Alfred Hitchcock’s A Hangman’s Dozen

Not a Laughing Matter Evan Hunter

Don’t laugh — or smile ambiguously — when a sensitive person is present. He may very well be a paranoiac Perchance he may even be given to homicide — a homicide that may be your very own.

He hated the manager most.

Last night he had come to that realization. This morning, as he entered the department store with the Luger tucked into the waistband of his trousers, he allowed his hatred for the manager to swell up blackly until it smothered all the other hatreds he felt. The manager knew; of that he was certain. And it was his knowledge, this smirking sneering patronizing knowledge which fed the hatred, nurtured it, caused it to rise like dark yeast, bubbling, boiling.

The Luger was a firm metal reassurance against his belly.

The gun had been given to him in the good days, in Vienna, by an admirer. In the good days, there had been many admirers, and many gifts. He could remember the good days. The good days would sometimes come back to him with fiercely sweet nostalgia, engulfing him in waves and waves of painful memories. He could remember the lights, and the applause, and...

“Good morning, Nick.”

The voice, the hated voice.

He stopped abruptly. “Good morning, Mr. Atkins,” he said.

Atkins was smiling. The smile was a thin curl on his narrow face, a thin bloodless curl beneath the ridiculously tenuous mustache on the cleaving edge of the hatchet face. The manager’s hair was black, artfully combed to conceal a balding patch. He wore a gray pin-stripe suit. Like a caricature of all store managers everywhere, he wore a carnation in his buttonhole. He continued smiling. The smile was infuriating.

“Ready for the last act?” he asked.

“Yes, Mr. Atkins.”

“It is the last act, isn’t it, Nick?” Atkins asked, smiling. “Final curtain comes down today, doesn’t it? All over after today. Everything reverts back to normal after today.”

“Yes, Mr. Atkins,” he said. “Today is the last act.”

“But no curtain calls, eh, Nick?”

His name was not Nick. His name was Randolph Blair, a name that had blazed across the theater marquees of four continents. Atkins knew this, and had probably known it the day he’d hired him. He knew it, and so the “Nick” was an additional barb, a reminder of his current status, a sledgehammer subtlety that shouted, “Lo, how the mighty have fallen!”

“My name is not Nick,” he said flatly.

Atkins snapped his fingers. “That’s right, isn’t it? I keep forgetting. What is it again? Randolph Something? Clair? Flair? Shmair? What is your name, Nick?”

“My name is Randolph Blair,” he said. He fancied he said it with great dignity. He fancied he said it the way Hamlet would have announced that he was Prince of Denmark. He could remember the good days when the name Randolph Blair was the magic key to a thousand cities. He could remember hotel clerks with fluttering hands, maître d’s hovering, young girls pulling at his clothing, even telephone operators suddenly growing respectful when they heard the name. Randolph Blair. In his mind, the name was spelled in lights. Randolph Blair. The lights suddenly flickered, and then dimmed. He felt the steel outline of the Luger against his belly. He smiled thinly.

“You know my name, don’t you, Mr. Atkins?”

“Yes,” Atkins said. “I know your name. I hear it sometimes.”

His interest was suddenly piqued. “Do you?” he asked.

“Yes. I hear people ask, every now and then, ‘Say, whatever happened to Randolph Blair?’ I know your name.”

He felt Atkins’ dart pierce his throat, felt the poison spread into his bloodstream. Whatever happened to Randolph Blair? A comedian had used the line on television not two weeks before, bringing down the house. Randolph Blair, the ever-popular Randolph Blair. A nothing now, a nobody, a joke for a television comic. A forgotten name, a forgotten face. But Atkins would remember. For eternity he would remember Randolph Blair’s name and the face and terrible power.

“Don’t...” he started, and then stopped abruptly.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t... don’t push me too far, Mr. Atkins.”

“Push you, Nick?” Atkins asked innocently.

“Stop that ‘Nick’ business!”

“Excuse me, Mr. Blair,” Atkins said. “Excuse me. I forgot who I was talking to. I thought I was talking to an old drunk who’d managed to land himself a temporary job...”

“Stop it!”

“... for a few weeks. I forgot I was talking to Randolph Blair, the Randolph Blair, the biggest lush in...”

“I’m not a drunk!” he shouted.

“You’re a drunk, all right,” Atkins said. “Don’t tell me about drunks. My father was one. A falling-down drunk. A screaming, hysterical drunk. I grew up with it, Nick. I watched the old man fight his imaginary monsters, killing my mother inch by inch. So don’t tell me about drunks. Even if the newspapers hadn’t announced your drunkenness to the world. I’d have spotted you as being a lush.”

“Why’d you hire me?” he asked.

“There was a job to be filled, and I thought you could fill it.”

“You hired me so you could needle me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Atkins said.

“You made a mistake. You’re needling the wrong person.”

“Am I?” Atkins asked blandly. “Are you one of these tough drunks? Aggressive? My father was a tough drunk in the beginning. He could lick any man in the house. The only thing he couldn’t lick was the bottle. When things began crawling out of the walls, he wasn’t so tough. He was a screaming, crying baby then, running to my mother’s arms. Are you a tough drunk, Nick? Are you?”

“I’m not a drunk!” he said. “I haven’t touched a drop since I got this job. You know that!”

“Why? Afraid it would hurt your performance?” Atkins laughed harshly. “That never seemed to bother you in the old days.”

“Things are different,” he said. “I want... I want to make a comeback. I... I took this job because... I wanted the feel again, the feel of working. You shouldn’t needle me. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Me? Needle you? Now, Nick, Nick, don’t be silly. I gave you the job, didn’t I? Out of all the other applicants, I chose you. So why should I needle you? That’s silly, Nick.”

“I’ve done a good job,” he said, hoping Atkins would say the right thing, the right word, wanting him to say the words that would crush the hatred. “You know I’ve done a good job.”

“Have you?” Atkins asked. “I think you’ve done a lousy job, Nick. As a matter of fact, I think you always did a lousy job. I think you were one of the worst actors who ever crossed a stage.”

And in that moment, Atkins signed his own death warrant.

All that day, as he listened to stupid requests and questions, as he sat in his chair and the countless faces pressed toward him, he thought of killing Atkins. He did his job automatically, presenting his smiling face to the public, but his mind was concerned only with the mechanics of killing Atkins.

It was something like learning a part.

Over and over again, he rehearsed each step in his mind. The store would close at five tonight. The employees would be anxious to get home to their families. This had been a trying, harrowing few weeks, and tonight it would be over, and the employees would rush into the streets and into the subways and home to waiting loved ones. A desperate wave of rushing self-pity flooded over him. Who are my loved ones? he asked silently. Who is waiting for me tonight?

Someone was talking to him. He looked down, nodding.

“Yes, yes,” he said mechanically. “And what else?”

The person kept talking. He half-listened, nodding all the while, smiling, smiling.

There had been many loved ones in the good days. Women, more women than he could count. Rich women, and young women, and jaded women, and fresh young girls. Where had he been ten years ago at this time? California? Yes, of course, the picture deal. How strange it had seemed to be in a land of sunshine at that time of the year. And he had blown the picture. He had not wanted to, he had not wanted to at all. But he’d been hopelessly drunk for... how many days? And you can’t shoot a picture when the star doesn’t come to the set.

The star.

Randolph Blair.

Tonight, he would be a star again. Tonight, he would accomplish the murder of Atkins with style and grace. When they closed the doors of the store, when the shoppers left, when the endless questions, the endless requests stopped, he would go to Atkins’ office. He would not even change his clothes. He would go straight to Atkins’ office and he would collect his pay envelope and he would shoot him. He would run into the streets then. In the streets, he would be safe. In the streets, Randolph Blair — the man whose face was once known to millions — would be anonymously safe. The concept was ironical. It appealed to a vestige of humor somewhere deep within him. Randolph Blair would tonight play the most important role of his career, and he would play it anonymously.

Smiling, chuckling, he listened to the requests.

The crowd began thinning out at about four-thirty. He was exhausted by that time. The only thing that kept him going was the knowledge that he would soon kill Mr. Atkins.

At four forty-five, he answered his last request. Sitting alone then, a corpulent unsmiling man, he watched the clock on the wall. Four fifty. Four fifty-two. Four fifty-seven. Four fifty-nine.

He got off the chair and waddled to the elevator banks. The other employees were tallying the cash register receipts, anxious to get out of the store. He buzzed for the elevator and waited.

The door slid open. The elevator operator smiled automatically.

“All over, huh?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s all over,” Blair said.

“Going to pick up your envelope? Cashier’s office?”

“Mr. Atkins pays me personally,” he said.

“Yeah? How come?”

“He wanted it that way,” he answered.

“Maybe he’s hoping you’ll be good to him, huh?” the operator said, and he burst out laughing.

He did not laugh with the operator. He knew very well why Atkins paid him personally. He did it so that he would have the pleasure each week of handing Randolph Blair — a man who had once earned $5,000 in a single week — a pay envelope containing forty-nine dollars and thirty-two cents.

“Ground floor then?” the operator asked.

“Yes. Ground floor.”

When the elevator stopped, he got out of it quickly. He walked directly — to Atkins’ office. The secretary-receptionist was already gone. He smiled grimly, went to Atkins’ door, and knocked on it.

“Who is it?” Atkins asked.

“Me,” he said. “Blair.”

“Oh, Nick. Come in, come in,” Atkins said.

He opened the door and entered the office.

“Come for your pay?” Atkins asked.

“Yes.”

He wanted to pull the Luger now and begin firing. He waited. Tensely, he waited.

“Little drink, first, Nick?” Atkins asked.

“No,” he said.

“Come on, come on. Little drink never hurt anybody.”

“I don’t drink,” he said.

“My father used to say that.”

“I’m not your father.”

“I know,” Atkins said. “Come on, have a drink. It won’t hurt you. Your job’s over now. Your performance is over.” He underlined the word smirkingly. “You can have a drink. Everyone’ll be taking a little drink tonight.”

“No.”

“Why not? I’m trying to be friendly. I’m trying to...”

Atkins stopped. His eyes widened slightly. The Luger had come out from beneath Blair’s coat with considerable ease. He stared at the gun.

“Wh... what’s that?” he said.

“It’s a gun,” Blair answered coldly. “Give me my pay.”

Atkins opened the drawer quickly. “Certainly. Certainly. You didn’t think I was... was going to cheat you, did you? You...”

“Give me my pay.”

Atkins put the envelope on the desk. Blair picked it up.

“And here’s yours,” he said, and he fired three times, watching Atkins collapse on the desk.

The enormity of the act rattled him. The door. The door. He had to get to it. The wastepaper basket tripped him up, sent him lunging forward, but his flailing arms gave him a measure of balance and kept him from going down.

He checked his flight before he had gone very far into the store. Poise, he told himself. Control. Remember you’re Randolph Blair.

The counters were already protectively concealed by dust-sheets.

They reminded him of a body, covered, dead. Atkins.

Though he bolted again, he had enough presence of mind this time to duck into a rest room.

He was unaware of how long he had remained there, but when he emerged it was evident he had completely collected himself. His walk suggested the regal, or the confident calm of an actor sure of his part. And as he walked, he upbraided himself for having behaved like a juvenile suddenly overwhelmed by stage fright.

Randolph Blair pushed through the revolving doors. There was a sharp bite to the air, the promise of snow. He took a deep breath, calmly surveyed the people hurrying along, their arms loaded with packages.

And suddenly he heard laughter, a child’s thin, piercing laugh. It cut into him like a knife. He turned and saw the laughing boy, tethered by one hand to the woman beside him, the boy’s pale face, his arm and forefinger pointing upwards, pointing derisively.

More laughter arose. The laughter of men, of women. A festive carousel, in the show window to one side of him, started up. Its music blared. It joined in the laughter, underscoring, counterpointing the laughter.

Blair felt caught in a punishing whirlpool. There seemed no way he could stop the sound, movement, everything that conspired to batter him.

Then the sight of policemen coming out of the store was completely unnerving. They appeared to be advancing toward him. And as he pulled the Luger on them, and even as he was overpowered and disarmed, a part of his mind felt that this was all unreal, all part of the dramatic role which he was playing.

But it was not a proper part for one wearing the red coat and trousers, the black belt and boots of a department store Santa Claus, the same clothes three thousand other men in the city were wearing. To blend into their anonymity, he lacked only a white beard, and he had lost his in the frantic exit he had made from Atkins’ office.

And of course to a child — and even to some adults — a Santa Claus minus a beard might be a laughing matter.