The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  The magistrates quickly gathered to view the scene of his death. They mumbled dry comments about the warmth of the room, the heaviness of the incense, the slightness of the blood pool in the lush carpet.

  The news spread as fast as voices and radiotelephones could carry it. The verdict of the public was only half a jump of that of the courts.

  “This proves you can’t make the Rag Birds over into decent citizens,” was the verdict of the public.

  The official court verdict was simply, “Guilty of murder”—and it was reached before Rustan was found. Justice in the City of Beauty was famous for its speed.

  The police found Rustan in his old rags, asleep in a tree. His guardsmen’s uniform they discovered in one of the Rag Birds’ treasure chests—a junk heap.

  The hanging was set for the following Saturday at dawn.

  The news grapevined to every Rag Bird grove for miles around. So they’d got Rustan! Rustan—that damned contrary argufier who was always putting the kibosh on harmless little escapades of stealing and window-smashing. Yep, they’d got him. He’d gone to the capital building and let them stick him in a uniform. Then he’d stuck his neck out and they’d tossed a noose around it. And the grand yank was set for Saturday dawn.

  A modest little delegation of twenty-five dirty ragged creatures huddled before Rustan’s bars and carried on their visit under the hard eyes of the uniformed guards.

  “You didn’t do it!” the Rag Bird spokesman growled. “We know you too well.”

  Rustan shook his head. “No man knows what another will do under strange circumstances. I didn’t know, myself, that I’d do it. But I claim that any man will kill if his purpose is strong enough.”

  The Rag Birds waggled their eyebrows. The motive back of this murder, they knew, was something that the whole city was baffled about.

  “Purpose, hell!” The spokesman stroked his stubbled brown chin. “You’ve got as much purpose as a runaway tornado. What’s Janetto to you, dead or alive?”

  “It’s Venzita—Mary—”

  Rustan’s word’s brought forth a low uproar of mutterings. That name Venzita was poison.

  “But it’s not the way you think,” Rustan protested. “Hell, you couldn’t understand unless you’d known her before, like I did. I’m telling you, before she fell into Janetto’s clutches, she was—” He puffed a long breath through his lips and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling of his cell. “Well, I’m ready to give my life to see her free of the old chisler—that’s the long and short of it.”

  The guards picked up their ears. So Venzita’s wish was back of this killing! That slip would make headlines!

  “You freed her, all right!” the spokesman grunted. “And what good is she to you, I’d like to know, when you’re a dried-up apple on a hangman’s tree?”

  “So I’m not the lucky man!” Rustan snapped. “You don’t have to rub it in. She’s free just the same. Why don’t you go and leave me alone?”

  His anger and confusion socked them between the eyes. They blinked, rose awkwardly, trailed away in little groups, talking to themselves. The spokesman looked back and muttered, “I still say you didn’t do it!”

  The day’s headlines set the city’s nerves on edge. From the masses of workers and respectable citizens to the wealthiest and most respected barons, all felt the shock of Venzita’s uncanny power as never before.

  As if it weren’t enough that she had made the magistrates a bunch of doddering fools; that she had cost the city a million for a Temple of Visions and was about to cost them three million more; that the very sight of her had driven sober men to drink, or madness, or senseless exploits of daring, or suicide—and their wives into fits of jealousy. Now her wiles were driving men to murder—and what good was a Temple of Visions after its chief mystic was murdered?[*]

  Everyone talked. It was the Rag Birds who acted.

  On the Friday afternoon before the hangman’s dawn, a massed army of dirty faces, ragged hair and clothes, naked arms and legs, marched toward the capital building. Thousands strong, it was an army of noise. With thundering voices, clashing pans and pipes and tin cans and all the other choice noise-makers from the choicest junk-heaps, it was a masterpiece in pandemonium.

  The newspapers declared, afterward, that in noise-making alone this army set a new high for the New Dark Ages.

  As the mass moved toward the hundred broad steps that led to the capital portico, their shouts and noise-beats and marching steps took on a grotesque rhythm.

  Guards assembled on the portico, tightened their grips on machine guns. Terrorized magistrates gathered back of them, mumbling incoherent orders, waving their hands frantically.

  The mob chant welled up to them. “We want Rustan . . . We want Rustan. . . .”

  The guards would shoot the instant a foot struck the first step. Magistrates held their ears. The mob leaders waved their army on, the chant deepened, the last few yards before the steps narrowed—

  Suddenly the shrill cry of a girl rang across the capital portico.

  “Don’t shoot them! Don’t! Don’t!”

  Venzita raced across the portico, fought her way through dumfounded guards and fear-paralyzed magistrates, chased down the steps.

  “Wait! Stop! I’ve got to talk to you!” Her hair fluttered loosely in the wind, the afternoon sun glinted across her waving arms, set fire to the thousand sapphires of her flowing gown. “You’ve got to hear me!”

  Her words would have been futile, of course, but an attendant with a presence of mind that would win him a picture and a column in all the Sunday papers, raced after her dragging a microphone. Her words, “. . . hear me!” jumped through the loudspeakers all over the capital grounds.

  The mob stopped.

  There’s something about a beautiful girl. If Mozambique or any of the other magistrates thought that only their artistic eyes or their advanced levels of human refinement were capable of a full appreciation of feminine beauty, here was a moment for them to remember.

  The mob stopped and went silent.

  And if any man from the proud and arrogant Hobart to the meanest Rag Bird believed that this enchantress, the one and only Venzita, always employed her beauty and her cunning for selfish ends—here was a moment to give them pause.

  They paused, and every man of them was breathless as he listened to her words.

  “You Rag Birds have come to protest the innocence of your friend Rustan.” Her voice filled all outdoors; and for all its volume it was a voice of compassion. “You are right. Rustan is innocent—”

  The distant buildings echoed back across the heads of the silent army. “You think I have used trickery to cast blame for this deed upon Rustan . . . You are right. I—I alone—am guilty.”

  She walked down the steps slowly, carrying the microphone with her. The mob began to fall back. She extended her hand in a gesture of invitation.

  “I ask that the leaders of this crowd please come forward. I invite you to sit in conference with the magistrates, to make sure that justice is done.”

  CHAPTER X

  A Conviction; a Confession; a Proposal

  A new trial was begun within an hour.

  The magistrates squirmed, but they acceded to Venzita’s plan: the Rag Bird leaders were given a voice.

  In fact, every class in the City of Beauty had a representative on deck to confer with the assembled magistrates. After all, a three million dollar public project would rise or fall with the verdict.

  After a two hour battle of pros and cons, the magistrates went into a private huddle to total up the scores.

  If they hanged Rustan, they would have Rag Bird mob trouble on their hands, that was a cinch; and it might grow to serious proportions. But if they hanged Venzita, the Rag Birds would be pacified.

  So would the barons, the laborers, the middle class. A lot of their trouble would dissolve if Venzita’s confession were accepted at face value. Family squabbles would vanish; confidence in the magistrates would improve, th
ree million dollars would be saved.

  And among the magistrates themselves, considerable jealousy and antagonism could be salved over if the law took its course. And if Hobart’s earlier judgment was sound—if every one of them was being taken for a ride—if the girl had not the slightest intention ever of marching to the altar with any of them, in spite of all their gifts and soft words—

  “In the interests of justice,” Mozambique finally conceded, “we have no course but to accept her confession. She is guilty.”

  The magistrates nodded. From every viewpoint the verdict was sound. Venzita would hang at dawn.

  But at that moment one lone dissenter rose to his feet and banged on the table. “In the interests of justice —hell!” Hobart exploded. “We proved my bodyguard guilty. He’s still guilty. The evidence is still there, just like we found it. It hasn’t changed one whit!” “Tut-tut! We have a confession!” “The confession’s a lie. It was a lie to save us from that mob. That girl’s as innocent as the day she was born—” “Hold on, Hobart. You were the one who told us she was double crossing us—”

  They all shouted at once.

  “He’s mad.” “He’s in love with her.” “He fell harder than anyone.” “She’s still an enchantress—and a murderer!” Hobart was mad. He proved it with his fists. He fought until they called the guards in self-defense. Not until he was dragged away, were they able to continue the business of the hour.

  “The verdict, then, is guilty—by a fifteen to one decision.”

  Mozambique cleared his throat.

  He foresaw that it would be a pleasanter matter to inform the girl that the decision was not quite unanimous. He would let her believe that he, at least, had held her to be innocent.

  Rustan was released. Venzita was placed behind the bars.

  The night came on. The dim lights of the prison corridor cast bars of black shadows across the cot where Venzita sat. She listened to the clocks strike the hours away toward midnight. Guards brought her food, but she refused it.

  She buried her head in her arms. Images tortured her eyes—images of ugly Rag Birds coming toward her in a mass, shouting at her, blaming her for everything . . .

  She looked up to see Mozambique standing outside her bars.

  “I wanted to be with you in these last hours,” his words made her smile bitterly. “You’re too beautiful to die. You must know that I held you innocent to the last. If there was anything I could do . . .”

  Venzita turned her head. She did not look up until she knew Mozambique was gone.

  Other magistrates came from time to time, each trying in turn to salve his conscience by protesting that it was he who had cast the one vote for her innocence. She listened to none of them.

  A little before dawn Hobart came. She gazed at him steadily through the bars, saw the bruises on his handsome face. So the guards were right, Hobart had fought to change the verdict —to save her!

  “Let him in,” she said to the guard.

  The gate locked back of Hobart! the guard stood by, straining to catch the whispered words that passed between the young magistrate and the condemned girl.

  “You faked that confession,” Hobart said tensely, “to stop the mob. All right, you saved the magistrates a lot of slaughter, but I’ll be damned if we’re going to let you pay with your life.”

  “The mob is still there,” said Venzita. “If you hang Rustan you’ll have a revolution on your hands.”

  “I’m going to get you out of here, Beautiful, if I have to knock down the guards and take you by force. We’ll run away. We’ll be married—”

  “You’re talking wild.”

  “I am wild—I’ve been wild for you from the minute I saw you . . . You love me, Venzita!”

  The girl answered in slow soft-spoken words. “You’re wrong there, Hobart. The one person I love—the one I’ve loved all my life—the one I’ll keep on loving till my last hour is up—is Rustan.”

  A flame of red shot through Hobart’s face, then his cheeks and the knuckles of his hands went cold white. “So that was why you confessed! To save that murdering Rag Bird!” Hobart breathed hard through his clamped teeth. He whirled toward the barred door, flinging a cutting farewell back at her. “All right. You can take your medicine.”

  “Your love for me melts rather quickly—”

  “Love! That word is blasphemy on your lips! You’re a damned enchantress, playing your game! You’ll never have a sincere emotion as long as you live!”

  Venzita threw herself in his path before the guard could open the way for him. “If that’s what I am to you—” the potent challenge of her voice broke off. The hint of enraged decision in her eyes, the momentary flash of something sinister upon her lips, softened. Her eyelids lowered plaintively, she murmurmed a half-audible, “Hobart!”

  Her hand reached out to him, her slim fingers caught his coat sleeve ever so lightly. “It’s goodby now, Hobart.” She gave a little swallow. “I’m seeing you for the last time.”

  The anger in Hobart’s eyes fixed in a sullen glazed expression. He saw that she wanted to talk. He took a slow, deep breath. She led him back to the farther corner of the cell.

  “Hobart, before my time is up, there’s one favor you can do for me.” She looked at him appealingly. The magnetism of her eyes sent a tremor through him. He started to turn, she clung to his hand. Then her fingers rested on his shoulder.

  “Is—is it something within reason?” he asked quietly.

  Smiling faintly, she shook her head. “It’s utterly irrational, Hobart. But a girl who is about to die deserves one favor, doesn’t she? Even if it is unreasonable?” Her tantalizing charm held him. “I’m asking you, Hobart . . . Will you grant my wish?”

  Dawn came. Blood-red skies in the east announced that the hour for the hanging was at hand.

  Rag Birds climbed down out of their trees, plain citizens by the thousands filtered through the park groves to the open parade grounds beyond. Barons drove up in their silver-nosed cars. All gathered in around the circular fence, surging with the same curiosity that had taken them to Janetto’s funeral a few days before.

  They stared open-mouthed. For many, who had followed the enchantress’ fabulous career through the newspapers, this was to be the first—and last—actual glimpse of her.

  Not a very satisfactory glimpse; the fence held them too far back.

  The prison wagon made its way through the vast circle of spectators to the center of the open arena. The white-garbed figure was conducted to the hangman’s tree.

  In a few minutes it was all over. Gradually the crowd broke up, though many groups lingered, some pointing to the dead dangling figure, trying to convince themselves that they could discern something of the girl’s characteristic languor in her last pose as she hung there.

  Though of course they couldn’t, even with the aid of glasses. The white-sheeted covering was too complete. Besides, as the hangman and the inner circle of guards knew, the figure wasn’t Venzita.

  Venzita and the tall well-dressed young man who sat beside her at the wheel of the private sound-proof cab gave a farewell wave to the police escort that had accompanied them ten miles beyond the city’s walls. The cab, inscribed with the words, “Magistrate Number 16,” sped on toward the distant mountains.

  “Where am I taking you?” the young man asked. “To Blue Valley?”

  “You may go there if you wish,” Venzita answered languidly. “As for me —drop me off any time you like.” Rustan smiled at her but she refused to look at him. He cut his speed, tried to put his arm around her. She shrank out of his grasp. He drew the car to a stop, turned to face her.

  “See here, Mary, I let you go out of my life once. I’ll never be fool enough to make that mistake again . . . What’s the matter, Mary?”

  That elusive hint of terror in her face was there again, as it had been the moment she had picked him up. “Please, Rustan, don’t fall in love with me—”

  “That’s something you can’t
stop,” Rustan laughed. “All your uncanny power to make men do your bidding couldn’t hold me at bay. We’re going to be married—”

  The girl shook her head violently. “Do you think I could ever respect you after what you did?”

  Rustan narrowed his eyes. “You mean—”

  “That you became my slave the same as every other man.” She looked into the distance hazily. Her words came painfully, breathlessly, like a secret confession that had to be made. “Now I could no more love you than I could love Hobart. That poor sap—he knew me for what I was—an enchantress playing my evil power—so—”

  “Yes?”

  “I made him pay. I caught him in the trap of my will—I forced him to write a confession that he had murdered Janetto, and I let him hang for it.” Rustan raised an eyebrow, nodded half-comically. “Good going!”

  “But, Rustan,” the girl choked, “can you realize how terrifying it is to me to know that I have such power? To know that you—or any man that I might fall for—will turn puppet at my slightest glance—”

  “I’ll see that you get over that notion, as far as I’m concerned, Mary.”

  “I know what you think, Rustan. You and Hobart and I had the same flash that night the three of us met. We thought that my life could be restored if Janetto were out of the way. All three of us conceived a murder in that moment. But it was a futile deed, Rustan. All my life I’ll despise you for doing it, because you did it in obedience to my evil will.”

  “And you were going to hang for it—”

  “Because in the deepest sense I was guilty.”

  “If I hadn’t done it,” said Rustan, smiling casually, “would you have dared to?”

  Venzita shrank involuntarily at the thought—answer enough for Rustan. He laughed. She would never have committed a murder.

  “You’re no more guilty than I am,” he said. “And you’re not half as much an enchantress as you think . . . No, you’re not! You didn’t make me do murder, and you didn’t extort a fake statement from Hobart.”

  The girl went slightly pale and her eyelids fluttered. “I’m a little dizzy. Did you say—”