The Lieutenant had been wrong.
The woman who made Christmas dolls did not walk to the door and admit a man at about six-forty in the morning; she didn’t go to the door at all. She died behind the chair, as she was walking toward the window to pull the drapes. Her assailant had stayed the night, had slept with her in the unfolded bed until sometime shortly before six o’clock. They got up and one of them used the toilet, one of them put away the bed. He stepped into the shower while she sat down at the table. In that interval she held her belly, and later had breakfast. An argument started—or perhaps was carried over from the night before—and when the man emerged into a now darkened kitchen he dressed and made to leave without eating.
The argument continued into the living room; the woman went to the window to admit the morning sun while the professional gunman hesitated between the coffee table and the door. He half turned, fired, and made his escape.
“There’s a little hole in the spine...“
Tabbot thought the Lieutenant was very wrong. In less than an hour he would have the prints to prove him wrong.
To save a few minutes’ time he carried the exposed magazine down to the truck and fed the film into the developing tank. It was a nuisance to bother with the keeper each time he went in and out, and he violated regulations by leaving it inert. A police cruiser went by as he climbed down from the truck but he got nothing more than a vacant nod from the man riding alongside the driver. Tabbot’s knee began to hurt as he climbed the steps to the third floor for what seemed the hundredth time that day.
The camera had completed the scene and stopped.
Tabbot made ready to leave.
He carried his equipment outside into the corridor and shot three exposures of the apartment door. The process of packing everything back into the bulky case took longer than the unpacking. The tripod stubbornly refused to telescope properly and fit into the case. And the citizens’ privacy law stubbornly refused to let him shoot the corridor: no crime there.
A final look at the unoccupied apartment: he could see through into the kitchen and his imagination could see the woman seated at the table, holding her stomach. When he craned his neck to peer around the door he could see the window limned in bright sunshine. Tabbot decided to leave the drapes open. If someone else were killed here today or tomorrow he wanted the drapes open.
He closed the apartment door and thrust his I.D. card into the keeper’s slot to activate it. There was no rewarding stir of machinery, no theatrical buzzing of high-frequency pulsing but his guts began growling when the red bullseye glowed. He went down the stairs carefully because his knee warned against a fast pace. The camera case banged his other leg.
Tabbot removed the reel of film from the developing tanks and started it through the printer. The second magazine was fed into the developer. He closed the back door of the truck, went around to the driver’s door and fished for the ignition key in his trouser pocket. It wasn’t there. He’d left the key hanging in the ignition, another violation of the law. Tabbot got up in the cab and started the motor, briefly thankful the men in the police cruiser hadn’t spotted the key—they would have given him a citation and counted him as guilty as any other citizen.
The lab truck moved out into traffic.
The printing of the two reels of nylon film was completed in the parking lot alongside the precinct house. He parked in a visitor’s slot. Not knowing who might be watching from a window, Tabbot removed the key from the ignition and pocketed it before going around to the back to finish the morning’s work.
The strip results from the first magazine were professionally insulting: dark and dismal prints he didn’t really want to show anyone. There were two fine frames of gun flash, and two others of the dim and indistinct somebody making for the door. About the only satisfaction Tabbot could find in these last two was the dark coloring: a man dressed in dark clothing, moving through a darkened room. The naked woman would have been revealed as a pale whitish figure.
Tabbot scanned the prints on the second strip with a keen and professional eye. The white tile lining the shower stall had reflected light in a most satisfying manner: he thought it one of the best jobs of backlighting he’d ever photographed. He watched the woman’s overnight visitor shower, shave, brush his teeth and comb his hair. At one point—perhaps in the middle of that heated argument—he had nicked himself on the neck just above his Adam’s apple. It had done nothing to improve the fellow’s mood.
One exposure made outside the apartment door—the very last frame—was both rewarding and disappointing: the indistinct somebody was shown leaving the scene but he was bent over, head down, looking at his own feet. Tabbot supposed the man was too shy to be photographed coming out of a woman’s room. He would be indignant when he learned that a camera had watched him in the little mirror above the wash basin. Indignant, and rather furious at this newest invasion of privacy.
Tabbot carried the prints into the precinct house. Another sergeant was on duty behind the desk, a man who recognized him by his uniform if not by face or name.
“Who do you want?”
Tabbot said: “The Lieutenant. What’s-his-name?”
The desk man jerked a thumb behind him. “In the squad room.”
Tabbot walked around the desk and found his way to the squad room at the end of the building. It was a large room with desks, and four or five men working or loafing behind the desks. Most of them seemed to be loafing. All of them looked up at the photographer.
“Over here, Sergeant. Did you finish the job?”
“Yes, sir.”
Tabbot turned and made his way to the Lieutenant’s desk. He spread out the first strip of dark prints.
“Well, you don’t seem too happy about it.”
“No, sir.”
The second strip was placed beside the first.
“They’re all dark except those down at the bottom. It was brighter in the shower stall. That’s you in the shower, Lieutenant. The backlighting gave me the only decent prints in the lot.”
The End
************************
An Interview With Wilson Tucker,
by Darrell Schweitzer
Amazing May 1980
{NOTE: This interview was recorded at the 1978 Disclave in Washington, D.C.}
Born November 23, 1914. Also known as Bob Tucker, author of detective stories, he wrote in the 1930s for amateur science fiction fan magazines, using pseudonym of “Hoy Ping Pong”. Founder of Society for the Prevention of Wire Staples in Scientifiction Magazines. His own fan publications included D’Journal, Le Zombie, The Neo-Fan’s Guide and an annual, Fanzine Yearbook. His first book was a detective novel, The Chinese Doll. Began selling short stories to science fiction magazines in 1941. Some of his better-known science fiction novels are: City in the Sea (1951), The Long, Loud Silence (1952), Time Bomb (1955), The Time Masters (1953), The Lincoln Hunters (1957), and Science Fiction Sub-Treasury (1954), a collection of science fiction short stories.
Most critics have rated his work highly. His habit of using characters named after science fiction fan personalities attracted some attention. Some readers have expressed enjoyment of his humor.
He was married in 1953, and now lives near Bloomington, Ill. His chief occupation seems to be movie projectionist.
****
Amazing: This may begin with some pretense of seriousness, but I trust you'll be able to fix that.
Tucker: Okay.
Amazing: What attracted you to science fiction originally, and when?
Tucker: Sometime in 1930—I don’t remember the date—I was an apprentice stagehand in a theater, and part of my job was to clean up the dressing rooms after the actors left. At some date unknown to me now, in 1930, some actor left behind a copy of Weird Tales, which I glommed onto. This was my first introduction to that crazy Buck Rogers stuff. After reading that I went to the newsstands and found other things. I think my first purchased magazine was Gernsback’s Wonder Stories. Ma
ybe late 1930, possibly 1931. Well, one thing led to another and I went from Wonder to Astounding to Amazing and all that. But it was really in the theater, because an actor had left behind a copy of Weird Tales—that was how I got into it.
Amazing: How did you find fandom after that?
Tucker: The letter column in Astounding Stories. I had read the letters in Amazing and Wonder, but in Astounding the letters from other fans seemed more lively, more interesting, and by and by I was also writing letters in to the editor. He never printed them, but I was listed in the We Also Heard From column. One issue they printed, “We have also heard from Bob Tucker.” That was my introduction into fandom, and there was a fellow who did have a letter printed named Ted Lutwin somewhere in Jersey City, and he invited correspondence—penpals—and I wrote to him, and he wrote back, which was the beginning of a correspondence friendship that lasted about 20 years. One thing led to another. He told me about fanzines. He told me about all the good times they had in New York City when they went to meet one another, which eventually, years later, led to conventions. I fell into fandom because of Ted Lutwin.
Amazing: Now, about your other activities of this period, the true story of the Great Staple War please.
Tucker: Aha! I was casting about. I was just as foolish and as loudmouthed then as I am now, and I didn’t believe in being serious. I took everything in a funny manner, tongue-in-cheek, if you will, and it struck me that in the 1930’s, when we were in the middle of a depression, you will remember, and everything was hard to come by—prices were low; salaries were low—what a tremendous amount of money could be saved if somehow magazines were bound without staples. We could save metal. And I also saw a chance to have a good time, to make a big joke of it. Suppose magazines came out bound with chewing gum, or glue, or lifesavers. Anything sticky in place of staples, and we could save all the metal for staples. So I launched a crusade for magazines to be published without staples. That led to my club, and I no longer remember the name of it. It was something like The Society For The Prevention of Wire Staples In Science Fiction Magazines. [Donald A.] Wollheim, who also appreciates a good joke when he sees it, immediately joined battle with the opposition, the Society To Save Wire Staples, etc. We carried on this phony war in the letter-columns of the magazines, and in fanzines, and I took the position I wanted the wire staples yanked out; he took the position he wanted them saved. And it went on for two or three years before it died of its own weight.
Amazing: Where did Hoy Ping Pong get involved?
Tucker: Ah. Hoy Ping Pong, born in 1934. I wrote—forgive me for boasting—the first convention report ever in fandom. And the convention never happened. It was an imaginary report of an imaginary convention that took place on a spaceship, ever so many years into the future, and we fans chartered a spaceship and took off into space for our week-long convention. So I did a convention report, quite a bit like the convention reports of today. The details never change. And casting about for a pen-name to put on this—frankly I don’t know why I didn’t put Bob Tucker as the byline on this. Are you familiar with ping pong, the juices, and ping pong the game?
Amazing: The game.
Tucker: I picked it up from the ping pong ball game and put Hoy in front of it. It was just one of those idiotic things that pop into your mind— Oh good! I’ll be a Chinaman; call myself Hoy Ping Pong. The thing was published in a 1934 Wonder Stories, and that’s where he began.
Amazing: How did you move from fandom to writing professionally?
Tucker: I started in the usual way. I think every fan in the world wants to sell stories to editors. I bought my first typewriter in 1931 for the single purpose of writing great, thrilling science fiction stories and selling. I bought the typewriter and immediately proceeded to start writing stories, and I wrote science fiction stories for ten years and couldn’t sell a one of them. Oh, they were terrible. They were rotten. Everybody rejected my stories. But finally, ten years after I purchased the typewriter, in 1941, Fred Pohl bought my first story. In ten years’ time I had progressed to the point where I could write a coherent story that Fred Pohl, shall we say holding his nose, was able to buy. And from that point on I did several short stories in the 40’s, but I wasn’t satisfied, and I discovered books, that is, writing books. I know now what I didn’t know then. My real field is books. I do far better books than I do short stories. My short stories are horrendous. They’re terrible, but the books are decent. Some good, some bad, but they’re decent. I found that I liked better to work in the book length, and I wrote a mystery story in 1945 and sold it in ’46. It went in the slush pile; I had no agent; and the editor picked it from the slush pile, liked it, asked for revisions, and bought it. I thought, Good Lord! You see, when I write short stories, maybe they’re rejected fifteen or twenty times, but the very first book I wrote was bought, and I realized this was my field, and I’ve stayed in the book field ever since. I’ve done a few short stories. Not many, but mostly books, because I like them better, they sell easier, and they bring me far more money than short stories do.
Amazing: Do you keep your fanzine work separate from your professional stuff, or do they ever mix.
Tucker: Separate entirely. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it worked out this way. As Wilson Tucker I'm a pro, as Bob Tucker I’m a fan. I didn’t mean it that way, but that’s just the way convention programs seem to separate me. I started publishing fanzines very early. My first fanzine was in 1932. It was lousy. I’m glad you can’t find a copy today, because you’d hold your nose if you had to read it. I think the second one was born in 1935. In 1938 I started out with my most successful one. One called Le Zombie, if you’ve ever seen it, and I hit upon a good balance. It was humorous. It was cornball humor, all kinds of humor, slapstick, some subtle, some moronic, but mostly cornball humor, and it’s still going today. My 40th anniversary issue is due this year. I do fanzines for fun, pure fun. It’s keen. I’ll never make a dime out of it and I don’t give a damn. I enjoy writing fanzines.
Amazing: What are your writing methods like for your professional work?
Tucker: I begin with notes. First of all, I get an idea from somewhere. You know that silly old question, ‘where do you get your ideas?’ They’re all around you. A thousand ideas a day crowd in on you. I pick up an idea from somewhere, think about it for a while, realize it could be built into a story, and then begin the research. Before I ever type the first page I go through several weeks or a month or two of research. I go to the library, or if necessary, buy books, if the library doesn’t have what I want. Usually, I rely on college texts. I’m not a hard science man. I’ve had no hard science training at all, so I have to rely on books to pick up my background. Then when I have got the research done, I usually start making notes on long, yellow legal pads, sometimes handwritten notes, sometimes type-written notes, and a few weeks or a month after the idea has hit and the research has been done, I actually start typing. I’ll do the first draft. When I reach the end of the book on the first draft—by writing a page you think of two more pages in your mind; by writing a chapter you think of two more chapters—I can go back and do a final one. I never have to do a third. By the time I do the second draft the story has gelled in my mind, and I can put it down on paper the way I want it. Then, of course, you go through looking for typos and edit out. Sometimes the ideas are well enough conceived that the first draft stands as is, but most often I go back and do a second. So from idea, to research, to pencil notes, to final draft—I'm a slow typist; I'm a two-finger typist—the average book takes seven or eight months to write because I am so slow thinking it out. Other people can do one in thirty days. I cannot. In his hot days in the 1950’s and 60’s, Silverberg would do a complete novel in one month. I can’t possibly do it. I can’t type that fast, which is why it takes me eight months.
Amazing: Is the speed of the composition completely controlled by how fast you can type?
Tucker: Yes. It holds me down, because I am only a two-finger typist
. I think faster than I write, of course, and I have to in a sense put thoughts on hold until my fingers can catch up. When I begin a sentence, I know the entire paragraph in my mind, which is to say the next six or seven sentences of the paragraph must be put on hold until I get there, because I am so damned slow in my typing.
Amazing: You mentioned once that The Lincoln Hunters is your favorite of your works. Why is this?
Tucker: I think because, first the hero was modelled on me. I used my own description, physical description. I used my own mental and emotional descriptions in the book. I’m the kind of a man who likes small towns and farms, the outdoors, as opposed to closed-in cities, and in the book, the hero journeys from a Cleveland of the future—a closed-in city of two thousand and something, and he journeys back to Illinois of about 1868, I think the time was, and for the first time he discovers what wide open spaces really are. He discovers prairie. He sees stars for the first time, and he falls in love with this great, wonderful outdoors, which is me. I love the outdoors. I would prefer to spend my time out on a meadow anywhere on the prairie looking at the sky rather than in the city watching a ballet or a movie, or whatever. Because the book was modelled on me physically, and me, the way I feel, it became my best-loved book. That’s why it’s my favorite.
Time Exposures Page 26
