“I don’t think the producers will mind,” said Alan softly. He made a quick mental calculation and took one step backward. When his hand came out of his worn grenade case, it wasn’t empty.
There had been two little black boxes.
Mr. Flugnet had been right, the new concussion grenade did have a beautiful defined blast area. Aside from a slight ringing in his ears, Alan felt fine as he walked out of the house. For the first time in his life during a consumption period, he didn’t dive into the communication trench that led to the street. Instead he walked slowly across the lawn. When he got to the sidewalk he sat down on the curb and waited. There was a brief staccato rattle of a burp gun from across the way and a moment later the Higgens kid came out of his house.
“Over here,” yelled Alan. “The rest will be along in a minute.”
From houses all up and down the street began to come sharp crashing explosions.
“Those new hand grenades are sure something,” said the Higgens kid.
“They sure are,” said Alan. He sighed comfortably and cupped his chin in his hands. “But tomorrow we’ll have to start collecting all the ones that are left over. You leave stuff like that laying around and somebody might get hurt.”
MR. HOSKIN’S HEEL
1
Albert Hoskin’s seminar in Medieval Backgrounds had only four members, but Albert was used to that. He had long ago reconciled himself to the unhappy realization that even a large university with hundreds of graduate students moving down its intellectual assembly lines seldom produced a degree candidate who had an honest interest in the middle ages.
Donald Futzel, a prematurely bald young man who was on leave from Eastern State Teachers College for the purpose of getting the doctor’s degree that would enable an enlightened administration to promote him to associate professor, was reading a paper on medieval sorcery. As usual, the report was a hodgepodge of poorly digested paragraphs selected almost at random from three or four books and altered only enough to spare him the embarrassment of being admonished for plagiarism.
“And this,” said Futzel listlessly as he chalked a figure on the board, “is a pentagon.”
Albert could restrain himself no longer. “A potent name, Mr. Futzel, and a potent figure. But I’m afraid the two don’t go together. I believe the term you want is pentagram.”
“Okay,” said Futzel, “it’s a pentagram. Anyway…” His voice droned on and on and Albert, after setting his ear to catch any particularly gross error, retired to a consideration of his own troubles.
In spite of being a recognized authority on the Cotton manuscript of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Mr. Hoskin had troubles in plenty. Production time was coming around and though he had assiduously mined the dissertation that had won him his Ph. D. and was published in the most respectable of scholarly journals, the department grapevine had it that he was about to be passed over in favor of a tweedy young man from Harvard named Lippencott who wrote articles for the little magazines.
To make matters worse, Lippencott seemed to be getting the inside track with Priscilla Yergut, a comely, though some what emaciated, teacher of Freshman English whom Albert had been escorting to the annual English Department tea for the past several years.
Something that Futzel was saying tripped a relay and Albert started listening actively rather than passively.
“…then the magician would take this brass rod and stick it in the fire and—”
“One moment please,” said Albert. “Are you referring to the piece of magical apparatus that was commonly known as a ‘blasting rod’?”
“Sure,” said Futzel. “Why?”
“It’s a matter of minor importance. But just to avoid any misconceptions I had better point out that blasting rods were made of ash with a metal tip at each end. You may proceed.”
Futzel didn’t. Instead he stuck out his jaw pugnaciously and said, “They were so brass rods. I saw a picture of one. It was brass all the way. It looked like a curtain rod.”
“And where did you see this picture?”
“In a book. I got it right here. The librarian got it out of the locked case in the library for me.”
Unzipping his briefcase, he produced a small vellum-bound volume, and handed it over triumphantly. Albert opened it, took one casual look, and then whistled. It wasn’t too early—the title page said 1607 which explained why Futzel was able to read it—but it was evidently a copy of a much earlier manuscript work on black magic. Just then the bell rang and, with a sigh of relief, the class began to wriggle around in its chairs.
“My apologies, Mr. Futzel,” said Albert. “Would you mind if I kept this overnight? It’s a work that is new to me.”
“Help yourself,” said the other generously.
Albert dropped the small black book into his own briefcase and started across the campus toward the apartment he shared with his Aunt Agatha. He walked faster than usual because half way through the class hour he had left a luridly jacketed copy of The Big Kill in plain sight on the coffee table right beside his facsimile edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Aunt Agatha did not approve of a private investigator who went around shooting lovely ladies in the stomach on little or no provocation, and she was not a person whose likes and dislikes could be lightly disregarded.
He was panting slightly from his unaccustomed exercise when he reached up to the ledge over the apartment door to see if the key was still there. He gave a slight exclamation of pleasure when his fingers encountered it. Aunt Agatha wasn’t home yet.
He put the key in the lock and turned, but the mechanism stuck a little, as usual. As he struggled with the refractory lock, he sternly resolved for the hundredth time to write a stiff letter of protest to his ancient enemy, the janitor. An uncouth and hairy individual who paraded around all day in a dirty undershirt and smoked a vile-smelling pipe, he could at least attend to a rusty lock.
“Having trouble, Mac?”
Startled, Albert swung around. A hard-faced gentleman with the build of a mature gorilla was standing in the shadows watching him.
“Why, yes,” said Albert. “The key, it sticks.”
“Your name Hoskin?”
Albert nodded.
“Good,” grunted the burly stranger and hit him on the head with a blunt object.
When Albert woke up again he was tied to a chair in a dusty apartment that didn’t have that lived-in look. A second stranger, somewhat gone to fat, but even bigger and uglier than the first, stood looking down at him.
“So you’re the creep that’s giving us all the trouble.”
“Beg pardon?” said Albert.
“I shouldn’t have had to send Gutsy after you. Your school spirit should have fixed things up before we had to step in.”
“That’s right,” Gutsy sternly. “Cosmo shouldn’t a had to send me after you.”
Albert looked up at them in honest confusion. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about.”
“The game Saturday, what else? You got a kid named Martinelli in one of your classes, haven’t you?”
Albert gave a puzzled nod.
“Well, word’s come down the grapevine that you turned in a flunk for him. That makes him ineligible for Saturday’s game. And with him out, State doesn’t stand a chance. Do you get me?”
Albert didn’t. He was busy trying to think of a protest that wouldn’t give too much offense.
“Listen, knucklehead,” said Cosmo angrily. “There’s people in this town with a lot of money down on State at eight to five. They can’t sit back and take a loss. So they asked me to talk to you about changing Martinelli’s grade so he’ll be able to play.” His jaw went out “So you’re going to pass this cookie—or else!”
“Are you suggesting that I falsify a grade report?” asked Albert in a horrified voice.
“Or else,” continued the big man as if he hadn’t heard Albert’s protest. “I personally am going to bust you in the snoot so hard you
’ll be breathing through a hole the shape of my fist the rest of your life!”
He paused and then said softly.
“My friends wouldn’t like it if I had to tell them you refused to cooperate. So… I’m not going to.” He reached down suddenly, grabbed Albert by his lapels, and jerked him roughly into the air, chair and all. “Am I?”
“I’d be sorry to cause any discord between you and your friends.” said Albert bravely, “but—”
He never finished the sentence. Something hit him. Hard. His head snapped back, his chair hit the floor with a thump and a small trickle of blood started at one corner of his mouth. He recoiled as he saw Cosmo pull back his fist again. He was frightened, frightened sick, but from somewhere within himself he dredged up enough strength to shake his head. Cosmo shrugged and went to work.
“You try for a while,” he panted to the gentleman known as Gutsy. “I’m plumb fagged out.”
“Me, too,” said Gutsy a half hour later. “For a scrawny little son-of-a-gun like that he sure can take it.”
It was an overstatement. For twenty-five of the thirty minutes the pounding hadn’t been bothering Albert. He had been out cold.
A hurried council of war was held that didn’t get anywhere until Gutsy had a sudden flash of inspiration.
“Look,” he exclaimed, “in the third grade the teacher is telling us about a character named Achilles.”
“So?”
“He was top man with the Greeks because he was bulletproof. They’d open up on him, and the slugs would just bounce off. That was because when he was just a kid his old lady went and dunked him in something that made him like he was covered with armor-plate.”
“You find what it was, I’ll buy it,” said Cosmo, who was a practical man with an eye to the future.
“There was a catch to it. When his old lady dunked him in that stuff, the part of his foot where she was hanging on to him didn’t get covered. So some character finds out about it and let’s him have it where it hurts—in the heel.”
“So how’s shooting a guy in the heel going to pull down the curtains for him?”
Gutsy shrugged. “Maybe they put something on the slug that gave him blood poisoning. Anyway, they got him.”
“So they got him, so they got him,” said Cosmo in exasperation. “What’s that got to do with cracking the Prof?”
“So maybe he’s got a soft spot, too. You put pressure on there and he gives. All we got to do is find out where it is and then we got him.”
“You find out, it’s your idea.”
Gutsy went over and shook Albert until he had partially regained consciousness, pulled back one ham-like fist, and aimed it at his midriff. Albert fainted.
“We got to think of something different,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” said Cosmo sarcastically, “we sure got to.”
He looked at Gutsy and Gutsy looked at him and then they both got the same idea at the same time.
“MacGruder!” they breathed in unison.
Cosmo was the first to snap back to reality. “If we can get him sobered up in time, that is.”
“You get him and I’ll go hit the old doc up for some bennies,” said Gutsy. “Seventh sons of seventh sons what was born with cauls just don’t grow on trees.”
2
There was nothing about Rick MacGruder that would suggest he had any special psychic powers. He was a small weedy man with a large thirst, and a perpetually wistful expression that was due in part to the fact that at stated intervals he wasn’t able to do anything about it. MacGruder was a periodic drinker.
Every six months or so he would be seized by a sudden compulsion that would paralyze his will and find himself on the wagon in spite of himself. For two or three weeks he would wander around white-faced and shaking, unable to touch a drop, a pariah in the warm convivial world in which he ordinarily lived. In spite of all this, however, he was the seventh son of a seventh son and he had been born with a caul.
“Maybe I’d better have just another one to lubricate my powers,” he said hopefully, gazing greedily at the bottle that stood upon the rickety kitchen table.
“Afterward,” said Cosmo “We got a job to do and we don’t want you popping out in the middle of it. Let’s go, we ain’t got all day.”
“O.K.,” said MacGruder unhappily, “but first you got to get the shades down and douse that glim. The chief don’t like a lot of light.”
The unshaded fly-specked bulb that hung from the ceiling was turned out and the dark window blinds pulled down. Except for a faint trickle of light from around their edges that made MacGruder’s face dimly visible, the room was in darkness. Albert was given a few slaps for the purpose of clearing his head and plunked down on a chair.
“Now everybody grab hold of the other guy’s hand and we’ll get this show on the road.”
Albert’s right hand was taken by Gutsy and his left by the gang chief. They in turn each took one of MacGruder’s.
“Here goes,” said the little man and started to croon.
“Oh spirits! Oh dwellers in that great beyond whence all dwellers on this mortal coil must someday wend, listen to my call.”
“Pretty classy patter, ain’t it?” whispered Gutsy. “Just to look at him you’d never know that a bum like that could talk so good.”
“You want conversation?” said MacGruder. “All right, go ahead make conversation. When you’ve said all you got to say, let me know so I can go ahead with this here séance.”
Cosmo said a few choice words that had the effect of reducing Gutsy to speechlessness and then the little man continued.
“Oh, spirits, bear from us a plea to Chief Whooping Water that he come from his happy hunting ground to give us light and guidance.” There was a long silence and then MacGruder jerked convulsively. His head came stiffly forward and his eyes opened and stared blindly around the table. As the others watched in the dim light, his features seemed to change as if an inward force were molding them. His nose assumed a hawk-like shape and his cheekbones seemed to become more prominent. Albert began to be impressed in spite of himself.
MacGruder’s mouth opened and a strange guttural voice came forth.
From the land of sky blue waters
Comes the chieftain Whooping Water
Comes across the vasty darkness
Comes to speak through Rick MacGruder
Left his tepee and papooses
Left his squaw and council fires
Came to answer to the calling
Left the braves and mighty warriors
Left the council of the chieftains
Left the forest and the woodlands
Left the mink and beaver playing
Left the tom-toms and—
What else was left was never known because Gutsy suddenly interrupted.
“How’s Bosworth? Is he still sore at me for what I done?”
“Bosworth heap hot,” grunted Whooping Water enigmatically, irritated by the interruption.
Left the mink and beaver playing
Left the tom-toms and—
This time Cosmo broke in.
“Excuse the interruption, chief,” he said apologetically, “it isn’t that we aren’t interested in where you came from, but MacGruder isn’t good for much longer and there’s something we go to find out.”
MacGruder obviously wasn’t good for much longer. He had a faint white froth on his lips and he seemed to be having trouble breathing.
Gutsy leaned over and whispered to Albert.
“Ya don’t bust in, ya never find out nothing. That ‘mink and beaver’ routine of his can keep going all night.”
“What I want to know is just this,” continued Cosmo. “We got a guy from the U that…”
“Throw some water on him,” said Cosmo.
Gutsy did and MacGruder came to with a start.
“Did he come through?” he asked groggily.
“He sure did, boy, he sure did. We found this Hoskin character’s heel,” s
aid Cosmo triumphantly. “It’s a tomato named Priscilla Yergut what teaches over at the University. I’m sending Gutsy over to put the snatch on her.”
MacGruder reached out automatically for the bottle that was sitting in front of him and then recoiled as if it had suddenly become red hot.
“Oh, no!” he whispered, his face a mask of horror.
“No what?” asked Gutsy.
“No nothing for two whole weeks!” said MacGruder brokenly. “One of my periodicals just hit me!”
Without a backward glance he pulled himself to his feet and staggered from the room.
3
“Albert!” shrieked Priscilla as Gutsy dragged her into the room, “What have they been doing to you?”
Before Albert could answer, Cosmo cut in. “What’s been done to him, lady, ain’t nothing to what’s going to be done to you unless he starts doing like he’s told.”
Albert blanched, and for the first time that day he felt his resolution slipping. “Don’t you dare touch her!”
“I ain’t,” said Cosmo, “Gutsy here is the boy that’ll handle the job. Take off your shirt, Gutsy, and show the lady what a real man looks like.”
He grinned. “Take it off.”
Bashfully, Gutsy did. He had a torso like a gorilla and just as much hair. Albert took one look and shuddered in revulsion. Priscilla shuddered too, but with something else.
“Make your choice, Prof. Either you walk out of here with your lady friend on your arm or Gutsy gets her.”
Gutsy, rather pleased at the second prospect, threw out his chest, and clenching his fists, held out his arms to exhibit his biceps.
Priscilla gasped again and then she let out a little whinny. She looked at Albert sagging in his chair and then back at Gutsy strutting up and down like a bull ape in mating season.
“Albert,” she said in sudden decision, “I don’t know what they want you to do, but whatever it is, remember that your integrity must come first.”
Cosmo didn’t like the way things were going. “Get her out of here,” he shouted to Gutsy. When she was gone he turned ferociously to Albert. “It ain’t as simple as you think,” he growled. “First he’s going to…”
The First Theodore R. Cogswell Megapack Page 3