. “Don’t worry about your apartment. My lawyer say’s he’s got a plan to fight the eviction. He wouldn’t tell me what it was, but he said not to worry, he wouldn’t let those brats get your apartment, and I believe him. He knows practically everything there is to know when it comes to real-estate deals.”

There was a knock on the door. Charmaine went to answer it and came back in with her lawyer and Stewart.

“Well, you’ve gotten yourself in a nice mess, Chris,” Stewart said. “Mr. Nagisha showed us the chip. How could you jeopardize your apartment by letting some stranger move in?”

“You told me to do whatever Mr. Okeefenokee wanted. He wanted Hutchins to move in. Did you show him the NASA requisition form?”

“There isn’t one,” Charmaine’s lawyer said, looking happier than Stewart. “And we don’t have a prayer of taking this to court when he’s got two cute kids to testify for him. I guess we’ll have to go with my plan after all.”

“What do you mean there isn’t one?” Chris said.

“I was afraid there’d be a great deal of red tape,” Stewart said, “getting you cleared and so on …”

“NASA requisitioned dozens of people’s apartments.
None of them had any trouble getting cleared. You told NASA he was staying with you, didn’t you? So you’d get the compensation?”

“It doesn’t really matter which apartment was requisitioned, since we’re getting married.”

“It matters to me,” Chris said. “I’m being evicted.”

“No, you’re not,” Charmaine’s lawyer said cheerfully. “We’ve come up with a plan. All you have to do is marry Hutchins. Then he doesn’t have to pay rent because he’s a relative.”

“I can’t,” Chris said. “He’s in Houston.”

“He doesn’t have to be here,” Stewart said. “We can do a beam-up call, take the vows over the phone, transmit the papers and have them signed on both ends. I’ve cleared it with NASA.”

“I don’t understand,” Chris said bewilderedly. “How will getting married now help? We weren’t married when he stayed here.”

“Sony law allows occupancy before closing,” Charmaine’s lawyer said, looking positively jovial. “What do you say?”

“It’s the only way we can save your apartment,” Stewart said. “You’re not really getting married. There’s an automatic buyer-backout clause if the deal isn’t closed in twenty-four hours, which of course it won’t be. You’ll have your apartment back, and with the requisition money I get from NASA we’ll be able to buy that apartment next door to Mother’s and turn this into a rental.”

“What if Mr. Nagisha finds out and tries to stop it?”

“He won’t,” Charmaine’s lawyer said. “Omiko sent him down to Luigi’s for the
sutorippu
, and I paid Molly and Bets off.”

“I want to talk to Hutchins.”

“You can talk to him during the wedding,” Stewart said, looking relieved. “I’ll call NASA.”

“Omiko’s out getting a Shinto priest,” Charmaine’s lawyer beamed. “I’ll go get the marriage contracts drawn
up. We’ll have you married in nothing flat.” They both hurried out.