The Collection

by Fredric Brown

  McGarry said, "No Earth." There was no expression in his voice. No expression at all.

  Archer said, "That's it, old-timer. But Mars isn't so bad. You'll get used to it. It's the center of the solar system now, and there are four billion Earthmen on it. You'll miss the green of Earth, sure, but it's not so bad."

  McGarry said, "No Earth." There was no expression in his voice. No expression at all.

  Archer nodded. "Glad you can take it that way, old-timer. It must be rather a jolt. Well, I guess we can get going. The tubes ought to have cooled by now. I'll check and make sure."

  He stood up and started toward the little spacer.

  McGarry's sol-gun came out of its holster. McGarry shot him, and Lieutenant Archer wasn't there anymore. McGarry stood up and walked over to the little spacer. He aimed the sol-gun at it and pulled the trigger. Part of the spacer was gone. Half a dozen shots and it was completely gone. Little atoms that had been the spacer and little atoms that had been Lieutenant Archer of the Space Patrol may have danced in the air, but they were invisible.

  McGarry put the gun back into its holster and started walking toward the red splotch of jungle on the far horizon.

  He put his hand up to his shoulder and touched Dorothy and she was there, as she'd been there for four of the five years he'd been on Kruger III. She felt, to his fingers and to his shoulder, like a woman's hand.

  He said, "Don't worry, Dorothy. We'll find it. Maybe this is the jungle it landed in. And when we find it—"

  He was near the edge of the jungle now, the red jungle, and a tiger came running out to meet him and eat him. A mauve tiger with six legs and a head like a barrel. McGarry aimed his sol-gun and pulled the trigger, and there was a bright green flash, brief but beautiful—oh, so beautiful—and then the tiger wasn't there anymore.

  McGarry chuckled softly. "Did you see that, Dorothy? That was green, the color there isn't any of on any planet but the one we're going to. The most beautiful color in the universe, Dorothy. Green! And I know where there's a world that's mostly green, the only one that is, and we're going there. It's the most beautiful place in the universe, Dorothy, and it's the world I came from. You'll love it."

  She said, "I know I will, Mac." Her low, throaty voice was familiar to him. It was not odd that she had answered him; she had always answered him. Her voice was as familiar as his own. He reached up and touched her, resting on his naked shoulder. She felt like a woman's hand.

  He turned and looked back over the brown plain studded with brown bushes, the violet sky above, the crimson sun. He laughed at it. Not a mad laugh, a gentle one. It didn't matter because soon he'd find the spacer he was looking for and in it the parts that would repair his own spacer so he could go back to Earth.

  To the green hills, the green valleys, the green fields.

  Once more he patted the hand upon his shoulder and then turned back. Gun at ready, he entered the red jungle.

  CRISIS, 1999

  The little man with the sparse gray hair and the inconspicuous bright red suit stopped on the corner of State and Randolph to buy a micronews, a Chicago Sun-Tribune of March 21st, 1999. Nobody noticed him as he walked into the corner superdrug and took a vacant booth. He dropped a quarter into the coffee-slot and while the conveyor brought him his coffee, he glanced at the headlines on the tiny three-by-four-inch page. His eyes were unusually keen; he could read those headlines easily without artificial aid. But nothing on the first page or the second interested him; they concerned international matters, the third Venus rocket, and the latest depressing report of the ninth moon expedition. But on page three there were two stories concerning crime, and he took a tiny micrographer from his pocket and adjusted it to read the stories while he drank his coffee.

  Bela Joad was the little man's name. His right name, that is; he'd gone by so many names in so many places that only a phenomenal memory could have kept track of them all, but he had a phenomenal memory. None of those names had ever appeared in print, nor had his face or voice ever been seen or heard on the ubiquitous video. Fewer than a score of people, all of them top officials in various police bureaus, knew that Bela Joad was the greatest detective in the world.

  He was not an employee of any police department, drew no salary nor expense money, and collected no rewards. It may have been that he had private means and indulged in the detection of criminals as a hobby. It may equally have been that he preyed upon the underworld as he fought it, that he made criminals support his campaign against them. Whichever was the case, he worked for no one; he worked against crime. When a major crime or a series of major crimes interested him, he would work on it, sometimes consulting beforehand with the chief of police of the city involved, sometimes working without the chief's knowledge until he would appear in the chief's office and present him with the evidence that would enable him to make an arrest and obtain a conviction.

  He himself had never testified, or even appeared, in a courtroom. And while he knew every important underworld character in a dozen cities, no member of the underworld knew him, except fleetingly, under some transient identity which he seldom resumed.

  Now, over his morning coffee, Bela Joad read through his micrographer the two stories in the Sun-Tribune which had interested him. One concerned a case that had been one of his few failures, the disappearance—possibly the kidnapping—of Dr. Ernst Chappel, professor of criminology at Columbia University. The headline read NEW LEAD IN CHAPPEL CASE, but a careful reading of the story showed the detective that the lead was new only to the newspapers; he himself had followed it into a blind alley two years ago, just after Chappel had vanished. The other story revealed that one Paul (Gyp) Girard had yesterday been acquitted of the slaying of his rival for control of North Chicago gambling. Joad read that one carefully indeed. Just six hours before, seated in a beergarten in New Berlin, Western Germany, he had heard the news of that acquittal on the video, without details. He had immediately taken the first stratoplane to Chicago.

  When he had finished with the micronews, he touched the button of his wrist model timeradio, which automatically attuned itself to the nearest timestation, and it said, just loudly enough for him to hear "Nine-oh-four." Chief Dyer Rand would be in his office, then.

  Nobody noticed him as he left the superdrug. Nobody noticed him as he walked with the morning crowds along Randolph to the big, new Municipal Building at the corner of Clark. Chief Rand's secretary sent in his name—not his real one, but one Rand would recognize—without giving him a second glance.

  Chief Rand shook hands across the desk and then pressed the intercom button that flashed a blue not-to-be-disturbed signal to his secretary. He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers across the conservatively small (one inch) squares of his mauve and yellow shirt. He said, "You heard about Gyp Girard being acquitted?"

  "That's why I'm here.”

  Rand pushed his lips out and pulled them in again. He said, "The evidence you sent me was perfectly sound, Joad. It should have stood up. But I wish you had brought it in yourself instead of sending it by the tube, or that there had been some way I could have got in touch with you. I could have told you we'd probably not get a conviction. Joad, something rather terrible has been happening. I've had a feeling you would be my only chance. If only there had been some way I could have got in touch with you—"

  "Two years ago?"

  Chief Rand looked startled. "Why did you say that?" "Because it was two years ago that Dr. Chappel disappeared in New York."

  "Oh," Rand said. "No, there's no connection. I thought maybe you knew something when you mentioned two years. It hasn't been quite that long, really, but it was close."

  He got up from behind the strangely-shaped plastic desk and began to pace back and forth the length of the office.

  He said, "Joad, in the last year—let's consider that period, although it started nearer two years ago—out of every ten major crimes committed in Chicago, seven are unsolved. Technically unsolved, that is; in five out of those
seven we know who's guilty but we can't prove it. We can't get a conviction.

  "The underworld is beating us, Joad, worse than they have at any time since the Prohibition era of seventy-five years ago. If this keeps up, we're going back to days like that, and worse.

  "For a twenty-year period now we've had convictions for eight out of ten major crimes. Even before twenty years ago—before the use of the lie-detector in court was legalized, we did better than we're doing now. 'Way back in the decade of 1970 to 1980, for instance, we did better than we're doing now by more than two to one; we got convictions for six out of every ten major crimes. This last year, it's been three out of ten.

  "And I know the reason, but I don't know what to do about it. The reason is that the underworld is beating the lie-detector!"

  Bela Joad nodded. But he said mildly, "A few have always managed to beat it. It's not perfect. Judges always instruct juries to remember that the lie-detector's findings have a high degree of probability but are not infallible, that they should be weighed as indicative but not final, that other evidence must support them. And there has always been the occasional individual who can tell a whopper with the detector on him, and not jiggle the graph needles at all."

  "One in a thousand, yes. But, Joad, almost every underworld big-shot has been beating the lie-detector recently."

  "I take it you mean the professional criminals, not the amateurs."

  "Exactly. Only regular members of the underworld—professionals, the habitual criminals. If it weren't for that, I'd think—I don't know what I'd think. Maybe that our whole theory was wrong."

  Bela Joad said, "Can't you quit using it in court in such cases? Convictions were obtained before its use was legalized. For that matter, before it was invented."

  Dyer Rand sighed and dropped into his pneumatic chair again. "Sure, I'd like that if I could do it. I wish right now that the detector never had been invented or legalized. But don't forget that the law legalizing it gives either side the opportunity to use it in court. If a criminal knows he can beat it, he's going to demand its use even if we don't. And what chance have we got with a jury if the accused demands the detector and it backs up his plea of innocence?"

  "Very slight, I'd say."

  "Less than slight, Joad. This Gyp Girard business yesterday. I know he killed Pete Bailey. You know it. The evidence you sent me was, under ordinary circumstances, conclusive. And yet I knew we'd lose the case. I wouldn't have bothered bringing it to trial except for one thing."

  "And that one thing?"

  "To get you here, Joad. There was no other way I could reach you, but I hoped that if you read of Girard's acquittal, after the evidence you'd given me, you'd come around to find out what had happened."

  He got up and started to pace again. "Joad, I'm going mad. How is the underworld beating the machine? That's what I want you to find out, and it's the biggest job you've ever tackled. Take a year, take five years, but crack it, Joad.

  "Look at the history of law enforcement. Always the law has been one jump ahead of the criminal in the field of science. Now the criminals—of Chicago, anyway—are one jump ahead of us. And if they stay that way, if we don't get the answer, we're headed for a new dark age, when it'll no longer be safe for a man or a woman to walk down the street. The very foundations of our society can crumble. We're up against something very evil and very powerful."

  Bela Joad took a cigarette from the dispenser on the desk; it lighted automatically as he picked it up. It was a green cigarette and he exhaled green smoke through his nostrils before he asked, almost disinterestedly, "Any ideas, Dyer?"

  "I've had two, but I think I've eliminated both of them. One is that the machines are being tampered with. The other is that the technicians are being tampered with. But I've had both men and machines checked from every possible angle and can't find a thing. On big cases I've taken special precautions. For example, the detector we used at the Girard trial; it was brand-new and I had it checked right in this office." He chuckled. "I put Captain Burke under it and asked him if he was being faithful to his wife. He said he was and it nearly broke the needle. I had it taken to the courtroom under special guard."

  "And the technician who used it?"

  "I used it myself. Took a course in it, evenings, for four months."

  Bela Joad nodded. "So it isn't the machine and it isn't the operator. That's eliminated, and I can start from there."

  "How long will it take you, Joad?"

  The little man in the red suit shrugged. "I haven't any idea."

  "Is there any help I can give you? Anything you want to start on?"

  "Just one thing, Dyer. I want a list of the criminals who have beaten the detector and a dossier on each. Just the ones you're morally sure actually committed the crimes you questioned them about. If there's any reasonable doubt, leave them off the list. How long will it take to get it ready?"

  "It's ready now; I had it made up on the chance that you'd come here. And it's a long report, so I had it microed down for you." He handed Bela Joad a small envelope.

  Joad said, "Thank you. I won't contact you till I have something or until I want your cooperation. I think first I'm going to stage a murder, and then have you question the murderer."

  Dyer Rand's eyes went wide. "Whom are you going to have murdered?"

  Bela Joad smiled. "Me," he said.

  He took the envelope Rand had given him back to his hotel and spent several hours studying the microfilms through his pocket micrographer, memorizing their contents thoroughly. Then he burned both films and envelope.

  After that Bela Joad paid his hotel bill and disappeared, but a little man who resembled Bela Joad only slightly rented a cheap room under the name of Martin Blue. The room was on Lake Shore Drive, which was then the heart of Chicago's underworld.

  The underworld of Chicago had changed less, in fifty years, than one would think. Human vices do not change, or at least they change but slowly. True, certain crimes had diminished greatly but on the other hand, gambling had increased. Greater social security than any country had hitherto known was, perhaps, a factor. One no longer needed to save for old age as, in days gone by, a few people did.

  Gambling was a lush field for the crooks and they cultivated the field well. Improved technology had increased the number of ways of gambling and it had increased the efficiency of ways of making gambling crooked. Crooked gambling was big business and underworld wars and killings occurred over territorial rights, just as they had occurred over such rights in the far back days of Prohibition when alcohol was king. There was still alcohol, but it was of lesser importance now. People were learning to drink more moderately. And drugs were passe, although there was still some traffic in them.

  Robberies and burglaries still occurred, although not quite as frequently as they had fifty years before.

  Murder was slightly more frequent. Sociologists and criminologists differed as to the reason for the increase of crime in this category.

  The weapons of the underworld had, of course, improved, but they did not include atomics. All atomic and subatomic weapons were strictly controlled by the military and were never used by either the police or by criminals. They were too dangerous; the death penalty was mandatory for anyone found in possession of an atomic weapon. But the pistols and guns of the underworld of 1999 were quite efficient. They were much smaller and more compact, and they were silent. Both guns and cartridges were made of superhard magnesium and were very light. The commonest weapon was the .19 calibre pistol—as deadly as the .45 of an earlier era because the tiny projectiles were explosive—and even a small pocket-pistol held from fifty to a hundred rounds.

  But back to Martin Blue, whose entrance into the underworld coincided with the disappearance of Bela Joad from the latter's hotel.

  Martin Blue, as it turned out, was not a very nice man. He had no visible means of support other than gambling and he seemed to lose, in small amounts, almost more often than he won. He almost got in trouble on a
bad check he gave to cover his losses in one game, but he managed to avoid being liquidated by making the check good. His only reading seemed to be the Racing Microform, and he drank too much, mostly in a tavern (with clandestine gambling at the back) which formerly had been operated by Gyp Girard. He got beaten up there once because he defended Gyp against a crack made by the current proprietor to the effect that Gyp had lost his guts and turned honest.

  For a while fortune turned against Martin Blue and he went so broke that he had to take a job as a waiter in the outside room of a Michigan Boulevard joint called Sloppy Joe's, possibly because Joe Zatelli, who ran it, was the nattiest dresser in Chicago—and in the fin de siecle era when leopard-skin suits (synthetic but finer and more expensive than real leopard skin) were a dime a dozen and plain pastel-silk underwear was dated.

  Then a funny thing happened to Martin Blue. Joe Zatelli killed him. Caught him, after hours, rifling the till, and just as Martin Blue turned around, Zatelli shot him. Three times for good measure. And then Zatelli, who never trusted accomplices, got the body into his car and deposited it in an alley back of a teletheater.

  The body of Martin Blue got up and went to see Chief Dyer Rand and told Rand what he wanted done. "You took a hell of a chance," Rand said.

  "Not too much of a chance," Blue said. "I'd put blanks in his gun and I was pretty sure he'd use that. He won't ever find out, incidentally, that the rest of the bullets in it are blanks unless he tries to kill somebody else with it; they don't look like blanks. And I had a pretty special vest on under my suit. Rigid backing and padded on top to feel like flesh, but of course he couldn't feel a heartbeat through it. And it was gimmicked to make a noise like explosive cartridges hitting—when the duds punctured the compartments."