Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by James H. Schmitz

  “I understand,” Litton said. “But you must know what kind of information your organization wants to gain from the contact?”

  Jean nodded. “Yes, of course. We want you to identify the subject by name and tell us where she can be found. The description of the locality should be specific. We also want to learn as much as we can about the subject’s background, her present activities and interests, and any people with whom she is closely involved. The more details you can give us about such people, the better. In general, that’s all. Does it seem like too difficult an assignment?”

  “Not at all,” Litton said. “In fact, I’m surprised you want no more. Is that kind of information really worth ten thousand dollars to you?”

  “I’ve been told,” Jean said, “that if we get it within the next twenty-four hours, it will be worth a great deal more than ten thousand dollars.”

  “I see.” Litton settled comfortably in the chair, placed his clasped hands around the ring on the table, enclosing it. “Then, if you like, Miss Merriam, I’ll now make the contact.”

  “No special preparations?” she inquired, watching him.

  “Not in this case.” Litton nodded toward a heavily curtained alcove in the wall on his left. “That’s what I call my withdrawal room. When I feel there’s reason to expect difficulties in making a contact, I go in there. Observers can be disturbing under such circumstances. Otherwise, no preparations are necessary.”

  “What kind of difficulties could you encounter?” Jean asked.

  “Mainly, the pull of personalities other than the one I want. A contact object may be valid, but contaminated by associations with other people. Then it’s a matter of defining and following the strongest attraction, which is almost always that of the proper owner and our subject. Incidentally, it would be advantageous if you were prepared to record my report.”

  Jean tapped the handbag. “I’m recording our entire conversation, Mr. Litton.”

  He didn’t seem surprised. “Very many of my clients do,” he remarked. “Very well, then, let’s begin . . .”

  “How long did it take him to dream up this stuff?” Nick Garland asked.

  “Four minutes and thirty-two seconds,” Jean Merriam said.

  Garland shook his head incredulously. He took the transcript she’d made of her recorded visit to Roy Litton’s apartment from the desk and leafed through it again. Jean watched him, her face expressionless. Garland was a big gray-haired bear of a man, coldly irritable at present—potentially dangerous.

  He laid the papers down, drummed his fingers on the desk. “I still don’t want to believe it,” he said, “but I guess I’ll have to. He hangs on to Caryl Chase’s ring for a few minutes, then he can tell you enough about her to fill five typed, single-spaced pages . . . That’s what happened?”

  Jean nodded. “Yes, that’s what happened. He kept pouring out details about the woman as if he’d known her intimately half her life. He didn’t hesitate about anything. My impression was that he wasn’t guessing about anything. He seemed to know.”

  Garland grunted. “Max thinks he knew.” He looked up at the man standing to the left of the desk. “Fill Jean in, Max. How accurate is Litton?”

  Max Jewett said, “On every point we can check out, he’s completely accurate.”

  “What are the points you can check out?” Jean asked.

  “The ring belongs to Caryl Chase. She’s thirty-two. She’s Phil Chase’s wife, currently estranged. She’s registered at the Hotel Arve, Geneva, Switzerland, having an uneasy off-and-on affair with one William Haskell, British ski nut. He’s jealous, and they fight a lot. Caryl suspects Phil has detectives looking for her, which he does. Her daughter Ellie is hidden away with friends of Caryl’s parents in London. Litton’s right about the ring. Caryl got it from her grandmother on her twenty-first birthday and had worn it regularly since. When she ran out on Phil last month, she took it off and left it in her room safe. Litton’s statement, that leaving it was a symbolic break with her past life, makes sense.” Jewett shrugged. “That’s about it. Her psychoanalyst might be able to check out some of the rest of what you got on tape. We don’t have that kind of information.”

  Garland growled, “We don’t need it. We got enough for now.”

  Jean exchanged a glance with Jewett. “You feel Litton’s genuine, Mr. Garland?”

  “He’s genuine. Only Max and I knew we were going to test him on Caryl. If he couldn’t do what he says he does, you wouldn’t have got the tape. There’s no other way he could know those things about her.” Garland’s face twisted into a sour grimace. “I thought Max had lost his marbles when he told me it looked like Phleger had got his information from some kind of swami. But that’s how it happened. Frank Phleger got Litton to tap my mind something like two or three months ago. He’d need that much time to get set to make his first move.”

  “How much have you lost?” Jean asked.

  He grunted. “Four, five million. I can’t say definitely yet. That’s not what bothers me.” His mouth clamped shut, a pinched angry line. His eyes shifted bleakly down to the desk, grew remote, lost focus.

  Jean Merriam watched him silently. Inside that big skull was stored information which seemed sometimes equal to the intelligence files of a central bank. Nick Garland’s brain was a strategic computer, a legal library. He was a multimillionaire, a brutal genius, a solitary and cunning king beast in the financial jungle—a jungle he allowed to become barely aware he existed. Behind his secretiveness he remained an unassailable shadow. In the six years Jean had been working for him she’d never before seen him suffer a setback; but if they were right about Litton, this was more than a setback. Garland’s mind had been opened, his plans analyzed, his strengths and weaknesses assessed by another solitary king beast—a lesser one, but one who knew exactly how to make the greatest possible use of the information thus gained—and who had begun to do it. So Jean waited and wondered.

  “Jean,” Garland said at last. His gaze hadn’t shifted from the desk.

  “Yes?”

  “Did Litton buy your story about representing something like a detective agency?”

  “He didn’t seem to question it,” Jean said. “My impression was that he doesn’t particularly care who employs him, or for what purpose.”

  “He’ll look into anyone’s mind for a price?” It was said like a bitter curse.

  “Yes . . . his price. What are you going to do?”

  Garland’s shoulders shifted irritably. “Max is trying to get a line on Phleger.”

  Jean glanced questioningly at Jewett. Jewett told her, “Nobody seems to have any idea where Frank Phleger’s been for the past three weeks. We assume he dropped out of sight to avoid possible repercussions. The indications are that we’re getting rather close to him.”

  “I see,” Jean said uncomfortably. The king beasts avoided rough play as a matter of policy, usually avoided conflict among themselves, but when they met in a duel there were no rules.

  “Give that part of it three days,” Garland’s voice said. She looked around, found him watching her with a trace of what might be irony, back at any rate from whatever brooding trance he’d been sunk in. “Jean, call Litton sometime tomorrow.”

  “All right.”

  “Tell him the boss of your detective organization wants an appointment with him. Ten o’clock, three days from now.”

  She nodded, said carefully, “Litton could become extremely valuable to you, Mr. Garland.”

  “He could,” Garland agreed. “Anyway, I want to watch the swami perform. We’ll give him another assignment.”

  “Am I to accompany you?”

  “You’ll be there, Jean. So will Max.”

  “I keep having the most curiously definite impression,” Roy Litton observed, “that I’ve met you before.”

  “You have,” Garland said amiably.

  Litton frowned, shook his head. “It’s odd I should have forgotten the occasion!”

  “The name’s
Nick Garland,” Garland told him.

  Still frowning, Litton stared at him across the table. Then abruptly his face paled. Jean Merriam, watching from behind her employer, saw Litton’s eyes shift to her, from her to Max Jewett, and return at last, hesitantly, to Garland’s face. Garland nodded wryly.

  “I was what you call one of your subjects, Mr. Litton,” he said. “I can’t give you the exact date, but it should have been between two and three months ago. You remember now?”

  Litton shook his head. “No. After such an interval it would be impossible to be definite about it, in any case. I keep no notes and the details of a contact very quickly grow blurred to me.” His voice was guarded; he kept his eyes on Garland’s. “Still, you seemed familiar to me at once as a person. And your name seems familiar. It’s quite possible that you have been, in fact, a contact subject.”

  “I was,” Garland said. “We know that. That’s why we’re here.”

  Litton cleared his throat. “Then the story Miss Merriam told me at her first visit wasn’t true.”

  “Not entirely,” Garland admitted. “She wasn’t representing a detective outfit. She represented me. Otherwise, she told the truth. She was sent here to find out if you could do what we’d heard you could do. We learned that you could. Mr. Litton, you’ve cost me a great deal of money. But I’m not too concerned about that now, because, with your assistance, I’ll make it back. And I’ll make a great deal more besides. You begin to get the picture?”

  Relief and wariness mingled for an instant in Litton’s expression. “Yes, I believe I do.”

  “You’ll get paid your regular fees, of course,” Garland told him. “The fact is, Mr. Litton, you don’t charge enough. What you offer is worth more than ten thousand a shot. What you gave Frank Phleger was worth enormously more.”

  “Frank Phleger?” Litton said.

  “The client who paid you to poke around in my mind. No doubt he wouldn’t have used his real name. It doesn’t matter. Let’s get on to your first real assignment for me. Regular terms. This one isn’t a test. It’s to bring up information I don’t have and couldn’t get otherwise. All right?”

  Litton nodded, smiled. “You have a suitable contact object?”

  “We brought something that should do,” Garland said. “Max, give Mr. Litton the belt.”

  Jean Merriam looked back toward Jewett. Garland hadn’t told her what Litton’s assignment was to be, had given her no specific instructions, but she’d already turned on the recorder in her handbag. Jewett was taking a large plastic envelope from the briefcase he’d laid beside his chair. He came over to the table, put the envelope before Litton, and returned to his place.

  “Can you tell me specifically what you want to know concerning this subject?” Litton asked.

  “To start with,” Garland said, “just give us whatever you can get. I’m interested in general information.”

  Litton nodded, opened the plastic envelope, and took out a man’s leather belt with a broad silver buckle. Almost immediately an expression of distaste showed in his face. He put the belt on the table, looked over at Garland.

  “Mr. Garland,” he said, “Miss Merriam may have told you that on occasion I’m offered a contact object I can’t use. Unfortunately, this belt is such an object.”

  “What do you mean?” Garland asked. “Why can’t you use it?”

  “I don’t know. It may be something about the belt itself, and it may be the person connected with it.” Litton brushed the belt with his fingers. “I simply have a very unpleasant feeling about this object. It repels me.” He smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid I must refuse to work with it.”

  “Well, now,” Garland said, “I don’t like to hear that. You’ve cost me a lot, you know. I’m willing to overlook it, but I do expect you to be cooperative in return.”

  Litton glanced at him, swallowed uneasily. “I understand—and I assure you you’ll find me cooperative. If you’ll give me some other assignment, I assure you—”

  “No,” Garland said. “No, right now I want information about this particular person, not somebody else. It’s too bad if you don’t much like to work with the belt, but that’s your problem. We went to a lot of trouble to get the belt for you. Let me state this quite clearly, Mr. Litton. You owe me the information, and I think you’d better get it now.”

  His voice remained even, but the menace in the words was undisguised. The king beast was stepping out from cover, and Jean’s palms were suddenly wet. She saw Litton’s face whiten.

  “I suppose I do owe it to you,” Litton said after a moment. He hesitated again. “But this isn’t going to be easy.”

  Garland snorted. “You’re getting ten thousand dollars for a few minutes’ work!”

  “That isn’t it. I . . .” Litton shook his head helplessly, got to his feet. He indicated the curtained alcove at the side of the room. “I’ll go in there. At best, this will be a difficult contact to attempt. I can’t be additionally distracted by knowing that three people are staring at me.”

  “You’ll get the information?” Garland asked.

  Litton looked at him, said sullenly, “I always get the information.” He picked up the belt, went to the alcove, and disappeared through the curtains.

  Garland turned toward Jean Merriam. “Start timing him,” he said.

  She nodded, checked her watch. The room went silent, and immediately Jean felt a heavy oppression settle on her. It was almost as if the air had begun to darken around them. Frightened, she thought, Nick hates that freak . . . Has he decided to kill him?

  She pushed the question away and narrowed her attention to the almost inaudible ticking of the tiny expensive watch. After a while she realized that Garland was looking at her again. She met his eyes, whispered, “Three minutes and ten seconds.” He nodded.

  There was a sound from within the alcove. It was not particularly loud, but in the stillness it was startling enough to send a new gush of fright through Jean. She told herself some minor piece of furniture, a chair, a small side table, had fallen over, been knocked over on the carpeting. She was trying to think of some reason why Litton should have knocked over a chair in there when the curtains before the alcove were pushed apart. Litton moved slowly out into the room.

  He stopped a few feet from the alcove. He appeared dazed, half-stunned, like a man who’d been slugged hard in the head and wasn’t sure what had happened. His mouth worked silently, his lips writhing in slow, stiff contortions as if trying to shape words that couldn’t be pronounced. Abruptly he started forward. Jean thought for a moment he was returning to the table, but he went past it, pace quickening, on past Garland and herself without glancing at either of them. By then he was almost running, swaying from side to side in long staggering steps, and she realized he was hurrying toward the French doors which stood open on the wide veranda overlooking the park. Neither Garland nor Jewett moved from their chairs, and Jean, unable to speak, twisted around to look after Litton as they were doing. She saw him run across the veranda, strike the hip-high railing without checking, and go on over.

  * * *

  The limousine moved away from the Torrell Arms through the sunlit park, Jewett at the wheel, Garland and Jean Merriam in the back seat. There was no siren wail behind them, no indication of disturbance, nothing to suggest that anyone else was aware that a few minutes ago a man had dropped into the neatly trimmed park shrubbery from the eighteenth floor of the great apartment hotel.

  “You could have made use of him,” Jean said. “He could have been of more value to you than anyone else in the world. But you intended to kill him from the start, didn’t you?”

  Garland didn’t reply for a moment. Then he said, “I could have made use of him, sure. So could anyone else with ten thousand dollars to spare, or some way to put pressure on him. I don’t need somebody like Litton to stay on top. And I don’t like the rules changed. When Phleger found Litton, he started changing them. It could happen again. Litton had to be taken out.” />
  “Max could have handled that,” Jean said. Her hands had begun to tremble again; she twisted them tightly together around the strap of the handbag. “What did you do to get Litton to kill himself?”

  Garland shook his head. “I didn’t intend him to kill himself. Max was to take care of him afterward.”

  “You did something to him.”

  Garland drew a long sighing breath. “I was just curious,” he said. “There’s something I wonder about now and then. I thought Litton might be able to tell me, so I gave him the assignment.”

  “What assignment? He became someone else for three minutes. What happened to him?”

  Garland’s head turned slowly toward her. She noticed for the first time that his face was almost colorless. “That was Frank Phleger’s belt,” he said. “Max’s boys caught up with him last night. Phleger’s been dead for the last eight hours.”

  1969

  ATTITUDES

  James H. Schmitz’s new story takes place on a giant ship with the most precious cargo imaginable: huge storerooms of artificial bodies along with containers holding half a billion personalities, identities, selves; in short the makings of an entire intelligent species.

  IT WAS NOW SIX OF their HOURS since the Federation escort ships had signaled that they had completed their assignment and were turning back. Soon, Azard told himself, it would be safe to act . . . to take the final steps in the great gamble which had seemed so dangerous and had been so necessary, Without the Malatlo Attitude, it would have been impossible. Malatlo had helped him in more ways than one.

  He stared from the back of the big control compartment at the three Federation humans. They were turned away, intent on various instruments, as the giant cargo carrier made its unhurried approach to the planet. Sashien had said he would begin landing operations in an hour. It would seem unnatural if Azard wasn’t with them to observe the process in the screens. Therefore the arrangements he had to make must be made now.