An Unknown Hunger
Chris Hayes-Kossmann
Part 1/2
#
The body lay face down on the sidewalk, hands pointing at ten and two. Puffy red sports-jacket, blue-jeans, workboots with the rubber worn down at the toe. Officer Packer crouched, lifted the dead man’s head as gently as he could. Black goatee, black eye. Even in life he would have looked rough. Brick-chin bouncer material. The snag of a broken tooth jabbed through the upper lip.
Footsteps to his right. Officer Elliot’s heavy, flatfooted gait. “I’m just saying. He fell, hit his head. It was a cold night. Write it up.”
Packer rolled the body over. The only blood on the concrete was from the dead man’s lip, dried dark as rust. “Why are his hands up? Robbery?”
“What, scared to death?”
“It’s happened. Or maybe he tried to crawl…”
Elliot grinned. “Have fun, Holmes. Five bucks says heart attack and hypothermia.”
A young sikh man in a turban frowned from the doorway of the milk bar, rolling a cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other. “You gonna move him? Can’t open up till you move him.”
“Five minutes.” Above the doorway, nestled in a dark corner, the gleam of a CCTV lens. Done by lunch, if he was lucky. Plastic sheeting crinkled across the sidewalk. “Elliot. You want to come on the doorknock?”
“What, you know him?”
“Seen him around.” In the distance, over the tiled rooftops and coughing chimneys, was the first blush of sunrise.
#
Con Stannis jerked upright in bed to the buzzing of cicadas. His bedroom was layered in blue and grey and corners of deep shadow. The alarm clock read 05:42 and the early morning chill settled heavy on his chest. “I was in the scouts,” he said to his sleeping wife. “I was a boy. In my dream, I mean. I made First Class. I’d forgotten ‘til now.” The room was silent apart from his breathing. He reached out to tangle her soft hair in his fingers but his knuckles bumped the wall and he remembered that his bed was only a single these days, that the space beside him was always cold.
He stood to look out the window. The street was empty. Of course – nobody awake at this hour. But, for a moment, he’d been certain there would be someone waiting below. A man with a gun in his hand, staring upwards, patient, unmoving.
That was just another dream. Nobody waited for him any more. Not for many years.
In the morning he sat naked on the edge of the bed holding a cup of coffee, the heat seeping through the porcelain into his hands, up his arms, down his spine. He looked at himself in the closet mirror. His paunch was growing a little heavier every week, starting to sag and fold. The hairs on his chest were greying. Not white, he told himself. Still life in there.
His knees popped as he forced them into his bluejeans. A shirt one size too large covered up everything else. When he sucked in his gut and squared his shoulders he looked almost respectable. Time to face the day.
The lobby was almost empty. A few kids in corduroy pants and collared shirts tugged on the leaves of a plastic plant. The young receptionist said hello as he passed and he waved back. “Quiet day?”
“Everyone hides inside this time of year.” Her painted nails tapped on the counter. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, her eyes still bright, hair pulled back in a black bun. He tried not to stare at how her breasts pressed tight against the buttons of her shirt. He could just make out the outline of her bra. “Sir?”
“Sorry. Just tired.” He glanced away, not wanting to meet her eyes. How did he ever manage to talk to Marilyn, back in college? “I don’t have any letters waiting, do I?”
“Um.” She fiddled with stacks of mail. “Nothing yet. Is that bad?”
He tried to smile. “You have a good day, miss.”
The line at the supermarket moved in jerks and fits and by the time he was outside the sun was cresting and the sidewalk smoked under his shoes. He sat on a bench and drank chocolate milk from the carton, cold and sweet. Sweat broke out across his forehead.
“We drank milk on the day of the derby,” he said suddenly. “Soapbox derby. Silver trophy. Goddamn.” He hadn’t thought about that day in years. If someone had reminded him about it he would have said they were mistaken.
A strip of yellow police tape wriggled across the concrete, coiled around a street sign, and was carried away by the wind.
#
The coroner called at lunchtime. “Possibly a stroke. Possibly heart attack. It’s unlikely the bruising around the right eye and the broken tooth were from an assault. Probably the fall. No other wounds, though. I’ll do the full autopsy tomorrow.”
“Cheers.” Alan Packer had a TV above his desk. On the screen was the sidewalk outside the milkbar, night shadows stretching over the gutter. A clock in the corner of the screen read 02:23:45 16:07:2007. A man in a sportsjacket entered from the left, hunched against the summer wind. Robbie Olive. Thirty nine, once married, never divorced. His wife had sobbed and calmed herself and then sobbed again and grabbed at Packer’s hands, and he’d wished not for the first time that he could bring Yelena along to these things. She always knew what to say.
Robbie’s back was to the camera, which meant that Packer had a perfect view of the second man.
Forty, forty-five, maybe older from the way the skin hung off his cheeks. Knit jumper, chinos, belly hanging over his belt. Hands clasped before him like he was clutching a rosary, counting off prayers. Dragging his left foot with every step, the toe of his shoe grinding into the pavement.
Robbie stopped. The other man continued. Step, shuffle, drag. Then he stopped too.
The man in the woollen jumper opened his mouth. If Robbie said anything in reply, Packer couldn’t see. Then Robbie threw his hands in the air and fell, first to his knees and then onto his face. There was no sound but Packer imagined he heard the sharp crick as Robbie’s teeth snapped. His left hand brushed the other man’s right foot.
In the corner of the screen the clock ticked off a full minute before the man in the jumper turned away. Step, shuffle, drag. Out of frame.
The video ran another three hours but Robbie didn’t twitch once.
Packer rewound the tape, watched again. The second man kept his hands together. Then, in the last moment, a flash of movement. A gun in his hand? A knife? Impossible to tell.
He printed the second man’s face as large as he could and called Elliot. “You busy, Watson? Work to do.”
#
Con was stretched out on the couches in the foyer with a copy of Darkness at Noon when the two men in charcoal suits arrived. He watched them march to the front desk, lean over the counter to speak to the girl with the tight black bun. She pointed across the foyer to Con, and he felt a cold hand twist in his guts.
Their shoes clicked on the tiles. “Mr Stannis?” The first man flipped open a leather pouch to show his badge. “You free?”
“I-” He glanced over to the girl at reception. She met his eyes and then busied herself in her papers. “Yeah, I’ve got a minute.”
The first officer looked young despite the grey bags under his eyes, the way his smile pinched at his cheeks. Thirty at most. It was a fake smile, a polite little mask hiding his distaste. It made Con feel a fraud. Underneath the neat shirt and polished shoes he was still old and broken and he had no right pretending otherwise.
The one with the badge leaned in. “I’m Officer Packer. We won’t keep you, Mr. Stannis. If it’s not too much bother… where were you the night before last?”
“Night before last? Well. I…”
Con froze, tongue rooted in place, as he realised that he didn’t know.
A grainy printout. Two figures under a streetlamp, right on the edge of the pool of light. Only one was facing the camera. Con felt the room beginning to tilt around him. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”
The two policemen looked at each other, grinned. “Do you have a twin, Mr. Stannis?”
“Look, it’s not me!”
“Do you own those clothes?”
“Yes, but that-” He pressed his fingers into his temples. There was some way for this to make sense. “I… sleepwalk.”
“To the milk bar? In your good shoes?”
Con swallowed. “Okay. I don’t sleepwalk. I drink. A lot. I don’t remember that guy. I don’t even remember going out.”
“So you were there.”
“I might’ve been. Could’ve gone anywhere. Hell, that barely looks like me.” He knew his voice was climbing higher, whining, but he couldn’t help it. “I was asleep. I never saw him.”
The officers exchanged another look that Con knew meant this guy is fucked. “Sir,” Officer Packer said, “Failing to administer aid isn’t a criminal offence. Public intoxication, perhaps. But we don’t want to arrest you. Just tell me. Did you speak to or touch this man at any point?”
Con ground his teeth. “Maybe I went out. But I never touched him. I never hurt anyone.”
“Hrm,” said Packer, and then, “I see.” He gathered up the printouts. “We’ll be in touch. This is my number. Call if you’d like to talk about… anything.”
Con didn’t reply. His hands dangled numb in his lap.
“Stay safe, Mr. Stannis.”
#
“Al. Hey, Al. You were-”
“You want to drive?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Elliot settled in behind the wheel. “You were getting intense, in there.”
“What do you think?”
Elliot shrugged. “Olive had a stroke, Stannis was drunk, he freaked.”
“Didn’t look freaked.” Packer shuffled through the printouts. “See? He’s not running away. Calm.”
“Not worth my time, Al. Or yours.”
Packer stared at the printout. Something nagged at the back of his mind. He looked back through the glass sliding doors of the apartment complex to where Stannis was still hunched over on the couch. “He was rattled.”
“Yeah. I would be too. Look, I’ll drop you back… Al?”
“Whatever.” Packer pulled a grey box from the pocket of his coat. He rolled up his sleeve, peeled away the clear patch just above his elbow. From the box came another. “It doesn’t work, you know. I could go a carton right now.”
“Ten bucks you don’t last the week.”
“Like I have ten to lose.”
“Then don’t lose,” said Elliot. The apartment complex vanished in their exhaust.
#
The receptionist cringed behind the desk. “I’m sorry. They didn’t even say they were police.”
Con sighed. “They surprised me too. Sorry. God, I need a beer.” The girl didn’t reply. “Look, I didn’t… I’m not angry.”
“You look angry.”
“Headache.” It was true. Pain pounded behind his left temple.
“What were they asking about?”
He waved her away. “Nothing important.” He couldn’t remember half the questions they’d asked and all his answers were blurring too. The day before yesterday still refused to come back. Delayed hangover? Could you drink enough to lose a whole day and night?
“I’m sorry. I should have warned you.”
“Thanks.” He leaned over to read her name-tag. “Serena?”
“That’s me.” She laced her fingers together. “You really don’t look so good, Mr. Stannis.”
“Nap and a beer, I’ll be fine.”
She laughed, high pitched and pretty like chimes. “I know the feeling.” Her smile was wide, lips painted strawberry red, and a long-dead fire in his chest flared up. He realised his hands were sweating.
“When you finish,” he said, feeling that peculiar teenage flutter, “would you like to get a drink?”
Her smile wobbled for just a moment. “Sorry. Company policies.”
“Of course.” The fire sputtered down to embers.
Where were you the night before last?
How often do you drink, Mr Stannis?
Do you often forget where you spend your nights, Mr Stannis?
He’d already forgotten the name of the dead man. Something to do with cocktails? He stacked the juice, eggs and what remained of his chocolate milk in the bar-fridge and lay on the bed, unable to fall asleep. The numbers on the alarm clock flashed red, counting off hours. He thought of Serena, filling out forms with her hair done up tight. He thought of how he’d strutted through the hallways of his college twenty years before, and how that strut had vanished.
The headache was fading.
Serena was packing her books and papers into a backpack when he returned. The linoleum shone pink with dusk light. “Hey, Mr Stannis. Feeling any better?”
“Afternoon nap always helps.” He looked her up and down. Pin-stripe skirt and doc martens. Marilyn had worn much the same, twenty years before. “Shift over? You’re dressed for a beer.”
“I know, isn’t the heat a killer?”
“My treat?”
She smiled, and he knew it was forced. “Company policies, Mr Stannis.”
“It’s a beer, not a… a date. I’m too old for dating.” He looked at himself in the mirror behind the reception desk. The skin around his eyes was dark and baggy, like elephant skin. “Misery loves company, yeah?”
She looked at him a while, and he felt like he was back in high school, being measured up as a date to the dance. Finally, she pressed a finger to her painted lips. “Okay. But I’ll be gone by seven.”
He said that it sounded just fine.
#
She kissed Packer on the cheek as he came through the door. “Nikki’s forgotten your name again.”
“What, you want me to wear a nametag?”
“You’d lose it.”
“I’ll write it on my forehead.” He ducked in for another kiss but she pushed him away. “What?”
“You smell like mustard. I talked to my mother, I told her all you eat is those nasty hotdogs. She says, Yelena, I find you new man who never eats hotdogs. I said-”
“Hush.” He grabbed her with both hands, pulled her face to his, tasted her lips. “No more about the mother,” he said, after they broke apart. “Not today.”
“Bad?”
“No, no. Good day. Interesting. Where’s my girl?”
“Asleep. I took her to the park and taught her all about ducks. Now she wants to be a duck. No,” she said, as he moved towards the stairs. “Leave her. Come here.” She took his arm and led him to the couch. “Do it,” she said, and nipped his earlobe. “I missed you, Al.”
He sat alone on the couch afterwards, sweat running down his arms, pooling in the small of his back. He felt lightheaded, like he’d just been for a run. Yelena sashayed about the kitchen, humming. “Tea?”
“Please.” Al took the printouts from his suitcase and spread them across the coffee table. In the centre was the image of Robbie Olive with his hands over his head; Stannis with his hands clasped before him, bemused. Olive, fit, in reasonable health, with a wife and a house. Stannis, a drunkard and a widower, living two blocks from the milk bar in a rented apartment.
Not an assault. Stannis looked beat-down, staggering through his days. Olive would have broken him in half. Armed robbery was still possible, but why wouldn’t Olive have just run? The hands over his head…
His phone buzzed. “Hello?”
“Officer Packer? This is Johnny, from the coroner’s office? You brought in a white male-”
“Olive?”
“Yeah. We’ve finished the autopsy early, thought you might be interested.”
He snatched up a pen. “Shoot.”
“Well, absolutely no signs of assault. All injuries consistent with a fall, maybe fainting. But there was also no sign of stroke, blood clots, or any conditions symptomatic with heart failure. Blood alcohol content was low. No medical problems on his record.”
“So… he just died?”
“Just died. Not much more I can say. Sorry.”
“Alright. Thanks.” He hung up and shuffled through the papers again. What was it about Stannis that itched so bad? His eyes were almost blank, shoulders hunched, non-threatening. Someone to ignore if you passed them in the street. One of a thousand invisible old men. Hand cupped beneath his belly. Almost a junkie pose.
He clutched his stomach like he was hungry.
Packer rubbed his eyes. It was already late. He stacked the papers, stuffed them in his briefcase, and slipped upstairs.
Nikki was curled on her side on the bottom bunk, moonlight soft and pale across her cheek, a bubble of spit on her lips. Packer knelt beside the bed and brushed Nikki’s hair back from her temple, traced the scar above her ear where she’d split her skull on the kitchen tiles. He whispered to her and he thought he saw her little pink lips curl into a smile.
When he looked over his shoulder Yelena was standing in the doorway. “She always hears, when I walk in. You’re too quiet.”
Packer grinned. “I’m a panther.”
“Better than a big slobbering dog. Ai!” He swept her up, spun her in the hallway. “Boy, you hungry or not?”
He kissed her.
#
The bar was musty and lit by chains of aging Christmas lights blinking red then blue then green and red again, a constant flash of colour that made Con’s eyes hurt. The barman’s arms were almost black with hair and he leered as he poured the drinks. Serena was still nursing her first pint but Con was on his third. “It was my birthday last week,” she explained. “I drank enough for ten. So I have to behave.”
Which birthday? Her twenty-fourth. Did she have a party? No, not really. Why not? She shrugged. “A bit pointless, after the twenty-first.”
“My twenty-first was… apocalyptic. A full bottle of Walker, alone.”
“When you drink, you drink big, huh?”
He wanted to say, less while I was with Marilyn. More now. But that wouldn’t be appropriate. He swirled the dregs of his beer and watched them foam. Was this making up for lost time?
Serena was staring. “Sorry,” he said. ‘I’m being a gloomy old fart.”
“Aww, you’re not gloomy.” She flashed her neat white teeth. Everyone had perfect smiles these days. “So, what did they want?”
“Eh?”
She cocked her head. “The cops. What’d you do?”
“Nothing,” he said. Perhaps a little too quickly, because she leaned in, eyes eager, arms crossed beneath her breasts. He waved for a refill. “Really.”
“Come on. You don’t have the killer stare, so… bank job? Getaway driver?”
“They just wanted to chat.”
“Fine.” Her slender fingers played up and down the glass, tracing paths in the condensation. Her nails were cherry-red and suddenly he wanted to have them digging into the flesh of his back, those soft fingertips cutting lines down his chest, stroking cords of muscle he no longer had.
You dirty bastard, he thought, but he didn’t stop imagining.
He whispered something to nobody.
“What?”
He cleared his throat. “I used to be young.”
“Yeah, so did we all.”
He spun to look into her eyes. “That’s not even funny. I’m on the… the border? Yeah. Right between being you, and…” He pointed out a man huddled in the corner, beard stained yellow by nicotine, hands twisted with arthritis. “It’s not real to you yet, right? But I see where I’m going. It’s like…”
He stopped. Serena leaned back on her seat, eyes wide. Scared? It was only the truth. The words were hard to shape. “You remember the day when you woke up and looked at yourself in the bathroom mirror and you thought, shit, I’m not a kid any more?” She nodded. “It’s the same. There’s somebody else in the mirror, and he’s old. And you say…”
He tasted beer at the back of his throat. He swallowed hard and when he opened his mouth what came out was: “My wife is dead.”
Serena’s hand shot up to her mouth. Five red nails shone under the lights. “Oh! I’m sorry. How did-”
“Don’t. Not right now. God.”
“That was too personal, wasn’t it? I should be going.”
“Please don’t,” he said, and was ashamed at how pitiful he sounded. “It’s been… ages, since I just talked. I don’t get to talk too much. Feels like my birthday again. Getting drunk alone is no fun. But…” He stopped. “But Tommo threw up in the garden.”
She stared, her nails ringing on the counter. “What?”
“Tommo, Thomas Lee. At my birthday.” He held his head. It throbbed under his fingers. This was a hangover in advance. “I saw him. Over the side of the balcony…”
“Was it a different party?”
“I had a cake.” A horrible washing-machine churning began in his guts. “Mom brought me out a cake. They wrote 21 in candles. But they didn’t.” He gripped the edge of the bar to keep the world from spinning. “Because I was in my room. Mom was dead. She was already dead.”
She asked if he was feeling ill, her voice booming off the walls, and in reply he staggered into the Gents and threw up in the urinal. He rinsed his mouth and stared into in the mirror. A red-eyed sallow-cheeked drunkard stared back.
He vomited again.
When he came out of the toilets she was gone.
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