The men sat motionless in the gloom. Hunched shoulders. Torn coats. Dirty bearded faces. Faces harrowed and lined and stained with what liquor had done to them. I knew that this was the last place they could sit inside, out of the cold spring wind; that when they no longer found the few cents to enable them to stay in this place, they would soon die. Some were old. And some were surprisingly young.
The angel of death sat among them. I wanted to giggle with hysteria. How shall I do it? Eeny meeny miney moe? Out goes Y — O - U! Let me do you a favor, boys. Who wants to die in a big way? Who wants to die with headlines? One at a time. Step up. Present your qualifications to the angel sans mercy.
The silent hunched shoulders. One of them made a hoarse sound in his throat and held his empty glass high. The bartender came over, stood silently until the man had counted out fourteen cents. Then he filled the glass from an unlabeled bottle.
The man looked down at the brim-full glass for long seconds. He snatched it suddenly, spilling a few drops, and set the empty glass down on the table again with a long, shuddering sigh. He bent over, fastened gray lips around the few spilled drops on the black wooden table and sucked them up noisily. He wiped his hand across his mouth and sat very still, his eyes closed.
As my eyes became accustomed to the light, I saw a younger man who was also alone at a table. He leaned back, his head against the wall, his mouth half open. He would have seemed asleep, but his eyes were half open and I had the feeling he watched me. I finished the beer, called the bartender over and said, “I want another beer. Serve it at that table over there.”
“He hasn’t got a dime in his pants, lady.”
“Serve it over there, please.”
He shrugged. When he moved away, I walked over to the other table. The young man’s face seemed curiously blurred, the features indistinct. The stubble on his face was pale and colorless. His eyes were pale blue.
The bartender brought my beer. I told him to bring whatever the man usually drank. He brought back a shot glass filled to the brim. His hand was oddly steady for so old and shattered a man. I paid him.
I reached out and took hold of the arm of the young man and shook him. His head lolled and he looked at me stupidly. He said dimly, “Gloria. Hello, Gloria.”
“I bought you a drink,” I said, enunciating every word.
He peered at me, then looked slowly down toward the table top. His eyes narrowed as he saw the drink. A thin gray hand crept up across the table, moved gingerly toward the glass like some large timid insect.
His fingers touched the smooth glass, stopped. Slowly he bent over until his mouth was inches from the rim. With both hands he lifted the precious glass, touched it to his lips and drank. When it was empty the glass clattered back onto the table top.
“Thanks, Gloria,” he mumbled. The voice came from a long way off. A distant voice. A dead voice.
“Can you walk?” I said, shaking him again.
He didn’t answer. Long seconds passed. “Where we going?” he asked weakly.
“Will you come with me?” I asked.
He looked at me then, his forehead wrinkled with the effort of trying to think clearly. “Taking me home, Gloria. Long time ago. Used to take me home. Before you died...”
“Stand up,” I said, standing myself and tugging at his arm.
He clawed at the wall, pushed at the table and managed to stand erect. He weaved heavily against me and I staggered under his weight. Together we went toward the front door. I risked a glance at the bartender. He was wiping a glass.
I bumped the door open with my shoulder. It had started to rain again.
He teetered on the top step, slipped out of my hands as I tried to grab him. He smashed against the wet sidewalk and was still. When I lifted his head I saw the blood was running from his mouth. Surprisingly, he seemed stronger. With one hand on my shoulder, he pulled himself up, lurched over against a wall, hitting it with force that drove the wind out of him. He gasped for a moment and then said, “Where we go, Gloria?”
“This way.”
Five long blocks to the Barton. Once he started coughing. I had to support him until the paroxysm was over. It sapped his strength and he leaned more heavily against me. The rain soaked into his clothes, releasing an ancient smell of cheap, wet cotton, soiled wool.
I guided him inside the lower hallway of the Barton and gave him a few minutes to catch his breath. The stairs were narrow and steep. Once, near the top, he swayed dangerously back, and it took every ounce of my strength to swing him forward again. He blundered up the last few steps and fell on his hands and knees. He stayed in that position until he felt me grasp his arm. I got him back on his feet.
The white young man behind the desk slapped my key down and looked with disgust at the man who stood behind me, swaying, his eyes almost shut.
I took the key, steered the man down the hallway, unlocked the door and pushed him in. He blundered over toward the bed, sat heavily on it as I slammed the door and locked it on the inside.
He sat on the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees, staring down at the floor. His matted hair was wet with the rain. The water dripped from him.
Death would be a boon to this one. Death was coming to him very soon even if I hadn’t selected him.
The instructions from Sam were to find out what this clod had been doing at the time the murder was committed. In order to tell me anything, he’d have to be sobered up. He coughed again, and the deep, rasping convulsion shook him.
Suddenly I hated him. I walked over to him and hit him on the side of the face with all my strength. The blow knocked him back on the bed. He looked up at me and his eyes rolled. He squinted with the effort of trying to see me.
“Not Gloria,” he mumbled. “You’re not Gloria.”
There was dull heartbreak in his voice. I knelt and unlaced his shoes. Once they had been shoes. They were shapeless and dirty gray. They had the plupy feel of old newspaper. There was no lace in one of them. I pulled them off. He wore no socks. His ankles and feet were painfully thin, gray-white and dirty.
He half helped me as I pulled him up to a sitting position, wrestled his arms out of the torn tweed jacket, stained with age. Under the jacket he wore a cheap red sweater, no shirt.
I yanked the sweater up over his head. Every rib was visible. His skin was a muddy gray. He looked as forlorn as a plucked chicken. He shivered. I couldn’t think of him as a man. He was something that was hurt and dying.
His belt was too big for him and the buckle was broken. It was knotted tightly. I helped him with the knot, grasped his trouser legs and pulled them off. His shorts were gray and worn. His legs were like gray stalks. The muscles he had once had were like limp gray string. His eyes were vacant, his mouth half open.
I pulled hard on his wrist and he stood up, wavering. I togged him into the tiny bathroom, turned on the shower and pushed him under it. He shivered as the water hit him. I left him standing numbly under the shower and I went in, kicked his clothes into a corner and sat on the bed.
He fell heavily. When I ran in he was half in and half out of the shower. There was no waking him. I patted him dry with a towel and dragged him back into the bedroom.
After three tries I managed to get him up onto the bed. He was like lead. I guessed that once he had been a big man — before liquor had melted the flesh off of him. I covered him over. His breathing was heavy. His pulse was less than sixty. His hands were like ice.
His papers were in a cheap wallet in the left hip pocket of his trousers. Not many papers. Just the life record of a man about to die. A driver’s license that had expired. Eric Norstram. Born July 10, 1917. Six feet. 185 pounds. Address — 1820 Bellaire. Not a bad address. Not a good one. But not bad.