Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  The chief of police turned away from the body, turned away from the lines written in blood on the wall--"PLEASE CATCH ME QUICK". He went to his car and switched its radio to one of the local stations.

  "Stay off the streets. If you are in your car, do not stop for anything except--and listen carefully--at least three men in army or police uniforms. Do not stop for any man standing alone. Do not leave your home except on the most essential business. If you must leave do not go alone. Repeat: Do not leave the house alone...."

  Scott switched back to the police band. "What we just heard is on every radio and TV station covering Harrisburg."

  Another police car drifted into the alley, emptied men and equipment.

  "We can go," Scott said. "My men will take care of the routine."

  All of them were silent as they crossed the Market Street Bridge into the central section of town, deserted except for police and army patrols.

  "Belton Hotel," the radio squawked. "Judkins has been picked up at the Belton."

  "Now I'll find out what he has told them," Thornberry exulted, "and then we'll have no trouble finding Clarens."

  * * * * *

  "You know my name, you know my present address, and I'm not saying any more until I see my lawyer." Judkins had been saying that for half an hour and his words had not changed.

  Mosby tugged at Bennington's sleeve. Together they moved to a corner of the hotel room, and at Mosby's nod, Scott and Thornberry joined them.

  "Get out of here for five minutes. When you come back, he'll be glad to talk."

  Mosby wasn't joking.

  "I want to do the same thing," Scott said bitterly, "but I can't do it."

  "You're under civil law," Mosby stated. "This town is under martial law. I might be able to get away with it."

  "Not a chance," Governor Willoughby had joined them. "It would mean your career, general. Even the President couldn't protect you."

  "Clarens is out there," Mosby argued, pointing out the window overlooking the city. "Did you see that little girl?"

  "No, but I heard about it. And I saw the man," the governor answered.

  "I was there," said Thornberry abruptly. "Will you gentlemen let me, just me, alone with Judkins for five minutes?"

  All four of them, the two generals, the police chief, the governor, stared at the psychologist.

  "Yes," Bennington decided for the group. "We will."

  * * * * *

  Doughboy....

  Bennington stopped after his first step back into the room, was jostled by Mosby following closely behind. He moved forward to where he could see both Judkins and Thornberry.

  The hypno-tech sat bolt upright, his face like that of a newly-conditioned prisoner, completely blank.

  Thornberry's face radiated pride.

  "These technicians are all alike," the psychologist sniffed. "Their work makes them especially sensitive to hypnosis."

  Bennington looked at Judkins, then back to Thornberry. "You mean...."

  "I mean that I can ask Judkins anything we want to know and he'll give a truthful answer." Another sniff. "I've forgotten more about hypnosis than he'll ever know."

  "This won't hold in a court," Chief Scott warned.

  "But it may save a life, maybe more than one," Bennington answered. "Thornberry, you did a good job of those guards. You question Judkins."

  "Wait a minute," General Mosby said. "How fast can we get a tape recorder?"

  "Why waste time?" asked Bennington. "You can't use this in court."

  "Hell, Jim, stop thinking about courts-martial; there's more than one court. Let's fry these boys in the court of public opinion. The news services aren't bound by the rules of evidence. We can worry about other courts later."

  "I can get you a tape recorder in two minutes," Scott stated. "Our patrol boys always carry them to take statements at accidents, before the victims get over their shock enough to start lying. And we keep one in the office, too."

  Thornberry looked at Judkins and a self-satisfied smirk crept over his face. "No need to worry about lies from this one."

  * * * * *

  Judkins spoke in a low monotone not much louder than the soft hiss of the machine recording his words. Question by question--in Judkins' condition, each query had to be specific, Thornberry said--the pattern emerged.

  Basing his request on his position as a member of the prison commission, Senator Giles had invited Judkins to lunch with him. The senator, however, despite his statement that he wanted only to be sure that Duncannon was getting the best personnel, had not confined his questions to Judkins' background.

  Was the hypno-tech alone when he conditioned the men? Any set statement to be made? Could Judkins add to the instructions given each convict without the knowledge of the prison authorities?

  The following day, both Senator Giles and Representative Culpepper had called upon Judkins at his sister-in-law's home. Bluntly, they offered ten thousand dollars if the technician could guarantee that Rooney would never be able to talk about the income tax racket.

  When Judkins had explained that any conditioning he could give would be as easily removed by another tech, the two men had gone into a corner and consulted in whispers.

  They had emerged from the corner with this offer: First, they would bargain with the new warden to get Rooney a job as a trusty. If that failed they offered Judkins twenty thousand dollars and a hideout in New York--until they could set him up outside the country--if he would condition a group of prisoners to riot and discredit Bennington immediately.

  "What Rooney must be sitting on!" Mosby murmured in Bennington's ear.

  "Was sitting on," Bennington said bitterly. "He was the fat belly with Dalton and Clarens, the one who didn't make it."

  The story flowed on under Thornberry's skillful questioning.

  * * * * *

  At noon yesterday, a frightened and angry Giles had called Judkins, had boosted the bribe to thirty thousand and demanded immediate action.

  "What did you tell the prisoners?" Thornberry's voice was as even as Judkins'.

  "I was their friend and their only friend; every one else was their enemy. I told them they must be quiet and obey all orders until the last man received his coffee in the mess hall. They were then to throw their trays at the people around them. I told them where to go for guns. I told them that then they would forget all that I had said, that they would know how to take care of their enemies."

  "Gentlemen, do you realize what this means, in terms of the constitutional psychopathic inferior? I refer to Clarens, not Dalton. Dalton reacted as Judkins directed, including to forget that he had been told everyone was his enemy. Dalton, we know from his record, actually disliked to use weapons even as a threat.

  "But we can be sure that Clarens has not forgotten."

  "Why not?" Mosby demanded.

  "Because the instructions he received only intensified what he himself believed before Judkins worked on him. As soon as he had a chance he looked for his kind of weapons. How he got her there, we won't know until we catch him, but note that he killed the little girl in the equivalent of a cavern.

  "And the man in the park, that, too, took place in what was necessarily an almost secret spot.

  "Those orders Judkins gave, we know Clarens is still responding to them...."

  Thornberry hesitated a moment, then completed his thought. "And so we must intensify our patrols on the darker streets. With this poor boy believing that every man's hand is turned against him, he is now looking for some dark place in which to feel safe. He is in essence retreating to the foetus--"

  "Sounds good, but tell me the rest later, Doc."

  "General Mosby, you and I want to call our roving patrols," and Scott headed for the door, Mosby right behind him.

  "By the way, Doc," the chief called back over his shoulder, "when you're done with that guy, just tell one of my men. We've got a special, reserved, very solitary cell for him."

  More slowly, Bennington followed
Scott and Mosby.

  The area of the hunt had perhaps been narrowed. Their quarry--the beast with steel knives for talons--would be found in a dark, deserted place.

  * * * * *

  Bennington noted that Thornberry stayed with Judkins for about ten minutes before he joined the group around the map of Harrisburg in the Operations Office.

  Personally, the warden was glad that his assistant was not present; the discussion would almost certainly have produced and explosion from the psychologist.

  Scott began his gloomy analysis after both he and General Mosby had redirected their patrols to heavier concentrations in Harrisburg's dim-lit and winding side streets.

  "I hate to hunt this kind," the chief said gloomily. "You just never know, never know anything, except that they're going to kill again.

  "I just hope he has cooled off and that he wants to sleep a while."

  Bennington noted with amused interest the startled glance General Mosby gave the Chief of Police. Mosby's greatest strength and greatest weakness, both in the field and garrison, was his complete refusal to accept or excuse aberration.

  Scott had caught the glance, too, and continued. "I got a good lab, general, smart boys willing to pull extra duty. They've already told me that Clarens reached--after he killed the guy in the park--an emotional climax."

  Bennington watched his former Division Commander's face harden as expected.

  Scott continued: "That's why I said, I hope he's crawled off, wants to sleep a while. Every place he can get a bed in my town, I'll know the minute he wants to lie down.

  "Then I'll take him, like this"--the big hand crushed upon itself--"dead or alive, and I hope I have to take him dead."

  "Why dead?"

  "General, sorry, warden--no, I'll go back to the way I know you best--General Bennington, Clarens simply isn't the business of any kind of normal living.

  "You take a guy who cracked a safe, knocked off a payroll, robbed a bank, he's like any good business man taking a risk; he has insurance, he's got an out.

  "He can buy me, he can talk to the D.A., he can get the court to go along if he's caught. He just says, I'll tell you where the stuff is if I get the minimum.

  "O.K., we're wrong, we should go black-and-white, we should say no to any kind of deal, I shouldn't let a little guy go just because I'd rather grab the big one. Only, unconditional surrender doesn't work any better in my job than it does in yours on a battlefield."

  * * * * *

  "We've learned it doesn't work too well," Bennington agreed, "but what has this to do with Clarens?"

  "General, you did the right thing up at Duncannon when you decided to talk to Musto. He was a man in business, with something to buy and something to sell. He could be dealt with.

  "Now think this through: Suppose everybody in that Administration Building had been a Clarens. And I heard that you said this, General Bennington, that there has to be some sort of mutual trust for bargaining. You could deal with Musto because he is, and I'll make the point again, a sort of business man even though his business isn't legal.

  "But Clarens...."

  Chief Scott let the silence build while he lit a cigarette.

  "But Clarens wants to be caught," Mosby said.

  "He does?" Chief Scott pointed to the map. "General Mosby, you and I both know that all he has to do is sit down on the curb underneath any street light.

  "Let me change that. We would have him ten minutes faster if he sat down on the curb of any dark street.

  "No, he doesn't want caught, except maybe those first couple of minutes when he's almost human, those first couple of minutes after he's killed somebody. And if you have to kill someone to have human feelings yourself--that's not for most of us and that's why I hope he fights back and I have to take him--dead."

  Chief Scott turned back to the map of Harrisburg. His forefinger ran down the river, pausing at each of the many bridges. Then he turned to the generals.

  "Maybe we've got him pinned. We've had the bridges sealed tight and if Dr. Thornberry is right, he won't chase west because Pennsylvania land, especially around here, is selling real high and that's still very open country.

  "And that's not for Clarens, he wants back into our little city, back where things feel close and he feels inside."

  Bennington found himself looking at Mosby, with the glance returned.

  Mosby spoke, reluctantly. "He could be through us, Chief Scott."

  "How?"

  "The same way my men come back to camp and it's a natural way that's rarely stopped."

  "Clarens had no military experience!" Scott said.

  "No, but he's read a lot--that came out at the trial--and he's under pressure, so he'll remember what he read," Bennington said.

  "Tell me this way you can walk invisible across a lighted bridge," and Scott was still unconvinced.

  "You don't walk over, you ride over," Mosby said. "I would work it this way.

  "I would stop in a bar and buy a drink that made me smell five feet away. I would order and get rid of a couple more of them, very quickly, then I would tip the bartender to call me a cab.

  "And by the way, of course I wouldn't be drinking any after the first one.

  "But when the cabbie came, I'd offer him a drink, wave a big bill or two that meant a good tip, and give him a good address--for instance, the hotel that takes up the biggest space in the yellow pages of the telephone book.

  "I would get into the back seat of the cab still holding on to the biggest bill or two out of those we took from the cleaning truck and I would pretend to fall asleep.

  "With that cab driver convinced that he's hauling a drunk just aching to give away a big tip--and any normal human being perfectly sure that a wanted killer would never walk into a bar, get loaded and order a cab to take him to the biggest hotel in town--what are my chances, Chief Scott?"

  * * * * *

  The chief did not answer directly. Instead, "And I'll bet he wins that appeal he's got going, too."

  "What did you say, Chief Scott?" Bennington asked.

  "We got the word a while ago from Delaware by teletype. Clarens has three good lawyers fighting an appeal from the conviction on every grounds you can think of, including that the confession was beaten out of him.

  "That's why I hope he wants to fight when I catch up with him, and that's what Delaware hopes, too.

  "But here comes Dr. Thornberry, General Mosby. Let's ask him why Clarens hides so well when he says he wants to be caught."

  Thornberry pursed his lips so tightly that his face became a skull's head, then he answered.

  "In some areas of human behavior...." he began.

  "Dalton," Bennington interrupted, "does he make a game out of getting away when he's caught?"

  Thornberry's face became almost human with a big smile. "Oh, yes, obviously."

  "Could that energy he puts into escaping be channeled, led, educated--in some way--to constructive thinking? Put it this way: could Dalton be led to thinking about making a jail escape-proof?"

  "A most excellent therapy," and Thornberry was actually beaming. "General Bennington, I am beginning to have great hopes for our work together as we start to see more and more eye to eye."

  "Let's go back to Clarens," Bennington said. "Son of wealthy parents, a good education, the only child in a family who seemed to have everything, including parents who loved both each other and the child--why does he kill, ask to be caught, and then hide so well?

  "What therapy does your science have for him, Dr. Thornberry?"

  Thornberry's lip-pursing again made his face a skeleton's.

  "There are areas of human behavior--"

  * * * * *

  Bennington observed that Scott and Mosby had turned away from the conversation to the immediacies of patrol distribution. Scott was being eloquent on how lighting cut down crime and Mosby was analyzing the idea in terms of house-to-house combat at night under slow-dropping flares.

  For further insurance of priv
acy, Bennington pulled Thornberry into the corner of the room most removed from the others.

  "Doctor, let's forget about Clarens for a moment. I want to talk about Judkins."

  "Yes, general."

  "How did you hypnotize him? And don't hand me any of that stuff about him being sensitive because of his job."

  Thornberry smiled. "You've seen too many conditioned men, and in a way I'm surprised that I got past Chief Scott with my ... General Mosby should have been more alert, too.

  "You're right, it was his skin, not his job."

  "I'm still puzzled."

  "I won't go into the physical structure of the man, his character as revealed by his choice of profession, and so on. Briefly, he is hyper-sensitive to the thought of physical pain, that's all. So I gave him a simple choice. Talk to us in such a way that what he said could never be used against him, or go for a ride with you, Chief Scott, and General Mosby.

  "This is very odd, a fact I must further check into, that your name frightened him most."

  "You threatened someone with violence!"

  Thornberry sniffed. "It was no threat. I knew the man and simply appealed to him in the proper way. Then with the spray of cannabis indica that I carry, I speeded his willingness--"

  "Marihuana!"

  "Please don't be so shocked!" and Thornberry was horrified that Bennington should be shocked. "The prescription I use is a carefully compounded medical dosage specifically prepared to promote suggestibility...."

  "Doctor, I am not in the least suggesting that you would use any method or drug not thoroughly commended by your profession.

  "In addition, I am delighted beyond expression that you found some way to learn what we needed from Judkins.

  "But, just as I was surprised that your profession did find a use for a drug previously condemned, I now want to be surprised in another way:

  "What can you do for someone like Clarens?"

  Thornberry's lips came together and his cheeks began to pull in. Bennington resigned himself to hearing again the phrase, "There are some areas of human behavior--"