Patelli bounced into the room, struggling with a smoking jacket. “What’s up?” he wanted to know.
Harvey told him, sparing no detail. “And now,” he finished, “the problem is to locate her. That’s why I’ve come to you. Where would Bonzetti hide her?”
Patelli looked worried. “That guy’s bad business,” he said. “I’d hate to —”
“But you’ve got to help me!” Harvey insisted. “If we let Pembroke get away with this, he’ll rule the town with an iron hand. He’ll use this administration to make a final clean-up, knowing full well that each succeeding election has been getting harder to swing. He’ll have his cut out of every club in town, until he takes all the profit out of it. And besides, think of Milly.”
“That’s who I’m thinking of,” said Patelli, quietly. “I ain’t worrying about Danvers getting in.”
Harvey fell suddenly silent. He realized that he had misjudged Patelli; and he wanted to get his thoughts in order. The stubby club owner was human; he had forgotten that for the moment. He had been regarding Patelli as a man who would appreciate nothing less than an appeal to his pocketbook.
“I’ll have to round up the boys,” Patelli continued. “Between us we might be able to get a lead. Don’t get up too much hope, though. You go back to the club and wait. I’ll call as soon as I learn anything.”
Harvey thanked him and left, assured that inside an hour there would be men with the right connections extending every effort to learn Millicent’s whereabouts. He started the sedan’s motor and was about to put it in gear when he felt a touch of cold metal on the back of his neck.
“Keep your hands on the wheel,” came a rasping voice.
Harvey kept his hands on the wheel, just in case. But he said: “Oh, it’s you again. Now what?”
“You’re under arrest!” said O’Reilly. “I’m going to take you down to headquarters and let the boys work over you — unless you’d rather cooperate and hand over those papers.”
Harvey sighed deeply, and put the car into gear. Tentatively he eased out the clutch and moved the car a few feet.
“Hey! Where you going?” demanded the state cop.
“Down to headquarters,” said Harvey, and grinned to himself as he felt the pressure of the gun removed.
“You’re a hard man,” complained O’Reilly, plaintively. “Why don’t you give a guy a break? You were supposed to be scared and hand over the papers.”
“I must have mislaid the script,” said Harvey, smiling wryly. “Look, Sherlock, why don’t you go home for a few hours and get ready for a tough evening? Rest up a bit.”
“Nothing doing,” said O’Reilly. “As soon as I turn my back you’ll give me the slip.”
“Okay,” said Harvey, wearily. “Let’s go and get a bite to eat.”
“On you?” suggested O’Reilly.
“On me,” agreed Harvey.
PATELLI’S club was a different place altogether, during the day. There wasn’t any orchestra, blaring forth its alleged music. Nor was the air heavy with tobacco smoke and synthetic gayety. Harvey decided it would be a good place to eat, especially since he didn’t want to risk missing Patelli’s first call. There were plenty of vacant tables and he selected one over near the bar and its frozen-faced attendant.
Harvey Nelson was worried. He didn’t know whether the night-club man would be able to learn anything, and he hated the inaction of waiting. But since he hadn’t the slightest idea of how to locate Bonzetti’s hideout, there was nothing else he could do. O’Reilly, watching his face, sensed that something was wrong.
“You look like you’d lost your best friend,” he observed.
“Worse than that,” said Harvey. “My girl.”
O’Reilly clucked his tongue sympathetically. “What happened?”
“She said she couldn’t cook sauerkraut,” Harvey answered mournfully. “I said she’d have to learn, because I like sauerkraut at least three times a week — with dumplings. She said she wouldn’t, and — Well, one word led to another and...”
“Yeah,” said O’Reilly. “You got to smack them around once in a while, or they begin to feel important. But you ought to waited till you married her.”
“I guess I ought to have,” agreed Harvey. “But you don’t know how I love sauerkraut!”
The meal arrived at that moment, and the conversation fell flat on its face. Harvey was busy masticating a piece of steak, well done, while O’Reilly was trying to figure why he hadn’t ordered sauerkraut.
Dessert had just been consumed when Patelli’s call came. Harvey almost upset the table when the bartender beckoned to him.
“I’ve got something,” came Patelli’s voice over the phone. “I’ll have things lined up by six o’clock. See me then.”
Perhaps it was the meal which mellowed Mr. O’Reilly, but he didn’t put up much of an argument when Harvey again suggested that he go home and rest up. He seemed to take Harvey at his word when Harvey swore that he intended to go back to his apartment and stay there until nearly six. O’Reilly waved a goodbye from the curb as Harvey drove off.
Chapter 21: Back to Tomorrow
HARVEY peeled off his jacket and hung it, with the vest, on a hanger in a closet. He was removing his necktie when he had his first inkling that everything was not as it should be. But then it was too late to do anything about it.
“HOW do you feel?”
“Not much stronger.”
“Can you read minds yet? Is that guy O’Reilly on the up and up?”
“I haven’t been able to get into his mind yet, but I think he’s all right.”
“Suppose he’s really working with Inspector Schwartz instead of trying to get the jump on him?”
“I don’t think so. Considering the way Schwartz treated him.”
“But Schwartz said he was going to put a tail on Harvey. Where’s the tail if it’s not O’Reilly?”
“You heard that when we first came back here in time. How do you know Schwartz said it again? We didn’t stay to listen, you know. And I’m supposed to have changed history by interfering.”
“But everything else was just the same... Say! Look at that!”
HARVEY had loosened the knot of his necktie and was in the act of slipping the loop over his head, when he saw a toe protruding from the bathroom doorway. At the same instant he saw a hand descending toward his head. He made a quick swipe at the hand, to knock it aside, but at that instant his thumb caught in the loop of the necktie.
The sudden jerk pulled his head forward, for the loop wasn’t yet free. The blackjack in the descending hand was thus given a perfect target. Lightning exploded in Harvey’s head and he knew no more.
“STOP them! Grab ’em!”
Omega tried, but it wasn’t any use. He hadn’t nearly the strength he had had when he’d first masqueraded as Harvey’s shadow. He couldn’t even trip the smaller of the men. Frantically he tried to impede their movements as one of them grabbed Harvey’s coat and hastily went through the pockets. He tried mightily to exert enough pressure to knock one of them out, but the forces of nature no longer obeyed the mighty Omega. He was a shadow now, and shadows didn’t indulge in such pastimes.
Mark hurled himself at the men also, but he passed through them without even slowing. Mark wasn’t even a shadow.
“Harvey’s unconscious,” Omega said, as the marauders quietly closed the door behind them. “If he wasn’t, I might have been able to do something.”
“Why?”
“Simply because he knows I can exert force. He’s seen me do it.”
“That would make it so, eh? Why doesn’t it work the other way around! You’re a shadow because he believes it, aren’t you? He’s captured your thought pattern. So when he goes to sleep, that ought to release it.”
“It would, if I had my strength. But this long stay in the past has weakened me. Now I need his belief in my powers in order to do anything.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“Sure it
does. Listen. Normally I derive all my power from my knowledge of how to manipulate the subcosmic forces which abound in all space and matter. You follow?”
“Sure I follow. I’m ahead. Those forces abound here, just the same. Even if you are six thousand years from your normal time. You used those same forces when you really existed during this period. So why can’t you use them now? Have you forgotten how?”
“I haven’t forgotten anything. The point is that these forces are wave motions, similar to light but smaller. They exist just as that table exists. And they weren’t tapped or used at this time. Therefore they resist movement very strongly, for the simple reason that six thousand years have passed and the fabric of time has become firmly set.”
“You used them plenty when you first came back. You kicked Harvey all over the place.”
“I know. But it gets harder all the time. I didn’t realize that at first or I wouldn’t have exerted myself. Each thing I did that hadn’t really been done when that time had passed normally, stretched the fabric out of shape. Time is elastic, you know. So that each new thing I did caused a distortion which pushed against the normal shape of the fabric. Naturally, the further it was stretched the more it resisted. Do you grasp the analogy?”
“I think so. But what are you going to do?”
“Oh I’ll strengthen a little when Harvey wakes up. His belief will increase the force I’m able to exert. But right now I’d better try to revive him. If I had strength enough to lift a glass of water. But I haven’t. It takes half my energy to keep you here so that you can observe...”
Mark suddenly realized that everything was black, and the familiar sinking feeling had returned. There was an instant of panic, then he was angry. Omega had cast him off! He’d return automatically to his own time and wouldn’t know what was happening to Harvey.
But he cooled off when he realized that Omega had only done it so that he would have sufficient strength to throw some water on Harvey and bring him to. When that was done, Omega would bring him back into the past again. He hoped.
Abruptly the sinking sensation ceased and Mark found himself at the bank of the creek. He was in his own body, completely alone. The water at his feet gurgled placidly among some small rocks at the edge of the bank. He watched it for a moment, thinking, then turned to look at the ravine which Omega had cut. He looked, but didn’t see it. There was only a rolling prairie on all sides!
Puzzled, Mark lined up the little rise where Omega had started the cut. He could see the place, though it looked different from before. The sides of the cut had fallen in and grass had almost obliterated all evidence of its existence.
His eyes followed the place where the stream had diverted for a time; but it was almost impossible to distinguish it. Where silt hadn’t covered it, the banks had fallen and grass covered it completely.
Mark suddenly sat down, staring at the rushing, bubbling water. The whole excursion into time had accomplished nothing. He had gotten all excited about Harvey’s plight and influenced Omega to take a hand, and it didn’t mean a thing. Time went on, inexorably, and no amount of effort could change those things which had happened. Slight, impermanent alterations, perhaps, but in the main changing nothing.
Omega was wrong. There was some law governing the immutability of events, of which he was ignorant. It seemed incredible, but it was true. And that meant that so important an event as a murder could not be made not to happen. Nor could a man suspected of that murder be relieved of suspicion. Nor —
Mark jumped to his feet. Suppose Harvey were to endanger himself in his quest to find Millicent? Omega could not protect him. If he had been killed in the attempt, nothing Omega could do would prevent it. He might make changes, but they wouldn’t affect the result. The methods, perhaps; but not the result.
Mark paced beside the creek. Even if he could do nothing to change events which had already happened, he still wished to observe them. He waited, impatiently, for Omega to reach ahead and draw him into the past.
Chapter 22: One-Shot Patelli
A GLASS of water floated through the air, stopped for a second as it hovered over Harvey’s face, and emptied itself. Then it returned to the wash bowl in the bathroom, only a few feet away, and filled itself again. A wispy, almost diaphanous column of something resembling thin tobacco smoke appeared to be supporting the glass. It was more or less rigid and substantial, however, and refused to disperse, as real smoke would have done.
The glass returned to Harvey; but this time it didn’t pour itself. It was about to, when the recumbent Mr. Nelson suddenly came to life, saw the glass and dodged aside.
This little maneuver caused stabs of pain to center in the region of the back of his head, and things began to go black again. He fought it off, concentrating on a mental picture of Millicent, who was in dire distress and needed his aid.
The urgency of the thought cleared his brain quickly. He sat up, and in doing so rested momentarily in a puddle of water. This finished the job, of bringing his mental processes to full recovery. He sprang to his feet, swayed dizzily, and rubbed his head.
“What happened?” he asked.
“We got conked,” answered Omega.
“We?”
“Yeah,” said Omega. “I was awake coming up the stairs, and I was about to say something. I think I was going to suggest that you put those papers in a safe place, when things blacked out.”
Harvey suddenly quit rubbing his scalp. “The papers!” he gasped, and made a dash for the closet where he had hung his coat. He went frantically from pocket to pocket, though he knew very well he was wasting his energy. The papers were gone, and there wasn’t any sense looking in pockets where he hadn’t put them. The envelope in which he had carried them had been too large to fit any but the inside pocket of his coat. And that pocket was empty.
He slumped in an upholstered chair, unmindful of the fact that he was soaking wet at the point of contact.
“It doesn’t matter much,” said Omega.
“What do you mean?”
“Simply that you have to find Milly anyway,” said Omega, “Those papers wouldn’t have helped.”
Laboriously Harvey began removing his soggy clothes. A warm bath would make him feel better, he hoped. It was exactly five-fifty when he locked the door behind him. Then he turned toward his car, and stopped suddenly. O’Reilly was hunched in the back seat, sound asleep. Harvey shook him vigorously.
“Don’t trust me, eh?” he commented.
The State cop rubbed his eyes, reluctantly coming back to the world of the living. “Trust you!” he said. “After the trick you tried to pull?”
“What trick?”
“Oh, you kept your promise, all right. You didn’t leave your place till now, just like you said. But it was a trick just the same. Visitors — that you didn’t want me to know about.”
Harvey stopped suddenly, his foot poised over the starter button. “What visitors?” he snapped.
“As if you didn’t know,” derided O’Reilly. “I was suspicious of the way you tried to get rid of me. So I followed in a cab. I watched your door for a while, and then the two guys came out.”
“Who?” yelled Harvey, turning in his seat. “Who were they?”
O’Reilly’s eyes widened. He suddenly realized that Harvey was serious, that he really didn’t know who his visitors had been.
“Lucky Bonzetti, and one of his gang,” he said, mystified. “What’s the matter now?”
Harvey had growled, deep in his throat. Bonzetti had been in his own flat, practically in his hands, and held let him get away. If he’d kept his wits about him, Millicent might be free by now. But he’d been caught flat-footed.
THE pattern of events seemed to fall into place. As soon as Harvey had left Pembroke’s offices, Bonzetti had been put to work to recover the papers. There wasn’t any use reviling himself now; the thing was done, and Millicent wouldn’t have been safe anyway, papers or no papers. But it was all the more urgent that he find her, no
w that Pembroke had them. They at least had afforded a guarantee of her safety until after the primaries.
“What’s it all about, Mr. Nelson?” asked O’Reilly. “This business is driving me loco.”
“Bonzetti knocked me out,” Harvey revealed. “He took those papers.”
“You mean the ones you took off Dolly Patterson?” asked O’Reilly slyly.
Harvey’s grin was something of a grimace. “Get up here in the front seat,” he said. “Now I’m going to tell you some things. Mainly so that you’ll know what’s going on, in case I need your help.”
Harvey talked rapidly. By the time he pulled up in front of Patelli’s club, he had imparted practically all the information necessary to give O’Reilly a working knowledge of what had been going on. He judicially left out all mention of the machinations of Omega, who was a hard individual to explain.
The doorman informed them that Patelli hadn’t arrived yet, though he was expected any minute. Harvey thanked him and led O’Reilly toward the bar.
“Then you figure Bonzetti killed Dolly Patterson?” O’Reilly asked.
“You’re the detective,” said Harvey. “All I want to do is to find Miss Forbes. And, once she’s safe, get Fowler elected. Though that’s unimportant right now.”
“Sure. I’m with you on that,” said O’Reilly. “But I also want to know how it ties up with the death of Dolly Patterson. You’re only guessing when you figure Pembroke put Bonzetti on the job of getting those papers from you. I figure he put him on the job while she still had them. He botched the job. Killed her, and then couldn’t find the hiding place.”
“Could be,” admitted Harvey. “Let’s have a drink.”
“YOU’RE stronger, eh? It didn’t take you long to bring me back.”
The Best of Argosy #8 - Minions of the Shadow Page 11
