by Fritz Leiber
“Watch out,” they heard Wilson call warningly from beyond the door. “They may try something.”
“I only hope they do,” they heard Hackman reply happily. “Oh how I hope they do!”
And then through the bedroom door the hound came snuffing. It was larger even than Carr had imagined, larger than any Great Dane or Newfoundland he’d ever seen, and its jaws were bigger, and its eyes burned like red coals in its short, ash-colored hair. He felt Jane shaking in his arms.
Hackman walked at its side, her eyes searching the room, bending a little, holding it on a short leash. There was a sticking plaster on her cheek where Gigolo had scratched her.
“Don’t hurry, Daisy,” she reproved sweetly. “There’ll be lots of time.”
Wilson and Dris entered behind her, carrying gasoline lanterns that glared whitely. Wilson put his down near the door. Dris, hurrying, stumbled into him with a curse.
Meanwhile Hackman and the hound had gone almost out of sight in the alcove. Suddenly she cried out, “Daisy, you stupid dog! What are you up to?”
Wilson, about to rebuke Dris, turned hurriedly. “Don’t let him hurt the girl!” he cried anxiously. “The girl’s mine.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, you fat-bellied hasbeen!” Dris snarled suddenly. “I’ve played second fiddle to you long enough. This time the girl’s mine.” And he hurried past Wilson with his light. Wilson grew purple-faced with rage and tugged at something in his pocket.
“Stop it, both of you!” Hackman had returned a few steps, the hound beside her. They both did. Hackman looked back and forth between them. “There’ll be no more ridiculous quarreling,” she told them. “The girl’s mine, isn’t she, Daisy?” And she patted the hound, without taking her eyes off them. After a few seconds Wilsons face began to lose its unnatural color and Dris’ taut frame relaxed. “That’s good,” Hackman commented. “It’s much the simplest way. And you won’t lose your fun. I promise you you’ll find it quite enjoyable. Now come on back, Daisy. I think I understand what you were trying to show me.” Once again she went almost out of sight, Wilson following her and Dris carrying the lamp.
“Where is it now?” Carr and Jane heard Hackman ask. There came a sound of eager scratching and snuffing. “Oh yes, I think I get it now. Let’s see, one of these circles in the baseboard should press in and give me a fingerhold. Yes. . . yes. Now if I pressed them both together . . .”
Jane and Carr suddenly heard the voices coming more plainly through the wall between the hidden room than from the bedroom. And the next moment they heard the hound snuffing and scratching at the second secret panel.
“Another one, is there?” they heard Hackman say. “Well, it won’t take long.” Then she raised her voice in a shout. “Yoohoo, in there! Are you enjoying this?”
CARR TOOK the single-shot pistol from his pocket. Its fifty-year-old cartridge was a miserable hope, though their only one.
But just then there came a new sound—the sound of footsteps, on the stairs, growing louder, louder, louder. Dris, who, judging from the position of the light, had stayed in the alcove doorway, must have heard it too, for he called out something to the others.
“Stay there!” Hackman hissed at the hound. “Watch!”
Then the three of them ran back into the bedroom, just as there sprinted into it the small dark man with glasses, his flying feet raising a puff of dust at each step.
He was past them before he could stop. Wilson and Dris circled in behind him, cutting off his retreat. Panting, he looked around from face to stonily-glaring face. Suddenly he laughed wildly.
“You’re dead!” he squealed at them shrilly. “You’re all dead!”
“This is a long-anticipated entertainment, darling,” Hackman told him. She looked beautiful as she smiled. Then the three of them began to close in.
The satisfaction in the small dark man’s expression was suddenly veiled by terror. He started to back away toward the alcove. “You called me a coward,” he screamed at them wildly. “But I’m not. I’ve killed you, do you hear, I’ve killed you.”
But he continued to back away as the others closed in.
“Run rabbit!” Hackman cried at him suddenly, and they darted forward. The small dark man whirled around and darted into the alcove. “Now, Daisy!” Hackman shrieked. There was a terrible snarl from the panel, and a thud, and a threshing sound and series of long high screams of agony. In between the screams Carr and Jane could hear Hackman yelling, “Oh, that’s lovely, lovely! Get out of my way, Dris, I can’t see. That’s it, Daisy! Beautiful, beautiful! Hold up the light, Dris. Oh good, good dog!”
Carr struggled half-heartedly to get to the panel, but Jane held on to him. Then suddenly the screams stopped and a few moments later the bubbling gasps stopped too, and through the slit they could see Hackman march back into the bedroom in a state of high excitement.
“That’s the most wonderful thing that’s happened to me in months,” she exclaimed, striding up and down. “Only it was much too quick. I could have watched forever.” She managed to get a cigarette alight with shaking fingers and puffed it furiously.
The hound came slinking out after her and nuzzled her ankles. Red splotches appeared on her stockings.
“Oh get away, you filthy, lovely beast!” she rebuked him affectionately. “Go and watch like I told you.” He slunk back into the alcove. Presently Jane and Carr could hear his low breathing just beyond the second panel.
Wilson and Dris, the latter carrying his gasoline lamp, had followed Hackman into the bedroom. They seemed rather less impressed with the whole affair.
“I wonder what he meant when he said he’d killed us?” Dris asked frowningly.
“Mere hysteria and bluff,” Wilson assured him. “Typical cornered rat behavior.” he smiled. “Well, that was just hunter’s luck. Now for the real fun.”
“Precisely,” agreed a flat, cruel voice.
Hackman, Wilson and Dris all looked at the bedroom doorway. In it stood a pale young man wearing a black topcoat and a black snap-brim hat.
“This gives me great pleasure,” he said and whipping a black silk scarf from around his neck he ran at Hackman. Three near-counterparts poured into the room at his heels. There was the scuff of darting footsteps, the jolt and thud of tumbling bodies, the whistle of effortful breaths.
“I can’t bear to watch it, I can’t,”
Jane whispered, shrinking against Carr. But she watched it nevertheless.
ONE OF the black hats ran past the melee to the alcove. Carr and Jane heard four sharp reports, and a little later got a whiff of gunsmoke. The gunman quickly returned from the alcove, but his companions were winning their battle, though not without difficulty.
“I can’t bear it,” Jane repeated, but still she didn’t close her eyes.
Soon it was quiet in the bedroom. The first of the black hats looked around rapidly, taking stock, as he tucked his scarf back inside his coat. “Roberto,” he demanded, “was it quite necessary to kill her?”
“I’ll say,” the man replied. “She almost got my eye with that pin of hers.”
The first of the black hats next addressed himself to the man who had run to the alcove, “Giovanni,” he said, “you should not have used the gun.”
“I thought it wise at the time,” Giovanni asserted. “Though as it turned out he made no move at me. He just lay there and took it.”
The first of the black hats chuckled. “All bark and no bite, eh? That’s the way with most of them. Next time be wiser. Well, are we ready? No need to tidy up in a place like this.”
“Shall we search further?” Roberto asked.
The first of the black hats shook his head. “No,” he said, “that was all of them, and we’re late as it is. Come on, now. Two of you bring the lanterns.”
In the doorway he turned. “Small dark chap,” he said, “we are grateful.”
And he kissed his fingers and departed.
Carr and Jane heard the footsteps recede down
the stairs, faintly heard the slam of a door, and a little later the roar of a souped-up motor. They clung together for perhaps ten minutes in shaking silence. Then Carr broke away and lit the lamp.
Jane hid her face from the light with her hands and threw herself down on the scarlet coverlet.
“I can’t bear it,” she sobbed. “Wilson’s face . . . and Dris’s head bent back that way . . . and what they did to Hackman . . . and before that the hound—I tell you, I’ll go crazy!”
“Come on, dear,” Carr urged anxiously, “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“I couldn’t go through that room,” she cried wildly. “I couldn’t bear to look at them. I’d lose my mind!” Carr waited until her sobs had grown less hysterical. Then he said to her, “But don’t you see what it means, dear? Everyone that knows you were awakened and out of the pattern is dead. The men with black hats don’t know about either of us. We can go back to our own lives, and Saturday we’re going to meet naturally in the pattern. We’ll be together and safe and sure of our place and then we can slowly begin to waken others—people without the selfishness and cruelty of the little gangs. And I have an idea there.”
Her sobbing ceased. She opened her eyes and looked at him.
“Maybe there are more wakened people than we realize,” he said. People like we were, who have wakened without realizing that others are still asleep. People capable of love and sacrifice.”
He looked at her. She lifted herself up a little. “Sacrifice,” he repeated, “like your friend proved himself capable of. He must have led the men with black hats here deliberately, don’t you see? Just as he must have led them to South State Street. He must have known that the others were planning to trap us here, he must have thought that he’d be wiped out whatever happened, but that we might be saved.” He paused. “Maybe it came out of a bottle again, but just the same it was courage,”
Jane sat up straight. “I’m ready,” she said.
Carr knelt to work the panel, but he couldn’t get the trick of it, immediately. “Let me,” Jane said, and in a moment had slid it up. Taking the lamp, she started through ahead of him, averting her face from the pitiful form of the small dark man lying beside the love seat.
But Carr, peering over her shoulder as she went down the steps, did look at it—and found himself puzzled.
The mangled throat was hideous, to be sure, but in the otherwise unmarked face and forehead above it were what looked like a couple of neat bullet holes.
He seemed to hear Giovanni say again. “He just lay there and took it.”
The lights had all been in the bedroom. In the shadows here’ Giovanni hadn’t noticed that the small dark man was already dead. Naturally.
But in that case—
Soundlessly the hound rose from behind the loveseat and launched its gray bulk at Jane’s throat.
Carr whipped his hand over Jane’s shoulder. There was a flash, and a crack and a puff of smoke.
The hound’s jaws snapped together six inches from Jane’s throat and it fell dead.
Carr caught Jane as she collapsed back against him. He steadied the lamp.
He looked down at the pearl-handled pistol in his hand.
“The powder was still good,” he said . . .
