Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 25, No. 7, July, 1980

The Last Quarter by Mary Braund

She and her customers liked pretty things...

The Indian appeared in the shop doorway for the third time that week. The dirty unwashed drunken stench of him drifted in through the open door. Caroline threw down her dusting mop, the one with curling chicken feathers, in exasperation. He did not alarm her — he was too incapably drunk to be of any harm to anyone — but he was becoming an embarrassing nuisance. He braced his two arms against the doorjamb in an effort to hold himself steady and swayed backward and forward between his outstretched arms, his legs barely holding him upright. He forced his swollen lips open into an agonizing semblance of a smile and the broken brown teeth were a sickening sight.

“Lady,” he exhaled, his voice cracked and hoarse, his eyes swivelling as separate entities to get her into focus. “Got a quarter, lady? I jus’ need a quarter.” The same old line.

“Go away.” Caroline spoke up firmly. “Go away and don’t come back.” Which is what she had said before.

“Jus’ a quarter, lady. Tha’s all I need. Please, lady.”

“No! I haven’t got any money with me.” That wasn’t true, of course, but give him anything and he would just keep coming back. Though he seemed to be becoming a regular fixture without any encouragement, in any case. Thank heavens there had never as yet been any customers in the shop when he made his morning rounds.

She picked up the dust mop and took one step toward him. He flinched from her as though he expected her to hit him, but she wouldn’t have gone any nearer to him because the sight and smell of him disgusted her. It escaped her understanding how anyone could be in such a stupor at ten o’clock in the morning. She thought of the cheap liquor circulating in his veins and shuddered. He really couldn’t be much older than she was herself, though it was difficult to judge his age from the ravages of alcohol and the way his body did not belong inside the assorted ragbag of clothes that hung on him. His hair was black, greasy, and spiky, sticking up around his head absurdly as though he had tried to cut it himself, but, oddly, it was the hair that shafted a small sense of pity through her because it seemed as though sometime he had attempted to make himself presentable.

She stifled the feeling quickly. He was bad for business and she had to get rid of him. Quickly. Where he ate, how he slept, what he did with himself all day long were of no concern to her.

“Jus’ a quarter, lady,” he mumbled, knowing it was a lost cause, and then he backed away as she waved the dust mop at him, losing his hold on the door and staggering backward into the street, reeling and sagging inside the legs of his tattered pants. She watched him move away, swaying, setting his feet down carefully as if the sidewalk were hot, moving one leg after the other in an enormous effort. She could hear him mumbling to himself as he passed from her sight in search of better pickings, and she allowed herself a deep breath of relief.

Poor devil, she said to herself. He was a human being, after all, wasn’t he? Poor sick creature. Why didn’t someone take care of him?

Who that should be she didn’t know and hadn’t the time to care. She had work to do. Dust the furniture, clean the brass and copper, arrange the flowers in the old cut-glass pitcher, make the shop look enticing and attractive to anyone coming in search of an antique. She rubbed a little lavender-scented polish on a dark oak table. The patina of a hundred years needed no enhancement, but the sweet smell of it pleased her and would please a potential customer.

They would drift in soon, the odd bored housewife, the young couple in search of a special piece, the businessman looking for something different as a present for his wife or girl friend. Caroline had not been in the business long enough to judge which of them might buy something, but she welcomed most of the people who came in, anyone that looked respectable or interested. Most of all, she liked the people who would stop and chat and allow her to show her most prized pieces, because she wasn’t in the antique trade just to make money but also because she liked the look and feel of old, pretty things.

There were one or two special pieces in the shop and she lingered over them as she busied herself — an intricately inlaid sewing box, a miracle of tiny drawers with ivory knobs, the soft blue velvet of the lining worn with the passage of years; a fine beveled mirror, the frame a splendor of carved and gilded wood; a collection of delicate, fragile oil lamps, each one different in the curve and color of its glass.

Caroline hummed to herself and forgot the Indian. A peace and stillness descended over the room. It was more like a room than a shop, with the fine old furniture and the paintings on the walls and the sun slanting in through the windows, glinting off the silver and the brass and striking prisms in the beveling of the mirrors.

It was a quiet day. Only a few customers came in, and nobody bought anything. But Caroline didn’t mind. The shop was new in this part of town, a recently upgraded area, the old buildings saved from the swinging iron ball of the demolishers, pushing back at the urban blight. People didn’t know about the shop yet — it was tucked away in an obscure corner, not on the normal path of passersby — but she had every confidence that she would win a regular clientele in time. As long as she made enough to pay the rent for these first few months she would be content, and this month she had already achieved that.

She altered the ornate brass hands of the grandfather clock and then checked the other clocks, the little brass carriage clock ticking gently inside the glass showcase, the funny painted wall clock that had a habit of speeding up suddenly for no discernible reason.

There was the usual small post-lunchtime flurry of customers, girls on their way back to the office, one who toyed for five minutes over a gold pin and then decided against buying it, two women with packages who compared Caroline’s stock with what they had in their own homes, a man looking for Oriental objects Caroline did not have. Then the afternoon drifted into silence. She wrote a letter to her mother. The sun disappeared behind a cloud and the colors of the shop dulled down to a brown monotone.

Caroline began to feel bored. She glanced at the grandfather clock to check the time — maybe she would close early today — then realized that it had ceased its somnolent ticking and remembered that it should have been wound today. Friday was the day to wind the grandfather clock.

In the distance she heard the sound of raucous voices and knew with a sinking of her heart that the drunks were back, ensconced on their favorite patch of grass under the linden tree around the corner. If she closed the shop now she would have to pass them, hear their ribald comments and their pleas for money. She got up to close the door, to shut out the sounds of their drunken revelry.

So she was glad when she turned around from the tallcase clock to see a young man enter the shop. She had not heard him come in, his tennis shoes making no sound on the Persian runner, the tiny bell fixed above the door unaccountably silent.

“Hi,” she said cheerfully, closing the clock door with care, hoping he would stay long enough so that the drunks would have moved on their mysterious way before she left.

“Hi,” he replied, equally cheerful, and here she could recognize someone about her own age — a tall, slender young man in clean blue jeans and a T-shirt, her own uniform when she was not in the shop. His hair was light brown, cut casually but carefully, waving down onto the nape of his neck, his sideburns just the right length below his ears. He was one of her own kind, someone she could identify with. Not like the Indian. The only different thing about him was the arm encased in plaster he carried against his chest tenderly.

“You’ve hurt your arm,” she said, making conversation.

He looked down at his arm as if in surprise. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did. It’s no problem though.”

She couldn’t think of anything else to say and stood quietly by the clock as he meandered his way around the room. The sounds of the men down the road crept in through the door.

“Funny thing about this town,” the young man said, inclining his head toward the noise. “Where I come from they’d run bums like that off the streets. They don’t let scum like that litter up the town, especially where there are tourists.”

“Oh? Where do you come from?”

“Pasadena,” he said. “Yeah, in Pasadena we don’t allow them to run around free.”

Caroline thought about that for a moment. “What do you do with them, then?”

He shrugged. “Lock ’em up for the night, then send them on their way. Especially Indians. We don’t have any time for that sort of scum there.”

She didn’t know why she should disagree with him. “But this is their town. There isn’t anywhere else to send them.”

He didn’t answer that. He stood looking at the painted clock.

“That’s fast,” he said.

“I know. It doesn’t seem to want to keep the slow pace of this city.”

He grinned. He had white even teeth. “I know what you mean.” He wandered away from the clock, fingered one of the small tables. “You have some nice things.” He spoke softly, almost in a whisper.

“I’ll show you something nice,” Caroline said. She wanted the drunks gone before this young man, though instinct told her he would not be a buyer. He looked as though he had come in just to pass the time of day. His movements were desultory, somehow aimless. She moved over to her favorite piece, the sewing box.

“Look,” she said, running her hand over the multi-colored inlay of the lid. “Look at this. And then—” She opened the box, revealing the blue velvet and the row of ivory knobs. She lifted one piece of it and the carved spool holders appeared under her hand. “And then—” she felt like a conjurer “—then this—” She pulled at the center rectangle of velvet to show the tiny drawers underneath, each inlaid, each with its own tiny ivory pull. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked, opening each minute drawer in turn until they lay tier upon tier like stairs in a dollhouse.

“What is it?” He reached out with his free hand to touch the box.

“A sewing box. Not very practical nowadays, I suppose, but can’t you just imagine some Victorian lady in a crinoline sitting at this and making wonderful embroidery?”

He stood and looked at the box for a long moment. Then he looked at Caroline. His eyes were a curious smoky-grey.

“Are you psychic?” he asked in that soft sibilant whisper.

Caroline didn’t know why that question should startle her. “Psychic?”

“You talk about it as though it were a living thing. You have a strange empathy with these old things.”

“No, I’m not psychic.” Caroline did not like the word; it sent an uncomfortable shiver down the back of her neck. “I just like old things.”

“You like mirrors too,” he said. “I can see that.” He turned to look at the mirrors hanging on the walls. “Strange things, mirrors.”

“Strange? Why strange?” She let go of the sewing box and folded her arms against her body. The tiny shiver had not left her spine.

“I don’t like them,” he said. “Especially old ones. If I look in them it is as though there are a thousand other faces crowding over my shoulder, looking at me from the past. Do you ever feel like that?”

Caroline shook her head. She started to move away from him, nearer the door. He was a head taller than she and he held the stiff plastered arm at such an odd angle. He moved with her.

“No,” she said clearly, loudly. “No, I don’t believe there is anyone else there. I couldn’t believe that or I wouldn’t be able to live with them, would I?”

“I couldn’t keep a house like this,” he said, and moved a step closer. “I would be haunted. Do you ever feel haunted?”

Caroline shook her head again, hard. She didn’t want to take her eyes from his face, but neither did she want to look at him. People had odd fancies.

“This isn’t a house,” she said. “It’s a shop, just a shop. I sell things. They’re not mine to keep.”

“It reminds me of a house. Like an old aunt’s I had once. She’s dead now, of course. And it reminds me of my mother’s house too. She liked old things, not young ones. She didn’t like children, not even her own.” He smiled, showing the perfect white teeth, and the smoky eyes settled on Caroline. “She’s dead too.”

Caroline avoided his eyes. She edged behind an old chair. He was still between her and the door. “I’m sorry,” she said, and her voice echoed thinly in the still shop.

“Sorry?” He sounded surprised again, as he had when she had asked about his arm. He drew his free hand across his head. “Sorry for what?”

Now Caroline was finding it difficult to speak. “Sorry that your mother is — dead.” Her voice trailed away.

“Oh.” He laughed, a curious, soft sound. “There’s no need to be. I didn’t like the mirrors though. I smashed them all after she died.” He looked puzzled, pursing his lips in a tight line. “Or was it before she died? I forget now — funny how one forgets, isn’t it?”

Caroline nodded silently. The street was abnormally quiet outside. Then suddenly there was a brief burst of laughter from the men around the corner and the sound of breaking glass.

She cleared her throat. “It sounds as if the drunks are having a good time out there.”

She tried to smile.

“Scum!” He spat the word out.

“I should go and see if they’re doing any damage.” She started from behind the chair.

“No!” He held up the plastered arm. “No! Don’t go! I like to talk to you.” His voice was louder now. “I’m sure you’re psychic.”

Dear God, yes, maybe I am, Caroline thought. She watched the arm in its hard casing. A weapon. He will use it — I can see far enough into the future for that. Will it be me or my mirrors or my little glass lamps? Inadvertently she let her eyes slide toward the precious subjects. She wasn’t sure what she had more fear for, and his eyes followed hers.

“Those are nice,” he said conversationally. “I once knew someone who had lamps like that. She was psychic too. This room reminds me of her house.”

Yes, and I’ll bet she’s dead too, Caroline thought. Her heart was beating in her throat. He moved toward the lamps and Caroline moved in the opposite direction, toward the door. He immediately stopped. The door was a long way off. She leaned on the back of the chair for support and attempted to keep her voice normal.

“Tell me about her,” she said.

It was as though she had turned on a tap. The words flooded from him, the soft whispering back again. She half listened, not wanting to, wanting to find a way to fly to the door, measuring the distance, seeking a clear path through all the bric-a-brac that cluttered the path and yet knowing she had to appear to be listening to him. The diffuse pale eyes kept fixing themselves on her face and she forced herself to listen, to keep his attention on what he was saying.

“She was tall,” he was whispering. “Blonde, like you, but older, much older, and after we went to this seance kind of meeting she took me back to show me all her lamps. She lit them, one by one, until they were flaring up, blinding me, you know — too bright. Too much light is bad for the eyes, did you know that? And I had to put them out because I don’t like too much light, or fire. Do you like fire, do you think—” His words were suddenly stemmed by the sound of the painted clock on the wall, chasing time again, striking stridently through the sound of his voice, stilling it. They both listened to the clanging bell ring five times. Five o’clock. Closing time.

He stared at the clock. “I don’t like clocks that strike,” he said, and Caroline closed her eyes briefly. Clocks that strike and mirrors that reflect the past and lamps that burn too brightly. She opened her eyes quickly, because it was dangerous to keep them closed. Now the young man with the weapon of his arm was swinging it from side to side. His eyes slid from Caroline to the clock to the mirrors to the lamps and back to Caroline again.

There’s nothing I can do to stop him, she panicked, nothing...

The door swung open.

“Lady, got a quarter? Jus’ a quarter?”

He swayed in the doorway, as drunk as he had been at ten o’clock in the morning, as rank and as evil-smelling as he had been when she last saw him, his black hair spikier and wilder, his broken brown teeth still bared in the travesty of a smile, and he was the sweetest thing Caroline had ever seen. The stale urine smell wafted from him over the lavender-scented polish and the brass polish and the perfume of the roses in the cut-glass pitcher.

“Oh,” Caroline said. “Sure, just a minute.”

The young man turned on the Indian, his face contorted. “Scum!” he screamed. “Filthy, dirty, rotten scum!”

He leapt for him, covering the few yards between himself and the doorway, scattering the chairs and stools and copper coal scuttle, and struck the swaying figure across the face with the full force of his plaster-of-Paris arm, sending the unaware man hurtling backward onto the side walk, the blood spurting from his lips, those poor swollen lips, the crunch of his head hitting the concrete, a sickening sound.

For a moment he stood over him, hitting again and again with the arm at the still figure, kicking with the frenzy of the madman that he was. “Scum!” he screamed. “You should be taken off the streets! Put away!” Then he ran, like a well trained sprinter, the graceful tall shape of him disappearing round the corner in his clean blue jeans and white T-shirt, the arm held close against his chest.

Caroline bent over the Indian. Blood trickled from the greasy hair, oozing onto the pavement, seeping down into the neck of the shirt that could never have belonged to him. She picked up the limp hand stretched out in eternal supplication, the nails broken, dirty. She pressed it close to her face, unaware now of the smell.

“Thank you, thank you for coming back.” She didn’t know what else to say. The eyes had ceased their wanderings, were fixed on the sky. Caroline started to cry.

She fumbled in her pocket, where she always kept some loose change, and, finding a quarter through the tears, she closed the Indian’s hand around it. She only dimly heard the siren of the aid car screaming in the distance.

When they picked the body up off the sidewalk the quarter fell to the ground with a tiny tinny sound.