Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  “Dash it, my thought exactly,” Reggie said. “I was strolling along, mulling it over, and I thought—”

  “Look, Your Lordship, you wouldn’t like to help a bloke out and do yourself a good turn in the bargain, eh?”

  The question, consisting of two parts and phrased in the negative, was about as clear to Reggie as it would have been in Latin. He nodded, then shook his head, congratulating himself on having met the issue shrewdly.

  The ragged little man, whose eyes kept darting away from, and back to, Reggie’s pearl studs, saw only the nod.

  “It’s like this, Governor,” he said. “I was crossing from London last week, and one of our blokes took sick and died.”

  “Scurvy, eh?” Reggie sympathized.

  “Warn’t. It was his insides got swollen and poisoned ’im. But no mind. ’E was an Eyegyptian, a sneaky bloke, and ’e had something with ’im ’e set great store by. ’Twas this,” the little man said, removing a small green bottle from his pocket. “This ’ere bottle it was. When ’e died we pinched the bottle from his bunk, we being ’is friends, you see, and sold it to the ’ighest bidder. My mate, Billy, bought it for a ’undred dollars, American, ’e got drunk in port and lost the bloomin’ bottle, you might say. It was found by your ’umble servant, Cheerful Jack Leeds.”

  “I say, what luck!” Reggie, whose concept of sailors stemmed from a reading of Treasure Island, had a thrilling vision of rogues with black eye patches fighting and snarling over this bottle.

  “I’m ‘ard up now meself, Your Lordship, and the bottle, which is Lord knows ’ow old and valuable, must go with all my other worldly possessions. I’m sacrificing it for ten dollars. Take it, feel it. Pretty, ain’t it?”

  Reggie accepted the bottle, cannily keeping a burgeoning excitement from showing in his face. For this was obviously a great bargain. Sold once for a hundred dollars, and now going for ten. It was the sort of thing that seldom happened to him; Sari, for instance, insisted rather despairingly that his fiscal sense could be tucked away in the eye of a newt. Reggie didn’t know how large a newt’s eyes were, but he suspected gloomily that they were pretty small.

  Now was a chance to prove her wrong.

  The bottle and a ten-dollar bill changed hands. Reggie continued on homeward, bursting with triumph, and Cheerful Jack Leeds proceeded to the nearest bar. He had Reggie’s tenner in one grimy hand, and a pearl stud from Reggie’s shirt in the other.

  REGGIE’S MAN, Clive, opened the door for him and took his coat. Clive, a tall elegant man with smooth pink cheeks and the forehead of a thinker, noticed the missing shirt stud, but decided not to mention it; it would be simpler to replace it with an imitation one than to inquire into the circumstances of its loss. In his years with Reggie, Clive had learned one important lesson: keep conversation out of the abstract; pin it down to reality. This he proceeded to do now in reference to still another matter.

  “Sir, the Brewster Shop delivered your new evening clothes.”

  “Ah, top hole. You unpacked them? You approve?”

  “Sir, I sent them back.”

  “Now dash it all.” Reggie patted Clive’s shoulder. “The old brain going soft, eh? I say! Look at it this way. Man buys dinner clothes. Store pops them around. Valet sends them back. Ridiculous, eh?”

  “Remember the patrimony, sir.”

  Reggie felt the words as if they were a shot-filled sock applied to the base of his skull. He sighed. Once, a long time ago it seemed, he and Clive had enjoyed man-to-man talks about dinner clothes, wines and vacation spots. Now, whenever they began chewing something over, they came down on this sticky business of the patrimony. It was a point Reggie didn’t thoroughly understand, but he knew it was a prickly one. It went like this, he decided, making a manful effort to think it through. He, Reggie, had been left pots of money. Good! Then he, Reggie, had met a man named Million-Dollar Monroe, who sold stocks and bonds. After a largish evening, Reggie had bought a lot of these stocks and bonds, and then he had learned, later this was, that they were all worthless. He knew he had been bilked in some fashion, of course; Clive, and his lawyers, and his brokers, had finally drummed that into his head. There was little room for rancor in Reggie’s childish soul, but what space existed was reserved for Million-Dollar Monroe. Reggie didn’t miss the money, however, so much as he did the old cheerful chats he’d once enjoyed with Clive. Now all their exchanges had a funereal tinge . . .

  Reggie decided not to tell Clive about the bottle. He had a misty presentiment that Clive would fail to appreciate the cunning of the transaction. In a gloomy mood he said good night and toddled off to his bedroom . . .

  Reggie placed the bottle on his bureau and studied it carefully as he undid his eye. Some of his doubts evaporated. It was a smashing bottle, really first-rate. He held it to the light and saw that it was empty. Well, he thought defensively, one could hardly expect it to be filled with Napoleon brandy.

  He turned the bottle this way and that, and then, after considerable effort, pulled out the stout cork stopper. Immediately a thick oily vapor poured from the throat of the bottle and settled to the floor. Somewhere in a far distance Reggie heard a wind that might have been born in the drumming of mighty wings. The drapes in the room flattened against the windows.

  Reggie brightened.

  Wait until Sari saw this, he thought.

  The ropy gray vapor solidified on the floor and rose slowly in a tubular column to a height of nearly five feet. Then the smoke ceased to pour from the bottle. The column thickened, darkened, and gradually assumed a human shape.

  Reggie shook his head admiringly. “I say,” he said softly, “This is good.”

  “Miscreant, you speak from ignorance,” a deep voice answered.

  Reggie looked around, scratching his head. Somebody had said something, but there was no one in sight. He glanced back and saw that the column of smoke had disappeared, and that a short, plump man had taken its place. This chap, whose skin was a rich chocolate in color, and whose eyes were deep and mournful, wore a full-length white robe which was decorated with an indecent number of softly glowing pearls.

  “What ho!” Reggie murmured, pleased by this development.

  “Know that I am Erodin and that I shall destroy you,” the short plump man said, squaring his shoulders.

  “In Heaven’s name, why?” Reggie said. He began unbuttoning his shirt. “I haven’t done—”

  “Silence,” the man commanded. “I am a Jinn of Balai land. I was imprisoned in that bottle twelve

  thousand years ago. It was something about the Chief Jinn’s harem, but I—The little man coughed slightly. “That isn’t important now. It was all a lie, in any case. In the first five thousand years of my imprisonment, I decided to grant the gift of eternal life to my rescuer. In the next five thousand years, I grew bitter. I decided I would grant my rescuer only sufficient precious jewels to make him the peer of any prince in the world. I—”

  “That seems damned generous,” Reggie said, suddenly liking this chap. The bloke obviously had decent instincts.

  “Please don’t interrupt,” the little man said sternly. “My bitterness grew as the years passed, and finally I decided that I would destroy my rescuer without mercy.”

  Reggie’s mind skittered back to something that had occurred a few moments before. It was something deuced queer. Finally he got it. “I say,” he cried, “were you inside that bottle?”

  “Yes, wretch. For twelve thousand years.”

  “Well, a chap gets attached to a place and just doesn’t want to stir. I had an apartment in the Sixties once and I rotted there, year after year, just because I felt cozy about it. You know—”

  “Silence,” the little man cried. “Reflect on your fate. I am an Oriental. I am excruciatingly Oriental, you might say, and your punishment must necessarily be excruciatingly Oriental. You will be untouched, but those you love, those who make life supportable, will know the bitter quality of my anger.”

  REGGIE BEGAN to
take off his trousers. The chap was hipped on this revenge business, which was too bad. That was the trouble with spending too much time in one place, Reggie reflected philosophically. A chap’s horizons narrowed.

  “You don’t seem too concerned,” the Jinn said, eyeing Reggie dubiously.

  “But I am,” Reggie said. He said it firmly and solidly, because he saw no point in hurting the chap’s feelings.

  “Very well, until tomorrow I will leave you,” the Jinn said, and with a cynical salute, stepped back one pace into the bottle and disappeared.

  Reggie shrugged and went in to brush his teeth. He’d rather liked this little chap, but you couldn’t take a man too seriously after he’d admitted spending twelve thousand years in a bottle. It showed a certain dullness, a coarseness of fiber, Reggie thought, shaking his head regretfully. Also, he suspected that the whole thing was a gag. It bore the unmistakable and nutty stamp of one Fred McIntyre, a preposterously unstable chap who belonged to Reggie’s club.

  After preparing for bed, Reggie picked up the phone and called Freddy. He learned from his valet that Freddy was in Austria skiing.

  “Well, it’s someone else then,” Reggie said aloud. He had, after all, quite a few friends with loosely screwed-on heads. Smiling, he popped into bed and fell asleep immediately.

  THE NEXT morning, as Reggie was polishing off orange juice, the doorbell rang. He remembered Sari suddenly, and emitted a happy bleat as he sped to open the door. But his hopes were dashed as he found himself staring into the mournful eyes of the portly little man he had encountered the previous evening. Now the man wore a gray flannel suit, a black Homburg hat, and a striped tie of questionable taste. He bowed slightly, handed Reggie his hat and stick, and strolled into the apartment.

  “What do you want?” Reggie said, feeling the first stirring of alarm.

  “Oh, I have to know something of your friends before I choose the ones to destroy,” the Jinn said. “I am an Oriental, but extremely practical, as you’ll learn.”

  Reggie bit his lip. Suddenly, in the clear morning sunlight, he perceived that the situation had unpleasant overtones. Last night, fortified no doubt by several bottles of claret, he had dismissed it as a prank. Now he recalled that this mournful little chap had been inside that bottle. This fact lent a disturbing credence to the rest of his story. The business of being a Jinn, and a Jinn bent on vengeance, was now unhappily verified—and the conclusions to be drawn from that were sobering.

  AT THIS point the doorbell rang.

  “Ah, friends I trust,” the Jinn said, and in his little smile there was something cold and cheerless.

  Reggie suddenly remembered Sari. “Now see here,” he said, “this isn’t cricket. You leave my friends alone.”

  “You weren’t concerned about them last night,” the Jinn said, laughing softly. “What has changed your mind?”

  “It’s that tie you’re wearing, I suppose,” Reggie said moodily. “A man who’d wear those stripes with a flannel suit might do anything.”

  The Jinn fingered the tie uneasily. “There are more important things in life than clothes,” he said.

  “Oh, don’t talk rot,” Reggie said.

  The bell sounded again, insistently this time.

  “Excuse me,” Reggie muttered. He tossed the Jinn’s hat and stick into a chair and went to the door.

  Sari threw her arm about his neck. “Darling, it’s wonderful to be back,” she said.

  Sari was a lovely, a delightful girl, with glinting red hair, piquant, good-humored features, and a body that would have caused a riot in the ranks of a Civil War Veteran’s convention. The top of her head came just up to Reggie’s chin, and she looked as if she had been assembled by a craftsman who loved his work. Now, wearing a black sheath dress, the trimness of her waist, the graceful curve of her bosom, and the exciting swell of her hips, were all delightfully evident.

  Reggie had seldom been happier. Grinning, he put his arms around her and said, “I say, old chum—”

  THEN HE stopped abruptly. Across her shoulder he saw the Jinn smiling at them, his deep mournful eyes glinting malevolently. The Jinn had raised one plump hand, and extended a finger at Sari’s back.

  Stifling a nervous impulse to faint, Reggie put his hands on Sari’s hips and pushed her away from him. “Now, my dear young lady, relax,” he said. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his high, bony forehead. Sari regarded him with a small, puzzled smile.

  “What, in Heaven’s name, is the matter with you?” she said. “Is it a family anniversary on which the oldest son must live chastely to appease the ancestral gods? Or have you simply forgotten me?”

  Looking at her, Reggie realized that this wouldn’t be easy. However, it must be done—for Sari’s sake.

  “Now see here, I’ve told you it’s all over,” he said, shooting a side glance at the Jinn, who was watching them with a small puzzled frown.

  “What are you talking about?” Sari said.

  Reggie bit a figurative bullet. “I’m going to be married. Didn’t you know?”

  “Of course I did, you ass. You’re marrying me.”

  “No, that’s all over,” Reggie said. He turned his back to her and waved a hand in what he imagined was a grand gesture of dismissal. Reggie had never played a scene like this before, and he found himself enjoying it. Scraps and nuggets from the cinema worked their way to the surface of his spongy mind, as he continued to wave a hand grandly. “It’s better to find out now,” he murmured. “Wherever we went, Rangoon, Singapore, East Chicago, there’d be spiteful rumors following us. And so I must marry Guinevere.” He let his arm fall limply to his side.

  “Who in hell is Guinevere?” Sari demanded in a voice that barely managed to sound ladylike.

  “It won’t be everything I dreamed of,” Reggie went on, to the cue of some invisible director, whom he could imagine weeping quietly into his megaphone. “Guinevere’s father wants me in the firm—vice-president, to start, I dare say. It will be a quiet life—polo, swimming, the market.” He gulped, caught up with the sadness of it all. “And children,” he added, lowering his head.

  There was a sharp noise behind him which Reggie took for the rattle of applause. He turned, smiling weakly, and saw that Sari had gone. The noise had been the emphatic banging of the door.

  The Jinn, he saw, was staring at the door with an odd light in his mournful eyes. “That was a very attractive young woman,” he said. “You—you don’t want her?”

  “Attractive?” Reggie shrugged. “Well, you’ve been out of circulation quite a while. Anything probably looks good to you.”

  “I must see this Guinevere,” the Jinn said, thoughtfully.

  “Oh, she’s out of town.”

  “I have plenty of time,” the Jinn said, and moved slightly to one side and disappeared.

  Reggie rubbed his forehead nervously. Now he was in a sweet mess. Sari gone, out of his life forever, no doubt, and this sadeyed little Jinn hanging about to pounce on a fictitious Guinevere.

  Well, he thought, bouncing up to a more optimistic level, there was no point in letting all this disrupt his routine. He decided to go to his club for lunch. . .

  REGGIE FELT considerably better after a pre-luncheon Martini. He stood at the bar, surrounded by the pleasant babble of conversation and clinking ice, and stared at the reflection of his long vacant face in the bar mirror. Thinking of nothing at all, he was enjoying himself in his usual fashion, when a hand fell on his shoulder.

  “Hallo, old chum,” a reedy voice said.

  Reggie turned and saw Freddy McIntyre standing beside him, a broad smile on his narrow cheerful face. Freddy was one of Reggie’s dearest friends, a kindred spirit, affable, casual, the owner of an unclouded temper, a non-functioning mind.

  “I say, what about the skiing,” Reggie said, remembering that he’d called Freddy the night before.

  Freddy laughed explosively. “Good joke, that. No snow. Went there in the wrong season. Travel agent bloke said somethin
g about it, but it slipped my mind.”

  Reggie laughed, too. This was the thing he valued in Freddy. He put an arm about Freddy’s shoulder and called for more drinks. However, as he glanced at the bartender, he saw the Jinn’s reflection in the mirror. Reggie gulped, feeling a nasty chill go down his back, and looked along the bar. There, sipping a tall drink, brazen as any member, stood the Jinn, watching them with his soft, mournful eyes.

  The thought of the Jinn’s vengeance descending on good old Freddy was unbearable, so Reggie jerked away and nudged him sharply in the ribs.

  “Beat it, you silly ass,” he snapped.

  “Righto,” Freddy said. Only things which he didn’t understand struck him as logical. When he thought he understood a thing, which was seldom, it turned out inevitably that he didn’t have it right, after all. And so he tossed off his drink and strolled away, not understanding Reggie’s attitude, and therefore accepting it as logical and sensible.

  The Jinn moved closer to Reggie, a suspicious little smile on his lips. “Is it possible that you have no friends? Don’t attempt to play tricks on me, please.”

  AT THIS precise moment Reggie heard another voice, a large, deep, confident voice, which carried in it the images of board meetings, huge officers, the exciting clatter of ticker tapes. It was the voice of a man of affairs—important, massive affairs. Reggie wheeled about, searching for the owner of that voice, that voice he always heard in the background of his fiscal conversations with Clive.

  There he was, at a table in the corner, one big hand holding a Scotch and soda, the other gesturing with an expensive cigar, Million-Dollar Monroe, the man whose beautifully printed stocks had absorbed Reggie’s patrimony like a thirsty sponge taking a drop of water. Seated with Million-Dollar Monroe was a tall, slack young man with gentle dreaming eyes. This was Teddy Cribmount, whose family paid him a goodish bit of money to stay in New York—their home being in Los Angeles. There was nothing peculiar about Teddy, except his curious conviction that Shakespeare had written the essays attributed to Bacon. He knew nothing of these matters himself, and so had hired a staff of elderly professors to prove his theory. They flooded him with reports which buttressed his notion, but failed always to prove it conclusively—and thus they kept on the payroll.