Hunter and the Trap by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online Page A

rooms, and I suppose they stood there with their ears against the doors.
    â€œWhy tonight?”
    â€œI like the manager. I don’t know what to say to you, Monte. I don’t know how to thank you.”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œAh—I don’t know. The hell with it. You get sentimental with someone like Pete. Right now sentiment would be offensive. It would offend you, wouldn’t it?”
    â€œIt would offend me,” I agreed.
    â€œThen take off, Monte. For Christ’s sake, take off.”
    Then I got up and left—without looking behind me and without saying anything else. Down in the lobby, I ran into the manager, and he said to me:
    â€œCould I buy you a drink, Mr. Case?”
    â€œIf we don’t talk about Andy Bell.”
    â€œI’ll talk about running a hotel.”
    â€œYou got me,” I said.
    I had three drinks and I learned a lot about running a large, posh, uptown eastside hotel, and then I shook hands with the manager.
    â€œHe’ll make a run for it tonight, won’t he?” the manager said.
    â€œI guess so.”
    Out on the dark street, there was a cool breeze. The summer was almost done. It was a pleasant night. I thought about getting drunk, but the thought was not too pleasant. I thought about calling someone to have dinner with me, but first I called Liz. She wasn’t home. Then I called a few people, but everyone knew about Andy being the quarry, and I was close enough to Andy for the people I knew not to desire closeness with me. Not on that evening anyway. I walked downtown and then I went into one of the flicks on Third Avenue, and I sat through a picture without knowing what went on in front of me and without being able to remember any of it; and then I walked over to the Oak Room at the Plaza and had a few more drinks and hoped that someone would happen by, but no one did. I went home then.

15
    I slept badly. I dreamed and the dreams were not good, and then I woke up and lay in the dark and heard Liz come in; and then I must have dozed a little, because the telephone woke me at about six in the morning. It was O’Brian, from the Twenty-third Squad, and he told me about Andy.
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œMaybe twenty minutes ago. On Fifth Avenue, just south of the 56th Street corner.”
    â€œI’ll be there.”
    â€œGood. That’s good. I’ll wait for you.”
    â€œWhat son of a bitch—” Liz began.
    I put away the telephone and told her that Andy was dead.
    â€œOh, my God—”
    It was no use to hurt her, and anything I would have said would have hurt her. It was never any use to hurt her; the world hurt her too much, and you would have to be a psychopath to add to it. I dressed and got down to 56th Street, and then I was sorry that I had been in such a damned hurry.
    The hunt had finished there, and there was nothing recognizable left of Andy. What had been him was spread in a bloody smear halfway across Fifth Avenue, and the men from the morgue were trying to gather it up and make something in the way of remains out of it.
    At this hour, on a Sunday morning, Fifth Avenue was all but deserted. The one or two citizens who came by did not stop. The smear was not something that anyone would want to stand around and look at.
    O’Brian, who was supervising things, spotted me and came over with a handkerchief filled with the few possessions that had survived Andy—keys for doors I had never stepped through, some bills and some change, a crushed card case, a penknife, cufflinks bent shapeless, a broken pen—what could have belonged to Andy or to any other mortal man.
    â€œI’m going to throw up,” I said to him.
    O’Brian nodded and led me over to a cardboard container that was conveniently waiting. Evidently, others had felt the same way.
    â€œToo much to drink last night.”
    â€œSure,” O’Brian said. “When did you see him last, Monte?”
    â€œLast