Collected fiction, p.422
Collected Fiction, page 422
Joe and Myra looked at one another again, speechless. Myra sighed and pushed the covers back. “I’ll go this time,” she said. “Something new, eh? I—”
“Don’t dawdle,” said the wordless voice, and Myra jumped and gave a little shriek. Electricity crackled audibly through the room, and Alexander’s bawling laughter was heard through the doorway.
“He’s about as civilized now as a well-trained monkey, I suppose,” Joe remarked, getting out of bed. “I’ll go. You crawl back in. And in another year he may reach the elevation of a bushman. After that, if we’re still alive, we’ll have the pleasure of living with a super-powered cannibal. Eventually he may work up to the level of practical joker. That ought to be interesting.” He went out, muttering to himself.
Ten minutes later, returning to bed, Joe found Myra clasping her knees and looking into space.
“We aren’t the first, Joe,” she said, not glancing at him. “I’ve been thinking. I’m pretty sure we aren’t.”
“But we’ve never heard of any supermen developing—”
She turned her head and gave him a long, thoughtful look. “No,” she said.
They were silent. Then, “Yes, I see what you mean,” he nodded.
Something crashed in the living room. Alexander chuckled and the sound of splintering wood was loud in the silence of the night. Another window banged somewhere outside.
“There’s a breaking point,” Myra said in a quiet voice. “There’s got to be.”
“Saturation,” Joe murmured. “Tolerance saturation—or something. It could have happened.”
Alexander trundled into sight, clutching something blue. He “Sat down and began to fiddle with bright wires. Myra rose suddenly.
“Joe, he’s got that blue egg! He must have broken into the cupboard.”
Calderon said, “But Quat told him—”
“It’s dangerous!”
Alexander looked at them, grinned, and bent the wires into a rradle-shape the size of the egg.
Calderon found himself out of bed and halfway to the door. He stopped before he reached it. “You know,” he said slowly, “he might hurt himself with that thing.”
“We’ll have to get it away from him,” Myra agreed, heaving herself up with tired reluctance.
“Look at him,” Calderon urged. “Just look.”
Alexander was dealing competently with the wires, his hands flickering into sight and out again as he balanced a tesseract beneath the cradle. That curious veil of knowledge gave his chubby face the debased look of senility which they had come to know so well.
“This will go on and on, you know,” Calderon murmured. “Tomorrow he’ll look a little less like himself than today. Next week—next month—what will he be like in a year?”
“I know.” Myra’s voice was an echo. “Still. I suppose we’ll have to—” Her voice trailed to a halt. She stood barefoot beside her husband, watching.
“I suppose the gadget will be finished,” she said, “once he connects up that last wire. We ought to take it away from him.”
“Think we could?”
“We ought to try.”
They looked at each other. Calderon said, “It looks like an Easter egg. I never heard of an Easter egg hurting anybody.”
“I suppose we’re doing him a favor, really,” Myra said in a low voice. “A burnt child dreads the fire. Once a kid burns himself on a match, he stays away from matches.”
They stood in silence, watching.
It took Alexander about three more minutes to succeed in his design, whatever it was. The results were phenomenally effective. There was a flash of white light, a crackle of split air, and Alexander vanished in the dazzle, leaving only a faint burnt smell behind him.
When the two could see again, they blinked distrustfully at the empty place. “Teleportation?” Myra whispered dazedly.
“I’ll make sure.” Calderon crossed the floor and stood looking down at a damp spot on the carpet, with Alexander’s shoes in it. He said, “No. Not teleportation.” Then he took a long breath. “He’s gone, all right. So he never grew up and sent Bordent back in time to move in on us. It never happened.”
“We weren’t the first,” Myra said in an unsteady, bemused voice. “There’s a breaking point, that’s all. How sorry I feel for the first parents who don’t reach it!”
She turned away suddenly, but not so suddenly that he could not see she was crying. He hesitated, watching the door. He thought he had better not follow her just yet.
THE END.
1945
DEATH WEARS A MASK
An F.B.I. Man Tries Some Sleuthing Tricks when Sudden Murder Stalks the Magic Window!
CHAPTER I
NOT STAGED
BEN HATCH, Special Agent for the Los Angeles Division of the F.B.I., walked right into murder that night at the Magic Window. The Window was a nightclub, where the lights were dim so you couldn’t add the figures on your check. It had other attractions—notably a large glass panel at the end of the long room, set up above floor level so you could get a good look. The waitresses stripped and posed behind it at intervals.
The real trouble started about ten minutes before Hatch arrived. Rudy Lannigan, an F.B.I. agent, was sitting in a booth, his hard, lean face impassive. It was difficult to see far in the dim green lighting. But near the bar, a stocky bald man in evening clothes was watching Lannigan with keen interest.
The ordinary crowd filled the Window. People out for fun. Young fellows, brooding over Life. Older men who had come to drink. Lovers, finding a rendezvous in the dim lighting. A man with a beard who looked like Orson Welles.
A gang of chorus-boy savages were cavorting around in the soft green glow in the center of the floor, doing a samba. They wore fuzzy black overall suits like bear pelts, and had grotesquely painted plastic masks over their faces. They jumped about like puppets and howled above the din of the orchestra.
A waitress came over to Lannigan’s table. She was a slim, luscious blonde, looking as though she had been carefully poured into her black evening gown.
She caught her breath at sight of the man. Lannigan put out his hand to stop her as the girl tried to pass by him.
“Martini, Janna,” he said softly. “Bring it yourself. Everything okay?”
There was sudden fear in her blue eyes. “Get out of here,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t have phoned you.”
Lannigan looked at her impassively. “What made you change your mind in the middle of the call? You were going to tell me something. Then all of a sudden you started talking about something else. Who was listening in?”
Janna’s red lips twisted. “I told you to forget it!”
“It took me only ten minutes to get here,” the agent said. “I came right away. I figured I’d better. What have you got to tell me?”
“Nothing. I—I was wrong.”
“There’s a guy named Hatch meeting me here any minute,” Lannigan said icily. “He’s in the Narcotics Division. I phoned him to come along, just on a hunch.”
“Narcotics Division,” Janna repeated almost inaudibly. “I didn’t say—”
“You didn’t have to. I was in here two nights ago. Who gave you that snow?”
“I—it wasn’t. It wasn’t!”
“Sniffing dope, for the thrill of it!” Lannigan said disgustedly. “It’s up Hatch’s alley, so you’ll have to talk to him.” The agent’s face softened a little. “Better break down and tell me about it, kid. You’re not so tough as you think.”
Janna shook her head angrily. “Just leave me alone!” she snapped, but there was a note of hysteria in her low voice. “I can take care of myself. I always have. You can’t prove I phoned you!”
WITH that feeble spark of defiance she turned, vanishing into the dimness. At the end of the bar she waited for the order to be filled. The stocky man in evening clothes watched her with hooded eyes, filled with a cold, deadly fury and a curious sort of questioning. Janna apparently did not notice. With the Martini on a tray, she started back toward her customer.
One of the grotesque masked dancers lurched against her. The glass on its tray tilted precariously.
“Look out, stupid!” Janna snapped, though quietly.
The dancer, still keeping time with his feet, reached out to steady the glass. In the faint green glow no one saw a trickle of powder sift down from the man’s palm into the Martini. He whirled away and was gone.
Janna went back to the table. Lannigan scowled at her.
“Sit down here,” he said.
“No. I’m not supposed to sit with the customers. Keenan doesn’t let us.”
“Then he’s changed his policy,” Lannigan said. He gulped the Martini. “How’d you know I was a Government agent?”
“I—I—”
“Keenan told you, didn’t he? What’s he worried about? I come in here for a drink on my way home. That’s all. So what did you need a Government agent for, eh?” The interrogative snapped like a whip-lash.
The masked dancers had finished their turn and disappeared toward the back. Keenan signaled the bartender, who placed a bottle and a glass before the Magic Window’s owner.
“Something up?” the bartender asked, sotto voce.
Keenan didn’t answer. He lit a cigar and turned to watch the Government man reflectively. Janna was shaking her head again. A fain gleam of satisfaction showed in the curve of Keenan’s mouth.
Lannigan half rose, but the girl eluded him.
“It’s time for my turn,” she said defiantly. “Unless you want to arrest me!” But there was an undernote of nervousness in her bravado.
She went toward the back, with a quick glance at Keenan, who apparently didn’t notice. Lannigan grunted and looked around. He wondered what was keeping Hatch. If this turned out to be a narcotic case, Hatch would be helpful. But maybe it wasn’t. Except that two nights ago Janna certainly had been playing around with the stuff. Crazy little fool!
The blackout curtains hid the windows, so Lannigan could not see Ben Hatch’s approach. The door swung open, and a short, wiry man of about thirty, with stiff red hair and vivid blue eyes, walked into the Magic Window. He discovered Lannigan instantly, and moved forward, sliding into the booth opposite the G-man.
“ ’Lo, Lanny,” he said. “I got your message. What’s up?”
Lannigan didn’t answer. He shivered, his hard, aquiline face without expression. Suddenly the lights went out.
“What the devil!” Hatch said, and looked toward the back, where a large square panel was lighting up.
It was the peep-show. A silhouette became visible through the glass. Two silhouettes.
One was that of a girl. She whirled to face the other, a figure hunched low, oddly blurred at the edges. The shadow of a long knife was lifted and plunged hilt-deep into the girl’s chest. Her attacker jumped back and vanished from view.
The screen became transparent. The girl became clearly visible—a blonde, with a few scraps of chiffon tacked on to her here and there. They didn’t conceal much. They didn’t conceal the knife sticking out of her chest, or the blood crawling down the white skin of her body.
“That isn’t staged,” Hatch said tonelessly. “Come on!”
He exploded out of his seat and dived toward the back of the room. He could still see the girl standing behind the peep-show window, her body rigid, tense, arching with agony. Then she fell. Vanished. A spatter of applauding palms sounded.
Hatch went through a door marked “no admittance,” and found himself in a fairsized room, cluttered with theatrical odds and ends. A man was lying crumpled beneath a switchboard panel—a slim chap in overalls. On Hatch’s right a flight of steps led up to a platform with curtains all around it.
HATCH leaped to the stairs and yanked at the curtains. They slid aside. Something smashed down at his head.
He had a glimpse of the blonde’s nearly nude body lying on the floor of the platform, a grotesque masked figure looming before him, and then a gun-butt crashed stunningly against his temple. He was falling. The attacker leaped away.
But Hatch had seen his assailant in time to detect the blow’s full force. He fell heavily, painfully, on the steps, a jutting edge digging into his ribs. Fighting to retain consciousness, he saw the masked man yank open a door near the switchboard and vanish, slamming it behind him.
The room went dark. No—the lights were still on. But Hatch couldn’t focus his vision. He tried to move limbs that were suddenly heavier than lead.
Where was Lannigan?
Hatch staggered to his feet. He lurched to the door, opened it, and saw a lighted hall, empty. Behind him voices rose in a crescendo, but Hatch did not turn. He saw an open window at the end of the passage. Had the killer made his escape that way?
Low voices came to him through a door at his side. Hatch slid down—he could hardly stand up, anyway, with his head throbbing in agony—and looked through the keyhole. What he saw made him jerk erect and try the knob. The door didn’t open.
The voices beyond it ceased.
Hatch wasted no time. A light automatic came from inside his coat, and he shot out the lock, kicking the door open at the same time.
He lurched across the threshold into a well-furnished office, with a huge mahogany desk taking up half the wall space. Directly across from him was an open window. Through it came the sound of a car’s retreating motor.
There were two men facing Hatch. Both wore the furry overall suits and plastic masks of the chorus boys. They dived at the special agent as he came through the doorway. One of them threw something—a paper-weight—that numbed Hatch’s hand and sent the automatic spinning from his grasp. He was still almost out on his feet from the blow the killer had given him.
“Where’s Lannigan?” he thought, as a heavy body crashed against his knees and brought him down.
His shoulders thudded against the door so that it swung shut. This was not the moment for speculation, though. The two masked men might be chorus boys, but they were plenty tough.
So was Ben Hatch. His short, wiry body went into action almost automatically. Hatch was still groggy, but his muscles reacted instinctively. Short, pistonlike blows hammered against yielding flesh. Hatch brought up his knees, kicking out furiously.
“Lannigan!” he yelled.
The blank, inhuman masks swayed before his eyes. His fists caromed off fuzzy fur—the overall suits. The salt, acrid odor of blood was strong in his nostrils.
It was like fighting robots—featureless, vicious, terrible. But these robots could be hurt. One of them doubled up, gasping and retching, as Hatch’s hard fist sank into his midriff. The other sprang away. As the agent tried to rise, he saw a heavy shoe driving toward his temple. He dropped flat under it, caught the man’s leg, and yanked. The breath was smashed from his lungs as his attacker fell on him.
Where was Lannigan?
Hatch felt his head being batted against the floor. In a minute it would explode. Gasping, almost out, he had sense enough to go limp. For an instant his assailant was tricked into relaxing his grip.
That was enough. Hatch’s fist shot up, cracking against the man’s jaw. It was not a hard enough blow to stun, but it gave Hatch a chance to roll free and slide head-first after the gun that had been knocked from his hand. He got it. The cool metal was comforting against his sweating palm.
He whirled, centering the automatic’s muzzle between the two masked figures. Both were moving toward him.
“Hold it!” Hatch said.
He dragged himself up, his back against the wall, trip-hammers pounding inside his skull. The gun was fearfully heavy. He could scarcely hold it. But if he lost consciousness now it would be all up with him!
CHAPTER II
SECRET PANEL
THE masked men were closing in. Neither of them spoke, but a slight, imperceptible glance passed between them. They were going to rush, Hatch knew.
He bit his lip viciously. Briefly the pain cleared his brain. His finger tightened on the trigger.
“I said, hold it!” he snapped.
“What’s going on here?” a new voice broke in.
The door, with its broken lock, stood open. Framed in the oblong was a man in evening clothes, stocky and harsh-faced, his bald head shining with sweat. He gestured at the masked men, and they drew back, to stand near the desk.
“Who’re you?” Hatch said.
“Jen Keenan. I own the Window.” Keenan stared at the automatic.
“Ben Hatch—F.B.I.,” Hatch said. “These gorillas work for you?”
Strength was coming back to the agent now. With it came fury. He brushed back his bristling mop of red hair.
Keenan nodded. “They’re not gorillas. Just what is this all about? One of my waitresses has been stabbed.”
“I know,” Hatch said. “Stabbed by a guy in a monkey-suit like these lads wear. He made his get-away through the hall outside.”
“There’s a window at the end of it,” Keenan said. “And it’s open.”
“Yeah.” Hatch’s blue eyes were narrowed speculatively. “I happened to look through the keyhole into this room, and saw a hole in the wall closing up. Secret panel stuff. Maybe the murderer didn’t go out a window. Maybe he went into the hole in the wall.”
One of the men who had attacked Hatch pulled off his mask, revealing a swarthy Sicilian face with unshaved blue jowls.
“Look, Boss,” he said. “We’re waiting in here when this guy busts down the door and comes in waving a rod. Naturally we jump him.”
“Waiting?” Hatch asked. “With the door locked? This your office, Keenan?”
The stocky man nodded. “Sure. What about it?”
“The door wasn’t locked,” the Sicilian said. “This cop musta made a mistake.”
“I didn’t make any mistake about that secret panel,” Hatch said grimly. “Open it up, Keenan. And explain why your thugs were fooling around with it.”
Keenan tried to look angry. “That the truth, Joe? You been watching through keyholes too?”
The Sicilian took the cue instantly. “Yeah. I seen you open it, so I—”
