The Old Die Rich Read online

  Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Robert Cicconetti, and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from the March 1953 issue of Galaxy. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  THE OLD DIE RICH

  By H. L. GOLD

  Illustrated by ASHMAN

  _It is the kind of news item you read at least a dozen times a year, wonder about briefly, and then promptly forget--but the real story is the one that the reporters are unable to cover!_

  * * * * *

  "You again, Weldon," the Medical Examiner said wearily.

  I nodded pleasantly and looked around the shabby room with a feelingof hopeful eagerness. Maybe _this_ time, I thought, I'd get theanswer. I had the same sensation I always had in these places--thequavery senile despair at being closed in a room with the single shakychair, tottering bureau, dim bulb hanging from the ceiling, theflaking metal bed.

  There was a woman on the bed, an old woman with white hair thin enoughto show the tight-drawn scalp, her face and body so emaciated that theflesh between the bones formed parchment pockets. The M.E. was goingover her as if she were a side of beef that he had to put a federalgrade stamp on, grumbling meanwhile about me and Sergeant Lou Pape,who had brought me here.

  "When are you going to stop taking Weldon around to these cases,Sergeant?" the M.E. demanded in annoyance. "Damned actor and hismorbid curiosity!"

  For the first time, Lou was stung into defending me. "Mr. Weldon is afriend of mine--I used to be an actor, too, before I joined theforce--and he's a follower of Stanislavsky."

  The beat cop who'd reported the D.O.A. whipped around at the door. "ARed?"

  * * * * *

  I let Lou Pape explain what the Stanislavsky method of acting was,while I sat down on the one chair and tried to apply it. Stanislavskywas the great pre-Revolution Russian stage director whose idea wasthat actors had to think and feel like the characters they portrayedso they could _be_ them. A Stanislavskian works out everything about acharacter right up to the point where a play starts--where he wasborn, when, his relationship with his parents, education, childhood,adolescence, maturity, attitudes toward men, women, sex, money,success, including incidents. The play itself is just an extension ofthe life history created by the actor.

  How does that tie in with the old woman who had died? Well, I'd hadthe cockeyed kind of luck to go bald at 25 and I'd been playing oldmen ever since. I had them down pretty well--it's not just a matter ofshuffling around all hunched over and talking in a high cracked voice,which is cornball acting, but learning what old people are likeinside--and these cases I talked Lou Pape into taking me on werestudies in senility. I wanted to understand them, know what made themdo what they did, _feel_ the compulsion that drove them to it.

  The old woman on the bed, for instance, had $32,000 in five bankaccounts ... and she'd died of starvation.

  You've come across such cases in the news, at least a dozen a year,and wondered who they were and why they did it. But you read theitems, thought about them for a little while, and then forgot them. Myinterest was professional; I made my living playing old people and Ihad to know as much about them as I could.

  That's how it started off, at any rate. But the more cases Iinvestigated, the less sense they made to me, until finally they werepractically an obsession.

  Look, they almost always have around $30,000 pinned to theirunderwear, hidden in mattresses, or parked in the bank, yet theystarve themselves to death. If I could understand them, I could writea play or have one written; I might really make a name for myself,even get a Hollywood contract, maybe, if I could act them as theyshould be acted.

  So I sat there in the lone chair, trying to reconstruct the characterof the old woman who had died rather than spend a single cent of her$32,000 for food.

  * * * * *

  "Malnutrition induced by senile psychosis," the M.E. said, writing outthe death certificate. He turned to me. "There's no mystery to it,Weldon. They starve because they're less afraid of death than digginginto their savings."

  I'd been imagining myself growing weak from hunger and trying todecide that I ought to eat even if it cost me something. I came out ofit and said, "That's what you keep telling me."

  "I keep hoping it'll convince you so you won't come around any more.What are the chances, Weldon?"

  "Depends. I will when I'm sure you're right. I'm not."

  He shrugged disgustedly, ordered the wicker basket from the meat wagonand had the old woman carried out. He and the beat cop left with thebasket team. He could at least have said good-by. He never did,though.

  A fat lot I cared about his attitude or dogmatic medical opinion.Getting inside this character was more important. The setting shouldhave helped; it was depressing, rank with the feel of solitarydesperation and needless death.

  Lou Pape stood looking out the one dirty window, waiting patiently forme. I let my joints stiffen as if they were thirty years older andmore worn out than they were, and empathized myself into a dilemmabetween getting still weaker from hunger and drawing a little moneyout of the bank.

  I worked at it for half an hour or so with the deep concentration youacquire when you use the Stanislavsky method. Then I gave up.

  "The M.E. is wrong, Lou," I said. "It doesn't feel right."

  Lou turned around from the window. He'd stood there all that timewithout once coughing or scratching or doing anything else that mighthave distracted me. "He knows his business, Mark."

  "But he doesn't know old people."

  "What is it you don't get?" he prompted, helping me dig my way througha characterization like the trained Stanislavskian he was--and stillwould have been if he hadn't gotten so sick of the insecurity ofacting that he'd become a cop. "Can't money be more important to apsychotic than eating?"

  "Sure," I agreed. "Up to a point. Undereating, yes. Actual starvation,no."

  "Why not?"

  "You and the M.E. think it's easy to starve to death. It isn't. Notwhen you can buy day-old bread at the bakeries, soup bones for about anickel a pound, wilted vegetables that groceries are glad to get ridof. Anybody who's willing to eat that stuff can stay alive on nearlynothing a day. Nearly nothing, Lou, and hunger is a damned potentinstinct. I can understand hating to spend even those few cents. Ican't see going without food altogether."

  * * * * *

  He took out a cigarette; he hadn't until then because he didn't wantto interrupt my concentration. "Maybe they get too weak to go outafter old bread and meat bones and wilted vegetables."

  "It still doesn't figure." I got up off the shaky chair, my joints nowreally stiff from sitting in it. "Do you know how long it takes to dieof starvation?"

  "That depends on age, health, amount of activity--"

  "Nuts!" I said. "It would take weeks!"

  "So it takes weeks. Where's the problem--if there is one?"

  I lit the pipe I'd learned to smoke instead of cigarettes--old menseem to use pipes more than anything else, though maybe it'll bedifferent in the next generation. More cigarette smokers now, you see,and they'd stick to the habit unless the doctor ordered them to cut itout.

  "Did you ever try starving for weeks, Lou?" I asked.

  "No. Did you?"

  "In a way. All these cases you've been taking me on for the lastcouple of years--I've tried to be them. But let's say it's possible todie of starvation when you have thousands of dollars put away. Let'ssay yo
u don't think of scrounging off food stores or working out a wayof freeloading or hitting soup lines. Let's say you stay in your roomand slowly starve to death."

  He slowly picked a fleck of tobacco off his lip and flicked it away,his sharp black eyes poking holes in the situation I'd built up forhim. But he wasn't ready to say anything yet.

  "There's charity," I went on, "relief--except for those who have theirdough in banks, where it can be checked on--old age pension,panhandling, cadging off neighbors."

  He said, "We know these cases are hermits. They don't make contactwith anybody."

  "Even when they're starting to get real hungry?"

  "You've got something, Mark, but that's the wrong tack," he saidthoughtfully. "The point is that _they_ don't have to make contact;other people know them or about them. Somebody would check after a fewdays or a week--the janitor, the landlord, someone in the house or theneighborhood."

  "So they'd be found before they died."

  "You'd think so, wouldn't you?" he agreed reluctantly. "They don'tgenerally have friends, and the relatives are usually so distant, theyhardly know these old people and whether they're alive or not. Maybethat's what threw us off. But you don't need friends and relatives tostart wondering, and investigate when you haven't shown up for awhile." He lifted his head and looked at me. "What does that prove,Mark?"

  "That there's something wrong with these cases. I want to find outwhat."

  * * * * *

  I got Lou to take me down to Headquarters, where he let me see thebankbooks the old woman had left.

  "She took damned good care of them," I said. "They look almost new."

  "Wouldn't you take damned good care of the most important thing inthe world to you?" he asked. "You've seen the hoards of money theothers leave. Same thing."

  I peered closely at the earliest entry, April 23, 1907, $150. My eyesaren't that bad; I was peering at the ink. It was dark, unfaded. Ipointed it out to Lou.

  "From not being exposed to daylight much," he said. "They don't haulout the bankbooks or money very often, I guess."

  "And that adds up for you? I can see them being psychotics all theirlives ... but not _senile_ psychotics."

  "They hoarded, Mark. That adds up for me."

  "Funny," I said, watching him maneuver his cigarette as if he lovedthe feel of it, drawing the smoke down and letting it out in plumes ofdifferent shapes, from rings to slender streams. What a living hecould make doing cigarette commercials on TV! "I can see _you_ turninto one of these cases, Lou."

  He looked startled for a second, but then crushed out the buttcarefully so he could watch it instead of me. "Yeah? How so?"

  "You've been too scared by poverty to take a chance. You know youcould do all right acting, but you don't dare giving up this crummyjob. Carry that far enough and you try to stop spending money, thencut out eating, and finally wind up dead of starvation in a cheaproom."

  "Me? I'd never get that scared of being broke!"

  "At the age of 70 or 80?"

  "Especially then! I'd probably tear loose for a while and then buyinto a home for the aged."

  I wanted to grin, but I didn't. He'd proved my point. He'd also shownthat he was as bothered by these old people as I was.

  "Tell me, Lou. If somebody kept you from dying, would you give him anydough for it, even if you were a senile psychotic?"

  I could see him using the Stanislavsky method to feel his way to theanswer. He shook his head. "Not while I was alive. Will it, maybe, notgive it."

  "How would that be as a motive?"

  * * * * *

  He leaned against a metal filing cabinet. "No good, Mark. You knowwhat a hell of a time we have tracking down relatives to give themoney to, because these people don't leave wills. The few relatives wefind are always surprised when they get their inheritance--most ofthem hardly remember dear old who-ever-it-was that died and left it tothem. All the other estates eventually go to the State treasury,unclaimed."

  "Well, it was an idea." I opened the oldest bankbook again. "Anybodyever think of testing the ink, Lou?"

  "What for? The banks' records always check. These aren't forgeries, ifthat's what you're thinking."

  "I don't know what I'm thinking," I admitted. "But I'd like to turn achemist loose on this for a little while."

  "Look, Mark, there's a lot I'm willing to do for you, and I think I'vedone plenty, but there's a limit--"

  I let him explain why he couldn't let me borrow the book and thenwaited while he figured out how it could be done and did it. He wasstill grumbling when he helped me pick a chemist out of the telephonedirectory and went along to the lab with me.

  "But don't get any wrong notions," he said on the way. "I have toprotect State property, that's all, because I signed for it and I'mresponsible."

  "Sure, sure," I agreed, to humor him. "If you're not curious, why notjust wait outside for me?"

  He gave me one of those white-tooth grins that he had no right todeprive women audiences of. "I could do that, but I'd rather see youmake a sap of yourself."

  I turned the bankbook over to the chemist and we waited for thereport. When it came, it had to be translated.

  * * * * *

  The ink was typical of those used 50 years ago. Lou Pape gave me a jabin the ribs at that. But then the chemist said that, according to theamount of oxidation, it seemed fresh enough to be only a few months oryears old, and it was Lou's turn to get jabbed. Lou pushed him aboutthe aging, asking if it couldn't be the result of unusually good care.The chemist couldn't say--that depended on the kind of care; anairtight compartment, perhaps, filled with one of the inert gases, ora vacuum. They hadn't been kept that way, of course, so Lou looked asbaffled as I felt.

  He took the bankbook and we went out to the street.

  "See what I mean?" I asked quietly, not wanting to rub it in.

  "I see something, but I don't know what. Do you?"

  "I wish I could say yes. It doesn't make any more sense than anythingelse about these cases."

  "What do you do next?"

  "Damned if I know. There are thousands of old people in the city. Onlya few of them take this way out. I have to try to find them beforethey do."

  "If they're loaded, they won't say so, Mark, and there's no way oftelling them from those who are down and out."

  I rubbed my pipe disgruntledly against the side of my nose to oil it."Ain't this a beaut of a problem? I wish I liked problems. I hatethem."

  Lou had to get back on duty. I had nowhere to go and nothing to doexcept worry my way through this tangle. He headed back toHeadquarters and I went over to the park and sat in the sun, warmingmyself and trying to think like a senile psychotic who would ratherdie of starvation than spend a few cents for food.

  I didn't get anywhere, naturally. There are too many ways of beatingstarvation, too many chances of being found before it's too late.

  And the fresh ink, over half a century old....

  * * * * *

  I took to hanging around banks, hoping I'd see someone come in with anold bankbook that had fresh ink from 50 years before. Lou was somehelp there--he convinced the guards and tellers that I wasn't anold-looking guy casing the place for a gang, and even got the tellersto watch out for particularly dark ink in ancient bankbooks.

  I stuck at it for a month, although there were a few stage calls thatdidn't turn out right, and one radio and two TV parts, which did andkept me going. I was almost glad the stage parts hadn't been given tome; they'd have interrupted my outside work.

  After a month without a thing turning up at the banks, though, I wentback to my two rooms in the theatrical hotel one night, tired anddiscouraged, and I found Lou there. I expected him to give me anothertalk on dropping the whole thing; he'd been doing that for a couple ofweeks now, every time we got together. I felt too low to put up anargument. But Lou was holding back his excitement--acting like a cop,
you know, instead of projecting his feelings--and he couldn't haul meout to his car as fast as he probably wanted me to go.

  "Been trying to get in touch with you all day, Mark. Some old guy wasfound wandering around, dazed and suffering from malnutrition, with$17,000 in cash inside the lining of his jacket."

  "_Alive?_" I asked, shocked right into eagerness again.

  "Just barely. They're trying intravenous feeding to pull him through.I don't think he'll make it."

  "For God's sake, let's get there before he conks out!"

  Lou raced me to the City Hospital and up to the ward. There was ascrawny old man in a bed, nothing but a papery skin stretched thinover a face like a skull and a body like a Halloween skeleton,shivering as if he was cold. I knew it wasn't the cold. The medicswere injecting a heart stimulant into him and he was vibrating like arattletrap car racing over a gravel road.

  "Who are you?" I practically yelled, grabbing his skinny arm. "Whathappened to you?"

  He went on shaking with his eyes closed and his mouth open.

  "Ah, hell!" I said, disgusted. "He's