Madman on a Drum

by N. R. De Mexico

  He pulled the front door inward--open. He moved out on the steps. No. Damn it. This was Graham's house.

  He stepped back into the hallway. The landlord had placed a little glass frame over the radiator in the hall--that was where you found your mail--with a printed list of the names of tenants.

  "Room 1--J. Norton Backer." That was right. His eye slid down the column. "Room 10--Mary Martha Wilson."

  That was wrong. It had to be wrong. He lived here. This was his house. His room, up there. That was where all his clothes, his books, his radio, his papers, his money, his bed, were. It was his. Nobody else could have it. It belonged to him.

  "Mary Martha Wilson."

  Panic coiled like heavy smoke in the little hallway. The world went off balance, tipping a little, swaying. He caught at the radiator with his hand.

  Had he paid his rent? His mind raced back over the week. Sure. Monday. Two days ago. Sure. Seven dollars. Ridiculous price for that little room. But sure. He'd paid his rent. He had a receipt up in his room--up in his room, up-in-hisroom, upinhisroom.

  Call the landlord. Straighten all this out. Bell at the end of the hall. Push the button, landlord comes up from the cellar like a jack-in-the-box; ugly, like a jack-in-the-box. Nasty landlord, up from the cellar.

  He thrust his thumb at the bell-button by the telephone and held it there.

  The sharp d-i-i-ing from below-stairs burst through the door-panel at the foot. Loud noise by night, an alarm. [Excursions and alarums--Poe? No. Not Poe. Poe was: "To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells, from the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells-"]

  The hallway was suffocating--feverish and echoing with that persistent d-i-i-i-ing from downstairs. He wished that bell would stop. Quit making that awful racket in the hot silence of the hall. Of course. He could stop it. Take his hand from the button. He pulled his thumb away and the clamor ceased.

  Silence shut down. Dead silence. Hot, dense, damp silence--broken by the ticking of the alarm-clock in Room No. 1 [J. Norton Backer.]

  The landlord's ugly face appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

  "Whatsidea, wakin' me up," the landlord growled, pulling himself sleepily up the steps.

  Graham stood on the top step, forcing the man to stand below him: "Listen, Mr. Jensen," he shouted, "Who the hell changed the lock on my room?"

  "Your room? Your room? You ain't got no room here."

  Graham caught Jensen by the front of his pajamas and pulled him up the stair. "What the hell are you talking about? You better talk fast or I'll throw you down those steps so hard you'll bounce." He felt rage tightening his jaw. All the mixed fear, excitement and indignities of the night welled up in his gut, tensed the cords in his neck, flushed his face, set his heart to pounding.

  Jensen wrenched himself free.

  "You don't pay your rent," Jensen said. "O.K. I change the lock and rent the room. That's all. When you got the money to pay your rent come around. I'll give you your stuff. I got it all down in the cellar."

  "I paid my rent!" Graham shouted. "I paid you on Monday. You don't have anything more coming until two weeks from last Monday.

  "You got a receipt sayin' that?"

  "It's up in my room," Graham said.

  "Ain't no receipts in your room. I saw the receipts when I cleaned out your stuff tonight. Last receipt is two weeks old."

  Rage swept through Graham's brain. He felt his fists tightening.

  "What about the money in the room?" he demanded.

  "Wasn't no money there," Jensen said calmly.

  "You're a damned liar!" Graham screamed. He swung sharply with his right fist at Jensen's ugly face. The man stumbled back a little on the stairs, and the blow missed him.

  "Get out of here!" Jensen shouted. "I'll give you one second to get out of here. If you don't get out of here I'll call the cops--understand?"

  The door of Room One opened and J. Norton Backer's disheveled head thrust out. The landlord laughed, grimly. Reinforcements had arrived.

  Graham stumbled slowly down the hall to the front door. The hot, sweat-soaked air in the hallway was smothering. The walls seemed to be closing in on him, pressing him down. His body was uncertain and irregular in its movements.

  He drew the heavy door toward him, half-leaning against its edge for support. The ceiling threatened to fall and crush him. He stepped through the doorway and stood momentarily in the little vestibule. He moved onto the steps and sat down, wearily.

  He heard the door click behind him. Looked around. Saw the landlord's face peering at him from behind the curtain.

  Sudden panic struck him. He had to get in. He had to. It was his home. His safety zone. He had to get in and rest. Upstairs was the bed--his bed. Upstairs was safety, protection, escape from this writhing, twisting, unnatural, unbelievable chain of events. He had to get in.

  He rose to his feet and staggered toward the door. He pummeled the panel with his fists, forgetting the keys in his pocket. He hammered at the door, trying, in his frenzy, to beat it down.

  He heard Jensen's voice shouting: "Get going, before I call the cops."

  Graham wanted to scream and shout and kick. He wanted to bite and tear. He wanted to smash the heavy doors into splinters--he understood murder.

  Then weakness overcame him--weakness, and the overpowering heaviness of the muggy air. He went down the steps slowly, and dragged himself drunkenly toward Third Avenue.

  Chapter V

  ... AND NO REPOSE ...

  The police. That was it. He must go to the police. Let the cops handle it. They could take care of everything.

  That was what the police were for.

  Graham looked at his watch. One o'clock. Where would he find the police? Clancy was gone, now. Off duty for the night. But there had to be a policeman around somewhere.

  What did you do, in New York, when you wanted a policeman? But nobody ever wanted a policeman in New York. Policemen were things you tried to avoid. You didn't want them around at all. In Central Park, with a girl, you kept one eye out for policemen. Professional annoyances. You had only learned how to lose policemen; not how to find them.

  Hysteria mounted in Graham's mind. That was it. You knew how to avoid them. But now you didn't know how to find one.

  You could telephone the police. But there wasn't a phone-booth open for blocks. The drug-stores were closed. Everything was closed. He wrenched at his mind, searching it for a telephone booth somewhere near. One by one he ran over the telephones in the neighborhood that he had used.

  The one at the house--his house. The one in the drug-store at the corner. But the store was closed.

  He had to find a phone. The taverns? No. They were already closed. Except on 42nd. He flinched at the thought of walking, again, under the threatening El, through the grim shadows of the Avenue.

  Then he remembered: Across the street, still on 39th, but near the corner, was an outside phone. You could call the police from there. He felt weak and exhausted. There was a quivering in his belly, and a fluidness in his knees. It was hard to keep upright. Hard to remember what you were going to do.

  His clothes were soaked with hot sweat, and his trousers were sticky in the crotch. He started across the street, angling diagonally toward the police-telephone. He couldn't see it. But he remembered it was on the wall of one of the big buildings. The store by the corner, or one of them.

  Sweat trickled from his forehead, dripping down into his eyes. His mind writhed and twisted under the impact of a reeling chain: Lois--Loudspeakers--telephones--42 Barker --the kid at the lunch-counter--the pursuers. The feeling of safety, that wonderful feeling of safety when he entered the house, and now this!

  He could make out the white patch on the wall, down the block. That was the box. You had only to pick up the receiver at that box and help would come. Professional help. People who would understand.

  That was it. He needed someone to figure this out for him. He wasn't stupid. He knew that. Somewhere, sometime, he ha
d taken an intelligence test and they told him he was the next worst thing to a genius. High I.Q. or something. He wasn't stupid. But it was all so incomprehensible. So new and unrelated to his life, his work, his knowledge. He had not even known it was possible for the whole world suddenly to become menacing and frightening.

  He felt lost. Like a man who has boarded a train, going somewhere he does not wish to go. Like a man who has fallen into a fast-moving stream, and is being borne by unknown forces to an unknown destination.

  If only things would stop happening to him, just for a moment. If only he could begin to happen to things. That was it. He must make some movement of his own. He must thrust out, in some way. Reach for something before it reached for him.

  Well? Wasn't that what he was doing? Calling in the police. Making a motion, an independent motion of his own.

  He was close to the box, now. He began to frame his words in his mind--preparing them to be spoken into the black mouthpiece of the phone.

  Suddenly he stopped. Someone was standing at the corner under the light. Not one man. Two.

  Fear, black and horrible, leaped up inside him. Irresistible fear. He moved closer to the corner, forgetting the phone for the moment. The two figures under the lamp, leaning negligently against the post, were watching him.

  Fear and Rage.

  He'd confront them. After all they couldn't be the same men. If they were ...? If they were he'd demand an explanation.

  He moved toward them, steadily, as though some serpentine fascination drew him on.

  Suddenly they changed position, and the light fell full on the face of the taller of the two: the man with the spread nose.

  He was being followed. They had known he would come here. They had gotten off at 34th because it didn't matter. They knew where he was going and there was no need to stay with him.

  His courage deserted him. He raced diagonally across the street, forgetting the telephone. Forgetting everything but his desire to escape this maddening, meaningless pursuit. He had reached 40th before he looked back. There was no one in sight. No one.

  Still he ran. And the running. The shattering sound of his feet echoing in the night stillness, increased his terror. He felt terror bursting in his throat.

  Only one conscious thought remained to him. He must find a phone. He must call the police. He felt exhaustion spreading rapidly through his body. The saturated air was unbreathable--like ether. Sickening.

  He reached 42nd, and felt safer. But not much. Three of the four newsstands were closed, now. He looked up toward the News Building. The police car was gone.

  The street was almost empty, A few stragglers trickled from the exit of the Queens subway. But even the corner bar at Third Avenue was dimmed. There was a single candy-store, in the middle of the block, still lit. He ran for it, glancing back over his shoulder.

  There was no one in sight now.

  He went into the store, searched for a phone, and leaped into the booth, slamming the door behind him. He reached in his pocket for nickels.

  There were none. He had no change.

  He felt in his hip pocket for his wallet, pulled it out, opened it. There was a single dollar bill. He came out to the counter. "Gimme some nickels, please. Quick."

  The man said: "O.K., O.K. No need to get so excited." He rang the register and tossed the coins on the counter.

  Graham went back, into the booth, arranged the coins on the little shelf, inserted the nickel in the appropriate place and hastily dialed Ken's number. "MI-6-4849."

  His hands were trembling. He forced them steady, and listened to the series of complex clicks in the earphone.

  The intermittent ringing signal began. Clark would be asleep. It would take time for him to answer. Graham allowed for that. Still the ringing went on. "Brrrrrrrr-r ... Brrrrrrrr-r ..." It was hard, very hard, to keep down his impatience. "Brrrrrrrr-r ... Brrrrrrr." Then the operator's voice: "They do not answer. Shall I keep on ringing?"

  Graham said: "Yes, operator, ring it again." The ringing signal resumed. There was no answer. Graham replaced the receiver, picked up his return nickel and again filed it in the slot: "MI-5-2341." Somebody had to be at home. He couldn't stay out all night. Here, in the safety of the candy-store with its bright lights and the storekeeper there was less urgency about calling the police.

  The same cycle of automatic sounds, and the inhuman rhythm of the ringing signal. No answer.

  Another number. "Brrrrrrrr ... Brrrrrrrr ..." No answer. Another. "Click. Clickety. Click-click. Brrrrrrrr-r ... Brrrrrrrr ..." No answer.

  There had to be someone. They couldn't all be out. He looked at his watch. One-thirty. There had to be somebody.

  He tried another. The same ruthless, mechanical pattern of sound. But there had to be someone. He had no place to go. He had only a dollar. There must be someone he knew at home.

  There was always a place to go. Even the bums slept somewhere. And he was so tired. So damned tired. Every nerve in his body screamed with exhaustion. How long had it been going on--this impregnable mysteriousness, this bar sinister across the escutcheon of every thought? Only since seven o'clock. Only six and a half hours.

  And there was only Joe Hanson left. Joe worked in his office. Graham didn't, really, want to call him. It was embarrassing. He hadn't seen Joe much lately. But there had to be somebody.

  He dialed Joe's number. The sequence was longer, this time. The clicks more complex. Then "Brrrrrrrr-r ... Brrrrrrrr ..." and a voice: "What number are you cahlling, pul-lease?"

  He repeated the number.

  "Just one moment, pul-lease." A silence. "I'm sorry. That number has been temporarily disconnected."

  He remembered then: Joe was on vacation.

  He picked up his nickel from the slot. The booth became suddenly tiny, closing round him. He dragged the door open. It made no difference. The air was thick and unbreathable. Hot and wet.

  Everything seemed to be closing in on him. No Lois. No bed. No money. No friends. Nothing. He held back panic with a thin mesh barrier.

  Nobody. Only the police. The phone? No. It was too complicated to explain over the phone.

  He went up to the candy-store counter. "Where's the nearest police station?" he said--surprised at the steadiness of his voice.

  The man looked at him in a funny way.

  "There's a traffic station at 47th, and a precinct station at 51st. Take your choice."

  "Thanks," Graham said. He went out to the street.

  Stepping from the lighted interior of the store into the outer darkness was like passing the Dantean portals before the Inferno [Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here!]

  The street-shadow caught him up in a black whirligig of terror. With sheer intensity of will-power he caught himself up before turning to re-enter the lighted store. Of course. He wasn't afraid. You weren't afraid of the dark. Nobody was afraid of the dark. He straightened his lips forcibly, barely in time to prevent the opening bars of Carmen emerging in a dry whistle.

  The street was empty. Darkness had encompassed the overwhelming spire, the glistening gargoyles, the metallic faces of the Chrysler building. The marquee of Loew's 42nd Street was a somber shadow challenging the sidewalk. A transient train on the El was a whispering line of lighted windows moving against the muddy background of the sky.

  At Lexington, Graham turned uptown. He could no longer face the subterranean atmosphere of Third Avenue.

  He walked slowly, between the towering building-shadows. Deliberately, because to run was to invite fear.

  And fear was everywhere. Fear was in front of him, in each shrouded, lampless doorway. Fear was beside him in the ribbon-darkness of each building abutment. Fear was in back of him--simply because he could not look behind. Because looking behind would acknowledge fear.

  Each dim figure, approaching on the pavement, was fear.

  He walked on. Steadily. Pacing himself. Like a marcher. Counting in the rhythm of his footsteps to preserve his momentum at an even level. Step by step
the block rolled back. 43rd. 44th. 45th. 46th. At 47th he looked in both directions. There was no sign of a police station. His eyes followed the approaching figure on the other side of the street, studying the cadence of its movements. They were unfamiliar and, therefore, safe.

  He shouted across the dark thoroughfare: "Hey, buddy!" His voice startled him, thundering in the cavities of the surrounding buildings.

  "Hey, buddy! Where's the 47th Street Police Station?"

  The answer bounded at him over the pavement: "You're way off. It's to hell and gone over on the West Side. The one at 51st is a lot nearer."

  Graham shouted his thanks.

  48th. 49th.

  He became conscious of light--of his own shadow moving ahead of him. A static shadow that grew neither longer nor shorter. He glanced back over his shoulder.

  A taxi moved evenly along behind him. Almost a block behind. Going neither faster nor slower. Pacing him: Like a trainer and a prize-fighter. [A lion and an antelope.]

  He was running, again. Drunkenly. Realizing that insanity lay in running--and not caring. Faster, and terror ran after him. Faster, and the shadow before him grew neither more nor less.

  50th.

  He slowed from the agony in his left side.

  The light behind him was neither closer nor farther away.

  They were playing with him. Cat and mouse. Leopard and gazelle. They were torturing him. They were trying to destroy his mind. Following him. But never catching him. Shadowing him and, when the tension became too great, vanishing. Only to reappear when he had thought himself free of them.

  He needed no identification for the passengers in the car. He could describe them in most minute detail to whomsoever it might concern. The lines in their faces; the creases in their pants; the scuff-marks on their shoes.

  But ahead was safety. God! How glad you were there were cops. Half a block. You wanted to stop from the writhing pain in your side. But you dared not stop.

  You wanted to stop and hurl stones, bricks, anything at your pursuers. But there was nothing to hurl. Only a few more feet, now.