Gladiator

by Philip Wylie

  XVIII

  In the next four weeks Hugo knew the pangs of hunger frequently. Hefound odd jobs, but none of them lasted. Once he helped to remove a latesnowstorm from the streets. He worked for five days on a subwayexcavation. His clothes became shabby, he began to carry his razor inhis overcoat pocket and to sleep in hotels that demanded onlytwenty-five cents for a night's lodging. When he considered the tens ofthousands of men in his predicament, he was not surprised at or ashamedof himself. When, however, he dwelt on his own peculiar capacities, hewas both astonished and ashamed to meander along the dreary pavements.

  Hunger did curious things to him. He had moments of fury, of imaginedviolence, and other moments of fantasy when he dreamed of a rich andnoble life. Sometimes he meditated the wisdom of devouring oneprodigious meal and fleeing through the dead of night to the warm south.Occasionally he considered going back to his family in Colorado. Hismost bitter hours were spent in thinking of Mr. Shayne and of acceptinga position in one of Mr. Shayne's banks.

  In his maculate, threadbare clothes, with his dark, aquiline facematured by the war he was a sharp contrast of facts and possibilities.It never occurred to him that he was young, that his dissatisfaction,his idealism, his _Weltschmertz_ were integral to the life-cycle ofevery man.

  At the end of four weeks, with hunger gnawing so avidly at his core thathe could not pass a restaurant without twitching muscles and quiveringnerves, he turned abruptly from the street into a cigar store andtelephoned to Mr. Shayne. The banker was full of sound counsel and readycharity. Hugo regretted the call as soon as he heard Mr. Shayne's voice;he regretted it when he was ravishing a luxurious dinner at Mr. Shayne'sexpense. It was the weakest thing he had done in his life.

  Nevertheless he accepted the position offered by Mr. Shayne. That sameevening he rented a small apartment, and, lying on his bed, a clean bed,he wondered if he really cared about anything or about anyone. In themorning he took a shower and stood for a long time in front of themirror on the bathroom door, staring at his nude body as if it were arune he might learn to read, an enigma he might solve by concentration.Then he went to work. His affiliation with the Down Town Savings Banklasted into the spring and was terminated by one of the oddestincidents of his career.

  Until the day of that incident his incumbency was in no way unusual. Hewas one of the bank's young men, receiving fifty dollars weekly to learnthe banking business. They moved him from department to department,giving him mentally menial tasks which afforded him in each case aglimpse of a new facet of financial technique. It was fairlyinteresting. He made no friends and he worked diligently.

  One day in April when he had returned from lunch and a stroll in theenvirons of the Battery--returned to a list of securities and a stripfrom an adding machine, which he checked item by item--he was consciousof a stirring in his vicinity. A woman employee on the opposite side ofa wire wicket was talking shrilly. A vice-president rose from his deskand hastened down the corridor, his usually composed face suddenly whiteand disconcerted. The tension was cumulative. Work stopped and clustersof people began to chatter. Hugo joined one of them.

  "Yeah," a boy was saying, "it's happened before. A couple o' times."

  "How do they know he's there?"

  "They got a telephone goin' inside and they're talkin' to him."

  "I'll be damned."

  The boy nodded rapidly. "Yeah--some talk! Tellin' him what to trynext."

  "Poor devil!"

  "What's the matter?" Hugo asked.

  The boy was glad of a new and uninformed listener. "Aw, some dumb vaultclerk got himself locked in, an' the locks jammed an' they can't get himout."

  "Which vault? The big one?"

  "Naw. The big one's got pipes for that kinda trouble. The little onethey moved from the old building."

  "It's not so darn little at that," someone said.

  Another person, a man, chuckled. "Not so darn. But there isn't air inthere to last three hours. Caughlin said so."

  "Honest to God?"

  "Honest. An' he's been there more than an hour already."

  "Jeest!" There was a pregnant, pictorial silence. Someone looked atHugo.

  "What's eatin' you, Danner? Scared?"

  His face was tense and his hands were opening and closing convulsively."No," he answered. "Guess I'll go down and have a look."

  He rang for an elevator in the corridor and was carried to the basement.In the small room on which the vault opened were five or six people,among them a woman who seemed to command the situation. The men were allsmoking; their attitudes were relaxed, their voices hushed.

  One repeated nervously: "Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ."

  "That won't help, Mr. Quail. I've sent for the expert and he willprobably have the safe open in a short time."

  "Blowtorches?" the swearing man asked abruptly.

  "Absurd. He would cook before he was out. And three feet of steel andthen two feet more."

  "Nitroglycerin?"

  "And make jelly out of him?" The woman tapped her finger-nails with herglasses.

  Another arrival, who carried a small satchel, talked with her in anundertone and then took off his coat. He went first to a telephone onthe wall and said: "Gi' me the inside of the vault. Hello.... Hello? Youthere? Are you all right?... Try that combination again." Thesafe-expert held the wire and waited. Not even the faintest sounds ofthe attempt were audible in the front room. "Hello? You tried it?...Well, see if those numbers are in this order." He repeated a series ofcomplicated directions. Finally he hung up. "Says it's getting prettystuffy in there. Says he's lying down on the floor."

  People came and went. The president himself walked in calmly andoccupied a chair. He lit a cigar, puffed on it, and stared withruminative eyes at the shiny mechanism on the front of the safe.

  "We are doing everything possible," the woman said to him crisply.

  "Of course," he nodded. "I called up the insurance company. We're amplycovered." A pause. "Mrs. Robinson, post one of the guards to keeppeople from running in and out of here. There are enough aroundalready."

  No one had given Hugo any attention. He stood quietly in the background.The expert worked and all eyes were on him. Occasionally he muttered tohimself. The hands of an electric clock moved along in audible jerks.Nearly an hour passed and the room had become hazy with tobacco smoke.The man working on the safe was moist with perspiration. His blue shirtwas a darker blue around the armpits. He lit a cigarette, set it down,whirled the dials again, lit another cigarette while the first oneburned a chair arm, and threw a crumpled, empty package on the floor.

  At last he went to the phone again. He waited for some time before itwas answered, and he was compelled to make the man inside repeatfrequently. The new series of stratagems was without result. Before hewent again to his labours, he addressed the group. "Air getting prettybad, I guess."

  "Is it dark?" one of them asked tremulously.

  "No."

  Fifteen minutes more. The expert glanced at the bank's president,hesitated, struggled frenziedly for a while, and then sighed. "I'mafraid I can't get him out, sir. The combination is jammed and thetime-lock is all off."

  The president considered. "Do you know of anyone else who could dothis?"

  The man shook his head. "No. I'm supposed to be the best. I've beencalled out for this--maybe six times. I never missed before. You see, wemake this safe--or we used to make it. And I'm a specialist. It looksserious."

  The president took his cigar from his mouth. "Well, go aheadanyway--until it's too late."

  Hugo stepped away from the wall. "I think I can get him out."

  They turned toward him. The president looked at him coldly. "And who areyou?"

  Mrs. Robinson answered. "He's the new man Mr. Shayne recommended sohighly."

  "Ah. And how do you propose to get him out, young man?"

  Hugo stood pensively for a moment. "By methods known only to me. I amcertain I can do it--but I will undertake it only if you will all leave
the room."

  "Ridiculous!" Mrs. Robinson said.

  The president's mouth worked. He looked more sharply at Hugo. Then herose. "Come on, everybody." He spoke quietly to Hugo. "You have a nerve.How much time do you want?"

  "Five minutes."

  "Only five minutes," the president murmured as he walked from thechamber.

  Hugo did not move until they had all gone. Then he locked the doorbehind them. He walked to the safe and rapped on it tentatively with hisknuckles. He removed his coat and vest. He planted his feet against thesteel sill under the door. He caught hold of the two handles, fidgetedwith his elbows, drew a deep breath, and pulled. There was a resonant,metallic sound. Something gave. The edge of the seven-foot door movedoutward and a miasma steamed through the aperture. Hugo changed hisstance and took the door itself in his hands. His back bent. He pulledagain. With a reverberating clang and a falling of broken steel it swungout. Hugo dragged the man who lay on the floor to a window that gave ona grated pit. He broke the glass with his fist. The clerk's chest heavedviolently; he panted, opened his eyes, and closed them tremblingly.

  Hugo put on his coat and vest and unlocked the door. The people outsideall moved toward him.

  "It's all right," Hugo said. "He's out."

  Mrs. Robinson glanced at the clerk and walked to the safe. "He's ruinedit!" she said in a shrill voice.

  The president was behind her. He looked at the handles of the vault,which had been bent like hair-pins, and he stooped to examine theshattered bolts. Then his eyes travelled to Hugo. There was a profoundlystartled expression in them.

  The clerk was sobbing. Presently he stopped. "Who got me out?"

  They indicated Hugo and he crossed the floor on tottering feet. "Thanks,mister," he said piteously. "Oh, my God, what a wonderful thing to do!I--I just passed out when I saw your fingers reaching around--"

  "Never mind," Hugo interrupted. "It's all right, buddy."

  The president touched his shoulder. "Come up to my office." A doctorarrived. Several people left. Others stood around the demolished door.

  The president was alone when Hugo entered and sat down. He was cold andhe eyed Hugo coldly. "How did you do that?"

  Hugo shrugged. "That's my secret, Mr. Mills."

  "Pretty clever, I'd say."

  "Not when you know how." Hugo was puzzled. His ancient reticence abouthimself was acting together with a natural modesty.

  "Some new explosive?"

  "Not exactly."

  "Electricity? Magnetism? Thought-waves?"

  Hugo chuckled. "No. All wrong."

  "Could you do it on a modern safe?"

  "I don't know."

  President Mills rubbed his fingers on the mahogany desk. "I presume youwere planning that for other purposes?"

  "What!" Hugo said.

  "Very well done. Very well acted. I will play up to you, Mr.--"

  "Danner."

  "Danner. I'll play up to this assumption of innocence. You have saved aman's life. You are, of course, blushingly modest. But you have shownyour hand rather clearly. Hmmm." He smiled sardonically. "I read a bookabout a safe-cracker who opened a safe to get a child out--at theexpense of his liberty and position--or at the hazard of them, anyhow.Maybe you have read the same book."

  "Maybe," Hugo answered icily.

  "Safe-crackers--blasters, light fingers educated to the dials, and earsattuned to the tumblers--we can cope with those things, Mr.--"

  "Danner."

  "But this new stunt of yours. Well, until we find out what it is, wecan't let you go. This is business, Mr. Danner. It involves money,millions, the security of American finance, of the very nation. You willunderstand. Society cannot afford to permit a man like you to go atlarge until it has a thoroughly effective defence against you. Societymust disregard your momentary sacrifice, momentary nobleness. Yourprocess, unknown by us, constitutes a great social danger. I do not dareoverlook it. I cannot disregard it even after the service you havedone--even if I thought you never intended to put it to malicious use."

  Hugo's thoughts were far away--to the fort he had built when he was achild in Colorado, to the wagon he had lifted up, to the long,discouraging gauntlet of hard hearts and frightened eyes that hismiracles had met with. His voice was wistful when, at last, he addressedthe banker.

  "What do you propose to do?"

  "I shan't bandy words, Danner. I propose to hang on to you until I getthat secret. And I shall be absolutely without mercy. That is frank, isit not?"

  "Quite."

  "You comprehend the significance of the third degree?"

  "Not clearly."

  "You will learn about it--unless you are reasonable."

  Hugo bowed sadly. The president pressed a button. Two policemen cameinto the room. "McClaren has my instructions," he said.

  "Come on." Hugo rose and stood between them. He realized that the wholepantomime of his arrest was in earnest. For one brief instant thepresident was given a glimpse of a smile, a smile that worried him for along time. He was so worried that he called McClaren on the telephoneand added to his already abundant instructions.

  A handful of bystanders collected to watch Hugo cross from the bank tothe steel patrol wagon. It moved forward and its bell sounded. Thepolicemen had searched Hugo and now they sat dumbly beside him. He washandcuffed to both of them. Once he looked down at the nickel bonds andup at the dull faces. His eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch.

  Captain McClaren received Hugo in a bare room shadowed by bars. He was athick-shouldered, red-haired man with a flabby mouth from whichprotruded a moist and chewed toothpick. His eyes were blue and bland.He made Hugo strip nude and gave him a suit of soiled clothes. Hugoremained alone in that room for thirty hours without food or water. Thestrain of that ordeal was greater than his jailers could have conceived,but he bore it with absolute stoicism.

  Early in the evening of the second day the lights in the room were putout, a glaring automobile lamp was set up on a table, he was seated infront of it, and men behind the table began to question him in voicesthat strove to be terrible. They asked several questions and ultimatelyboiled them down to one: "How did you get that safe open?" which wasbawled at him and whispered hoarsely at him from the darkness behind thelight until his mind rang with the words, until he was waitingfrantically for each new issue of the words, until sweat glistened onhis brow and he grew weak and nauseated. His head ached splittingly andhis heart pounded. They desisted at dawn, gave him a glass of water,which he gulped, and a dose of castor oil, which he allowed them toforce into his mouth. A few hours later they began again. It was nightbefore they gave up.

  The remnant of Hugo's clenched sanity was dumbfounded at what followedafter that. They beat his face with fists that shot from the blackness.They threw him to the floor and kicked him. When his skin did not burstand he did not bleed, they beat and kicked more viciously. They lashedhim with rubber hoses. They twisted his arms as far as theycould--until the bones of an ordinary man would have become dislocated.

  Except for thirst and hunger and the discomfort caused by the castoroil, Hugo did not suffer. They refined their torture slowly. They triedto drive a splinter under his nails; they turned on the lights and drankwater copiously in his presence; they finally brought a blowtorch andprepared to brand him. Hugo perceived that his invulnerability was tostand him in stead no longer. His tongue was swollen, but he could stilltalk. Sitting placidly in his bonds, he watched the soldering iron growwhite in the softly roaring flame. When, in the full light that shone onthe bare and hideous room, they took up the iron and approached him,Hugo spoke.

  "Wait. I'll tell you."

  McClaren put the iron back. "You will, eh?"

  "No."

  "Oh, you won't."

  "I shan't tell you, McClaren; I'll show you. And may God have mercy onyour filthy soul."

  There were six men in the room. Hugo looked from one to another. Hecould tolerate nothing more; he had followed the course of PresidentMills's social theory far en
ough to be surfeited with it. There wasdecision in his attitude, and not one of the six men who had worked historment in relays could have failed to feel the chill of that decision.They stood still. McClaren's voice rang out: "Cover him, boys."

  Hugo stretched. His bonds burst; the chair on which he sat splintered tokindling. Six revolvers spat simultaneously. Hugo felt the sting of thebullets. Six chambers were emptied. The room eddied smoke. There was aharsh silence.

  "Now," Hugo said gently, "I will demonstrate how I opened that safe."

  "Christ save us," one of the men whispered, crossing himself.

  McClaren was frozen still. Hugo walked to the wall of the jail andstabbed his fist through it. Brick and mortar burst out on the otherside and fell into the cinder yard. Hugo kicked and lashed with hisfists. A large hole opened. Then he turned to the men. They broke towardthe door, but he caught them one by one--and one by one he knocked themunconscious. That much was for his own soul. Only McClaren was left. Hecarried McClaren to the hole and dropped him into the yard. He wrenchedopen the iron gate and walked out on the street, holding the policemanby the arm. McClaren fainted twice and Hugo had to keep him upright byclinging to his collar. It was dark. He hailed a cab and lifted the manin.

  "Just drive out of town," Hugo said.

  McClaren came to. They bumped along for miles and he did not dare tospeak. The apartment buildings thinned. Street lights disappeared. Theytraversed a stretch of woodland and then rumbled through a small town.

  "Who are you?" McClaren said.

  "I'm just a man, McClaren--a man who is going to teach you a lesson."

  The taxi was on a smooth turnpike. It made swift time. Twice Hugosatisfied the driver that the direction was all right. At last, on adeserted stretch, Hugo called to the driver to stop. McClaren thoughtthat he was going to die. He did not plead. Hugo still held him by thearm and helped him from the cab.

  "Got any money on you?" Hugo asked.

  "About twenty dollars."

  "Give me five."

  With trembling fingers McClaren produced the bill. He put the remainderof his money back in his pocket automatically. The taxi-driver waswatching, but Hugo ignored him.

  "McClaren," he said soberly, "here's your lesson. I just happen to bethe strongest man in the world. Never tell anybody that. And don't tellanyone where I took you to-night--wherever it is. I shan't be hereanyway. If you tell either of those two things, I'll eat you. Actually.There was a poor devil smothering in that safe and I yanked it open anddragged him out. As a reward you and your dirty scavengers were put towork on me. If I weren't as merciful as God Himself, you'd all be dead.Now, that's your lesson. Keep your mouth shut. Here is the finalparable."

  Still holding the policeman's arm, he walked to the taxi and, to theastonishment of the driver, gripped the axle in one hand, lifted up thefront end like a derrick, and turned the entire car around. He putMcClaren in the back seat.

  "Don't forget, McClaren." To the driver: "Back to where you picked usup. The bird in the back seat will be glad to pay."

  The red lamp of the cab vanished. Hugo turned in the other direction andbegan to run in great leaps. He slowed when he came to a town. A lightwas burning in an all-night restaurant. Hugo produced the five-dollarbill.

  "Give me a bucket of water--and put on about five steaks. Five."