by Don Wilcox
* * *
The previous night’s meeting in the park had gone over with a bang. Thanks to the Yippee Girl, it had been almost as exciting as a football victory.
“Maple City is the greatest little city in the world!” the mayor had thundered, with the air of an oracle coining a phrase, and five thousand listeners had roared their applause.
The band blared, the mayor orated, and the Yippee Girl whooped it up with comedy gags fresh from New York’s slickest radio studios. And at the end, she wrapped up the event, so to speak, by making everybody bust a lung with some old-time community singing.
That did it. Every man, woman and child went home completely sold on their own deal Maple City. Maple City would soon become the most noted little city in America.
How? Well, no one knew precisely how. But everyone was figuring. For the big idea of the evening was the mayor’s announcement of a ten thousand dollar contest.
Ten thousand dollars would be paid to the person or persons who performed the greatest service to the world in the name of Maple City.
“Every city from coast to coast will be imitating us, you’ll see,” Mayor Channing said to the Yippee Girl afterward, as they rode away in the official car. “Yes sir, Maple City is my own little oyster. Right in the palm of my hand. Notice how that crowd whistled and stomped when I got up to speak?”
“Oyster—m-m-m,” the Yippee Girl murmured. She was looking out the window.
“What do you see?” the mayor asked.
“The cutest little restaurant. I wonder what they serve.”
The mayor lifted an· eyebrow.
“Hungry, Yippee? How about a drink at my private club?”
“No drinks, thanks.”
“All right, they’ve got sandwiches and things. I told the boys I’d bring you right over after the speech. They’re all set for you.”
“The boys? Who?”
“My pals that help me run the city.”
The Yippee Girl frowned. “You mean the city councilor something?”
In answer the mayor winked at her.
For a moment her glamour role slipped and she was just plain Susie Carson, struggling over a high school course in government. She gave her blonde head a toss, the way she used to do when she and the teacher were about to get into a rugged argument. Then she remembered that the yellow hair wasn’t stringing down over her eyebrow, as in school days, but was done up in gorgeous waxen sweeps and swirls, and that she was the glamorous radio bombshell who knew all the answers in gags of one syllable. She said, “Oh, you mean the boys.”
“Sure. You know,” the mayor winked again. “Back of the scenes, we’ve got the city in the palm of our hands.”
“Yippee!” she said with a little gulp.
“It’s our own little oyster.”
“Oysters!” Susie Carson was famished. She hadn’t dared eat a bite before the program. That alone was enough to give her an awful emptiness in the stomach, without all this talk about “The boys” to make matters worse. Again she was only Susie Carson. It was dawning on her that she had been brought in as a front, to sell a bill of goods to the people; and now she was about to see the sham behind the scenes.
Five minutes later a dozen overstuffed men in a dimly lighted club room were drinking a toast to her, and she was playing her part as their honored guest with all the cordiality she could muster.
“Whoop it up for Maple City!” she shouted.
“Yippee!” the boys echoed, lifting their glasses.
“Which one of you boys is going to win that ten thousand dollar prize?”
The mayor looked at his cronies, and Susie Carson watched the sly smiles spread through the group.
“Shall we tell her?” the mayor asked. “It’s this way, Yippee. Confidentially, no one will ever win it. See, we put the requirements so high—well, when no one comes through it’ll gradually be forgotten.”
“Ugh? Then what about the ten thousand?”
The mayor winked and patted her on the shoulder. “Come back in a year and see our new club room. We’ll put on a real party. Yippee!”
They were all yelling “Yippee for Yippee!” when they were interrupted by a commotion from the rear room.
“We’ve got an eavesdropper, boss!”
The doorman arid a bartender ushered a round, unkempt, pumpkin-faced fellow into their presence.
“We caught him listenin’ at the north window.”
“Bring him in. Let’s have a look at him,” said the mayor.
The fellow ambled in willingly grinning like a boy. He seemed to be taking it as a joke on himself. He looked around the circle of searching eyes, and his head ducked forward each time he noticed something that surprised him. First, the girl; then, three bottles on a small table; finally, the mayor himself.
“Ugh! Hizonner! In person!”
“Who are you?” the mayor demanded.
“They call me Jimmy Ruggles.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Nothin’.”
“That’s no answer. Were you listening at the window?”
“Tryin’ to. You gents don’t talk loud enough to make it interestin’.”
“What did you expect to hear? Speak up.”
“I missed yer speech in the park, yer honor, so I come here—”
“Don’t give us that talk!”
“An’ besides, I didn’t git to see the Yippee Gal.” Here he turned his merry eyes full upon Susie Carson. “Gosh-ding-it, you’re perty!”
She laughed. One of the boys mumbled that the fellow was simple minded but probably harmless. The mayor wasn’t so sure. He might have ordered an arrest, but the Yippee Girl decided to take matters in her own hands.
“All right, buddy, you’ve seen me now, and you can read the mayor’s speech in tomorrow’s paper. Now run along like a good boy, and no more eavesdropping. See?”
She took him by the arm and led him toward the door. He looked back, reluctant to go.
“I aim to do somethin’ big fer Maple City someday an’ win that ten thousand—”
“All right, all right,” the mayor snapped.
“My old friend, Doc Pakkerman, used to say, what this town needs is a good cleanup.”
“Get out! Get out!” the mayor exploded.
“I don’t want to hear anything about Doc Pakkerman.”
Then Susie Carson, feeling a surge of sympathy for the fellow, whispered something quite bold in his ear just as he was leaving.
“Do you want to carry my luggage for me tomorrow afternoon?”
“Huh?”
“Meet me in the Harrison lobby at five. Wear your best Sunday clothes.”
“Huh? Sure. I got a necktie.”
CHAPTER IV
By five o’clock on the day of the Yippee Girl’s departure, she had managed to shake the crowds of radio fans and public officials. For a moment she was Sue Carson, private citizen.
Jimmy Ruggles placed her bags in the taxi and opened the door for her with vastly exaggerated elegance of manner. The buttons of his blue serge coat threatened to pop whenever he bent. His bronzed face shone beneath his neatly plastered hair. When she invited him to get in and ride out to the airport with her, he was fairly incandescent with pleasure. In a moment they were riding, and Sue Carson could tell from his stumbling efforts at conversation that this was one of the supreme moments in his life. He was riding with a celebrity! Moreover, she had complimented his bright red and yellow necktie.
“You spoke of Dr. Pakkerman, Jimmy,” she said. “Does he live here?”
Jimmy Ruggles instantly lost his self-consciousness. Doc Pakkerman was someone he could talk about.
“Use to. He ain’t livin’ now.”
Was he a friend of Mayor Channing?”
“Gee-gosh, no. They was enemies. But they kept outa each other’s way. The mayor would dodge Doc because Doc knew so much. Doc woulda cleaned out the Channing boys and run the town right if he’d lived. How come you ask?”
/>
“Just curiosity,” said Sue. “I’ve been whooping it for the mayor for the last twenty-four hours, and I just wondered what the score was.”
“Then I can tell you, Miss Yippee. I got a secret wish that I could carry on fer Doc, now he’s gone. That’s why I was listenin’ last night. I’ve done it before. I hear lots of things that they wouldn’t want in newspapers.”
“Such as?”
“Such as takin’ bribes an’ fixin’ deals an’ balancin’ up the city books to look nice.”
Her eyes widened. “You know plenty, Jimmy!”
“But I ain’t kiddin’ myself. I ain’t got the brains to do nothin’ about it.”
“Cleaning up a town is a big job for any man,” Sue said consolingly. “By the way, what happened to your friend Pakkerman?”
“Well, not many folks know. He was doin’ lot of work in science, they say, and workin’ a little at city politics on the side. Then one day he disappeared. He never came back.” Jimmy cleared his throat. “I happened to bump into him over in Africa. He was changed, but I knew him, even if he didn’t remember me. To make it short we got took in on an ornery job.
“The upshot was that only twenty out of a hundred of us come through. I was lucky. Doc didn’t do so well.”
“Too bad.”
“I still see·it in my dreams—him tumblin’ over that embankment with a mile of sheer drop under him. Him and dozens more. Like jumpin’ beans shakin’ off a shelf.”
“Strange.”
“An’ every time I dream over it I try to figure how any good come out of that sacrifice. We’d come up by boat through a long river to a lake. There was a navy captain runnin’ the show an’ he claimed we had a job to do. An’ we done it. He was a damn good captain too, if you’ll excuse the French. But I never could figure—”
The taxi drove on to the airport grounds, circled around the side of a hangar and came to a stop near the bright yellow monoplane, Yippee.
“—but I never could figure—”
Jimmy gulped like a frog. “Gosh-ding it, there he is!”
“Who?”
“That big tall guy lookin’ at the plane. I’d known him on the moon.”
“Who is he? Not Pakkerman? You said he was dead.”
“It’s the captain—the bird that got me through. Sure as shootin’. Well. I’ll be—”
“You’ll be gosh-dinged,” said the Yippee Girl. “Why don’t you go out and say hello to him?”
“I can’t. I’m paralyzed!” Then Jimmy Ruggles bounded out of the taxi so quick the buttons popped off his coat. His necktie streaming like a comet, he bolted across to the plane, shouting, “Well, if it ain’t Captain Burgess! Yippee! Yee-ippee!!”
CHAPTER V
The second morning after their meeting the good plane Yippee met the dawn somewhere beyond the Atlantic. With Allen Burgess at the controls it was cutting a steady course toward a certain area in the heart of Africa.
The Atlantic Ocean had been left far behind, and the coastal lands of the Dark Continent had rolled back into the western haze.
Burgess turned to watch Jimmy Ruggles undergo the painful ordeal of awakening.
Ruggles groaned. He smeared the folds of his round face until he got both eyes open. He ran his fingers through his tousled hair. He crawled out of his seat and leaned over Burgess’ shoulder.
“How we doin’, Captain?”
“She’s been purring like a kitten for hours,” said Burgess with a glint of satisfaction.
“Her snorin’ never bothered me none,” Jimmy said, looking back at the Yippee, Girl who was still sound asleep in her seat. The sight of her made his eyes wobble and blink.
“I didn’t mean the girl. I meant the plane,” said Burgess. “She a sweet number. We were lucky to pick her up.”
“Yeah! I’ll say. I always been kinda shy of blondes, but this one—”
“I only hope she doesn’t run out of fuel before we get there. Fortunately she’s equipped with a couple extra tanks.”
Jimmy’s eyes gave an extra wobble. “Huh?”
“She wears a nice paint job; incidentally,” Burgess added, flashing a glance at the sunlit yellow wings.
“Yeah, but I wish she wouldn’t wear so much lipstick.”
“Lipstick! I’m talking about the plane!” Burgess snorted. The presence of the girl must have tied Jimmy’s mental faculties into a knot, he decided. He only added to Jimmy’s confusion by mentioning that she had a well-shaped fuselage and a perfect pair of propellers.
“Now which are you talking about?”
“The plane! The plane!”
“Oh, Gosh-ding-it, I keep thinkin’ about the gal.” The lines of Jimmy’s face folded into deep worry. “She’s not gonna like it when she wakes up and finds out where we’re goin’. She trusted me till I bumped into you. Then things began to happen so fast that she didn’t have a chance. Every time you dropped those pills in her coffee I figured it was somethin’ stronger than aspirin.”
Allan Burgess felt a twinge of conscience. He said lamely, “She dared us to pilot her back to New York.”
“That hunk of wilderness down there don’t look to me like New York.
I figure she’ll blow a fuse—and I’m not talkin’ about the plane.”
“Leave the talking to me, Jimmy.”
“What’ll you say?”
“I’ll tell her we got off our course.
Then I’ll sell her on a pleasure tour to Africa.”
Jimmy knitted his brows. “You think she’ll like it?”
Allan gave him a wink “With a handsome guy like you along, how could she miss?” he pointed. “S-s-sh.
She’s waking up.”
Sue Carson came to life with such sweet, feather-brained little mumblings that Allan thought she was going to be in a very pleasant mood. But all of that changed when she looked out at the sun, high in the sky, and then down toward the uninhabited wilderness of land below.
Her eyes widened.
“What time is it? Why haven’t we reached New York?”
“Miss Yippee—”
Allan rose and placed a hand on her shoulder. She removed the hand, gently and decisively.
“Miss Yippee, how would you like to take a trip to Africa?”
“Africa! Great grasshoppers!”
“Have you ever been to Africa?”
“Never been near it.”
“You’re nearer than you think,” said Jimmy, lifting an eyebrow.
The Yippee Girl looked down at the passing scene. Her eyes squinted, then widened, and suddenly they were blazing anger at Allan.
“Are you telling me that—”
“Don’t look now, Miss Yippee, but Africa is only a parachute jump from where you’re standing.”
She cocked her head, and said, in a very sarcastic tone, “Don’t tell me. I can guess. You got off your course, didn’t you! Sure!”
“How’d she know, Captain?” Jimmy asked.
The Yippee Girl stormed.
“You ‘can’t do this to me! I’ve got to be in New York. I’ve got an engagement. Three o’clock this afternoon. Turn back! I’ve got to be there!”
“You’ll have to sit this one out, honey.” Allan said, trying to be agreeable about it.
“I can’t do it. They’ll be furious. They’ll try to trace me. They won’t know what’s happened. There’ll be headlines, and they’ll start a search—”
“Easy, Yippee. You underestimate me. Your radio-telephone enabled me to take care of all that. I called your agent.”
“You called my agent? When?”
“Just after we took off. I explained things. I told him you had a sudden urgent call to fly to Africa.”
“I had no such thing.”
“Oh yes, you did. It was a loud, clear call, I heard it myself.”
“You and who else?”
“Jimmy. He heard it, too. Didn’t you, Jimmy?”
“Heard what?” said Jimmy blinking. “All I heard was a
swish every time you dropped those pills in her coffee.”
“Jimmy!”
“O-oh! So that’s how it happened! I wondered how I could be dizzy. Well!” She was nodding slowly, her fists on her hips.
“Are you sore at us?” Jimmy asked.
She must have counted ten slowly, Allan thought. She dropped into a seat, giving forth a saccharine smile that would have withered a man of lesser courage. That versatile voice of hers was good for a fine variety of sarcastic inflections, all of them deadly.
“How could I be sore at two nice fellows like you?”
“Ugh?” Jimmy was in danger of taking her seriously.
“I’m just so happy to have a nice joy ride with you two handsome boys.”
“Gosh!” Jimmy blurted. “That’s what the captain said you would be. He said—”
“S-sh!” Allan gestured for silence. “Miss Yippee has the floor.”
“Thank you. Now that we’re all settled down for a cozy little conference, with the African jungles flying under us, won’t you tell us the story of your life, Mr. Burgess? Begin with the severe bump on the head that you must have got when you were a child. Tell us all the strange things it makes you do. Go ahead, Captain. Where are we going, and why? Tell us all.”
“With pleasure,” said Allan, swelling his chest for the occasion. “Ladies and gentlemen, three days ago I had an encounter with a fortune teller—”
“Oh, no! No, please, Mr. Burgess!”
“Her name was Madame Lasanda, and she has an office in the Garmond Building in Maple City. I talked with her yesterday afternoon, and the things she told me—”
He paused. The Yippee Girl was leaning back looking at the ceiling, drumming her fingers on the arm rest, mumbling quietly, “New York. Three o’clock. Important engagement—and he meets a fortune teller! . . . Go on, Captain. You fascinate me, You’re so original!”
Allan felt the lines around her eyes tighten. This farce was all well enough on the surface. But when it came to defining the real purpose back of his rash behavior, the toughest nerves tightened through his spine. He wasn’t going to be angry, but he was as determined as a bullet on its course.
“Listen. Miss Yippee. I’m checking up on eighty dead men. Not so many months ago. I left them on the side of a mountain. I’ve just learned that there’s a big reason for checking up.”