Pulp Fiction | The Invisibility Affair by Thomas Stratton

by Unknown

  "It was about two months ago," Reed began, and proceeded to give a vivid description of his encounter, apparently forgetting his four o'clock deadline with the patrol car. "I stopped by to talk to Dr. Morthley the next day," he concluded. "You know, feel him out a bit. I must say, if he knew anything about it, he was a good actor. A lot of guys would try to bluff—you know, convince me that I hadn't really seen anything. That's when you know they're up to something. Morthley wasn't that way, though. He seemed quite concerned, but didn't have any explanation."

  "Did he say whether or not he'd been working on an experiment that night?" Illya asked.

  Reed grinned ruefully. "Yes. He did, but it was just a string of big words to me. Omniperceptual something—or was it omnidirectional? Something like that; I didn't understand any of it, and he said it couldn't have had anything to do with what I saw."

  "And the Doctor himself disappeared yesterday?" asked Napoleon.

  "Well, not exactly. I just found out about it yesterday. As near as I can tell, the last time anyone saw him was three days ago. There was two days' mail in his box; that's how I found out about it. The mail carrier on that route is my father-in-law."

  "Do you always watch over the rural residents that closely?" Napoleon asked.

  "No, but I've been trying to keep an eye on Dr. Morthley ever since the house disappeared. Something was going on out there. So when he didn't pick up his mail, I checked on it.

  "Are there any nearby neighbors?" Napoleon asked. "Anybody who might have seen anything suspicious?"

  "No close ones, really. The house sits between two curves in the road. Nearest houses are a half mile away, and with the curve and trees—and a couple hills—I don't think anyone in them could see anything. Old Mrs. Cartlin could probably see the place, though. She lives on another road, about a half mile away, but it's on a hill, and until the leaves are all back on the trees—"

  "You haven't questioned her?"

  "No. I didn't have any real reason to ask questions until he disappeared. No real reason now, for that matter. The sheriff says Morthley probably went on vacation, and as long as that's the official view I don't have any right to nose around. Besides, anything you say to Mrs. Cartlin is common knowledge all over that end of the county in a couple of days."

  "Could you show us around the area this evening?" Illya asked.

  "And," added Napoleon, "could you give us a list of the people living about two miles in each direction, particularly those in the direction of the nearest highway?"

  "And one other thing," said Illya. "Would you tell us how to get to Mukwonago?"

  "I don't know about showing you around tonight," replied Reed. "I'm supposed to be on duty at the sheriff's office we've got a couple of men sick, and everybody else is doubling up to handle the work. You could come up and see, though. That's in Waukesha, now, not Mukwonago. He rummaged in the glove compartment of the patrol car and handed them a map of Wisconsin. "I could get you the list of people by then, and maybe snow the sheriff into letting me off to guide you around. Make sure you don't tell him you know me, though."

  "That sounds fine. We'll see you this evening, then." The two agents got into the car. Illya behind the wheel. Reed still stood near the left door, fidgeting. "Was there anything else?" asked Illya.

  Reed looked as if he were about to blush. "There is one thing you could do for me, since it's getting so late; I won't have time to stop by my place before going to the office and..."

  "Yes?" Illya said impatiently.

  "Well, I have some"—Reed hesitated—"some margarine in the car. I picked up on the way down here, and I was going to leave it at my house before..."

  Both agents looked blank. "Margarine?" they chorused.

  "Yes, said Reed, fidgeting more intensely. "It's colored margarine, and it's still illegal in Wisconsin. It's a dairy state and every year they try to get it made legal, but so far...Anyway, the only way to get it is to buy it in some other state and bring it back. Everybody does it, but with me being a law officer...Well, like I said, the sheriff is kind of hardnosed about a lot of things. There was some uproar a while back when one of the other deputies was caught with some margarine, and—" He broke off, with an elaborate shrug.

  Illya kept his face deadpan more successfully than Napoleon, though he doubted that Reed could see either of them while staring nervously at the car's outside rear-view mirror. "I think we can manage, don't you, Napoleon? After all, if we can't get a case of colored margarine through Wisconsin customs, we had better turn in our credentials. If we're caught, we can always say Thrush planted it in out trunk."

  A few minutes later they were back on the Tri-State Tollway, heading for the Wisconsin line with twenty-four pounds of contraband margarine.

  Chapter 2

  "Would You Like to See My Binoculars?"

  It was just after five when Illya angled the car into a parking space a half block past the Waukesha County Courthouse. Illya locked the car while Napoleon virtuously fed a nickel into the parking meter. After a few minutes' search through the rambling corridors of the building, they located the sheriff's office.

  Behind a large desk with a line of books across its front sat a middle-aged man, a little overweight, with graying, slicked-down hair. He looked up from the papers on the desk and smiled cordially as the two agents stepped through the door. "What can I do for you gentlemen?"

  Napoleon stepped to the desk. "Sheriff Shorey?"

  The man nodded.

  "I'm Napoleon Solo and this is Illya Kuryakin," Solo explained, producing his wallet with the gold identification card. "We're special agents for The United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, and we'd like to talk to you about the disappearance of Dr. Morthley from Mukwonago a few days ago."

  "Mr. Solo and I just flew into O'Hare a few hours ago," Illya offered. "The New York office sent us as soon as word was received of Dr. Morthley's disappearance."

  "That's right," Napoleon said. "There's reason to believe that the disappearance of Dr. Morthley could have serious international implications." He held out his hand for the wallet, which was dangling limply from Shorey's hand. "Could you or one of your men show us the house where he lived? We'd like to get at it as soon as we can. New York is anxious for a preliminary report."

  Shorey, trying as best he could to cope with the incomprehensible handed the wallet back to Napoleon and attempted to look helpful.

  "I could show them, Tom." Charlie Reed stepped into the office. "I've heard about their organization, though I can't imagine why they would be interested in Dr. Morthley."

  The sheriff seized the opportunity. "Fine, Charlie," he said heartily. "You show these gentlemen what they want to see. I'll stay at the desk until you get back. Anyway, McDermit called and said he might be able to come in tonight; he can take over for you if he does." He turned to the agents. "This is one of my deputies, Charlie Reed. He can show you around; he knows the area around there like the palm of his hand. Let's see, that was Solo and...?"

  "Kuryakin," Illya answered. The agents solemnly shook hands with Reed for the third time that day.

  "The patrol car is out in front, if you want to ride with me," Reed said.

  Napoleon considered, then shook his head. "We'd better follow you in our car. We may want to look around after you've gone back on duty. I wouldn't want to cause any problems for the Waukesha County law enforcement." He smiled at the sheriff as the three men stepped out of the office. As they walked down the corridor, Illya felt sure he had heard a sigh of relief as the door had closed.

  When they reached the sidewalk, Napoleon said, "You lead the way. We'll follow; we're parked down the street. We'll want to take a look at Dr. Morthley's house first, then perhaps we can talk to the neighbors."

  "Right. Here's the list of names you wanted. I'll drive past where you're parked and you can swing in behind me."

  Twenty minutes later, Illya turned off a dusty country road into a rutted driveway behind Reed's car. They followed the
drive around to the back of the house, where it stopped in front of an unpainted wooden structure that had apparently served as a garage for Dr. Morthley. Through some trees on their right, they could see a large, sagging building badly in need of paint.

  "It's a barn," Illya said, noticing Napoleon's glance at the structure.

  The agents walked up to the back door of the house, where Reed was waiting.

  "Did Dr. Morthley have a car?" Illya asked.

  Reed nodded. "Yes. It's gone; that's one of the reasons the sheriff thinks he went away by himself. But he'd have had his mail held' he was very particular about his mail."

  "Now, you said there was a bright light in the basement the night the house disappeared," said Napoleon.

  "Uh-huh." Reed pushed open the unlocked back door and stepped into a kitchen. He motioned toward a door on the far side of the room. "It's through there."

  Napoleon opened the door and felt for a light switch. When he found it, light from the basement illuminated a landing where the stairs took a sharp turn. Solo ducked his head and led the way down.

  At the foot of the stairs, he stepped out of Illya's way and looked around. To his right, two hot air ducts snaked through a wooden partition and disappeared into the ceiling. A vacant workbench with several electrical outlets stretched along the wall facing him, and what looked like a bin full of large chunks of scrap of metal filled one corner.

  "What have we here?" Napoleon peered around behind the stairway into the other half of the basement. Lying near the far wall was a door; in the concrete wall itself a door frame was mounted, one side splintered and buckled.

  Illya and Napoleon walked over to the door frame. Beyond the opening, a set of wooden steps led up to ground level outside the house. A half dozen two-by-fours lay on the steps, forming a crude ramp. The top of the stair was blocked by a single horizontal door, presumably mounted flush with the ground.

  "Looks like something big was moved out through here," Napoleon observed, eyeing the splintered section of door frame.

  Illya moved back into the basement. "Heavy, too," he said, gesturing at two deep gouges in the concrete floor.

  Napoleon walked back toward the workbench. About ten feet from the bench, not far from the bin of scrap metal; he spotted four bolt holes in the floor.

  Very big, judging from those," he murmured. "Find anything in there?" he asked Illya, who had begun poking through the scrap bin.

  "No, not really," Illya said, picking up an oddly shaped piece of metal and turning it over in his hands. "Just lots of iron in strange shapes and some burnt-out electrical equipment. We'd better have some of the lab boys out here to look at it. They might be able to come up with something useful."

  Napoleon turned to Reed. "You don't have any idea what Morthley had down here?"

  "No, I never had any reason to go beyond the living room." Reed replied. "Dr. Morthley was friendly enough, but he didn't talk about his work, and it wasn't really any of my business."

  "Until now," Illya murmured.

  "Was he friendly with anyone—friendly enough to drop hints about his work?" Napoleon asked.

  "Not that I know of. Oh, he was friendly enough. He'd talk about crops, weather, politics, business, basketball—he was quite a basketball fan. Said once that he grew up in Indiana. But nothing about his work. He'd answer questions if you asked him, but his answers never seemed to give any information."

  "We had better search the house, I suppose," Napoleon said, turning to Illya. "The Doctor doesn't seem the type to leave notes lying about, and I'm certain that Thrush isn't the type, but we can always hope."

  * * *

  As Napoleon had predicted, the search proved a failure. The sun was nearly down as they left the house. Napoleon pulled the list of neighbors from his pocket. "I see Mrs. Cartlin's name leads all the rest; I believe you mentioned her this afternoon."

  "Oh, yes." Reed walked to the side of the house next to the drive. He pointed almost directly across the road toward a grove of trees still visible in the fading light. "Her house is just on the other side of those trees. Go on down this road a quarter of a mile, then turn right. Mrs. Cartlin's is the first house on the right. If you're going to talk to her tonight, you'd better do it fairly soon. She's nearly eighty and goes to bed pretty early." He looked at his watch. "I'd better be getting back; there doesn't seem to be much else I can show you tonight."

  As Reed drove off, Illya made an annoyed gesture. "What's the matter?" Napoleon asked.

  "We forgot to give him back his margarine."

  Napoleon shrugged. "He probably wouldn't want to park it under the sheriff's nose, anyway." He joined Illya in the car. On the way to Mrs. Cartlin's, he unclipped his U.N.C.L.E. communicator from his pocket and contacted Waverly in New York, informing him of their progress and requesting that technicians be sent to the Morthley residence.

  "So it appears to be somewhat more that coincidence, eh, Mr. Solo?" Waverly said as the car pulled into Mrs. Cartlin's driveway.

  "Well, we haven't really learned much so far, sir, but something heavy was undoubtedly taken out of Dr. Morthley's basement. The lab boys may come up with something there. Of course, we have no way of knowing who—oh, we're at the Cartlin house now. I'll check in again as soon as we learn anything definite. Solo out."

  He slipped the miniature transceiver back into his jacket pocket and stepped out of the car to join Illya on the narrow gravel walk that led to the porch of the small, one story cottage. The front door swung open before Napoleon had a chance to knock. He stood with his fist upraised while a small crinkled face surrounded by grey-white hair peered up at him from a height of about four and a half feet.

  "Hello there," the face said. "I've been waiting for you. Who are you, by the way?"

  Napoleon slowly lowered his hand, smiling uncertainly. "We're special agents from U.N.C.L.E.—" he began.

  "Oh, yes," the face said, breaking into a wide grin. "That's the outfit old Charlie Reed moonlights for. What's he been telling you now? I saw him out there pointing to my house a few minutes ago."

  Even the normally imperturbable Illya looked a bit taken aback at this news. "You did?" he asked.

  "Oh, my, yes," she informed them. "I've been watching you through my binoculars ever since you drove up to the old Adams place."

  "Could we step inside a minute, Mrs. Cartlin?" Napoleon pressed lightly against the partly open door.

  "Oh, of course." Mrs. Cartlin stepped back and the door swung open, revealing a living room crammed to overflowing with spidery chairs, fragile little tables, and even more fragile bric-a-brac. "Would you like to see my binoculars? They're a very good set. It's getting a little dark to see very much though. I've been planning to get a good telescope, but all optical equipment seems priced very dear these days."

  "No, thank you," Illya said, edging nervously into the room and barely avoiding a porcelain kangaroo with his elbow. "But we would like to talk to you about what you might have seen with them."

  "Yes," agreed Napoleon. "We're investigating the disappearance of Dr. Morthley, and we'd like to know if you've ever noticed anything unusual at his house, or if he's had any visitors in the past, oh, say three months."

  "Why?" She folded her arms and rocked back on her heels, then leaned forward to Illya. "Was he a Thrush?"

  "Not that we know of," Illya replied calmly, "but he might have been involved with some."

  "Well, I wouldn't wonder," she replied vigorously. "That girl looked like a Thrush if I ever saw one! Bold as brass, she acted—"

  "What girl?"

  "Oh, there was a girl visiting Morthley almost every day for a while back in April. Haven't seen her lately, though. Not in the daytime, at least, and I can't see much at night. If I only had that telescope..."

  "You don't happen to know who the girl was, do you?"

  "Why, of course not! How could I know a thing like that?"

  "I just thought..."

  "But, I do have her license number if you'
d like to see it." She turned and opened a drawer in a cluttered table near a window. Reaching inside, she pulled out a small red leather notebook with a tiny gold pen attached to it by a silver chain. "It was a 1966 Rambler Classic, four-door, light blue, license number W44-948. She was there first on..." Mrs. Cartlin paused to flip a page "...on April 17, stayed for about an hour, and came back the 19th for the whole day. She was there every day after that until the 28th; she was only there a few minutes that day." She snapped the book shut. "Hasn't been back since—during the day, at least. Did you get all that down, or should I run through it again?"

  "I think we have it all. Thank you very much," said Napoleon. "You've been a great help, and now I think we'd better see about tracking down that license plate." The agents edged outside, Napoleon barely avoiding a jade axolotl on the way.

  As they got in the car, Illya spoke. "Napoleon, do you suppose our budget would allow another part-time agent in this area?"

  While Illya drove, Napoleon contacted Waverly and reported their encounter with Mrs. Cartlin.

  "I'll have the license number run through our data center and contact you as soon as we have anything," Waverly said. "And I'll check with our finance department about the budget for part-time agents. Until now, Wisconsin hasn't been what you could calla productive area for our organization, but in the present situation...Well, we'll see. He ceased transmitting, failing as usual to use the prescribed closing phrase.

  Napoleon returned the transceiver to his inside pocket. "Shall we talk to any of the other people on the list, do you think?"

  "We might as well do something while we're waiting for a reply on that license number. Unless you want to drive back to Waukesha and deliver Charlie's margarine."

  Napoleon muttered something under his breath and studied the list. "Let's see, there's a house there, just past the next corner. According to the list, it belongs to a Mr. Brandondale. He—" The road was suddenly blocked by a dark sedan that shot out of the crossroad, swerved slightly toward them, and stopped in the middle of the crossing. Illya twisted the wheel sharply, and the rented car lurched as the left front wheel dropped into the ditch. The sound of metal scraping on gravel came from beneath the car and increased in volume as Illya jammed the accelerator down and aimed the car at the narrow gap between the steel fence posts that lined the road and the blocking car.