358
RICHARD G. STERN
Ossip, Mrs. Schlag, and two other refugees from Vienna, one of whom
sold perfume atomizers door-to-door. Lester further reported what
she was certain was a lie until Schlag'S obituary confirmed it, namely
that as a young bone man in Vienna he had rented rooms and lent
money to an unpromising young man named- " you guessed it,"
Miss Swindleman would say wickedly to whatever black Jew she
related it to-Adolph Hitler. "Ha, ha, ha. Old Schlag could have
saved you an ocean voyage, eh Mr. Rappaport? A little arsenic in
the chicken soup, doctors aren't suspected, and Schlag would have had
a place in history."
"Wouldn't have been no history then," the paling Rappaport or
Goldhammer or Mockus would say.
Tho~gh
not Mendel. His response when she offered him the
insight about his comrade was a simple, "I wouldn't have much of a
poker game then, Miss Schwindleman." A hard man, a bit of Hitler
in
his
own right. She could see him in the seat of power, bombs
instead of stand-up lamps in
his
angry little arms.
The most frequent visitor was Charlie Lepidus, Mendel's partner.
As
small as Mendel, but wiry, blue in the face, a scowler, a rapid man,
cigar-crunching. A stormer, of elevators, candy counters, her den.
Like the last day. "Gimme change fifty," he'd said.
"You a guest of the hotel?"
As
icy as the roughneck deserved.
"Change of fifty. I'm a guest, a guest." Meaning, "A visitor
to a hotel resident."
"Who, may I ask?"
"Mendel. Harvey. lIC. You've seen me a hundred times. I'm
here five times a month. You got fifty bucks in this cage?"
"You'll have to get the manager's signature. And he's out. I can't
be expected to remember every visitor to the hotel. It's hard enough
keeping track of the guests."
An oath, a sneer from the penny-colored eyes, he slung himself
into the elevator.
Five minutes later, a call from 11 C. "I'm coming down to change
fifty dollars, Miss Schwindleman."
"Swindleman."
"Next time Mr. Lepidus requests a service, I'd greatly appreciate
it, Miss Schwindleman."
But Lepidus would never again request a service, and apparently
her exchange with him had something to do with it. Her proper
