The Avram Davidson Treasury

by Avram Davidson

  Afterword to “The Affair at Lahore Cantonment”

  BY EILEEN GUNN

  You may not be surprised to hear that, after rising to the bait Avram left for the “insatiably curious,” I failed to find any sources that mention a historic referent for Kipling’s poem “Danny Deever.” Rudyard Kipling, of course, lived in Lahore as a young man and, as the story implies, wrote for the Civil and Military Gazette: the scenario proposed in the story would not have been impossible. The poem was first published in The Scots Observer in 1890. It consists of four stanzas in drumroll cadences, a series of questions and responses between a sergeant and enlisted men who have been called out in files to witness a hanging.

  Each stanza ends with four lines in Cockney dialect that describe the effect of the hanging on the young recruits, and closes with a phrase (slightly different for each stanza) about “hangin’ Danny Deever in the mornin’.” The focus is entirely on the reactions of the men to witnessing a fellow-soldier being hanged, and we never find out anything about Danny Deever himself, other than he was convicted of shooting a sleeping comrade.

  Reading “Danny Deever” again after reading “The Affair at Lahore Cantonment” adds an additional ironic patina to the poem that I think Kipling himself would have relished. It’s in Barrack-Room Ballads; you’ll just have to look it up.

  Revolver

  INTRODUCTION BY BILL PRONZINI

  When “Revolver” was first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 1962, editor Frederic Dannay blurbed it in part as “a kind of roundelay in prose, and a bitter, ironic slice of life—in the raw.” A perfectly apt description as far as it goes. But it neglects to mention another vital element of the story: its understated and mordant wit.

  Humor plays a role in all of Avram’s crime fiction, just as it does in his science fiction and fantasy tales; it was a central facet of his mind-set and his prose style. In some stories the humor is broad, farcical, laugh-out-loud funny. In others, such as “Revolver,” it is subtle, and because of its subtlety, even more caustic. Read carefully his descriptions of Mr. Edward Mason, slumlord; of the tenants who inhabit Mason’s old brownstone houses; of the other denizens of the inner-city neighborhood in which the brownstones stand a-moldering. The descriptions won’t generate laughter, but they will produce wry smiles—and at the same time make you feel just a little uncomfortable. This kind of humor was an Avram specialty, the quiet kind with an edge and an attitude.

  “Revolver” is one of several stories in the Avram oeuvre, both mysteries and fantasies, that remind me of another writer whose work I admire: Gerald Kersh. Each was his own person and his own writer, but it seems to me they shared a similar, slightly skewed worldview, a similar passion for oddball characters and situations; and that the humor which infuses their work is similarly acidulous and knife-edged. I wonder if Avram knew Kersh. If he did, I think they must have enjoyed each other’s company. I wonder, too, what a Davidson-Kersh collaboration might have been like. Something pretty wonderful, to be sure. Something to create both a smile and a faint but pervasive unease, and to linger long in the memory. Something like “Revolver,” perhaps …

  REVOLVER

  THERE WAS A MR. Edward Mason who dealt in real estate. His kind of real estate consisted mainly of old brownstone houses into which Mr. Mason crammed a maximum number of tenants by turning each room into a single apartment. Legally this constituted “increasing available residence space” or some similar phrase. As a result of this deed of civic good, Mr. Mason was enabled to get tax rebates, rent increases which were geometrically rather than arithmetically calculated, and a warm glow around his heart.

  Mr. Mason’s tenants were a select group, hand-picked; one might say—to use a phrase favored in other facets of the real estate profession—that his holdings were “restricted.” He didn’t care for tenants who had steady employment. You might think this was odd of him, but that would be because you didn’t know the philanthropic cast of Mr. Mason’s mind. He favored the lame, the halt, and the blind; he preferred the old and the feeble; he had no scruples, far from it, against mothers without marriage licenses.

  And his kindheartedness was rewarded. For, after all, employment, no matter how steady, can sometimes be terminated. And then rent cannot be paid. A landlord who can’t collect rent is a landlord who can’t meet his own expenses—in short, a landlord who is bound to go out of business. In which case it follows that he is a landlord who can no longer practice philanthropy.

  Therefore, Mr. Mason would be obliged to evict such a tenant in order to protect his other tenants.

  But, owing to his care, foresight, and selectivity, he had no such tenants. Not any more. No, sir. All his tenants at the time our account begins were in receipt of a steady income not derived from employment. Welfare checks come in regularly, and so do old-age assistance checks, state aid checks, and several other variety of checks more or less unknown to the average citizen (and may he never have to know of them from the recipients’ point of view—that is our prayer for him), the average citizen whose tax dollar supplies said checks.

  Then, too, people who earn their own income are inclined to take a high-handed attitude toward landlords. They seem to think that the real estate investor has nothing better to do with his income than to lavish it on fancy repairs to his property. But a tenant whose soul has been purified by long years as the recipient of public charity is a tenant who is less troublesome, whose tastes are less finicking, who is in no position to carry on about such rēs naturae as rats, mice, roaches, crumbling plaster, leaky pipes, insufficient heat, dirt, rot, and the like.

  Is it not odd, then, that after a term of years of being favored by the philanthropic attentions of Mr. Mason and similarly minded entrepreneurs, the neighborhood was said to have “gone down”? It could not really be, could it, that garbage, for instance, was collected less frequently than in other sections of town? Or that holes in streets and sidewalks were not repaired as quickly as in “better” neighborhoods? Surely it was a mere coincidence that these things were so—if, indeed, they were so at all.

  And anyway, didn’t the City make up for it by providing more protection? Weren’t patrol cars seen on the streets thereabouts more often than elsewhere? Weren’t policemen usually seen on the streets in congenial groups of three? To say nothing of plainclothesmen.

  This being the case, it was disconcerting for Mr. Mason to acknowledge that crime seemed to be on the increase in the neighborhood where he practiced his multifold benevolences. But no other conclusion seemed possible. Stores were held up, apartments burglarized, cars broken into, purses snatched, people mugged—

  It was almost enough to destroy one’s faith in human nature.

  Finally, there was no other choice but for Mr. Mason to secure a revolver, and a license for same. Being a respectable citizen, a taxpayer, and one with a legitimate reason to go armed—the necessity to protect himself and the collection of his tenants’ rents—he had no difficulty in obtaining either …

  Among Mr. Mason’s tenants was a Mrs. Richards. She was quite insistent, whenever the matter was raised (though it was never raised by Mr. Mason, who was totally indifferent to such items), that “Mrs.” was no mere courtesy title. She had, indeed, been married to Mr. Richards and she had a snapshot of Mr. Richards to prove it. The wedding may have occurred in North Carolina, or perhaps in South Carolina. Nor did she recall the town or country where the happy event took place: Mr. Richards (she did remember that his given name was Charley) had been a traveling man. Also, it was a long time ago.

  Mrs. Richards may have been a bit feeble-minded, but she possessed other qualities, such as a warm, loving, and open—very open—heart. She had two children by the evanescent Mr. Richards, and two children by two other gentlemen, with whom she had been scrupulous not to commit bigamy; and was currently awaiting the birth in about six months of her fifth child, the father of whom she thought was most probably a young man named Curtis.

  Current socia
l welfare policy held that it would be destructive to the family unit to suggest that Mrs. Richards, now or at any time, place her children in a day nursery and go out and labor for her (and their) bread. Consequently, she was supplied with a monthly check made up with city, state, and federal taxes. It cannot be said that the amount of the check was lavish, but Mrs. Richards did not demand very much and was easily satisfied. She had never been trained in any craft, trade, or profession, and if anyone was crude or unkind enough to suggest that she had enough skill required to manipulate a scrub-brush and-bucket, she would point out that when she did this her back hurt her.

  The state of the floor of her “apartment,” on the day when Mr. Mason came to call, at an hour nicely calculated with reference to the mail schedule, indicated that Mrs. Richards had not risked backache lately.

  After an exchange of greetings, Mr. Mason said, “If you’ve cashed your check, I’ve got the receipt made out.”

  “I don’t believe it’s come,” she said placidly. This was her routine reply. It was her belief that eventually it might be believed, although it never had been; nor was it now.

  “If you spend the rent money on something else,” Mr. Mason said, “I’ll have to go down to The Welfare and have them close your case.” This was his routine reply.

  Curtis, in a peremptory tone, said, “Give the man his money.” The prospect of approaching fatherhood had raised in him no tender sentiment; in fact, it raised no sentiment at all other than an increasing daily restlessness and a conviction that it was time for him to move on.

  Without so much as a sigh Mrs. Richards now produced an envelope from her bosom and examined it closely. “I guess maybe it might be this one,” she said. “I haven’t opened it.”

  Curtis, quite tired of every routine gambit of his lady-love, now said, quite testily, “Give the man his money!” He wanted cigarettes and he wanted whiskey and he knew that neither of these could be had until the check was cashed. “If I got to hit you—”

  Mrs. Richards endorsed the check with her landlord’s pen, and Mr. Mason began to count out her change. A new consideration now entered Curtis’ mind—previously occupied only by the desire for cigarettes, whiskey, and moving on; it entered with such extreme suddenness that it gave him no time to reflect on it. He observed that Mr. Mason had a revolver in a shoulder holster inside his coat and he observed that Mr. Mason’s wallet was quite engorged with money.

  Curtis was not naturally malevolent, but he was naturally impulsive. He whipped Mr. Mason’s revolver from its holster, struck Mr. Mason heavily on the side of the head with it, and seized his wallet.

  Mr. Mason went down, but he went down slowly. He thought he was shouting for help, but the noise coming out of his mouth was no louder than a mew. He was on his hands and knees by the time Curtis reached the door, and then he slid to one side and lay silent.

  Mrs. Richards sat for a moment in her chair. New situations were things she was not well equipped to cope with. After the sound of Curtis’ feet on the stairs ceased, she continued to sit for some time, looking at Mr. Mason.

  Presently a thought entered her mind. The familiar-looking piece of paper on the dirty table was a receipt for her rent. The money scattered around was the money Mr. Mason had been counting out to cash her check. His practice was to count it out twice and then deduct the amount of the rent.

  Mrs. Richards slowly gathered up the money, slowly counted it, moving her lips. It was all there.

  And so was the receipt.

  Mrs. Richards nodded. She now had the receipt for her rent and the money. True, she no longer had Curtis, but, then, she knew he was bound to move along sooner or later. Men always did.

  She hid the rent money in one of the holes with which the walls of the “apartment” were plentifully supplied, and then reflected on what she had better do next.

  All things considered, she decided it was best to start screaming.

  Curtis went down the stairs rapidly, but once in the street he had sense enough to walk at a normal pace. Running men were apt to attract the attention of the police.

  Three blocks away was a saloon he favored with his trade. He entered by the back door, causing a buzzer to sound. He tried to slip quickly into the Men’s Room, but wasn’t quite quick enough to escape the attention of the bartender-proprietor, an irascible West Indian called Jumby, and no great friend of Curtis’.

  “Another customer for the toilet trade,” said Jumby, so loudly that he could be heard through the closed door. “I’d make more money if I gave the drinks away free and charged admission to the water closet!”

  Curtis ignored this familiar complaint, and emptied the wallet of its money, dropping the empty leather case into the trash container which stood, full of used paper towels, alongside the sink. Then he left.

  Police cars sped by him, their sirens screaming.

  Vague thoughts of cigarettes and whiskey still floated in Curtis’ mind, but the desire to move on was by now uppermost. It was with some relief, therefore, that he saw a young man sitting in an open convertible. The convertible was elegantly fitted out, and so was the young man. His name was William.

  “You’ve been talking about going to California, William,” Curtis said.

  “I have also been talking,” William said with precision, “about finding some congenial person with money to share the expenses of going to California.”

  Curtis said, “I hit the numbers. I got money enough to take care of all the expenses. Don’t that make me congenial?”

  “Very much so,” said William, opening the door. Curtis started to slide in, but William stopped him with a long, impeccably groomed hand, which touched him lightly. “Curtis,” he said in low but firm tones, “if you have something on you, I really must insist that you get rid of it first. Suppose I meet you here in an hour? That will also enable me to pack.”

  “One hour,” Curtis said.

  He went into another bar, obtained cigarettes and whiskey. At the bar was a man generally, if not quite popularly, known as The Rock.

  “How you doing, Rock?” Curtis inquired.

  The Rock said nothing.

  “Got some business to talk over with you,” Curtis went on.

  The Rock continued to say nothing.

  “Like to take in a movie?” Curtis asked.

  The Rock finished his drink, set down the glass, looked at Curtis. Curtis put down money, left the bar, The Rock behind him. He bought two tickets at the movie theater and they went in. The house was almost empty.

  After a minute or two Curtis whispered, “Fifty dollars buys a gun. I got it on me.”

  The Rock took out a handkerchief, spread it in his lap, counted money into it, passed it to Curtis. After a moment Curtis passed the handkerchief back. The Rock soon left, but Curtis stayed on. He still had the better part of an hour to kill.

  The Rock took a bus and traveled a mile. He walked a few blocks on a side street and entered a house which, like most of its fellows, bore a sign that it has been selected for something euphemistically called “Urban Renewal,” and that further renting of rooms was illegal. Most of the windows were already marked with large X signs.

  On the second floor The Rock disturbed a teenage boy and girl in close, though wordless, conversation. The boy looked up in some annoyance, but after a quick glance decided to say nothing. The girl clutched his arm until the intruder passed.

  The door on the third floor was locked, but The Rock pushed hard, once, and it yielded. The room was ornately furnished, and the dressing table was crowded with perfumes and cosmetics and a large doll; but seated on the bed was a man.

  “It ain’t you,” the man said. He was red-eyed drunk.

  “It ain’t me,” The Rock agreed.

  “It’s Humpty Slade,” said the man on the bed. “He don’t pay for her rent. He don’t buy her no clothes. He don’t feed her. I do.”

  The Rock nodded his massive head.

  “Everybody knows that,” The Rock said. He took a
handkerchief out of his pocket, laid it on the bed, opened its folds. “Seventy-five dollars,” he said.

  A quick turnover and a modest profit—that was The Rock’s policy.

  The boy and girl, now seated on the stairs, shrank to one side as he came down. They did not look up. It was not very comfortable there in that all but abandoned house; but it was private—as private as you can get when you have no place of your own to go.

  Upstairs, on the bed, the waiting man stared at the revolver with his red, red eyes …

  After a while the boy and the girl sauntered down into the street and went separate ways in search of something to eat. But after supper they met again in the same hallway.

  Scarcely had they taken their places when they were disturbed. A man and woman came up, talking loudly. They paused at the sight of the younger pair in the dim light of the single bulb, and for a moment the two couples looked at one another. The older woman was handsome, flamboyantly dressed and made up. Her companion was large and on the ugly side, his looks not improved by a crooked shoulder which jutted back on one side.

  “What are you kids doing here?” he demanded. “Go on, get out—”

  “Oh, now, Humphrey,” the woman pleaded. “You leave them alone. They ain’t hurting nobody.”

  “Okay, sugar,” the big man said submissively. They continued up the stairs. The boy and girl listened as they fumbled at the door. Then the woman’s voice went high and shrill with fear, screaming, “No—no—no—”

  At the loud sound of the revolver the boy and girl leaped to their feet. Something fell past them, and landed below with a thud.

  “You’d point a gun at me?” a man’s voice growled. Then there was the noise of a blow.

  “My woman—!”

  “You’d take a shot at me?”

  The sound of fist on flesh, again and again. The boy and girl crept down the stairs.

  “No, Humpty, don’t hit me any more! I’m sorry, Humpty! I didn’t mean it! I was—oh, please, Humpty! Please?”