The Best of C.L. Moore & Henry Kuttner

by Henry Kuttner

  “No. My name’s Smith.”

  “Naturally.”

  “And you—Denny—are twenty years old, and unavailable for military duty in this war because of cardiac trouble.”

  Holt grunted. “What about it?”

  “I do not want you to drop dead.”

  “I won’t. My heart’s O.K. for most things. The medical examiner just didn’t think so.”

  Smith nodded. “I know that. Now, Denny—”

  “Well?”

  “We must be sure we aren’t followed.”

  Holt said slowly, “Suppose I stopped at F.B.I. headquarters? They don’t like spies.”

  “As you like. I can prove to them I am not an enemy agent. My business has nothing to do with this war, Denny. I merely wish to prevent a crime. Unless I can stop it, a house will be burned tonight and a valuable formula destroyed.”

  “That’s a job for the fire department.”

  “You and I are the only ones who can perform this task. I can’t tell you why. A thousand dollars, remember.”

  Holt was remembering. A thousand dollars meant a lot to him at the moment. He had never had that much money in his life. It meant a stake; capital on which to build. He hadn’t had a real education. Until now, he’d figured he’d continue in a dull, plodding job forever. But with a stake—well, he had ideas. These were boom times. He could go in business for himself; that was the way to make dough. One grand. Yeah. It might mean a future.

  He emerged from the park at Seventy-second Street and turned south on Central Park West. From the corner of his eye he saw another taxi swing toward him. It was trying to pocket his cab. Holt heard his passenger gasp and cry something. He jammed on the brakes, saw the other car go by and swung the steering wheel hard, pushing his foot down on the accelerator. He made a U-turn, fast, and was headed north.

  “Take it easy,” he said to Smith.

  There had been four men in the other taxicab; he had got only a brief glimpse. They were clean-shaven and wore dark clothes. They might have been holding weapons; Holt couldn’t be certain of that. They were swinging around, too, now, having difficulties with the traffic but intent on pursuit.

  At the first convenient street Holt turned left, crossed Broadway, took the cloverleaf into the Henry Hudson Parkway, and then, instead of heading south on the drive, made a complete circle and returned his route as far as West End Avenue. He went south on West End, cutting across to Eighth Avenue presently. There was more traffic now. The following cab wasn’t visible.

  “What now?” he asked Smith.

  “I…I don’t know. We must be sure we’re not followed.”

  “O.K.,” Holt said. “They’ll be cruising around looking for us. We’d better get off the street. I’ll show you.” He turned into a parking garage, got a ticket and hurried Smith out of the cab. “We kill time now, till it’s safe to start again.”

  “Where—”

  “What about a quiet bar? I could stand a drink. It’s a lousy night.”

  Smith seemed to have put himself completely in Holt’s hands. They turned into Forty-second Street, with its dimly lit honky tonks, burlesque shows, dark theater marquees and penny arcades. Holt shouldered his way through the crowd, dragging Smith with him. They went through swinging doors into a gin mill, but it wasn’t especially quiet. A jukebox was going full blast in a corner.

  An unoccupied booth near the back attracted Holt. Seated there, he signaled the waiter and demanded a rye. Smith, after hesitating, took the same.

  “I know this place,” Holt said. “There’s a back door. If we’re traced, we can go out fast.”

  Smith shivered.

  “Forget it,” Holt comforted. He exhibited a set of brass knuckles. “I carry these with me, just in case. So relax. Here’s our liquor.” He downed the rye at a gulp and asked for another. Since Smith made no attempt to pay, Holt did. He could afford it, with a thousand bucks in his pocket.

  Now, shielding the bills with his body, he took them out for a closer examination. They looked all right. They weren’t counterfeit; the serial numbers were O.K.; and they had the same odd musty smell Holt had noticed before.

  “You must have been hoarding these,” he hazarded.

  Smith said absently, “They’ve been on exhibit for sixty years—” He caught himself and drank rye.

  Holt scowled. These weren’t the old-fashioned large-sized bills. Sixty years, nuts! Not but what Smith looked that old; his wrinkled, sexless face might have been that of a nonagenarian. Holt wondered what the guy had looked like when he was young. When would that have been? During the Civil War, most likely!

  He stowed the money away again, conscious of a glow of pleasure that wasn’t due entirely to the liquor. This was the beginning for Denny Holt. With a thousand dollars he’d buy in somewhere and go to town. No more cabbing, that was certain.

  On the postage-stamp floor dancers swayed and jitterbugged. The din was constant, loud conversation from the bar vying with the jukebox music. Holt, with a paper napkin, idly swabbed a beer stain on the table before him.

  “You wouldn’t like to tell me what this is all about, would you?” he said finally.

  Smith’s incredibly old face might have held some expression; it was difficult to tell. “I can’t, Denny. You wouldn’t believe me. What time is it now?”

  “Nearly eight.”

  “Eastern Standard Time, old reckoning—and January tenth. We must be at our destination before eleven.”

  “Where’s that?”

  Smith took out a map, unfolded it and gave an address in Brooklyn. Holt located it.

  “Near the beach. Pretty lonely place, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been there.”

  “What’s going to happen at eleven?”

  Smith shook his head but did not answer directly. He unfolded a paper napkin.

  “Do you have a stylo?”

  Holt hesitated and then extended a pack of cigarettes.

  “No, a…a pencil. Thank you. I want you to study this plan, Denny. It’s the ground floor of the house we’re going to in Brooklyn. Keaton’s laboratory is in the basement.”

  “Keaton?”

  “Yes,” Smith said, after a pause. “He’s a physicist. He’s working on a rather important invention. It’s supposed to be a secret.”

  “O.K. What now?”

  Smith sketched hastily. “There should be spacious grounds around the house, which has three stories. Here’s the library. You can get into it by these windows, and the safe should be beneath a curtain about—here.” The pencil point stabbed down.

  Holt’s brows drew together. “I’m starting to smell fish.”

  “Eh?” Smith’s hand clenched nervously. “Wait till I’ve finished. That safe will be unlocked. In it you will find a brown notebook. I want you to get that notebook—”

  “—and send it air mail to Hitler,” Holt finished, his mouth twisting in a sneer.

  “—and turn it over to the War Department,” Smith said imperturbably. “Does that satisfy you?”

  “Well—that sounds more like it. But why don’t you do the job yourself?”

  “I can’t,” Smith said. “Don’t ask me why; I simply can’t. My hands are tied.” The sharp eyes were glistening. “That notebook, Denny, contains a tremendously important secret.”

  “Military?”

  “It isn’t written in code; it’s easy to read. And apply. That’s the beauty of it. Any man could—”

  “You said a guy named Keaton owned that place in Brooklyn. What’s happened to him?”

  “Nothing,” Smith said, “yet.” He covered up hastily. “The formula mustn’t be lost, that’s why we’ve got to get there just before eleven.”

  “If it’s that important, why don’t we go out there now and get the notebook?”

  “The formula won’t be completed until a few minutes before eleven. Keaton is working out the final stages now.”

  “It’s screwy,” Holt complained. H
e had another rye. “Is this Keaton a Nazi?”

  “No.”

  “Well, isn’t he the one who needs a bodyguard, not you?”

  Smith shook his head. “It doesn’t work out that way, Denny. Believe me, I know what I’m doing. It’s vitally, intensely important that you get that formula.”

  “Hm-m-m.”

  “There’s a danger. My—enemies—may be waiting for us there. But I’ll draw them off and give you a chance to enter the house.”

  “You said they might kill you.”

  “They might, but I doubt it. Murder is the last recourse, though euthanasia is always available. But I’m not a candidate for that.”

  Holt didn’t try to understand Smith’s viewpoint on euthanasia; he decided it was a place name and implied taking a powder.

  “For a thousand bucks,” he said, “I’ll risk my skin.”

  “How long will it take us to get to Brooklyn?”

  “Say an hour, in the dimout.” Holt got up quickly. “Come on. Your friends are here.”

  Panic showed in Smith’s dark eyes. He seemed to shrink into the capacious overcoat. “What’ll we do?”

  “The back way. They haven’t seen us yet. If we’re separated, go to the garage where I left the cab.”

  “Y-yes. All right.”

  They pushed through the dancers and into the kitchen, past that into a bare corridor. Opening a door, Smith came out in an alley. A tall figure loomed before him, nebulous in the dark. Smith gave a shrill, frightened squeak.

  “Beat it,” Holt ordered. He pushed the old man away. The dark figure made some movement, and Holt struck swiftly at a half-seen jaw. His fist didn’t connect. His opponent had shifted rapidly.

  Smith was scuttling off, already lost in shadows. The sound of his racing footsteps died.

  Holt, his heart pounding reasonlessly, took a step forward. “Get out of my way,” he said, so deep in his throat that the words came out as a purring snarl.

  “Sorry,” his antagonist said. “You mustn’t go to Brooklyn tonight.”

  “Why not?” Holt was listening for sounds that would mean more of the enemy. But as yet he heard nothing, only distant honking of automobile horns and the low mingled tumult from Times Square, a half block away.

  “I’m afraid you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  There was the same accent, the same Castilian slurring of consonants that Holt had noticed when Smith spoke. He strained to make out the other man’s face. But it was too dark.

  Surreptitiously, Holt slipped his hand into his pocket and felt the comforting coldness of the brass knuckles. He said, “If you pull a gun on me—”

  “We do not use guns. Listen, Dennis Holt. Keaton’s formula must be destroyed with him.”

  “Why, you—” Holt struck without warning. This time he didn’t miss. He felt the brass knuckles hit solidly and then slide, slippery on bloody, torn flesh. The half-seen figure went down, a shout muffled in his throat. Holt looked around, saw no one and went at a loping run along the alley. Good enough, so far.

  Five minutes later he was at the parking garage. Smith was waiting for him, a withered crow in a huge overcoat. The old man’s fingers were tapping nervously on the cane.

  “Come on,” Holt said. “We’d better move fast now.”

  “Did you—”

  “I knocked him cold. He didn’t have a gun—or else he didn’t want to use it. Lucky for me.”

  Smith grimaced. Holt recovered his taxi and maneuvered down the ramp, handling the car gingerly and keeping on the alert. A cab was plenty easy to spot. The dimout helped.

  He kept south and east to the Bowery, but at Essex Street, by the subway station, the pursuers caught up. Holt swung into a side street. His left elbow, resting on the window frame, went numb and icy cold.

  He steered with his right hand until the feeling wore off. The Williamsburg Bridge took him into Kings, and he dodged and alternately speeded and backtracked until he’d lost the shadows again. That took time. And there was still a long distance to go, by this circuitous route.

  Holt, turning right, worked his way south to Prospect Park and then east, toward the lonely beach section between Brighton Beach and Canarsie. Smith, huddled in back, had made no sound.

  “So far, so good,” Holt said over his shoulder. “My arm’s in shape again, anyhow.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “Must have hit my funny-bone.”

  “No,” Smith said, “that was a paralyzer. Like this.” He exhibited the cane.

  Holt didn’t get it. He kept driving until they were nearly at their destination. He pulled up around the corner from a liquor store.

  “I’m getting a bottle,” he said. “It’s too cold and rainy without a shot of something to pep me up.”

  “We haven’t time.”

  “Sure we have.”

  Smith bit his lip but made no further objection. Holt bought a pint of rye and, back in the cab, took a swig, after offering his fare a drink and getting a shake of the head for answer.

  The rye definitely helped. The night was intensely cold and miserable; squalls of rain swept across the street, sluicing down the windshield. The worn wipers didn’t help much. The wind screamed like a banshee.

  “We’re close enough,” Smith suggested. “Better stop here. Find a place to hide the taxicab.”

  “Where? These are all private houses.”

  “A driveway…eh?”

  “O.K.,” Holt said, and found one shielded by overhanging trees and rank bushes. He turned off lights and motor and got out, hunching his chin down and turning up the collar of his slicker. The rain instantly drenched him. It came down with a steady, torrential pour, pattering noisily staccato in the puddles. Underfoot was sandy, slippery mud.

  “Wait a sec,” Holt said, and returned to the cab for his flashlight. “All set. Now what?”

  “Keaton’s house.” Smith was shivering convulsively. “It isn’t eleven yet. We’ll have to wait.”

  They waited, concealed in the bushes on Keaton’s grounds. The house was a looming shadow against the fluctuating curtain of drenched darkness. A lighted window on the ground floor showed part of what seemed to be a library. The sound of breakers, throbbing heavily, came from their left.

  Water trickled down inside Holt’s collar. He cursed quietly. He was earning his thousand bucks, all right. But Smith was going through the same discomfort and not complaining about it.

  “Isn’t it—”

  “Sh-h!” Smith warned. “The—others—may be here.”

  Obediently, Holt lowered his voice. “Then they’ll be drowned, too. Are they after the notebook? Why don’t they go in and get it?”

  Smith bit his nails. “They want it destroyed.”

  “That’s what the guy in the alley said, come to think of it.” Holt nodded, startled. “Who are they, anyhow?”

  “Never mind. They don’t belong here. Do you remember what I told you, Denny?”

  “About getting the notebook? What’ll I do if the safe isn’t open?”

  “It will be,” Smith said confidently. “Soon, now. Keaton is in his cellar laboratory, finishing his experiment.”

  Through the lighted window a shadow flickered. Holt leaned forward; he felt Smith go tense as wire beside him. A tiny gasp ripped from the old man’s throat.

  A man had entered the library. He went to the wall, swung aside a curtain, and stood there, his back to Holt. Presently he stepped back, opening the door of a safe.

  “Ready!” Smith said. “This is it! He’s writing down the final step of the formula. The explosion will come in a minute now. When it does, Denny, give me a minute to get away and cause a disturbance, if the others are here.”

  “I don’t think they are.”

  Smith shook his head. “Do as I say. Run for the house and get the notebook.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then get out of here as fast as you can. Don’t let them catch you, whatever you do.”


  “What about you?”

  Smith’s eyes blazed with intense, violent command, shining out of the windy dark. “Forget me, Denny! I’ll be safe.”

  “You hired me as a bodyguard.”

  “I’m discharging you, then. This is vitally important, more important than my life. That notebook must be in your hands—”

  “For the War Department?”

  “For…oh yes. You’ll do that, now, Denny?”

  Holt hesitated. “If it’s that important—”

  “It is. It is!”

  “O.K., then.”

  The man in the house was at a desk, writing. Suddenly the window blew out. The sound of the blast was muffled, as though its source was underground, but Holt felt the ground shake beneath him. He saw Keaton spring up, take a half step away and return, snatching up the notebook. The physicist ran to the wall safe, threw the book into it, swung the door shut and paused there briefly, his back to Holt. Then he darted out of Holt’s range of vision and was gone.

  Smith said, his voice coming out in excited spurts, “He didn’t have time to lock it. Wait till you hear me, Denny, and then get that notebook!”

  Holt said, “O.K.,” but Smith was already gone, running through the bushes. A yell from the house heralded red flames sweeping out a distant, ground-floor window. Something fell crashingly—masonry, Holt thought.

  He heard Smith’s voice. He could not see the man in the rain, but there was the noise of a scuffle. Briefly Holt hesitated. Blue pencils of light streaked through the rain, wan and vague in the distance.

  He ought to help Smith—

  He’d promised, though, and there was the notebook. The pursuers had wanted it destroyed. And now, quite obviously, the house was going up in flames. Of Keaton there was no trace.

  He ran for the lighted window. There was plenty of time to get the notebook before the fire became dangerous.

  From the corner of his eye he saw a dark figure cutting in toward him. Holt slipped on his brass knuckles. If the guy had a gun it would be unfortunate; otherwise, fair enough.

  The man—the same one Holt had encountered in the Forty-second Street alley—raised a cane and aimed it. A wan blue pencil of light streaked out. Holt felt his legs go dead and crashed down heavily.

  The other man kept running. Holt, struggling to his feet, threw himself desperately forward. No use.