Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  De Wolfe leaned forward. “It’s really simple when you grasp it. You’re Pete Manx, all right. But I’m you, too! Only I’m you thirteen years from now. In 1942, see? I come back via a time machine to tip you off on what’s gonna happen in the next few days. So’s we can make a fortune!”

  Manx was white about the nostrils, and he shrank slightly as he gazed at his visitor. Doubt of the latter’s sanity was plain in his eyes.

  “Look,” he pleaded desperately. “It’s just a new approach for a fortune-tellin’ racket, ain’t it? Tell me it’s all just a joke!”

  De Wolfe scowled, losing patience. “Of course not, dope. I’m on the level. I’m Pete Manx, come back from the future. I know what’s gonna happen an’ it means millions for us. If you think you ain’t got the capital—though naturally I know to the penny what you’re worth—I’ll give it to ya. After all, it’s all us, ain’t it?”

  Manx placed fingers to temples as if to stay the flight of reason.

  “You say you’ll gimme the dough to make these millions?” he asked hopefully. “Then what?”

  “We play the stock market. Sell short. On October twenty-fifth there’s gonna be a market crash that’ll wipe out billions in a few days an’ start a depression that—”

  Manx burst into wild laughter.

  “A stock market panic!” he croaked. “Now I know you’re crazy! Lemme out of here!”

  DE WOLFE hurriedly blocked the doorway.

  “I never woulda believed,” he observed bitterly, “that I was such a dumb ox in my youth. But just to show you I know what the future’s bringin’, I’ll run up a few thousand bucks. What’s today, the sixteenth?

  “Okay. Tomorrow Hocking Valley will close on the Exchange up thirty points. An’ on Friday Adams Express will jump fifty-six points. Watch me go for a financial ride. I’ll meet you here Saturday a.m. with the proof. Satisfied?”

  Manx peeped assent, and Peter de Wolfe departed.

  The next two days made Wall Street legend. The mysterious stranger, bland Peter de Wolfe, piled up thousands of dollars in a few swift deals—with stocks whose quotations Pete had memorized, of course, from the back newspaper files in the Public Library some years in the future.

  The name of this new trading genius spread like wildfire throughout the financial district, and by Friday evening de Wolfe was not only wealthy but famous. His broker groveled at every gesture, and almost killed himself laughing at de Wolfe’s ungrammatical witticisms. It was all most flattering.

  So it was a somewhat puffed-up de Wolfe who dropped in condescendingly at Manx’ Coney Island office Saturday morning. And his surprise was only natural when he found himself arrested and hustled off to the nearest jail.

  “I demand,” he demanded of the police magistrate, “to know what the dickens this is all about!”

  He was referred to Pete Manx, sitting uneasily in one corner.

  “This gentleman made the complaint. Fortune-telling.”

  De Wolfe stared sourly at himself, so to speak.

  “You sad, foolish character,” he pronounced. “I’m no penny-ante tea-leaf reader. I’m you, back from the future to help you cash in on the stock market crash—”

  Three quiet, professional-looking men moved in softly, smilingly and began to ask soothing questions. Alienists, obviously. They probed de Wolfe’s curious hallucination concerning a Wall Street debacle, his weird claim to be from the future.

  It was too plain what had happened. Pete Manx, ordinarily the most fearless of men, had been thoroughly scared by de Wolfe’s insane talk. There is something about madness that frightens even the courageous. Manx wanted the stranger put away.

  De Wolfe saw there was but one thing to do: plead guilty and get out as quickly as possible. This would give him time to rearrange his strategy. He thrust furiously up to Pete Manx.

  “You’re a sap!” he yelled. “I mean, I’m a sap! Well, anyhow I’m disgusted with us! I offer you a blueprint of the future, an’ you try to get me tossed in the jug!”

  A couple of police reporters, attracted by the row, drifted up.

  “If you’re so wise to what’s going to happen, swami,” one of them asked, “how’s about a hot tip on the afternoon’s football games?”

  “Sure,” de Wolfe snapped back. “Cornell over Princeton, thirteen to seven. Sure thing for your bets.”

  The reporters dissolved in gales of laughter. Cornell hadn’t taken Princeton for twenty-two years. De Wolfe was infuriated as he turned to the magistrate and offered to plead guilty to violation of the ordinance prohibiting fortune-telling.

  “Hearing Tuesday,” he was informed. “Thirty dollars bail.”

  As a final crusher, de Wolfe whipped out a thousand-dollar bill.

  “Okay, small-time,” he demanded. “Change this!”

  At least he had the satisfaction of making a terrific exit.

  That characteristic gesture, however, proved a bad mistake. It caught the attention of the reporters, who at once got de Wolfe’s name from the police blotter and wrote up the story. When Cornell won the game, the story became so much the better. And when someone in the editorial rooms finally connected this wealthy seer with Peter de Wolfe, the Wall Street sensation, it became a front-page matter.

  WHEN de Wolfe showed up in court Tuesday morning, expecting to pay a small fine and get back at once to the important task of convincing Pete Manx, he found the place packed to the rafters. Most ominous was the phalanx of expensively dressed men who surrounded the bench.

  De Wolfe recognized a few of them, including his broker; they were well-known operators on the Street, millionaires to the last man. Manx, too, was there, looking miserable and somewhat overawed.

  The magistrate, under obvious pressure and very nervous, opened the case. De Wolfe promptly hauled out his wallet and pleaded guilty. The millionaires closed in around the bench; murmured talk went on. Then:

  “The penalty is thirty dollars or thirty days—or both! Unless you can establish the fact of your ability to read the future.”

  The magistrate smiled with sardonic sweetness. The spectators tittered.

  “I smell fish,” said de Wolfe, taken aback.

  He didn’t quite get it, but there was some sort of plot going on. He was being threatened with thirty days in jail, and he couldn’t let them get away with that. The market would flop while he was serving his time; he would be unable to pull his proposed coup. It was sabotage, as if some Nazi agent had sneaked back in time to frustrate the noble Manxian design!

  “I thought it’d just be a fine,” he submitted, “so I didn’t bring my mouthpiece. I think I rate a continuance.”

  The rich men grumbled and the magistrate whined, but de Wolfe was within his rights. He was granted a continuation till Thursday p.m. For a moment the magistrate contemplated setting a huge bail, but sight of the defendant’s roll persuaded him it was futile.

  Temporarily free, de Wolfe went to Brooklyn to think the whole matter over, pondering the inexplicable manner in which he always managed to get into some sort of scrape whenever he was time-traveling.

  Plainly the Wall Streeters had been impressed by de Wolfe’s uncanny ability to call his shots, and were worried somewhat by his predictions of a market collapse. Not that they really believed anyone could forecast the future, but—

  De Wolfe had learned, of course, that the stock market was operated strictly for those in the know, with the little investor being used as suckers as much as possible. That was all right by de Wolfe, whose flexible scruples would have allowed him to play along, if only the big shots had approached him reasonably.

  But no. They treated him as an outsider, someone to be feared, a financial leper who seemed to have stumbled upon a system to beat the market and who threatened to upset everything by letting the whole world know about it. So they wanted to put him on ice for a while with his mouth shut.

  In case there really was anything to his claims, either economic or psychic, they alone would be able to tak
e advantage of it. The crooks! What was worse, though, they could put him away during the crucial days and thus prevent him from cashing in on the crash.

  Unless, of course, he proved he actually could read the future, and beat the rap . . .

  A slow smile spread like oil over de Wolfe’s face. There was an idea! He would prove it! That’d stop those moneybag chiselers. More, it’d convince that stubborn little lout, Pete Manx. Mentally de Wolfe retracted the epithet; after all, it was really himself. But he certainly would show those rich guys a thing or two. After worming out of jams since the dawn of civilization, this little mess would be a cinch. Trivia!

  Gently he reached up, and removing his lower dental plate gazed at it fondly. Little did he realize that it was to be the instrument of financial ruin for thousands.

  BRISKLY, then, de Wolfe visited the largest dentist in New York, a man with many assistants. To this man’s puzzlement, de Wolfe purchased two dozen lower plates. Perfect fit was unimportant, so long as they were of the same general contours and size as de Wolfe’s original set.

  Next, he ordered every one of the phony molars hollowed out and fitted with silver fillings. The dentist began to get that wild, too-familiar expression when he looked at his strange customer. But de Wolfe forestalled the phoning of any asylums by waving a huge wad of greenbacks about.

  “Just a little gag, Doc,” he explained easily. “All in fun.”

  Then, with his twenty-four silver-filled dentures, de Wolfe added to his trophies by buying a small sack of carborundum powder. Grinning in horrid anticipation, he returned to his luxurious hotel suite and began to experiment.

  First he powdered each of the silver fillings on one of the new dentures with carborundum, then slipped the plate into his mouth. For a while he sat quite still in a listening attitude. Shaking his head, he removed the first plate, threw it aside, and dusted carborundum on the fillings of a second.

  Nine times he tried his experiment without result. But with the tenth denture came success.

  The instant it slipped into place in his mouth, de Wolfe heard faint but distinct strains of music, seemingly from inside his head. It was uncanny. He laughed delightedly as a ghostly voice piped:

  “This is station XWX.”

  For what de Wolfe had done, of course, was to create a miniature radio crystal set in his mouth. To turn it off, he had merely to brush away the carborundum. The idea had come to him from recollection of a similar instance, accidental, reported in the papers in the remotely distant year of 1942. He rubbed his hands. He would, indeed, show those mugs a thing or two . . .

  When the case of Peter de Wolfe was resumed the courtroom, in contrast to the first day, was strangely empty. De Wolfe grinned at this confirmation of his deductions concerning the character and motives of the Wall Streeters. Evidently, feeling a few fast ones might be necessary, they wanted no spectators or reporters. Only the magistrate, completely cowed, and the grim-looking millionaires, and a thoroughly distraught Pete Manx were present.

  “Sorry now you messed things all up, ain’t you?” de Wolfe said to Manx. “Well, don’t worry. I’ll clear this thing up in a way that’ll convince you of what I told you the other night. Remember?”

  Manx waggled his hands in pathetic bewilderment. De Wolfe turned to the others.

  “I didn’t bring a lawyer, your honor. I’ll handle my own defense. An’ I plead not guilty because I can prove that I really do know the future.”

  The economic royalists were headed by one Bourget, who had risen from bucket shop to robber baron without wrecking more than ten of his best friends. This specimen spoke up ingratiatingly, patting de Wolfe’s back to find a place for the knife.

  “Why not dispense with this foolish pose, my friends? We’re all intelligent men. Let’s get to business, shall we? You seem to have some dangerously keen insight into market trends, and we simply wish to study your system—and see if there’s really anything to your declaration that we can expect a slump. Of course, your fantastic predictions of a complete market collapse are ridic—”

  “Nope. I know the future,” de Wolfe persisted doggedly. “An’ I’ll prove it.”

  TAKING the stand, de Wolfe launched into a swift review of world history from 1929 to 1942. He described the crash, the depression, the New Deal, the rise of Hitler, the dust bowl, the war, pinball machines, the Dodgers—and had his audience completely spellbound by his fluency and apparent familiarity with intimate detail. For an hour no one spoke a single word save de Wolfe.

  But when it was over, Bourget smiled in complete disbelief.

  “Your panorama of the future is very interesting, but preposterous in many instances. Everyone knows, for example, that German militarism has been crushed forever. And in any case, you can’t prove a single word of it, for we can’t pursue this trial for months or years just to test your story.”

  “Naturally,” de Wolfe agreed complacently. “You want evidence that you can check. Today’s happenings, for instance. What’s going on now in the world. What’ll happen in the next hour. Okay.”

  He glanced at his watch. Four p.m. He had timed it perfectly. Abstractedly he took a pinch of carborundum from his vest pocket and rubbed it onto his silver-filled lower plate, confident the others would not have the slightest suspicion what he was doing.

  Then he tuned in on the regular news broadcast, calmly repeating the latest news flashes. The million-dollar jaws began to sag as their owners looked at one another in doubt. De Wolfe capped the climax by declaring that Hush Money would win the fifth race at the Empire City race track.

  Bourget rushed but to buy a paper, returned waving it fiercely. There was nothing in that edition concerning the events de Wolfe had spoken of.

  “Of course not,” was the retort. “They ain’t happened yet. Or they’re just happenin’ now. Read tonight’s paper an’ you’ll see.” De Wolfe paused to catch the tail end of the newscast. “Look on the sports page. Take the sixth race. Ma Belle is gonna win.”

  Bourget scanned the racing news.

  “There is a horse named Ma Belle running in the sixth race. Phone the track. It ought to be running just about now.”

  Someone phoned, and came back with eyes popping. De Wolfe had called the turn on both races. The telephoner had also called a newspaper office to check on two or three of de Wolfe’s “predictions” chosen at random. They all checked, of course, though the news had not yet hit the street.

  This was the delicate moment. If asked about the seventh race, for instance, de Wolfe couldn’t answer, as the newscast was over. All he heard now was tinny music. In fact, if the tycoons stopped to reason, they might realize that he had been relating events actually an hour or two in the past.

  But he counted on the fact that they were events he couldn’t possibly have known about beforehand; that this would upset them beyond the point of reasoning the thing out.

  The long, heavy silence was finally broken by the raspy voice of Pete Manx.

  “By cripes! The guy really can read the future!”

  De Wolfe grinned, preening himself. He had won, as he had always won out so many times in the past.

  Bourget leaned over confidentially.

  “Ah—Mr. de Wolfe. About this market debacle you foresee. Do you mean all stocks will slump? For instance, I’m pretty heavy right now with New York and Harlem—er—”

  De Wolfe smiled pityingly; that was one of the stocks on which he intended to make his coup.

  “New York and Harlem will drop a hundred points in five days.”

  There was a shocked pause. “Surely my U. S. Industrial Alcohol is safe,” someone said tentatively.

  This was another of de Wolfe’s selected toboggans.

  “Tomorrow—to be known as Black Friday—your shares’ll lose twenty-five an’ a fourth points. An’ that’s just the beginning.”

  He smiled, blandly triumphant, as he sensed panic rising about him like rain-water in a leaky basement.

  FIFTY million dollars w
orth of humanity—on paper—crowded around the magistrate and began to mutter earnestly. Finally Bourget addressed de Wolfe again.

  “We’re sorry to have to do this, but it’s imperative that no word of this leak out until we—ah—safeguard our interests. And your tongue,” Bourget mopped away the sweat from his forehead, “is only too loose. You’ll have to serve your thirty days, I’m afraid.”

  “What!” de Wolfe exploded. “You can’t do this to me! The judge said himself I was free if I could prove I can read the future! Anyhow, who are you to sentence me? That’s up to hizzoner!”

  The magistrate, very hangdog, corroborated Bourget.

  “Thirty days. Case closed.” Bourget smiled grimly. “We represent considerable political influence. Catch on?”

  De Wolfe caught on. But all was not quite lost, if he could convince Pete Manx to sell short on his selected shares. He turned to the little man, only to be interrupted by Bourget again.

  “As for weasel-face there,” he pointed to Manx, “I don’t feel we should trust his tongue, either. Couldn’t you hold him for some law violation, Your Honor?”

  “Mm-m—he might be a material witness for some important case. Who knows?” The judge flashed his best campaign smile. “Better keep him here for twenty-four hours, anyhow. That be long enough?”

  Bourget agreed this would be sufficient. The jail doors closed upon de Wolfe and Pete Manx. The latter, with the expression of a man who has tormented a pussy cat, only to find himself with a tiger by the tail, was too cowed by events even to bother protesting the trumped-up charge.

  This was not the first occasion in which the ill-fated time traveler had tasted the bitter fruit of incarceration. Older prisons than this had held him briefly. But none had held him more firmly. De Wolf threatened, stormed, wheedled, and even tried bribery on the jailer, but without result. At the most crucial point of their lives, financially speaking, it was obvious that both Manxes would spend it in durance vile.

  “Wait!” De Wolfe rattled the bars. “This routine is all wtong!” he screamed. “I always get outa these jams by my wits at the last moment! It ain’t workin’ out right!”