The Third Murray Leinster

by Murray Leinster

  And, driving, he thought absorbedly about the one thing which at the time—being sixteen—he could really think of. Short-wave radio. Other matters fitted into it, of course. Mom and Mr. Halstead. Mr. Halstead wanted to marry Mom, and the acquaintance thereby ripened had emboldened the kid to make Mr. Halstead a business proposition connected with short-wave radio. And Al Carpi. He’d been seen and shot at only a hundred and fifty miles away, last night, and the short-wave channels had spread the news with an infinite speed and precision. The kid would like to be a radio engineer and design short-wave installations. Police setups, like the one that’d covered three states with an alarm for Al Carpi in ten minutes after he’d been seen and shot at. Short-wave radio.

  The drive-away fleet turned a curve. A shining, a truly magnificent filling station appeared. It had a long array of pumps, painted all the prismatic colors. It had a greasing-rack and tourist-camp shacks. It was impressive. The lead car—the truck in which everybody’d traveled to the plant—turned in the driveway. The others followed. They slowed and came to reasonably expert stops. Mr. Halstead popped out of the truck and said for everybody to get something to eat and check oil and water and gas. They’d start off again in twenty minutes.

  The kid strolled toward the station.

  He got ham on rye with mustard and sauerkraut and a bottle of orange pop. Eating, he investigated certain partially musical sounds from the station. Later, the guy who ran the filling station looked in suspiciously. The kid nodded abstractedly.

  “Your aerial’s wrong for short waves,” he observed. “Cars make interference anyhow, but with the right kind of aerial—”

  The guy who ran the filling station went away. Presently he came back. The kid was fishing for police broadcasts. He got one.

  “Al Carpi stuck up a filling station at Batesville thirty minutes ago. He stayed in his own car and the woman with him lined up the filling-station owner and a customer, while Al Carpi kept a gun on them. They went off in the customer’s car. License Z38-557. Blue Breeze sedan. He’s wounded but still able to hold a gun and use it.”

  “Gosh,” said the guy who ran the filling station. “That ain’t but forty miles away! Some guy, that Carpi.” Then he said, “I never fool with short waves. Never could get a thing.”

  The kid tuned further. He said, pleased. “Montreal.” Then more police stuff. But suddenly a rhythmic sort of static came in and the kid shook his head. It blurred reception.

  “Somebody started a car. Your aerial’s wrong for short waves. I could fix you up one that works swell.”

  The guy who ran the filling station asked questions. The kid explained in the terse and wholly explicit fashion of somebody who knows exactly what he is talking about. He did know short waves, and anybody would take him for eighteen, easy.

  The filling-station guy said:

  “Say, how long’d it take you—” He stopped. More stuff on Carpi. He was hurt, and hurt bad. He’d made a doctor fix him up, and then carried him off and dumped him where he’d had to walk ten miles to get to a phone. That’d been last night. Just reported. And he’d turned up in Batesvilie just now. License Z38-557. Blue Breeze sedan. With a woman. Hurt bad. Watch for him. Get him. Kill him if necessary, but get him!

  “How long’d it take you to fix up my aerial?” asked the guy who ran the filling station.

  “Thirty minutes, maybe. But I’m with the drive-away gang’.”

  “I’ll risk a couple of bucks,” said the guy, “if you can do it.”

  “I’ll ask Mr. Halstead,” said the kid. “Maybe I can.”

  * * * *

  Two bucks was two bucks. Also, fixing somebody’s aerial for short waves might make Mr. Halstead think about the kid’s business proposition. He was hanging around Mom and wanted to marry her, and Mom was all thrilled, but she was scared he might not be decent to the kid. So he was doing all sorts of things to convince her he would. This job with the drive-away gang. Ten bucks for a two-day trip. A good graft. But it wouldn’t do any harm to remind him about short waves.

  The kid went and talked to Mr. Halstead. He could earn two bucks in thirty minutes, fixing this guy’s aerial, but it might make him start off later than the rest. And Mr. Halstead beamed at him and said it was all right, my boy, and the kid wondered detachedly what Mom could see in Mr. Halstead to be thrilled about. He nodded to the filling-station guy and set to work.

  He had the set tuned to a police waveband while he worked. All kinds of stuff about Carpi. They were sure ringing that guy in. Blocking all highways. Every car stopped. Carpi was just the same as caught.

  The set began to tick. The kid frowned and looked out the window. A car coming along. Fast. A blue Breeze sedan. A woman driving it. A man slumped down beside her. The car wavered on the road, all of a sudden. Then it slowed and stopped. The kid looked at the license number. But it wasn’t Z38-557. It was a foreign license. Out-of-state.

  Mr. Halstead climbed in the big truck and started the motor. The other guys started theirs. The drive-away fleet pulled out and went rolling down the road.

  The kid worked on. His truck, of course, was left for him to follow in. He stepped out of a window and went up on the roof. His sneakers stuck to the shingles like glue. The woman in the blue Breeze sedan was asking questions. The kid heard the filling-station guy telling her about Carpi and warning her about her car.

  “If a guy in uniform flags you down,” he told her, “you make your brakes smoke! Better go slow anyhow. It’ll be safer.”

  The woman smiled at him.

  “Do I look much like Carpi?”

  “No, ma’m!” said the filling-station guy. “But the radio’s just spouting stuff about him on short waves. You better watch out.”

  The kid swung down to the ground again.

  “Quicker than I figured,” he said. “Ought to be okay now.”

  “I’ll come listen,” said the filling-station guy, counting out the woman’s change. “Say, your boss said he’d tip the guys at the barricades that another of his trucks is following.”

  “Uh-huh,” said the kid. He went in and tried the set. When the blue Breeze sedan started up and drove away again, the clickings were very faint indeed. The kid was satisfied.

  So was the filling-station guy. He fiddled with the set a while and picked up Madrid and Paris, which he’d never been able to get before. He paid the kid two bucks and asked where he’d dialed in the stuff on Carpi. The kid showed him.

  The filling-station guy was so pleased that he set up a soft drink besides the two bucks, and when the kid got in his truck again he said:

  “Say, that woman in the Breeze sedan was asking questions about you. What’s this strange power you’ve got over women?”

  The kid slid the lever into first speed. “What’re these strange women I’ve got this power over?” he wanted to know.

  He went rolling down the road feeling rather pleased. Two bucks extra in his pocket. Also, he’d had a chance to show Mr. Halstead he knew his stuff on short waves. But he needed to watch the speedometer. This was a new vehicle, and he was responsible for it. If Mr. Halstead was going to take up his proposition, he had to feel that the kid was dependable.

  Three miles from the filling station he came upon the blue Breeze sedan. It was in the ditch. The woman was sitting on the bank beside the road. The man was with her. She ran out in the road and waved. The man sat still. The kid braked and stopped. The woman looked kind of white around the gills, but she smiled at him.

  “I ran the car in the ditch,” she explained. “Could you—”

  “This isn’t my truck, ma’m,” explained the kid, “and it’s a new truck. A drive-away. I couldn’t try to haul you out. But I’ll take you to a filling station or send back a tow-car.”

  “That isn’t it,” said the woman hastily. Her eyes looked queer. “My husband was asleep, and when the bump came he was thro
wn forward and I—think he hurt himself. His health hasn’t been good anyway. I—want to get him to his doctor. The car don’t matter.”

  “Oh,” said the kid. “Sure! We’ll be a little bit crowded, three up in front, but—”

  The woman swallowed.

  “I—I want him to lie down,” she said. Suddenly, to the kid, she looked horribly scared. “If we could get him in the back—”

  The kid blinked. The woman’s face was tragic. Desperate.

  “I—guess we can do it,” said the kid.

  He stopped the motor and got out. The man still sat on a rock by the roadside. He wasn’t young. His eyes looked incredibly aged and suffering. His skin was a queer grayish color. He sat still in a frozen immobility that the kid found horrible.

  The sedan wasn’t stuck badly. Both back wheels were on solid ground. And suddenly the kid noticed how light were the rings of rust around the license-plate bolts.

  The woman was tugging at the man. Urging him, begging him to stand up and get in the kid’s truck. Presently he made a wooden, ineffectual movement. The kid helped him to the truck and then climbed inside and spread newspapers on the floor. Then he had to help get the nearly dead weight of the grayfaced man up and inside.

  The man sank down, his face a mask. Flat on the floor, though, he turned his head feebly. He opened his mouth. Crimson came out of it and stained the newspaper. The kid felt a funny, startled tingling down his spine.

  The man said, “Bag,” in a thin, ghostly sort of voice. The woman sobbed.

  “Here, honey! I’ll put it under your head. You can get at anything you want inside it. The kid here is going to drive us. You’ll be all right!”

  She tucked a sort of overnight bag under his head. His mouth closed again. It was once more a thin, bluish gash across the gray-white skin of his face. The kid gulped and got down into the road. The woman lingered. The kid saw her stroking the man’s unresponsive cheek. She pressed his hand feverishly. There were little bubbling noises in her throat.

  “You’re gonna be all right, honey. The kid here’ll drive us. And his boss left word there was one more truck coming through. We’ll go right on through an’ the doc’ll fix you up.…”

  The kid saw the man’s hand move weakly. It patted the woman’s wrist. She wept horribly, gustily. She climbed out the back. The kid gulped again as he went around and started the motor. She climbed in on the other side. He let in the clutch smoothly, so as not to jar the man in the back. The delivery truck rode as easily as a touring car. The woman got out her compact and made useless attempts to repair the damage done by tears.

  One mile. Two. Three. The kid was sixteen, and therefore could only really think of one thing at a time, with what other matters fitted to it. The business proposition he had made to Mr. Halstead. Mr. Halstead speaking to the cops at the barricade about him. What the cops would ask about this woman, who had not been mentioned. What they’d do when they suspected what the kid knew. And this car belonged to Mr. Halstead, and the kid was responsible for it. If anything happened, his business proposition…

  He swallowed, and said clumsily: “There’s a state-police barricade a couple of miles ahead.”

  The woman said nothing. The kid waited, sweating. Then he said:

  “I—I thought Al Carpi was young. But he looks old. Forty, anyway. M-maybe it’s because he’s hurt.”

  The woman got a pistol out of her handbag quicker than the kid would have believed possible.

  “What’s that? What d’you mean, Al Carpi?”

  The kid swallowed once more, driving steadily.

  “You had a blue Breeze sedan, like Al Carpi. The license plates had just been changed. The rust on the bolts was new. You could’ve backed out of the ditch if you’d tried. And Al Carpi is hurt and—so is the guy with you. He’s pretty bad off, it looks like. He’s Al Carpi.”

  He felt a hard pressure in his side, and cold chills ran up and down his spine. The woman’s voice was suddenly thick.

  “But the cops ain’t goin’ to get him! Sure he’s hurt! He’s dyin’! But they won’t get him! I promised! An’ if I have to bump somebody—”

  The kid said carefully, so the dryness of his mouth wouldn’t interfere with his talking:

  “There’s a state-police barricade a couple of miles ahead. Mr. Halstead left word about me. But they’ll ask questions about you.”

  “Then duck off somewhere!” commanded the woman fiercely. “If the cops flag us down, you get hurt! An’ somebody’ll get killed before they get Al, anyway! That bag under his head’s got his guns in it. They’ll never get him alive! He’ll go out shootin’!”

  The kid had to show Mr. Halstead he was dependable.

  “I’ve got to think of the truck,” he said. “It’s not mine. You get in the back. The cops won’t see anybody but me. I’m part of the drive-away fleet. Mr. Halstead tipped them I was coming. By myself. And Al Carpi, he always drives himself. See?”

  The truck rolled along the road. It curved, and there were tumbled rocks and green foliage and the brown trunks of trees. It curved again, and there were the brown trunks of trees and green foliage and tumbled rocks.

  “You haven’t got much time,” said the kid. “It’s only a mile more.”

  The woman suddenly put her hand on his arm and said harshly: “I promised him! And if you cross me—”

  The kid stopped. He got out. He opened the doors in the back. The woman climbed in beside the man.

  Her voice shook as she called: “Honey, are you all right? Everything’s goin’ fine! But are you all right?”

  The kid closed the doors behind her. He’d left the engine running. He rubbed his knuckle reflectively over his upper lip and went back to the front. He let the clutch in smoothly, and shifted gears carefully so the man in the back wouldn’t be jarred.

  The car rolled on and rolled on. When the state-police barricade appeared ahead, the kid was loafing at the wheel, driving with the abstracted ease of a master. A guy in a state-police uniform flagged him down. He braked and stopped.

  “Drive-away fleet,” said the kid, his heart pumping. “Mr. Halstead came through a little while back and said he’d leave word about me. Want to see my license?”

  The state trooper grinned.

  “No. I guess you’re all right. You ain’t old enough to be Al Carpi. Go ahead.”

  The kid slipped the lever to first speed.

  “Say,” he observed in magnificent calm, “there’s a car in a ditch about six or seven miles back. Nobody in it. I stopped.”

  “Okay,” said the trooper. He waved the kid on.

  “It’s a blue Breeze sedan,” said the kid.

  He let in the clutch as the trooper’s expression changed suddenly. He rolled away. The pop-pop-popping of motorcycle engines set up before he was out of earshot. Some state troopers were streaking for that car—which was Al Carpi’s sure enough.

  * * * *

  The kid went on. Five miles. Ten. Fifteen. Through one small town. Five miles more. Ten miles more. The road went into thick woods. It went up and down, too. And there were little side-roads—dirt—that hadn’t been used much. To haul wood out, most likely. Logs and firewood. And here and there was a little concrete bridge over a stream or brook.

  The kid kept his eyes open. Presently there weren’t any cars near, either way. He stopped and turned off the ignition. He listened. There was no sound anywhere but the wind in the trees and a bird chirping in a lonely sort of fashion, all by itself. The kid slipped out of his seat and went around to the back. He opened the doors.

  The woman looked out at him. And her face was gray, just like the man’s had been. She looked at him dumbly. The kid said:

  “We’re past the barricade.”

  The woman whispered:

  “He’s dead!”

  The kid gulped.

  �
��What do you want to do now?” he asked desolately.

  “I guess,” said the woman dully, “I guess I want to die, too.”

  She stirred. And the kid saw that the bag under Al Carpi’s head was open, and he had a gun in his hand. He was dead, but he had a gun ready to shoot. The woman said in a strained voice: “When you stopped and—the cop was talking to you—he wanted his guns. I gave him one of them. And—almost as soon as you’d started off again he started to cough. And he was dead.”

  “Yes, ma’m,” said the kid. “But what—”

  “The cops didn’t get him!” said the woman in a bitter triumph. “I promised him they wouldn’t, and they didn’t!” But then she sobbed.

  “I guess,” said the kid uneasily, “we’ve got to tell the cops now.”

  He thought about the truck, and Mr. Halstead, and gulped. He was responsible for the car. And since Al Carpi had died in it—

  “What’d you do for a hundred dollars, kid?” demanded the woman fiercely. “I’ll pay you! I promised him they’d never get him, an’ if you’ll help—”

  The kid drew a deep breath. Being sixteen, he could only really think of one thing at a time, with what other matters related themselves to it. The one thing just now was short-wave radio. The other matters included the fact that this was Mr. Halstead’s truck and the business proposition the kid had made him. The kid agreed with an infinite relief to what the woman proposed.

  He started the car again. He drove ahead, but slowly. Presently he came to another of the little-used dirt roads. He turned the city-delivery truck into it. He drove with infinite caution to avoid scratches on the paint of Mr. Halstead’s truck.

  Half an hour later he backed out again. The woman was in the seat beside him. Her face was tear-streaked. From time to time, as the kid drove on, she sobbed. The afternoon waned. The car rolled smoothly onward. Sunset came. An hour later the street lights of the kid’s home city sprawled across the dark horizon.