“I guess you’re right,” faltered Jack.
“You guess I’m right. You know I’m right. And I’ll tell you something else. When I was at the top I had friends. Do you know who they were, those fools that threw me aside and forgot me when I had nobody?”
“No,” said Doughface.
“No. No, nobody knows but me. The rest have all forgotten. They were kids, then, mewling around my dressing room door. They were down from Harvard and Yale and Princeton. And do you know where they are now?”
“No,” said Doughface.
“On the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States. In the Senate and House. In the cabinet. Oh yes they are. Lots of them. And those that aren’t own big factories and steamship lines. They’re the pick of the country.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“And as long as they are up so high,” said Rita, casually regarding the polish on her beautiful nails, “they can be used and, being used, can suffer. You and I, Jack, are going to show them a thing or two.”
“But, geez,” said Doughface, “I ain’t got no idea about a gov’ment. I dunno nothin’ about it.”
“You don’t have to know. You’ve got me. You don’t even need to expose yourself. You’ve got a woman Friday.”
“A huh?”
“You’ve got somebody to front for you and that somebody is me. Now come on, get out of the car.”
She pushed him and he stumbled to the parking. The chauffeur looked anxiously for orders.
“Move one foot from here or say one word to anybody,” said Rita, “and this man will track you to the ends of the earth to kill you.”
“No’m,” chattered the chauffeur. “I ain’t gonna do nothin’. Honest. I just a poor . . .”
“Come on, Jack,” said Rita, taking his arm.
He was very unwilling. He felt somehow that he was in the midst of a torrential current that was carrying him on and on despite any feeble effort he could make to breast it and gain shore. He was panicky when he thought that maybe these guys would shoot before he could do anything.
Rita read that thought.
“Now listen, Jack, this is going to be easy. All you have to do is look and they’ll drop. They’re after your neck. These men are the government. They’re the ones responsible for all the police and soldiers in the country. If it weren’t for these men you’ll meet in a moment, you wouldn’t be worrying the way you are. And they’d shoot you on sight, any of them. Don’t give them a chance. I’ll be right behind you so don’t look back.”
“Y’think I ought to do this? Y’think I can do it?”
“Do I think you can?” laughed Rita. “Why, I should say so. Nobody had better stand up to you, Doughface Jack. You’re through being kicked around and starved and hunted. You’re through with haystacks and boxcars forever. You’re going to be the greatest man in the world and the only thing that’s stopping you is a few men in the White House.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be the greatest man. . . .”
“You want me, don’t you?” challenged Rita.
“Gosh,” said Jack.
“Then you want to be the greatest man in the world. Remember that you are about to meet the men that have been hounding you. If they get away, you’ll be killed. You must not let them get away.”
Jack walked stiff-legged to keep his knees from buckling. But he was a little angry too to think that a few guys in a place like this could cause him all the trouble that he had been caused.
The gates were open as always and no one was on guard. The public was perfectly free to walk around this curving drive which led to the doors.
All was very peaceful. Cars hummed lazily along Pennsylvania Avenue behind them and a bored diplomat was getting out of his car in front.
Doughface was apprehensive about being recognized. His picture had been circulated in Washington because this very thing might happen. But he was fairly safe on that score. Rita had applied suntan powder, thus obliterating his most recognizable characteristic—his pasty white complexion.
Two Secret Service men were lounging in the doorway of the White House, on duty for this very purpose. They were young men, quick of eye and quicker on the draw.
Rita followed at a slow and casual pace. Doughface felt his knees knocking together.
The Secret Service men stood up straighter, as they did whenever they spotted a casual stroller approaching the driveway cover. Doughface walked along, trying to keep his teeth from chattering.
The Secret Service men saw Rita but still they were not certain. They glanced at each other as the visitors came even closer and then the shorter of the two reached casually into his coat pocket for the photographs.
“Jack!” said Rita tensely, “he’s going to draw and shoot!”
Doughface thought so too. He started with the shock—and the thing was done.
The two Secret Service men stumbled back against the doorway. They sagged slowly. The shorter was attempting feebly to draw and shout but the lightning had stunned him.
Doughface wanted to run but Rita was treading on his heels. He went swiftly up the steps and across the fallen men.
The reception room had many people in it. And they had seen the Secret Service men fall and were coming forward wonderingly.
A guard saw Doughface and the collapse of the Secret Service men gave him the tipoff. He grabbed for his gun just as Doughface got inside.
“Back!” yelled the guard to the others. “it’s him!”
In a wave of panic men dived for exits. But the offered weapon had done the thing once more. The guard collapsed, still fighting for a chance to aim the weapon. And then it was too late.
Three other guards went down like dominoes. The men and women in the room had taken too long to get out. They wouldn’t now. They were lying on the floor in grotesquely twisted attitudes.
It was all silent, it was almost calm. It was horrible.
Doughface wanted to run again. But Rita held him by the shoulders. A door opened in reply to the shout and two more Secret Service men rushed out, to stop as though running against an invisible wall and drop.
Doughface heard a sound to his right and whipped about. A guard was standing there with leveled gun. He fired a wild shot and then he went down.
Doughface dived for the inner chamber.
A secretary came halfway up from his desk and then fell face down across it. Three visitors leaped up and fell forward in limp heaps.
Another secretary came out of an inner office, papers in hand. He dropped and the sheets settled slowly over him.
“In there!” said Rita, shoving Doughface ahead toward a big door.
Doughface went forward.
The president had heard the first shout, the shot and then had seen his secretary drop. He knew what was coming. But he was no coward. He stood up, knuckles resting on his desktop, his face calm in its halo of gray hair.
Doughface came through the door and stopped.
“So you,” said the president, “are the tramp. Has it occurred to you that you will undoubtedly hang for these murders?”
The statement could not have been more ill chosen. Doughface could not help his own reaction to that statement.
The president of the United States sagged into his chair, his face as gray as his hair. He held on hard to the arms of his chair, fighting to keep erect, fighting with more will power than he had ever known he had possessed.
“Don’t kill him,” said Rita swiftly to Doughface.
Doughface pulled Rita inside and then banged the doors shut. He turned again. He began to realize fully the awful thing he had done and he could see no salvation for him now.
The president of the United States sagged into his chair, his face
as gray as his hair. He held on hard to the arms of his chair,
fighting to keep erect, fighting with more will power
than he had ever known he had possessed.
“Mr. President,” said Rita, “you are not dead and you
will not die if you do as I say.”
Doughface thrust her aside, realizing fully what a spot he was in. “Geez, I dunno what I’m doin’! If I kill you they’ll hang me sure!”
“Leave him alone,” ordered Rita.
Doughface wouldn’t listen to her. “I ain’t done nothin’ until now that I thought up myself. Geez, Mr. President, you ain’t done nothin’ to me. If you’ll get me out of this jam . . .”
“Shut up,” said Rita.
But the trick was done. The president had had enough to bring him back to himself again.
“Young woman,” he began.
“Listen to me,” Rita interrupted. “You’re going to stay with us for safekeeping. They won’t bomb this place as long as they know you’re alive. They won’t try to kill me because they will know that Jack is somewhere near at hand. Now he’s going to bring your staff back to life and I’m going to start giving the orders around here.”
“Why?” said the president. “What could you possibly do . . . ?”
“What could I do?” said Rita. “I can do plenty. There are a few men in high places, Mr. President, who are going to find out what I can do. If you want to live, shut up. A month ago Doughface Jack was nothing but a tramp. Today he’s a bigger and more powerful national figure than you. Try and laugh that one off, Mr. President. Jack, get to work.”
Chapter Fourteen
FOR five days Doctor Thorpe did very little besides sit at his desk and watch the reports stack on Doughface Jack. It was no longer necessary to clip the news stories but only to preserve the papers. A major depression was beginning on the wings of panic. No man knew what would happen within the next hour.
Rockford Sims of steel fame had died, suddenly and abruptly. Two cabinet members were being buried on this day, a senator on that.
And across the entire land there stalked the shadow of a beautiful woman, the Witch Girl, which name was no longer limited to the tabloids.
At first it had seemed impossible that anything drastic could happen other than a presidential assassination. No one had dreamed that the reins of government would actually be picked up and no man had been able to guess that there would be men more than willing to work for such a leader. Yet there were such men. They had been in minor offices where the work had been hard, the pay small and the bosses officious. And now they were only too glad to take allegiance and settle their own scores.
Democracy, in five mad days, had crumbled to a scrap of paper, and become what it had been in the beginning, merely an abstract idea. And now it was done. This was not monarchy, nor was it dictatorship. It was worse. The whims of a woman were deciding the policies of state and the personal animosity of a woman was passing the death sentence on every person who had ever offended her—and the offenders of a blind beggar are many.
Minority “isms” had fallen swiftly into line. Chaos had begun. A machine had arisen like a beast and would shortly be so powerful that nothing would ever be able to prevail against it. To the whims of the woman would be added the hates of lesser officers. Prejudice and jealousy and opinionation would rule the day. A system was rising and shortly that system would be too huge to be stopped.
The market had already crashed. Banks were closing every hour. Wild, insane rumors fled like tattered ghosts up and down the land. Men blew out their brains, bringing death before the death itself would come.
Thorpe watched his clock. He had watched that clock for five days and how slowly the second hand ran, how much more slowly moved the minute hand and the hour hand not at all.
For five days he had viewed and reviewed that operation, checking every step he had made, searching, searching, searching to be certain that there had been nothing forgotten, nothing left undone.
His buzzer rang and a nurse’s voice said, “Doctor Thorpe. Doctor Pellman has just regained consciousness. He is asking for you.”
Thorpe leaped up and, with shaggy locks streaming, raced down the corridor to the private room. He entered silently and stood, not daring to believe his eyes.
Pellman was sitting up with pillows at his back. He was smiling and, if it had not been for the bandages around his head, no one would have believed him ill.
“Come in,” said Pellman.
“Jim!” said Thorpe hoarsely. “Then I didn’t kill you after all.”
“Kill me? I feel fine. How long have I been out?”
“Five days,” said Thorpe, shakily. He approached Pellman’s side. “But I don’t understand. If you just became conscious, how is it that . . . ?”
“Same thing happened to Doughface,” said Pellman cheerfully. “He couldn’t heal himself all the way but he could come out of almost anything in jig time. What’s been happening?”
“Jim, it’s awful.”
“You mean I was right? He went to Washington after all?”
“Yes,” said Thorpe.
“The fools,” growled Pellman. “I knew the police and Army would make that happen. They had to be bigger than either police or Army to keep alive. And what have they done?”
“It isn’t so much what they’ve done,” said Thorpe, “but there are others with plenty of petty scores to settle in blood. Plenty of others. And every agitator, every malcontent in the country, is swinging into line for them. It’s the woman that’s doing it. She had some grudges of her own and now all these others . . . Jim, I give the United States about two more days and then we’ll make Russia look like a paradise. Pogroms, secret firing squads, espionage everywhere . . .”
“Then it’s a case of stopping Doughface. What happened to him?”
“It isn’t Doughface Jack. He’s just the weapon of that woman. He wouldn’t have the brains to do this,” stated Thorpe. “Even I know that.”
“Have they tried to shoot the girl?”
Thorpe nodded. “They posted a sniper on the top of the Department of the Interior and he used a telescopic sight. He hit her too. In the back. But the next morning she was out again and the sniper . . . he vanished. It wasn’t Doughface that got him. They have the nucleus of an O Gay-Pay-Oo already. Men are going to them begging to be accepted. She ordered the release of all prisoners from the jails there and is going to release all other prisoners in the nation and, of course, they’ll swing in. We’re in for a reign of terror, Jim.”
“I see,” said Pellman slowly. “Do you think it can still be stopped?”
“As long as Doughface can kill men on sight he can’t be caught. The president is held hostage and so the White House can’t be bombarded. He got a message out requesting it anyway but the Army still won’t act—what’s left of the Army.”
“What’s left of it?”
“Certainly. The ranking officers are dead. They tried to hold conference and reach a settlement and the girl had them shot. There’s nothing that can be done. Over twenty men have sacrificed their lives attempting to kill Doughface and his power seems to grow stronger. The president wouldn’t believe there was any danger of this and now see what has happened!”
“Maybe it’s not too late,” said Pellman.
“It will be shortly,” said Thorpe bitterly. “Business has stopped. Small officials have rocketed themselves to the top and everything in sight is being confiscated. Criminals will soon occupy the top positions in everything, and with their thirst for revenge against society . . .”
“How about the people that Doughface nailed before he left New York?” asked Pellman.
“Still about four hundred and fifty-odd alive.”
Pellman threw the covers back.
“You can’t get up!” said Thorpe, aghast. “After an operation like that you can’t risk it! Why I took the top of your skull off.”
“Doughface Jack’s injury was complicated with trauma. Mine isn’t. I’m all right, Thorpe. Get my clothes. Call all the hospitals and tell them to have those victims ready. We’ve got to make this fast.”
“But wait,” said Thorpe. “You’re running a long chance! You may have a relapse!”
&nb
sp; “Never mind that,” said Pellman. “Get my clothes.”
Miss Finch came in hurriedly, just having gotten the news. She saw Pellman starting to get out of bed.
“Jim!” she cried in alarm. “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting up,” stated Pellman. “Don’t stand there gaping at me. Get my clothes!”
“But,” cried Thorpe, “we don’t even know if it works with you.”
“You don’t, huh?” said Pellman with a sudden grin. “Go look in the mirror.”
Thorpe glanced distractedly toward the one behind him and then started to say something. Suddenly he registered. He whirled around and bent over and studied his face.
“Why, why . . .” he stammered, “I . . . I look like . . . I look like a kid!”
“Get my clothes,” said Pellman decisively.
Chapter Fifteen
DOUGHFACE JACK was sitting at the table in the White House dining room. Breakfast dishes were strewn before him, blanketed with the newspaper he was reading. Mechanically he dunked a doughnut in his coffee and just as expertly kept it from dribbling on his chin when he ate it.
Characteristically, he was reading the last pages first and at long last he turned and scanned the front page.
The scareheads hit him hard.
PELLMAN RECOVERS FROM OPERATION
MAN WHOSE SURGERY RESPONSIBLE
FOR TRAMP WELL
“Huh,” said Doughface. “He got over it, the rat.” He looked up and saw Rita standing by the window. “Hey, whatcha know about this? Doc Pellman didn’t bump off after all.”
She came to the back of his chair. “What else does it say, Jack?”
He read laboriously, “‘Operated on by Doctor Thorpe, the famous brain surgeon, in an attempt to approximate the mito-genetic radiation used by Doughface Jack, Doctor Pellman was said to be doing nicely this afternoon. . . .’”
Rita’s face was pale and her hand was like a vice on Jack’s shoulder. “That means . . . that means that he’ll try to get you!”
“Naw,” said Doughface. “What could he do to me, huh? He’s tryin’ to heal up all them guys that I knocked down, that’s all.”
The Scifi & Fantasy Collection Page 64