The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “But my order—”

  “I’ll make up another one,” Taylor said hastily. He smiled reassuringly. “Wait in a booth for me. I’ll be off in ten minutes, if the old man gets back from dinner when he should.”

  By the time the girl and the pharmacist faced each other over sandwiches and coffee in a little lunchroom down the street, the neon lights were flashing outside and headlights of cars were swishing by. It was after seven.

  “I didn’t finish getting your order ready,” said Taylor, munching a double decker. “But I just had to speak to you.”

  Maurine blushed. “We’ll forget the order for tonight,” she said. “That will be safest.”

  Taylor grinned. “I had a hunch that bird might try some strong-arm stuff after you gave him the cold shoulder. So I fixed up a substitute package.”

  “He certainly fell for it,” the girl laughed nervously. “Gee, but I was scared! Look, I’m still trembling.” She lifted her hand. “Won’t be able to paint tonight.”

  “You work nights much?” Taylor asked her.

  “It’s the best time,” Maurine answered. “Professor Steinbock has a lecture most every night, and that leaves me free to paint as I please. Tonight he’s to broadcast from some private station out in the country owned by an art and science cult.”

  Taylor pushed his chair back. “How about a movie?”

  “Oh, I haven’t been for ages,” the girl said.

  As they stood by the curb waiting for a taxi to come up, Taylor noticed that the girl kept glancing apprehensively at the half-lighted street around her.

  “You’re still nervous about Laubmann?” he asked, hiding his own personal anxiety in a show of nonchalance. “Don’t worry. That sulphur threw him off the trail, as far as you’re concerned. Of course, he might try his bluff on Steinbock. He acts like one of these rough-shod racketeers that takes long chances.”

  “Professor Steinbock would kill him.” The girl spoke matter of factly. Then as if regretting her remark, she added, “That is, I mean—figuratively. Mr. Taylor—I mean Bill—there’s something I’ve got to talk over with you.”

  “There’s something I want to ask you, too,” he said. A taxi stopped beside them and they got in. Taylor gave an order to the driver, and the lights of show windows began to stream past.

  “Maurine,” he resumed, “is there any truth in what Laubmann hinted at—that you have to put up with Steinbock?”

  Somberly the girl gazed at the passing lights, and Bill Taylor wondered what mental images might be passing through her mind’s eye. If she had intended to confide in him, his abrupt question had changed her mind.

  “I’m sorry I asked,” he said. “We’ve put our worries aside for the evening, haven’t we?”

  Maurine White gave one of her mysterious smiles and nodded.

  Taylor took her hand wordlessly and all troubles and worries seemed very far away. . .

  Moments later the taxi drew close to a curb and the front door swung open. A big man bounded into the front seat and the taxi sped on. It all happened so quickly that when Taylor realized the spot they were in, it was too late.

  “Good work, Handy,” said the new passenger. His back was toward the windshield, his half-concealed revolver menaced the two wide-eyed occupants in the rear seat. Each passing light revealed the frozen squint of the intruder’s right eye.

  “Head west,” Laubmann ordered. “Time’s getting short.”

  “Okay, boss,” the driver replied. “Worked smooth as silk, didn’t it?”

  CHAPTER II

  Skullduggery

  The car rolled along at a brisk pace, heading west through the city. “Who’s the fellow?” the driver asked.

  “Pharmacist,” Laubmann answered. “Still wet behind the ears.”

  “The one that gave you the sulphur?” Handy said skeptically.

  “Yeah,” the big man grunted. “But he’s harmless.”

  “You don’t think he knows—”

  “Hell no. He’s just a fresh guy making a play for Miss Beautiful. Wanted to make a big impression on the girl, so he fixed up that fake package. Kid stuff. Well, nothing to do but bring him along.”

  The car opened up on the main highway northwest and the miles flew by.

  “Pick out a side road, Handy,” Laubmann ordered.

  The driver followed along a dirt road. Halfway around a section, at a safe distance from the lights of farm houses, the taxi halted. Laubmann handled his gun with skill, and neither the girl nor Taylor ventured to defy it. As Handy finished knotting the ropes around Taylor’s wrists and ankles, the big man barked his final threats.

  “You’re not going to say anything about this, Mr. Smart Pants, see? Maybe you know what’s up and maybe you don’t. But by the time you wriggle a half mile up the road to that farm house, it’ll all be over. We’re not going to harm the girl unless someone starts throwing monkey wrenches. Don’t let it be you, see?”

  Laubmann stood by the front door of the car, keeping an eye on Maurine, who was still in the back seat.

  “Shall I kick him in the mouth a couple times?” Handy asked, giving a final jerk to Taylor’s knots.

  “I’ll do any kicking around,” Laubmann snapped. “Slap some tape over his mouth. We’ve got to beat it.”

  Two minutes later the taxi rumbled away, and with it Maurine White and her two captors.

  Bill Taylor was left to struggle angrily at his ropes. He cursed himself for a fool, to have been caught this easily. He began then to wriggle along the road. Where would they take Maurine? What tortures might they inflict in an effort to extort a million-dollar secret from her?

  A vague clue tugged at Taylor’s mind: the recent orders of powdered soaps and metal dusts Laubmann had been handing in. Perhaps—

  Car lights were coming now. Taylor twisted and wrenched and squirmed, confident that he would attract attention as soon as the car drew close. But suddenly the edge of the graded shoulder slipped from under him and he went rolling down the soft dirt embankment. The car passed. Only darkness and hopelessness were left.

  But Bill Taylor’s mind was aflame now, and he stopped his senseless struggle as if to ration his energies. The stubble of mown weeds was beneath him. He edged along until his hands, bound behind him, found the sharp thick stub of a sunflower stalk. It prodded stubbornly, like a knife blade. His wrists maneuvered against it and the knot began to give.

  Five minutes later Taylor raced into a farmyard and breathlessly sketched his plight. Six minutes later the farmer deposited him at the nearest highway filling station. Bill Taylor dashed to the telephone. Soon the drug store proprietor was on the other end of the line.

  “What is it, Taylor? The address for the original registration of—Sure, just a minute. Read me that prescription number again, will you? Okay, hold the wire while Johnny looks k up.” Johnny was the proprietor’s son.

  Taylor drummed his fingers impatiently, wondered if this would prove a wild-goose chase. It had been two years or more since the first order for the powdered soaps and metals had come in, but he still remembered the registration number. He knew, too, that the little wizened old scientist who had originally called for that formula was dead.

  So much more the mystery that this new customer, Laubmann, should call for it again during these recent weeks. But perhaps the address of the deceased scientist would be the address of Laubmann. A faint hope, and yet it had to be tracked down.

  “By the way, Bill,” came the boss’ voice over the wire, “you’ve got a special delivery from the U. S. secret service—”

  “Open it!” Taylor begged. “Read it to me!”

  “Okay . . . ‘Dear Mr. Taylor: We regret to inform you that—’ ”

  “That’s enough,” Taylor mumbled. There was a short silence. So that was that—his secret ambition dashed to bits.

  Taylor’s boss added, “It goes on to say that they’re making only ten appointments in your division, and your number was twelve. It’s signed by Penniwort
h, Chief. Sorry, Bill . . . Of course, I’m glad not to lose you.”

  “Okay,” said Taylor with stung pride. “Have you got that address?”

  “What’s the matter, Bill? In a jam or something? You sound nervous.”

  “I—I’m all right.”

  “Here . . . Greenwood Village, Rural Route Two, Mail Box Ten.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Dunnigan.” Bill Taylor clicked the receiver, and dashed out of the gas station. A taxi had pulled up to the pumps a moment before, and the driver was drawing sleepily on a cigarette.

  Bill Taylor jumped in and snapped an order.

  “Greenwood Village, and make it greased lightning!”

  They roared down the highway, wide open.

  “Greenwood Village is a popular place tonight,” the driver remarked over Ais stioafcfer. “jf just come from there.”

  Taylor studied the driver’s face. It was a plain face, as faces go, and honest enough to be believed. A touch of pride played over the countenance as the driver elaborated on his recent adventure.

  “I just got through takin’ a world-famous artist over there—that is, to a spot a few miles beyond.”

  “Rural Route Two, Box Ten?” Taylor asked eagerly.

  “Yeah. I reckon you know the place. It’s where they used to have a sort of science colony before old Professor Tannenbaum died. Last two years the place has had a kind of dead look to it, the few times I’ve passed, though I s’pose there’s a caretaker, maybe. But it sure surprised me to hear that this artist Steinbock was going out there to lecture on a private radio hook-up. He said he had to be there by nine.”

  “Much of a crowd there?”

  The driver shook his head. “No crowd at all. That’s what made Steinbock mad the minute we pulled up. He fairly pawed the earth.”

  The speedometer eased downward from seventy-five to forty. They rounded the corner through Greenwood Village, and the indicator climbed upward again as they struck out over a dirt road.

  “Pretty sore, was he?”

  “Steinbock? Hell, he almost made me take him back then and there! But the big fellow that came out to meet him brushed his fur down by tellin’ him the science club members had a kind of sentiment about listening over their private telephone hook-ups, in memory of old Professor Tannenbaum. I s’pose they know what they’re doing.” The driver burned up the road for another two minutes and then cut his speed.

  “Cut off your lights,” Taylor ordered, “and keep your motor quiet.”

  Fortunately the taxi driver was cooperative. Bill Taylor put a few sharp questions to him as they eased up to a sheltered nook out of view of the driveway. No, the driver hadn’t seen anything of a girl. He hadn’t seen anyone, in fact, except the big squint-eyed man and the artist. And he hadn’t waited for the artist, for the big man had insisted he would drive Steinbock home himself.

  “Wait for me,” said Bill Taylor, getting out.

  “Be back in an hour or so?” the driver asked.

  “Whether it’s one hour or ten, wait for me. This is important.”

  Taylor made his way up the driveway. Under the starlight the huge old country mansion was a mass of chalky white stone outlined vaguely against a black hillside.

  Swish-swish-swish . . . The grass that grew up between the flat stones of the driveway brushed Taylor’s shoes with every step. The outline of the castle-like structure grew a little clearer. A few points of light were visible—coppery rays that were reflected starlight on coppery chimney ornaments and turret tops. Dim blue and green lights shone from the inside, leaking through breaks in the sagging shutters.

  Taylor paused at the door of a basement garage. The taxi which Maurine and he had so fatefully entered was doubtless behind that locked door.

  He walked around the mansion swiftly and studied the lights and sounds. The drone of the broadcast lecture was the only hint of activity; but Bill Taylor felt in his bones that somewhere within that castle Maurine White—if she was still alive—was a prisoner.

  The windows were too high to admit a search. Taylor looked for a ladder, but contented himself with a sturdy latticed frame that stood by a side door, half covered with dead vines. He jerked it from its moorings and made the rounds of those windows from which light escaped.

  Maurine was not to be seen in the rooms of the lower floor. Perhaps she was in a basement room; or possibly she was waiting in one of those second floor chambers from which ghastly, dim green light floated out into the blackness.

  The main floor activities proved that Laubmann was working an elaborate hoax upon Steinbock. Through a sizable gap in the shutters Bill Taylor could see the big open living room and the three persons in it—Laubmann, Handy and their unsuspecting artist guest.

  The fireplace was aglow with a rhythmic flicker of red and yellow: an electrical imitation of live coals. The old-fashioned wood panels of the lofty walls glowed softly with illuminated clusters of red tulips.

  Laubmann stood in the farther corner of the room with a surly grin on his face, and beside him was Handy, now dressed as a servant. They whispered inaudibly. Their silent ridicule was centered on the artist Steinbock.

  The famous intellectual was seated so that he could not see them. His attention was focused upon the microphone which gleamed brilliantly under the glow of the desk light.

  Steinbock was talking furiously.

  There were notes on his desk that his bony fingers kept sorting energetically, but plainly his notes couldn’t keep pace with his verbal acrobatics. His pointed face was etched sharply against the desk light. His shaggy yellowish-white locks of hair and his crisp mustaches and goatee waggled imperiously in sharp gestures. His coppery wrinkles seemed to ripple with a proud hatred as he spewed forth his caustic words.

  “So you think you’ll learn all about art by having the world’s famed artists give you radio speeches! Bah! Who are you? You call yourselves a secret society! Why didn’t you come here tonight and show your faces? Why didn’t you come and buy some pictures, if you wanted to learn about art? You ignorant numbskulls! You’re the ones that are cheated, not me!”

  Bill Taylor listened uncomfortably, for he had noticed that the wires from the microphone simply ran across the floor into an adjoining room, and there they hung over the window sill. On his side of the open window the loose ends stuck out—attached to nothing!

  “I suppose you have old masters on your walls! Jerk them down and throw them in the ashcan. Old masters! Oh, I know you—and all the yowling, cultured tomcats of your breed! Any old master could throw mud in a snake’s eye, and if the books told you it was ‘art’ you’d frame it and rave about it and call it beautiful—”

  While the artist’s tirade ensued, Bill Taylor acted. The more violent the words, the less danger that Taylor’s entrance would be heard. He pushed the window up cautiously and drew his weight up over the sill.

  Time was short, he knew. The taxi driver had told him that Steinbock would talk for an hour, beginning at nine. Now it was five minutes to ten. Five minutes in which to locate Maurine!

  Footsteps sounded from the large living room. Taylor tiptoed toward the darkest corner and waited. The steps ceased. All the while Steinbock’s vituperations showered down like a verbal blowtorch. And all to an audience that didn’t exist, Taylor thought. But it was one sure way to coax the artist out to this lonely spot, and to loosen up his tongue. However, what further plans Laubmann might have for extracting a secret from him, the young pharmacist could not guess . . .

  Taylor discovered that this room was a sort of side hallway, with a narrow back stairs in the dark corner. The footsteps came again, now with decision, moving in his direction. He barely had time to duck under the narrow stairway.

  Suddenly Handy stood in the center of the half-lighted room. In a moment Laubmann was beside him. Steinbock’s lecture continued in the distance.

  “What’s up?” Laubmann whispered.

  “Thought I heard something,” said

  Handy.

&n
bsp; “Probably the girl.”

  “Maybe.” Handy looked around suspiciously.

  “Was she all right when you took the gag off of her?”

  “Mad enough to bite,” Handy replied. “I told her if she screamed, I’d come up and brain her.”

  Laubmann grunted, “This old dubber is going strong. That drink loosened him up just right. But getting him under the machine isn’t going to be easy. We’ve got to keep our talk as smooth as oil. So long as we can keep him interested in art, he’s practically putty in our hands.”

  Handy asked, “What you going to tell him about the machine?”

  “I’ll give him that line we doped out—the society members want some scientific data on his temperament.”

  Handy looked around uneasily toward the deep shadows.

  “I still think I heard something in here.”

  Laubmann retorted in a harsh whisper, “Don’t get started with your jitters again. Remember, it’s tonight or never. Next week the purchasers will move this science equipment all out, and somebody will wake up to the fact that the caretaker of this house is a minus quantity, and there’ll be a search for his body.”

  Bill Taylor’s heart pounded so loudly, he thought it would give him away. Evidently these two thugs had simply murdered their way into a temporary possession of this place.

  Laubmann was whispering, “So keep a firm grip on your gun, and I’ll make those machines reach right out and rake in that million on a silver platter.”

  “Okay,” Handy grumbled. “But while I’m at it, I may as well take a look under this stairway.”

  CHAPTER III

  Recalled to Life

  The pudgy counterfeit servant drew himself up uncomfortably in his oversize dress suit, took his revolver from his coat pocket, and plodded toward the darkened corner under the narrow stairs.

  “Listen!” Laubmann hissed suddenly. His assistant stopped. From the living room the master artist’s radio speech was coming to a close.

  “I see that my time is up,” Steinbock’s final words sounded, “and if you’re as ignorant as most art lovers”—there was bitter sarcasm in his tone to the last—“all that I’ve said won’t scratch the surface of your boorish mentalities. That’s all. Steinbock signing off.”