The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty

by R. A. Lafferty

  “Sheldrake!” John Ginpole called as he followed his wife into that house. “Gale has gone clear off her noggin.”

  “So I see,” Sheldrake nodded calmly. “Pitiful case.”

  “Give her a shot of something to knock her out,” John Ginpole said.

  “In a minute, in a minute,” Sheldrake mumbled.

  “I'm filling the needle now.”

  “My husband is a leper! Unclean, unclean!” Gale chanted and rang the bell. Her brother Doctor Sheldrake Geier had the needle at ready. And then he unaccountably plunged it into the arm of John Ginpole instead of Gale.

  “Oops, sorry, John,” Doctor Sheldrake Geier said. “I guess I shot you instead.”

  “Then shoot her too. Calm her down.”

  “Nah, no need. She'll calm down as soon as you do. And you'll calm down right now. No use giving shots to both of you.”

  “The stuff you shot into my arm, what'll it do to me?” John asked with apprehension.

  “It'll knock you for a loop,” the Doctor said.

  “For how long?”

  “Oh, for a couple of days.”

  Yes, it felt like about two days, two painful and drugged and delirious days. John Ginpole woke up in darkness and confinement and fear. And then he heard the well-voiced whisper of his wife Gale right there with him. “Do I not have clever brothers, John?” Gale whispered. “My brothers Sheldrake and Culpepper have devised it so that your brainwaves, when you wake up, turn on the two-way radio. And now the battery light comes on too, so you can see what it is that you're in. Enjoy it, John. You have already slept through your funeral, but you are awake now for your actual burial.”

  “Can you hear me, Gale?” John Ginpole asked in an uncertain voice.

  “Of course I can hear you. It's a two-way radio. Relax dear. Everything is taken care of. Is it not handy to have such well-placed brothers as I have? One of my brothers, Doctor Sheldrake Geier, knocked you out and then made out a death certificate for you. And another of my brothers, the Coroner, confirmed the death. And that same brother, in his role of Sheriff, squelched any possible suspicion or investigation. And my brother the Undertaker neglected to embalm you. That would have spoiled our last conversation.”

  “It's a cheap coffin. It's easier to see how cheap they are from the inside,” John Ginpole said. “Where do you jokers have me now? Is this the little room with the wet bar that's behind the lay-out room? Well, you four win this trick, and I have to admit it's a good one. I'll laugh till I roll on the floor, after I get over the first shock of this. How do you unlatch this coffin lid? Help me out.”

  “No. If coffin lids could be unlatched from the inside, entirely too many people would be getting out again. You're not in that little room in the funeral parlor, John. You've just been lowered into your grave. And my three brothers are ready to shovel the dirt in on you. The sexton said that he didn't want to come this near to you, alive or dead, so my brothers said they'd finish up the job. So there's nobody here except myself and my brothers. All in the family, you know.”

  “You've had your joke, Gale, and it tops my best. But a joke must be finally righted. Open the coffin.”

  “No. That'd spoil the joke. You know that.” Then there was a noise that John Ginpole had never heard before. It was Gale Geier Ginpole laughing-giggling-chortling. And then there was a muffled clatter upon the coffin lid. John knew that it was the dirt and clods being shoveled in on him. The sound changed as the dirt cover became thicker and thicker. John knew when there was four or five feet of dirt on him.

  Buried alive!

  Well, how do you handle a situation like that?

  Oh, if you're a real pro, and John Ginpole was, you can take it as well as dish it out. Many people hadn't realized what a real pro John Ginpole was at the joker game. He was genuine. He was one of the really select and exuberant jokers. Gale Ginpole listened in some wonder to the last noises (laughter) from her buried man.

  “This is the Geier joke itself, the sixth time it's been pulled, is it, Gale?” John wheezed through his laughter. “Wow, wow, wow! When were the other times, Gale? Oh, this is rich!”

  “They go back a hundred and eighty years, John,” Gale giggled. “Their dates are the death dates on the other five tombstones in this trashy corner of the burying grounds. And tomorrow you will get your own stone, with today's date on it. And it is funny, John.”

  “The only joke in your life, Gale, the Geier Joke, and it's better than a dozen ordinary jokes,” John was rolling around in glee in his coffin. “Wow, how good can you get? Wow, wow, wowser, wow, wow!”

  “Be careful, John dear,” Gale whispered. “Your hernia will be out again if you laugh too hard.” Then she giggled a secondary giggle as she realized that it didn't make a whole lot of difference whether John's hernia popped out or not.

  “Wow, wow, wow, this is the funniest ever! If I had my choice on how to die I'd have picked this: dying laughing at the best joke I ever met in my life.”

  And he died laughing.

  Two For Four Ninety-Nine

  “I'm looking for the Big Star Detective Agency,” the girl said. She held a thin but rather heavy slab rock with a Big Star chiseled on it and some scratching below that. “This is the Big Star Detective Agency,” Austro told her, “or more properly the Astro Mega Detective Agency. Roy Mega thinks I should change my name from Austro to Astro to make it fit more neatly. You are our first customer. Five foot one, one hundred and nine pounds, you come from Osage County and your blood is type O. You served in Afghanistan, but not, I believe, with the Ninth Mounted Fusiliers.”

  “No. I spent nine months there with Pax-Max, a Peace Organization.”

  “You had Bromo Seltzer for breakfast. Your grandfather is Miles Shaddock who is not loved by everybody in Osage County. He drinks Spotted Mule. You drink Jim Beam.”

  “How do you do it!” the girl cried in amazement. “This seems to be a stone-age advertisement for this place. My girl friend said that a monkey passed them out.”

  “Your girl friend is named Rosemary Korff. No ma'am, it wasn't a monkey, it was me.”

  “This looks like the kind of rock slabs the Rocky McCrocky comic strips are done on.”

  “Yes, our Agency is affiliated with the Rocky McCrocky Publications,” Austro said.

  “This ad says ‘Mysteries and crimes solved as cheap as one penny’.”

  “Yes ma'am. The first one is four dollars and ninety-eight cents. But we will solve two cases for four ninety-nine as our special opening day offer.”

  “But I have only one piece of trouble.”

  “You have heard of borrowing trouble, perhaps? We can arrange—”

  “No, I don't want a second piece of trouble even if the price is right. This case is so grotesque that I couldn't possibly tell it to another human. But perhaps I could tell it to—no offence intended—a monkey.”

  “Spill,” Austro said. This girl was a dazzler. She wore snake-skin shorts and red-lensed glasses. She looked like—well, she was Selene O'Keene.

  “Get the scene, fuzz-face,” she began. “This is the way it happened—”

  “I will take over, Austro,” said Roy Mega who was Austro's partner, as he came in silently. “Now this girl, hum, b.p. 120, fuzzy outline that comes from taking Bang Crystals (dexahexakrex), five foot one and one eighth, one hundred and nine pounds and three ounces, has recently been in Afghanistan, but not, I believe with the Fifth Ranwick's Rangers. She has a sprained right shoulder, and finding how she sprained it will take us right to the heart of her problem.” “She doesn't want to tell a person, Roy. She—”

  “There's enough monkey in Roy here,” Selene said. “Now, here is the scene—”

  Of the two partners, Austro was not a monkey in any way. He was a twelve-year-old person of the Australopithecus Race. They're a bit hairy and under-slung, and some people call them ape-men, but they are not monkeys. Roy Mega was a young genius of the human species. “After my stint in Afghanistan, I went home and f
inished high school in Fairfax—”

  “Straight A's in every subject except Band,” Roy said. “Right, Selene?”

  “How do you guys do it?” Selene asked. “Then I came here to T-Town to find employment. I have found irregular or floating employment here, and I have been moving with the floating or ‘with-it’ crowd. The first date I had here, the fellow didn't ask me afterwards when he could see me again, so I asked him. ‘Meet me on the corner under the clock without hands,’ he said. He wasn't brushing me off. That was just his way of saying ‘I'll see you around’. Everybody is that way here. They eat at a Table Without Legs, and they sleep on the Bed Without a Stead. And they attend the Continuing Party Without Walls at the House Without a Roof.

  “I host the Party Without Walls sometimes. Yester evening I was hosting the thing and they inroaded me pretty quickly. I went out for more stuff, and I came back in with my arms full of drink-mixes and snacks. I kissed several persons who were there. ‘Boy you are a cold one,’ I said to the last one I kissed. He was sitting on the broken-down sofa (I have two sofas). ‘I don't remember you, but that doesn't matter at a Party Without Walls.’ ”

  “He was five foot eleven and a half,” Roy Mega said. “Pulse-beat zero. Body heat coincident with room temperature, but felt colder. Initials J. U. D. Two hundred and thirty pounds. A big one.”

  “Yes, that's how I sprained my shoulder,” Selene said. “Well, you're mostly right. ‘He's dead,’ said Boris Church, one of my guests. ‘I noticed that when I came in. That's what makes him so cold!’ ”

  A man came in. “Is this the Big Star Detective Agency?” he asked. “It is,” Roy Mega answered crisply. “You have been walking on Utica Avenue. You had buckwheat cakes and sausage at the International Pancake Palace just before that. Your mother once taught at the old Kendall School, and you are a sly jewel dealer. My partner Austro will take care of you.”

  “I want to take care of Selene,” Austro said. “You take care of this man.”

  “No, I outrank you,” Roy said. “We just had a power struggle and you lost. As proof that you lost, I am taking care of Selene and you are taking care of this man.”

  “They have to take your case for a penny, mister,” Selene said. “I pay four dollars and ninety-eight cents, but you get yours for a penny on the New Opening Day Combination.”

  “But you two aren't a combination,” Austro protested.

  “Fuzz-face, we are now,” Selene said. “Us little people have to stand together against you giant corporations. Now, Roy, about that dead man I found among my guests at the party without walls—”

  “Here is my problem,” the newly-arrived man said to Austro. “I'm George Artless, and I'm the victim of a series of robberies. I want them solved—” “Nothing easier,” said Austro. “We've never had a miss in a case like this.”

  “Most of my wealth is in jewelry,” Artless said. “Somebody's been robbing me, right before my eyes. It's as if my jewels were taken by ghosts. I had had, for some time, ninety-nine purple amethysts of perfect shape. I had been looking for another such perfect stone to make one hundred. Then, just yesterday, I was able to buy seven deep purple amethysts. I had a purchaser for one hundred of these stones. I had him almost in the bag.

  “To verify it all, I went to my strong room, bolted the doors and window, and took my ninety-nine amethysts from my safe. I examined the four walls, the carpeted floor, and the ceiling of the room. There are only six interior sides to a regular room like mine, and if they are secure the room should be secure. I poured the purple jewels out on my red-velveted table. ‘Ninety-nine’ my practiced eye told me. Then, from a package in my pocket, I added one of the seven new stones, and the set of one hundred was complete.

  “But I heard a slight rattle in one corner of the carpeted room. I looked, but I saw nothing untoward there. I looked back to the table and—(deep purple thunderous corundum!)—I had been robbed. There were now only ninety-nine stones on the table.”

  “I took the wallet out of the back pocket of my dead guest,” Selene O'Keene was saying to Roy Mega. “I took everything out of his pockets and spread them out. I looked at his identifications. His name was John U. Daw. His address was the Utica Park Place Manor Mansion Arms Apartment right across the street. That guy was clear full of papers and trash. But, as they say, we live in a trash-and-paper world. I picked up the dead man and put him over in the corner of the room. ‘Why ain't I dreaming?’ I asked. ‘A month ago you would have been,’ my girl friend Rosemary Korff told me, ‘but now you have acquired a mind without boundaries and a personality without a center.’ So I went about fixing drinks and cheeses and taco dips for my guests, and they had fun going through the dead man's documents and jewels and tickets and money. After a while, Rex Soul who is an intern at St. Dismas Hospital said that the man had died of poisoning. Rex always carries a little test kit with him. He had been taking blood out of the man, and taking samples out of his stomach with a little auger. That kind of cooled me, having a man die of poisoning at my own Party Without Walls.”

  “Yes, there were only ninety-nine stones there on the table,” the client George Artless was telling Austro. “I examined the room carefully. I found, on the carpet, a piece of gravel about the size of my amethysts. A wild notion came into my head that one of the amethysts had been transmuted into a piece of gravel. “I took one of the new amethysts out of my pocket and completed the set of one hundred. I phoned the prospective buyer and he was delighted. He said he'd get a cashiers check and be over in a few moments to close the deal.

  “But I heard a sound like a small stone falling onto a deep-pile carpet. I looked. And there was the second piece of gravel on the carpeted floor. I looked back at the red-velveted table and my heart sank. Once more there were only ninety-nine stones there. Say, are you getting all of this down?”

  “Sure,” said Austro. He held a flat-stone notebook. Now he set a chisel to the stone and hit the chisel three times with a hammer. “Got it. My own short-hand,” Austro said.

  “Why, that's amazing,” George Artless exclaimed, “the most efficient short-hand I've ever seen. Well, I had two stones of gravel, and I was short two amethyst stones. The door and the window were locked. Floors, walls, and ceiling were secure and intact. But the thefts had been accomplished.

  “I took one more of the new purple amethysts from my pocket and completed the hundred. I was resolved not to take my eyes off the hundred stones for any reason. But something was rattling against the window of the room. ‘It is only a tree limb rubbing there,’ the left side of my brain said. ‘Yeah, the limb of a tree that grew up four stories high in the last ten minutes,’ the right side of my brain said. There was a screeching racket at that window. Well, I would give it a tenth of a second. I flashed my eye to the window, quickly grabbed off the image, and looked back at the stones instantly. I had won that trick. There were still one hundred stones on the table. It had been a female grackle bird making a racket at the window.”

  “Weight seven ounces, nine inches long, her name is ‘Dusty’,” Austro said.

  “How do you do it!” George Artless cried in admiration. “She increased the disturbance. I saw that she had a gravel stone in her mouth. ‘Oh, Oh, Oh, now it gets tricky,’ I said. But there were still one hundred stones on my table. The bird displayed the gravel ostentatiously. She pretended to throw it at the window. And then — I heard it fall on the carpet behind me. I whirled. There was one more piece of gravel on the carpet. I whirled again. There was one less amethyst on the table. Oh, there had to be an answer!”

  “It happened again and again. When I heard my buyer at the door, I had just completed the number one hundred again, and I had only one of the seven new amethysts left in my pocket. ‘Quickly, quickly, while the one hundred are still intact,’ I said. ‘Behold, are they not beautiful’ ‘Indeed they are,’ he said, ‘but I count only ninety-nine of them.’ Alas, I had taken my eye off the treasure for an instant while I let him in. And there was another gra
vel stone still rolling around on the carpet. I took the last of the new amethysts from my pocket and completed the one hundred for the last time. The buyer wrapped the stones quickly. He paid me and he left. And I was still ahead on the steep deal, for I got a fantastic price for them.

  “But I am not ahead if my eyes and my mind are failing me. I am not ahead if there's a hole in my defenses. I had lost other stones previously. I want this solved.”

  “I kept asking everyone what they knew about the dead men,” Selene said. “ ‘Oh get off that jag!’ Barley Matterhorn told me. ‘He came in and sat down and had one drink and he died. It happens all the time at Parties Without Walls.’ I noticed that the table, and the wallet and all the things of the dead man were gone. ‘All right, who took them?’ I asked, but my floating guests swore that they hadn't. Then Conrad Pollard wanted to lie down in the corner of the room where the dead man was. Conrad always passed out about that time and likes to lie down in that corner of the room. So I carried the dead man in to my bed. That's how I sprained my shoulder. “It was a long night. The party is still going on, of course. The police came and got the body. ‘Who is running this place?’ they asked. I pointed to Alice Stonehouse who was sound asleep, so they took her in. Then I got out of there. Boris Church is acting as my spy. And spy Boris says now that the police have woke Alice up and found that she isn't really running the place. Now they are looking for me.”

  “Two cases,” Roy Mega said when Selene O'Keene had finished. “I will solve one and my partner will solve the other. Mr. Artless, why don't you take Miss O'Keene to lunch for one hour while we wrap up the cases?” “I always like gentlemen who own a lot of rocks,” Selene said, “but I'm not so sure about those who have lost their rocks. Well all right, come on, Georgie.”