I call the landlord back in fifteen minutes and he says “I did what you said and he didn’t answer. That would’ve been enough for me. But you got me worried also, so I went downstairs for his duplicate keys and opened his door just a ways and yelled in for him and then walked in and he wasn’t there, though his place looked okay.”
“Excuse me, I just thought of something. Was his night light on?”
“You mean the little small-watt-bulb lamp on his fireplace mantel?”
“That’s the one. He always keeps it on at night to keep away burglars who like to jump in from his terrace.”
“What burglars jumping in from where? He was never robbed that I know.”
“The tenant before him said she was. Was it on?”
“That’s different. Yes. I thought he’d forgotten about the light, so I shut it off. I was thinking about his electricity cost, but you think I did wrong?”
“No. It only means he never got home. Thanks.”
I call every half hour after that till around six, when he usually comes to my apartment. But he never comes here without our first talking on the phone during the afternoon about all sorts of things: how our work’s going, what the mail brought, what we might have for dinner that evening and do later and if there’s anything he can pick up on the way here and so on. The concert’s at eight and I still have to pick up the tickets from my friend who’s giving them to me and can’t go herself because her baby’s sick and her husband won’t go without her. I call her and say “I don’t see how we can make the concert. Eliot’s not here, hasn’t called, doesn’t answer his phone and from what his landlord said, I doubt he ever got home after he left me this morning.”
“Does he have any relatives or close friends in the city for you to call?”
“No, he would have gone to his apartment directly — I know him. He had important work to finish, and the only close person other than myself to him is his mother in Seattle.”
“Maybe he did get home but got a very sudden call to drop everything and fly out to her, so he didn’t have the time to phone you, or when he did, your line was busy.”
“No, we’re close enough that he’d know it would worry me. He’d have called from the airport, someplace.”
“Your line still could have been busy all the times you were trying to get him. But I’m sure everything’s okay, and don’t worry about the tickets. Expensive as they are, I’ll put them down as a total loss. Though if you are still so worried about him, phone the police in his neighborhood or even his mother in Seattle.”
“Not his mother. There’s no reason and I’d just worry her and Eliot would get angry at me. But the police is a good idea.”
I call the police station in his precinct. The officer who answers says “We’ve nothing on a Mr. Schulter. But being that you say he left your apartment this morning, phone your precinct station,” and she gives me the number. I call it and the officer on duty says “Something did come in today about someone of his name — let me think.”
“Oh no.”
“Hey, take it easy. It could be nothing. I’m only remembering that I saw an earlier bulletin, but what it was went right past me. What’s your relationship to him before I start searching for it?”
“His closest friend. We’re really very very close and his nearest relative is three thousand miles from here.”
“Well, I don’t see it in front of me. I’ll locate it, though don’t get excited when I’m away. It could be nothing. I might even be wrong. It was probably more like a Mr. Fullter or Schulton I read about, but not him. Want me to phone you back?”
“I’ll wait, thanks.”
“Let me take your number anyway, just in case I get lost.”
He goes, comes back in a minute. “Now take it easy. It’s very serious. He had no I.D. on him other than this artist society card with only his signature on it, which we were checking into, so we’re grateful you called.”
“Please, what is it?”
“According to this elderly witness, he was supposedly thrown on the subway tracks this morning and killed.”
I scream, break down, hang up, pound the telephone table with my fists, the officer calls back and says “If you could please revive yourself, Miss, we’d like you to come to the police station here and then, if you could by the end of the night sometime, to the morgue to identify your friend.”
I say no, I could never go to the morgue, but then go with my best friend. She stays outside the body room when I go in, look and say “That’s him.” Later I call Eliot’s mother and the next day her brother comes to the city and takes care of the arrangements to have Eliot flown to Seattle and his apartment closed down and most of his belongings sold or given away or put on the street. The uncle asks if I’d like to attend the funeral, but doesn’t mention anything about providing air fare or where I would stay. Since I don’t have much money saved and also think I’ll be out of place there and maybe even looked down upon by his family I’ve never seen, I stay here and arrange on that same funeral day a small ceremony in the basement of a local church, where I and several of our friends and his employers speak about Eliot and read aloud excerpts of his letters to a couple of us and listen to parts of my opera records he most liked to play and for a minute bow our heads, hold hands and pray.
According to that elderly witness, Eliot was waiting for a train on the downtown platform of my stop when he saw a young man speaking abusively to a girl of about fifteen. When the girl continued to ignore him, he made several obscene gestures and said he was going to throw her to the platform and force her to do all sorts of sordid things to him and if he couldn’t get her to do them there because people were watching, then in the men’s room upstairs. The girl was frightened and started to walk away. The young man grabbed her wrist, started to twist it, stopped and said he would rip her arm off if she gave him a hard time, but didn’t let go. There were a few people on the platform. Nobody said anything or tried to help her and in fact all of them except Eliot and this elderly man eventually moved to the other end of the platform or at least away from what was going on. Then Eliot went over to the young man, who was still holding the girl by her wrist, and very politely asked him to let her alone. Something like “Excuse me, I don’t like to interfere in anyone’s problems. But if this young lady doesn’t want to be bothered by you, then I would really think you’d let her go.”
“Listen, I know her, so mind your business,” the young man said and she said to Eliot “No he don’t.” Then out of nowhere a friend of the young man ran down the subway stairs and said to him “What’s this chump doing, horning in on your act?” The elderly man got up from a bench and started for the upstairs to get help. “You stay right here, grandpa,” the first young man said, “or you’ll get thrown on your back too.” The elderly man stopped. Eliot said to the young men “Please, nobody should be getting thrown on their backs. And I hate to get myself any more involved in this, but for your own good you fellows ought to go now or just leave everybody here alone.”
“And for your own good,” one of the young men said, “you’d be wiser moving your ass out of here.”
“I can only move it once I know this girl’s out of danger with you two.”
“She’ll be plenty out of danger when you move your ass out of here, now move.”