PeterLorreLove

Grace had watched Fontaine leave; now she regarded the man who remained standing on the cracked marble lobby floor.  She should have figured as much--a man who called himself a doctor coming in here in the middle of the night, short on cash and long on charm.  Now it was obvious.  He was on the run from the cops, and she'd seen it a mile away--so why couldn't she muster the appropriate rage? He looked so sad, so terrified.  It was written in his defeated posture.  When she took a few steps toward him, he cringed visibly, but like a beaten dog did not turn to face her.  As Grace stoo

"Thank you for dinner." Grace stood in the doorway of her apartment, smiling at the man standing in the hall.  It seemed to her that he'd had a good time, too. "Thanks for the idea."  He stuck his hands in his pockets for want of anything to do with them.  Her idea of going to a German restaurant was so thoughtful--he'd enjoyed being able to speak his native language for the first time in a long  time.  As soon as he'd learned that the proprietors had come from Berlin fifteen years ago, he knew he could relax--they would likely never have heard of him.  Grace had listened to them c

Though she hadn't thought of the man with the odd yet polite manner much in the interim, when she returned to work the next night and faced the desolate lobby, Grace remembered him and wondered what had become of him.  Likely he'd just spent the morning, checked out the next afternoon, and moved on.  She poured herself a cup of coffee and opened her book, losing herself in the story within a page. "It looks like you have a pretty easy job," came a soft voice from nowhere. She'd dropped the book before he'd even finished the sentence.  He was wearing the same suit, now a little rumpled, and a small, sheepish smile. "Oh, you're back!" She c

It was nearing the end of her shift on an ordinary Wednesday morning.  Overnights weren't so bad, once one learned how to deal with the clientele.  It had been a quiet night, only punctuated twice so far by people wanting a room, and the usual telephone calls to be put through.  By the time her shift started at nine in the evening, most boarders had already checked in and settled down, leaving her to deal with the colorful nightlife. She had been occupying herself with a book when the lobby doors opened, admitting a man in a dark suit.  She glanced up, patted her hair, and stood to greet him.  The man looked all around, making his way to the

Three o' clock the next afternoon found the doctor a nervous wreck.  He alternated among pacing his room, taking little nips of his schnapps, trying to tame that annoying bit of hair that insisted upon falling across his forehead, and wringing his hands, all the while endlessly tying, retying, adjusting, tightening and loosening his necktie.  He shouldn't even be doing this.  It could only end badly. Three-twenty. He knew that he talked too much around that girl.  She'd relaxed and opened up to him so readily, clearly she liked him--but he'd seen what a hellcat she could be from the altercation last n