Madman on a Drum

by N. R. De Mexico

  He hesitated, for an instant, at finding himself once more in the muggy concrete prison of the subway ... but only for an instant.

  At the change booth he got some nickels, crashed through the turnstiles, raced down the steps of the downtown side and hit, for the first time, good luck.

  The doors of a downtown express were just closing. He squeezed through the narrow gap and allowed his breath to come in great gasps. He looked around him, waiting for the train to start. Like a small canned fish, he was jammed tightly in one corner of the car vestibule. Morning rush-hour.

  He twisted himself around, rubbing, unintentionally, against the buttocks of a girl in a tight dress, and looked out the window. He grinned delightedly as Brother Brummel and Sloppy Joe hammered down the steps and ran for the train. He waited until their eyes turned in his direction and then thumbed his nose in glee.

  There was a quick Ssss-Ssss as the conductor jerked the signal cord, and the train ground into motion.

  Graham turned back, found himself pressed tightly against the shapely rear of the girl in front of him, loudly said: "No matter what happens in this subway, lady, I won't marry you."

  Chapter IX

  AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS TROUBLES

  He passed through the revolving door of the office building with the sensations of a long-time voyager who has come home. It was a home-coming, really; home to the only moderate unpleasantness of the office; the interminable columns of figures, the bicycle-mechanism Comptometer [How they were entitled to a patent on a speedometer with keys he could never figure out], the day-long rustle of paper, the idiotic morning conversations of co-workers, the hipswinging wenches at typewriters trying to attract the boss, the gurgle of the water-cooler in the corner, the air-conditioning--that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't ... Home.

  He stepped into the elevator, felt the floor lifting under him in the normal way, heard the sliding clash of the grillwork doors, stepped out on the eleventh.

  The hallway was empty, echoed to his footsteps. Now the door. Johnathan Herkimer & Son, Inc., Public and Private Accounts. He stepped through into the bedlam of typewriters, adding machines, comptometers, automatic billing-machines.

  [Clickety, smackety, blickety, pop. Bungety, clango, clinkety, plop.]

  Familiar faces--not intimate, but better than intimate. Familiar. Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill ... R.L.S. No. That was an epitaph. No good. Strike a more cheerful note.

  He was late. Nine-eighteen by the staring-faced clock on the wall. But it was all right. He was home. A second home. There was a security and permanence about the office ... It was here to stay.

  Funny. Everyone was staring at him, as though he'd done something. No. Just the condition of his clothes. Well, anyway, he'd have to see Mr. Herkimer [Mister Herkimer Junior--Senior was never around any more] and get an advance and permission to take the day off.

  Graham walked the length of the office, slowly, feeling the eyes of everyone turned his way. Funny. The sound of the typewriters faded and ceased.

  He looked around. Everyone was staring at him--a hesitant stare, as though they were looking at something-- something loathsome. He looked down at his clothes. They weren't that bad ... He thought: Silly conventionalists. Never seen a man in clothes he's slept in.

  He went straight to Miss Pettingill's desk. "Ask Mr. Herkimer if I may see him for a moment, please?"

  My God, the woman was actually paralysed. Hell. You couldn't look that bad. Maybe your fly was open. ... No. Well? What the hell was it? The woman was trembling.

  She had snapped open the inter-office box and was speaking into it: "M-Mister Herkimer, will you see M-Mister Graham?"

  The brisk voice in the box, though, was firm: "Send him in ..."

  Graham said: "O.K., Petty. But what's the matter with you this morning? You look like you were afraid I'd murder you, or something." The woman flinched back again. What was the matter with her?

  Graham pushed open the door of Mr. Herkimer's office. Herkimer was a businessman. He looked it. He was the businessman type from head to foot--from neatly combed, balding head to smoothly polished, darkly shod foot. Glasses--clipped onto his straight nose. Direct gaze--unpleasantly commercially honest. Neat, undramatic mustache. White shirt. Neat, dark necktie. Starched cuffs. Carefully cleansed fingernails. In short: Mr. Herkimer ... Junior.

  "Well?" Mr. Herkimer demanded. Sharply. He was not a believer in the pampering of employees.

  Graham felt, fleetingly, the sensation of awe that Mr. Herkimer's immaculate person invariably instilled in him. His wandering eye took in the neatly folded Herald-Tribune on Herkimer's desk--Mr. Herkimer was a Republican, you knew that, although no one had ever mentioned it. You recognized it in the grudging way he received federal visitors in his office. But you were not here to consider Mr. Herkimer's political affiliations. He said: "Mr. Herkimer, I hesitate to ask this, but I have recently run into some difficulties ..." No sense in going into this too deeply. Mr. Herkimer wouldn't be interested. "I would like to receive a small advance on my salary." Good. You'd gotten through that without saying: ... if it's not inconvenient. "And, I wasn't able to get any sleep last night, so I would like your permission to take the rest of the day off ...???" Mr. Herkimer said nothing. His face was impassive. "Of course, Sir," Graham went on in the face of that regal gaze," ... if it will inconvenience ..."

  "Mister Graham!" Herkimer thundered. "I do not understand your behavior at all!"

  "Sir ... ?"

  "It seems to me, young man, that you have a colossal gall to come here at a time like this. It is only for the sake of the reputation of this company that I restrain myself from telephoning the police ..."

  "The police ...?" Graham interrupted.

  "The police," Herkimer said, firmly. "I realize that that is my responsibility and my duty as a citizen. But I simply cannot make myself do it." Herkimer coughed. "I can understand your need for funds, and you will find in this envelope your salary to date, as well as two weeks' separation pay."

  He tossed the envelope on the front edge of his desk near Graham with a Villain-take-your-filthy-lucre air.

  "Now, Sir," Herkimer went on, "will you be so good as to get out of this office as quickly as ever you possibly can. I will give you exactly ..." he looked at the clock on his desk "... ten minutes to leave the building before I call the police."

  "But ..." Graham began.

  "Hurry up!" Herkimer threatened.

  Graham picked up the envelope from the desk. He turned around, went through the door, closed it carefully behind him, started down the length of the long office, caught Bill Brice's excited signal.

  He walked over to Bill's desk.

  "Better go out the back way, Larry," Brice whispered in a conspiratorial tone. "Petty's already called the cops. Meet me at lunch at the Exchange Buffet. They'll never look for you there and nobody from the office is ever around ..."

  "Yeah, but..." Graham began.

  "Hurry up!" Brice said. "And watch out for those cops! Go the back way, understand ...?"

  No. You did not understand. You didn't understand anything, anymore. No girl. No home. No job. No nothing ... What the hell was it all about?

  Graham walked toward the rear end of the building. There were elevators there. But why worry? You knew it was just Mike and Hadley--they'd gone to your boss and told him a lot of lies just to get you fired. That was it, of course. Couldn't be anything else. Just trying to get their meat-hooks into you from every angle. But why? WHY? There had to be some reason for all this. There had to be. Still ... No sense in taking a chance going down the elevator. The Beau and Sloppy Joe and the other two might be standing around the elevators, waiting for you. O.K. You'd use the stairs. Eleven floors--but worth it to get rid of those bastards.

  He pulled open the heavy fire doors and entered the immense downward spiral, feeling his exhaustion come back at just the thought of descending all those floors.

  But yo
u had to go down. Down the black spiral, down the stifling stairwell. Down. Down. Down. Watching the floor numerals at each doorway. Ten. Eight. Nine... . Three. Two. "M."

  Graham pushed the door open a little, peered out into the lobby. God! Real cops. Uniform cops. Lots of them. What was this? Was the whole police force in this against you? You remembered the office ... the whole world? A universal conspiracy? But it couldn't be. It couldn't be ... could it?

  Thing to do was take it big. Walk out of the door like you owned the place. Building had a subway entrance. Go straight to that and walk down. Cops probably didn't know about it. No. There was nobody guarding that direction. Only the front door. Graham opened the door and marched firmly to the right down the steps, dropped his nickel in the turnstile, slatted the sweat from his forehead.

  No time to stop now. Get a train and get out. See Bill at noon and get it all straight ...

  A local pulled in and Graham got in.

  There was a newspaper lying on the seat. The usual excited headline: "POLICE SEEK FURNISHED-ROOM SLAYER." He started to pick it up, thought better of it, and pulled his pay envelope from his pocket. Crazy stuff--all of this. Canning him no sooner he got in the office.

  He counted over the cash in the envelope. One hundred and twenty-two dollars ... they'd paid him for today, too. Damn of the old son-of-a--, and Graham hoped he would choke.

  Graham remembered the telegram to his father. What about the money? He couldn't go back to the office and get it, not with all the damn cops in the city hanging around there and with Petty all set to turn him in the second he showed up ... That damned woman.

  Well, what then? You couldn't just sit around and do nothing. Things were getting too damned hot. The thing to do was get somebody else to start things rolling. A detective. A private detective. That had been his plan last night--why not now?

  Graham got off at the next station, looked for the phone booth and began a study of the classified phone-book.

  The Detective Bureau listing was a little frightening. Five pages of names, and huge ads guaranteeing reliability, honesty, purity [in the big, big bottle, nickel, nickel, nickel --how the hell did these things get started in your mind?]

  The big ads he didn't like. Too damned institutional, imposing, dignified. He didn't want dignity. He wanted help.

  After a while he found a single-line, small-type listing nearby. William Edward Morrison, Private Investigator.

  He found the place. It was on a side street, in a loft. He went up the long flight of stairs, found the glass-fronted door of the second floor, and walked in.

  A moderately pretty girl with huge breasts sat at a desk in a sort of outer office. She said: "Yes, Sir?"

  Graham said: "I'd like to see Mr. Morrison, please."

  "What name, please?"

  Graham thought, briefly. Name was making him a lot of trouble lately: "Mr. Henley," he said firmly.

  The girl went through a door into the inner office and closed it behind her.

  "Private" was painted in neat black letters across the face of the panel.

  In a minute or two she emerged. "You can go right in, Mr. Henley."

  Morrison was a young man in his forties, as distinguished from Mr. Herkimer, who was an old man in his forties.

  They got through the preliminaries and Graham told his story, carefully and in detail, trying to leave out nothing. There was a pleasant sensation, as he went along, of having shifted his burden. The man's quiet attention as he spoke was relaxing, relieving.

  At length he was finished. They got down to terms. Yes. One hundred dollars would be a satisfactory retainer ... Fine. Everything was straightened out then.

  "All right, now, Mr. Henley," Morrison said, "let's check over this thing ..."

  "Oh, by the way," Graham interrupted. "My name isn't Henley. I don't know, really, why I gave that name when I came in, except that it seems to have gotten me in a lot of trouble lately. Anyway, it's Graham ... Larry Graham."

  Morrison straightened up, suddenly. "Did you say Larry Graham?"

  "Yeah. Why?"

  "Look here, son," Morrison said, slowly, "I believe your story. I'm not kidding. I believe you, if it's any consolation to you. But I can't take a chance. Under the state license I'm supposed to turn you in the minute I see you. But if you'll keep it under your hat that you were here, I'll let you go. You understand? My secretary thinks you're Henley. You came in that way, and you go out the same way."

  Graham felt himself being pushed toward the door. The hundred dollars was thrust back into his hand. "But..." he began.

  "I'm sorry I can't help you, Mr. Henley," Morrison was saying, in an overloud voice. He was dragging Graham almost bodily across the outer room. "I hope that some other time I may be of service. Good-bye, Mr. Henley."

  And he was outside, the outer door had shut in his face.

  He stood in the hallway, the hundred dollars clutched in his hand, staring about him with the vacant maze of a child suddenly robbed of its lollypop. ...Why?

  Chapter X

  INCLUDING MURDER

  Graham studied his toes--concentrating on something to keep awake. There was nothing else to do, sitting in City Hall Park. Around him were the bench-loafers, contemplating their navels in Buddha-like oblivion of their surroundings. The pigeons trod warily in and out among outstretched legs, pecked disinterestedly at fragments of peanut shell, cocked tiny heads on one side observantly in quest of new provender.

  The sun burned--barbecueing the city in an unprecedented slow broil. The leaves over Graham's head jiggled gently in occasional puffs of air, and drizzled a sickly shadow over his body.

  He was tired. His mind, his heart, his body and his feet were one mass of acting exhaustion. It was so hard to stay awake.

  He thought of getting up, getting a paper. It was too much trouble.

  Chimes clanked out the hour--mysterious chimes, talking in an unintelligible code that only the initiate might read. He looked at his watch. Eleven-forty-five. Better get going. Take about ten minutes to get to the Exchange Buffet. He rose, slowly, to his feet, and slouched down the diagonal path to the lower end of the Park.

  There was an annoying hum in the air. It was hard to place. Vague and indefinite. Funny. Wasn't something new. Heard it before.

  Then, explosively, it was replaced with hideous blaring band-music, ricocheted from the surrounding structures. And its identity became instantly and unpleasantly clear. Political sound-truck. That stinking special election for D.A.

  Then he sighted the truck, parked at the trolley terminal, at the apex of City Hall Park. Graham wondered, vaguely, for precisely how many minutes Hizzoner up in City Hall would stand for that racket on his own block. The mayor seemed to consider this part of town his own personal backyard.

  The music thundered to a gut-bucket finale. A stentorian voice cooed: "WE NOW BRING YOU A BRIEF ADDRESS BY THAT DISTINGUISHED ATTORNEY AND FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE, JAMES Q. O'HANNAGAN ..."

  O'Hannagan! The sound-truck! A feverish chain of thought exploded in Graham's mind.

  He hurried toward the truck. The operator was sitting, limp with the murderous heat, in the front seat. Graham moved close to him. Funny. The noise wasn't so bad here. Went over your head, more or less.

  Graham leaned against the front fender of the truck. "Lot of fun," he said to the driver, "listening to this guy all day."

  "Yeah," the driver said. "Lovely. I'm getting so I can recite this guy's palaver backwards."

  Graham said: "Nice amplifier you have there, though. Good tone quality. What's your output?"

  "Twenty watts," the driver said, pride of possession in his voice. "Pretty good for a mobile unit, isn't it? Fills up any size place. I had it up in Times Square last night. They told me you could hear the speech, clear as a bell, all the way up to 51st."

  Graham said, carefully without interest: "I heard you. Good job. Say, what was that business of a dame's voice on the record at the tail end?"

  The driver grinned s
heepishly. "I was sort of hoping nobody heard that. Somebody up at the Black Jewel must have been pulling a gag or something. Have to watch the disc now, and pick up the needle the second the guy's speech ends."

  "What's this Black Jewel?" Graham asked, with the proper incurious inflection.

  "Recording studio where they made the record," the soundman explained. He got up, opened a small doorway into the rear of the truck, and scrambled through. Then his head popped out again. "Wanta look at my set-up?"

  Larry wormed his way into the back of the truck. It was crowded with coiled loops of wire, a double turntable, two or three portable speakers in suitcases, a big switch-panel behind which silvery tubes flowed with a weird light. On the floor were carrying cases for records, a row of storage batteries, a generator, and a small but noisy one-cylinder gasoline engine.

  Larry watched the needle on the turntable crawling inward on the last inch of the record. The sound man was placing a cheap march-record on the other turntable, now, and preparing to switch over from one to the other.

  "Got to get this right where the break comes so that dame's voice doesn't mix things up," he said.

  He pushed a button, and the voice of the Friend-of-the-People was inside the truck as well as out, but with a sharper, tinnier sound. Graham looked around him. The voice, now, was coming from a three-inch speaker in the center of the control panel.

  "What did the dame have to say, besides what I heard up in the square?" Graham asked,

  "You can hear for yourself," the soundman said, proud of the opportunity to demonstrate his mechanisms. "I'll keep it on this thing," he tapped the tiny speaker, "after I cut him off on Uncle Joseph upstairs."

  The Friend-of-the-People was rattling through his final lines: " ... for your kind attention to this brief address. Again I thank you. And, Good Night." [It was nearly noon. Oh, well. You couldn't expect consistency from a phonograph record.]

  The soundman jiggled knobs and pushed buttons. There was a fanfare of trumpets overhead and the beginning of a Sousa march. But inside the truck there was another sound; a soft throat clearing.