(2/15) The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume II: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

  * * * * *

  Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald tried at one and the same time to roar and to swallow. He accomplished neither. He put his finger in the bowl of his pipe. He jerked it out, scorched.

  "Look!" he said almost hoarsely, "I was tellin' you when the phone rang! We got a police force here in town! This's what we've been tryin' to get! You come along with me to Headquarters an' swear to a complaint--"

  Brink said interestedly: "Why?"

  "That guy Big Jake Connors!" raged the detective. "That's why! Tryin' to threaten you into givin' him a share in your business! Tryin' to burn it down or blow it up when you won't! He was just a small-town crook, once. He went to the big town an' came back with ideas. He's usin' 'em!"

  Brink looked at him expectantly.

  "He started a beer business," said the detective bitterly. "Simultaneous other beer dealers started havin' trouble. Empty kegs smashed. Trucks broke down. Drivers in fights. They hadda go outta business!"

  "What did the cops do?" asked Brink.

  "They listened to their wives!" snarled Fitzgerald. "They begun to find little grabbag packages in the mail an' with the milk. Fancy perfume. Tricky stockin's. Fancy underwear they shoulda been ashamed for anybody to know they had it on underneath. The cops weren't bribed, but their wives liked openin' the door of a mornin' an' findin' charmin' little surprises."

  "Ah," said Brink.

  "Then there were juke boxes," went on the detective. "He went in that business--an' trouble started. People'd drive up to a beer joint, go in, get in a scuffle an'--bingo! The juke box smashed. Always the juke box. Always a out-of-town customer. Half the juke boxes in town weren't workin', on an average. But the ones that were workin' were always Big Jake's. Presently he had the juke-box business to himself."

  Brink nodded, somehow appreciatively.

  "Then it was cabs," said Fitzgerald. "A lot of cops felt bad about that. But their wives wouldn't be happy if anything happened to dear Mr. Big Jake who denied that he gave anybody anything, so it was all right to use that lovely perfume.... Cabs got holes in their radiators. They got sand in their oil systems. They had blowouts an' leaks in brake-fluid lines. Cops' wives were afraid Big Jake would get caught. But he didn't. He started insurin' cabs against that kinda accident. Now every cab-driver pays protection-money for what they call insurance--or else. An' cops' wives get up early, bright-eyed, to see what Santa Claus left with the milk."

  "You seem," said Brink with a grin, "to hint that this Big Jake is ... well ... dishonest."

  "Dishonest!" Fitzgerald's face was purplish, from many memories of wrongs. "There was a guy named Burdock who owned this business before you. Y'know what happened to him?"

  "Yes," said Drink. "He's my brother-in-law. Connors or somebody insisted on having a share of the business and threatened dreadful things if he didn't. He didn't. So acid got spilled on clothes. Machinery got smashed. Once a whole delivery-truck load of clothes disappeared and my brother-in-law had to pay for any number of suits and dresses. It got him down. He's recovering from the nervous strain now, and my sister ... eh, asked me to help out. So I offered to take over. He warned me I'd have the same trouble."

  "And you've got it!" fumed the detective. "But anyhow you'll make a complaint. We'll get out some warrants, and we'll have somethin' to go on--"

  "But nothing's happened to complain about," said Brink, quite reasonably. "One broken window's not worth a fuss."

  "But somethin's goin' to happen!" insisted the detective. "That guy Big Jake is poison! He's takin' over the whole town, bit by bit! You've been lucky so far, but your luck could run out--"

  Brink shook his head.

  "No-o-o," he said matter-of-factly. "I'm grateful to you, Mr. Fitzgerald, but I have a special kind of luck. I won't tell you about it because you wouldn't believe but--but I can give you some of it. If you don't mind, I will."

  He went to the slightly dusty, partly-plastic machine. On its shelf were some parts of metal, and some of transparent plastic, and some grayish, granular substance it was hard to identify. There was an elaborate diagram of something like an electronic circuit inside, but it might have been a molecular diagram from organic chemistry. Brink made an adjustment and pressed firmly on a special part of the machine, which did not yield at all. Then he took a slip of plastic out of a slot in the bottom.

  "You can call this a good-luck charm," he said pleasantly, "or a talisman. Actually it's a psionic unit. One like it works very well, for me. Anyhow there's no harm in it. Just one thing. If your eyelids start to twitch, you'll be headed for danger or trouble or something unpleasant. So if they do twitch, stop and be very, very careful. Please!"

  He handed the bit of plastic to Fitzgerald, who took it without conscious volition.

  Then Brink said briskly: "If there isn't anything else--"

  "You won't swear out a warrant against Big Jake?" demanded Fitzgerald bitterly.

  "I haven't any reason to," said Brink amiably. "I'm doing all right. He hasn't harmed me. I don't think he will."

  "O.K.!" said the detective bitterly. "Have it your way! But he's got it in for you an' he's goin' to keep tryin' until he gets you! An' whether you like it or not, you're goin' to have some police protection as soon as I can set it up."

  He stamped out of the cleaning-and-drying plant. Automatically, he put the bit of plastic in his pocket. He didn't know why. He got into his car and drove downtown. As he drove, he looked suspiciously at his pipe. He fumed. As he fumed, he swore. He did not like mysteries. But there was no mystery about his dislike for Big Jake Connors. He turned aside from the direct route to Headquarters to indulge it. He drove to a hospital where four out-of-town hoods had been carried two days before. He marched inside and up to a second-floor corridor door with a uniformed policeman seated outside it.

  * * * * *

  "Hm-m-m. Donnelly," he growled. "How about those guys?"

  "Not so good," said the patrolman. "They're gettin' better."

  "They would," growled Fitzgerald.

  "A lawyer's been to see 'em twice," said the patrolman. "He's comin' back after lunch."

  "He would," grunted the detective.

  "They want out," said the cop.

  "I'm not surprised," said Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald.

  He went into the sick room. There were four patients in it, none of them looking exactly like gentle invalids. There were two broken noses of long-ago dates, three cauliflower ears, and one scar of a kind that is not the result of playing lawn tennis. Two were visibly bandaged, and the others adhesive-taped. All of them looked at Fitzgerald without cordiality.

  "Well, well, well!" he said. "You fellas still here!" There was silence. "In union there is strength," said Fitzgerald. "As long as you stay in one room everybody's sure the others haven't started rattin'. Right?"

  One of the four snarled silently at him.

  "It was just a accident," pursued the detective. "You four guys are ridin' along peaceable, merrily takin' the air, when quite inadvertently one of you almost blows the head off of another, and he's so astonished at there bein' a gun in the car that he wrecks it. And when they get you guys in the hospital there ain't one of you knows anything about four sawed-off shotguns and a tommy gun in the car with you. Strange! Strange! Strange!"

  Four faces regarded him with impassive dislike. The bandaged ones were prettier than the ones that weren't.

  "That tommy gun business," explained Fitzgerald, "is a federal affair. It's against Fed law to carry 'em around loaded. And your friend Big Jake hasn't been leavin' presents on the White House steps. Y'know, you guys could be in trouble!"

  Three pairs of eyes and an odd one--the other was hidden under a bandage--stared at him stonily.

  "Y'see," explained Fitzgerald again, "Big Jake's slipped up. He hasn't realized it yet. Its my little secret. A week ago I thought he had me licked. But somethin' happened, and today I felt like I had to come around and congratulate you fellas. You got a break! You're gonna have free
board and lodging for years to come! I wanted to be the first to tell you!"

  He beamed at them and went out. Outside, his expression changed. He said bitterly to the cop at the door: "I bet they beat this rap!"

  He went downstairs and out of the hospital. He started around the building to his car.

  His eyelid twitched. It twitched again. It began to quiver and flutter continuously. Fitzgerald stopped short to rub the offending eye.

  There was a crash. A heavy class water-pitcher hit the cement walk immediately before him. It broke into a million pieces. He glared up. The pitcher would have hit him if it hadn't been for a twitching eyelid that had brought him to a stop. The window of the room he'd just left was open, but there was no way to prove that a patient had gotten out of bed to heave the pitcher. And it had broken into too many pieces to offer fingerprint evidence.

  "Hah!" said Fitzgerald morosely. "They're plenty confident!"

  He went to Headquarters. There were more memos for his attention. One was just in. A cab had crossed a sidewalk and crashed into a plate-glass window. Its hydraulic brakes had failed. The trouble was a clean saw-cut in a pressure-line. Fitzgerald went to find out about it. The cab driver bitterly refused to answer any questions. He wouldn't even admit that he was not insured by Big Jake against such accidents. Fitzgerald stormed. The owner-driver firmly--and gloomily--refused to answer a question about whether he'd been threatened if he didn't pay protection money.

  Fitzgerald raged, on the sidewalk beside the cab in the act of being extracted from the plate-glass window. Am open-mouthed bystander listened admiringly to his language. Then the detective's eyelid twitched. It twitched again, violently. Something made him look up. An employee of the plate-glass company--there were rumors that Big Jake was interesting himself in plate-glass insurance besides cabs--wrenched loose a certain spot. Fitzgerald grabbed the bystander and leaped. There was a musical crash behind him. A tall section of the shattered glass fell exactly where he had been standing. It could have been pure accident. On the other hand--

  He couldn't prove anything, but he had a queer feeling as he left the scene of the crash. Back in his own car he felt chilly. Driving away, presently, he felt his eyelid tentatively. He wasn't a nervous man. Ordinarily his eyelids didn't twitch.

  * * * * *

  He went to investigate a second memo. It was a restaurant, and he edged the police car gingerly into a lane beside the building. In the rear, the odor of spilled beer filled the air. It would have been attractive but for an admixture of gasoline fumes and the fact that it was mud. Mud whose moisture-content is spilled beer has a peculiar smell all its own.

  He got out of his car and gloomily asked the questions the memo called for. He didn't need to. He could have written down all the answers in advance. The restaurant now reporting vandalism had found big Jake's brand of beer unpopular. It had twenty cases of a superior brew brought in by motor-truck. It was stacked in a small building behind the café. For one happy evening, the customers chose their own beer.

  Now, next day, there were eighteen cases of smashed beer bottles. The crime had been committed in the small hours. There were no clues. The restaurant proprietor unconvincingly declared that he had no idea who'd caused it. But he'd only notified the police so he could collect insurance--not from Big Jake.

  With a sort of morbid, frustrated gloom, Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald made the necessary notes. He put his notebook in his pocket and backed his car out of the alley. Oddly enough, he thought of a beautifully carved meerschaum pipe he'd found with the milk that morning. He'd presented it to an orphanage mainly because, irrationally, he'd have liked to keep it. There had been other expensive gifts he'd have liked to keep. Bourbon. A set of expensive dry-flies. An eight-millimeter movie camera. Scotch. Shiny, smooth silk socks that would have soothed his weary feet. He'd denied himself these gifts because he believed--he knew--that they came from Big Jake, who tactfully won friends and influenced people by making presents and denying it. In business matters he was stern, because that was the way to collect protection-money. But he was subtle with cops. He had their wives on his side.

  Sergeant Fitzgerald growled in his throat. He'd always wanted a really fine meerschaum pipe. He'd had one this morning, and he'd had to get rid of it because it came from Big Jake. He felt that Big Jake had robbed him of it.

  He turned the police car and drove back toward the Elite Cleaners and Dyers establishment. As he drove, he growled. His eyelid had twitched twice, and each time he'd been heading into danger or trouble. The fact was dauntingly coincidental with Brink's comment after giving him a scrap of plastic from the bottom of that crazy machine. These things were on his mind. He couldn't bring himself to plan to mention them, but he needed to talk to Brink again. Brink could testify to threats. He could justify arrests. Sergeant Fitzgerald had a fine conviction that with a chance to apply pressure, he could make some of Big Jake's hoods and collectors talk, and so bust things wide open. He only needed Brink's co-operation. He drove toward the Elite Cleaners and Dyers to put pressure on Brink toward that happy end. But he brooded over his own eyebrow-twitchings.

  When the cleaning establishment came into view, there was a car parked before it. Two men from that car were in the act of entering the Elite plant through the same door the detective had used earlier. He parked his car behind the other. Fuming, he crossed the sidewalk and entered the building. As he entered, he heard a scream from the back. He heard a crashing sound and more screams.

  He bolted ahead, through the outer office and into the working area he had not visited before. He burst through swinging doors into a two-story, machinery-filled cleaning-and-dyeing plant. Tables and garment racks and five separate people appeared as proper occupants of the place. But something had happened. There was a flood of liquid--detergent solution--flowing toward the open back doors of the big room. It obviously came from a large carboy which had been smashed as if to draw attention to some urgent matter.

  The people in the room seemed to have frozen at their work, except that Brink had apparently been interrupted in some supervisory task. He was not working at any machine to clean, dye, dry, or press clothing. He looked at the two individuals whom Fitzgerald had seen enter only fractions of a minute earlier. His jaw clenched, and Fitzgerald was close enough behind the bottle-breakers to see him take an angry, purposeful step toward them. Then he checked himself very deliberately, and put his hands in his pockets, and watched. After an instant he even grinned at the two figures who had preceded the detective.

  They were an impressive pair. They were dressed in well-pressed garments of extravagantly fashionable cut. They wore expensive soft hats, tilted to jaunty angles. Even from the rear, Fitzgerald knew that handkerchiefs would show tastefully in the breast pockets of their coats. Their shoes had been polished until they not only shone, but glittered. But by professional instinct Fitzgerald noted one cauliflower ear, and the barest fraction of a second later he saw a squat revolver being waved negligently at the screaming women.

  He reached for his service revolver. And things happened.

  * * * * *

  The situation was crystal-clear. Big Jake Connors was displeased with Brink. In all the city whose rackets he was developing and consolidating, Brink was the only man who resisted Big Jake's civic enterprise--and got away with it! And nobody who runs rackets can permit resistance. It is contagious. So Big Jake had ordered that Brink be brought into line or else. The or else alternative had run into snags, before, but it was being given a big new try.

  There was the shrill high clamor of two women screaming at the tops of their voices because revolvers were waved at them. One Elite employee, at the pressing machine, took his foot off the treadle and steam billowed wildly. Another man, at a giant sheet-iron box which rumbled, stared with his mouth open and blood draining from his cheeks. Brink, alone, looked--quite impossibly--amused and satisfied.

  "Get outside!" snarled a voice as Fitzgerald's revolver came out ready for action.
"This joint is finished!"

  The companion of the snarling man rubbed suddenly at his eye. He rubbed again, as if it twitched violently. But it was, after all, only a twitching eyelid. He reached negligently down and picked up a wooden box. By its markings, it was a dozen-bottle box of spot-remover--the stuff used to get out spots the standard cleaning fluid in the dry-cleaning machine did not remove.

  The man heaved the box, with the hand with which he had rubbed his twitching eye. The other man raised a hand--the one not holding a revolver--to rub at his own eye, which also seemed to twitch agitatedly.

  Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald had his revolver out. He drew in his breath for a stentorian command for them to drop their weapons. But he didn't have time to shout. The hurtling small box of spot-remover struck the large sheet-iron case from which loud rumblings came. It was a dryer; a device for spinning clothes which were wet with liquid from the dry-cleaning washer. A perforated drum revolved at high speed within it. The box of spot-remover hit the door. The door dented in, hit the high-speed drum inside, and flew frantically out again, free from its hinges and turning end-for-end as it flew. It slammed into the thrower's companion, spraining three fingers as it knocked his revolver to the floor. The weapon slid merrily away to the outer office between Detective Fitzgerald's feet.

  But this was not all. The dryer-door, having disposed of one threatening revolver, slammed violently against the wall. The wall was merely a thin partition, neatly paneled on the office side, but with shelves containing cleaning-and-dyeing supplies on the other. The impact shook the partition. Dust fell from the shelves and supplies. The hood who hadn't lost his gun sneezed so violently that his hat came off. He bent nearly double, and in the act he jarred the partition again.

  Things fell from it. Many things. A two-gallon jar of extra-special detergent, used only for laces, conked him and smashed on the floor before him. It added to the stream of fluid already flowing with singular directness for the open, double, back-door of the workroom. The hood staggered, sneezed again, and convulsively pulled the trigger of his gun. The bullet hit something which was solid heavy metal, ricocheted, ricocheted again and the second hood howled and leaped wildly into the air. He came down in the flowing flood of spilled detergent, flat on his stomach, and with marked forward momentum. He slid. The floor of the plant had recently been oiled to keep down dust. The coefficient of friction of a really good detergent on top of floor-oil is remarkably low,--somewhere around point oh-oh-nine. Hood number two slid magnificently on his belly on the superb lubrication afforded by detergent on top of floor-oil.