“Excellent. That is precisely what I thought. Now, Doctor, listen carefully. I have written an account of your activities, and your identity, and put it away in a safe place. Should anything happen to me, that information will instantly be forwarded to the Department of Justice in Washington. Do you understand?”
“You don’t trust me?” Rilke cried. “Of course not. I’d be a fool to trust you. But I think I can trust you now. If you had any idea about double-crossing me, or perhaps using your machine on me, you’d better get them out of your head.”
Dr. Rilke’s face was pale, and he worried his lower lip with his sharp yellow teeth. “You have done me an injustice,” he said, weakly. “Supposing you are killed by an automobile, or something else which I am not responsible for?”
“That will be very unfortunate for you,” Kirkland said. “Now you must excuse me. I’m going to get your money. I will expect to see you at my hotel this evening. Good morning, Doctor.”
Kirkland hadn’t the faintest idea of how he was going to raise fifty or sixty thousand dollars; but he felt sublimely certain that he would. He walked through the streets, cudgeling his brain for a solution to his problem. Gambling was out, and so was borrowing, and so was stealing. Kirkland wasn’t adverse to stealing, of course, but he knew nothing of that art, and so, rather wisely, he resolved to let it alone.
KIKRLAND walked very rapidly most of that day, going up one street and down another, ignoring shop windows and other pedestrians. He always walked rapidly when he was on the street, for he felt it made him seem a person of importance. However, as the dinner hour came and went, Kirkland was forced to stop and rest a while, no nearer a solution than when he, had left the doctor so confidently that morning. He had stopped before a small bar and, fingering the few coins in his pocket, he decided to have a beer and a sandwich. That was about all he had money for. His hotel bill was a week overdue, and he knew he would be getting notice from the manager in a day or so. Kirkland sat down tiredly on a bar stool, concerned now with the immediate petty problems of his life. The fifty thousand dollars was forgotten in the consideration of his present difficulty. This was typical of him. He was always up or down, never in the middle. Either fortunes were waiting him, or complete destitution.
There was a man on his left sipping a beer, a thin, tired-looking man with pale skin, scanty hair, and a sloping chin. Kirkland’s eye was caught by the way the man was counting the change from a ten-dollar bill. The man didn’t look at the bills, but was staring rather moodily at the bottle display while his two hands flicked through the money with automatic speed. Satisfied apparently that the count was right, the thin facile hands stacked the money in a neat pile, and then moved to pick up cigarettes and matches.
“I beg your pardon,” Kirkland said, turning to the man and smiling. “But do you work in a bank?”
The man’s mouth parted slightly and he grinned. “Yes, I do. How did you ever guess that?”
“Well, I’m not sure that I can tell you,” Kirkland said. “There was something about you, an air of responsibility, I imagine, that made me think that you handled large sums of money, or possibly stocks and bonds. And I hit the nail, didn’t I?”
“You certainly did. I’m with the Fourth National.” The man sipped his drink, a pleased smile lingering on his lips. “That air of responsibility you mentioned—well, I guess that comes from handling more money in a day than most people see in a whole lifetime. It’s quite a job, you know. That’s why I relax occasionally with a little drink,” he said apologetically.
“I couldn’t stand it,” Kirkland said. “The pressure would get me down.”
“Most people don’t realize how tough it is,” the man said, moving his stool closer to Kirkland’s. He began a recital of the problems he faced every day from people who wanted checks cashed without proper identification, and of those who wanted advice on banking problems; and as he rambled on, almost giddy at having found a sympathetic ear, Kirkland’s mind was wheeling with possibilities. He saw now how he could get the money for Doctor Rilke, if only he could get this garrulous ass back to his hotel room. Once there they could clap him under the will-destroyer, and after that the rest would be almost too simple.
“Have you had dinner?” he asked the man, who by now had told that his name was Edison.
“Matter of fact, no.”
“I know an excellent place, not far from here. Would you like to join me? I’m very interested in what you were saying about checking accounts, but frankly I’d like to hear the rest of it over a good steak.”
“Fine.”
Outside, Kirkland slapped h i s breast pocket, and then shook his head with a fine show of irritation. “Counfound it, I left my wallet at the hotel. Supposing we pick it up? This is my treat, understand?”
Edison’s eyes had flickered suspiciously for an instant; but now, seeing that Kirkland wasn’t going to try to borrow money, he agreed to accompany Kirkland to his hotel.
“It’s the Ridgely, and it’s not far,” Kirkland said.
“The Ridgely? That’s where that girl jumped out of the window yesterday. What made her do a thing like that, do you suppose? You know my idea?” Edison said quickly before Kirkland could reply. “I think she was mixed up with a man.”
Kirkland nodded thoughtfully. “You’re probably right,” he said.
ONCE IN Kirkland’s hotel room, Edison immediately put his neck in the noose. He examined Rilke’s machine from all angles, asked a lot of questions about it, and when Kirkland told him it was a device to increase the growth of hair, Edison ran a hand through his thinning locks and asked eagerly for a demonstration.
“Very well,” Kirkland said casually. “Sit here, please. About fifteen minutes should do it.”
Within fifteen minutes Edison was unconscious, his receding chin hanging limply, his eyes closed. Kirkland left him under the strong blue beam for another twenty minutes, then roused him. Edison opened blank, glazed eyes.
“Get up!” Kirkland said.
Edison rose automatically.
“Go home now. Tomorrow morning I will present myself at your window, promptly at nine o’clock. Have fifty thousand dollars in small bills ready for me, and shove it under the grill without any conversation. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Don’t do anything that will look suspicious. Count out the money carefully, and smile and say hello to everyone there as you do normally. Got that?”
“Yes, I have that.”
“Fine. Now on your way.”
When Edison had gone, Kirkland stretched out on the bed and lit a cigarette. Once again his dreams were vast and ambitious. He saw himself with fifty thousand, with a hundred thousand, with millions; and he saw people everywhere bowing to him, waiting for his orders.
There was a knock at the door. Kirkland got up and let Dr. Rilke in. “Well?” the doctor said, studying him with skeptical eyes.
“I will have the money for you at nine-thirty in the morning,” Kirkland said.
“Where—how are you getting it?”
“You sound surprised?” Kirkland said in a cool voice. “I am a resourceful man, Doctor. Now you had better make your plans for a laboratory and assistants.”
Kirkland turned slowly to the window and looked over the gleaming city. “I am ready to embark on operations that will make the ambitions of Genghis Khan seem non-existent by comparison.”
“We must go slowly,” Rilke said. “Slowly? Nonsense! The world moves swiftly today; and we will move twice as swift.”
Rilke rubbed his jaw anxiously.
CHAPTER III
IT WAS TWO minutes past nine when Kirkland presented himself at Edison’s cage in the lobby of the Fourth National Bank. There weren’t many people in the bank, just a few spruce-looking guards, and two or three men writing checks at the desks provided for the public.
Kirkland stared through the bars at Edison’s weak face.
“Give me the money!” he said
.
But Edison behaved far differently from what Kirkland expected. He pointed excitedly at Kirkland, and shouted, “That’s the man! He’s the one!”
Kirkland felt strong hands on his arms. He turned, startled and confused, and saw that he was in the grip of the bank guards. Two of the men who had been writing checks converged on him with guns in their hands.
“Frisk him,” one of these men snapped.
The bank guards patted Kirkland’s pockets, then one of them said: “He’s clean, all right.”
“W-what’s the meaning of this?” Kirkland blustered weakly.
The teller, Edison, was staring at him with an expression of mingled fear and anger. “You know what it’s all about,” he said, pointing a trembling finger at Kirkland. “You were going to make me steal fifty thousand dollars for you.”
“This is preposterous,” Kirkland said, in an even weaker voice.
“Well, let’s take him down to the President’s office,” one of the detectives said.
Without any more conversation, Kirkland was hustled through the quiet marble lobby and up a flight of stairs to an office where a white-haired man was sitting behind a huge, perfectly clear desk.
“Here he is, Mr. van Teal,” one of the detectives said.
“Ah, excellent work,” van Teal said, rising and coming around to the front of the desk. He was sparely built, with lean inquisitive features and alert eyes. Taking glasses from his pocket, he put them on his bony nose and studied Kirkland with interest.
“Now, Edison, you’re certain this is the man?” he said, at last.
“Positive I” Edison said, glaring triumphantly at Kirkland.
“Well, sir, what do you have to say for yourself?” van Teal said to Kirkland.
Kirkland’s palms were sweating and his heart was lunging about inside him like a frightened bulldog; but he made an effort to regain his poise. His appearance was in his favor, he knew. His large, confident-looking body, and big strong face were not the traditional equipment of the flim-flam artist, he thought. Kirkland met van Teal s eyes directly, challengingly.
“I believe that the explanation for all this nonsense should more logically come from you,” he said. “I must confess that your banking procedure is surprising, to say the least.” He nodded to Edison. “I approached this young man to inquire about opening an account here, and he began shouting hysterically at me.”
“You wanted me to steal fifty thousand dollars for you,” Edison cried.
KIRKLAND ignored the teller, and smiled sardonically at van Teal. “Is anyone going to explain this situation?”
Mr. van Teal said, “Edison, repeat what you’ve already told us.”
“You’re dam right I will,” Edison said, facing Kirkland belligerently. “This fellow started talking to me last night while I was—er—,” Edison paused, wet his lips. “While I was having a glass of beer,” he went on, with a surreptitious peek at van Teal to see how he took that information. “He asked me to have dinner with him, but when it came to paying the check he didn’t have any money. So we went to his hotel room. And that’s where he put me under this machine.”
“Machine?” Kirkland raised Ids eyebrows expressively.
“That hair-growing machine,” Edison shouted. “You know about it, all right.”
“Very well, let’s assume I know all about this—er—hair-growing machine. Please go on.”
“Well, it wasn’t a hair-growing machine at all,” Edison said.
“It wasn’t?” Kirkland met van Teal’s eye, gave him a man-of-the-world-smile. “Pity, don’t you think? Should be money in a real hair-growing machine.”
“Quite!” van Teal said, with a slightly suspicious glance at Edison.
“No, it was a machine that made me do anything he wanted me to do,” Edison said, pointing a shaky finger at Kirkland. “He told me to have fifty thousand dollars ready for him this morning and I said I would. I was helpless to do anything else. It felt like my mind was caught in a vise. But about two o’clock this morning something seemed to snap in my head, and I felt all right again. I felt just the way I always did, like the way I am now.”
“That’s a pity, of course,” Kirkland said. Hope was burgeoning in his soul once more. Edison’s story was too preposterous to be accepted, he realized.
“We caught you, though,” Edison said. “Didn’t we, Mr. van Teal?”
“Hmmm,” said Mr. van Teal.
The detectives and bank guards were regarding Edison with dubious expressions.
Kirkland smiled. “I suggest that this fantastic series of accusations might stem from the effects of that—er—glass of beer. I further suggest that it wasn’t a glass of beer at all that precipitated these delirious convictions, but rather straight whisky in considerable amounts. I assure you I do not have a machine that either grows hair or destroys the human will.”
“Yes, of course,” van Teal said, hastily. “I think there has been a mistake, Mr.—?”
“Kirkland.”
“Mr. Kirkland. You understand our position, I trust. We have to investigate all such possibilities.”
“But he’s going to steal money from us!” Edison cried. “He has a machine that makes you do whatever he wants. It’s devil-work.”
“Edison, you haven’t had your vacation yet, I believe,” van Teal said. “I’m going to ask you to take it right away. I think you have become overtired.”
“You don’t believe me?” Edison cried. “I’ll take you to his hotel, I’ll show the machine, I’ll—”
“Now, that will be quite enough,” van Teal said firmly.
One of the bank guards moved over and put a gentle hand on Edison’s arm. “Come along now, like a good chap,” he said.
When Edison had gone, shaking his head stubbornly, van Teal turned to Kirkland, and said: “I can only offer you my profound apologies for this regrettable situation, Mr. Kirkland.” Kirkland smiled, already feeling the buoying sense of his own superiority. “Not at all,” he said, with a careless wave of his hand. . .
ENETERING his hotel lobby twenty minutes later, Kirkland found Dr. Rilke waiting for him. The little doctor hurried to him, smiling eagerly. “Is everything all right?” he said.
“No, you incompetent ass, everything is not all right,” Kirkland said coldly. “Come up to my room, I want to talk to you.”
“But what went wrong? You said—”
“Please be good enough to keep quiet until we get to my room.”
In his room, Kirkland closed the door and caught Rilke’s lapels in his big strong hands. “He came out of it,” he snapped. “Last night that teller was helpless. This morning he had police waiting for me when I got to his window, and he was clear as a bell.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rilke whimpered, attempting to pull away from Kirkland.
“Very well, I’ll tell you, you little fraud. Last night I met a bank teller, and by exercising considerable ingenuity, I got him here and under the machine. When he was ready to do as I told him, I sent him home with instructions to have fifty thousand dollars ready for me this morning. Instead he had the police. I might be in jail this minute if it were not for my superior mind.”
“But of course,” Dr. Rilke said nervously. “However, the effects of my instrument last only for three or four hours. You should have told me your plans and I could have shown you why they wouldn’t work.”
Kirkland shoved Rilke away from him and walked to the window and stared down bitterly into the street. “Three or four hours,” he muttered. “What good is that?”
Rilke came to his side, plucked timidly at his sleeve. “I told you the machine isn’t perfected,” he said. “I need to work on it, to strengthen its effects, and to make it work instantly. We need money, lots of It, as I told you before.”
“Stop telling me things,” Kirkland cried imperiously. He was violently irritated with Rilke. Typically, he saw the little doctor as the sole reason for this morning’s mishap. �
��Please stop making ridiculous suggestions that serve no purpose but to get me into trouble,” he said. “I am going to take over completely now, and get a sensible program under way. You and your bank tellers!” he muttered, shaking his head in despair at Rilke’s stupidity. “How much money do you have?” he demanded.
“Me? I have none.”
“None at all?”
“Well, I have a little, but not enough for our needs.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” Kirkland said. “How much do you have?”
“Two hundred and thirty dollars.”
“That is sufficient,” Kirkland said smiling. “Get it for me immediately. I am through using guile. From now on we drive headlong at our goal. Anything in our way shall be destroyed. Hurry!”
Rilke scampered from the room and returned with the money in less than half an hour.
“Excellent,” Kirkland said, putting the money in his wallet. “Now I have plans to make. Excuse me, please.” And with that he strode out of the room.
KIRKLAND’S first stop was at the rental agent’s office in a midtown building. He handed his card to the agent, a mousy little man in a pin-striped suit, and said: “I require a furnished three-room office suite immediately.”
The agent, impressed by Kirkland’s manner, showed him about the building, and Kirkland finally selected a suite on the fifteenth floor. He paid a month’s rent in advance.
“May I ask what line you’re in?” the agent said, writing him out a receipt.
Kirkland smiled with sardonic amusement and looked thoughtfully into his future. “That’s a rather difficult question,” he said, chuckling. “My interests are somewhat varied, you see. However, for your files, you might list me as a speculator. Good day.”
Next Kirkland phoned the morning newspaper and inserted an ad in its Help Wanted columns. The ad read: Excellent opportunity for strong adventurous young men.
When that was done, Kirkland took a cab to the best restaurant in the city and indulged his voracious appetite to the utmost. Paying the check with Rilke’s money, he left a generous tip, and walked into the street. Tomorrow morning things would be humming, he thought smugly.
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 269
