The Devils & Demons MEGAPACK ®: 25 Modern and Classic Tales

by Mack Reynolds

  “Ka-choo!”

  The force of the sneeze sent the imp sailing through the air to a point near young Mr. Barnes’ waist, but he bounced to his feet again like a rubber ball. And, when his victim’s head snapped back against the wall with a thwack, the demon exploded into another gale of malicious merriment.

  “See you later!” he shouted as he disappeared from view, leering unpleasantly. “I’ve got to run over to see how Miss Shannahan’s execution is shaping up!”

  The sound of the sneeze brought the gangster left to guard Tod back to attention.

  “Catchin’ cold?” he queried with mock solicitude. “Well, don’t worry. You ain’t gonna live long enough fer it to grow into pneumonia.”

  Ablaze with inner fury though he was, the other did not answer. Instead, he strained his wrists against the fishline, only to learn why it had been used. It was so small in diameter that it cut deep into his wrists long before stretching. He saw clearly that he had about as much chance of breaking loose from it as he had of sinking through the concrete floor.

  Time and again the events of the evening passed through his weary mind. A dozen questions arose to plague him: Who was the masked man who actually had arranged this robbery for Steve Kroloski? How did he know all the details of the warehouse protection plan? Would he get away with it? And what about himself, Tod Barnes? Did he have a chance to live through this strange, mixed up phantasmagoria, in which one wicked little spirit maliciously determined the destinies of half-a-dozen people? Or would Beezlebub’s queer, distorted pattern of behavior ultimately win out?

  But most of all he thought about Molly. He traced and retraced her face in his memory. Sighed over every beloved feature. And cursed the luck that had brought her here, to play the pawn for Beezlebub.

  The floor grew colder and colder beneath him, until at last his teeth began to chatter. He meditated on the bad luck that had led him to go out to drown his sorrows in Old Harbor Light in his work clothes, instead of going home to put on his warmer suit. He thought, wistfully, how good a drink would taste right now.

  And then it came to him!

  One second it was the vaguest of hazy ideas. The next a full-grown plan. It was completely crazy, of course. No normal human being, in a normal situation, could even have thought of it without laughing. As a matter of fact, and in spite of his present plight, Tod was inclined to smile now. And the more he considered it, the more sound and logical it seemed, and the more he smiled.

  His guard was in the throes of a long monologue. Printed and bound, it could well have been titled: “Rubbing ’em Out—A Handbook of Techniques for the Modern Gangster.”

  “The general idea is that as soon as this warehouse is emptied, I get taken for a ride, huh?” probed Tod in a quavering voice.

  “You hit it, chum. Now, I remember how we did it in t’irty-t’ree, to Lefty Alverez—”

  “Sure,” agreed the prisoner, in what he hoped was a whining tone, “but what about me?”

  “Well, w’at about it? You gets bumped, that’s all.”

  The young warehouseman moaned experimentally. It was, he decided, quite a success.

  “Look, friend,” he pleaded, “in another couple of hours I’ll be dead as last Friday’s fish. But right now I’m cold and sick and miserable all around. How about giving me a drink? It won’t hurt you, an’ it sure will help me.”

  His guard considered this for a while. “Dat’s oke wit’ me,” he reported finally, “only I ain’t got no hootch on me.”

  Trying hard to keep the elation out of his voice, Tod moved on to the next step of his campaign. “Well, I have,” he said. “It’s in a bottle strapped to my left leg. I put it there when I saw they were going to haul me off to jail.”

  “Yeah? Let’s see.” Somewhat suspiciously, the gunman investigated, then began to chuckle. “Say, dat’s clever,” he announced with grudging admiration. “You’re a smart guy.” He inspected the label. “Old Harbor Light, huh? Gee, dat’s rotten stuff.”

  Tod moaned again. “Sure,” he agreed, “but at least it’ll warm me up. Let me have a slug of it.”

  “I guess dat’s all right,” the hoodlum decided. He uncorked the Old Harbor Light, lifted the prisoner’s head a little higher, and stuck the bottle neck into his mouth. Tod gulped one mouthful of the liquid fire after another, until the last dregs gurgled.

  “Hey!” protested his captor in an injured tone, “you don’t hafta make a hog of yerself. I’d like a nip, too.” Then, rising to his feet: “Didn’ you leave none at all?”

  But Tod was eyeing the thug in most peculiar fashion, almost as if measuring the hoodlum for a blow. The other did not notice it, for he was trying—unsuccessfully—to wean a drink from the bottle.

  Tssspp!

  Like a fire hose nozzle’s initial blast, Old Harbor Light spurted from the young warehouseman’s lips. Spurted in the same deadly-accurate fashion that Copenhagen juice had spurted a thousand times before. Spurted straight into the gangster’s eyes!

  “Aiii!” gasped the hood as the fiery stuff seared his optics delicate tissues. He staggered backward; his mouth open for a scream that never came.

  For Tod’s legs jerked spasmodically. His feet slammed into the lurching gunman’s ankles. The guard crashed to the concrete floor, his head striking with a sickening thud, while the Old Harbor Light bottle flew out of his hand and smashed into a hundred pieces on the pavement.

  There was a long moment of silence. Tod listened breathlessly for the sound of approaching feet. But no one came.

  Painfully, awkwardly, the young husky rolled across the floor to the remains of the bottle. There, with infinite patience and at the expense of several minor cuts, he hacked away at his bonds with the broken glass.

  In five minutes he was free and pulling himself gingerly to his feet. Hastily tying up the still-unconscious thug and taking his gun, Tod hurried toward the warehouse entrance. Only once did he pause: when he came abreast of the re-circuited burglar alarm, he hesitated long enough to grin and—once again—to spit.

  Hand-trucks were rumbling down the center aisle in a steady stream as sweating hoodlums rushed tires from the warehouse into waiting trucks. An unpleasant gleam lighted Tod’s eyes as he took a firmer grip on the captured automatic.

  “Now if only that damned Beezlebub doesn’t stick his nose in again, we should have quite a party here,” he muttered under his breath.

  But before he could move, a little cry of terror caught his ear. It came from the far end of the warehouse. Tod spun about. Molly!

  By craning his neck cautiously around a pile of tires, the young warehouseman could see the girl from where he stood. Her back was to him, and in front of her stood a gorilla-like thug who was in the act of screwing a silencer onto the end of his gun. And, because Molly was between him and the hood, Tod dared not shoot.

  Stuffing the captured automatic into the waistband of his trousers, the brawny youth sped on silent feet through the next lane of tires toward the two.

  “It’s too bad, sister, but I gotta do it,” he heard the gorilla say. “Don’t worry, though; youse won’t even feel it.”

  And Molly, with a toss of auburn curls: “Why apologize? Just go ahead and murder me!”

  His heart in his mouth, Tod shivered at the situation. He could not get closer than ten feet to the gunman without being seen. Yet he dared not try shooting, for Molly still separated him from the thug.

  Then, in a flash, he caught it. He remembered all the thousands of times he had hurled tires into the air so accurately that they balanced on piles far higher than his head.

  In an instant he had a relatively light automobile tire in his grasp. Already the hoodlum was raising his gun. Tod clenched his teeth. He tried desperately to halt the trembling of his hands.

  “Well I am sorry,” said the g
orilla. His face was a trifle pale, as if murdering women in cold blood was not quite in his line. But his knuckle was whitening on the trigger.

  Tod hurled the tire.

  High into the air it spun, like a giant’s toy. The gorilla caught the flash of the movement. His face went puzzled. He stood stiff-legged and tense, suspicious but not yet quite aware of what had happened.

  Tod’s lips were like chalk as he watched the paper-covered rubber ring reach the ceiling of its climb. Then it was dropping…dropping…dropping, straight down in a flat fall, as neatly as if its goal were a stack of tires instead of an armed and desperate killer.

  Thunk!

  As neatly as ever a rope ring dropped over a peg, the tire struck home—over the gangster’s head and shoulders like a life preserver, a perfect hit. It slapped the man’s arms tight against his sides, knocked the pistol from his grasp.

  Even as it hit, the young warehouseman sprang. In three steps he covered the space between them. His calloused fist smashed home on the thug’s chin with a force that sent a stab of shock running back into his own shoulder.

  “Get him!”

  It was the bellow of Steve Kroloski. Tod spun about. The big racketeer was charging toward him like a mad bull.

  Tod whipped out the automatic he had taken from his guard. With a single shove he sent Molly lurching back into the cover of two stacks of tires. He snapped a shot at Kroloski.

  With amazing agility, the big gangster jumped sidewise. But still he came on.

  Again the young warehouseman pulled the trigger. No shot! One glance told the story. The slide action was jammed back. There was no time to do anything about it. Snarling, he hurled it straight at the oncoming hoodlum with all his might.

  “Cops!” a voice from the far end of the warehouse roared. “Cops! Carloads of ’em! Run for it, youse guys!”

  Kroloski stopped in his tracks as cold as if he had been shot. Behind him, his gunsels already were sprinting for the exit. From outside came the thunder of guns.

  “Steve! This way! Quick!”

  As one, Kroloski and Tod whirled. The voice had come from the back of the warehouse. It was sharp, clear, incisive—everything that the butchered English of the gangsters was not. Somehow, it struck a familiar note in Tod’s consciousness. Where had he heard that voice before?

  There, far to the rear, stood the masked, mysterious figure of the finger man. He motioned frantically.

  “Fire door!” he shouted. “It only opens from the inside! Hurry up!”

  The chatter of a tommy gun now joined the tumult outside the main entrance. Kroloski did not hesitate. He rushed headlong past Tod and toward the masked man.

  In one jump the husky warehouseman was beside the fallen gorilla who had been scheduled as Molly’s executioner. He grabbed the hoodlum’s gun.

  But the fall to the concrete floor had been too much for it. One side was badly cracked. And already Kroloski and the masked man were nearly to the fire door.

  Tod scrambled past the still-unconscious hoodlum. He jerked up a heavy truck tire and, with the skill born of long experience, sent it rolling down the floor after the running pair. In split-seconds four more of the big nonskids were spinning after the first.

  Like juggernauts, they crashed into the masked man and Kroloski, knocking the pair’s legs from under them, sending them crashing to the floor before they could reach the fire door.

  Before they could recover, blue uniformed police had invaded the vast warehouse and were hurrying down the aisle between the stacks of tires to make prisoners of the big racketeer and his finger man. But Tod no longer was paying them any heed. He was pulling Molly to her feet and begging forgiveness abjectly for his multitudinous sins of the evening.

  Before she could answer him, bluecoats were dragging Kroloski and the masked man past them. The young warehouseman glanced up. His eyes lit on the finger man, now minus his face-covering.

  “Dale!” he gasped. “Walter Dale!”

  Molly gave vent to a tearful: “Oh, Walt!”

  The blond, handsome young soldier—and former Griggs employee glared. “Ah, can it!” he snarled. “I got caught. So what?”

  Before he could say more, the officers dragged him away.

  “Oh, Tod!” Molly wept, her face buried against her husky sweetheart’s broad shoulder. “Oh, I’m so ashamed! To—to think I let you go for that—, that—, that—”

  “Sure, honey, sure. It’s all right,” Tod soothed, caressing her rippling wave of soft auburn hair. He felt a tremendous inner urge to do a little quiet gloating, but some instinct told him it would be wiser not to let her know it.

  The next instant the portly figure of old Jake Griggs himself waddled into view, accompanied by the chief of police.

  “Tod, my boy!” old Jake beamed. “If I ever needed any proof of just how valuable you are, this is it. Imagine fighting this whole gang of thugs alone—”

  “Skip it!” Tod grunted irritably. “You give me the rawest deal of anyone in the outfit, then come belly-aching around about how valuable I am. You, that wouldn’t even have the decency to give me a release so I could get another job!”

  There was a mischievous gleam in old Jake Griggs’ shoe-button eyes. “Molly,” he commanded, “tell this young idiot why I wouldn’t give him his precious release.”

  The girl raised her head. The gray eyes were proud. “Mr. Griggs got you another job,” she said. “The appointment just came this afternoon. That’s why Mr. Griggs wouldn’t let you go. He’s been trying to get you the best job possible. Only he wanted to surprise you.”

  “A job?” Tod’s face was a study in bewilderment. “I don’t get it. What kind of a job?”

  Old Jake Griggs chuckled ’til his fat sides shook. “Starting Monday,” he proclaimed, “you’re a warehouse inspector for the tire rationing board!”

  “Holy—! Say, Mr. Griggs—” Sudden scarlet flooded Tod’s embarrassed cheeks.

  His former employer slapped him on the shoulder, still chuckling. “Forget it,” he chortled. “I know just how you felt.”

  Now the chief of police broke in. “What I don’t understand,” he declared, scratching his head in perplexity, “is how you gave us the alarm. That burglar alarm is doctored perfect, but the bells rang down at headquarters just as if the connection had been broken.”

  “The alarm rings when there’s a short circuit, too,” explained Tod, grinning. “So when I went past the wires when I got away, I spat on ’em. Nobody had bothered to tape them, so getting ’em wet sent the whole works haywire.”

  Again Griggs slapped his shoulder. “Fine work, my boy. Fine work. But now”—he glanced at Molly, who still nestled in the young warehouseman’s arms—“maybe you’d like to take the lady home.”

  “I’m sure he does,” Molly agreed, smiling up at her rescuer. “He’s got so much to tell me.”

  A police car took them to her home. En route, in an outburst of unequalled frankness, Tod outlined the events of the entire evening exactly as they had happened. The lovely Miss Shannahan eyed him somewhat quizzically.

  “Right now,” she commented, “I’m inclined to believe almost anything you say. But that story about a little amber devil named Beezlebub…

  Her voice trailed away and she shook her head amusedly.

  “Oh, but it’s true,” Tod assured her. “Every word of it.”

  Molly smiled tenderly. “I’m sure it is,” she soothed, caressing his forehead. “But you’ve had a hard night—drinking all that whiskey, and chewing’ all that snuff, and being pushed around. You better go home and get some sleep.”

  “You mean you don’t believe me?”

  “Of course I believe you, darling,”

  “No, you don’t.”

  There was a certain asperity in Molly’s
reply. “Look, Tod,” she said. “After all, if this Beezlebub was so successful at getting you into trouble all evening, how is it he didn’t finish the job? Why weren’t we both killed?”

  “We would have been,” her sweetheart assured her solemnly, “if I hadn’t gotten him first.”

  “Gotten him first—?”

  “Sure. I killed him.”

  “But you said he claimed you couldn’t kill him—”

  “I couldn’t. Not by hitting him, or things like that.”

  “Then how—?”

  The husky young warehouseman grinned. “It came to me, all of a sudden, while I was lying there on the floor, tied up and waiting to be killed,” he explained. “It was so simple I damned near laughed out loud.”

  “But how—? Oh, hurry up, Tod! Tell me!”

  “Well, it all grew out of his being a whiskey spirit.”

  “You mean—?”

  Again the young man grinned. “I learned a long time ago how to ‘kill’ whiskey,” he declared, “So I did the same thing tonight. Honey, I drank every last drop of that Old Harbor Light! And then, just to make sure, I broke the bottle!”

  THE CASE OF MR. LUCRAFT, Walter Besant and James Rice

  I have more than once told the story of the only remarkable thing which ever happened to me in the course of a longish life, but as no one ever believed me, I left off telling it. I wish, therefore, to leave behind me a truthful record, in which everything shall be set down, as near as I can remember it, just as it happened. I am sure I need not add a single fact. The more I consider the story, the more I realise to myself my wonderful escape and the frightful consequences which a providential accident averted from my head, the more reason I feel to be grateful and humble.

  I have read of nothing similar to my own case. I have consulted books on apparitions, witchcraft, and the power of the devil as manifested in authentic history, but I have found absolutely nothing that can in any way compare with my own case. If there be any successor to my Mr. Ebenezer Grumbelow, possessed of his unholy powers, endowed with his fiendish resolve and his diabolical iniquity of selfishness, this plain and simple narrative may serve as a warning to young men situated as I was in the year 1823. Except as a moral example, indeed, I see no use in telling the story at all.