A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  A. “They tried to compensate me, all right. A few days after the accident, I was approached over the phone by a local lawyer named Peterson. Peterson was regarded as a pretty slick article in the village. He wanted to know some lawyer representing me whom he could get in touch with. I had a friend named Epstein who did some of the hospital’s legal business, so I gave Peterson his name. Epstein told me to keep off the telephone, and to stall Peterson until after he had a chance to talk with me.”

  Q. “What happened then?”

  A. “Epstein came over, and I asked him why he was so cagey. He told me that Peterson was hand in glove with Macaluso and did his legal business for him. He also told me something about the Brain’s connections and his tie-up with the county authorities. It did not seem possible to do anything against him. While Epstein was talking Peterson came in. He had a dapperly-waxed little moustache, a frock coat, and an eyeglass hung on a black ribbon. I didn’t like the sight of him, but I must say that he was polite.”

  Q. “He made you an offer though, didn’t he?”

  A. “He didn’t let us know who his principal was, and he disclaimed all responsibility. He tendered me a check for $30,000 for full release. His patter was pretty glib, but I couldn’t turn down his money. I would have taken it, if Epstein hadn’t told him that we couldn’t sign the paper for less than $50,000 the hospital expenses were going to be so severe and long-lasting. Peterson made a show of protest and I had the good sense to keep quiet. Finally Peterson came across with an offer of $50,000, and Epstein advised me to accept it.”

  Q. “Well, that compensation must have left you in a financially possible position. What happened then?”

  A. “There wasn’t anything we could do about Paul. He could eat and he was healthy enough in a vegetative way, but he wasn’t my child any more. He had to stay in bed, and he was blind, deaf, and paralyzed. There wasn’t a trace of intelligence to be seen. We managed to get him taken at one of the few institutions for cases of that sort, but he was scarcely enough of a human being for us to see him except at long intervals.”

  Q. “What happened to your wife?”

  A. “They took care of her at the State General Hospital about twenty miles away. At first she did pretty well, and then I even thought of building a special house for her with ramps and special kitchen equipment. However her kidneys had not been too good for years and that is always the weak point for paraplegics. She went downhill rapidly. In about three months she sank into a euremic coma, and never opened her eyes again. She died in the late fall, but mercifully my colleagues in the hospital were good to me, so we could be together as much as possible in the last days. The funeral was at her home in Minnesota. Her father was a grim old Swedish farmer and did not say much, but I could see he was a broken man.”

  Q. “I don’t see that there was anything left to keep you at Leominster. Did you go back?”

  A. “Yes, I did. The train from the West came into the station at about ten in the evening. I noticed two rather strange-looking fellows loitering about and they seemed to be waiting for me. One was a big six-foot bruiser with a broken nose. The other was a lean, wizened, sallow man of ordinary height. He wore a tight overcoat, kept his hat well over his eyes and his hands in his pockets. The prize fighter sidled over to me and said in a hoarse, wheezy voice, ‘We’ve got a job for you. The Boss is hurt.’ ‘The Boss,’ said I, ‘do I know him?’ ‘Sure you do,’ wheezed the prize fighter. ‘Everybody knows him. You know him. They call him the Brain. We was driving down the turnpike at a pretty fair clip (it wasn’t more than eighty), when a cow steps into the road. Well, the cow’s beef, and the car’s junk. It turned over three times. The Brain was thrown up against the windshield and we don’t like his looks. We keeps ourselves to ourselves, and we was on private business so we can’t take the Brain to a hospital. It’s a job down your line. We know you and they tell us you’re a guy who can turn out a classy piece of work. We think you’re a right guy. If you aren’t, it don’t matter anyhow. Come along.’ “I said I would have to go back to the hospital to collect my bag. ‘Big boy,’ said Tight Overcoat, ‘be good and do what you’re told. Come along.’ Then he said to the other fellow, ‘Beefy, you talk too much.’

  “There wasn’t anybody around that I could call and the shops were closed up. I didn’t like the looks of the situation, but there was nothing to do but come along. They drove out about a mile and a half to the concrete factory surrounded by lank growths of pigweed and beggar’s lice. Somebody yelled out, ‘Hey, give us the high sign.’

  “Beefy muttered something which seemed to be satisfactory. Then they took me by both arms and hustled me into an office. It was comfortable and even elegant, quite different from what I had expected from the bare boards and broken windows of the rest of the factory. They pushed me into the room and I tripped over the threshold and fell on my face. I got up again and found there were a couple of other men in the room. One of them was Peterson. He helped me to get up. The other fellow was a brisk business executive type in a brown tweed suit. I never did learn his name, but I think he was the Brain’s tie-up with big business. Peterson said to me, ‘I am sorry that we have got to be somewhat unceremonious with you, but we are not in a position in which we can choose our methods or our manners. We do not wish you any harm, but you must understand that you have got to be discreet. Mr. Macaluso has just had an accident, and it would not be discreet to take him to a hospital. We are depending on you for help, and I promise you that you will be well paid for it.’ “Supposing I say no?” I looked slowly at their faces and turned cold.

  “ ‘In that case, Doctor Cole, we shall have to take measures to protect ourselves. You are an intelligent man, and I am sure you will appreciate the nature of those measures.’

  I hesitated a moment and then made up my mind. All right, I’ll do it. Where is the patient? They opened up the door of an inner office, furnished even more luxuriously than the main one. The Brain was sitting on an overstuffed leather chair with his head lolling back over the cushion. His face was covered with an unhealthy deep flush, and the scar stood out even more clearly than I had remembered. His mouth was open. His breath came out stentoriously, and there was a line of dried blood coming from his left nostril, as if a stream had been stenched not more than a minute or two ago. His head was wrapped in a clean towel. ‘Mr. Macaluso was engaged in a business trip of a very private nature,’ said Brown-tweed. ‘His car hit a cow. He was thrown into the windshield. It would be highly undesirable for us, and I may say for you, if any news of his condition should leak out.’

  “I unwrapped the bandage. Macaluso’s eyes were staring forward into emptiness. The pupils were unequal. I started to palpate the forehead. It was out-of-shape like a watermelon kicked by a horse. As I touched the skull, Peterson leaned forward; Brown-tweed looked at his fingernails, and stood up suddenly as the bone grated when I pressed on it. It was a clear case of depressed fracture of the left frontal bone. I took my fingers away and told Brown-tweed that I would have to operate at once, and that I would have to send back for my tools.

  “ ‘Don’t worry about that,’ he said. ‘We have already taken steps to secure anything that may be needed.’

  “He passed me a doctor’s bag with J. McC. in gold letters just under the handle.

  “Isn’t that Dr. McCall’s bag?” I said.

  “ ‘It might be,’ said the other fellow, but that is no concern of yours. How carelessly they do make these car locks.’

  “I felt better when I knew I had McCall’s bag to work with. His techniques are somewhat different from mine, but anyway I would have a good kit. They were all there—trephine, elevators, electric saw, sodium amytal, novocaine, and alcohol.

  “ ‘Can you make it?’ said my new friend.

  “I can, said I, hoping I could. I felt very calm and very powerful.

  “I looked around for a pan to boil water in and some towels and a good flat table to work on. The business man followed my eyes.

>   “ ‘You can use the desk,’ he said. ‘The Brain won’t worry about a few spots on it. The water is already hot in the lavatory, and we have plenty of towels in the linen room. Cupid there used to work as an attendant-in the State Hospital until he cooked a patient. That’s all right, Cupid,’ he remarked. ‘It’s quite all right to talk before the Doctor.’

  “Evidently somebody had known how to prepare for an operation. There were a couple of pair of clean coveralls to take the place of surgical gowns. I put one on, and Cupid put on the other. We laid him out—comfortably flat on his back.

  “I got busy. The atmosphere was easier and I first shaved the whole head and bathed it in alcohol. Then I injected the novocaine. When this had taken hold, I injected a deeper local anaesthetic into the tissues around the crushed frontal sinus. I didn’t want to use a general anaesthetic because it was too important to watch the return of the patient to consciousness as the pressure was relieved. Then I cut the flap of scalp and heard the grating of the trephine as it bit itself into the bone.

  “I must admit that Cupid was a good surgical nurse. He knew just when to pass me a hemostatic forceps on a gauze pad, and he seemed to appreciate what I was doing. Even under these weird circumstances, I must admit that I felt complimented.

  “Perhaps the most unpleasant moment of the operation is when the sawed circle breaks off from the rest of the skull. Then there is the problem of stenching the flow of blood from under the dura, the brain’s cellophane wrapping. I could see Macaluso beginning to come to life again and I could hear his softer and more regular breathing. He opened his eyes. They had lost their glassy unequal stare and his lips began to mouth words.

  “ ‘Where am I?’ he said. ‘What has happened?’

  “ ‘Take it easy, Brain,’ said the businesslike man. ‘You’ve had an accident. You are in good hands. Dr. Cole is taking care of you.’

  “‘Cole,’ he said. ‘I had a little business with him a while ago. He’s a right guy. Can I speak with him?’

  “ ‘Here I am,’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘What have you to tell me?’

  “‘I am sorry about that other accident. You took it like a brick. Bygones is bygones. You’ll do a good job on me, won’t you?’

  “I suppose that if he had not flicked me on the raw like this, reminding me of my loss, the whole thing might have come out differently. As it was, I made my mind up. I tried to keep all appearance of emotion suppressed; but I felt white and when I started to reassure the Brain, and tell him that I was giving his case my closest personal consideration and the advantage of my best judgment, Cupid turned around and looked at me in a way that I didn’t like.

  “ ‘We are not through yet,’ I said. ‘Now be very quiet, and I will finish the operation and clean up.’

  “I knew what I was going to do, and I don’t think I have ever been more deft. At any rate, I was going to settle my relations with Mr. Macaluso once and for ail.

  “Suddenly Cupid called out, ‘Say, Doc, what’s you doing? That doesn’t look Kosher to me.’

  “I said to him quietly, ‘This is my judgment and I am taking the responsibility.’ I felt I had the upper hand.

  “The other fellow from the car, the one who pushed a revolver at me through his pocket, turned to Macaluso and said, ‘Brain, Cupid is opening his trap again.’ The patient was bandaged except for a small area of operation, but he was perfectly conscious. I like to have them that way in brain operations. It’s safer, and besides the brain’s surface has no feeling.

  “ ‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘Cole is a friend of mine. Don’t let Cupid hold up the operation. He talks too much.’

  “I had completed the debridement; and still had one particular job to do before replacing the bit of skull removed by the trephine.

  “ ‘Look out,’ said Cupid. ‘He is . . .’

  “The man who had had his hands in his pocket hit Cupid over the head with the butt of his revolver. ‘Shut your damn trap,’ he said. Cupid lay dead to the world on the floor, and a stream of blood began to creep from one ear. I suppose he had a fracture of the base of the skull, but they wouldn’t let me attend to him. I don’t even know whether he died or not. I had to walk over Cupid’s body to get to the washroom to clean up. When I came back Brown Tweed was waiting. ‘Here are $50,000,’ he said. ‘You understand that you are through at Leominster. If we ever find you in this part of the country again, you know just how long you will last. We will furnish you transportation to the coast, and you can set yourself up in business again under another name. Now remember, or else.’

  “I didn’t say anything. The money didn’t mean a damn thing to me. Nothing did. The Brain started mumbling through his bandages, ‘Give him $100,000, boys. I feel fine.’

  “I told them what to do for him and took the money offered—ninety-nine shiny new thousand dollar bills and one thousand in fifties and hundreds. They gave me a ticket to San Francisco. Beefy drove me through the night to the Chicago airport. He did not leave me until I was safe aboard the through plane to San Francisco. Once I was on the plane, I took all the money but a few dollars for my immediate needs and folded it up in the big envelope that I found in the pouch behind the seat in front of me. I addressed it to the County Hospital and gave it to the stewardess to mail. Now I had no debts, no money and no friends in this world. It did not seem real. I could go anywhere, and I had nowhere to go. At last I was in a cold sweat, and felt as if the half of me was dead and in the grave. That’s about all I remember. I have dim recollections of tramp jungles, freight yards, and riding the rods. How I ever got into Dr. Waterman’s care I don’t remember. They told me a policeman picked me up for a drunk in a doorway.”

  Cole had spoken more and more slowly as his drugs took hold, and the rest that he desperately needed began. He closed his eyes and passed into a quiet sleep.

  I asked Waterman, “Do you believe this yarn?”

  “I hate to say,” said Waterman. “The man has certainly been through hell, but there is nothing in what he says that a good imagination couldn’t invent. I don’t quite get his remarks about what he did to the Brain before closing up the wound. There is nothing particularly impressive about reducing a depressed fracture. Have you any ideas?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He could have killed Macaluso on the spot, but he didn’t. I don’t quite see what he was getting at.

  We heard a distant siren growing louder and in a few minutes the ambulance from the State Hospital drove up. Two agile young attendants came in under the direction of a white-clad intern. They picked Cole up, transferred him to a stretcher, and carried him away.

  Waterman was tired and sat with us for a few minutes before driving out to the hospital in his own car. We smoked in silence.

  “I think he dropped something,” said Waterman. “Isn’t that a wallet?” It contained a coin or two and a few mementos belonging to his present hospital period.

  “Wait a minute,” said Waterman. “I think I know something about these wallets. They have a secret compartment inside.

  . Give it to me.” He took it and after a little manipulation, he turned it inside out.

  “Yes, I think there is a secret compartment. Let’s see what’s in it.”

  It contained nothing but a Chicago newspaper clipping two years old. It said.

  BRAIN GANG WIPED OUT

  PLUTORIA BANK FLOPS

  ONE HUNDRED GRAND LOOT RECOVERED

  It went on to tell of a bank robbery attempt made by Macaluso and his henchmen. The attempt had failed grossly. The bank officials were more than ready for the robbers and gave a good account of themselves in the exchange of shots. Those of the robbers who survived to make a getaway were caught between their pursuers and a fast freight where they had to cross the tracks. Not one lived to tell the tale. The paper commented on the incident, remarking that the Brain was known as a careful operator who always planned his jobs well, and that this was the first time he had omitted the most ordinary and elemen
tary precautions.

  Waterman took a long puff on his pipe and let the smoke escape upward. I was completely puzzled.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “It just doesn’t make sense. What do you suppose really happened?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered, “but I can guess. In the course of the operation Cole had exposed Macaluso’s frontal lobe. It would have been a matter of only a few seconds to undercut it and perform what would be the equivalent of a thoroughgoing frontal lobotomy. It would not have driven Macaluso out of his mind, but would have made him thoroughly unfit to carry out any plans requiring judgment and caution.”

  I puffed my cigar. “It’s not a nice story,” I said, “but at any rate, it was a thoroughly successful operation.”

  THE MOON IS GREEN

  Fritz Leiber

  Anybody who wanted to escape death could, by paying a very simple price—denial of life!

  “EFFIE! What the devil are you up to?”

  Her husband’s voice, chopping through her mood of terrified rapture, made her heart jump like a startled cat, yet by some miracle of feminine self-control her body did not show a tremor.

  Dear God, she thought, he mustn’t see it. It’s so beautiful, and he always kills beauty.

  “I’m just looking at the Moon,” she said listlessly. “It’s green.”

  Mustn’t, mustn’t see it. And now, with luck, he wouldn’t. For the face, as if it also heard and sensed the menace in the voice, was moving back from the window’s glow into the outside dark, but slowly, reluctantly, and still faunlike, pleading, cajoling, tempting, and incredibly beautiful.

  “Close the shutters at once, you little fool, and come away from the window!”

  “Green as a beer bottle,” she went on dreamily, “green as emeralds, green as leaves with sunshine striking through them and green grass to lie on.” She couldn’t help saying those last words. They were her token to the face, even though it couldn’t hear.