The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “Whoever heard of a temperamental autobiography? What does it look like? A stock market chart or blank verse or surrealism? What do you do with it? Frame it or smell it or smoke it in your pipe? Show me one and I’ll eat it. I still think you’re cracked!”

  “Please, Mr. Steinbock!” The squint-eyed man and his assistant removed the artist from his seat with all the courtesy they could muster. “Your efforts have been greatly appreciated. Science will not forget what you have done.”

  “Science!” Steinbock sneered. “Take me home!”

  “At your command, Mr. Steinbock.”

  The three men started toward the door at the upper end of the room. Taylor’s eyes followed them. He came up on his hands and knees. For an instant he thought his long-awaited opportunity was at hand. But the procession took a sharp turn to the right.

  “This way, Mr. Steinbock.” There was a brutal note in Laubmann’s voice.

  Taylor bent forward, but he did not see it happen, for the swift action took place in an alcove that was a part of the big room. He simply heard the unlocking of the door, a grunt of surprise, a stumbling of footsteps, and a re-locking of the door. Then the two men marched back across the room, bringing Maurine White with them. And from the depths of the supply closet came the yowling and cursing and pounding of the imprisoned artist.

  “You’re next, Miss White,” Laubmann barked above the din. “Sit down in that seat and clear your mind for action.”

  The girl responded obediently to the brusque orders. Soon the image bubble became a brilliant colorful thing. The girl’s mind abounded with graceful symmetrical pictures, and even the faces of people were marked with strong lines and high colors like a fresh oil portrait. Here, thought Bill Taylor, is the secret of the artist.

  Handy patted his revolver nervously, impatient to get on to that vital question about fascinello. But suddenly his hands froze and he stood gazing at the bubble. Laubmann drew a sharp breath and his right eye tightened.

  The picture showed two Steinbocks! Something that the girl had been asked about her early contacts with the famous artist had brought forth this curious double portrait.

  The two Steinbocks, apparently identical in every respect, stood beside an easel containing a half-finished picture. They were arguing violently. The girl was also in the picture. She started to leave the scene, and one of the Steinbocks seized her arm and pushed her back into the chair.

  Other similar scenes followed. Laubmann and Handy exchanged whispers. Then the big man spoke casually.

  “By the way, Steinbock has a twin brother, hasn’t he?”

  The girl stammered. “I—ah—does he?”

  The two Steinbocks of the image stood glaring at one another, inspecting each other’s appearance from head to foot. One of them wore a soldier’s uniform, the other was in civilian clothes.

  “Didn’t you ever see the twin brother?” Laubmann suggested insistently.

  “Twin brother? Perhaps I have. That is, I don’t remember very clearly—”

  Bill Taylor’s face grew hot. “What the devil is she stalling about?” he asked himself. “She sees the twins as plain as day . . . Something’s wrong here.”

  Taylor had never heard that Professor Steinbock had a twin brother, but no one knew much about the artist’s past history.

  Laubmann and his assistant exchanged nods, as if they were confident they were near to uncovering the mystery in the girl’s anxiety.

  “These two Steinbocks were jealous of each other, weren’t they?” A confirming image passed over the screen. “But why should the artist Steinbock be so jealous of you? Have you given him any cause—”

  The questioner’s voice broke off. The flutter of images took an unexpected turn, and for an instant the girl was dancing in the arms of a handsome young man. Although his face could not be seen, his attitude was that of possession. And Maurine White’s countenance was radiant with happiness.

  From his hiding place, Bill Taylor blushed hotly. On the instant his own jealousy was flaming.

  “So there’s another man in the case!” Laubmann gloated. “Maybe Steinbock has good reason to be jealous.”

  Then the girl’s dancing partner turned so that his face was visible. One look, and all of Bill Taylor’s green-eyed emotions melted away. His appreciation of the image machine was suddenly enhanced. The dancing partner of the image was himself!

  “Hell,” Laubmann muttered, “we’re off the track. That’s just that drug store kid.” His voice became brisk. “See here, Miss White, I want to know about these two Steinbocks. Why don’t we ever hear about the other one?”

  “Maybe there isn’t any other.”

  “But you admitted there was a twin.”

  “He was supposed to have been killed—in the World War.”

  “Now we’re getting places. So he wasn’t killed . . . he came back . . . Go on from there.”

  The girl shuddered but made an effort to keep her voice under control.

  “The two of them fought constantly. They made life miserable for me. I wanted to run away, but they wanted me for a pupil. I was a new student, and Steinbock had such a wonderful reputation—”

  As the girl talked the constant train of images illustrated her bitter experience at the hands of the two jealous tyrants.

  “Were they both artists?” Laubmann asked.

  “No. The one who came back from the war wasn’t. But he forced his way into the business. The artist Steinbock stayed in hiding and worked on his pictures. The other one went out and gave lectures and organized publicity, pretending he was the artist. I was the only one who knew there were two.”

  “Were two!” Laubmann echoed. “Aren’t there still two? Answer me! What are you stalling for?”

  Laubmann’s voice scraped so harshly that for a moment the very poundings and cursings of the imprisoned Steinbock ceased. There was no sound but the faint hum of the movie camera busily photographing a blank picture. The giant bubble registered a blackout.

  “I—I think the artist Steinbock died,” said Maurine White.

  The silvery gray screen suddenly came to life with an image that must have bubbled up from the furthest depths of the girl’s subconscious mind.

  According to the image, an angry Steinbock was entering a door. From the rapid twisting of his lips, the waggle of his goatee, and the tautness of his coppery wrinkled face, he was obviously hurling insults. Maurine White sprang away from the grasp of his clawlike hands. Her easel and paints tipped over.

  Steinbock went into a violent rage. Again the girl sprang out of his reach. She ran to a table and jerked a drawer open.

  A momentary blur crossed the screen. Then the picture came back vividly. Steinbock’s face twisted with an expression of pain. He fell heavily to the floor. Blood gushed from a bullet wound in his head. His shaggy white locks, his trim whiskers were streaked with carmine.

  The girl, clearly visible at the edge of the picture, apparently emitted a cry of horror. Her arms drew upward, her terrorized eyes were glued upon the gun in her hand.

  Then a third figure entered the scene—the other Steinbock. The girl backed away from him, but his hideous face bore down upon her. With one hand he seized her shoulder, with the other he pointed to his fallen brother . . .

  Maurine’s head shook fearfully as she tried to flee the scene. But her trembling lips spoke the words that bound her to the deed. Inaudible though they were, they were unmistakable!

  “I’ve killed him! I’ve killed—” CRASH! The bubble was gone! Like a meteor a man’s figure shot across the room from the archway at the side. The figure was wrapped in a flimsy curtain, and it banged against the farther wall with the force of a heavy club. Man and curtain fell to the floor like a sack of meal.

  Handy’s revolver roared into action. A line of bullets flew through the darkened room. Crack! Crack! Crack! There was no answering fire.

  “Hold it!” Laubmann barked. “Get the lights on!”

  The room flooded with
white light, and the two men advanced upon the open archway. They peered for a moment, then stepped back and stared at the crumpled figure on the floor.

  “You got him!” Laubmann muttered. “One of those bullets got him in the dark.”

  A short cry escaped the lips of the girl, but her low moanings went unnoticed.

  Both men were breathing hard with excitement. They drew closer to the fallen prowler. His clothes, hands and face were streaked with dust. But it was the short red streak on the side of his skull that held their eyes.

  Laubmann growled in an apprehensive voice, “If he’s dead—”

  “Hell, I didn’t figure to kill him outright,” Handy broke in nervously, trying to justify his rash actions. “Who is he and what the devil is he doing here?”

  “We’d better wind up our business and get out!”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Wait—no! He’s breathing. You see any other marks on him? That head wound’s nothing. You just clipped him. Maybe he fainted. Help me drag him out here in the open and we’ll—no, I’ll handle him myself. You go and quiet that fake artist before he busts the door down.”

  Steinbock’s pounding against the closet door had reached the danger point. Handy attended to him by firing a shot into the top of the door frame. The battering ceased. Only Steinbock’s fearful mutterings were heard—mutterings that were half threat and half wild frenzy to know what was happening.

  Handy turned, revolver in hand, and dashed back to Laubmann’s assistance. And none too soon.

  The dusty-faced prowler had come to life like a flash. He spun to his feet and flew into the big squint-eyed man with both fists swinging. Laubmann backed away, floundered for his gun. But the pudgy nervous assistant had Bill Taylor covered and on the spot. The dusty young man’s fists slowly undoubled. His palms came up.

  Laubmann’s revolver now faced the new captive, and for the second time in the space of a few hours Handy threw ropes around Bill Taylor’s ankles and wrists. Handy’s hands were nervous this time, but he tied his knots to stay.

  CHAPTER V

  Double Bluff

  “So the cat came back,” Laubmann snarled.

  “Lucky for him that cats has nine lives,” Handy said, hoisting the shoulders of his butler’s suit uncomfortably.

  “That adage don’t go for drug store cats,” said Laubmann. “The next time he rocks the boat, he’ll die like a dog.” His hard eyes turned on Bill Taylor. “I’m talking about you. Do you get me?”

  “Yes,” Taylor answered.

  That one word was all the young pharmacist said, and in itself it was an admission of defeat. Nevertheless, the strength and calmness of Taylor’s voice was balm to Maurine White’s terror-struck soul.

  Bound to the subject’s chair in the image machine, the girl had not been able to see anything that had happened. But at least she knew that Bill Taylor was alive.

  A clock struck midnight. The hurried, hushed conference between Laubmann and his assistant terminated. Bill Taylor, lying in the rear corner of the room, watched them as they came back. He knew they were desperate.

  They stopped at the locked door of the supply closet and tried to negotiate terms with Steinbock. The keyhole conference wasn’t successful.

  “Ready to talk business?” Laubmann snapped. “We’ve got it on you, Steinbock. We know you’re a fake. We’ve got movies to prove it. We can blow your art racket out from under you so hard that you’ll look like a sieve. Only one thing will stop us. Give us your secret on that new color—”

  Whack! Whack! Bam-bllammm-bam! The interior of the supply closet unleashed a pandemonium of such fury that the big room seemed to rock.

  “One last chance!” Laubmann roared against the din. “It’s your neck, not ours. All we want is—”

  But Laubmann’s roar was no match for Steinbock’s. The prisoner’s voice blasted back with the violence of a madman.

  The threateners then tried their game of bluff on their Victim Number Two—Maurine. They reminded the girl that she was a murderer. They had films that would send her to the chair. She refused to answer them point blank.

  They retired to their corner for another conference.

  “What now, boss?” Handy asked. “The machine again.”

  “But we tried that before.”

  “And found out plenty. All we’ve got on them so far, we got from the machine. Both of them tried to lie to us, but the truth came up in the pictures in their minds. Snap the white lights off, Handy. And keep your eyes on that drug store kid. I’ll blow up another bubble.”

  While the two men prepared the image projector for action again. Bill Taylor lay in his corner thinking. He was thinking that sooner or later Laubmann would win. If the man put enough pressure on, he would get what he wanted.

  Undoubtedly this big, bungling, squint-eyed criminal had expected to lift the formula for fascinello with a swiftly executed scientific trick. But now that he was into the heat of the job, he would probably commit murder for it if necessary.

  In his private whisperings with his assistant, Laubmann had mentioned a transoceanic plane that waited, ready for a take-off. Once in a foreign country he could cash in on his secret without trouble from the law. The two of them had agreed that it would be easy to keep Steinbock and the girl from talking. But what of their third victim, the intruding pharmacist?

  The only answer the men had found to that question was indicated by a quick shifting glance from Bill Taylor to Laubmann’s own gun.

  These sketches of thought whirled through Taylor’s sickened brain. He ceased to listen, for another thought had begun to buzz. There was a mystery about that machine that he hadn’t ironed out . . .

  Laubmann was again quizzing the girl, and the images were flickering once more. The big man’s rasping voice played on every possible variation of the theme.

  “What is the formula? Where did Steinbock get it? Where does he keep it?”

  Images were flashing, and as before, the girl’s mental pictures were of the young pharmacist. But Bill Taylor’s own thoughts kept harking back to that earlier demonstration.

  “How under high heaven could she have had a memory of dancing with me? I’ve never danced with her in my life!”

  And then the obvious answer came clear!

  “Those images aren’t all just memory,” he told himself. “They’re partly new combinations—new pictures that have formed out of parts of old ones—new plans and imaginations and hopes! But Laubmann thinks they’re all actual happenings! By George, if I had a chance—”

  Bill Taylor came to himself with a start. The men were removing the girl from the seat. Laubmann was grinning with surly confidence. He snorted:

  “At last it begins to make sense. The pictures have been giving us the true answers all along, only we couldn’t read them.”

  “How so?” Handy asked.

  “Well, when we ask old Steinbock about the formula, he sees the girl. And when we ask the girl, she sees the drug store chap.”

  “It’s dizzy,” said Handy.

  “Not any more,” said Laubmann. “See, we’ve found out that Steinbock don’t paint. The girl does all that for him. All right; so all he knows about the fascinello is that the girl uses it. That’s why he gets a mental picture of the girl.”

  “Then she knows!”

  “No. We’ve been barking up two wrong trees.”

  “But she paints the pictures,” Handy said stubbornly.

  “Yes, but she doesn’t necessarily mix all the paint. Her images prove that what fascinello calls up in her mind, is that prowling pharmacist there in the corner. He must make it up for her.” Handy grunted. “He makes up sulphur.”

  “I think,” said Laubmann, choosing to ignore the sarcastic mention, “that the gods of luck blundered into our hands when this drug store sleuth broke out of your ropes and followed us.” And with that the two men, both having guns, engineered a transfer of Bill Taylor from his corner into the seat of the image projector. They
had to unbind his hands before they could strap him into position. His feet they left bound.

  Meanwhile Maurine White crouched down in a chair inconspicuously and buried her face in a handkerchief. She appeared to be so unnerved by the whole affair that the men forgot about her.

  “All right, Mr. Smart Pants, you know what we want,” Laubmann barked, fastening his eye on the silvery gray bubble. A clutter of dim images began to roll across the screen.

  Bill Taylor wished mightily that he could be seeing that screen—and then he realized that in a sense he was. The pressures about his face and the soothing liquid feelings against his eyeballs encouraged his eyelids to stay open—against blackness. But the images he saw in his mind’s eye—those fluttering pictures were finding their way through the projector.

  To make sure, he fixed the letter A in his mind. The image sharpened. Then he brought the letter B beside it—and C.

  “Cut out the A-B-C stuff!” Laubmann snapped. “Get down to business!”

  A surge of elation shot through Taylor from fingertips to toes. Here was his chance, if he could work it skilfully enough. He had stumbled into this mess without a weapon. He had made foolish blunders and at times had lost his nerve, in a way that would have made a seasoned secret service man blush. But here was a weapon—a chance to slip in a fast one!

  “Wake up!” Laubmann barked. “Come out of your dizzy whirl and put your mind to that certain fascinating yellow color. Where does it come from? Do you make it up yourself or does someone else—”

  “I don’t know anything about it!” Taylor retorted.

  But there was a momentary flicker of image on the giant soap bubble that argued otherwise. It was the young pharmacist himself at work in his prescription room.

  “Okay,” said Laubmann sarcastically. “You don’t know anything about it. That’s fine. Now what are its ingredients?”

  “I don’t know.”

  At that moment a flash of a formula in handwriting came and went. It was hard for Taylor to pull his thoughts away from the truth.