The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  The waiter delivered the note and returned aglow with interest.

  “Miss Knight, Mr. Tolozell would be so pleased if you will join him for dinner.”

  Warm thrills rushed to Katherine’s temples as the admiring and envious eyes of her companions turned on her. Excusing herself, she allowed the waiter to escort her to the table on the other side of the pool.

  Tolozell rose and bowed deeply. The waiter seated her, inquired whether there was any order, and marched away.

  “I am most charmed at seeing you again,” said Tolozell, beaming on her.

  “It was terribly bold of me to announce myself,” said Katherine coyly. “But after all, when one is far away from home, and an old friend comes along—”

  “Exactly,” said Tolozell. “I would have been offended if you had done anything else.”

  His manner was exceedingly polite and grandiose. Katherine was aware that her friends on the other side of the garden were watching her; but they were too far away to hear any of the conversation.

  “You have come a long way, Miss Knight, since you first discovered you could dance,” said Tolozell, his voice lowering to a confidential tone. “I trust you haven’t forgotten it was I who first discovered you.”

  “Of course not. I could never forget.”

  “I was most delighted when I learned that you had been chosen for the International Circuit.”

  “It was lovely of you to send the flowers. And they arrived at the very happiest time possible. It was wonderful. We gave the day over to celebrating, and that evening at dinner your package came, and all my friends were there, and we drank to you.”

  “All your friends?” Tolozell lifted an eyebrow. “Then the young lady from your home town has dropped her grudge against me?”

  “Who? Oh, you mean Yolanda Lavelle?”

  “A very pretty blonde who came to the theater with you on the night we met—a timid sort of child, who refused to come up on the stage—”

  “That was Yolanda. But she wasn’t with us at the dinner party. If she had been, of course she would have drunk the toast to you—that is—”

  Katherine grew confused. It occurred to her that she did not know what feeling existed between Yolanda and this hypnotist. She, Katherine, had been too busy with her own rise to fame to post herself on the aftermath of John How’s accident. But she had heard rumors, of course.

  She felt that she was on thin ice; and after the gallantry with which this famous showman had received her she wished to guard their friendship.

  “I wasn’t aware,” she hastened to say, “that my little hometown friend Yolanda held any grudges.”

  “Forgive me,” said Tolozell, and the mockery in his half-closed eyes made Katherine wince. “One in my profession is always hearing untrue rumors. You will recall that Miss Lavelle’s friend John How received an injury as a result of his own carelessness—”

  “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “But you do realize that foolish little misunderstanding,” said Tolozell, “can be damaging to my good reputation.”

  Katherine breathed tensely. His defensive manner was crowding her for things she didn’t want to say.

  “Honestly, Mr. Tolozell, I don’t recall ever hearing Yolanda Lavelle mention you in connection with John How’s death. But when I see her—ah—if there’s anything I can say—”

  “Never mind,” said Tolozell casually. “I may never see her again. After all, you and I are in the show business and it’s good for both of us to be on friendly terms. But these little people who while away their insignificant lives in the small towns—”

  “Please, Mr. Tolozell!”

  Katherine rose angrily.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Knight. I didn’t realize. Please sit down. You’re too charming a girl ever to be angry. I would like to try an experiment . . . Do you mind?”

  “I’m not sure. What is it?”

  “A little psychological experiment. Here comes the waiter with your desserts. I’ll have him stand by for a witness, to see how well you do. You see, it’s this way—”

  Tolozell drew himself up with his most persuasive professional charm, though Katherine wondered if he was sure what he was going to do.

  “It’s this way,” he went on. “I’ve often had my hypnotized subjects pretend they were eating and enjoying it. I wonder if you could pretend not to be eating, and at the same time consume your dessert.”

  “You mean while I’m hypnotized?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well—I—I don’t exactly see the point, but if you—”

  “Come, let’s try it.”

  With the waiter adding his confident smile to the proposed experiment Katherine yielded.

  While she sat at the table, Tolozell hypnotized her. And while she ate her dessert he planted solidly in her mind a post-hypnotic suggestion:

  “You will send for Yolanda Lavelle. You will urge her to come at once. You are soon to have a better position in the show business and you will need your own stage designer. You must have Yolanda Lavelle here at once . . . You must send for her . . . Today . . . Today . . . You must . . .”

  CHAPTER XII

  Blind Trails

  Yolanda stepped down from the huge clipper realizing that this was the end of her swift journey. The end, and yet only the beginning.

  This was Bangkok the Beautiful, a fantastic skyline of ornamental towers and pagodas.

  Bangkok—and she didn’t know where she was going from here.

  She checked most of her baggage at the airport, refused the taxis and rickshaws, and walked swiftly down the trafficway toward an American drug store. She carried only her lightweight blue-leather suitcase and blue purse.

  All the way she had been wondering what she would do when she arrived here. The thousands of swift miles had failed to clarify her course of action.

  The expected thing, she knew, was for her to locate Katherine Knight as soon as possible and announce that she had arrived. And yet—

  “I mustn’t think such things,” she told herself. “I’m being foolish to recount old injuries. She didn’t hurt me intentionally, of course. I’ll find a phone booth and call her at once.”

  The strangeness of the Oriental faces gave her a queer shaky feeling. These streets were full of ghosts of the past. In every kindly pair of almond eyes she would see John How; in every cold, cruel face there was something of that murderous old hypnotist, Tolozell.

  The drug store was full of noisy voices and clashing colors, and she yielded to a desire to hide away in an obscure corner.

  There were phone booths, and no doubt Katherine could be contacted within a few minutes’ time. Was it not Katherine who had urged her to come? Perhaps Katherine was awaiting eagerly for a new stage setting adorned with the choicest of paper dolls.

  “Why am I skeptical about my chances as a stage designer?” she asked herself. “Have I any reason to distrust Katherine’s invitation? After all, she’s my best friend, in spite of—”

  And there Yolanda found herself doing it again—letting her mind jump back to that night by the fireplace, to retrace all the little differences that had so suddenly heaped up into an icy barrier.

  A face had been at the window that night, and Yolanda had been forced into a fight against an unseen, unknown enemy.

  But Katherine had failed to sense its presence.

  Yolanda had been striving, that night, to lift her friend up to new heights in the show world.

  Perhaps it was superstition; the fact remained that Katherine disregarded her efforts.

  Again, Yolanda’s whole soul was filled with the determination to carry on old John How’s ideals.

  But Katherine knew nothing of these mystical hopes.

  One the other hand Katherine was glorying in a success that she credited to the Siamese Hypnotist.

  But Yolanda knew that Tolozell was evil through and through.

  Then, last but not least, there had been that tiny matter of a paper
doll—the childhood work of art that represented a boy by the name of Carter O’Connor.

  Katherine had said, in a most contrite voice, that she would bring Carter O’Connor back.

  But the fresh burst of success which came to her by telephone caused her to forget. And so she had hurried back to New York to share her jubilation with other friends—friends who had no superstitions about helping her career along by placing paper dolls under floodlights.

  “Those were our differences,” Yolanda thought. “But I can’t let them haunt me. I’ve come back to reconcile them. We’ll take each other on trust. That’s it—trust.”

  She was opening the purse to pay the waiter. Her hands stiffened. The sight of the gleaming little Chiam doll caught her eye, and the word trust caught in her throat.

  “No—no,” she whispered, almost aloud. “I’ll never put her to the test. Better that I try myself—”

  Her fingers closed on the little Chiam doll.

  She laid it on the table, and found herself breathing more easily. It was a comfort to know that the gleaming white paper would not explode in her own hands.

  She paid the waiter, and gathered up her small suitcase and blue purse. She would go into the booth and phone at once.

  But just as she reached for the little white paper doll, it slid from the table as if caught in an air current from an electric fan.

  She reached to the floor for it. But it scooted out of her hands.

  The waiter started to help her.

  “No, please. Let it go,” she said hastily. “It is of no importance.”

  The paper doll drifted along the floor, past the fingertips of many who made a gesture as if to rescue it for her. She shook her head at them.

  “Let it go, please. Don’t touch it. It is only a silly trick.”

  She left the noisy, crowded place in a weird hush, and her one quick backward glance told her that everyone was watching in utmost amazement.

  She clung to her suitcase and purse, and walked away, swift on the trail of the invisible air current that carried the paper doll.

  He led her not into the city but away from it. She found herself following alleyways, dodging trash piles, cutting across vacant lots and neglected gardens. These were the ragged outer comers of the city.

  Beside an old concrete highway the paper doll came to a stop.

  With a sigh Yolanda dropped her little blue suitcase and sat down on it to rest. It was high noon. A sultry sun baked her forehead. Her new blue turban was no protection.

  For an hour she watched the highway. Its bloodstream was thin—mostly rickshaws or pedestrians. A few passers-by stopped and tried to talk with her, but their languages didn’t mix. The earnest jabber of the Siamese would make Yolanda laugh.

  Laughter was good for easing the tension. The good neighbors would drop their troubled manners and go on their way laughing too.

  What a stranger Yolanda was—and in what a strange world. And yet she was almost glad that she couldn’t talk their native language. For what would she have said?

  “I am following this paper doll wherever the breeze blows it—” No, that would never do. The people would think her crazy.

  “I am being led by an invisible power. What it is I don’t know. But it will take me to the hidden treasure that belongs to the Chiams. I, a stranger in this land, will save the people from anarchy and ruin.”

  Yolanda worked over these blunt statements in her mind, and thought how impossible they would sound. To anyone who hadn’t known John How such explanations would sound like silly ravings.

  It was in moments like these that Yolanda would stop and ask herself if this was all a wild-goose chase.

  But there was the simple little paper doll rolling down the street again. Did it know where to go?

  An approaching pedestrian bent to pick it up and it exploded in his hands.

  Yolanda held her breath until the angry old Siamese, eyeing her suspiciously every step of the way, was safely past.

  She hastily opened the little blue suitcase, unwrapped a new six-inch square of paper from the Wand, and cut an accurate duplicate of the Chiam doll.

  It hurried away from her like an errant autumn leaf. She gathered up her things and struck out after it. The blessings of John How were still guiding her.

  CHAPTER XIII

  A Godfather Rides Past

  Late in the afternoon Carter O’Connor rode past Yolanda on a motorcycle.

  It had to be him. She was sure of it the minute he was gone.

  The worst of the afternoon’s sunshine was over and Yolanda was still hiking along the rutted old highway when the brief meeting occurred. She was almost ready to drop from fatigue and thirst.

  Twice a brand new double ribbon of concrete had crossed the old trail, but each time the dusty little paper doll had scooted along the old way like a train shooting past switch tracks.

  Yolanda’s throat had grown terribly parched.

  When the big truckload of laborers rumbled to a stop and some husky American voices had yelled at her to ask where she was going, she could hardly answer.

  And having no definite information, she pointed and mumbled, “Going down the road—that way.”

  “You’re getting a long way outa civilization,” someone hollered back. “Nothing down that way but desert. Sure you’re goin’ the right way?” Yolanda said she was sure.

  “Well, you’ll find our camp about ten miles down the line if you get that far.” The truck roared into action and sailed away. Yolanda read the name on the rear:

  CARTER O’CONNOR, HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION.

  It startled her so that she could hardly fathom it.

  Then the motorcycle followed up, also speeding on its way to Bangkok. It shot past her, and the big handsome suntanned rider glanced back, cut his speed, and turned around.

  He yelled at her as he came back to circle slowly around her.

  “Hey, there, are you lost?”

  “N-no.”

  “Okay—I just wondered . . . Thirsty?”

  “Yes!”

  The rider jerked a canvas-covered canteen off the luggage carrier and tossed it to the grass beside the concrete.

  “There. Sure you don’t want a lift back to town?”

  “No. Thanks for the water.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  The motorcyclist sped away, and Yolanda sat there in the shade sipping from the canteen. And all at once she knew.

  Yes, it had been Carter O’Connor. Her memory of his boyish face was too strong for her to be mistaken.

  “Like a godfather in a fairy story!” she thought. “Just when I was dying for a drink I And to think—he wanted to give me a lift!”

  The paper doll was urging her on.

  She summoned her strength and resumed her valiant hike. Now she walked with added energies—wrought- up nerves.

  Carter O’Connor! A grown man, strong and handsome, with gleaming white teeth and a hearty voice and the quick thoughtfulness and friendliness to do a stranger a good turn.

  Yolanda was glad from her heart that the fates had made her path cross his.

  But the moment’s meeting had left her heart with a hungry aching. Would their paths cross again?

  The paper-doll symbols through which Yolanda’s thoughts played were already assembling an answer to her question. Instantly she knew that if the original paper doll of Carter O’Connor were in her possession she would place it and a paper doll of herself on a library table somewhere, side by side, so that they could become close friends!

  But the paper Carter O’Connor had been lost to Katherine Knight.

  She walked a trifle faster. Jealousy, too, could feed one’s nerves with energies that needed to be worked off.

  Thunder growled from the northern skies and then raindrops came spilling down.

  But the mud-speckled paper doll kept dancing along in the swirling breeze, and now there was no chance for Yolanda to stop and rest her aching feet.

  She wat
ched through the darkening drizzle, thinking that soon a house or a wayside tavern must surely appear among the jungle-banks of trees. The winds were rising, the rain was holding back. She must somehow find shelter before the storm broke.

  She ran to try to catch the runaway bit of paper. If she could only hide it away in her purse until the weather was more favorable—but no such luck. The poor, dirty, ragged scrap of doll went sailing right on, as if daring her to lay hands on it.

  Now the suitcase was more burden than she could endure. Her arms were aching like slow fire.

  At last there appeared some small knobs of stone architecture peeking up from the low shrubbery. They were low, massive ornamental lantern towers, no taller than a man; apparently they hadn’t been used for years.

  There was room to hide her suitcase on the base of one of these, beneath the four arched legs. She placed it so that it would have some protection from the weather.

  She marked the spot well, for the suitcase contained her most precious possession, the White Paper Wand.

  “Would John How take such a risk?” she asked herself.

  But there was not time to debate the matter. The gray little Chiam doll was drifting on down the gray, choppy roadway. It was all her blurry eyes could do to keep track of it, for the sky was growing heavier and darkness could not be far off.

  Her tired feet hurried on, and her eyes kept searching the nearby forests. And yet, for all she knew, the paper doll might be drifting toward a destination fifty miles away—or a hundred—or a thousand.

  Heartsick at these forebodings, she hardly knew when the rain began to plummet down in earnest. She was aware that other old roads had branched in to this main stem, but soon she had lost track of how many such there were.

  The trees whipped and snapped with the wind, the heavy raindrops slapped down on her shoulders. Her blue turban grew heavy and released streams of water down over her face when she ran.

  At last the little gray water-soaked Chiam doll went where she could not follow it. It fell into a sluice rushing with rain waters. The last that Yolanda saw of it, it was being whirled off into the black jungles by the rushing flood waters.