Nightmares & Geezenstacks (9 page)

For many days now he had wandered ponderously through the hungry forests, across the hungry plains of dwarf scrub and sand, and had wandered along the lush edges of the streams that flowed down to the big water. Always hungry.

It seemed to him that he had always been hungry.

Sometimes there was something to eat, yes, but it was always something small. One of the little things with hoofs, one of the little things with three toes. All so small. One of them was not more than enough to put a keener edge on that monstrous saurian appetite of his.

And they ran so fast, the little things. He saw them, and his huge mouth would slaver as he ran earth-shakingly toward them, but off they whisked among the trees like little furry streaks. In frantic haste to catch them, he would bowl over the smaller trees that were in the way, but always they were gone when he got there.

Gone on their tiny legs that went faster than his mighty ones. One stride of his was more distance-devouring than fifty of theirs, but those flashing little legs flickered a hundred strides to his one. Even in the open where there were no trees for them to dodge among, he could not catch them.

A hundred years of hunger.

He, Tyrannosaurus Rex, king of all, mightiest and most vicious fighting engine of flesh that ever the world had evolved, was able to kill anything that stood against him. But nothing stood against him. They ran.

The little things. They ran. They flew, some of them. Others climbed trees and swung from limb to limb as fast as he could run along the ground until they came to a tree tall enough to be well out of his twenty-five-foot reach and thick enough of bole that he could not uproot it, and then they would hang ten feet above the grasp of his great jaws. And gibber at him when he roared in baffled, hungry rage.

Hungry, always hungry.

A hundred years of not-quite-enough. Last of his kind, and there was nothing left to stand up against him and fight, and fill his stomach when he had killed it.

His slate-gray skin hung upon him in loose, wrinkled folds as he shriveled away within it, from the ever-present ache and agony of hunger in his guts.

His memory was short, but vaguely he knew that it had not always been thus. He’d been younger once, and he’d fought terribly against things that fought back. They had been scarce and hard to find even then, but occasionally he met them. And killed them.

The big, armor-plated one with the terrible sharp ridges along his back, who tried to roll over on you and cut you in half. The one with the three huge forward-pointing horns and the big ruff of heavy bone. Those had been ones who went on four legs; or had gone on four legs until he had met them, Then they had stopped going.

There had been others more nearly like himself. Some had been many times bigger than he, but he had killed them with ease. The biggest ones of all had little heads and small mouths and ate leaves off the trees and plants on the ground.

Yes, there had been giants on the earth, those days. A few of them. Satisfying meals. Things you could kill and eat your fill of, and lie gorged and somnolent for days. Then eat again if the pesky leather-wings with the long bills of teeth hadn’t finished off the Gargantuan feast while you had slept.

But if they had, it did not matter. Stride forth again, and kill again to eat if hungry, for the pure joy of fighting and killing if you were not hungry. Anything that came along. He’d killed them all—the horned ones, the armored ones, the monster ones. Anything that walked or crawled. His sides and flanks were rough and seamed with the scars of ancient battles.

There’d been giants in those days. Now there were the little things. The things that ran, and flew, and climbed. And wouldn’t fight.

Ran so fast they could run in circles around him, some of them. Always, almost always, out of reach of his curved, pointed, double-edged teeth that were six inches long, and that could—but rarely had the chance to—shear through one of the little hairy things at a single bite, while warm blood coursed down the scaly hide of his neck.

Yes, he could get one of them, once in a while. But not often enough, not enough of them to satisfy that monstrous hunger that was Tyrannosaurus Rex, king of the tyrant reptiles. Now a king without a kingdom.

It was a burning within him, that dreadful hunger. It drove him, always.

It drove him today as he went heavy-footed through the forest, scorning paths, crashing his way through heavy underbrush and sapling trees as though they were grass of the plains.

Always before him the scurry and rush of the footsteps of the little ones, the quick click of hoofs, the
pad-pad
of the softer feet as they ran, ran.

It teemed with life, that forest of the Eocene. But with fleet life which, in smallness and speed, had found safety from the tyrant.

Life, it was, that wouldn’t stand up and fight, with bellowing roars that shook the earth, with blood streaming from slavering jowls as monster fought monstrosity. This was life that gave you the runaround, that wouldn’t fight and be killed.

Even in the steaming swamps. There were slippery things that slithered into the muddy water there, but they, too, were fast. They swam like wriggling lightning, slid into hollow rotten logs and weren’t there when you ripped the logs apart.

It was getting dark, and there was a weakness upon him that made it excruciating pain for him to take another step. He’d been hungry a hundred years, but this was worst of all. But it was not a weakness that made him stop; it was something that drove him on, made him keep going when every step was effort.

High in a big tree, something that clung to a branch was going “
Yahh! Yahh! Yahh!
” mocking and monotonously, and a broken piece of branch arced down and bounded harmlessly off his heavy hide. Lese majesty. For a moment he was stronger in the hope that something was going to fight.

He whirled and snapped at the branch that had struck him, and it splintered. And then he stood at fullest height and bellowed challenge at the little thing in the big tree, high overhead. But it would not come down; it went “
Yahh! Yahh!Yahh!
” and stayed there in cowardly safety.

He threw himself mightily against the trunk of the tree, but it was five feet thick, and he could not even shake it. He circled twice, roaring his bafflement, and then blundered on into gathering darkness.

Ahead of him, in one of the saplings, was a little gray thing, a ball of fur. He snapped at it, but it wasn’t there when he closed his jaws upon the wood. He saw only a dim gray streak as it hit the ground and ran, gone in shadows before he could take a single step.

Darker, and though he could see dimly in the woods, he could see more clearly when he came to the moonlit plain. Still driven on. There was something to his left, something small and alive sitting on haunches on a patch of barren soil. He wheeled to run toward it. It didn’t move until he was almost there; then with the suddenness of lightning it popped down a hole and vanished.

His footsteps were slower after that, his muscles responded sluggishly.

At dawn he came to the stream.

It was effort for him to reach it, but he got there and lowered his great head to drink, and drank deeply. The gnawing pain in his stomach rose, a moment, to crescendo, and then dulled. He drank more.

And slowly, ponderously, he sank down to the muddy soil. He didn’t fall, but his legs gave way gradually, and he lay there, the rising sun in his eyes, unable to move. The pain that had been in his stomach was all over him now, but dulled, more an aching weakness than an agony.

The sun rose high overhead and sank slowly.

He could see but dimly now, and there were winged things that circled overhead. Things that swept the sky with lazy, cowardly circles. They were food, but they wouldn’t come down and fight.

And when it got dark enough, there were other things that came. There was a circle of eyes two feet off the ground, and an excited yapping now and then, and a howl. Little things, food that wouldn’t fight and be eaten. The kind of life that gave you the runaround.

Circle of eyes. Wings against the moonlit sky.

Food all about him, but fleet food that ran away on flashing legs the minute it saw or heard, and that had eyes and ears too sharp ever to fail to see or hear. The fast little things that ran and wouldn’t fight.

He lay with his head almost at the water’s edge. At dawn when the red sun was again in his eyes, he managed to drag his mighty bulk a foot forward so he could drink again. He drank deeply, and a convulsive shudder ran through him and then he lay very quietly with his head in the water.

And the winged things overhead circled slowly down.

There isn’t anything romantic about murder. It’s a nasty business and you wouldn’t like it.

Yes, take a murder and take it apart. You’ll find it about as pleasant to dissect as a several-weeks-dead frog. The smell is pretty much the same, and you’ll be in just as much of a hurry to rush to the incinerator with your subject.

You can quit reading now, right here. H you don’t, remember I warned you.

You wouldn’t have liked Morley Evans; few people did. You might, incidentally, have read about him in the paper, but not under that name. Duke Evans was the name he went by. Later, I mean; as a boy they called him Stinky.

Sounds like a joke, that name Stinky. Usually it is, but not always. Occasionally kids show an uncanny knack of picking nicknames. Not that he smelled physically; as a boy he was required by his parents to bathe his body at reasonable intervals. As a man, he was dapper and well groomed in a greasy sort of way. Maybe I seem to be too prejudiced; he wasn’t really greasy. But he did use hair oil.

We’re getting ahead of ourselves, though. Back to Stinky Evans and the first lesson. He was fourteen then. He ran with a gang who used to raid the dime stores every Saturday afternoon, coming out with their pockets stuffed. Most of them were rather good at it and were seldom caught.

Harry Callan was the head of the gang. He was a little older than the others and he had connections. He could take a conglomeration of twenty dollars’ worth of packaged razor blades, phonograph needles and the like, and turn it into five dollars cash. With that ability and with his fists and his advantage in size, he ruled the gang.

You might say that Stinky Evans’ first lesson in murder came the afternoon when Harry Callan knocked the hell out of him. For no particular reason; just that every once in a while Harry beat up one of his satellites to be sure they’d stay in line.

It happened in the alley behind the Gem Bowling Alleys, where some of them set pins once in a while. It started with words—mostly Harry Callan’s words—then Harry whaled into Stinky Evans and whaled the tar out of him.

It was a new experience, for Stinky’s only fights had been with kids smaller than himself. It didn’t last long. When it was over he lay in the alley, half-sobbing, half-cursing, with blood running out of his nose. Not really hurt; he could easily have stood up again to take more.

But in spite of the blind anger and hatred in him, he knew better. He knew he was licked.

So he lay there and his hand closed around the cobblestone and that was when the little devil got into his mind and he picked up the cobblestone.
Kill
, something told him.
Kill the rat
.

It didn’t lead to anything. Harry Callan kicked the stone out of his hand, kicked him in the face and broke three of his teeth, and then turned away into the back door of the Gem Bowling Alleys.

It wouldn’t have led to anything, anyway. He wouldn’t have thrown the stone, or at any rate he wouldn’t have thrown it at Harry Callan’s head. He’d have weakened, because he wasn’t ready for murder yet.

After a while, he got up and went home.

If marriages are (as they tell us) made in heaven, then murders must be made in hell.

Of course, nobody much believes in hell any more—not, that is, in a concrete hell with little red devils running around with pitchforks and that sort of thing.

But there must be a hell, just the same, for that is where murders are made. To explain the build-up of a murder, you’ve got to believe that much. And since we’ve got to have some kind of a hell, let’s stick to the classical model. Since we’re going to postulate a hell, let’s make it good. Little red devils and all.

In other words, let’s shoot the works. Let’s imagine a Little Red Devil chuckling gleefully while Stinky Evans was walking home from the alley behind the Gem.

Let’s imagine the Little Red Devil talking to the big boss himself. “Good material, Boss. A nasty little punk if there ever was one. He’ll make the grade, Boss.”

“You gave him the first lesson?”

“Yep,” said the Little Red Devil. “Just now. A few more from time to time and he’ll come through,”

“All right, he’s yours. Stay with him.”

“You bet, Boss,” said the L.R.D. “I’ll stay with him, all right. I’ll stay with him.”

That was Stinky Evans at fourteen. At fifteen he got caught stealing a spare tire. He spent a night in the bullpen before they found out he was under age and switched him over to the juvenile authorities. In the bullpen he got talking with a four-timer and they got around to shivs.

It was dark in the cell except for the pattern made by the bars of the doors upon the floor. A pale yellow trapezoid with narrow black parallel stripes. A cockroach started across it and a big foot in prison-made shoes went out from the bunk and squashed the cockroach.

“If you ever stick a shiv in a guy, twist it,” the four-timer told him. “Lets the air in and he flops quick. Hasn’t time to yell or scramble any eggs for you, see? That’s why a wide blade’s best. Lets in more air when you twist. Those damn’ stilettos ain’t no good; you got to hit the heart or else stab the guy half a dozen times…” There was more. It was quite a lesson. Stinky thought about Harry Callan.

Down the corridor a drunk with d.t.’s was yelling like hell because tarantulas were after him. Stinky Evans shivered.

They gave him probation on the tire theft.

Before that was up, though, he got in trouble again and this time took six months at the reformatory. That was a good six months; he learned plenty there. Without boring you with the unpleasant details, let’s count it as lessons three to five, inclusive, and consider ourselves conservative.

He was fifteen when he got out, but he looked older. He felt older. He’d decided not to go home. Going home meant he’d have to take a job and keep reporting to the juvenile authorities how he was getting along in it. They’d keep checking on him all the time. The hell with that.

He went home only long enough to sneak out some clothes and get the rent money out of the chipped teapot. Twenty-five bucks, it was.

He hopped a rattler and got off when he saw the shacks working along the train at Springfield, the divison point.

He took a cheap room in Springfield and cased the town. When most of his money was gone, he went back where there’d been a BOY WANTED sign in a poolroom window.

It was the Acme Pool Parlor, run by Nick Chester. Maybe you’ve heard of Nick Chester. You’d know of him, all right, if you ever lived in Springfield.

A swarthy little guy, but smooth. He wore two-hundred-dollar suits and smoked fifty-cent cigars. Lived in a swank mansion out at the edge of town and drove a custom-made car. All the trimmings, if you know what I mean. All out of a little poolroom that maybe took in twenty or thirty dollars a week.

Nick tilted his twenty-dollar fedora back on his head and looked Stinky Evans over with eyes that didn’t miss any tricks.

“How old ya, kid?” he said.

“Twenty.”

“Been in stir, huh?” Nick didn’t wait for an answer to that one. “Okay by me if y’ain’t hot.”

Stinky shook his head.

“What’s ya name?” Nick asked.

Stinky’d decided that. “Duke,” he said. “Duke Evans.”

“Okay, Duke. You rack balls for a while,” Nick said. “When I get to know you better, maybe I can give you something else. We’ll get along.”

Duke went back by the pool tables. He watched Nick Chester, and he knew now what he was going to be. That was for him; a two-C suit with a white carnation in the lapel, expensive cigars, a blank but knowing pair of eyes and a pocketful of hay.

Power. That was for him. He’d work for it; he’d steal for it; he’d even commit…

Maybe there was rejoicing in hell. I mean, of course, if there is any such place. Things were going swimmingly. It was all too obvious that the Little Red Devil was on the job.

“He’s coming along fine, Boss,” said the L.R.D. “Just had the sixth lesson, you might say. Another year—”

“Not so soon. Let him ripen. Be sure of him.”

“He’ll graduate, Boss,
cum laude
. But you mean I got to wait two or three years yet?”

“Let him ripen. Five or six years.”

The L.R.D. gulped and looked aghast. “That long? Oh,
Heaven!
”

So they had to wash his mouth out with brimstone.

Call it the seventh lesson, at eighteen. Duke Evans was beginning to look like Duke Evans. He wore only a thirty-dollar suit but the trousers had a razor edge to them.

He wasn’t racking balls now; he was making collections. Small ones, but lots of them. That was Nick’s system and his strength—a finger in a thousand small pies. One at a time, Duke was learning about those pies.

He went into the florist’s shop on Grove Street, walked briskly on through and found the little florist alone in the back room making up a wreath. Duke grinned at him. “Hi, Larkin. Your dues; forty bucks.”

The little man didn’t smile back. “I—I can’t afford it; I told Mr. Wescott of your association. Talked to him on the phone this morning. I’ve been losing money since I started paying—”

Duke quit grinning and his eyes got hard. “I got orders to get it. See?”

“But look, I haven’t even got forty dollars. I haven’t paid all the rent yet. I can’t—”

He’d stepped backward and there was fear in his face. That was a mistake. Nobody had ever before shown fear of Duke Evans. And the florist was a little guy, too. The little mark was scared stiff.

It wasn’t Duke’s job; he could have gone back and reported. One of the muscle boys would have been sent around. But it was so easy.

He gave Larkin the back of his hand across the left side of his face and knocked his glasses off, then smashed the palm of his hand across the other side of the face, stepping in as the florist stepped back.

Then again, rocking the little man’s head back and forth before he stepped in with a hard jab to the pit of the stomach. Larkin doubled over and retched.

Duke stepped back. “That was a sample. Still think you can’t rake up forty bucks?”

Duke got the forty bucks. On the way back to headquarters, he bought himself a cigar. He didn’t like the taste of it as well as cigarettes, but from now on he was going to smoke them. On his lapel was a white rosebud he’d taken from a vase on his way out of Larkin’s.

He got his shoes shined, too, although they didn’t really need it. He felt pretty good.

Nick Chester looked at the white rosebud. His left eyebrow went up half a millimeter, which wasn’t enough for Duke to notice.

Duke got friendly with Tony Barria—as nearly as anyone could ever get to being friendly with Tony.

Tony was a little guy, too, like Larkin had been, but Tony wasn’t the kind of little guy that you shoved around. Tony was a torpedo.

He was cold and tense and he moved with a smooth grace that seemed jerky because it was so fast. Nobody ever felt at ease with Tony, really; you sort of got the idea that if you clapped him on the back, he’d explode. Maybe they tailored that word
torpedo
just to fit Tony Barria. But shoot a couple of snooker games with him and then you could loosen his tongue with Chianti, which is an expensive word for Italian red wine. And because Duke wanted to learn something that Tony could teach him, he kept Chianti in his room. He took a lesson from Tony in things an ambitious young man should know.

Like: “Look, if you’re going to use it on somebody, a forty-five automatic’s the thing. Don’t monkey with a little gun. A forty-five, because if you hit the shoulder or the leg or somewhere with a little gun, it don’t mean nothing. Got to hit the head or the heart. In the guts’ll kill him, but he’ll live a while first. Maybe long enough to talk, see? But a big slug wherever it hits knocks ’em down like a baseball bat.

“But if you’re carrying a rod just in case, a thirty-two automatic’ll do. Light and don’t bulge your coat…”

Oh, sure, those were elementary things, but Duke dug in and got some fine points, too. Like how to beat a paraffin test; and if you don’t know that, you’re better off not to. I’m not giving lessons; just telling about them.

Tony was a gunman all the way. He thought shivs were effeminate, fists were for gorillas, tommies were for morons who couldn’t learn to shoot straight with a heater. “Why, any day I’d go up against a typewriter, with a forty-five. One shot I’d need and there’d be time for three while he was getting that damn’ thing swung around and pointed—”

Duke Evans picked up quite a bit from Tony. One thing he didn’t learn: how not to be afraid of Tony. But when he moved in, he thought Tony would be on his side. Tony didn’t like Nick, and Duke worked on that…

Duke let a couple of years go by. He grew in evil, in stature, and in favor with himself and the gang. He bought himself two pistols, obtaining them in such a manner that they could not be traced back to him. He bought himself a rifle, too, but he purchased that openly and talked about it. His occasional hunting trips were for the purpose of finding secluded spots in the woods where he could practice shooting an automatic. Nobody knew about the pistols or his practice with them.

For a while, he took over running the strong-arm squad. Just telling them whom to see and how much of a job to do on him. He got a kick out of that.

Once he planted a pineapple himself that blew the guts out of a cigar store run by a man named Perelman who’d decided, against advice, not to job a book on the ponies. That was why the pineapple was put in his store. But the reason Duke Evans did the job in person was that Perelman had said, “Get out of here, punk,” to Duke Evans.

Duke Evans wasn’t a punk any more.

He heard the explosion from several blocks away and thought, “Punk huh?” He wished Perelman had been in the store when the bomb went off. He pictured it vividly. Because he was standing in a dark alley and didn’t have to stay dead-pan, the look on his face wasn’t nice.

Not nice at all. But then Duke Evans wasn’t a nice guy. I warned you about that.

Then after a while, he was ready. Ready for the takeover and the gravy train.

He’d worked it out, and he wasn’t going to be crude and use a gun after all. That was for cheap torpedoes like Tony.