by Isaac Asimov
“That is correct,” Miss Mackey said, and the sergeant seemed to hear again his seventh-grade teacher’s voice.
“You’re sure you didn’t call Mr. Higgins in to fix a window?” he went on. “Some of your neighbors report having heard voices in the hallway minutes before Mr. Higgins fell.”
“Certainly not,” Miss Mackey said.
“When you caught sight of him, you screamed and ordered him to leave,” the sergeant went on.
“Exactly.” Miss Mackey put down her glass and came over to the window. “He seemed to panic. He crawled out on the sill, looked back over his shoulder at me, and then he fell forward and was gone.”
“Like this.” The sergeant then climbed cautiously onto the sill and crouched there, balancing himself with his fingertips. He looked back in time to see her small, reproachful face close to his shoulder, and then he felt her hands on his back, pushing with great purpose, and he was hurtling out into space.
“Like that,” he heard Miss Mackey say very closely behind him.
It was an astonishingly long way down. The sergeant thought of his Ma, and of the cheerful, sometimes ribald girls he had loved as he grew up. He saw, in kaleidoscope, the dark places of his life and the churning colors, the chronic grand disorder of being alive. When he landed, bouncing twice in the great lap of the safety net, it was as if he had resigned himself — committed himself — forever to the way things actually were.
Westerberg helped him down.
“You want to go up or should I?” he asked sympathetically.
“You go,” the sergeant said.
He waited in the dark courtyard until Westerberg had disappeared into the building. Then he straightened his coat and went around the side of the building to where the patrol car was parked. He took out his pipe. He knew they wouldn’t be down for a while. Miss Mackey would want to wash the brandy glasses and put them away, powder her nose, and close the window before she went to the station.
A Dip in the Poole
by Bill Pronzini
I was sitting in a heavy baroque chair in the Hotel Poole’s genteel lobby, leafing through one of the plastic-encased magazines provided by the management, when the girl in the dark tweed suit picked Andrew J. Stuyvesant’s pockets.
She worked it very nicely. Stuyvesant — a silver-haired old gentleman who carried a malacca walking stick and had fifteen or twenty million dollars in Texas oil — had just stepped out of one of the chrome-and-walnut elevators directly in front of me. The girl appeared from the direction of the curving marble staircase, walking rapidly and with elaborate preoccupation, and collided with him. She excused herself. Bowing in a gallant way, Stuyvesant allowed as how it was perfectly all right, my dear. She got his wallet and the diamond stickpin from his tie, and he neither felt nor suspected a thing.
The girl apologized again and then hurried off across the padded indigo carpeting toward the main entrance at the lobby’s opposite end, slipping the items into a tan suede bag she carried over one arm. Almost immediately, I was out of my chair and moving after her. She managed to thread her way through the potted plants and the dark furnishings to within a few steps of the double-glass doors before I caught up with her.
I let my hand fall on her arm. “Excuse me just a moment,” I said, smiling.
She stiffened. Then she turned and regarded me as if I had crawled out from one of the potted plants. “I beg your pardon?” she said in a frosty voice.
“You and I had best have a little chat.”
“I am not in the habit of chatting with strange men.”
“I think you’ll make an exception in my case.”
Her brown eyes flashed angrily as she said, “I suggest you let go of my arm. If you don’t, I shall call the manager.”
I shrugged. “There’s no need for that.”
“I certainly hope not.”
“Simply because he would only call me.”
“What?”
“I’m chief of security at the Hotel Poole, you see,” I told her. “What was once referred to as the house detective.”
She grew pale, and the light dimmed in her eyes. “Oh,” she said.
I steered her toward the arched entrance to the hotel’s lounge, a short distance on our left. She offered no resistance. Once inside, I sat her down in one of the leather booths and then seated myself opposite. A blue-uniformed waiter approached, but I shook my head and he retreated.
I examined the girl across the polished surface of the table. The diffused orange glow from the small lantern in its center gave her classic features the impression of purity and innocence, and turned her seal-brown hair into a cascading black wave. I judged her age at about twenty-five. I said, “Without a doubt, you’re the most beautiful dip I’ve ever encountered.”
“I... don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you?”
“Certainly not.”
“A dip is underworld slang for a pickpocket.”
She tried to affect indignation. “Are you insinuating that I...?”
“Oh come on,” I said. “I saw you lift Mr. Stuyvesant’s wallet and his diamond stickpin. I was sitting directly opposite the elevator, not fifteen feet away.”
She didn’t say anything. Her fingers toyed with the catch on the tan suede bag. After a moment, her eyes lifted to mine, briefly, and then dropped again to the bag. She sighed in a tortured way. “You’re right, of course. I stole those things.”
I reached out, took the bag from her and snapped it open. Stuyvesant’s wallet, with the needle-point of the stickpin now imbedded in the leather, lay on top of the various feminine articles inside. I removed them, glanced at her identification long enough to memorize her name and address, reclosed the bag and returned it to her.
She said softly, “I’m... not a thief, I want you to know that. Not really, I mean.” She took her lower lip between her teeth. “I have this... compulsion to steal. I’m powerless to stop myself.”
“Kleptomania?”
“Yes. I’ve been to three different psychiatrists during the past year, but they’ve been unable to cure me.”
I shook my head sympathetically. “It must be terrible for you.”
“Terrible,” she agreed. “When... when my father learns of this episode, he’ll have me put into a sanatorium.” Her voice quavered. “He threatened to do just that if I ever stole anything again, and he doesn’t make idle threats.”
I studied her. Presently, I said, “Your father doesn’t have to know what happened here today.”
“He... he doesn’t?”
“No,” I said slowly. “There was no real harm done, actually. Mr. Stuyvesant will get his wallet and stickpin back. And I see no reason for causing the hotel undue embarrassment through the attendant publicity if I report the incident.”
Her face brightened. “Then... you’re going to let me go?”
I drew a long breath. “I suppose I’m too soft-hearted for the type of position that I have. Yes, I’m going to let you go. But you have to promise me that you’ll never set foot inside the Hotel Poole again.”
“Oh, I promise!”
“If I see you here in the future, I’ll have to report you to the police.”
“You won’t!” she assured me eagerly. “I... have an appointment with another psychiatrist tomorrow morning. I feel sure he can help me.”
I nodded. “Very well, then.” I turned to stare through the arched lounge entrance at the guests and uniformed bellboys scurrying back and forth in the lobby. When I turned back again, the street door to the lounge was just closing and the girl was gone.
I sat there for a short time, thinking about her. If she was a kleptomaniac, I reflected, then I was Mary, Queen of Scots. What she was, of course, was an accomplished professional pickpocket — her technique was much too polished, her hands much too skilled — and an extremely adept liar.
I smiled to myself, and stood and went out into the lobby again. But instead of resuming my posit
ion in the baroque chair before the elevator bank, or approaching the horseshoe-shaped desk, I veered left to walk casually through the entrance doors and out to Powell Street.
As I made my way through the thickening late-afternoon crowds — my right hand resting on the fat leather wallet and the diamond stickpin in my coat pocket — I found myself feeling a little sorry for the girl. But only just a little.
After all, Andrew J. Stuyvesant had been my mark from the moment I first noticed him entering the Hotel Poole that morning — and after a three-hour vigil I had been within fifteen seconds of dipping him myself when she appeared virtually out of nowhere.
Wouldn’t you say I was entitled to the swag?
Doctor’s Orders
by John F. Suter
The pain, the pain is everywhere. No, not everywhere. But I throb in places where there is no real pain. And now it is only an ache and a tired feeling. It seems as if there is no time, no space, nothing but this. But I am a little stronger than I was. So little. But I am stronger. I have to get well. I intend to get well. I will get well.
“Mr. Shaw, I think she’ll come out of it all right. As you know, it was either your wife or the baby, for a while. But she’s improved, I know that. Of course, there will always be the weakness. We can’t correct that.”
“I understand. Just to have her well again is all I care about.”
I had better open my eyes. Jeff isn’t here. I can’t sense him. But I can stand the white room now. I no longer have a wish to die. No, even though he didn’t live. I could cry and cry about it. I wanted to when Jeff first told me. But there is no strength in those sorts of tears. I will get well.
“You did tell her that the baby died?”
“Yes, Doctor. It was hard for her to take at first. Very hard. Then I told her that it had been a boy. That pleased her, in spite of... of what happened.”
There. The world is back. So much sunshine in the room. So many flowers. I wonder if Jeff—
“Did you tell her that the child is already buried?”
“Not yet. If you’re sure that she’s stronger, I’ll tell her today.”
“You don’t think she’ll hold it against you, Mr. Shaw? For going ahead with the funeral, I mean.”
“Jessie is very level-headed. Doctor. She’ll understand that we couldn’t wait. And — if you don’t think it’s out of style to say so — we love each other.”
I’m sure Jeff has done whatever is best. If only it — he — had lived until I could have seen him.... How long have I been here? Where is Jeff? Is he being sensible, as I begged him to be? Is he at work? I hope so. The job is so important to him. Oh, I do love him! And I do so want to give him fine children.
“Perhaps, then, Mr. Shaw, it would be better for you to tell her the rest of it. Better, I mean, than for me to do it. It might be easier for her to believe someone who loves her. Sometimes people think they know more than doctors do.”
“That part won’t be easy.”
I hope the children will look like Jeff. I’m not ugly. But I’m so — plain. Jeff has the looks for both of us. That’s one of the reasons they all said he was only after my money. But he’s refused to let me help him. He’s independent. He keeps working hard managing the sporting-goods department. And why? He wants to support us. Neither of us would ever have to work again, if we didn’t want to. I must get well, for his sake. I will get well.
“Easy or hard, Mr. Shaw, it has to be done. Someone has to tell her. It will come best from you. She must never try to have a child again. Never. It will kill her. Make no mistake about it — having another child will kill her.”
“I’ll take the responsibility. Doctor. You needn’t say a thing to her. I think I can convince her. Perhaps I can even persuade her to move away for a while. A room’s all set up for the baby. Those things shouldn’t keep haunting her.”
I’m glad I made my will before I came to the hospital. I’m glad I made it in Jeff’s favor. He doesn’t know about it. And it wasn’t necessary, as it turned out. But I’m glad. He’s been so good to me that now I’m sure of him...
The door swung inward, silently. She turned her head, slowly. A tired smile crept across her white face. A tall young man with crinkled blond hair was in the doorway.
“Jeff.”
He was at her bedside, kissing her hand. “Jessie.”
When they both could speak, she gripped his fingers. “Jeff, I’ve been lying here thinking. Everybody has troubles of some kind or other. We can overcome this. I’m going to get strong, fast. Then we’re going to have another baby. Just as quickly as we can. Aren’t we?”
He smiled proudly. The truth was exactly the right answer.
“We certainly are, sweetheart. We certainly are.”
Mrs. Twiller Takes a Trip
by Lael J. Littke
Old Mrs. Twiller ran a gnarled finger over the inexpensive wrist watches on the display card and smiled tremulously at the salesgirl.
“Could I try that one on, Miss?” she said, her voice quavering a little. “The one with the pretty brown band?”
“Why, certainly,” the salesgirl said, smiling back at Mrs. Twiller. “These are very nice watches for the price.” She strapped the watch on Mrs. Twiller’s frail wrist.
“Now, isn’t that pretty?” Mrs. Twiller said, stretching out her arm and twisting it around to admire the watch from all angles. She cleared her throat. “How much is it, my dear?” she asked hesitantly.
The salesgirl beamed. “Would you believe it? They’re only $9.98. A special, this week only. Shall I wrap that one up for you?”
“Oh, mercy, no,” Mrs. Twiller said. “$9.98? Oh, mercy.” She fumbled at the buckle on the wristband, trying to undo it.
The salesgirl looked perplexed. “It’s very reasonable,” she said. “Really, it’s a bargain for the price.”
Mrs. Twiller looked up brightly. “Oh, it’s just lovely,” she assured the girl, “but with everything so dear these days — oh, my, I couldn’t possibly spend all that on a watch. Thank you anyway. Miss.”
The girl blinked a little as she helped undo the watch. “I’m awfully sorry, ma’am.”
“That’s all right, dearie.” Mrs. Twiller patted the girl’s hand. “It’s just that a body can’t help wishing now and then.” She held the watch in her fragile hand and gazed at it with one last sympathetic look as the girl turned to another customer.
With a quick motion, Mrs. Twiller dropped the watch into the large shopping bag at her feet.
There, she thought. With the transistor radio and the electric shaver she already had in the bag, that should be enough for one day. The money Mr. Simpson would give her for them would feed her army of stray cats for several days.
As she stooped over to pick up her bag, Mrs. Twiller noticed a man watching her from two counters away. A floorwalker, no doubt. She grasped the handles of the bag and straightened up, tottering just a little not so much as to make the floorwalker come to her assistance, but just enough to make him think tenderly of his own dear old mother. She fluttered a hand to her chest and saw the suspicious look on his face fade away and be replaced by a benign smile.
Well, that took care of him. Now if he saw her drop something into her bag he would merely chalk it up to her absent-mindedness, which was certainly forgivable in a lady of her age.
It was time to leave, but first Mrs. Twiller wanted to visit the basement floor and pick up a few more plastic bowls for the new cats who just that week had found out about the private welfare center she ran. They did so appreciate their own dishes, and she liked to afford them that small dignity.
On the way down the escalator she checked her coin purse to see that she had the necessary cash. She wouldn’t think of filching anything like the dishes. That wouldn’t be ethical. She only took the other things because she just couldn’t stretch the tiny check she received weekly from her son — certainly could not stretch it to cover all the cat food she put out each day. Besides, her son kept close a
ccount of how she spent the allowance he sent her.
Actually, she thought, the department store would probably be quite proud of the humane project they were supporting, if only they knew.
Suddenly Mrs. Twiller realized she had been on the escalator for some time. She should be down to the basement floor by now. Maybe the escalator was broken. No, it was still moving. Then why was it taking so long?
Mrs. Twiller squinted into the darkness. Darkness? Why was it dark? Was there another power failure like the ones in 1965 and 1977? No, the escalator would have stopped if that were the case.
For a moment Mrs. Twiller was alarmed, then she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw a glimmer of light far down in the mists at the bottom of the escalator. Mists? Mists in a department-store basement?
The light became brighter as she descended toward it. The mists began to look more like smoke and she could detect a faint sulfuric smell. In the distance she could see what looked like vast fires. And then she caught sight of a colossal gate, topped by a spectacular sign whose flaming letters spelled out: HELL. Underneath was a smaller sign which read: Entrance.
“My stars,” marveled Mrs. Twiller aloud. “So that’s where it is, right here under the Hardware Department.”
She didn’t have much time to wonder about it because she was about to be met by an uncomfortable-looking individual who appeared to have a bad sunburn.
“Follow me, lady,” he intoned without introducing himself, which Mrs. Twiller regarded as especially bad manners. But then, she reasoned, what else could you expect in Hell?