The Jack Finney Reader

by Jack Finney

  Almost reluctantly he said, Maybe. It could be, of course. But he sure looks like the guy we're hunting for, doesn't he? And look how he's grinning! Almost as though he'd deliberately got a job in Haring's restaurant again and was back in 1885, laughing at me!

  I said, Sergeant, you're being extremely interesting, not to say downright entertaining. You've got my full attention, and I am in no hurry to go anywhere else. But I don't quite see —

  Well, you're a professor, aren't you? And professors are smart, aren't they? I'm looking for help anywhere I can get it. We've got half a dozen unsolved cases like that; people that absolutely should have been found, and found easy! William Spangler Greeson is another one; you ever heard of him?

  Sure; who hasn't in San Francisco?

  That's right; big society name. But did you know he didn't have a dime of his own?

  I shrugged. How should I know? I'd have assumed he was rich.

  His wife is; I suppose that's why he married her, though they tell me she chased him. She's older than he is, quite a lot. Disagreeable woman; I've talked to her. He's a young, handsome, likable guy, they say, but lazy; so he married her.

  I've seen him mentioned in Herb Caen's column; had something to do with the theater, didn't he?

  Stage-struck all his life; tried to be an actor and couldn't make it. When they got married, she gave him the money to back a play in New York, which kept him happy for a while; used to fly East a lot for rehearsals and out-of-town tryouts. Then he started getting friendly with some of the younger stage people, the good-looking female ones. His wife punished him like a kid. Hustled him back here, and not a dime for the theater from then on. Money for anything else, but he couldn't even buy a ticket to a play any more; he'd been a bad boy. So he disappeared with $175,000 of hers, and not a sign of him since, which just isn't natural. Because he can't — you understand, he can't — keep away from the theater. He should have shown up in New York long since with a fake name, dyed hair, a mustache, some such nonsense. We should have had him months ago, but we haven't; he's gone too. Ihren stood up. I hope you meant it when you said you weren't in a hurry, because —

  Well, as a matter of fact —

  — because I made an appointment for both of us. On Powell Street near the Embarcadero; come on. He walked out from behind his desk, picking up a large Manila envelope lying on one corner of it. There was a New York Police Department return address on the envelope, I saw, and it was addressed to him. He walked to the door without looking back, as though he knew I'd follow. Down in front of the building he said, We can take a cab; with you along I can turn in a chit for it. When I went by myself, I rode the cable car.

  On a day like this, anyone who takes a cab when he can ride the cable car is crazy enough to join the police force.

  Ihren said, O.K., tourist, and we walked all the way up to Market and Powell in silence. A cable car had just been swung around on its turntable, and we got an outside seat, no one near us; presently the car began crawling and clanging leisurely up Powell. You can sit outdoors on the cable cars, you know, and it was nice out, plenty of sun and blue sky; a typical late-summer San Francisco day. But Ihren might as well have been on the New York subway. So where is William Spangler Greeson? he said, as soon as he'd paid our fares. Well, on a hunch I wrote the New York police, and they had a man put in a few hours for me at the city historical museum. Ihren opened his Manila envelope, pulled out several folded sheets of grayish paper and handed the top one to me. I opened it; it was a Photostatic copy of an old-style playbill, narrow and long. Ever hear of that play? Ihren said, reading over my shoulder. The sheet was headed, TONIGHT & ALL WEEK! SEVEN GALA NIGHTS! Below that, in big type: MABEL'S GREENHORN UNCLE!

  Sure, who hasn't? I said. Shakespeare, isn't it? We were passing Union Square and the St. Francis Hotel.

  Save the jokes for your students and read the cast of characters.

  I read it, a long list of names; there were nearly as many people in old-time plays as in the audiences. At the bottom of the list it said, MEMBERS OF THE STREET CROWD, followed by a dozen or more names in the middle of which appeared WILLIAM SPANGLER GREESON.

  Ihren said, That play was given in 1906. Here's another from the winter of 1901. He handed me a second Photostat, pointing to another listing at the bottom of the cast. ONLOOKERS AT THE BIG RACE, this one said, and it was followed by a half inch of names in small type, the third of which was WILLIAM SPANGLER GREESON. I've got copies of two more playbills, Ihren said, one from 1902, the other from 1904, each with his name in the cast.

  The car swung off Powell, and we hopped off and continued walking north on Powell. Handing back the Photostat, I said, It's his grandfather. Probably Greeson inherited his interest in the stage from him.

  You're finding a lot of grandfathers today, aren't you, professor? Ihren was replacing the stats in their envelopes.

  And what are you finding, sergeant?

  I'll show you in a minute, he said, and we walked on in silence. We could see the bay ahead now, beyond the end of Powell Street, and it looked beautiful in the sun, but Sergeant Ihren didn't look at it. We were beside a low concrete building, and he gestured at it with his chin; a sign beside the door read, STUDIO SIXTEEN; COMMERCIAL TV. We walked in, passed through a small office in which no one was present and into an enormous concrete-floored room in which a carpenter was building a set, the front wall of a little cottage. On through that room — the sergeant had obviously been here before — then he pulled open a pair of double doors, and we walked into a tiny movie theater. There was a blank screen up front, a dozen seats and a projection booth. From the booth a man's voice called, Sergeant?

  Yeah. You ready?

  Soon as I thread up.

  O.K. Ihren motioned me to a seat and sat down beside me. Conversationally he said, There used to be a minor character around town name of Tom Veeley, a sports fan, a nut. Went to every fight, every Giant and Forty-Niners game, every auto race, roller derby, and jai-alai exhibition that came to town — and complained about them all. We knew him, because every once in a while he'd leave his wife. She hated sports, she'd nag him, he'd leave, and we'd have to pick him up on her complaint for desertion and nonsupport; he never got far away. Even when we'd nab him, all he'd talk about was how sports were dead, the public didn't care any more and neither did the players, and he wished he'd been around in the really great days of sports. Know what I mean?

  I nodded, the tiny theater went dark, and a beam of sharp white light flashed out over our heads. Then a movie appeared on the screen before us. It was black and white, square in shape, the motion somewhat more rapid and jerky than we're used to, and it was silent. There wasn't even any music, and it was eerie to watch the movement, hearing no sound but the whir of the projector. The picture was a view of Yankee Stadium taken from far back of third base, showing the stands, a man at bat, the pitcher winding up. Then it switched to a close-up, Babe Ruth at the plate, bat on shoulder, wire backstop in the background, fans behind it. He swung hard, hit the ball, and — chin rising as he followed its flight — he trotted forward. Grinning, his fists pumping rhythmically, he jogged around the bases. Type matter flashed onto the screen: THE BABE DOES IT AGAIN! it began and went on to say that this was his fifty-first home run of the 1927 season and that it looked as though Ruth would set a new record.

  The screen went blank except for some meaningless scribbled numbers and perforations flying past, and Ihren said, A Hollywood picture studio arranged this for me, no charge. Sometimes they film cops-and-crooks television up here, so they like to cooperate with us.

  Jack Dempsey suddenly appeared on the screen, sitting on a stool in a ring corner, men working over him. It was a poor picture; the ring was outdoors and there was too much sun. But it was Dempsey, all right; maybe twenty-four years old, unshaven and scowling. Around the edge of the ring, the camera panning over them now between rounds, sat men in flat-topped straw hats and stiff collars; some had handkerchiefs tucked into their collars
and others were mopping their faces. Then, in the strange silence, Dempsey sprang up and moved out into the ring, crouching very low, and began sparring with an enormous slow-moving opponent; Jess Willard, I imagined. Abruptly the picture ended, the screen illuminated with only a flickering white light. Ihren said, I looked through nearly six hours of stuff like this; everything from Red Grange to Gertrude Ederle. I pulled out three shots; here's the last one.

  On the screen the scratched flickering film showed a golfer sighting for a putt; spectators stood three and four deep around the edge of the green. The golfer smiled engagingly and began waggling his putter; he wore knickers well down below his knees, and his hair was parted in the middle and combed straight back. It was Bobby Jones, one of the world's greatest golfers, at the height of his career back in 1930. He tapped the ball; it rolled, dropped into the cup, and Jones hurried after it as the crowd broke onto the green to follow him — all except one man. Grinning, one man walked straight toward the camera, then stopped, doffed his cloth cap in a kind of salute and bowed from the waist. The camera swung past him to follow Jones, who was stooping to retrieve his ball. Then Jones moved on, the man who had bowed to us hurrying after him with the crowd, across the screen and out of sight forever. Abruptly the picture ended, and the ceiling lights came on.

  Ihren turned to face me. That was Veeley, he said, and it's no use trying to convince me it was his grandfather, so don't try. He wasn't even born when Bobby Jones was winning golf championships, but just the same that was absolutely and indisputably Tom Veeley, the sports fan who's been missing from San Francisco for six months now. He sat waiting, but I didn't reply; what could I say to that? Ihren went on, He's also sitting just back of home plate behind the screen when Ruth hit the home run, though his face is in shadow. And I think he's one of the men mopping his face at ringside during the Dempsey fight, though I'm not absolutely certain.

  The projection-booth door opened, the projectionist came out, saying, That all today, sergeant? and Ihren said, Yeah. The projectionist glanced at me, said, Hi, professor, and left.

  Ihren nodded. Yeah, he knows you, professor. He remembers you. Last week, when he ran off this stuff for me, we came to the Bobby Jones film. He remarked that he'd run that one off for someone else only a few days before. I asked who it was, and he said a professor from the university named Weygand. Professor, we must be the only two people in the world interested in that one little strip of film. So I checked on you; you were an assistant professor of physics, brilliant and with a fine reputation, but that didn't help me. You had no criminal record, not with us, anyway, but that didn't tell me anything either; most people have no criminal record, and at least half of them ought to. Then I checked with the newspapers, and the Chronicle had a clipping about you filed in their morgue. Come on — Ihren stood up — let's get out of here.

  Outside, he turned toward the bay, and we walked to the end of the street, then out onto a wooden pier. Ihren sat down on a piling, motioning me to another beside him, and pulled a newspaper clipping from his breast pocket. According to this, you gave a talk before the American-Canadian Society of Physicists in June, 1960, at the Fairmont Hotel.

  Is that a crime?

  Maybe; I didn't hear it. You spoke on ‘Some Physical Aspects of Time,’ the clipping says. But I don't claim I understood the rest.

  It was a pretty technical talk.

  I got the idea, though, that you thought it might actually be possible to send a man back to an earlier time.

  I smiled. Lots of people have thought so, including Einstein. It's a widely held theory. But that's all, inspector, just a theory.

  Then let's talk about something that's more than a theory. For over a year San Francisco has been a very good market for old-style currency; I just found that out. Every coin-and-stamp dealer in town has had new customers; odd ones who didn't give their names and who didn't care what condition the old money was in. The more worn, dirty and creased — and therefore cheaper — the better they liked it, in fact. One of these customers, about a year ago, was a man with a remarkably long, thin face. He bought bills and a few coins; any kind at all suited him — just as long as they were no later than 1885. Another customer was a young, good-looking, agreeable guy who wanted bills no later than the early 1900's. And so on. Do you know why I brought you out on this dock?

  No.

  He gestured at the long stretch of empty pier behind us. Because there's no one within a block of us, no witnesses. So tell me, professor — I can't use what you say, uncorroborated, as evidence — how the hell did you do it? I think you'd like to tell someone; it might as well be me.

  Astonishingly he was right; I did want to tell someone, very much. Quickly, before I could change my mind, I said, I use a little black box with knobs on it, brass knobs. I stopped, stared for a few seconds at a white Coast Guard cutter sliding into view from behind Angel Island, then shrugged and turned back to Ihren. But you aren't a physicist; how can I explain? All I can tell you is that it really is possible to send a man into an earlier time; far easier, in fact, than any of the theorists had supposed. I adjust the knobs, the dials, focusing the black box on the subject like a camera, as it were. Then I switch on a very faint, specialized kind of precisely directed electric current, or beam. And while my current is on — How shall I put it? He is afloat, in a manner of speaking; he is actually free of time, which moves on ahead without him. I've calculated that he is adrift, the past catching up with him at a rate of twenty-three years and eleven weeks for each second my current is on. Using a stopwatch, I can send a man back to whatever time he wishes with a plus-or-minus accuracy of three weeks. I know it works because — well, Tom Veeley is only one example. They all try to do something to show me they arrived safely, and Veeley said he'd do his best to get into the newsreel shot when Jones won the Open golf championship. I checked the newsreel last week to make sure he had.

  The sergeant nodded. All right; now, why did you do it? They're criminals, you know; and you helped them escape.

  I said, No, I didn't know they were criminals, sergeant. And they didn't tell me. They just seemed like nice people with more troubles than they could handle. And I did it because I needed what a doctor needs when he discovers a new serum — volunteers to try it! And I got them; you're not the only one who ever read that news report.

  Where'd you do it?

  Out on the beach, not far from the Cliff House. Late at night when no one was around.

  Why out there?

  There's some danger a man might appear in a time and place already occupied by something else; a stone wall or building, his molecules occupying the same space. He'd be all mixed in with the other molecules, which would be unpleasant and confining. But there've never been any buildings on the beach. Of course the beach might have been a little higher at one time than another, so I took no chances. I had each of them stand on the lifeguard tower, appropriately dressed for whatever time he planned to enter, and with the right kind of money for the period in his pocket. I'd focus carefully around him so as to exclude the tower, turn on the current for the proper time, and he'd drop onto the beach of fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty years ago.

  For a while the sergeant sat nodding, staring absently at the rough planks of the pier. Then he looked up at me again, vigorously rubbing his palms together. All right, professor, and now you're going to bring them all back! I began shaking my head, and he smiled grimly and said, Oh, yes, you are, or I'll wreck your career! I can do it, you know. I'll bring out everything I've told you, and I'll show the connections. Each of the missing people visited you; more than once. Undoubtedly some of them were seen. You may even have been seen on the beach. Time I'm through, you'll never teach again. I was still shaking my head, and he said dangerously, You mean you won't?

  I mean I can't, you idiot! How the hell can I reach them? They're back in 1885, 1906, 1927, or whatever; it's absolutely impossible to bring them back. They've escaped you, sergeant, forever.

  He act
ually turned white. No! he cried. No; they're criminals, and they've got to be punished, got to be!

  I was astounded. Why? None of them's done any great harm. And as far as we're concerned, they don't exist. Forget them.

  He actually bared his teeth. Never, he whispered, then he roared, I never forget a wanted man!

  O.K., Javert.

  Who?

  A fictional policeman in a book called Les Misérables. He spent half his life hunting down a man no one else wanted any more.

  Good man; like to have him in the department.

  He's not generally regarded too highly.

  He is by me! Sergeant Ihren began slowly pounding his fist into his palm, muttering, They've got to be punished, they've got to be punished, then looked up at me. Get out of here, he yelled, fast! and I was glad to and did. A block away I looked back, and he was still sitting there on the dock, slowly pounding his fist in his palm.

  I thought I'd seen the last of him then, but I hadn't; I saw Sergeant Ihren one more time. Late one evening about ten days later he phoned my apartment and asked me — ordered me — to come right over with my little black box, and I did, even though I'd been getting ready for bed; he simply wasn't a man you disobeyed lightly. When I walked up to the big dark Hall of Justice, he was standing in the doorway, and without a word he nodded at a car at the curb. We got in and drove in silence out to a quiet little residential district.

  The streets were empty, the houses dark; it was close to midnight. We parked just within range of a corner street light, and Ihren said, I've been doing some thinking and some research since I saw you last. He pointed to a mailbox beside the street lamp on the corner a dozen feet ahead. That's one of the three mailboxes in the city of San Francisco that has been in the same location for almost ninety years. Not that identical box, of course, but always that location. And now we're going to mail some letters. From his coat pocket, Sergeant Ihren brought out a little sheaf of envelopes, addressed in pen and ink and stamped for mailing. He showed me the top one, shoving the others into his pocket. You see who this is for?