Traveling salesmen, in addition to what they sell, as you know, must sell themselves. Your smile should be wide, and the shine of your shoes impressively blinding. Such perfect individuals naturally turn out to be the perfect victims.
From his window on the tenth floor of the hotel there was no view other than the blank wall of an adjacent building. But she didn't care. He had decided not to go to the best hotels, as other travelers did (and as he himself had always done, before he began to miss performances and feel the insecurity of lukewarm greetings); nor did he ask for the best room in this one. He knew that he had to improve his work and make a better impression in his office, and he thought that cutting expenses would be a good move.
He had been reading all evening. He then fell asleep, but he didn't know for how long. It was already very late when noises coming from the neighboring room disturbed his sleep. At first he thought it was a nightmare, but he realized that he was awake. He sat up stupefied, bewildered, like someone who wakes up suddenly, without focusing his eyes properly, trying to get used to both waking up and the strange noises.
He heard the voices of a man and a woman. They were engaged in a harsh and bitter argument behind the flimsy partition. They woke him up. He straightened in his chair and stood up. He approached the partition and bowed his head, eyes wide.
"I won't swallow this one," said the man's voice.
The female voice answered, its words unintelligible, but their quality was undoubtedly ordinary.
Then he heard the man again:
-So yes, right? Well, maybe not.
This time the woman's words were clear and strident:
-You can't stop me. All I have to do is walk out that door. Then she tries to explain it.
-And I tell you now that it's better that you don't try it.
The man's voice was full of rage.
-Well, let's see if you try it.
The woman's voice and her threat suddenly stopped. There was a cry of surprise and something fell to the ground. A rumor of fighting followed. It seemed as if the woman was trying to scream, but her efforts were increasingly muffled.
Coldly fascinated, but also frightened, the salesman listened, with his ear pressed to the partition, spellbound by the fight. He now sounded as if he were crawling on the ground, and he heard muffled screams and frequent thuds. At that moment, the noises stopped. Everything became absolutely silent. He remained pressed against the wall, waiting for other noises, but nothing more was heard. An unreal, inexplicable stillness filled the other room. That same stillness pierced the partition and took hold of him.
He waited a long time. Then, with a slow step, she moved away from the wall, experiencing the uneasy guilt of the intruder along with his panic. Stepping back, she stared at the partition as if trying to see through it, hoping that the scene on the other side would materialize for her benefit. The bare wall gave him nothing but a melancholy emptiness.
He sat down again, this time on the edge of the seat, stretching his lip with enormous concern and nervousness reflected on his face. She felt an almost overwhelming desire to deal only with her own things, the natural human impulse to ignore and turn away from problems. But above all, she felt with disturbing crushing concern the persistent concern for the woman. Had the man simply silenced her with a blow, or had she murdered her…, as she seemed to him (and as her exasperated imagination insisted)?
After a few minutes of intense and reflective indecision, he got up, returned to the partition and leaned his ear hopefully..., hoping to hear the soft laughter of two reconciled lovers. But silence persisted. She almost got angry. Why didn't they talk to each other again? They would probably be sitting in silence, looking at each other with disgust, without the slightest regard for their bad time.
That silence did not satisfy him. She decided that he couldn't ignore what had happened. How would he feel if when he woke up in the morning he found out that the woman had been murdered and the murderer had fled in the night? Guilt weighed on him. Perhaps something could be done, if not to save the woman's life, at least to apprehend her murderer while the crime was still hot in her hands.
Silently he sat up and put on his shoes. Stealthily, as if he himself were committing something reprehensible, she opened her door and stepped out into the hallway. There was no one. He realized how late the hour was. Everyone would be asleep, hence he had possibly been the only one to hear what had happened. He stood still, wringing his hands, overcome with maddening indecision. Then, overcoming his inhibition, he went to the elevator and pressed the button. While he waited, he gazed at the door to the room where the conflict had taken place. Even the door seemed to suggest something desperate, a silent, urgent, unreal message.
The elevator creaked and the door opened. The small drawer waited for him to enter. He hurried inside, pressed the button for the ground floor, and watched the door close. He was nervous, and he was sweating while..., with a slow movement like a coffin lowered into the grave..., the elevator went down, successively the floors, with a click in a solemn cadence.
The door opened in front of a sleeping, empty lobby, the typical lobby of a second-class hotel, desperately gloomy in the endless hours of the night. The janitor was behind the counter reading a newspaper. As the salesman approached the counter he wondered what he should say and how, if he should be serious or if it would be better to take it as a joke. He did not want to appear as an alarmist. Perhaps a commotion in that room was common and the clerk would laugh and acknowledge it. Maybe that's why no one else had come down to report. He started to feel like an idiot. He would have continued walking toward the cigarette vending machine if the janitor had not lifted his head from the newspaper at that moment.
-Tell me, Mr. Warren.
Mr. Warren stood by the counter, looking at the concierge. He stood up with a dull, competent, professional smile.
"I thought," explained Mr. Warren, "I thought I heard a very heated argument in the room next to mine."
-Really?
Encouraged, Mr. Warren continued:
-Yeah. A man and a woman were arguing... about I don't know what. It was a pretty bitter discussion. The man hit her…, I think. It seemed like a tremendous fight. Then it stopped. She couldn't say how. But I didn't hear anything else. I thought she had to... well, to report it, for peace of mind.
The clerk reviewed the record.
-What room? -She asked without raising her head.
-The one on my right.
-Let's see. You have the 10/C. So it would be about the
10/E. A Mr. Malcolm is registered there. Him alone.
-Only?
The janitor looked at Mr. Warren with pale, unsympathetic eyes and replied:
-Yeah.
-But that is impossible. I mean..., I heard...
"Maybe he heard someone's radio," the janitor suggested.
"No, it wasn't a radio," he protested indignantly. He had been half asleep and I heard very clearly…
-Half asleep?
-No, I wasn't dreaming. When I heard it he was wide awake.
"That's it," the janitor murmured. He looked at his wristwatch. Well, it's too late. I wouldn't want to bother anyone, unless you insist.
He put it clearly to Warren, he put the responsibility on his shoulders: it was a challenge. He could insist or retreat, crossing the hall again, under the condescending gaze of the employee. He felt his resolve in tatters, deflated. She infuriated him. She placed both hands on the counter and said in a suddenly firm voice:
-Yeah. I think we should check it out.
Without a word, the concierge picked up the interior phone and dialed a number. We had to wait a long time before the bell that Mr. Warren could hear stopped ringing. A man's voice responded, tense, with reluctance.
-Mr. Malcolm? -asked the janitor-. Here, reception. I'm sorry to bother you at this hour. His neighbor, Mr. Warren, has come down to report some disturbance in his room. Have you had any problems?
Mr. Warren could not make out the exact words, but he heard an indignant protest from the man. The janitor shook his head, regarding Mr. Warren with an air of superiority and clear satisfaction. Mr. Warren blushed.
-Understand. Thank you, Mr. Malcolm. Sorry to have bothered you. The janitor put down the phone and stared at Mr. Warren. "He's been sleeping since ten o'clock," the employee clarified with implicit censure both in his voice and in his expression.
"It's not possible," insisted Mr. Warren. "I..." He was about to describe how intensely he had been listening to everything, but he told himself that such an admission would be embarrassing. Very good. Maybe he was wrong. I'm sorry to have bothered you. Good night.
He turned and walked away, feeling the employee's eyes on his back as he walked towards the elevator.
He returned to his room and sat down again. She could have been wrong. At the office they had told him that he was getting old, that he was losing his faculties. They wanted to separate him from his route and pass it on to another younger one. Despite a decline in sales volume, she had insisted that she was as capable as she was before. But she got older, she got tired easily. She knew that as you get older, your senses deceive you. Could they be your dreams? Just the thought of her made him dizzy, she gave him a headache. What she should do, she told herself seriously, was to stop thinking about such things. It was ridiculous. She was only fifty-seven years old. Was he that old?
Just thinking about all that irritated him. He could have been ninety-nine years old, he told himself, and dotted and senile, but he had still heard the voices and the noise of the fighting. It was stupid to try to deny him. Mr. Malcolm had lied. And if he had lied it was because he had a good reason to lie.
Mr. Warren decided to call the police and clenched his fists. The Police would not be as gullible as the janitor. She would not take Malcolm's word but would go up to his room and search for his account. Encouraged by the idea, he went to the phone. But suddenly he hesitated. The telephone suddenly seemed fatal to him. Of course, if he insisted, the police would come. He would knock on Mr. Malcolm's door and search the room in accordance with Mr. Warren's complaint. And what would happen if he didn't find anything? He wouldn't get off that easily. Mr. Malcolm could file a claim if he felt like it, and he probably would. Hotel people, Warren knew from his long experience, tended to be very touchy. His irritation put her on edge. They could sue the hotel and the police would have to write a report and in the middle of it all Fred Warren would appear. They would send a report to headquarters, and what would they think then? It would serve to confirm his suspicions. Fred Warren
I started hearing murders in the middle of the night.
Tired, depressed, he sat down again and looked at the ground. He was sitting like that when he heard a soft knock on the door. Alert, suspicious, he got up and approached her, reflecting before opening the door; he asked:
-Who?
A man's voice murmured:
-Mr. Warren?
-Yeah.
-I can talk to you? It's very important.
The man's tense murmur indicated a certain urgency. Intrigued, Mr. Warren opened the door. In front of him, a rather tall, young man, wearing a light blue bathrobe over his pajamas. His face reflected concern.
-I can pass? -she asked.
-Because?
-It is about…
And with a gesture that seemed to finish the sentence he surreptitiously indicated the next room.
At this, Mr. Warren ushered him in and silently closed the door. The visitor was restless, opening and closing his hands.
"I know it's a bother," he said. I'm sorry to bother you at this hour. But I wonder if she heard what happened next door. I assumed so, sitting so close..., as it is.
"Yes, I have heard it," agreed Mr. Warren. He extended his hand. I'm Fred Warren.
The man timidly took it and said:
-I'm John Burka. I called the concierge and he told me to go back to bed, that I had had a nightmare, that there was only one person in this room and that there was no way…
"He told me the same thing," he explained, excited. Mr. Warren to his new ally. I went down and made him call. He -and pointed to the neighboring room- said that I was crazy.
"Well, but we can't both be crazy," said Mr. Burka.
-Of course not. And the others?
-Who is it?
-Aren't there other people on this floor who could have heard something? Maybe they're scared...
-Most of the rooms are unoccupied. There's an old woman at the end of the hall, but she's deaf. I ran into her this morning in the elevator and she barely hears anything.
-And what do you propose we do? -asked Mr. Warren.
-Well, this is what I have come to ask you.
"I..." Warren began, and fell silent.
The other left the decision to him.
He was the boss..., he was the oldest, the wisest. He grasped the tremendous responsibility, but decided not to avoid it.
"Well, we'll have to do something," he stated, taking charge of the helm. We cannot stand aside and... let what has happened there remain silent.
"I agree," said Burka.
-I was going to call the police, but I thought twice. There is always the possibility, the very remote possibility, that we could be wrong. It would be very embarrassing.
-I agree with you.
-I warn you that I don't think we were wrong. But I think we might be able to find out without calling the police.
-OK.
-Did you look through the lock? -asked Mr. Warren.
It seemed silly. But it was a suggestion.
-No.
-Let's try it.
Silently they walked out into the corridor. Once there, while Mr. Burke, in bathrobe, pajamas and slippers stood guard, Mr. Warren, with bones creaking, knelt and looked through the keyhole. He stood up. He grabbed Mr. Burke by the arm and led him into the room.
-That? -Burka asked anxiously.
"It's black," Warren answered.
-Oh! -Burka exclaimed, disappointed.
Mr. Warren looked at him and suggested:
-But we cannot ignore it. We have a duty to fulfill.
-OK.
-Maybe we could insist with the concierge to open the door for us. Why accept that man's word? After all…
-It could take us to trial for slander.
"Yes," Warren agreed thoughtfully, rubbing his chin.
And that would also reach the ears of the central office. Mr. Burke watched him, waiting for orders.
-If we could look inside the room...
-There is no way.
"There is a way," Mr. Burka suggested in a quiet and fearful voice.
-Which?
-From the ledge.
-The protrusion?
-There is a projection, a cornice, that goes around the building.
-Is it wide?
-Quite wide. Those who clean windows use it.
"But they wear seat belts," Mr. Warren objected.
-No. It's a matter of balance. Of course it's dangerous...
"It would allow us to have a look at the room," said Mr. Warren.
-At least we would know how to act. We would know if there is one or two in there.
Warren went to the window and opened it. He looked at the ledge. It was quite wide. He looked at the neighboring window. He was about six feet away. Then he looked down. Too dark to see the yard. The darkness was like a huge bottomless pit.
"Maybe I shouldn't do it," said Mr. Burka nervously. He has already shown great courage.
Warren turned to look at him. He was young, just a little nervous. The office could learn a lot from him. He insisted:
-It's the only way. The man next door is very sure of himself. We have to ensure that they give him what he deserves. I'm sure you didn't hear the poor woman cry, and I did.
Mr. Burka nodded his head affirmatively.
"Stay by the door," ordered Mr. Warren, "and keep your ears open." I'll go out and take a look.
-Can he discover something in the dark?
-I think I can. I have amazing night vision.
"And a lot of courage," added Mr. Burka.
This was the last word. Now not even a thousand lions could stop Warren from jumping to the ledge.
He pushed the window as far as he could, then, holding on to the frame, he put one foot on the sill, then the other, and, half crouching, trembling, he stepped onto the ledge. The night immediately enveloped him in an embrace of dark winds that whistled, swept over him, and hummed past him. He leaned his back against the cold brick wall, spread his arms for balance, his head against the wall, lifting his chin as if he wanted to stay above water.
Each step was an eternity. A tremendous vanity excited him. He couldn't wait to be back in the room..., and not because he was afraid, but because he wanted to reflect on her feat and talk about it with Mr. Burka.
The window, a few steps away, seemed like a wonderful trophy. Suddenly he didn't care whether there were two people there or not, whether the woman was dead or not. He breathed in the unleashed winds and they went to his head.
Soon after, it didn't matter who was in that room, because he didn't make it to the window. Behind him he heard Burka hiss at him. Little by little, he carefully turned his head and saw that of his ally appear through the window, facing him, holding the bathrobe around his neck with one hand and with the other gesturing like crazy for him to come back.
He had to retrace what he had done, making the same movements, only this time he was going in the opposite direction.
As he approached the small platform of light under his window, Burke looked up at him and said:
-I think I found what I was looking for.
In front of his window, trying to steady himself, Mr. Warren took a quick look inside. Lying on her bed, he saw the body of a disheveled woman who looked dead. And it was only the fleeting glimpse of the inside of the room, because what she saw immediately were Burke's hands, palms raised, rushing towards him and her face diabolically satisfied with her. Those hands pushing him hard on his stomach, and then the light and the window turning around and precipitating him from his vision into a whirlwind of bottomless blackness...
"He said he heard noises in Mr. Malcolm's room," the concierge explained to the detective.
"The truth," Mr. Malcolm clarified, pulling the pale blue bathrobe closer to his body, "is that the noises came from his room, but I didn't want to intervene." I make it a rule not to get into trouble.
"Yes," said the detective.
"He must have brought the girl without anyone knowing," commented the janitor. It probably occurred to him that if he complained that there was a woman in the next room, he would cover himself from suspicion.
"I heard them all night," Mr. Malcolm insisted. Then I fell asleep. They quarreled again; she screamed; A few minutes later I heard him crash in the yard.
He looked towards the window where the curtain was fluttering in the wind. She almost burst out laughing as she remembered the look of deep astonishment on Mr. Warren's face.
The detective looked at the bed, at the body covered by a sheet.
"The stories that are told about traveling salesmen," the detective mused, "I would dare to swear that they are true."
END
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