Hunter and the Trap

by Howard Fast

“What are you suggesting, Monte?” He understood me now. His voice was suddenly cold and flat.

  “Give us cover.”

  “Here?” Pete asked evenly.

  “That’s right. You have an apartment there. You got food and liquor—”

  “Why don’t Andy get out of town?” he interrupted.

  “You know Andy. Andy can’t run.”

  “Why don’t he get it through his head that he’s not the hunter any more?”

  “Will you give us cover, Pete?”

  “What is this us?”

  “I’m staying with him.”

  “You’re a big hero, Monte. I am no hero. You know how much it cost to run up this little shack of mine. Two and a half long miles. Two million, five hundred thousand dollars—American. And not my dough. I never saw that kind of dough. This is stockholders’ money. I’m a public corporation—listed on the American Stock Exchange. Look me up some day if you, want to buy a nice investment. Suppose you do—so I got a responsibility to you same as I got to my other investors. It’s not my place. It’s a public responsibility. I’m not some kind of stinking louse that’s pulling any rug from under you. I got responsibility—”

  I spoke a four-letter word and hung up, and then I went back to where Andy was still talking to the kid.

  “Son,” I said to the kid, “please blow. This is a lousy night for what you want.”

  “I got more than I hoped for,” the kid said.

  “Good. Will you leave us alone then?”

  “Sure,” the kid said. He shook hands with Andy and thanked him, and then he walked over to the bar to scribble what he remembered into his notebook.

  “Nice kid,” Andy remarked.

  “What made you come to a place like the St. Regis?” I asked him. “It’s the one place in town where you got to be recognized. It’s a wonder you haven’t gathered a. crowd already. You know that sooner or later a columnist or a Variety guy or one of the news guys cases the King Cole Room.”

  “I don’t think that way any more. It’s a long time since I’ve been to this city.”

  “A1l right. Where now?”

  “Why don’t we go over to Pete’s,” he said. “I hear that he keeps a six-bedroom apartment over the place. He could give us cover, and if we get there clean—well, maybe I’d have a chance.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a lousy idea,” I said. “You’re running scared. That’s the only reason you come up with such a lousy idea.”

  “You’re out of your mind, Monte.”

  “Sure.”

  “We go to Pete’s. Suppose you go out and snare us a cab—”

  “No!”

  He stared at me strangely, and finally I said, “I just spoke to Pete. That’s what I went to the phone for.”

  “Oh.”

  “We’ll go back to Carlyle,” I said. “As long as you got to be so stinking brave and stay here, we’ll go back to where you got some clothes and friends and guns.”

  Staring at the table top, he muttered, “Guns are no damn good. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  “I know. I just think in patterns.”

  “I’m sorry. I keep jumping on you. Why don’t you spit in my face and walk out of here?”

  “Sure.” I looked at him newly and said, “I’ll do that some time. Remind me.”

  12

  We walked north on Madison Avenue. It was Saturday, too early for dining and too late for strolling, and the shoppers had gone home too. The streets were empty. I glanced at Andy, and he was tense, alert, his eyes darting here and there.

  “The game isn’t brave,” he said.

  “The hunter is brave.”

  “Crap,” he said. “Just pure crap, Monte.”

  Then we ran for cover, and we found the entrance to the subway under the front doorway of Bloomingdale’s. In the subway, it was better. People in the subway didn’t recognize Andy, and the subway was covered over, dark, a place to run to ground.

  “But when you run to ground,” Andy said to me, “that’s it, isn’t it? Then it’s over. Then you got a hole in the earth, and you stay there. You put your face on the ground. Do you remember what the ground feels like against your cheek, Monte, cold and wet?” A train pulled in and we got on, going uptown, north. The car was almost empty, and we sat down slowly, like strangers.

  “I remember,” I said.

  At 77th Street, Andy got up to leave. I followed him. We stood on the platform until the train roared away uptown, and then the only sound was the grumbling distant noise that a subway always makes.

  “What in hell is in it for you, Monte?” Andy asked me harshly.

  “You wouldn’t write it that way,” I said to him. “You’d call me names and burn my ass a little, so I walk out on you. We don’t want to go in for that kind of thing.”

  “I suppose not,” he said. “If you want to stay, Monte, let’s try to stop being afraid.”

  “We can try,” I agreed.

  13

  At the hotel, outside of Andy’s suite, a press delegation bigger than the one that had met him at the airport was waiting. The worried manager had told us that there were reporters upstairs, but we hadn’t anticipated anything like this. A big feeder cable lay on the hallway floor, and maybe forty—fifty other wires as well, and there were TV cameras from the three big networks. There were newsreel cameras, hand cameras and a flock of reporters; and the moment Andy came in sight, the take began. The reporters crowded around, with the CBS microphone shoved close in, ABC and NBC flanking, and the NBC man alternating the questions with Frank Brady from The New York Times, and everyone else made notes and sparked the excitement. I didn’t make any notes there, but it was pretty much as follows, checked against the Times story:

  “When did you discover that you were being hunted, Mr. Bell?”

  Andy could have told them to go to the devil and be damned, and what difference would it have made at that point? But instead he stood there, his hands in his pockets, towering over the lot of them and slouching slightly, and informed them quietly and politely that he had become aware of being the quarry only a few hours ago, early in the afternoon.

  “And what did you do then Mr. Bell? What steps did you take?”

  “I hid my trail as well as I could. I was in a snare of sorts then, but I broke out and found cover.”

  “What kind of cover?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I needed a place where I could sit and think.”

  “And how did you get back here?”

  “Simple evasion. Nothing very clever.”

  “Will you be leaving New York now?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t choose to.”

  “Then doesn’t it follow—?”

  “It follows.”

  “How does it feel to change places, Mr. Bell?”

  “Lousy.”

  “But don’t you feel that your skill as a hunter—?”

  “No.”

  “But surely you don’t consider yourself in the same position as any other man being hunted?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you have any feelings of fear, Mr. Bell?”

  “If it interests your readers, yes.”

  “Your reputation for courage—”

  “A lie, like all other reputations,”

  “To get back to the question of evasion as a tactic, Mr. Bell—doesn’t it follow that the only evasion that makes any sense is to leave the city?”

  “I never was very sure of what makes sense.”

  “Yet you state emphatically that you will not run?”

  Andy shrugged.

  “Have you ever been hunted before?”

  “No, this is the first time.”

  “Tiny Joe was on the air less than an hour ago, charging that this whole thing is a publicity stunt. Have you any comment to make about that, Mr. Bell?”

  “No.”

  “Won’t you pl
ease make a statement?” the NBC man pleaded. “Any kind of a statement. People want to know how you are taking this.”

  Andy shook his head.

  “You have an obligation to the public, Mr. Bell.”

  “I am very tired,” Andy said. “I think that’s all for now.”

  I maneuvered him toward the door of the suite. Jose had the door open. We both slipped in, and Jose drove the door closed behind us. Andy flopped into a chair in the living room, and said to Diva, who was standing tensely at one side of the room:

  “Diva, call the manager and tell him to clear them out of the hall. That’s his obligation. I don’t care how he does it, and I don’t give a damn how they feel about it. I want to be able to come and go without fighting that line-up out there.”

  Diva nodded and went into the bedroom to make the call. Jose poured Andy a glass of brandy and said:

  “Trouble—damn big trouble, hey Monte?”

  “You can say that.”

  Andy stared at the brandy for a long moment; then he gulped it down and almost choked on it. He flung the glass away from him.

  “I understand,” Jose nodded.

  “This crap that it’s easy to die,” Andy said. “This filthy crap that it’s easy to die.”

  Diva came out of the bedroom. “I spoke to the manager. He’ll do his best. He wants to stop by later and have a word with you. I tell him is all right—yes?”

  “No. I don’t want to talk to him.”

  “Have a word with him, Andy.”

  “You had a word with Pete.”

  “Then I’ll talk to him,” I said.

  “No—the hell with that. I’ll see him when he comes up.”

  “You want anything, Andy?” Diva asked him.

  “No.”

  I walked out onto the terrace, and Diva followed me. The sun was setting over Queens. The city was quiet and lovely and full of shadows.

  “I am a bitch, Monte,” Diva said. “You are married to one. You need me like I need what happened today. I suppose you tell your wife. Oh, you shouldn’t have, Monte. That’s how they know.”

  “Maybe not. I had to tell Pete.”

  “Pete is a pig,” she whispered. “Don’t you know Pete is a pig?”

  “He’s Andy’s friend.”

  “Oh, that’s a stinking lie, number one. Friends! Andy has no friends. Jose and me—we are servants. That’s better. And you—”

  “Yeah—and me?”

  “I don’t know what you are. You asked Pete for shelter? You asked Pete for life?”

  “He’s a public corporation.”

  “You know what he is.”

  The doorbell rang, and Diva went inside to open the door. I followed. Andy sat in his chair without moving. It was the hotel manager. Diva let him in and closed the door quickly behind him. Jose pulled up a chair for him. He nodded at me and sat down facing Andy.

  “I manage the place,” he said to Andy. “It’s a job.”

  “Why don’t you tell me that you admire me?” Andy asked.

  “I have too much respect for you to say that.”

  “Thank you,” Andy said.

  “Still—well, what do you say, Mr. Bell?”

  “I don’t think any harm will come to the hotel.”

  “Can you guarantee that?”

  “You know better than to ask me that.” Andy smiled.

  “I have to ask it.”

  “I was a hunter,” Andy said. “A hunter waits until the game moves into the open. Even when he spots the lair.”

  “Unless he becomes impatient.”

  “I’ll make my run,” Andy said. “I have to rest a little. I’m tired now. But I’ll make my run.”

  “I heard you won’t leave the city.”

  “I don’t have to leave the city to make a run.”

  The manager watched Andy for a moment, saw him and appraised him. I liked the manager. “What the hell,” the manager said, “it’s only a job. Get your rest.”

  Then he left.

  Andy closed his eyes. I went out onto the terrace, where the night was washing in. I stayed there for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then Andy called me.

  14

  “Sit down, Monte,” he said.

  I sat in the chair facing him.

  “None of that crap I tried before. This is very simple and direct. I am going to make a run for it. Get out and get clear.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight.” Jose and Diva stood by the doors to the terrace, and Andy told them to clear out of the living room. “I want to talk to Monte alone.” They went into their respective rooms, and I suppose they stood there with their ears against the doors.

  “Why tonight?”

  “I like the manager. I don’t know what to say to you, Monte. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Ah—I don’t know. The hell with it. You get sentimental with someone like Pete. Right now sentiment would be offensive. It would offend you, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would offend me,” I agreed.

  “Then take off, Monte. For Christ’s sake, take off.”

  Then I got up and left—without looking behind me and without saying anything else. Down in the lobby, I ran into the manager, and he said to me:

  “Could I buy you a drink, Mr. Case?”

  “If we don’t talk about Andy Bell.”

  “I’ll talk about running a hotel.”

  “You got me,” I said.

  I had three drinks and I learned a lot about running a large, posh, uptown eastside hotel, and then I shook hands with the manager.

  “He’ll make a run for it tonight, won’t he?” the manager said.

  “I guess so.”

  Out on the dark street, there was a cool breeze. The summer was almost done. It was a pleasant night. I thought about getting drunk, but the thought was not too pleasant. I thought about calling someone to have dinner with me, but first I called Liz. She wasn’t home. Then I called a few people, but everyone knew about Andy being the quarry, and I was close enough to Andy for the people I knew not to desire closeness with me. Not on that evening anyway. I walked downtown and then I went into one of the flicks on Third Avenue, and I sat through a picture without knowing what went on in front of me and without being able to remember any of it; and then I walked over to the Oak Room at the Plaza and had a few more drinks and hoped that someone would happen by, but no one did. I went home then.

  15

  I slept badly. I dreamed and the dreams were not good, and then I woke up and lay in the dark and heard Liz come in; and then I must have dozed a little, because the telephone woke me at about six in the morning. It was O’Brian, from the Twenty-third Squad, and he told me about Andy.

  “When?”

  “Maybe twenty minutes ago. On Fifth Avenue, just south of the 56th Street corner.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Good. That’s good. I’ll wait for you.”

  “What son of a bitch—” Liz began.

  I put away the telephone and told her that Andy was dead.

  “Oh, my God—”

  It was no use to hurt her, and anything I would have said would have hurt her. It was never any use to hurt her; the world hurt her too much, and you would have to be a psychopath to add to it. I dressed and got down to 56th Street, and then I was sorry that I had been in such a damned hurry.

  The hunt had finished there, and there was nothing recognizable left of Andy. What had been him was spread in a bloody smear halfway across Fifth Avenue, and the men from the morgue were trying to gather it up and make something in the way of remains out of it.

  At this hour, on a Sunday morning, Fifth Avenue was all but deserted. The one or two citizens who came by did not stop. The smear was not something that anyone would want to stand around and look at.

  O’Brian, who was supervising things, spotted me and came over with a handkerchief filled with the few possessions that had survived Andy—keys for doors
I had never stepped through, some bills and some change, a crushed card case, a penknife, cufflinks bent shapeless, a broken pen—what could have belonged to Andy or to any other mortal man.

  “I’m going to throw up,” I said to him.

  O’Brian nodded and led me over to a cardboard container that was conveniently waiting. Evidently, others had felt the same way.

  “Too much to drink last night.”

  “Sure,” O’Brian said. “When did you see him last, Monte?”

  “Last night at the Carlyle. At about eight or so, I guess.”

  “Did you know he would make a run for it?”

  “He told me.”

  “Did you try to stop him?”

  “Andy?”

  “All right, but why did he stay in the city? Why didn’t he break clear?”

  I shook my head.

  “Who are the next of kin, Monte?”

  “One wife is dead. Another lives in Paris. The third lives in San Francisco and hates his guts.”

  “How about that Spanish dame and the little creep with the black polish hair?”

  “They worked for him.”

  “Well, someone has to come over to the precinct with me,” O’Brian said, “and sign papers and then go to the morgue and make arrangements.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Funeral arrangements?”

  “I’ll start the ball rolling. I’ll do what I can.”

  “My God,” O’Brian said, “Andy Bell had enough friends. We certainly won’t have any trouble in that department.”

  16

  We didn’t. Andy had been part Episcopalian, and the Rector of St. John the Divine suggested that the services be held there. Over three thousand people turned up, and the front part of the Cathedral contained about five percent of the best names in Who’s Who, not to mention the Blue Book. Liz and I patched things up, and I dutifully put out two hundred and twenty-five dollars for the black ensemble she wore. She looked very attractive. I suppose a hundred people mentioned to me how attractive Liz looked. Diva and Jose were not there. They took off the same day Andy died, and no one ever saw them again or heard of them again, and the talk around was that they had robbed Andy of every nickel he had. But the truth of it was that every nickel he had was on him when he died, and his estate was deeply in debt, even though the royalties would pay off the debts in due time and show a handsome income eventually.