The Investigations of Avram Davidson (26 page)

It was not often that Mr. Richards had occasion to talk to Mrs. Hammond alone, and he found that he enjoyed her company. Perhaps her current conversation was not the most cheerful imaginable, but it was appropriate for a person of a respectable age to think about. And certainly it was preferable to listening to endless monologues about gall bladders and mashed potatoes and the ingratitude of children or how old Mr. X had (supposedly) cheated old Mr. Y at checkers or what a fine woman the late Mrs. A, B, or C had been. No, Mr. Richards didn't mind.

And then she absolutely astonished him.

“Harry is so resentful about you,” she said, “because your life is so much richer than his.”

“What?” He was dumbfounded.

“Oh, yes.” Her clear blue eyes looked at him candidly. “You've been everywhere and you've done everything and he hasn't been anywhere and he hasn't done anything. He wouldn't have known what an adventure looked like. Harry spent all his life working for various linen importers. There is nothing duller in this world, believe me. So he has nothing to look back on and nothing to look forward to. That's why he is so angry when people would rather listen to you tell about your different military experiences fighting for Liberty in foreign countries than to hear him talk about what he read in the paper about the tariff. And I hope you'll forgive him for that terrible thing he said to you this morning.”

No better than a killer …

*   *   *

A
FTER
M
RS
. H
AMMOND
had left, reluctantly, to visit ancient Mrs. Hannivan, the Home's only centenarian, who was in her room and feeling poorly and had asked especially for Mrs. Hammond—after she had left, a thought occurred to Mr. Richards which was very attractive to him: namely, that Mr. Harry Hammond wasn't the only one who could take a nap. Stanley C. Richards could take one, too, if he liked, and at the moment he liked to very much. He got up and went to the elevator.

He felt very tired. Last night his roommates had been even noisier than usual; tonight might be no better. There was no possibility of finding another room—there simply were no vacancies (as Mrs. Fisher, the Home's director, pointed out when he spoke to her). And as for any of the single men in the other rooms changing with him—why should any of them be so foolish? They knew very well why he wanted to swap. The only possibility was if one of them should die. Old Tom Scorby had a bad heart. Mr. Kingsley could barely shuffle one foot ahead of the other. Mr. Manning—

Stanley C. Richards reproached himself for such a gruesome notion. The elevator got to the top floor (hottest in summer, coldest in winter) and he went to his room. He almost smiled in anticipation of his waiting bed as he opened the door.

But someone was sitting on his bed.

Mr. Harry Hammond.

*   *   *

M
R
. H
AMMOND STARTED
, jumped a little bit, on seeing him. His expression had been pensive, but now he smiled.

“This is an unexpected pleasure,” said Mr. Richards.

“You think so? Glad you think so.” Hammond chuckled. “Just my little joke. Don't mind me.”

Mr. Richards said he wouldn't, only—“I was planning to take a nap, and you're sitting on my bed.”

Elaborately, his guest rose, walked over to the nearest chair, waved Richards to the vacated bed. “But before you go to sleep,” he said, “I have an apology to make. Yes, sir,” he said contentedly, “I did you wrong this morning. What I called you, I mean. I take it back. I take it all back, Richards, every bit of it.”

Mr. Richards sat down slowly on his bed and looked at his tormentor. After a moment he said, “Thank you.”

Mr. Hammond waved his hand, widened his smile. “I would like to get some information. I'm sure you can tell me. You tell everybody a lot of—well, a lot of things. You've been telling it to us for—oh, eight years now, isn't it? That you've been here? Yes, eight years. I admire the way you talk—your command of the language. It just flows out of you, you're so eloquent. You're a regular Old Man Eloquent, aren't you?”

Mr. Richards was puzzled, not so much by his guest's manner which was plainly hostile, but by his purpose. “I didn't get much sleep last night,” he said. “What was the information you wanted?”

“Which side were you on,” Mr. Hammond asked carefully, “in the First Balkan War, if I might inquire?”

“The Greek side. Why?”

“When was this? The First Balkan War, I mean?”

Mr. Richards frowned. “Oh … 1912, 1913. Shortly before the First World War. Why do—”

“And you were in the Second Balkan War, and the First World War, and the Polish-Russian War,
and
various Chinese Revolutions,
and
all those different Latin American Revolutions, and—
oh,
yes!—let us not forget that Gran Chaco War between Bolivia and Uruguay in—”

“Paraguay—”

“Paraguay, sorry. In—?”

“The Thirties sometime. Frankly, I don't remember exactly any more. I could look it up for you. What's all this about, Mr. Hammond?”

In a low, intense voice, as filled with hate and venom as was his face, Mr. Hammond said, “You're a liar.”

Richards got up. “I don't know what you want out of me,” he said. “I think you're a pretty lucky fellow. You've got a lovely, intelligent wife. You've got a nice big room all to yourselves, a quiet room with a view, where it's peaceful at night. I've got nobody. What—”

“You don't deserve to have anybody. You're a liar. Spent twenty-five years as a Soldier of Fortune all over the world, did you? Did you? Why, you—”

“Get out of here, Mr. Hammond.”

Scrambling to his feet, Mr. Hammond headed for the door, his face scowling. He turned around and said, “But I'll fix you! I'll show you up for the bluffer and the four-flusher you are!” He took something from his pocket, held it up. It was a watch. “You left this in the downstairs Men's Room when you washed your hands for lunch. And I found it!” He dangled it triumphantly.

It was too far away to be seen clearly in the dwindling light. But its owner did not have to see it clearly to know what was engraved on the back.…

Mr. Hammond had left, was punching the elevator button in the hall, but his parting words still rang in Mr. Richards's ears: “Wait till they see this! Wait—”

Another voice came faintly up the shaft. “Can't take you now, we've got the food carts to take care of.” The sick and bedridden were being served their suppers earlier than the other residents, as usual.

Mr. Hammond's feet went slap-slap-slapping toward the stairs. Suddenly Mr. Richards ran out, ran after him. Hammond turned around, his face becoming defiant.

Richards grabbed for the watch, but Hammond quickly pulled away his hand. For a few seconds they stood there, face to face. Many thoughts ran through Mr. Richards's mind. Then he came to a decision. With one abrupt and utterly effective movement, he pushed Mr. Hammond down the stairs.

Mr. Hammond fell down, fell forward, his mouth open on a long, long sound which never became a word. He landed with a dull noise, and continued falling, limbs quite loose, stair after stair, until he rolled to a stop at the bottom of the landing.

Mr. Richards was right after him. The watch was still ticking. As Mr. Richards looked almost incuriously at the dead man's face, he had time for a brief reflection.

Naturally, it would be a shock to Mrs. Hammond. But her bereavement would not be without compensations. She would not have to put up with Harry Hammond's selfishness and vile temper any longer. There would be a funeral, and she could make all the arrangements to her heart's content—flowers, hymns, guest lists, everything.

And henceforth she could visit Greenlawn Cemetery as often as she liked. There would be one more grave to which she could bring flowers and see that everything was nicely cared for, one more well-kept grave over which she could say a little prayer. And then, afterward, have a cup of tea in the nice clean coffee shop nearby.

Of course, there was bound to be a certain amount of loneliness at first. She would feel it, she was bound to, particularly when she was by herself in the Hammond double room—the one with the lovely view. The nice quiet one, where no old men cried out, no old men coughed forever, no old men moaned aloud the whole sleepless night through.

Moving very quickly, Mr. Richards swept up the watch and put it in his pocket. Later, he would have the back replaced. It would not do—it would never, never do—to have anyone else see the words engraved there, words he knew by heart.

Half a Century of Faithful Service

1900–1950

Stanley Carl Richards

Accounting Dep't, Walton & Co.

Mr. Richards lifted his head. “Help!” he shouted. “Help! Somebody get a doctor, quick! Mr. Hammond fell down the stairs!”

Feet came running, voices were loud, but Mr. Richards scarcely heard them. What would a proper interval of time be? Three months? Six? He would let events take their course.

Now that he was sure, he could be patient. It would not be long. She would be lonely all by herself in that pleasant double room, that quiet room with a view. He knew, already, what his opening words would be. “Mrs. Hammond—Alice.” That was a nice name. It fitted her. “Alice—do you think you could bring yourself to marry a killer?”

M
R
. F
OLSOM
F
EELS
F
INE

“M
R
. F
OLSOM
F
EELS
F
INE
” was published in 1986, during the period in Avram Davidson's life when he wrestled with the Veterans Administration to secure his meager pension.

What is the secret of a successful retirement? Some point to sound health and good medical care, others point to a solid portfolio of investments and pension benefits. But Mr. Folsom found another direction. He followed the trail to Gunk Up High, and the notorious illegal bush-wax trade. Beware.

—GD

 

Some people can handle foreign travel, whereas others simply can't. Some can go live in a Himalayan satrapy so remote that it is not perceived on maps more than once in a century (and even that once it appears sketchily in some learned journal showing the distribution of its thirty-seven species of venomous earwigs)—can go live in it and do just fine, riding the small fur-bearing ponies as though they'd been hired for twenty minutes at a fun park and eating the roast slugs as though they were Mighty Max Burgers, whereas there are those who get ptomaine or its latest equivalent from a tortilla chip three feet south by southeast from the border of the U.S.A. Who can say why some people can travel by scooter through bandidi-infested crags and never encounter one single bandido and yet other people manage to alienate the usually imperturbable Royal Horsemen of Bothnia by dropping chewing-gum wrappers in front of their royal horses for a fine of seven
boboes.

Mr. Edgar Folsom, who retained the same faith in the advertisements that he had had in his twenties, had for a long while planned to “Retire on Two Hundred and Twenty Dollars a Month,” and had lavished his savings upon the Good Old Days Retirement Company. Often he and Mamie (Mrs. Edgar) had been almost obliged to chuckle when they considered how they—and other subscribers to the GODRC—were going to beat the system, even if nobody else was—except maybe a handful of intractable Indians in the Wild Rice Country, who could, of course, always live on wild rice. And baskets. Lots and
lots
of edible baskets, woven from succulent shoots.

“Oh, I got to hand it to
you
two,” often said unmarried sister (and sister-in-law) Etta Folsom. (Their grandfather had not been originally named Folsom, he had originally been named something harsh and Nordish, a fact which only a distant cousin still claimed to remember. Mamie Folsom had long ago lost this man's address and made little attempt to find it.) “
You
two know what you're doing.”

Did Mamie know what she was doing when she passed away, quite suddenly and quite silently, two weeks before his effective (compulsory) retirement date? Perhaps she did. Edgar's slightly delayed letter of notice to the GODRC was answered, eventually, by a firm of attorneys of which Edgar had never heard. It informed him that the Good Old Days Retirement Company (whose ads had not appeared in magazines for quite some time) no longer existed, as, under the laws of a not very well-known and distant state, it had wound up its affairs. Its assets now belonged to a giant conglomerate specializing in, among other things, the manufacture of waxes and wines and the management of ski lodges. This organization had somehow, certainly quite legally, acquired the assets of the Good Old Days Retirement Company without acquiring any of its liabilities. Anyway, the letter pointed out, you couldn't retire on two hundred and twenty dollars a month any more. Not their fault, but as a matter of policy, if not benevolence—being a bunch of real good guys who know how it is—the conglomerate was going to make Mr. Folsom (in his own right and as sole heir and legatee of Mamie P. Folsom, Deceased) a lump sum, that's-
it
payment of eleven hundred dollars.

“Well, you were always a very stubborn boy, Edgar, and no one could ever tell you what to do. Now,
these
quilts I am going to take with me,
those
quilts I am letting the Historical Society have, and
this
quilt I am letting you take with you,” said Etta.

“Take with me
where?
Where are we
going?
” her brother asked. He was slightly bewildered. If Mamie hadn't always told him what to do, Etta had always told him what to do.