by Anthology
"Listen, pal," I said. "This joke is costing a couple of guys some lucrative trade. You are tying up a telephone they need badly in their business, or didn't you know that?"
"That can't be helped," the voice said stiffly.
"Be a good sport and get off the wire," I said.
"I have no intention of doing that until my boss has talked to Hitler and Mussolini," the voice said coldly. I knew a positive statement when I heard one. I hung up, clambered out of the booth, spread my hands expressively to Mike and Mort who stood there eagerly waiting for some good word.
"No soap," I said. "I don't think you got a joker on there, and I'd swear you haven't got a drunk."
"What have we got, then," Mike demanded. "A smart copper waiting to trap us?"
I shook my head. "I think you got a loony," I said. "But don't quote me." I started toward the door. "I got work to do, gents, but I'll look in again a little later. Hope you get rid of your pest."
"We'd better," Mike moaned dismally.
"Brother," Mort declared, pulling his hair and making a sincerely distraught face, "you're not kidding!"
I looked at the telephone booth and shook my head. "Somebody is," I told them....
* * * * *
For perhaps three hours I was able to concentrate on my work, with the telephone booth distraction cropping up only about every fifteen minutes or so to give me the fidgets.
At the end of that time, a little before two o'clock, I finally covered up my reproachful typewriter and, on the excuse that I wanted a coke, left the office to go down and see how the boys were doing with the determined loony on their telephone.
The "cigar store" was crowded with the usual early-afternoon hang-arounders when I walked in. Mort and Mike, each behind a dice board, were accommodating trusting suckers who had somehow gotten the mistaken idea that Hooligan was a game you beat every other time.
Mike, looking up, noticed my entrance first. He signaled to me, muttered an excuse to the dice roller at his board, and came quickly around the counter. He took me by the arm and steered me out into the building lobby.
"Listen, pal," he half-whispered, "fer gawdsakes don't say anything about the jerk on the telephone. Mort and me ain't told anyone, fer fear of the ribbing we'd get, plus the kick in the pants it would give our regular betting business over the counter."
"You mean the guy's still on the telephone?" I demanded.
Mike nodded a little sickly. "We can't get him off. And since we ain't letting on to no one about the phone being fritzed that way, every time he rings, we pretend we're getting an odd change, or some scratches or result. Mort an' me have been running our legs off, using a telephone next door to get our prices and results and such dope from the syndicate. But don't let on. We ain't told no one!"
"Okay," I promised. "I'll keep mum. But who in the hell do you suppose it is?"
Mike lowered his voice even more, looking furtively around the building lobby.
"Confidentially, although we don't dare draw attention to our joint since the State's Attorney is telephone prowling, Mort and me decided you was right. It must be a loony. All we can do is wait until he gets tired and gets off."
I nodded. "That's about all you can do," I agreed. "Does he still want to talk to Hitler and Mussolini?"
Mike nodded disgustedly. "Worse than ever. Calling every twenty minutes now. Mort and me is going crazy answering them calls and pretending they ain't nothing but syndicate results."
"I don't blame you," I said. "I would, too." Mike went back into the store and behind the dice board. I took a coke out of the cooler and uncapped it on the side of the machine.
Mort sent me a message in his glance, and I nodded reassuringly to him.
"I don't know anything," I said.
Mort grinned a sick, grateful sort of grin, and went back to the task of taking quarters from his customers. Taking my time with my cigarette, I finished my coke. Then the telephone rang, as I'd been waiting for it to do.
Mort dashed to the booth, closed the door as he entered, and for several flushed minutes appeared to be talking into the phone and writing something on a scratch pad. But I knew it was an act from the pained expression on his face. I knew that the loony was babbling away again and that Mort was having to listen for the sake of the pose.
When at last he hung up, he emerged mopping his face with a gaily colored handkerchief. The look he shot me was confirmation enough that the loony was still on the wire.
* * * * *
Unable to feel too sorry for the boys, I concealed a grin behind a yawn, nodded to them both, and left the place. Upstairs once more in my office I got back into a rather muggy stream of work on which I found difficulty concentrating.
For some reason I couldn't at first explain to myself, I kept thinking about the telephone loony of Mike and Mort's. Not because of the ironically ridiculous turmoil it threw them into, but for some other reason far more subtle, but which I was unable to put my finger on.
The thing amused me, puzzled me, and yet, somehow was beginning to trouble me. Not through any great sympathy for Mike or Mort, of course. It will be a cold day when my heart bleeds for bookmakers. But something or other was growing more and more bothersome. I thought about it a while, then shoved it out of my mind and got back to work.
I was able to grind along for a couple of hours without having it come back into my mind. And when it popped up again, I shoved it away once more just as quickly. I had to get that work out, and I knew I wouldn't if I stewed any longer over the telephone loony who was quite probably still playing hob with Mike and Mort at that moment.
It was a little after five o'clock, five-fifteen, to be exact, when--work or no work--the thing hit me. Bang! Like that I knew what'd been in the back of my mind.
How in the name of blazes had the telephone loony been able to stay on that wire so indefinitely? Why hadn't the operator broken in to end the connection each time Mort or Mike hung up? It seemed logical that she would have done so. The loony couldn't have just held onto the telephone and been right on tap the moment Mort or Mike picked up the hook. The loony could have called them, of course, but it would have been impossible for him to be on hand every time they picked up the telephone when it hadn't been ringing!
I left my typewriter, not even bothering to remove the page in it, and hurried out of the office. Downstairs I found the "cigar store" completely deserted except for Mike and Mort. The day's races were over, and dice customers who were willing enough to roll cubes in office time, had headed homeward.
"Brother," Mort greeted me, "you were right and how!"
"About the loony--" I began.
"That's right," Mort said. "He was as loony a loony as I've ever heard of. We finally got rid of him."
"Got rid of him?" I blurted the question.
"Yeah," Mort nodded. "And I hope for good. He just faded off, about half an hour after his voice began to get dimmer and dimmer, and that was that."
"But--" I began.
"And wait'll you hear who that bug thought he was."
"Gabby who?" I asked.
"Gabby, nuts. I messed it up the first time. He thought he was Gabriel, the Angel Gabriel, no less!" Mort exclaimed, tapping the side of his head.
"The Angel Gabriel?" I echoed.
Mort nodded. "And guess who he was calling for?"
"Don't tell me," I said.
"That's right," Mort declared. "He said he was God's secretary, Gabriel, calling from Heaven for his boss. He said his boss wanted to talk to Hitler and Mussolini!"
* * * * *
I blinked. "And what was God going to tell those lice?"
"To take it on the lam, or else!" Mike broke in.
"No fooling?"
"So help me!" Mort swore. "What a loony. He went on to say--this fake Angel Gabriel--that his boss just wanted to tell those two jerks, Adolf and Benito, that enough was enough and they were dead ducks for sure."
"What made this Gabriel from the nut house get so
confidential all of a sudden?" I demanded. "He wouldn't tell his business at all at first."
"This'll kill you," Mort said. "The connection, like I say, kept getting fainter and fainter, and our goofy Gabriel said it was fading off and that we'd have to hand the message on to Hitler and Mussolini for his boss, if we couldn't bring the two jerks to the phone to hear it in person."
"Did he bother to explain," I asked, "why he didn't call Adolf and Benito directly, if his boss wanted to tell them off?"
"So help me," Mort declared, "he did. He said that with the war all over our globe like it is, there was a lot of space interference everywhere preventin' communication. He said he couldn't be choosy, and had to use any wire he could get through to. It happened to be ours. Can you beat it?"
I shook my head slowly. "No," I said, "I can't. But what trick could he have used to stay on the phone indefinitely, connected right to your wire, even after you hung up on him each time?" And then, briefly, I explained the rest of my puzzle over that little item.
"If you can figure that out," I concluded, "we'll have to admit that, loony or not, he was nothing less than a mad genius."
Mort shrugged. "I'm no telephone man," he said, "but there must be some explana--" His sentence stopped abruptly, and he and Mike seemed to be looking over my shoulder.
I turned, to see an overall clad chap carrying a canvas toolbag just stepping through the door. He smiled cheerfully at the three of us.
"I'm the man from the telephone company," he said amiably. "I got here a little earlier today, missed you last night. Had to have the night elevator operator let me into your store. Hope you weren't too inconvenienced today."
"What's it all about?" Mort demanded. "What do you mean? You know about the loony?"
The telephone man had stopped by the booth. He was opening his tool bag. He looked up.
"Loony? No, I'm sorry, I don't know anything about any loony."
"Who called himself the Angel Gabriel?" Mike broke in.
The telephone man smiled up at us in genial bewilderment.
"I'm sorry, gentlemen," he said, "I don't quite get the drift of all this. All I know is that I was in here last night to disconnect your telephone temporarily, and I'm back again tonight to return it to service. I saw your "Out of Order" sign there, so I thought you'd expected me and knew all about it."
* * * * *
Mort stepped forward. His face a curious picture of bewilderment and disbelief, he asked:
"Wait a minute! You mean to say this telephone hasn't been connected all day today?"
The telephone man nodded. "That's right. But I'm putting it back in order now."
"We got calls over that phone today!" Mike asserted vigorously. "It couldn't have been disconnected."
The telephone man chuckled. "Good joke. You couldn't have received a call over this telephone. It would have been utterly impossible. It was completely disconnected." He went on tool sorting.
Mike was looking at Mort. Mort was looking at the telephone man. I was looking at all three, and the telephone man was unconcernedly taking out wires from his bag.
"You--you aren't kidding?" Mort's voice came choked. "This was really disconnected?"
The telephone man shoved the booth a little to one side, grabbed some wires then visible beneath the booth, and pulled them forth. They were all neatly severed, with the ends taped.
Mike and Mort were staring at the severed ends of the wires, then at one another.
"Mike," said Mort, "I think it is a good idea we should get drunk."
"My old lady," said Mike, "used to believe in this sort of stuff. Maybe she wasn't such a dope."
Mort nodded. "My old man, too."
Neither said a word to me. Neither spoke to the telephone man. They just walked out, arm in arm, never looking back once, even at the cash register.
I understand they got drunk that night. But I understand Mike kept his ulcer carefully under the explosive line, so that he passed the enlistment exams the following morning. Mort left his medical statements home, and of course a direct exam showed him nicely suited for the army. They were inducted by noon that day, and on their way to camp by dinner time.
They left that sign on the door. The sign that puzzled so very many people, even to the "God Bless America" on it. For Mike and Mort were as little known for their religious leanings as they'd been for their patriotic urgings.
Relatives of the two, I am told, disposed of the store's stock and equipment. Mort didn't discuss any of that in the short note he left for me before leaving with Mike.
"Dear Chum:
Of course when you get a message like we got, and are told to pass it along personally to the two jerks it was intended for, there's nothing else you can do. We'll see that it gets to Adolf and Benito--for Gabriel's boss.
Mort & Mike."
* * *
Contents
THE HUDDLERS
By William Campbell Gault
He was a reporter from Venus with an assignment on Earth. He got his story but, against orders, he fell in love--and therein lies this story.
That's what we always called them, where I come from, huddlers. Damnedest thing to see from any distance, the way they huddle. They had one place, encrusting the shore line for miles on one of the land bodies they called the Eastern Seaboard. A coagulation in this crust contained eight million of the creatures, eight million.
They called it New York, and it was bigger than most of the others, but typical. It wasn't bad enough living side by side; the things built mounds and lived one above the other. Apartments they called them. What monstrosities they were.
We couldn't figure this huddling, at first.
All our attention since Akers' first penetration into space had been directed another way in the galaxy, and though I'll grant you unified and universal concentration may be considered unwise in some areas, it's been our greatest strength. It's brought us rather rapidly to the front, I'm sure you'll agree, and we're not the oldest planet, by a damned sight.
Well, by the time we got to the huddlers, Akers was dead and Murten was just an old man with vacant eyes. Jars was handling the Department, though you might say Deering ran it, being closer to most of the gang. Jars was always so cold; nobody ever got to know him really well.
They divided on the huddling. Fear, Jars said, and love, Deering said, but who could say for sure?
As Deering said to me, "What could they fear? They've got everything they need, everything but knowledge and their better specimens are getting closer to that, every day."
In the laboratory, Deering said this, and how did we know old Jars was in a corner, breaking down a spirigel?
"They fear each other," Jars said, as though it was an official announcement, as though any fact is permanent. "And they fear nature. It's the most fear ridden colony of bipeds a sane mind could imagine."
Deering looked at me, and winked.
Jars went back to the spirigel.
Deering said, "Love, love, love. All they sing about, all they write about, all they talk about, love, love, love."
Jars was just tracing a z line on the spirigel and he put down his legort at that. "Rather superficial thinking, from a scientist," he said quietly. "Surface manifestations to be considered as indicative. Oral and verbal camouflage to be accepted as valid. Deering, old thing, please--"
Deering shrugged. "So I am--what do they call it, a Pollyanna. Isn't that a pretty word? So, I'm a Pollyanna."
"I rather think that describes you partially," Jars said, "and with this particular planet we're discussing, it can be a dangerous attitude."
"So?" Deering said, nudging me. "And could I ask why?"
"Ask it."
"I ask."
"You've recorded the state of their development. They have, among other things, achieved nuclear fission."
"So? In the fourth grade we are teaching nuclear fission."
"We are a scientific people. They haven't been, until very, very recently. You
have noted, I hope, their first extensive use of this new discovery?"
"Hero--Helo--" Deering shrugged. "My memory."
"Hiroshima," Jars supplied. "Love--, my friend?"
"I have noted it," Deering said. "We spoke, a while ago, of surface manifestations."
"We shall continue to. You have witnessed the mechanical excellence of their machines, in some ways beyond ours, because of their greater element wealth. You have noted the increased concentration of their better minds, their scientific minds. How long do you think it will be, friend, before they are ready for us?"
"Ready, ready--? In what way, ready?"
"The only way they know, the only thing they seem to have time for--ready for war."
"War--," Deering said, and sighed. "Oh, Jars, they will be beyond war, certainly, before they are cognizant of us. They are no tribe of incompetents; they grow each day."
"They--?" Jars' smile was cynical. "Their scientists grow. Are their scientists in command, sir?"
That "sir" had been unnecessary; Jars was the senior mind, here. Deering didn't miss it, and he flushed.
Jars said softly, "I apologize. It was not a thing to say. I have spent too much time in the study of these--monsters."
They had gone to school, together, those two, and the bond was there and the respect, but they were different, mentally, and each knew it.
"You have a sharp tongue," Deering said, "but a sharper mind. I believe I can stand it." He smiled. "Love, fear, hate--what does it matter to us, except as phenomena?"
"It matters to us, believe me, please. It concerns us very much, Arn."
When Jars got to first names, he was emotionally wrought. I looked at him in surprise. And so did Deering. We weren't ever going to warm up to him, but he was our best mind and there wasn't a man in the department who didn't appreciate that.
We stared at him, and he sat down on the high bench near the Maling converters. He looked old and he was tired, we could see. "Evil," he said quietly. "Fear, hate, evil--which of the three is the father and which are the sons? I suppose fear is the father."