The Little Men

The Little Men

Megan Abbott

At night, the sounds from the canyon shifted and changed. The bungalow seemed to lift itself with every echo and the walls were breathing. Panting.

Just after two, she'd wake, her eyes stinging, as if someone had waved a flashlight across them.

And then, she'd hear the noise.

Every night.

The tapping noise, like a small animal trapped behind the wall.

That was what it reminded her of. Like when she was a girl, and that possum got caught in the crawlspace. For weeks, they just heard scratching. They only found it when the walls started to smell.

It's not the little men,
she told herself.
It's not.
And then she'd hear a whimper and startle herself. Because it was her whimper and she was so frightened.

I'm not afraid I'm not I'm not

It had begun four months ago, the day Penny
first set foot in the Canyon Arms. The chocolate
and pink bungalows, the high arched windows
and French doors, the tiled courtyard,
cosseted on all sides by eucalyptus, pepper,
and olive trees, miniature date palms—it was
like a dream of a place, not a place itself.

This is what it was supposed to be,
she thought.

The Hollywood she'd always imagined, the
Hollywood of her childhood imagination, assembled
from newsreels: Kay Francis in silver
lamé and Clark Gable driving down Sunset in
his Duesenberg, everyone beautiful and everything
possible.

That world, if it ever really existed, was long
gone by the time she'd arrived on that Greyhound
a half-dozen years ago. It had been
swallowed up by the clatter and color of 1953
Hollywood, with its swooping motel roofs
and shiny glare of its hamburger stands and
drive-ins, and its descending smog, which
made her throat burn at night. Sometimes she
could barely breathe.

But here in this tucked away courtyard, deep in Beachwood Canyon, it was as if that
Old Hollywood still lingered, even bloomed.
The smell of apricot hovered, the hush and
echoes of the canyons soothed. You couldn't
hear a horn honk, a brake squeal. Only the
distant
ting-ting
of window chimes, somewhere.
One might imagine a peignoired
Norma Shearer drifting through the rounded
doorway of one of the bungalows, cocktail
shaker in hand.

“It's perfect,” Penny whispered, her heels
tapping on the Mexican tiles. “I'll take it.”

“That's fine,” said the landlady, Mrs. Stahl,
placing Penny's cashier's check in the drooping
pocket of her satin housecoat and handing
her the keyring, heavy in her palm.

The scent, thick with pollen and dew, was
enough to make you dizzy with longing.

And so close to the Hollywood sign, visible
from every vantage, which had to mean something.

She had found it almost by accident, tripping
out of the Carnival Tavern after three stingers.

“We've all been stood up,” the waitress had tut-tutted, snapping the bill holder at her hip. “But we still pay up.”

“I wasn't stood up,” Penny said. After all,
Mr. D. had called, the hostess summoning
Penny to one of the hot telephone booths.
Penny was still tugging her skirt free from its
door hinges when he broke it to her.

He wasn't coming tonight and wouldn't be
coming again. He had many reasons why, beginning
with his busy work schedule, the demands
of the studio, plus negotiations with
the union were going badly. By the time he got
around to the matter of his wife and six children,
she wasn't listening, letting the phone
drift from her ear.

Gazing through the booth's glass accordion
doors, she looked out at the long row of spinning
lanterns strung along the bar's windows.
They reminded her of the magic lamp she had
when she was small, scattering galloping
horses across her bedroom walls.

You could see the Carnival Tavern from
miles away because of the lanterns. It was
funny seeing them up close, the faded circus
clowns silhouetted on each. They looked so
much less glamorous, sort of shabby. She
wondered how long they'd been here, and if
anyone even noticed them anymore.

She was thinking all these things while Mr.
D. was still talking, his voice hoarse with logic
and finality. A faint aggression.

He concluded by saying surely she agreed
that all the craziness had to end.

You were a luscious piece of candy,
he said,
but now I gotta spit you out.

After, she walked down the steep exit ramp
from the bar, the lanterns shivering in the
canyon breeze.

And she walked and walked and that was
how she found the Canyon Arms, tucked off
behind hedges so deep you could disappear
into them. The smell of the jasmine so strong
she wanted to cry.

“You're an actress, of course,” Mrs. Stahl said,
walking her to Bungalow Number Four.

“Yes,” she said. “I mean, no.” Shaking her
head. She felt like she was drunk. It was the
apricot. No, Mrs. Stahl's cigarette. No, it was
her lipstick. Tangee, with its sweet orange
smell, just like Penny's own mother.

“Well,” Mrs. Stahl said. “We're all actresses, I suppose.”

“I used to be,” Penny finally managed. “But
I got practical. I do makeup now. Over at Republic.”

Mrs. Stahl's eyebrows, thin as seaweed,
lifted. “Maybe you could do me sometime.”

It was the beginning of something, she was sure.

No more living with sundry starlets stacked
bunk-to-bunk in one of those stucco boxes inWest Hollywood. The Sham-Rock. The Sun-Kist Villa. The smell of cold cream and last
night's sweat, a brush of talcum powder between
the legs.

She hadn't been sure she could afford to
live alone, but Mrs. Stahl's rent was low. Surprisingly
low. And, if the job at Republic
didn't last, she still had her kitty, which was
fat these days on account of those six months
with Mr. D., a studio man with a sofa in his
office that wheezed and puffed. Even if he really
meant what he said, that it really was
kaput, she still had that last check he'd given
her. He must have been planning the brush
off, because it was the biggest yet, and made
out to cash.

And the Canyon Arms had other advantages.
Number Four, like all the bungalows,
was already furnished: sun-bleached zebra
print sofa and key lime walls, that brightwhite
kitchen with its cherry-sprigged wallpaper.
The first place she'd ever lived that didn't
have rust stains in the tub or the smell of
moth balls everywhere.

And there were the built-in bookshelves
filled with novels in crinkling dustjackets.

She liked books, especially the big ones by
Lloyd C. Douglas or Frances Parkinson Keyes,
though the books in Number Four were all at
least twenty years old with a sleek, high-tone
look about them. The kind without any people
on the cover.

She vowed to read them all during her time
at the Canyon Arms. Even the few tucked in
the back, the ones with brown-paper covers.

In fact, she started with those. Reading
them late at night, with a pink gin conjured
from grapefruit peel and an old bottle of
Gilbey's she found in the cupboard. Those
books gave her funny dreams.

“She got one.”

Penny turned on her heels, one nearly
catching on one of the courtyard tiles. But,
looking around, she didn't see anyone. Only
an open window, smoke rings emanating like
a dragon's mouth.

“She finally got one,” the voice came again.

“Who's there?” Penny said, squinting toward
the window.

An old man leaned forward from his perch
just inside Number Three, the bungalow next
door. He wore a velvet smoking jacket faded
to a deep rose.

“And a pretty one at that,” he said, smiling
with graying teeth. “How do you like Number
Four?”

“I like it very much,” she said. She could
hear something rustling behind him in his
bungalow. “It's perfect for me.”

“I believe it is,” he said, nodding slowly. “Of
that I am sure.”

The rustle came again. Was it a roommate?
A pet? It was too dark to tell. When it came
once more, it was almost like a voice shushing.

“I'm late,” she said, taking a step back, her
heel caving slightly.

“Oh,” he said, taking a puff. “Next time.”

That night, she woke, her mouth dry from
gin, at two o'clock. She had been dreaming she
was on an exam table and a doctor with an
enormous head mirror was leaning so close to
her she could smell his gum: violet. The ringlight
at its center seemed to spin, as if to hypnotize
her.

She saw spots even when she closed her
eyes again.

The next morning, the man in Number Three
was there again, shadowed just inside the window
frame, watching the comings and goings
on the courtyard.

Head thick from last night's gin and two
morning cigarettes, Penny was feeling what
her mother used to call “the hickedty ticks.”

So, when she saw the man, she stopped and
said briskly, “What did you mean yesterday?
‘She finally got one'?”

He smiled, laughing without any noise, his
shoulders shaking.

“Mrs. Stahl got one, got you,” he said. “As
in: Will you walk into my parlor? said the spider
to the fly.”

When he leaned forward, she could see the
stripes of his pajama top through the shiny
threads of his velvet sleeve. His skin was rosy
and wet looking.

“I'm no chump, if that's your idea. It's good
rent. I know good rent.”

“I bet you do, my girl. I bet you do. Why
don't you come inside for a cup? I'll tell you a
thing or two about this place. And about your
Number Four.”

The bungalow behind him was dark, with
something shining beside him. A bottle, or
something else.

“We all need something,” he added cryptically,
winking.

She looked at him. “Look, mister—”

“Flant. Mr. Flant. Come inside, miss. Open
the front door. I'm harmless.” He waved his
pale pink hand, gesturing toward his lap mysteriously.

Behind him, she thought she saw something moving in the darkness over his slouching
shoulders. And music playing softly. An
old song about setting the world on fire, or
not.

Mr. Flant was humming with it, his body
soft with age and stillness, but his milky eyes
insistent and penetrating.

A breeze lifted and the front door creaked
open several inches, and the scent of tobacco
and bay rum nearly overwhelmed her.

“I don't know,” she said, even as she moved
forward.

Later, she would wonder why, but in that
moment, she felt it was definitely the right
thing to do.

The other man in Number Three was not as
old as Mr. Flant but still much older than
Penny. Wearing only an undershirt and
trousers, he had a moustache and big round
shoulders that looked gray with old sweat.
When he smiled, which was often, she could
tell he was once matinee-idol handsome, with
the outsized head of all movie stars.

“Call me Benny,” he said, handing her a
coffee cup that smelled strongly of rum.

Mr. Flant was explaining that Number Four
had been empty for years because of something
that happened there a long time ago.

“Sometimes she gets a tenant,” Benny reminded
Mr. Flant. “The young musician with
the sweaters.”

“That did not last long,” Mr. Flant said.

“What happened?”

“The police came. He tore out a piece of
the wall with his bare hands.”

Penny's eyebrows lifted.

Benny nodded. “His fingers were hanging
like clothespins.”

“But I don't understand. What happened
in Number Four?”

“Some people let the story get to them,”
Benny said, shaking his head.