 "Tenancy
Uncommon"
by David M. Fitzpatrick
“Congratulations,” the old man said in a
gravelly voice as he stood up behind the old wooden desk, fishing a ring
of keys from his pocket. “It’s all yours.”
“I appreciate you staying an extra
week, Mr. Gillison,” Rick Sanborn said. “It’s made the transition
easier. I’m still surprised you’ve sold it for as little as you
did—or that you’ve sold it at all.”
“Well, these old bones can’t take the
Maine winters anymore,” Gillison said, a grimace on his grizzled
face. “I’m heading to Florida next week, so you’ve got that long if
you think of any questions.”
“Florida, eh? Whereabouts?”
“Outside Melbourne.” “Flying
down?” “No, we have a motor
home.” “Really? What kind?”
Gillison grinned. “You ask a lot of
questions, Sanborn.” Sanborn
smiled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I’m just a curious sort of
guy.” “Oh, no worries with
me,” Gillison said, dismissing him with a wave of a hand. “But take
a piece of advice from an old man who’s managed properties a long
time: when it comes to tenants, mind your own business.”
“I leave them alone,” Sanborn said. “I
just like to know what they do for businesses, who works for them,
things like that.” Gillison
was shaking his head vehemently. “That’s going too far. All you have
to know is who pays the rent. Anything else is extraneous. If they
make trouble, warn them. If they keep it up, toss them. But who
works there and what’s going on is none of your business. Collect
the money and take care of the building—that’s it.”
“I think I should know what’s going on
in my buildings.” “Listen, I
don’t know how it works at your other properties, but it doesn’t
work like that in this building,” Gillison said with a pointing
finger. “Don’t go looking for trouble. If you never listen to
anything else I say, listen to that.”
Sanborn could sense the utter
stalemate, so he manufactured a smile and said, “Sound advice, Mr.
Gillison.” #
The next morning, he reviewed
Gillison’s tenant list. The place held a broad repertoire of
businesses, all good tenants who were current or ahead on their
rents. There were stores and restaurants on the street level, and a
wide variety on the second, third and fourth floors: a real estate
abstractor, an artist, a computer consultant, a Web designer, a
hypnotist, an addicts’ support group, a telemarketer, a sculptor, a
religious group, some accountants, a couple of lawyers, and a watch
and clock repairman who had been there nearly fifty years. The
fourth floor had just two spaces: a studio apartment rented by a
local businessman, and an empty unit. The fifth, and top, floor was
occupied by a tenant identified as “T. Lindstrom,” who had been
there one hundred twenty-eight years.
Sanborn blinked in surprise and looked
again at the hand-scrawled number. It was clearly “128.” Obviously,
it should have been 12 or 18, or even 28. The amusing error put T.
Lindstrom in that office since the place was built in 1879.
He regarded the entry thoughtfully.
All the other tenants had first names. To top it off, there was no
indication of what sort of business Lindstrom operated, or for what
he used the space. He headed
downstairs to the building’s directory board. All the tenants on the
second through fifth were ordered by floor. The fifth floor had no
entry. It was damn peculiar. Sanborn headed back up.
On the second floor, he met a young
man leaving an office and heading for the stairway, catalog case in
hand. He smiled and nodded at Sanborn.
“You must be Michael Simmons,” Sanborn said. “Computer guy?”
The guy stopped, brow furrowing. “Sure
am. And you are…?” “Rick
Sanborn,” he said, extending a hand.
“Oh, the new owner,” Mike said,
grasping his hand and shaking it. “Good to meet you, and call me
Mike. You’re not raising the rent, are you?”
“Not at all. Tell me, Mike, do you know the other tenants?”
“Mostly. I take care of almost
everyone’s computers in the building. I give them all huge
discounts. And the same applies to you, so yell if you need a hand.
Gilly barely used his computer. Liked to do everything on paper.”
“You’re telling me,” Sanborn said with
a chuckle. “Maybe I could hire you to get his building’s books into
electronic form and merge with my records at my plaza office. We
could trade off some rent.”
The young man brightened. “Sounds great. I’m here most days and all
hours, so let me know when you want to get together.”
“I’ll be down the hall Saturday quite
late, if you’re free. Seven o’clock?”
“I’m there.”
“But I have a question,” Sanborn said.
“The guy on the fifth floor, Lindstrom… what does he do?”
Mike shrugged. “No idea. Never seen
him. Gilly didn’t tell you?”
“Looks like Gilly didn’t know and didn’t care,” Sanborn said.
“Anyway, it was nice meeting you, Mike. I’ll see you Saturday
night.” #
“That didn’t take long,” Gillison said
with a chuckle when Sanborn called him five minutes later.
“I was going over the tenant list,”
Sanborn said. “This guy on the fifth floor, T. Lindstrom… what’s his
first name? And what does he do?”
There was a cold silence on the other
end of the phone that lasted so long Sanborn thought the line had
disconnected, but finally Gillison’s quiet voice said, “I thought I
gave you a good piece of advice, Rick. Lindstrom has paid his rent
faithfully since long before I owned the place. He’s nothing to
worry about.” “I know you
feel I’m prying,” Sanborn said, “but I don’t think knowing a
tenant’s first name and occupation is too much to ask.”
“Well, I can’t help you,” Gillison
said. “He’s been ‘T. Lindstrom’ since I bought the building in 1970
and damned if I know what he does up there. And you’ll do well to
forget about it and just collect the rent.”
There was no arguing that poing with
Gillison, so Sanborn changed the subject. “You wrote down that
Lindstrom has been a tenant for a hundred twenty-eight years, which
I assume was in error.” “Not
at all. He’s been here since Ransford Gentry built the place in
1879. I’m sure it’s his grandson up there by now.”
“If that’s true, then it sounds less
like a lease and more like a tenancy in common,” Sanborn said. “I
didn’t plan to inherit a co-owner with this building.”
“And you didn’t. Check the lease; it’s
all there, and it’s all legal,” Gillison said. “Now, just forget
about Lindstrom, and stay clear of the fifth floor.”
#
Sanborn spent the afternoon meeting
his tenants, going from the street level to the fourth floor,
shaking hands like he was running for office. It took him five hours
to make the expedition from the street level to the fourth floor.
The only absent tenant was the fifty-year resident watch and clock
repair guy, a man named Wallace Storey. Along the way, he asked
everyone about Lindstrom. None had met him. Many didn’t realize he
was on the fifth floor at all, or that there even was a fifth floor.
John Clifford, the apartment tenant on
half of the fourth floor, was a middle-aged man who had inherited
his wealth from his father and spent his day playing the stock
market on his computer. He also hadn’t met Lindstrom.
“Can’t say I’ve ever even heard him,”
Clifford said. “Been here a while, I understand.”
“You could say that,” Sanborn said,
his frustration growing. “You know, nobody in this entire building
has met this guy. I figured if anyone had, it’d be you—being up here
on the fourth floor and all. He’d have to go right past you.”
Clifford shook his head. “Sorry. I
only knew there was anyone up there at all because Wally told me
when I was moving in. Warned me not to take this apartment, that the
guy up there was dangerous.”
It was the closest thing to pay dirt Sanborn had gotten yet. “And
you moved in anyway? Why?”
“Mostly because Wally seemed like a fruitcake,” Clifford said with a
half-grin. “If you’ve met Wally, you know what I mean.”
#
Per his posted hours, Wally Storey was
in at six the next morning, and Sanborn was there shortly after.
Storey ran a clock repair shop, all right—there were at least a
hundred clocks in there. The whole place was a ticking, tocking,
buzzing, humming, whirring deluge. Clocks in various stages of
repair were stacked on workbenches, shelves, tables, desks, and
chairs. Watches littered the place like the aftermath of a timepiece
storm. Wally sat in the
middle of it all, a jeweler’s glass in his eye and his tongue poking
out as he worked on a silver pocket watch on a long sterling chain.
He looked up briefly as Sanborn entered.
“Morning, Sanborn,” the
seventy-something man said.
“How’d you know my name?” Sanborn asked.
“Never get customers this early unless
they’re carrying a clock,” he said. “And a few of the folks on my
floor said you introduced yourself around yesterday. I figure you
must be you.” “And I am.”
“But you’re not here to say hello,”
the man said, carefully working a tiny screwdriver on the miniature
components. “Like you asked everyone yesterday, you want to know
about Lindstrom—as well you should, since barely anyone has seen him
in all the years he’s been up there. You’re looking at the only guy
alive who has.” Sanborn’s
heart skipped a beat. “Who is he? And what does he do up there?”
The old-timer chuckled, set the watch
and the tool aside, and pulled the magnifier out of his eye. He spun
on his chair and faced Sanborn. “I don’t know any of that. After Old
Joe Morrow told me the story back in ’59, I was curious… but not til
‘78, when Gilly asked me to do him a favor, did I lay eyes on him.”
“Joe Morrow?” Sanborn echoed.
“I know that curiosity’s burning you
up, but let me warn you first,” Wally said. “You might not wanna
hear my story.” “Oh, I want
to hear,” Sanborn said. “Then
you flip around that sign that says ‘Back in 15 Minutes,’” Wally
said. “That’ll be all we’ll need to take this trip back in time. But
it’ll take you a lot longer to deal with it.”
#
It was June of 1959 and I’d just
inherited my father’s business. He’d passed on—lung cancer from
those damn stogies he always smoked. Dad had run the business out of
our house, but all those ticking clocks reminded Mother of him, so I
moved it here. There was no room in my little house, and my young
bride Millie wouldn’t have stood for all the ticking anyway.
The first week I was here, Joe Morrow
and I got to talking. Morrow had been an insurance man in the
building from the late 1890s until he bought the place, in the same
space his dad had run a haberdashery when the place was first built.
So Joe was giving me the low-down on the tenants and he said to me,
“Just stay away from the fifth floor.” I asked him why and he said,
“The man up there is bad news. But you leave him alone and you’ll
have nothing to worry about.”
Well, I was young, so I pushed for
details. He got awfully nervous about it, and said, “Let me tell
you, I’ve never seen the man, don’t know the first thing about him,
but I do know what my daddy told me when I was young. He saw
Lindstrom, you know.” Now, I
have to rewind this tale all the way back to 1879, because this part
is really Joe Morrow’s tale. Ransford Gentry, the original owner,
had pretty well filled the new building except for the fifth floor.
Joe’s daddy was there the first day tenants moved in, talking to
Gentry, when this guy walked up. He was dressed all in black with a
cloak and a top hat and carried a black cane—a lot like how you see
Jack the Ripper in drawings and stuff. He had a dark face, bloodshot
eyes, and a big, black mustache. He said to Gentry, “I understand
your fifth floor is unoccupied. I would like to lease it.”
“The fifth floor is unfinished, sir,” Gentry said to the man. “We
hadn’t planned on its completion until next spring. I have other
spaces still available, however.”
But the man said, “No, I want the entire fifth floor and I will
finish it. But I require a ninety-nine year lease.”
Well, Gentry was a businessman, and
had no problem with that, but of course there were particulars to
write into the lease. Lindstrom had no problem paying quite a high
rate, so Gentry took him to his office to ink the deal, and that’s
the last Joe’s dad saw of him.
The rent was to be delivered to Gentry
on the morning of the first of the month, and it was; but it always
turned up in an envelope on his office desk, even though the office
was locked. Gentry went to see Lindstrom about this every time it
happened, for the first six months, but Lindstrom would never answer
the door. Finally, Gentry just accepted it.
Now we fast-forward to 1919—same year
as the Black Sox scandal. Old Joe Morrow had bought the building and
taken over all tenants, but one of the conditions of the sale was
that Lindstrom’s lease had to be honored. Joe had no problem with
that, even though no one had seen Lindstrom since the day he’d
signed the lease in 1879. Well, the rent kept appearing on the
office desk on the first of every month while Joe owned the place,
and he never objected since he was getting paid. But he remembered
his old man telling him how strange Lindstrom had been—nearly a
half-century before. I guess
there was an overall chill to the way Joe talked about the guy, but
he’d been getting paid regularly for thirty-four years and that was
good enough for him. But me, I was curious as hell. It was like some
great mystery I had to solve. So after Morrow left, I locked up and
headed straight for the fifth floor. I was nervous, but I thought,
“He’s just another guy, strange or not.” I climbed that last flight
of stairs and stopped before this huge door—the brass plate, which
was old and tarnished, said “T. Lindstrom” in small letters. In the
old days, all the tenants had plates like that. Nobody did anymore,
except Lindstrom. Long story
short: I beat on that door and hollered my ass off for ten minutes.
Not a word. I did it three more times that day, and every day for
the rest of that month. Never got an answer.
I had a plan, though. When the last
day of that month rolled around, I stayed late. The building was
empty and locked up. I took a chair down, parked outside Morrow’s
office, and got comfortable with a good book. Took me all night and
I never went to sleep. Morrow showed up with the sun and he knew
what it was all about. He said to me, “I’ve tried that, Wally; it’s
no use.” There’s one door to
that office, and it was locked with a deadbolt. The windows were all
locked from the inside, and there wasn’t any other way in. But there
it was, a white envelope with Morrow’s name on it, and inside was
the rent in cash with a brief note. “Here is the rent,” it read, and
it was signed “T. Lindstrom.” That was it. Morrow was nervous about
it but he smiled at me and said he’d long ago given up trying to
figure it all out.
Lindstrom’s lease ran out in 1978. By then, Morrow was dead and
Gillison had been here eight years. I had long ago given up pounding
on that door, but I never forgot about him being up there.
So Gillison came to me one day and
said, “Wally, I was hoping you could do me a favor.”
I said, “Sure, Gilly. Need a clock
fixed?” He looked nervous and
said, “No, nothing like that. But it’d be worth a year’s free rent
for you.” I was shocked when
he said it, and for a fleeting moment I wondered if he wanted me to
kill his wife or something. So I said, “Sounds good. What do I have
to do?” And he said, “You
know that guy on the fifth floor?”
I said, “Yes, but I’ve never met him.
Nobody has.” Gilly said, “He
signed a ninety-nine year lease in 1879 and it runs out tomorrow
night at six thirty-four P.M. exactly.”
I started thinking, as I had so many
times, about Lindstrom, and I said, “Yeah, it must be his grandson
now, being almost a hundred years and all.”
He said, “Yeah. Well, I need to renew the lease and I want you to
bring up the papers for him to sign.”
So many things occurred to me just
then—like how the hell was I going to get the guy to answer the
door; how excited I would be if he finally did; why Gillison didn’t
just end the lease and toss the guy out since he creeped everyone
out being up there, like he had and his father and maybe his
grandfather had before him. But somehow I knew the answers to all my
questions. And I knew Gilly was afraid of him, though I didn’t know
why. I suspect he’d heard passed-down stories that I never did, but
I’d get my own story to tell soon enough.
For a year rent-free, I could handle a
little creepiness. So I agreed, and Gilly handed me a folder. “The
top one is my agreement with you,” he said. “Sign the copies and
keep one for yourself. The other is for Lindstrom. It renews his
lease for another twenty-nine years. You must bring the lease to him
at six-twenty-five tomorrow evening, and he will either sign it or
refuse it by six-thirty-four.”
Seemed strange to me, but who was I to
care? I signed the contract, which stipulated I had a year’s free
rent regardless of the outcome. All I had to do was deliver the
lease to Lindstrom and return either with it signed or not, at
Lindstrom’s discretion. I
went up early, at about three the next afternoon. I hadn’t been
there in nearly twenty years, and nothing had changed except that
everything was older. The brass plate was more tarnished, although I
could still read it clearly. I beat on his door for a half hour.
Called out that I had the lease to renew. He never answered. Not a
hint anyone was in there. I came back at four-thirty and got the
same result. At five, the building cleared out. I kept trying every
fifteen minutes. At nearly
six-twenty-five I headed back up, but now I was shaking like a leaf,
and I didn’t know why. I topped the fifth floor stairs and, gripping
the banister with my left hand, raised up my right and rapped on the
wide door three hard raps—and immediately, the door opened.
I forgot to breathe and there he stood
before me. He was just like Joe Morrow had described: dressed in
black, with a cloak and top hat; his face dark and his eyes
bloodshot; and he wore a big, black mustache. He had a cane in one
hand and held the door open with the other.
I was stunned. My hand gripped the
banister so tight I was sure I was gonna splinter wood right there.
Then he spoke in a low, even voice that chilled my bones: “You have
papers for me to sign?” I
nodded and handed them over. There was no hiding my trembling; the
lease fluttered in my hand like a dead leaf in an October windstorm.
He took them from me with a ghostly white hand and read them over
carefully. I was barely able to breathe and wondered if my heart
were going to smash through my ribs like Superman through a brick
wall. When he finished reading, he closed the pages and handed
Gilly’s copy back to me. I
was about to ask if he was going to sign them, and then I saw his
signature at the bottom. Yes, I was scared and confused; but I know
damn well he’d never put pen to paper. He’d just looked at them. Yet
they were signed. Then he
said, “Good evening,” and shut the door in my face. And I ran like a
bionic jackrabbit, down four flights of stairs and out the door,
left my office open and everything. I didn’t come back until the
morning light the following day. I told Gilly I’d earned that free
year and he said, “Yeah, I suspect you did.”
And that’s the clockman’s tale,
Sanborn. You can fast-forward one more time. Back to 2007.
#
Sanborn blinked himself back to full
control. His breathing had become thick and shallow as he listened,
and now the ending, strange as it was, seemed somehow anticlimactic.
“That was it?” “You need
more?” Wally said. “Well, it
was just a man who signed a lease,” Sanborn said. “I was expecting
something more sinister, I guess.”
“Well, there are two things here,”
Wally said. “First, the fact that it was the same man who signed the
original lease a century earlier makes it pretty sinister, if you
ask me.” “You don’t know that
it was him.” “It seems pretty
likely. But I won’t argue it, because you won’t believe me. Just
like you won’t believe the other thing. And that is, second, what I
saw beyond Lindstrom in that fifth-floor space was enough to
convince me that he was the same guy, and that what was going on up
on that fifth floor was beyond anything I wanted to mess with.”
“You didn’t mention what was beyond
him,” Sanborn said. “That’s
right, and I won’t. Like I said, you wouldn’t believe me. Everyone
around here thinks I’m a little strange, and they’re right. I never
was, you know, until that day. It changed me. I saw something… that
I wish to hell I’d never seen. And he spoke to me, in my mind. Not
as a voice, but as a feeling. He told me that what I was seeing
would come to pass if I didn’t shut my mouth and just take that
lease away with me, signed and delivered.”
“What did you see?” Sanborn pressed.
Wally shook his head with a smile.
“Don’t waste your time, Sanborn. I’ve never told anyone. And I never
left this building, either. You’d think I’d have packed up that day.
But I knew someday I’d be of some use to someone about this. Like
when your time comes, which will be soon enough.”
“What do you mean?” Sanborn said.
“Do your math, son,” the old man said.
Sanborn’s mind raced backward through
Wally’s tale, and then it hit him. “The twenty-nine year renewal is
up,” he said breathlessly. “This month?”
“This week,” Wally said. “At six thirty-four Saturday evening. And
I’m not going up there for you, no matter how many years of free
rent you offer.” *
* *
"Tenancy Uncommon" appears in the final installment of the
acclaimed Candlelight anthology series.
Order it here. |
This is a Lovecraftian-style supernatural
horror tale. Yes, it might come across as a pastiche. Then again, maybe
not. I was in the mood to write something Lovecraftian, so I did. Here it
is. Thanks to Jonathan Schlosser for including it in the final edition of
the Candlelight series.