by Various
Ewing waited for Joey's reaction--the parchment face even more deeply wrinkled by excitement--the blue eyes blazing.
"Well, Mr. Barrett?"
Joey left the album open at the picture of a gruesome accident. Apparently, two cars had met head-on. The one had been a sleek convertible. The other was an old sedan. Both were terribly crumpled. Glass littered the street. Steam spewed from the twisted radiator of the old wreck.
A man sprawled from the front seat of the sedan--an elderly man, with a white beard--a beard spattered with blood. His sightless eyes stared accusingly at the small cluster of onlookers who surrounded the wreck. Nearby, thrown from the crushed convertible by the impact, lay a woman. She wore an extreme evening dress, and a fur cape had fallen not far from her body. All around her were pearls ... spilled from the broken strand at her throat.
Joey looked up at Ewing. He shook his head. "You've got some interesting pictures, but I can't see that they prove your theory. They could have been taken any time." He pointed to the photo of the wreck. "This one, for instance." He smiled up at the old man. "That looks like a shot I might have made."
Ewing's entire body seemed shaken by his eagerness to prove his point. "Mr. Barrett ... that picture is of an accident that hasn't occurred. One evening, I took a picture of the street out there ... at the corner ... where our street joins the Boulevard." His voice was low, urgent. "When I snapped that photo, the street was deserted. There were no cars--no people."
* * * * *
Joey took another look at the wreck. He closed the album with finality. "Mr. Ewing," he said, "I'm not questioning your sincerity. I can see that you're convinced your developer has extraordinary powers."
"But you don't believe me." There was despair in the old man's voice. "What can I say to make you believe that you've just looked at the picture of an accident that's yet to happen."
Joey laid the album on the table. "It's an interesting theory."
Ewing moved to his camera. "It's more than a theory. I can prove it." He ducked behind the camera. "Let me take your picture, Mr. Barrett, and I'll prove it."
"Wait a minute!" Joey half rose from the chair in protest, and then, with a shrug subsided. "Sure," he said. "Why not?"
"Thank you," Ewing answered. He focused the camera, cut on extra lights, posed Joey, took his picture.
The ordeal over, Joey moved toward the door.
"You'll see, Mr. Barrett. This picture will convince you."
Joey nodded. "Sure, sure. You give me a call."
They were in the entry-hall. "As I said," Ewing continued, "I haven't much time. That's why I'm very anxious to pass on my discovery. It could do great good--in the right hands."
Joey opened the door. "I understand," he said. "You give me a call."
"I will."
Joey was outside--the door between him and Ewing's pathetic eagerness. As he bounded down the steps, he was devising a revenge extreme enough for Nugent.
He slipped in behind the wheel. It was surprising that anyone as near psycho as Ewing should be loose. The old boy had lived too long alone in the empty house.
Just as he drew away from the curb, Joey heard the crash. Squealing rubber, splintering glass, rending metal, perhaps a human scream ... compounded into an awful discord that ricocheted against the quiet brownstone fronts, building to a crescendo of metallic anguish.
After the first moment of surprise, Joey experienced the curious exaltation he always felt at a scene of violence. The trip wasn't a waste after all. He'd get a picture, and from the sound of the crash, it would be a good one.
As he clambered out of his car, camera ready, people were running down steps, cars were swinging off the boulevard--the first cluster of the curious was collecting.
With professional assurance, Joey brushed people aside and moved in. One car had been stopped at the intersection and the other had careened off the boulevard and smashed head-on into it.
Joey stopped on the crowd's inner edge and stared.
It was impossible. One car was an old sedan. The other, a sleek convertible. An old man with blood-spattered white beard half-spilled from the sedan and on the glistening pavement lay a woman in evening dress, surrounded by dozens of pearls.
* * * * *
From habit, Joey took the picture of the accident and delivered it to Nugent. By the time he had developed his picture, he was beginning to enjoy the knowledge that it was an exact duplicate of the photograph in Ewing's album.
Only he and Ewing realized the power of Formula #53. It couldn't be coincidence. The details were too exact. Ewing's explanation was the only one possible. And that meant the old boy wasn't crazy. The formula was all he insisted.
Such a formula could be a great force for good, the old man had said. In the right hands. In the hands of Joey Barrett.
Joey decided to keep his secret. This was not a power to be shared with Leslie Nugent or anyone else. So, when he faced his editor again, he was careful to dismiss the Ewing interview with just the proper degree of casualness.
"There's no doubt about it," he said. "Ewing's a crackpot."
Nugent scowled impatiently. "Even so...."
"I tell you, if we run the story he gave me, we'll be laughed out of business." Joey watched Nugent closely.
"But surely as a human interest yarn," the editor protested, "we'd be justified."
Joey shook his head. "He's an old crank, trying to build up his ego with these phony claims."
Nugent leaned back. "There was absolutely no basis for his theory?"
"None." Joey laughed easily. "You should have seen the obvious trick photos he tried to pass off as evidence. My advice is: forget Jason Ewing."
There was a long pause. Then, Nugent nodded. "All right. Thanks, Joey." He picked up a glossy of the accident. "You outdid yourself on this one."
Joey sauntered to the door. "The master's touch," he called. "I'll hit you for a raise later."
Satisfied that Nugent considered the Ewing story dead, Joey left the paper and hurried to a pay-phone.
When Jason Ewing answered, there was a note of near-hysteria in his voice. He seemed frightened by Joey's interest and was extremely reluctant to give him another interview.
"I don't blame you for being irritated," Joey said. "I was very rude. But look, Mr. Ewing, now I see I was wrong. We can't talk about it on the phone. All I want is a chance to see you again. Maybe tomorrow?"
There was such a long pause that Joey thought Ewing had broken the connection. Then, he heard the old man sigh.
"I ... I don't know what to say," Ewing faltered. "In the light of ... of recent developments, I think it would be unwise to involve you, Mr. Barrett."
Joey laughed. "Listen, this is the break of a lifetime for me. How about tomorrow morning at nine?"
"Tomorrow." The one word was neither affirmation nor question.
But Joey chose to interpret it as agreement. "See you in the morning at nine, Mr. Ewing," he said, and hung up quickly.
* * * * *
Joey slept little that night. He was up early, gulped a hasty breakfast, and stood on the steps at Ewing's house at five minutes to nine.
Again, as on the day before, he had to ring the bell twice before the door opened and the wrinkled face showed itself. He was shocked by the change in Ewing. The man seemed much older and there was a haunting fear in the blue eyes.
"It would have been wiser," the old man whispered, "if you had not come here again--for us not to have met."
Joey was determined to be charming. He put his hand on the thin old arm and gently pushed Ewing into the entry hall. "I don't blame you for being bitter," he said, closing the door. "I was a fool yesterday."
Ewing pulled free and moved agitatedly into the living-room. Even the morning sun made no impression on the shadows there.
The old man didn't look at Joey. "You were right," he said. "It would be better to forget the formula."
Joey fought down his impatience. He tried to move smoothly, keep his voice calm.
"No. You mustn't think that. You can't be selfish. You said yourself, Mr. Ewing, that this knowledge could do great good."
The quiet persuasiveness of Joey's approach seemed cause for further alarm. "I said that, but since then ... I ... I see that it might also do great harm."
He tottered away from Joey and slumped tiredly into the chair by the table.
"Mr. Ewing," Joey said, following him, "yesterday I saw one of your pictures come to life."
Ewing did not look up. "I know. The accident at the corner. I was afraid you had seen it."
"Afraid!" Joey laughed. "That was the clincher." He leaned over the old man. "Listen, Mr. Ewing, the second I saw that wreck, I realized what we have in Formula #53. I want to help you make use of it--the proper use."
The old man shook his head. "I'm afraid," he whimpered.
Joey ignored the interruption. "We'll work this together. If we play it smart, the sky's the limit. We can be millionaires. Name our own prices." He laughed in his excitement. "They'll meet our demands when they see what we've got to offer."
Ewing had slowly pushed himself to his feet. He regarded Joey with mixed apprehension and disgust. "You ... you can't commercialize my discovery," he protested. "I wouldn't permit the formula to be used for personal gain."
"Not just MY gain. You and me together." Joey looked at the red-plush photo album and rubbed his hands. "I'll bet we got pictures in that album worth a hundred grand."
Abruptly, Ewing stepped past Joey and seized the album. He cradled it in his arms. "That's out of the question." He tottered toward the fireplace. "Mr. Barrett," he pleaded, "I beg you to go now."
Anger simmered in Joey--anger and frustration. "All right," he said, forcing himself to be reasonable. "Those are your pictures." He faced Ewing at the fireplace. "But if I take some, will you give me the formula so I can develop them?"
Stubbornly, the old man shook his head.
"What IS the formula?" Joey demanded.
"I've never written it down." Ewing clutched the red-plush photo album with one hand and gestured imploringly with the other. "Mr. Barrett, every moment you stay here, you jeopardize us both. Leave now. Please. Forget we ever met ... that you ever heard of Formula #53."
"Forget!" Joey's hands clenched and unclenched in mounting desperation. "You can't start a guy on a thing like this, Ewing, and then tell him to forget it!" For a long second, they stared at each other. Ewing was breathing heavily and perspiration beaded the parchment face.
* * * * *
Joey tried another tactic: "Look ... if you don't want to give me the formula, at least let me have a few of the pictures in that album. Whatever I get out of them, I'll split with you." He reached out tentatively.
Ewing shrank back. "Go away. Let me alone. There's nothing in the album. I burned the pictures."
"You're lying!" The thought of the money the old fool had thrown away cut into Joey like a knife. "You wouldn't do a crazy thing like that."
"Only two left. Should have burned them."
Panic seized Joey. He grabbed at the red-plush album. "I don't believe you. Let me see."
Ewing held onto the book with the tenacity of an aged crab. "You mustn't," he croaked. "You're destroying yourself. Don't."
But the old man's stubborn and futile resistance stoked the smouldering fires of Joey's anger. He gripped one corner of the coveted trophy with his left hand, and with his right, gave Ewing a vicious shove.
With a rattling cry, the old man staggered back and fell with a clatter into the fireplace.
The book was in Joey's hand. He didn't look at Ewing. The clasp was not locked. Feverishly, he opened the heavy cover. The truth took his breath away. Ewing hadn't lied. The pages were empty. He had burned the pictures. The crazy old fool!
But he had said there were two pictures left. Joey thumbed hastily through the empty album till he reached the first of the remaining pictures.
He cried out.
It was a self-portrait of Ewing. He lay sprawled on the floor before the fireplace, blue eyes staring up at the ceiling, blood smearing his temple and one of the massive brass andirons.
Joey dropped the album on the table and slowly turned. He closed his eyes. "Oh, God!" he whispered. "No! No!"
Like a sleep-walker, he moved to the silent figure, knelt, searched in vain for pulse or heart-beat. There was none. Jason Ewing was dead.
Joey stared at the andiron with its tell-tale stain. He pulled himself up to a half-crouch and looked wildly around the dark living-room. The camera was an accusing eye. "It was an accident," he murmured. "His heart. He was an old man."
The photo album still lay open on the table.
Ewing had saved two pictures. One of himself. The other....
There was a heavy knocking at the front door.
Joey went shakily to the album. Gripping the table's edge, he turned to the second picture:
Joey Barrett sat in a chair. His trousers were slit. His head was shaved and there were straps and electrodes.
It was the kind of picture that would sell a thousand extra copies.
* * *
Contents
TAKE THE REASON PRISONER
By John J. McGuire
Major general (Ret.) James J. Bennington had both professional admiration and personal distaste for the way the politicians maneuvered him.
The party celebrating his arrival as the new warden of Duncannon Processing Prison had begun to mellow. As in any group of men with a common interest, the conversation and jokes centered on that interest. The representatives and senators of the six states which sent criminals to Duncannon, holding glasses more suited to Martini-drinking elephants than human beings, naturally turned their attention to the vagaries in the business of being and remaining elected.
Senator Giles from Pennsylvania and Representative Culpepper of Connecticut accomplished the maneuver. Together they smoothly cut the general out of the group comparing the present tax structure to rape, past the group lamenting the heavy penalties in the latest conflict-of-interest law, into a comparatively quiet corner.
"Well general, no need to tell you that we are all as happy to have you here as Dr. Thornberry seemed to be," Senator Giles said.
Bennington nodded politely, though he had not been much impressed by the lean, high-voiced man who had greeted him with such open delight. Dr. Thornberry had expressed too much burbling joy when he had been relieved of his administrative job as Acting Warden, had been overly-happy about resuming his normal duties as Assistant Warden and Chief Psychologist.
"I'm very much interested in some of your ideas on reducing the overhead here, general," Culpepper said, "although I'm also wondering if they may not cost my good friend, the senator, some votes in his district."
"That will be no real worry," Giles said thoughtfully, "if I can show the changes are real economies. Today that's the way to gain votes and I'd come up with more than I'd lose."
"But your turnover," Culpepper said. "I can see that in a regular prison, where they have the men a long time, it's easy to train them in kitchen work and supply. But here.... How long do you plan to keep them, general?"
"I'll try to get back to the original purpose in setting up Duncannon as quickly as possible," Bennington said. "Dr. Thornberry agreed that five days is the maximum time his sections need to complete the analysis of a prisoner and decide what prison he should go to. After that, we will have sound reason to start charging the individual states for each day we have to keep their consignment."
"Complicated," Giles said. "I mean, the bookkeeping."
"Not at all. I'll either hold the next top-sergeant that comes through here or borrow one from Carlisle or Indiantown Gap. He can set up a sort of morning-report system, and when the states learn they will have to pay us to handle the men they should be feeding, we will soon see ... well, there won't be six hundred and fifty men, women and children stuffed into barracks designed to hold three hundred and fifty."
Bennington had spoken calml
y and he lifted his glass casually. But over the rim of his drink he caught the eye of another old soldier.
Ferguson, who had been a private when Bennington had been only a captain in Korea, eased himself to within earshot.
The two had risen in rank and grade together. Thirty-three years had taught them the value of an unobtrusive witness to the general's conversations.
* * * * *
"But with personnel changing so rapidly--frankly, I didn't understand your reference to a replo-depot," Culpepper confessed.
"A replo-depot," Bennington said, calling deep on his reserve of patience, "is the place to which all persons called up for military service must go first. There, they go through a process similar to the one we use here: a complete physical, a complete mental, a complete skill-testing, all used to decide where the man himself can best be used--or imprisoned. Then they are forwarded to that assignment."
Culpepper nodded, but he still seemed puzzled.
"You could waste an awful lot of men on just handling the food and equipment that such a command needs, unless you used the men passing through," Bennington went on. "But, if you have a small permanent cadre who know what to do and how to do it, they can handle large groups of untrained men.
"And you'll not only save money, you'll give these men something to do while they are here," he added.
When Giles and Culpepper exchanged glances, Bennington was immediately and almost totally certain that his explanation had not been needed.
"Seems to me you could economize even more if a part of that permanent cadre were trusties," Giles said.
"I would think so," Culpepper said, "but of course you would have to pick the men very carefully."
Giles approved of that idea. "Responsible men, not hardened criminals. Men who once held a prominent position in their communities, but made a mistake and now would sincerely like a chance to redeem themselves."
"Take the example of Mike Rooney," Culpepper said. "A tragic case, that. He's lost a good government job and with it all his pension and retirement rights. And how? By simply having an accident with a government helicopter when he was using it on a combination of government and personal business.