The Hunger and Other Stories

by Charles Beaumont

  “How extremely roman policier. But, Herbie, are you serious?”

  “Deadly. You’re for it?”

  “Sounds all right. When?”

  Herbert walked to the center of the big high-ceilinged room and blew at a mobile. “Tonight,” he said, lowering his voice. “I mean, after all. I mean, damn it, why not?”

  Ronald picked at the tendriled frieze which protruded from his carelessly buttoned shirt, and smiled inscrutably. He went to the phonograph and put on some minor Bartók; then he turned, a remarkably thin figure in the moonlight window, and whipped off his heavy black horn-rimmed spectacles.

  “Go on,” he said.

  Herbert had been tamping down the tobacco in a long, hand-carved pipe. “Well, the way I see it, we’ve got to be methodical,” he said. “Too many crimes are done clumsily, without discretion, without grace and forethought, you know? In the case of the crime passionel, it’s always a simple matter for the police; with a planned murder, the criminal gets panicky at the last minute and ruins everything. A poor lot, Ronnie: their motives are so base, so unbearably bourgeois. Don’t you agree?”

  “One hundred per cent.”

  “Well then, don’t you see, we fall into neither category. We aren’t going to commit a crime passionel, and as for the plan—why, we don’t even know the identity of our victim yet!”

  Ronald clapped his hands together once, rushed into the kitchen and returned bearing a bottle and two long-stemmed glasses.

  “A toast!” he said, delightedly. “A toast, to our nameless friend, wherever he may be.”

  They drank in solemn silence, concluding by flinging their glasses against the fireplace.

  Herbert’s close-cropped blond hair was haloed in the guttering candlelight. “How invigorating!” he exclaimed. “It’s the first time in three months that I haven’t been bored. Not since that Javanese girl—what was her name? I’ve forgotten. It’s unimportant: she bored me, anyway. But this—”

  Ronald fairly shook with excitement. “I must give you credit. It has all been so infernally dull—dull, dull.”

  The candle sputtered out in a soft wind from the open window.

  “Then,” Herbert said, “you’ll go through with it?”

  “I simply can’t wait, old man.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Immediately!”

  “All right. I’ve mapped out a little schedule, a working plan. Please listen carefully.”

  Herbert leaned close to his friend’s ear and began to whisper, in soft, conspiratorial tones. . . .

  “Bughouse Square” was not thickly populated, for the hour was late. There were no speakers, no huddled groups. Only the old men and women who sit on the hard benches. A young girl glued to the side of a sailor swung her hips against his as they meandered across the lawn; a woman in many shredded silk dresses, many scarves and handkerchiefs, hobbled haltingly, moving her lips; a lithe Negro man pranced by the rim of a stone fountain. There were no others and the night was empty of human sounds, except for the traffic far away and the city’s distant hum.

  Ronald shifted uncomfortably. “Don’t you think,” he said, grinding out another cigarette, “that we should go somewhere? Like home, maybe? Damn it, I’m freezing to death—we’ve been here for two hours, for Chrissake.” His chartreuse slacks had been replaced by faded levis; he had on a cheap windbreaker and his face was dirty.

  Herbert had on a peajacket and looked more disreputable: his hair was blackened with shoe polish and he wasn’t wearing his glasses. “Whine, whine, whine,” he said. “After all this trouble, you want to give up?”

  “But we’ve been here two hours, I’m telling you. What’s wrong with killing one of these guys?”

  “Not so loud! They offend me, that’s what’s wrong with it. Besides, they look like they belong here; they’d be missed. We want someone completely anonymous—a nobody, a nothing, without friends or relatives. That was the plan.”

  Ronald sighed loudly. “All right. But it is getting late.”

  “Be still. Go, if you choose; leave me, leave and live your coward’s life. Or, staying, shut up.”

  “There is no call for getting rude.”

  They sat and watched the Bughouse Square people break up slowly, only the bench sitters remaining, the old people.

  “Very well,” Herbert said, finally, “perhaps tonight is unlucky for us. I’ll give it another ten minutes.”

  Ten minutes passed and the night grew colder and later and the two youths fidgeted.

  Then they got up. And they were clear past the stone fountain before they saw the figure moving toward them.

  “Shhh. Wait!” said Herbert.

  The figure drew closer. It was a man: an old man, but not old like the bench sitters: his eyes were alive, and his beard was the color of Georgia mud. He was smoking the butt of a peeling cigar whose tip glowed red against his wrinkled leather skin. And his clothes were rags.

  Herbert looked around quickly and saw that they were alone.

  “Good evening, sir,” he said softly, and the old man glanced up.

  “Evening, boys.”

  “Late, isn’t it?”

  “Reckon so,” the old man said, scratching his nose. “Late for some, early for others, hey?”

  “Ha ha,” Herbert said. “That’s very good.”

  The old man cocked his head to one side and studied the two young men with casual intensity. “Say,” he said, “you boys wouldn’t happen to have the price of a flop on you, now would you?”

  Herbert looked astonished. “Why, surely you don’t mean that you haven’t a place to sleep tonight!”

  “Ain’t tromping the sidewalks for my health, young fella. Tell you what— for two bits I could get me a fine old place.”

  “But, don’t you have friends?” Ronald said.

  “No,” the old man said. “Them as I had is all under the ground. They found them a place to sleep, anyways.”

  Herbert took the old man’s arm. “This is terrible! What a comment upon our society!”

  “Since you’re placing blame, laddie buck, place her on a blon-dined woman long gone . . .”

  “A relative?” Ronald said quickly.

  “No, no. My wife. Or pretty nearly, leastwise. See, I was a traveling salesman, supporting my dear mother at the time, when—but that there is a long old story. Now about that two bits—”

  Herbert and Ronald exchanged short but highly meaningful looks.

  “See here,” Herbert said, “we don’t have any money with us right now, but if you’d care to share our quarters for the evening, we’d be only too happy to oblige. Permit me to introduce us, Mr.—”

  They had begun walking automatically in the general direction of the car, headed for the darkest, emptiest streets.

  “Fogarty,” the old man said, “James Oliver Fogarty.” He said it with a certain wonderment, as if surprised to recall it so exactly.

  Herbert said, “I am Artur Schopenhauer. And this is my good friend, Fred Nietzsche.”

  “Proud to know you, boys.”

  They passed many dark stores, many dirty gray brick apartments and hotels of clapboard and they didn’t encounter a soul.

  “We wouldn’t be able to sleep, thinking of you wandering the cold night, Mr. Fogarty. I can only regret that we can’t accommodate all the lonely, the sad of heart, the homeless of the world,” Herbert said, digging Ronald in the ribs.

  “Now there is a Christian thought,” the old man said, “if I ever heard one: a fine Christian thought. Say, you wouldn’t by chance have a bite to eat at your place?”

  “Oh yes,” Ronald said. “We’ll fix you up just fine. Wait and see!”

  They walked to the blackest section of the blackness, and when they caught sight of the car—a long, low, foreign make—Ronald halted and said: “Would you excuse us, Mr. Fogarty? I’d like to have a word with my friend.”

  The old man looked slightly bewildered. “Sure thing,” he said.

  “I ju
st happened to think,” Ronald whispered, having stepped into an odorous doorway, “what if someone sees him in the car?”

  Herbert rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You think we should do it now,” he said, “right here and now, is that what you mean?”

  “Well, no, not exactly.”

  They thought a moment. “We’ll put the top up,” Herbert said, brightening. “And place him between us. And I’ll go through side streets. All right?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Come now; have you ever seen such a fatted calf? Sans friends, sans relatives—exactly what we wanted!”

  The old man smiled at them from the corner.

  Herbert smiled back. “We’ll take him to the place, give him a few drinks, and then . . .”

  “By the way, who’s going to do it?”

  “Does it matter?”

  They walked back to the corner and helped the ragged old man into the automobile; fastened the top securely, looked around, roared away.

  “Hey now, this is sure a funny place,” the old man said, as they propelled him up the curving stone ramp. It was a small walkway, bounded on either side by tropical growths, spiny fronds and thick leaves with tips as sharp as needles.

  “You like it?” Herbert said. “It used to belong to a religious sect—now defunct—and this was known as the ‘death walk.’ People brought their lately departed relatives to be resuscitated.”

  “You don’t mean to tell me!”

  “It suits our modest wants.”

  A curve in the ramp brought them to a large oak door topped by an octagonal window of glass stained with curious symbols: from this promontory, the city’s tiny lights could be clearly seen. They continued down the hall past the door, past several smaller doors, to one no different from the rest except that it was painted bright red.

  “Home,” Ronald said.

  “By golly!” the old man said, and they went in.

  Suffused light softened the rather startling effect of the gold walls and black ceiling; however, the fish-net drapes, colored orange, stood out in bold relief. The old man studied the room, or seemed to: his eyes darted from point to point, subtly.

  “What will it be, sir,” Ronald said, taking the double coat and hat, “Martini? Manhattan? Scotch-on-the-rocks?”

  “Welsir, boys, those all sound mighty appetizing—but, now, if you have a sandwich of something—”

  “Of course.” Herbert motioned to Ronald and they went into the kitchen.

  “Did you see anybody?” Herbert whispered.

  “No.”

  “What about when I parked the car—anybody, in the windows or anything?”

  “No. We weren’t seen. I was watching.”

  “Doesn’t it excite you! There’s something so terribly existential in committing the perfect crime. Here—you fix the sandwiches, I’ll see to it he has enough to drink.”

  The old man was sitting in the chair quite still, his hands folded across his stomach. He smelt somewhat rancid.

  “Thank you, laddie.” He took the drink and downed it at a single gulp. “Ahhh!”

  “Another? Help yourself.”

  “Thank you, laddie!”

  Ronald came out with the tray, and set it on the purple ottoman before the old man. “This ought to make you feel better, Mr. Fogarty,” he said.

  As the old man began to eat, Herbert said: “We’ve a bit of straightening up to do in the kitchen, so if you’ll excuse us?” and they went back into the kitchen and closed the door.

  “First, another toast!” Ronald said. A bottle was taken from the cupboard. “To James Oliver Fogarty: R. I. P.!”

  Herbert smiled, and they chug-a-lugged the gin.

  “By the bye, old man,” Ronald said, grimacing, “you haven’t yet told me how we’re going to do it.”

  Looking somewhat blank, Herbert sat on the drainboard and replaced his glasses. “Well,” he said, “let’s give it some thought. It’s actually an embarrassment of riches, you know. We could shoot him, I suppose.”

  “Oh no, Herbie—everybody shoots everybody these days. Also, it would make too much noise. I mean, you know Mrs. Fitzsimmons.”

  “You’re right. Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons. But dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons! Well . . . what about poison? Silent, fast, effective, its praises sung in lyric and in epic. . . . I rather fancy poison. Do we have any in the apartment?”

  “I don’t think so. Unless you refer to that wine you bought yesterday.”

  “At a time like this, levity seems grotesquely out of place, Ronnie. Do control yourself and not be such an ass.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Now let’s see. Odd I didn’t work this part of it out . . . I know! It’s too perfect!” Herbert pulled open a drawer and withdrew a large butcher knife spotted with cake frosting.

  Ronald shuddered slightly.

  “Well?”

  “It’s all right, I guess. But—”

  “But? But?”

  “I’m just thinking of all that blood. It’s supposed to be hard to clean up, and the police find things in it.”

  Herbert made a face and put down the knife. He poured two more glasses, and they listened for a time to the eating sounds from the living room.

  “Herbie! I’ve got it!”

  “Quietly! Yes?”

  Ronald was smiling slyly. “Do you remember that statue we picked up a few months ago?”

  “Which? ‘The Forbidden Embrace’?”

  “And do you remember how heavy it was . . . ?”

  Herbert’s face broke into a beam. “Of course! We’ll club him!”

  Ronald blushed. “Club him to death with an objet d’art—how excruciatingly cloche!”

  They shook hands solemnly and went back into the living room.

  “Hey-o!” The old man belched mildly, and settled back in the chair. “This here was mighty white of you, boys. Accept an old man’s humble thanks. Would you—well, dagnab it, what for a drink on it?”

  “Splendid!”

  “Here’s to a couple of red-blooded American boys!”

  They drank.

  “Ahhh,” the old man said again, refilling the glasses. “Been a time since I tasted lappings good as that. Say, you have got a real nice place here! All them pictures and things, them draperies—real expensive.”

  Herbert sniffed. “If you find yourself on the stage,” he drawled, “then I say, act the part. My parents epitomize the American capitalistic fallacy. Filthy rich, and all that. They throw me a bone from time to time.”

  “Do tell! Bet you’re right fond of them for that, hey?”

  “He loathes them,” Ronald said, chewing at an olive.

  The old man threw down his drink and pointed at a picture of a man with both eyes on one side of his face and no hair. “There’s a funny one!”

  “Picasso. Original, of course. Should have taken it down weeks ago: Picasso doesn’t wear well, you know. Have another drink.”

  They drank again. And the glasses filled again. And another bottle came out of the cupboard.

  “Mr. Fogarty,” Herbert said, eying a heavy statue which resembled a squashed turnip, “for conversation’s sake, would you mind telling us your views on life? We might as well confess to you: we’re social directors for the Y. M. C. A.”

  “I kind of took me a notion that’s what you was,” the old man said, chuckling. “Life, hey? Well; she’s a hard old go. Full of grief for some and joy for others, reckon. Never have rightly figgered her out.”

  “I imagine,” Ronald said, “one must get desperately tired of it all, when one is as advanced in years as yourself.”

  “Well, no: not exactly,” the old man said.

  “Then—you fear death?”

  “Don’t everybody?”

  Herbert sipped at his highball. “ ‘ ’Tis a consummation devoutly to be wish’d,’ ” he said. “Would you excuse our rudeness another time? The dishes want drying. No, no—please stay right where you are. It won’t take a jiffy, then we’ll show
you to your bed.”

  Back in the kitchen, Herbert whispered: “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “I mean, what are we waiting for?”

  “Oh.” Ronald poured out another three fingers of gin with unsteady hands. “You want to do it now?”

  “Why not?” Herbert tried to hop up onto the drainboard, but, in hiccuping, didn’t quite make it. “He’s loaded,” he said, confidentially. “Never know what happened.”

  From the living room came the old man’s voice, thick and unclear, in an off key rendition of “That Little Old Red Shawl My Mother Wore.”

  “Okay,” Ronald said, “but let’s have just one more toast.”

  “One more. To the imminent demise of James Oliver Curwood. I mean Fogarty.”

  The gin was gone, however, so they made recourse to the Scotch.

  “Getting along all right, are you, Mr. Fogarty?” Herbert called.

  “—it was tatter’d, it was torn, it showed signs of being worn—” the old man sang.

  “Poor old schmoe. He doesn’t know what he’s got coming, huh!”

  “Ronnie, stop giggling obscenely. After all, you’re about to kill a man.”

  Ronald stopped giggling. “Who is?” he said, faintly.

  “You are, of course.”

  The younger man stumbled slightly and downed his glass of Scotch. “Now wait, just a minute—”

  “What’s this, what’s this? Don’t tell me you don’t want to go through with it!”

  “Who’s telling you that?”

  “He’ll hear us, you silly ape, if you don’t quiet down! It’s only fair that you should finish the job; after all, I did every bit of the groundwork, didn’t I? Are you not my compagnon de voyage? I mean, do you or do you not intend to be fair?”

  “Certainly, certainly I do. It isn’t that.”

  “Well then?”

  “Don’t you think we ought to wait a little while first?”

  “Impossible. It’s almost four o’clock in the morning now. We’ve got to allow time for disposing of the body, you idiot.”

  “All right, all right. One more drink!”

  Herbert poured out some more Scotch, went into the living room and replenished the old man’s drink.

  Ronald was weaving a bit, and his glass was empty. “What’s the matter?” he said, suddenly. “I don’t hear him singing.”