Michael Gray Novels

by Henry Kuttner

  Restraining himself with some effort, Gray said, “I still don’t know what your proposition is.”

  “It’s just this.” Fenn’s creaking voice was eager now. “I’ve thought it all out and the best way to play things would be for you to go right along with Karen Champion. Right on up to the hearing. That way she won’t bring in any outsiders, see? Hell, you could take her fee, couldn’t you? You’d be giving her her money’s worth. Facts are facts. Dennis Champion’s just as sane as I am. She can’t prove different. Isn’t that right?”

  Gray stood up. He was struggling with an inward turmoil that made him unsure whether to burst out laughing at Fenn or hit him as hard as he could.

  Fenn got up too, saying hastily, “Now, I’m not asking anything illegal. Nobody’ll have to know. All you do is play along until the end of the hearing and then change your mind. Testify to the truth. Tell the judge Champion’s okay. You get money both ways for telling the truth. Is that bad? Now listen, Mr. Gray—”

  Gray said in a tight voice, “Did Champion send you?”

  “Champion doesn’t know a thing about it. It’s just between you and me. Nobody needs to—”

  “Get out,” Gray said. “Get the hell out of here before I—”

  “For Christ’s sake!” Fenn cried, his voice creaking. “There’s money in it!”

  Gray felt his quick anger dissolve at the look of pained surprise on Fenn’s face. He wanted very much to laugh. He made his voice harsh.

  “Out!” he said, and crossed to swing the door open wide. Fenn was groping for his wallet.

  “If a little retainer—” he began.

  Gray seized him by a bony shoulder and propelled him toward the door. “Outside, quick. Before I turn you in!”

  Fenn went, protesting to the last. His whole body had felt flimsy and light as Gray pushed him through the door. He watched the narrow back receding down the hall. Gray was breathing hard, not yet quite sure whether he was primarily angry or amused. He shut the door finally and leaned back on it, grinning ruefully and shaking his head.

  Julia came out of the kitchen licking white drops from her whiskers. She and Gray exchanged a long, thoughtful look.

  Then Gray crossed to the telephone and got the book out, turning to the Q’s. Roger, Roger? Had Joyce Quigley referred to her husband as Roger? He found the listing and dialed.

  The firm contralto he had heard before said, “Hello?”

  “This is Michael Gray, Mrs. Quigley. I’ve been thinking things over. I’d like to change my mind about this evening.”

  5

  The Quigley house in the Marina district was sleek and new. Shrubbery and flowers around the front door might have been set out yesterday by an expensive landscape gardener. Only the cool fog blowing by Gray’s face as he went up the walk made it seem like part of the old city at all.

  The man who opened the door looked incongruous in his rather dingy sweat shirt, wrinkled slacks and straw slippers. He was big, dark, young, with a bursting vitality about him.

  “Gray?” he asked, holding out his hand. “I’m Roger Quigley. Boy, I’m glad you got here early. Gives us a chance to talk before the main bout starts.” He laughed. “When the two Champions are here all anybody else can do is hunt up a neutral corner. Here, I’ll take your coat. Come and meet Wes Turk.”

  A short, stocky man sitting low in the deep foam-rubber cushions of a sofa looked up as they came into the living room. He had a zippered briefcase open on his knees, spilling sheets of paper, and more papers covered the low coffee table before him. His black hair was short and bristling and his black eyes made Gray think of licorice, opaque but bright. There was an incongruous sprinkling of freckles across his square face.

  He rose rather reluctantly to take Gray’s hand.

  “I think all this is a waste of time,” he said.

  Quigley laughed again. “Oh, pipe down, Wes. It’s worth a try. Mr. Gray, would you like a drink?”

  Gray said he would. Quigley folded back shuttered doors and disclosed a little, glittering bar built into the wall. He mixed drinks with quick efficiency.

  Gray said, “Are you an attorney, Mr. Turk?”

  Quigley at the bar exploded with a laugh. “Hell, no. Wes’s business is selling. What are you, Wes? An agent? Anyway, Wes is the man who finds customers for our products. He works for a dozen firms in the city. He’s good, too. He can find a customer for anything.”

  He handed Gray an ice-clinking glass. “You’d think electronics is booming, but so damn many patents are sewed up by the big companies a small outfit like ours is handicapped. There aren’t many things we’re set up to make at a profit.” Standing in front of Gray, he glowered a little, his good-natured face darkening. “It’s all wrong,” he said. “That’s where you come in.”

  Gray smiled. “You’ll have to explain that.”

  It was Turk who answered. “You can’t make big profits without taking big risks now and then,” he said.

  “That’s it.” Quigley looked serious. “Dennis Champion owns fifty-one per cent of our stock, and he’s scared to death of taking chances these days. He’s got us tied hand and foot. Maybe he’s partly right—I don’t know—he’s had lots of experience and I’m only starting. But the last year or two he’s—he’s just lost his nerve.”

  “Why?” Gray asked.

  Turk said, “Tell him.”

  Quigley shrugged. “Eight months ago CQD nearly had to go into bankruptcy. There was a bad break in the market then and everything started to go wrong. The bank got scared and wouldn’t renew a big loan. Just one of those tight squeezes you run into in any business. The trouble was, Dennis Champion was on a vacation with Karen up at Tahoe at the time. They were snowed in for several days. All the wires were down. He couldn’t get any word in or out. And the last word he’d got was that things were in a hell of a mess.” Quigley grinned. “By the time the snowplows opened up the road, we were back in shape again. We pulled through fine. But that experience seemed to put the lid on as far as Dennis was concerned. He’d been getting cautious for quite a while. This shook him so bad that—well, Joyce thinks he’s really off the beam.”

  “And what do you think, Mr. Quigley?”

  Quigley shrugged again. “You’re the expert. See what you make of him.”

  Gray asked, “What’s the worst that could have happened last winter, from Champion’s viewpoint?”

  “We’d have been wiped out.” Quigley’s voice was cheerful. “So what? It isn’t fatal. We’d start all over.”

  Turk lifted his bristling black head and gave Quigley an almost contemptuous look.

  “You’re twenty-eight,” he said. “Dennis is forty-eight.”

  “Hell, that’s not old,” Quigley told him.

  “Dennis feels old. Some people age faster than others.” He turned to Gray. “Trouble with Roger here is he’s never known what it is to be licked. Dennis has had lots of ups and downs. Made a lot, lost a lot. He’s slowing down now and he knows it. He’s changing.”

  “In what ways?” Gray asked.

  It was Quigley who answered. “Oh, he’s absent-minded. He makes mistakes. Nothing serious, but more than he used to. My wife is scared to death he’ll pull some boner and wreck the company. She wants to appeal to the courts to dissolve the partnership.”

  Turk said, “You couldn’t get away with it. He hasn’t actually hurt the business.”

  A cold contralto voice in the doorway said, “And he isn’t going to. We’re tired of carrying Dennis Champion along. I’m going to tell him so tonight.”

  The men rose. Joyce Quigley closed the door and came in, very slender in a well-cut black dress with a conventional string of pearls at the neck. Her cool gaze rested on Gray.

  “You must be Michael Gray,” she said. “Good. We’ll get this thing settled tonight. I’m sick of it.”

  “What you need,” her husband told her, “is a drink.”

  She said to Gray, lightly contemptuous, “Roger thinks all troubl
e’s soluble in alcohol.” But she accepted the glass Quigley gave her and then sat down, bolt upright, on the edge of a comfortable chair.

  Gray studied her. She looked as her voice had sounded on the phone—incisive, controlled, with a hard, bright beauty that might have been made by some expensive machine. Even her hair was like spun metal, very bright and pale above the black dress. She looked fragile and at the same time unbreakably strong. Yet she was obviously quite young, in her middle twenties at most.

  She took a quick drink and said, “He’ll be here soon. Let’s get things clear first. Mr. Gray—you know what we want.”

  Turk said, “You want to prove Dennis is insane. Whether he is or not.”

  Joyce Quigley gave Turk a look of ice. “How many shares do you own in CQD, Wes?”

  Turk got up. “Good night,” he said. “I didn’t know this was a closed meeting.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, sit down.” Quigley made pacifying motions with both hands. “Joyce, take it easy, will you? Wes was the guy who pulled us out of that hole last year, remember? If he hadn’t dug up those orders, Dennis would have got back from Tahoe to find a dead company.”

  Joyce said, “Well, whose side is he on?”

  Turk sat down, unruffled. “On the side of CQD,” he said. “I’m not taking sides between you. And I don’t think Mr. Gray’s getting much information.”

  “All right, give me a chance!” Joyce set down her glass. “After all, I’m not the first to get the idea Dennis is insane.”

  Gray said, “Who was?”

  “Karen. His own wife. Why do you suppose they separated? She just couldn’t stand him any longer. I don’t know how much she told you—about those fits of depression, when he wouldn’t say a word for days, and that absent-mindedness? But I suppose the main thing was his temper.”

  “Bad?” Gray asked. “Is this something new?”

  Quigley said, “Yes, it is. He used to be pretty easygoing—”

  Turk interrupted him. “I wouldn’t say that. I’ve known him longer than you have, Roger. He always did have a rotten temper. But he did keep it more under control in the old days.”

  Joyce said, “I’m hoping we can decide tonight to take action about getting Dennis declared mentally incompetent. For one reason, Karen might agree to drop this assault charge against him if she knew we were doing something definite. I’m afraid of the publicity if there’s a hearing about the other night.”

  They all looked at each other. Turk said, “Does anybody honestly believe that Dennis broke into her bedroom and tried to kill her?”

  Quigley said, “How about it, Mr. Gray? You’ve talked to Karen.”

  Gray said, “I couldn’t even guess.”

  Turk gave him an opaque dark look. “It could have been a real prowler, I guess. But somehow that’s even harder to believe. No one woman could really have as many wild adventures as Karen Champion.”

  “I take it her husband has been in an emotional state lately,” Gray said tentatively.

  Turk’s voice was quick. “Not that emotional. Dennis is no fool. What could he gain by scaring Karen to death? He wants her to come back to him, not die of heart failure.”

  Gray said, “Something like this does seem to turn up pretty often. You can’t pick up the morning paper without reading about some husband who shoots his wife because she won’t come back to him. It’s getting very common.”

  “Then you think he really did break into Karen’s place?” Joyce asked alertly.

  Gray smiled. “I don’t know what to think.” He glanced around the group. “I’d like to ask a question about something else. Who thought of the name for your company?”

  Quigley laughed. “CQD? We get kidded about that a lot. It’s the old international distress signal they used to use before they changed to SOS. You might not think it, but we’ve found it’s very good publicity.”

  “The name was Dennis’ idea,” Joyce said. “Why?”

  “When was it decided on?”

  “About three years ago, when the company started. Dennis—”

  The doorbell rang. Quigley lifted a big hand in caution as he rose. Gray turned to watch as Quigley admitted the newcomer.

  “Hello, Dennis,” Quigley said. “Glad you could make it.”

  Gray gazed thoughtfully at the man who had chosen a distress signal for his company’s name.

  6

  Dennis Champion stood solidly in his thick coat, legs planted apart, head lowered a little. He kept his hands in his pockets. An old lion, Gray thought, without knowing why.

  For Champion wasn’t old. His dark hair was very lightly touched with gray, and his bristling moustache was only a little paler. He wore thick hornrims and his jaw was heavy, his lips tightly compressed.

  No, Gray thought, he doesn’t look like a lion. He looks like a fighter who’s been in the ring much too long, battling his last bout with a furious determination. A fighter who keeps on slugging as long as he can stay on his feet.

  “I’ll take your coat, Dennis,” Quigley said. Champion ignored him. He was glowering at Gray, his head still lowered. Now he moved heavily forward, not taking his eyes from Gray’s.

  “Who’s he?” he demanded of the whole room.

  Joyce had stiffened to brittle ice.

  “Let Roger take your coat, Dennis.”

  Champion swung his big body toward Turk.

  “Who is he, Wes?”

  Turk said impassively, “Mr. Gray—Mr. Champion.”

  Gray was on his feet. He put out his hand. Champion looked down at it briefly. Then he said in a deep, growling voice, “Get out!”

  There was startled silence in the room. Champion’s voice rose to a rumbling shout. “I said get out! You God-damned quack! Go on—before I throw you out!” He lurched forward, raising a knotted fist. His face was dark with congested anger.

  Everyone seemed to be shouting at once. Turk’s, “Hey, Dennis—calm down!” was overborne by Quigley crying, “Dennis, for God’s sake! Cut it out!”

  Joyce said shrilly, “It’s not your house, Dennis! He’s my guest! Dennis, stop it!”

  Only Gray and Champion stood motionless, measuring each other. Gray bent his knees just a little, balancing himself, ready to dodge if he had to. He couldn’t be sure whether Champion really meant to throw a punch at him. He thought Champion wasn’t sure either.

  They stood that way for a very long second. Then Champion grunted and lunged.

  Gray couldn’t avoid the blow. It was too close. But he could divert it. He had worked too long with potentially violent patients to be caught without warning now. His hand, already extended for the rejected handclasp, shot up to smack Champion’s forearm with a sharp crack. Champion’s fist grazed Gray’s temple.

  The momentum carried the bigger man forward in a stumble. Gray, pivoting away from his rush, shoved hard against Champion’s shoulder as he passed. Champion, bellowing with rage, fell forward over the coffee table and thudded onto the sofa.

  Quigley and Turk took over from there.

  Joyce was shrilling, “I told you, I told you! The man’s insane!”

  “God damn you!” Champion roared, struggling furiously between the two men who held him down on the sofa. “Let me up! You stupid crooked bitch, I’ll break your God-damned neck!”

  “Hold him!” Joyce urged. “Hold tight!” She threw a look of appeal at Gray. “What more do you want? He’s insane, isn’t he? I’m going to phone the hospital. Or the police. Who do I phone?”

  Champion roared inarticulately.

  “No,” Gray said sharply. “Don’t phone anybody yet. Wait.”

  She turned her cold ferocity on him. “You saw what happened! The man’s out of his mind. Isn’t he?”

  Champion started to shout, “You God-damned stupid bitch—” But then he stopped and lay back against the sofa for a moment without struggling. His breath ran out in a long, shuddering sigh.

  Gray said deliberately, “Maybe he had a reason for taking a swing at me
.”

  There was a startled silence in the room. Gray repeated himself in slightly different words, watching Champion.

  “If he had a real motive for wanting to break my jaw, that’s no evidence of insanity.”

  The silence still held. Gray was watching Champion closely: Now he glanced at Quigley and Turk. “Let him go,” he said.

  Reluctantly, frowning, they released the older man. For a moment after their hands let go, Champion still lay back against the sofa as if two men’s weight still pinned him there. Then he sat up slowly, grunting as if he were lifting an enormous weight. He rubbed his arm where Turk’s grip had held him.

  “Thanks for nothing,” he said sullenly.

  Turk said in a persuasive voice, “Come on, Dennis. What’s eating you?”

  “Who asked him here?” Champion demanded, jerking his head toward Gray.

  “I did,” Joyce told him coldly.

  “Then where’s Karen?” Champion moved his head to glance around the room almost in bewilderment. “She phoned me an hour ago. She told me what this—this bastard Gray was up to.”

  “What was that?” Gray asked.

  “You know damn well!”

  Turk said mildly, “I don’t know. What was it, Dennis?”

  Champion growled, “It was a frame—a damned bare-faced frame. Karen said she’d gone to see this quack and he’d told her I was completely crazy. Said even if I wasn’t, for five thousand dollars he’d guarantee to get me declared insane and locked up for life.”

  Gray let his breath out in a long whistle.

  Champion started to surge to his feet, his face congesting again with anger. Quigley stepped forward.

  “Take it easy now, Dennis.”

  Champion glared at Gray. “I suppose you’ll deny it!”

  Gray suddenly began to laugh. Champion’s face went blank with surprise.

  Gray said, “I’m sorry. I was just remembering—I met your wife for the first time today. Know what she told me about you?”

  “It’s a God-damned lie,” Champion roared. “If she says I broke into her place and threw a lamp at her she’s crazy! I’m going to prove it in court this time!”