by Fritz Leiber
Odd that a queer, neurotic girl could give you so much.
Leisurely he pushed his legs out of bed and sat up, rubbing his eyes. Whatever it was she’d given him, he’d certainly needed it. Lord, he’d been getting into a state lately. Not enough sleep, nerves on edge, fighting his job, straining too had to keep up with the world—until trifles made him tremble, a balmy magnetic inspector reduced him to cowardice, and Marcia’s wrangling of a magnificent opportunity for him made him run away from her. All that seemed ridiculous now. He had a profound sensation of being back on the right track.
Despite what he owed to it, last night was already becoming hazy in his mind, as if it were an episode that hadn’t rightly belonged in his life—a cozy but detached bit of experience framed like a picture.
People ought to have more experiences like that. Helped to break the “rhythm.”
Grinning, he got up and leisurely bathed and shaved.
He’d have breakfast downtown, he decided. Something a little special. Then amble over to the office about the time his regular lunch hour ended.
Sun-warmed, lake-cooled air drifted through the open windows. He rediscovered forgotten pleasures in the stale business of selecting shirt and necktie.
He jogged downstairs. This time the Carr Mackay in the mirror was just a jauntily reassuring counterpart, despite the circled eyes and the gray hairs here and there. He nodded casually.
He’d half thought of permitting himself the luxury of taking a cab to the Loop. But as soon as he got outside he changed his mind. The sun and air, and the soft brown of the buildings, and the blue of lake and sky, and the general feel of muscle-stretching spring, when even old people crawl out of their holes, were too enticing. He felt fresh. Plenty of time. He’d walk.
The city showed him her best profile. He found pleasure in sensing his own leisurely yet springy bodily movements, in inspecting, as if he were a god briefly sojourning on earth, the shifting scene and the passing people.
If life had a rhythm, Carr thought, it had sunk to a lazy summer murmur from the strings.
His mind idly played over last night’s events. He wondered if he could find Jane’s home again. An imposing enough place, all right. His guess about her being wealthy had hit the mark.
But he felt no curiosity. Already Jane was beginning to seem like a girl in a dream. They’d met, helped each other, parted. A proper episode. Why did so many people want encounters to lead to something? Often we see people at their best the first time. Why belabor each fresh human contact until it becomes a dull acquaintanceship?
Crossing the Michigan Bridge, he looked around idly fro the black motor-barge, but it was nowhere in sight. Far on the lake was dazzling. Next to the bridge, deck-hands were washing an excursion steamer. The skyscrapers rose up clean and gray. Cities could be lovely places at times. To crown it, he decided he’d drop into one of the big department stores and make some totally unnecessary purchase. Necktie, perhaps. Say, a new blue.
Inside the store the crowd was thicker. Pausing by the door to spy out the proper counter, Carr had the faintest feeling of oppressiveness.
So low as not to attract general attention, but distinctly audible, came a buzz. Three buzzes, close together. Then three more. Carr felt suddenly on the alert, now knowing why.
A large man began to move toward the nearest door, not with obvious haste but not losing any time. Two aisles over another large man was heading in the same direction.
Between them, a well-dressed gray-haired woman was making for the same door with steps a bit faster than seemed appropriate for her bulky figure.
They converged on her. She hurried. They caught up with her at the door.
Superficially, it might have been an aunt being accosted by two polite, solicitous nephews. No one else in the store seemed to realize that anything out of the ordinary was happening.
But Carr noted the hand on the wrist, the gentle prod—it might have been a nephew’s love tap—the indignant look and the threat to start a scene on her part, the gentle “It’ll be a lot simpler if you don’t make a fuss” eyebrow-raising on theirs, the business of escorting her toward the mezzanine stairs—as if the nephews had persuaded their rather flustered aunt to have lunch with them.
Suddenly Carr didn’t feel hungry any more. Any thoughts of subtle pleasures to be derived from idle shopping vanished from his mind. He wanted to get to his place at the office.
It wasn’t the incident itself. Nothing extraordinary about that. Just two house detectives picking up a shoplifter when the alarm signal sounded.
It was in what the thing suggested.
It had app happened too inconspicuously. It made you distrustful of crows and any security you might have thought rested in them.
Outside, the city was noisier, pushier, less friendly.
When Carr got to the office he was annoyed to notice that his heart was pounding and that he was hurrying guiltily. He forced himself to slow down and it turned out that everyone was so busy that no one had time to look up at him or say hello. As he settled down with an exaggerated feeling of relief, his phone buzzed. His heart sank, he didn’t know why.
“Morning, Carr.”
“Morning.” His lips worked. “Marcia, I’m sorry—”
“Head still on?”
“Uh?” Carr’s mind fumbled wildly at the remark. It might be sarcasm, but he couldn’t figure what sort. Of course he had “lost his head” last night but—
“Well, mine isn’t,” Marcia continued briskly. “I had a wonderful evening though, in case you’re interested.”
That cut. Marcia lost no time in punishing people, all right. Still he had it coming to him. “Marcia, I acted like a fool,” he began.
“Simply wonderful. Never know the food to be better at Kungsholm.”
She said it in the pleasantest sort of voice. No suggestion that she was trying to hurt him.
“And afterwards—that was marvelous too.”
Carr winced. The easy confidence he’d felt toward Marcia earlier in the morning evaporated. He felt altogether jealous and miserable.
“Listen, Marcia, I told you I acted like a fool—”
“What I wanted to call you about,” she interrupted, “was that I’m glad you’ve decided to change your mind about Keaton Fisher.”
The phone was silent. Carr got to the point, or thought he did. She’d forgive him, if he’d go after the Fisher job. Well, that was all right, he’d come around to that way of thinking himself. But he hated to let her believe she’d forced him into it. Still—
“I have changed my mind, Marcia,” he said.
“And I want you to make a really good impression on him Friday night.”
“I’ll try.”
“I know you will. Goodbye, darling.”
He replaced the receiver. Well, that was that. He’d committed himself. Probably for his own good.
Might have known Marcia would get her way in the end. He wondered what man she’d gone out with last night, decided he ought to put that question out of his mind.
“Coming?”
He looked up. People had their hats on and were going to lunch. Tom Elvested was standing beside his desk.
“Sure, sure,” Carr said hurriedly. “Be right with you.”
Going over to the Italian’s, his mood brightened. After all, he’d made his peace with Marcia, even though at a price. Something of the calm elation he’d felt earlier in the morning returned to him. He was half of a mind to tell Tom about last night, yet felt a queer reticence. Plenty of reason for feeling that way, though, he told himself. For one thing, he didn’t want it to get back to Marcia. For another, if he described it to Tom, it would seem just silly. Finally, there was his persistent impression that Jane knew Tom, was connected with him in some way, and right now he didn’t want to know any more about her or get involved with her in any way.
So when they’d found a table at the Italian’s and decided that the veal cutlet parmigiana looked the best, an
d Tom asked, “How was your date with Marcia?” Carr merely said, “Swell.” He hurried on to ask in turn, “And how did you get along with Midge and he girlfriend?”
“Her friend didn’t come. We couldn’t scare up another date for her at short notice. Midge tried to persuade her to come anyway, but I guess she was afraid of spoiling our twosome.”
“I’m sorry,” said Carr. “If it hadn’t been for my date with Marcia…and of course, you did ask me at the last minute.”
“Sure,” said Tom, tearing off bits of French bread and dropping them in his cup of minestrone. “Still, I’d like you to meet her some day. I think you and she have a lot in common.”
“What way?” Carr asked.
Tom fished up a spoonful of sopping bits of bread. “Oh, your more submerged qualities,” he said.
Carr looked at him for a moment, decided not to follow that one up. Might as well begin working up enthusiasm about his new future, it occurred to him. “Say, you know, Marcia’s got on to something very interesting,” he began, and while they were finishing their soup, he outlined Keaton Fisher’s plan for an editorial counseling service. The cutlets came and they were both busy for a while. Then, when Tom was wiping up the last of the tomato sauce with a fragment of break on his fork, Carr asked, “Well, what did you think of it?”
Tom chewed his bread before replying. Then he countered uninspiredly, “Are you sure it’s the sort of job you’d like?”
“Oh, hell,” Carr said, “you know that we probably wouldn’t be employment men if we were certain of the job we wanted.”
Tom grinned. “I grant you that. Just as the psychiatrist is apt to be a little crazy. But I’ve got an angle about you. I don’t think you like people.”
“Really?”
“No. Now me, I may be no great shakes at personnel work, but still I like people. I like to speculate about them. I even like to relax with them. I’m uneasy if they’re not around. But you—I think people get on your nerves. You conceal it pretty well, but I’ve caught you looking at people as if they irritated the hell out of you. It’s almost as if you felt they were queer little machines that were bothering you.”
“Oh, hell,” Carr said.
“Maybe, but all the same there’s something eating you.”
“And all of us.”
Tom sipped his coffee. “Well, in that case Keaton’s idea certainly sounds like it might be a gold mine,” he admitted, as if honestly impressed.
But there was a certain uncomfortableness between them and it lingered as they returned to the office. Damn it, Carr thought, Tom’s all wet about my not liking people. What I don’t like is the conditions under which we meet most people today—the superficiality of the contact, the triteness of ideas exchanged, and the synthetic, movie-and-radio shaped nature of the feelings involved.
He was tempted to tell Tom about Jane, to show him he could enter into the spirit of people. But he was afraid Tom might turn their argument against him by pointing out that he and Jane had behaved like two typically lonely, unsociable people.
No, he wouldn’t ever discuss Jane with anyone. It was one of those things. Over and done with. Something that would have no consequences whatever.
He and Tom climbed the one flight to General Employment. Carr stopped at the men’s room. A minute later, entering the applicants’ waiting room, he looked through the glass panel and saw the big blonde who had slapped Jane sitting in his swivel chair, rummaging through the drawers on his desk.
Chapter Five
Trail of Desire
CARR DIDN’T MOVE. His first impulse was to confront the woman, but right on its heels came the realization that she’d hardly be acting this way without some sort of authorization—and hardly obtain an authorization without good cause.
His mind jumped back to his fleeting suspicion that Jane was mixed up in some sort of crime. This woman might be a detective.
On the other hand, she might have walked into the office without anyone’s permission, trusting to bluff—her very brassiness and self-assurance—to get away with it.
Carr studied her from behind the glass panel. She was undeniably beautiful. With that lush figure, faultless blonde hair, and challenging lips, she might be a model for billboard advertisements. Even the slight out-of-focus look of her eyes didn’t spoil her attractiveness. And her gray sports outfit looked like a high-class hundred dollar or so.
Yet there was something off-key, unpleasantly exaggerated, overripe about even her good looks and get-up. She carried the lush figure with a blank animal assurance’ there was unhidden cruelty in the challenging lips, there was an unashamed barbarousness in the two big silver pins piercing her mannish gray sports hat. She seemed utterly unconcerned with and contemptuous of the people around her. She glanced through Carr’s folders with the cold detachment of a biologist examining cancer slides. If ever there was a woman who gave the impression of simply using people, of using the world, this was she. Carr felt strangely cowed.
But the situation was getting impossible, he told himself. Tom, apparently busy with some papers at the next desk, must be wondering what had happened to him and what the devil woman was up to.
Just then the blonde dropped back a folder, shut a drawer, and stood up. Carr faded back into the men’s room. He waited perhaps fifteen seconds, then cautiously stepped out. The woman was no longer in sight. He looked into the outside corridor. It was empty. He hadn’t heard the elevator for the last few seconds. He ran to the head of the stairs. He spotted the gray sports coat going though the revolving door. He hurried down the stairs, hesitated a moment, then darted through the lobby entrance into the small tobacco and magazine store adjoining. He could probably still catch a glimpse of her through the store’s show window. In any case, it would be less conspicuous than dashing right out on the sidewalk.
The store was empty except for a middle-aged man who, in the proprietor’s absence, was coolly leaning across the counter and helping himself to a package of cigarettes. Carr ignored this slightly startling scene and moved quietly toward the window. With commendable nerve—or perhaps he was a bit deaf—the middle-aged man tore open the filched pack without looking around. He was well-dressed and inclined to portliness.
Just then Carr glimpsed a patch of familiar gray approaching and realized that the blonde woman was coming into the tobacco shop from the street.
The lobby door was too far away. Carr sidled behind a magazine rack.
The first voice he heard was the woman’s. It was as disagreeable as her manner.
“I searched his desk. There wasn’t anything suspicious.”
“And of course you did a good job?” The portly man’s voice was quite jolly. “Took your time? Didn’t miss anything?”
“Of course.”
“Hm.” Carr heard a match struck and the faint crackle of a cigarette igniting. His face was inches away from a line of luridly covered magazines.
“What are you so worried about?” The woman sounded quarrelsome. “Can’t you take my word for it? Remember, I checked on them yesterday.”
“Worry pays, Miss Hackman, as you’ll discover when you’ve been in the situation a bit longer.” The portly man sounded pleasanter than ever. “We have strong reason to suspect the girl. I respect your intelligence, but I’m not completely satisfied. We’ll do another check on the girl tonight.”
“Another? Aren’t we supposed to have any time for fun?”
“Fun must be insured, Miss Hackman. Hardly be fun at all, would it, if you felt someone might spoil it? And then if some other crowd should catch on…No, we’ll do another check.
“Oh, all right.” The woman’s voice expressed disgusted resignation. “Though I suppose it’ll mean prowling around for hours with the beast.”
“Hm. No, I hardly think the beast will be necessary, Miss Hackman.”
Carr, staring sightlessly at the pulp and astrology magazines, felt his flesh crawl. It wasn’t so much the murky import as the utter matter-of-factne
ss of the conversation.
“Why not let Dris do it?” he heard the woman say. “He’s had the easy end lately.”
“Hm. That’s a possibility, all right. We’ll think it over.” The portly man’s voice was moving toward the street door. “Best be getting on now.”
Several seconds later Carr peered around the rack. Through the window he could see the big blonde and the portly man entering a black convertible. The driver was a bored-looking young man with a crew haircut. As he turned toward the others, throwing his right arm along the top of the seat, Carr saw that it did not end in a hand, but a hooked contrivance. He felt a thrill of recognition. These were the three people Jane had mentioned in her note, all right. “…affable-seeming older man…” Yes, it all fitted.
The driver had his hand hook on the wheel, but the car didn’t move yet. All three of them seemed to be discussing something. Again Carr got that intimidating impression of power he’d had when watching the woman upstairs.
The driver seemed to lose interest in the discussion. Turning sideways again, he dangled his hook into the back seat. There was a flash of glistening black, which instantly vanished. Carr felt another shiver crawling along his back. Perhaps the driver had merely flirted up the corner of a black fur driving robe. But this was almost summer and the black flash ha been very quick.
The middle-aged man seemed to speak sharply to the driver. The convertible began to move. Carr hurried to the window. He got there in time to see the convertible swinging around the next corner, rather too swiftly for sensible downtown driving.
He stood there for a few seconds, then turned around. The proprietor had returned, but Carr ignored him. He slowly walked upstairs.
He hesitated at Tom’s desk. He had half an impulse to tell Tom about things, ask him about the woman, but the big Swede was busy with an applicant. Another applicant was approaching his own desk. Frowning, he sat down.
He felt extremely puzzled, disturbed. Above all, he wanted to think things through, but as luck would have it the afternoon turned out to be a busy one.