[Jan Darzek 01] - All the Colors of Darkness

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  Perrin gestured disgustedly. “We might assign a hostess to each gate, and have her lead the passengers through by the hand.”

  “I foresee certain difficulties. It would require at least ten times as many hostesses as we have now, and the passengers might resent it.”

  “Also,” Darzek put in, “the hostesses might resent it.”

  “That’s irrelevant even if it’s true. But we’d have to hire special supervisors to route the hostesses to where they’d be needed, and getting them back there after every trip would drive the traffic managers nuts. But I’ll think about it. You might as well go back to work. If there are any more disappearances—”

  “What?” Perrin demanded.

  “Nothing. Just come back here and help me pick a window to jump out of.”

  Perrin left, and Arnold sat down at his desk and slipped out of his shoes. “Can’t remember when I’ve had to spend so much time on my feet,” he said. He tilted back, deliberately placed his feet on the desk, and gazed hypnotically at one toe that wiggled through a hole in his sock.

  Darzek removed his coat and stretched out on the sofa, watching him. He had seen Arnold imperturbable in the face of numerous crises, but clearly this turn of events had shaken him. Absently he snapped on his lighter, and singed his nose before he realized that he had no cigarette in his mouth. Then, when he had fumblingly opened a new pack and pried one loose, he forgot to light it. He continued to stare at his toe.

  “There’s got to be a simple explanation for this,” he announced finally. “But supposing there isn’t? Supposing we have sent these people into some nth dimension? It’s impossible, but they’re not arriving at their destinations is impossible, too. So many impossible things have happened with our transmitters, but always before this I could work out some kind of explanation. This time—”

  “I’m not a scientist,” Darzek said. “I won’t believe in an nth dimension until I’ve seen it.”

  “If a whisper of this gets out, we’re ruined. And I can’t see any possible way to prevent that.”

  “Can the directors be trusted to keep their mouths shut?”

  “Perhaps. But those women must have relatives or friends expecting them or waiting to hear that they’ve arrived safely. By morning the reporters will have it, the police will have it, there’ll be headlines in every newspaper in the country, if not the world, and we’ll have had it.”

  “That would be unfortunate,” Darzek said. “I have a feeling that the quickest way to solve this would be to catch them trying again. Obviously if you have to close down we may never catch them.”

  Arnold lowered his feet with a thump, and swiveled towards Darzek. “Did you have to insult the directors that way?”

  “I thought it might shock some sense into them. I’m sure Watkins is all you’ve said he is, but how did he get saddled with a bunch of nincompoops like that? I wouldn’t trust Grossman to manage my loose change for me. Harlow exists in a legal vacuum. The two vice presidents are nothing but ciphers with vocal cords. Miller I can’t quite make out.”

  “He owns a small trucking business,” Arnold said. “Fancies he’s an expert on freight. Maybe he is. When we get around to coping with the freight problem he might be useful—if we’re able to stay in business that long. We started out with a first-rate Board, but as our troubles multiplied we gradually lost it. Wise men, as well as rats, desert a sinking ship.”

  “Anyway, I’ve learned from bitter experience not to trust anyone I don’t have to trust. As far as I’m concerned, the less the directors know about what I’m doing, the better.”

  “What’s the dark secret about the umbrella?” Arnold asked.

  “Nothing much. I saw an old dame with an umbrella in the lobby lineup early this afternoon. She created a disturbance, and I wondered at the time why she was lugging an umbrella around on a day like this one.”

  “What sort of disturbance?”

  Darzek told him. “Not that it helps us any,” he added.

  “Might. She could have been attempting a crude form of sabotage, trying to frighten away the paying customers. But don’t forget that this disappearing act is on an entirely different level. There must be clever planning behind it, and perhaps organization, and maybe even a better engineering staff than mine.”

  “Or maybe just enough money to bribe the right Universal Trans employees.”

  Arnold stared. “The devil! You’ll have to work on that angle. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “You might start by buying yourself some cameras.”

  Arnold reached for his telephone. “What sort of cameras?”

  “You’re the engineer. Something that would photograph each passenger as he approached the transmitter—preferably without his knowing about it.”

  “Motion-picture cameras?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Why not? They’d record any suspicious actions that could be concealed from the gate attendant. Such as pitching handbags and umbrellas through the transmitter.”

  “Suit yourself,” Darzek said. “All I want is a good shot of the passenger’s face. Then if one disappears we’ll know what he looked like. If you’re worried about concealed actions, why don’t you put a mirror at the end of the passageway?”

  “Ah! A mirror with a camera behind it. Good idea. The gate attendant would have a front and rear view of the passenger, and the passenger would have something more interesting than a blank wall to walk towards. While he admired himself, a photocell could trip the camera. But it would cost a fortune in cameras.”

  “To start with, just enough for the New York Terminal.”

  “Why just New York?”

  “So far it’s the only terminal that’s losing passengers.”

  Arnold shook his head admiringly. “Either you’re sheer genius, or I’m too shook up to think. I’ll get someone started on it. Anything else?”

  “I find myself suddenly very curious about your past difficulties. You mentioned the other night that you’d been tailed frequently, and that things had happened that looked like sabotage to you. Of course everyone knows you’ve had a long series of technical failures. I’m wondering what the sabotage was, and if some of those technical failures could have had outside encouragement. I probably won’t understand half of it, but go ahead and talk.”

  Arnold elevated his feet again and talked for half an hour, while Darzek listened meditatively. “Well, you asked for it,” Arnold said. “Want more?”

  “No. I don’t understand a tenth of it. What much of it adds up to is that you’d have a problem, and you’d keep trying things until something solved it. But often as not you wouldn’t know precisely what it was that caused the problem, and you wouldn’t entirely understand how you managed to correct it.”

  “Something like that. We’re delving into unexplored scientific territory, and it’ll be years before our knowledge will be anything like definitive. This sort of thing happens whenever man takes on the unknown.”

  “You’re welcome to it. I’ll have to think about this. It’s hard for me to read sabotage into your technical failures, and even the more obvious things—the fires, the stuff that fell and smashed when no one was looking—those things could have been accidents.”

  “Sabotage with finesse. Or else we’re the most accident-prone corporation that ever—”

  The telephone rang. Arnold answered, listened briefly, and said, “Now? I’ll be right up.”

  “Another one?” Darzek asked.

  “No. It was Watkins. He’s in the Public Relations Office, and they want to have a press release ready when the storm breaks about the missing passengers. Got any ideas about that?”

  “No, but I suggest that you corner the gate attendants and all the other employees who know about this, and tape their mouths.”

  “I already have,” Arnold said grimly.

  Darzek waited for Arnold to tie his shoes, and they left the office together. At the stairway they separated. “Where will yo
u be?” Arnold asked.

  “I’m going to spend some time browsing around the terminal, and then I’ll go back to my office and hire some people. If I find anything to think about, I might even do some thinking.”

  “I’ll send down a pass so you can see whatever you want to see.”

  “I hope Universal Trans took in enough money today to pay me an advance on expenses.”

  “If I told you how much the New York Terminal took in today, you wouldn’t believe it.”

  Darzek took an elevator to the mezzanine. The lobby below was deserted, now that the free demonstration had been canceled, but the mezzanine was more crowded than it had been that afternoon. Darzek threaded his way through to the information desk. “Open all night?” he asked.

  The young lady smiled sweetly. “People traveling conventionally arrive in New York at all hours. We have to be available if they want to transmit from here. We’re the only U.S.—European connection, you know.”

  “I didn’t,” Darzek said. “You mean anyone traveling to Europe by transmitter has to come to New York first?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, I suppose it’s no special inconvenience to walk from one transmitter to another here in the New York Terminal.”

  “It requires fewer transmitters that way. Transmitters are our biggest problem right now.”

  Darzek smiled back at her, thinking that what she didn’t know about the company’s biggest problem wouldn’t hurt her. “Very interesting,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Perrin found him a moment later, and handed him a pass bearing the potent signature of Thomas J. Watkins III. “Do you have time to give me a guided tour?” Darzek asked.

  “Sure. What do you want to see?”

  “I’d like a leisurely look at the layout of these passenger gates.”

  “They’re all alike. Come back this way, and you can look at some that aren’t in use.”

  Perrin led him into a closed-off section of the mezzanine, and opened a passenger gate. Darzek walked slowly to the end of the passageway, and retraced his steps. The partitions were six feet high and met the wall solidly. A metal frame with an overhead crosspiece was the only clue to the location of the transmitter.

  “Only a pole vaulter could have got out of there without going through the transmitter,” Perrin said.

  “Are the receiving gates the same?”

  “Exactly the same. Even the instrumentation is the same. Throw a switch, and the transmitter becomes a receiver.”

  “Interesting. I’m beginning to see why Arnold is so upset about this.”

  “Upset? Listen—it’s a wonder it hasn’t made a screaming idiot out of him. This is no job for a detective. It wants either a magician or a priest, and if I was the Board I’d hire both. Want to see anything else?”

  “Nothing now, thank you.”

  Darzek spent another twenty minutes poking about the terminal, getting the enormous place firmly in mind. Then he seated himself near the ticket windows and watched the unending throng of passengers. Ted Arnold found him there, and sat down beside him.

  “Anything new?” Darzek asked quickly.

  Arnold shook his head. “Nothing. And I do mean nothing. I haven’t the foggiest notion of how to proceed.”

  “That describes my state of mind exactly. I might as well go back to my office.”

  “I’ll telephone you if anything happens. I’ll be here until midnight, in case you want me.”

  “Right. If I’m not at my office, I’ll be home, or on my way there.”

  “We’ll have the mirrors and cameras ready by morning. I got that much taken care of. We’ll also have all the North American operations moved downstairs by morning, which won’t make your problem any simpler.”

  “Or any harder,” Darzek said. “See you later.”

  Outside he found a long line of passengers waiting at the taxi stand. “So I might as well travel ‘conventionally,’ “ he told himself, and set off on foot.

  As soon as he turned off Eighth Avenue he knew that he was being followed—doubly followed, for there was a car and at least one foot operative. He slowed his pace to think the situation over.

  Someone rated a capital E in efficiency. If he, or they, were half as effective in other things, Darzek was inclined to believe that Arnold had enjoyed more sabotage than he realized.

  Someone also had contacts. Darzek ticked off on his fingers the individuals who knew that Universal Trans had hired Jan Darzek: the six directors, Ted Arnold, and the engineer Perrin.

  And someone had blundered badly. Darzek strolled along leisurely, feeling inordinately pleased with himself as he examined the ways in which he might turn this development to his advantage. The foot-snooper matched his stride and kept a half-block behind him—too far back for Darzek to get a look at his face. The car passed him at intervals, its driver carefully looking the other way.

  A block from his office Darzek met a patrolman who was an old acquaintance. He stopped to talk with him. The foot-snooper also stopped, and made a production of tying a shoelace.

  “I’ve got a tail, Mike,” Darzek said. “See if you recognize him.”

  “Will do,” the patrolman said cheerfully.

  “I’ll be in my office.”

  He turned the corner, and walked quickly. There were no pedestrians about, and the only moving vehicle was the car tailing him. It approached slowly. Darzek glanced back again as he reached the entrance of the building where his office was located, just in time to see the foot-snooper hurry around the corner.

  That turn of his head proved to be a tactical error. He never saw what hit him.

  He regained consciousness looking up into the patrolman’s large, ruddy face. With an intense effort he managed to superimpose a grin on his headache. Mike grinned back, a bit anxiously.

  “I don’t think they busted anything,” he said. “I guess you got a rap on the head, but I couldn’t find any lump. How do you feel?”

  “Very odd. Woozy.”

  Darzek tried to get up. His legs buckled under him, and his hands and feet tingled strangely. He stayed on his knees, shaking his head, until Mike got an arm around him and hauled him to his feet.

  “Better get to a doctor,” the patrolman said. “You may have a concussion.”

  “You saved me from being carted off—didn’t you?”

  Mike nodded. “They were dragging you to the car when I came around the corner. I blew my whistle, and they dropped you and cut out of here. I didn’t even get the dratted license number.”

  “I have the license number,” Darzek said. “That is, I had it. My memory is woozy, too. But—yes, I have it.”

  “Good. They must have wanted you alive. If they didn’t, they had plenty of time to smash your head. You made any enemies lately?”

  “Several, but this doesn’t make sense at all. Did you get a look at my tail?”

  “Never saw the guy before. This is my fault, really. There was a guy standing here in the entrance when I came by. Never saw him before, either. He looked respectable, and we spoke to each other. I thought he was waiting for a cab, or something. Didn’t connect him with your being tailed until I was a block up the street. I could have saved you a rap on the head.”

  “Think nothing of it, m’lad. By scaring them off you probably saved me from something worse.”

  Darzek shook off the patrolman’s arm, and leaned against the side of the building. The strange tingling persisted, but his head seemed to be clearing up. He took a cautious step.

  “Better get to a doctor,” Mike said again.

  “I’ll be all right. I have to make a phone call, and then I’ll go home. My next-door neighbor is a doctor. He’s patched me up so often that I pay him a retainer. Grab a cab for me, will you?”

  “Sure. That license number?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t report this, Mike. I’ll see that the number is checked out.”

  “If you say so. They’ve ditched the car anyway, by now, or change
d the plates. You make your call, and I’ll have a cab waiting for you.”

  Darzek unsteadily made his way up a flight of stairs to his office, and telephoned the Universal Trans terminal. It took the switchboard operator five minutes to locate Arnold.

  “It’s me,” Darzek said. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to work at home. How reliable is your man Perrin?”

  “Absolutely reliable.”

  “In that case I didn’t make the insult to your directors strong enough. One of them is selling you out.”

  Arnold said slowly, “How certain are you?”

  “Certain enough to give you a written guarantee.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Universal Trans assigned Darzek to a small office off the mezzanine, and late Wednesday afternoon he was there studying the six photographic enlargements that were spread out on his desk.

  Jean Morris had disgustedly retreated to a chair across the room. “It’s hopeless,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. They’re artists.”

  “Or actors?” Darzek suggested.

  “Artists. No mere actor could manage such transformations.”

  “What do you think, Ed?”

  Ed Rucks, an elderly retired cabdriver with youthful enthusiasm for investigative work and a superb eye for a disguise, said mournfully, “No wonder we can’t spot ’em in advance. It’s just unbelievable. When you put ’em side by side that way you begin to see resemblances, but otherwise you’d swear they were total strangers.”

  “So you know one thing for certain—we aren’t up against a bunch of amateurs. Take a set of prints, both of you, and get lost and study them. If the time schedule holds, you have at least an hour before the next disappearance.”

  “There’s one thing that bothers me,” Rucks said. “One more thing, I mean. If we are lucky enough to spot one of these dames, what do we do? Scream for help?”

  “I’m waiting for instructions on that myself. Just scream for me. I won’t be far away.”

  “Will do.”

  Darzek settled back to study the photos. He had already attempted to sketch faces that could accommodate the various disguises, but this was only an act of desperation to occupy his time between disappearances. He could not recall a job that had plunged him so quickly into total frustration. The wigs were perfect, of course, which was to be expected. But how did they achieve those subtle transformations of nose and chin? And the startling alterations in facial contours? Could this face with sunken cheeks really belong to the same woman whose face had a pleasing plumpness in another disguise? The sheer impossibility of the thing staggered him.