Free The Hot Countries by Timothy Hallinan

Ernie always made him laugh. He again sees Ernie’s grin, white in the dark face, the gap between his teeth—
    The knocks sound once more, loud as kicks. “Wallace? I need to hear you talking. Everybody in the bar asks is Wallace okay. Even Poke says hello to you.”
    Leon isn’t going away. Leon has nothing better to do with his life than to stand in that hallway, kicking Wallace’s crappy door and singing German opera for everybody in the building to hear. A fucking menace. The German Peril.
    The idea of Leon being dangerous makes Wallace laugh as he heads toward the living room. Wallace lived with dangerous day and night for three tours of steaming, blood-stinking duty. The only thing Leon had ever killed was time. He’d like to say that to Ernie, Wallace thinks. Ernie always looks surprised before he laughs, as though it startles him that other people are funny.
    â€œComing, Ernie,” Wallace calls. He looks down at himself and is reassured to see that he’d gone to sleep fully dressed.
    â€œErnie?” Hofstedler bellows though the door. “This is not Ernie. Ernie— mein Gott , Ernie is a thousand years dead. You should not be alone so much.”
    â€œI’m not alone,” Wallace says, undoing the door’s assortment of locks—a joke, given that the door itself is made of soda cracker. “You’re here.” He opens the door on the mountain that is Leon Hofstedler.
    Hofstedler, his magisterial bulk draped in one of his many-pocketed safari shirts, narrows his eyes as if trying to sight Wallace through a fog. He says, “Ernie?”
    â€œBeen thinking about him,” Wallace says.
    Hofstedler continues to study Wallace’s face. After a moment he gives a grudging grunt. “I will tell them you look okay.”
    â€œOf course I’m okay,” Wallace says around the sudden bloom of irritation in his chest. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
    Hofstedler shrugs. “They worry, you not coming, night after night. You know, thinking maybe  . . . ” Whatever they’re thinking, it’s too dire for Hofstedler to voice it. “Tonight,” he says, “tonight we almost had a fight. In the bar. You remember this man Varney?”
    â€œSure,” Wallace says, wishing he could shut the door. “Varney.”
    â€œYou would have liked it.” Hofstedler is looking past Wallace, into the apartment. “Talks, the man talks all the time, and tonight Poke—do you remember Poke?”
    â€œLeon,” Wallace says, and it’s close to a threat.
    â€œSo,” Hofstedler, says, lifting placating hands, “Poke, he had enough, and he asked the man, Varney, if he ever shuts up. And I said that I also would like to talk once in—”
    â€œSounds great,” Wallace says. “I’m a little busy.”
    â€œYes?” Hofstedler sticks his head around the door as though to make sure no one is standing behind it. “You are alone?”
    â€œWriting my memoirs. Before I forget them. Funny, huh, Ernie?”
    â€œErnie is—” Hofstedler shakes his head. “Tomorrow, eight o’clock, I will come for you. Take you to the bar. Will you remember?”
    â€œI’ve got a memory like a  . . . like a  . . . ” He scratches his head—shocked, as always, at the bare skin beneath his fingertip—but he manages a laugh. “That’s a joke, Leon.” He puts some weight on the door, forcing Hofstedler back. “You tell them I’m fine and say hello for me, ’kay?”
    â€œAnd tomorrow,” Leon says. “Eight. Do not forget.”
    â€œYeah, yeah, tomorrow.” He pushes the door closed on Hofstedler, completing in his mind the sentence  . . . whatever is supposed to happen tomorrow . Through the door he hears Hofstedler sigh and then the man’s heavy tread drawing squeaks from the cheap plywood