THE SOUND OF THE BUZZER brought him up out of his chair, much disorganized, but convinced that he had not closed his eyes. Cynthia was all right—that is to say, she was still asleep, which was the best he had expected. He rolled up his tube and reassured himself with the sound of her heart.
The buzzing continued—or resumed; he did not know which. Automatically he answered it.
“Potbury,” came a voice. “What’s the matter? You asleep? How’s the patient?”
“No change, doctor,” he answered, striving to control his voice.
“That so? Well, let me in.”
Potbury brushed on by him when he opened the door and went directly to Cynthia. He leaned over her for a moment or two, then straightened up. “Seems about the same,” he said. “Can’t expect much change for a day or so. Crisis about Wednesday, maybe.” He looked Randall over curiously. “What in the world have you been doing? You look like a four-day bender.”
“Nothing,” said Randall. “Why didn’t you have me send her to a hospital, doctor?”
“Worst thing you could do for her.”
“What do you know about it? You haven’t really examined her. You don’t know what’s wrong with her. Do you?”
“Are you crazy? I told you yesterday.”
Randall shook his head. “Just double talk. You’re trying to kid me about her. And I want to know why.”
Potbury took a step toward him. “You are crazy—and drunk, too.” He looked curiously at the big mirror. “I want to know what’s been going on here.” He touched a finger to smeared enamel.
“Don’t touch it!”
Potbury checked himself. “What’s it for?”
Randall looked sly. “I foxed ’em.”
“Who?”
“The Sons of the Bird. They come in through mirrors—but I stopped them.”
Potbury stared at him. “I know them,” Randall said. “They won’t fool me again. The Bird is Cruel.”
Potbury covered his face with his hands.
They both stood perfectly still for several seconds. It took that long for a new idea to percolate through Randall’s abused and bemused mind. When it did he kicked Potbury in the crotch. The events of the next few seconds were rather confused. Potbury made no outcry, but fought back. Randall made no attempt to fight fair, but followed up his first panzer stroke with more dirty work.
When matters straightened out, Potbury was behind the bathroom door, whereas Randall was on the bedroom side with the key in his pocket. He was breathing hard but completely unaware of such minor damage as he had suffered.
Cynthia slept on.
“MR. RANDALL—LET ME OUT of here!”
Randall had returned to his chair and was trying to think his way out of his predicament. He was fully sobered by now and made no attempt to consult the bottle. He was trying to get it through his head that there really were “Sons of the Bird” and that he had one of them locked up in there right now.
In that case Cynthia was unconscious because—God help them!—the Sons had stolen her soul. Devils—they had fallen afoul of devils.
Potbury pounded on the door. “What’s the meaning of this, Mr. Randall? Have you lost your mind? Let me out of here!”
“What’ll you do if I do? Will you bring Cynthia back to life?”
“I’ll do what a physician can for her. Why did you do it?”
“You know why. Why did you cover your face?”
“What do you mean? I started to sneeze and you kicked me.”
“Maybe I should have said, ‘Gesundheit!’ You’re a devil, Potbury. You’re a Son of the Bird!”
There was a short silence. “What nonsense is this?”
Randall thought about it. Maybe it was nonsense; maybe Potbury had been about to sneeze. No! This was the only explanation that made sense. Devils, devils and black magic. Stoles and Phipps and Potbury and the others.
Hoag? That would account for—wait a minute, now. Potbury hated Hoag. Stoles hated Hoag. All the Sons of the Bird hated Hoag. Very well, devil or whatever, he and Hoag were on the same side.
Potbury was pounding on the door again, no longer with his fists, but with a heavier, less frequent blow which meant the shoulder with the whole weight of the body behind it. The door was no stronger than interior house doors usually are; if was evident that it could take little of such treatment.
Randall pounded on his side. “Potbury! Potbury! Do you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what I’m going to do now? I’m going to call up Hoag and get him to come over here. Do you hear that, Potbury? He’ll kill you, Potbury, he’ll kill you!”
There was no answer, but presently the heavy pounding resumed. Randall got his gun. “Potbury!” No answer. “Potbury, cut that out or I’ll shoot.” The pounding did not even slacken.
Randall had a sudden inspiration. “Potbury—in the Name of the Bird—get away from that door!”
The noise stopped as if chopped off.
Randall listened and then pursued his advantage. “In the Name of the Bird, don’t touch that door again. Hear me, Potbury?” There was no answer, but the quiet continued.
It was early; Hoag was still at his home. He quite evidently was confused by Randall’s incoherent explanations, but he agreed to come over, at once, or a little quicker.
Randall went back into the bedroom and resumed his double vigil. He held his wife’s still, cool hand with his left hand; in his right he carried his gun, ready in case the invocation failed to bind. But the pounding was not resumed; there was a deathly silence in both rooms for some minutes. Then Randall heard, or imagined he heard, a faint scraping sibilance from the bathroom—an unaccountable and ominous sound.
He could think of nothing to do about it, so he did nothing. It went on for several minutes and stopped. After that—nothing.
HOAG RECOILED AT THE SIGHT of the gun. “Mr. Randall!”
“Hoag,” Randall demanded, “are you a devil?”
“I don’t understand you.”
“‘The Bird is Cruel!’”
Hoag did not cover his face; he simply looked confused and a bit more apprehensive.
“O.K.,” decided Randall. “You pass. If you are a devil, you’re my kind of a devil. Come on—I’ve got Potbury locked up, and I want you to confront him.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because he is a devil—a Son of the Bird. And they’re afraid of you. Come on!” He urged Hoag into the bedroom, continuing with, “The mistake I made was in not being willing to believe in something when it happened to me. Those weren’t dreams.” He pounded on the door with the muzzle of the gun. “Potbury! Hoag is here. Do what I want and you may get out of it alive.”
“What do you want of him?” Hoag said nervously.
“Her—of course.”
“Oh—”
Randall pounded again, then turned to Hoag and whispered, “If I open the door, will you confront him? I’ll be right alongside you.”
Hoag gulped, looked at Cynthia, and answered, “Of course.”
“Here goes.”
The bath was empty; it had no window, nor any other reasonable exit, but the means by which Potbury had escaped was evident. The surface of the mirror had been scraped free of enamel, with a razor blade.
They risked the seven years of bad luck and broke the mirror. Had he known how to do so, Randall would have swarmed through and tackled them all; lacking the knowledge it seemed wiser to close the leak.
After that there was nothing to do. They discussed it, over the silent form of Randall’s wife, but there was nothing to do. They were not magicians. Hoag went into the living room presently, unwilling to disturb the privacy of Randall’s despair but also unwilling to desert him entirely. He looked in on him from time to time. It was on one such occasion that he noticed a small black bag half under the bed and recognized it for what it was—a doctor’s kit. He went in and picked it up. “Ed,” he asked, “have you looked at this?”
“At what?” Randall looked up with dull eyes, and read the inscription, embossed in well-worn gold letters on the flap:
POTIPHAR T. POTBURY, M.D.
“Huh?”
“He must have left it behind.”
“He didn’t have a chance to take it.” Randall took it from Hoag and opened it—a stethoscope, head forceps, clamps, needles, an assortment of vials in a case, the usual props of a G.P.’s work. There was one prescription bottle as well; Randall took it out and read the prescription. “Hoag, look at this.”
POISON!
This Prescription Can Not Be Refilled
MRS. RANDALL—TAKE AS PRESCRIBED
BONTON CUTRATE PHARMACY
“Was he trying to poison her?” Hoag suggested.
“I don’t think so—that’s the usual narcotic warning. But I want to see what it is.” He shook it. It seemed empty. He started to break the seal.
“Careful!” Hoag warned.
“I will be.” He held it well back from his face to open it, then sniffed it very cautiously. It gave up a fragrance, subtle and infinitely sweet.
“Teddy?” He whirled around, dropping the bottle. It was indeed Cynthia, eyelids fluttering. “Don’t promise them anything, Teddy!” She sighed and her eyes closed again.
“‘The Bird is Cruel!’” she whispered.
IX
“Your memory lapses are the key to the whole thing,” Randall was insisting. “If we knew what you do in the daytime, if we knew your profession, we would know why the Sons of the Bird are out to get you. More than that, we would know how to fight them—for they are obviously afraid of you.”
Hoag turned to Cynthia. “What do you think, Mrs. Randall?”
“I think Teddy is right. If I knew enough about hypnotism, we would try that—but I don’t, so scopolamine is the next best bet. Are you willing to try it?”
“If you say so, yes.”
“Get the kit, Teddy.” She jumped down from where she had been perched, on the edge of his desk. He put out a hand to catch her.
“You ought to take it easy, baby,” he complained.
“Nonsense, I’m all right—now.”
They had adjourned to their business office almost as soon as Cynthia woke up. To put it plainly, they were scared—scared stiff, but not scared silly. The apartment seemed an unhealthy place to be. The office did not seem much better. Randall and Cynthia had decided to get out of town—the stop at the office was a penultimate stop, for a conference of war.
Hoag did not know what to do.
“Just forget you ever saw this kit,” Randall warned him, as he prepared the hypodermic. “Not being a doctor, nor an anaesthetist, I shouldn’t have it. But it’s convenient, sometimes.” He scrubbed a spot of Hoag’s forearm with an alcohol swab. “Steady now—there!” He shoved in the needle.
They waited for the drug to take hold. “What do you expect to get,” Randall whispered to Cynthia.
“I don’t know. If we’re lucky, his two personalities will knit. Then we may find out a lot of things.”
A little later Hoag’s head sagged forward; he breathed heavily. She stepped forward and shook his shoulder. “Mr. Hoag—do you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“What is your name?”
“Jonathan…Hoag.”
“Where do you live?”
“Six-oh-two—Gotham Apartments.”
“What do you do?”
“I…don’t know.”
“Try to remember. What is your profession?”
No answer. She tried again. “Are you a hypnotist?”
“No.”
“Are you a—magician?”
The answer was delayed a little, but finally came. “No.”
“What are you, Jonathan Hoag?”
He opened his mouth, seemed about to answer—then sat up suddenly, his manner brisk and completely free of the lassitude normal to the drug. “I’m sorry, my dear, but this will have to stop—for the present.”
He stood up, walked over to the window, and looked out. “Bad,” he said, glancing up and down the street. “How distressingly bad.” He seemed to be talking to himself rather than to them. Cynthia and Randall looked at him, then to each other for help.
“What is bad, Mr. Hoag?” Cynthia asked, rather diffidently. She did not have the impression analyzed, but he seemed like another person—younger, more vibrant.
“Eh? Oh, I’m sorry. I owe you an explanation. I was forced to, uh, dispense with the drug.”
“Dispense with it?”
“Throw it off, ignore it, make it as nothing. You see, my dear, while you were talking I recalled my profession.” He looked at them cheerily, but offered no further explanation.
Randall was the first to recover. “What is your profession?”
Hoag smiled at him, almost tenderly. “It wouldn’t do to tell you,” he said. “Not now, at least.” He turned to Cynthia. “My dear, could I trouble you for a pencil and a sheet of paper?”
“Uh—why, certainly.” She got them for him; he accepted them graciously and, seating himself, began to write.
When he said nothing to explain his conduct Randall spoke up. “Say, Hoag, look here—” Hoag turned a serene face to him; Randall started to speak, seemed puzzled by what he saw in Hoag’s face, and concluded lamely, “Er…Mr. Hoag, what’s this all about?”
“Are you not willing to trust me?”
Randall chewed his lip for a moment and looked at him; Hoag was patient and serene. “Yes…I suppose I am,” he said at last.
“Good. I am making a list of some things I want you to buy for me. I shall be quite busy for the next two hours or so.”
“You are leaving us?”
“You are worried about the Sons of the Bird, aren’t you? Forget them. They will not harm you. I promise it.” He resumed writing. Some minutes later he handed the list to Randall. “I’ve noted at the bottom the place where you are to meet me—a filling station outside Waukegan.”
“Waukegan? Why Waukegan?”
“No very important reason. I want to do once more something I am very fond of doing and don’t expect to be able to do again. You’ll help me, won’t you? Some of the things I’ve asked you to buy may be hard to get, but you will try?”
“I suppose so.”
“Good.” He left at once.
Randall looked from the closing door back to the list in his hand. “Well, I’ll be a—Cyn, what do you suppose he wants us to get for him?—groceries!”
“Groceries? Let me see that list.”
X
They were driving north in the outskirts of the city, with Randall at the wheel. Somewhere up ahead lay the place where they were to meet Hoag; behind them in the trunk of the car were the purchases he had directed them to make.
“Teddy?”
“Yeah, kid.”
“Can you make a U-turn here?”
“Sure—if you don’t get caught. Why?”
“Because that’s just what I’d like to do. Let me finish,” she went on hurriedly. “We’ve got the car; we’ve got all the money we have in the world with us; there isn’t anything to stop us from heading south if we want to.”
“Still thinking of that vacation? But we’re going on it—just as soon as we deliver this stuff to Hoag.”
“I don’t mean a vacation. I mean go away and never come back—now!”
“With eighty dollars’ worth of fancy groceries that Hoag ordered and hasn’t paid for yet? No soap.”
“We could eat them ourselves.”
“Humph! Caviar and humming-bird wings. We can’t afford it, kid. We’re the hamburger type. Anyhow, even if we could, I want to see Hoag again. Some plain talk—and explanations.”
She sighed. “That’s just what I thought, Teddy, and that’s why I want to cut and run. I don’t want explanations; I’m satisfied with the world the way it is. Just you and me—and no complications. I don’t want to know anything about Mr. Hoag’s profession—or the Sons of
the Bird—or anything like that.”
He fumbled for a cigarette, then scratched a match under the instrument board, while looking at her quizzically out of the corner of his eye. Fortunately the traffic was light. “I think I feel the same way you do about it, kid, but I’ve got a different angle on it. If we drop it now, I’ll be jumpy about the Sons of the Bird the rest of my life, and scared to shave, for fear of looking in a mirror. But there is a rational explanation for the whole thing—bound to be—and I’m going to get it. Then we can sleep.”
She made herself small and did not answer.
“Look at it this way,” Randall went on, somewhat irritated. “Everything that has happened could have been done in the ordinary way, without recourse to supernatural agencies. As for supernatural agencies—well, out here in the sunlight and the traffic it’s a little too much to swallow. Sons of the Bird—rats!”
She did not answer. He went on, “The first significant point is that Hoag is a consummate actor. Instead of being a prissy little Milquetoast, he’s a dominant personality of the first water. Look at the way I shut up and said, ‘Yes, sir,’ when he pretended to throw off the drug and ordered us to buy all those groceries.”
“Pretended?”
“Sure. Somebody substituted colored water for my sleepy juice—probably done the same time the phony warning was stuck in the typewriter. But to get back to the point—he’s a naturally strong character and almost certainly a clever hypnotist. Pulling that illusion about the thirteenth floor and Detheridge & Co. shows how skillful he is—or somebody is. Probably used drugs on me as well, just as they did on you.”
“On me?”
“Sure. Remember that stuff you drank in Potbury’s office? Some sort of a delayed-action Mickey Finn.”
“But you drank it, too!”
“Not necessarily the same stuff. Potbury and Hoag were in cahoots, which is how they created the atmosphere that made the whole thing possible. Everything else was little stuff, insignificant when taken alone.”
Cynthia had her own ideas about that, but she kept them to herself. However, one point bothered her. “How did Potbury get out of the bathroom? You told me he was locked in.”
“I’ve thought about that. He picked the lock while I was phoning Hoag, hid in the closet and just waited his chance to walk out.”
The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein Page 38
