The Collection

by Fredric Brown

  “Huh?” That was all I could think of at the moment. On top of being where he couldn't be, he had to ask me a completely screwy question.

  “The look on your face, Sergeant,” he said. “I came here to warn you, and I would swear, from your expression, that you have already received the warning.”

  “Warn me about what?” I asked.

  His face was very solemn. “Your impending death. But you must have heard it. Your face, Sergeant. You look like---like you'd had a message from beyond.”

  Barranya was standing now, facing me, and Captain Burke came in the room from the outer hallway.

  “Hello, Murray.” He nodded to me. “Something wrong?”

  I straightened out my face from whatever shape it had been and said, “Not a thing, Captain, not a thing.”

  He looked at me curiously, but went on into the inner office.

  The more I looked at Barranya, the more I didn't like him, but I decided that whether I liked him or not, he and I had a lot of note-comparing to do. And this wasn't the place to do it.

  I said, “The place across the street is open. I like their kind of spirits better than yours. Shall we move there?”

  He shook his head. “Thanks, but I'd really better be getting home. Not that I'd mind a drink, but---”

  “Somebody's trying to frame a murder rap on you,” I told him. “The Deauville Arms is full of cops. Are you still in a hurry?”

  It looked as though a kind of film went across his eyes, because they were suddenly quite different from what they had been and yet there had been no movement of eyelid or pupil. It was somehow like the moon going behind a cloud.

  He said, “A murder rap means a murder. Whose?”

  “Charlie Randall, maybe.”

  “I'll take that drink,” he said. “What do you mean by ‘maybe?’ ”

  “Wait a minute and I'll find out.” I went back into the inner office, but left the door open so I could keep an eye on Barranya. I said, “Cap, can I use the phone?” and when he nodded, I called the Randall number.

  Someone who sounded like a policeman trying to sound like a butler said, “Randall residence.”

  “This is Bill Murray. Who's talking?”

  “Oh,” said the voice, not sounding like a butler any longer. “This is Kane. We just busted in. I was going to the phone to call main when it rang and I thought I'd try to see who was---”

  “What'd you find?”

  “There's a stiff here, all right. I guess it's Randall; I never saw him, but I've seen his pictures in the paper and it looks like him.”

  “Okay,” I said. “The homicide squad's already on the way over. Just hold things down till they gel then'. I'm corning around too, but I got something to do first. Say---how was he killed?”

  “Bullet in the forehead. Looks like about a thirty-eight hole. He's sitting right there; I'm looking at him now. Harry's going over the apartment. I was just going to the phone to call---”

  “Yeah,” I interrupted. “Is he tied up?”

  “Tied up, yes. He's in pajamas, and there's a bruise on his forehead, but he isn't gagged. Looks like he was slugged in bed and somebody moved him to the chair and tied him to it, and then took a pop at him with the gun from about where I'm standing now.”

  “At the phone?”

  “Sure, at the phone. Where else would I be standing?”

  “Well,” I said, “I'll be around later. Tell Cap Holding when he gets there.”

  “Know who done it, Sarge?”

  “It's a secret,” I said, and hung up.

  I went back to the inner office. Barranya was standing by the door. I knew he'd heard the conversation so I didn't need to tell him he could erase the ‘maybe’ about Charlie Randall's being dead.

  We went across the street to Joe's, which is open twenty-four hours a day. It was five minutes after five when we got there, and I noticed that it took us a few seconds over two minutes just to get from my office to Joe's, which is half a block.

  We took a booth at the back. Barranya took a highball, but I wanted mine straight and double. My tooth was thumping like hell.

  I said, “Listen, Barranya, first let's take this warning business. About me, I mean. What kind of a hook-up did it come over?”

  “A voice,” he said. “I've heard voices many times, but this was louder and clearer than usual. It said, ‘Sergeant Murray will be killed today.’ ”

  “Did it say anything else?”

  “No, just that. Over and over. Five or six times.”

  “And where were you when you heard this voice?”

  “In my car, Sergeant, driving---let's see---along Clayton Boulevard. About half an hour ago.”

  “Who was with you?”

  “No one, Sergeant. It was a spirit voice. When one is psychic, one hears them often. Sometimes meaningless things, and sometimes messages for oneself or people one knows.”

  I stared at him, wondering whether he really expected me to swallow that. But he had a poker face.

  I took a fresh tack. “So, out of the kindness of your heart you came around to warn me. Knowing that for a year now I've been trying to get something on you so I could put you---”

  His upraised hand stopped me. “That is something else again, Sergeant. I don't particularly like you personally, but a psychic has obligations which transcend the mundane. If it was not intended that I pass that warning on to you, I should not have received it.”

  “Where had you been, before this happened?”

  “I went with a party of people to the Anders Farm.”

  The Anders Farm isn't a farm at all; it's a roadhouse and it's about fifteen miles out of town. Coming on from there, you take Highway 15, which turns into Clayton Boulevard in town.

  “I left the others there around four o'clock,” Barranya said. “We'd been there since midnight and I was getting bored, and---well, feeling queer---as often happens when I am on the verge of a communication from the astral---”

  “Wait,” I said, “were you there with someone? A woman?”

  “No, Sergeant. It was a mixed party, but there were three couples and two stags and I was one of the stags. I drove slowly coming in, because I'd been drinking and because of that feeling of expectancy. I was on Clayton, out around Fiftieth, when I heard the voice. It said, ‘Sergeant Murray will be killed to---’ ”

  “Yeah, yeah” I interrupted. For some reason, it made my tooth ache worse when he said that. I looked at him a minute trying to figure out how much truth he was telling me. I couldn't swallow that spirit message stuff.

  But the rest of it? It would be easy to get and check the names of the people he'd been with. But that was routine, up to whoever was handling the case. . . .

  Say Barranya left the Anders Farm near four o'clock. He came to my office at five, or a few minutes before. That gave him an hour. Not too long a time if he'd driven as slowly as he said. But it was possible.

  I said, “Now about Charlie Randall. What were your relations with him?”

  “Very pleasant, Sergeant. I advised him in a business way.”

  I studied him. “Meaning when he had to bump off a competitor you'd cast a horoscope to see if the stars were favorable?”

  That veil business was over his eyes again, and I knew he didn't like the way I'd put that. It was probably a close guess. We knew that Randall, like most crooks, was superstitious and that he was Sibi Barranya's best hocus-pocus sucker.

  Barranya said, “Mr. Randall conducted a legitimate business, Sergeant. My advice concerned purely legal transactions.”

  “No doubt,” I said. “Since it would be hard to prove otherwise now, we'll let it ride. But look---you're probably pretty familiar with Randall's business. Who would benefit by his death?”

  Barranya thought a moment before he answered. “His wife, of course. That is, I presume she'll inherit his money; he never consulted me about a will. And there is Pete Burd; but you know about that.”

  I knew about Pete Burd, all right
. He was the only rival Randall had had, and not too much competition at that. He put his machines in the smaller places that Randall didn't want, and that was maybe why Randall hadn't done to him what he'd done to more enterprising competitors. But now that Randall was out of the way, it would mean room for expansion for Burd.

  I let that cook for the moment. “Know where Charlie's wife is?”

  “Yes. Out of town. That is, unless she has returned unexpectedly and I haven't heard.”

  I snorted lightly. “Don't your spirits tell you things? . . . Let's get back to the warning about me. Did the what's-it suggest any reason why I might be killed?”

  “No,” he told me, “and I can see you're incredulous about that, Sergeant. Frankly, I don't care whether you take it seriously or not. I had a message and it was my duty to relay it. Any more questions? If not, I'd like to get on home.”

  I stood up. “We're both going to the same building. Come on.”

  “Fine!” Barranya said. “Want to go in my car? I presume there'll be plenty of squad cars rallying around over there to give you a lift back.”

  Well, there would be; and these days a chance to save rubber is a chance to save rubber. So I got into his car. And when I saw how smoothly it ran I wondered---as all cops wonder once in a while, but not too seriously---whether I'd picked the right side of the law. It was a sweet chariot, that convertible of his.

  “Can you get short-wave broadcasts?” I asked, assuming that a boat like his would have a radio, and ready not to be surprised if it turned out to be a radio-phono combination. I was curious to see if anything new was going out to the squad cars.

  “Out of order,” he said. “Worked early this evening, but I tried it after I left the Anders Farm and it wouldn't work.”

  We drove a few blocks without either of us saying anything, and it was then that I heard the voice:

  “Sibi Barranya killed Randall. He wanted Randall's wife.”

  I blinked and looked around at Barranya. He wasn't talking, unless he was a good ventriloquist. Not that it would have surprised me if he was, because these fake mystics dabble in all forms of trickery.

  But Barranya looked scared as hell. The car swerved a little, but righted itself as he swung the wheel back. We slowed up and he said, “Did you hear---”

  “Shut up,” I barked. As soon as I'd seen his lips weren't moving, I looked around the rest of the car. Maybe it was the comparative quiet because we were slowing down, but I recognized and placed a faint sound I'd been hearing ever since we'd started; a sound I'd wondered about in a car that ran as sweet and smooth as that one did.

  It was a faint crackling, like static on a radio, and it seemed to come from the loud-speaker that was up where the windshield met the car top, on Barranya's side.

  “Cut in to the curb and stop a minute,” I said. As we coasted in, he said, “Sergeant, there are good spirits and evil ones. The evil ones lie, and you mustn't---”

  “Shut up,” I said. “There are good radios and bad radios, too. Where's a screwdriver?”

  He opened the glove compartment and found one. “Do you mean you think---”

  I said, “I'm sure as hell going to see. When it comes to spooks, Barranya, I don't think anything. I look for where they come from. That radio's on!”

  I got it out from behind the instrument panel with the screwdriver. The faint crackling noise stopped when I disconnected the battery wire.

  The set showed what I had a hunch I'd find. It had been tampered with, all right. There was a wire shorted across both the short-wave band switch and the turn-on switch, so that it was permanently on, and permanently adjusted to the short-wave band. The condenser shaft had been loosened so the rotor plates didn't turn with the shaft. In other words, it was permanently set to receive anything broadcast on a certain short wavelength. Barranya was peering curiously at it. “Could someone with an amateur broadcasting set have? . . .”

  “They could,” I told him, “and did. How's your battery?”

  “How's--- Oh, I see what you mean.” Without putting the car in gear he stepped on the starter and the engine turned over merrily. The battery wasn't run down.

  “This thing's been on,” I said, “since it was monkeyed with. If your battery's still got that much oomph, it means it was done recently. If your radio worked early this evening, this was done since then. Maybe while you were at the roadhouse.”

  “Then that other message, the one that warned about you---”

  “Yeah,” I said, “my apologies---maybe. I thought you were talking a lot of hot air.”

  Unless he was honestly bewildered, he was putting on a marvelous act. He said, “But I have heard such voices elsewhere.”

  I smiled. “Maybe your radio here was in tune with the infinite and it was a spirit, once removed. I got my doubts. Let's get going. I want to show this little gadget to the boys.”

  He slid the car into gear and away from the curb. He asked thoughtfully, “Is there any way they could trace from that set where the messages came from?”

  “Nope,” I told him. “But they can tell exactly what wavelength it was set for. That might help, but the F.C.C. has suspended all amateur licenses since the war started. It would have to be an illegal set.”

  “Aren't illegal broadcasts tracked down?”

  “Yeah. There are regular listening posts, with directional equipment. But if a set broadcast only a couple of sentences like that, they'd probably be overlooked. So that's no help.”

  We were slowing down already for the apartment building when I remembered. “How's about what your radio ghost friend said just now? Are you chummy with Randall's wife?”

  He took time to word his answer. I could have counted to ten before he said, “You'd find out anyway, I suppose. Yes, I like her a lot and she likes me. Her husband. . . .”

  “Didn't understand her?” I prompted.

  He glared at me, and started to say something that would probably have led to trouble if I'd let him finish.

  “Hold it, pal,” I cut in. “Here's the big thing to think about. Whoever put on that broadcast just now knew about you and Mrs. Randall. How many people know that. Pete Burd, maybe?” He calmed down. “I don't know. Anyone might have guessed, I suppose. Uh---Charlie Randall didn't mind, so we weren't too secretive about being seen.”

  “Randall knew you were making love to his wife!”

  “I think so. He wouldn't have cared, if he had known. You know that little blonde who used to sell cigarettes at the Green Dragon?”

  “I think I know which one you mean,” I told him. “The one with the nice---”

  “That one,” he said. “She doesn't work there any more.” The car stopped in front of the Deauville Arms, and I got out, carrying the gimmicked radio. I waited until Barranya came around the car to join me.

  When we got into the elevator I said, “We're going to Randall's flat first, both of us. You'll have to bear up a while yet before you go to sleep.”

  “Why can't I go on up, while you---”

  “Nix,” I said. “I'm going to report to Holding, and you're not going in that flat before I go with you. Listen, Barranya, the only thing I don't like about your alibi is that it's too damn good. Maybe you got something upstairs I'd like to see before you dismantle it. Such like a phonograph with your---”

  I broke off, because as soon as I mentioned it I knew it wasn't a phonograph record that had made that call. Because I'd done part of the talking, and he'd answered what I said. I remembered that lousy gag about not shooting at random but at Randall. But I took Barranya with me just the same. Holding would want to see him.

  The Randall flat was full of photographers and fingerprint men. I parked Barranya in the hallway, and told the man on duty at the door to keep an eye on him. I went in to give Holding my report and the radio set.

  The coroner was working on the body; they'd moved it into the bedroom after taking photos. Captain Holding showed me the position of the chair and the ropes; everything check
ed with what I'd heard over the telephone.

  Holding said, “Maybe Barranya could have called you from the phone booth in the hall at your precinct station, and then gone on into the waiting room while---”

  “No, dammit,” I said. “I traced the call. It came from here. It must be some kind of a frame, but it's the goofiest thing I ever heard of. If anybody wanted to frame Barranya, why'd they give him that message about me that sent him to my office only two minutes after the murder?”

  Holding shrugged. “Do you know anybody connected with the case who's a good voice imitator?”

  “Not unless it's Barranya, and he wouldn't imitate his own voice. Nuts! I'm going in circles, and this toothache is driving me batty. Say, how's Mrs. Randall doing on alibis?”

  “Excellent. We called the hotel in Miami she was supposed to be at. She's there all right. I talked to her myself.”

  “Just now?”

  “What do you mean, just now? Think we could have notified her yesterday, Sergeant?”

  I shook my head. “Don't mind me, Cap. My mind just isn't working any more. But one thing. I take it you're going to send men up to search Barranya's place. Maybe while he's here and you're talking to him? Well, I'd like to go up with them.”

  “You should go home, Bill. This is our job, now that you've reported,” Holding pointed out.

  “Got to stay awake till I can see a dentist at nine. Having something to do will keep my mind off this damn toothache. Anyway, this is my big day, Cap. If Barranya's spirit controls are in working order, I'm due to be bumped off.”

  “I'll question Barranya now. I'll hold him a while, and give you plenty of time, though.”

  “Swell. I'm even going to take the kitchen sink apart up there. Say, know who lives above and below this flat---on the third and fifth?”

  “Third's vacant. Guy named Shultz has the fifth, in between here and Barranya.”

  “What's he do?” I asked.

  “Manufacturer. Pinball games and carnival novelties.” Holding saw the sudden look of interest I gave him, and went on. “Yes, he did a little business with Randall. But he's clear on this. He's out of town, he and his wife. We've checked and it's on the up and up.”