Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

And as I looked at Mr. Wu’s gloved hand on the switch, I saw for the first time that a thick stream of red trickled down his sleeve, and that there was another blotch of crimson just above his heart. He hadn’t silenced Khan’s outside forces without paying the price. He saw my glance and smiled.

  “A bad cut,” he explained apologetically. “I was clumsy. Now please leave. I shall give you five minutes to get to the car, and another five minutes to get safely away from the grounds. That will give me ten minutes in which I can have an interesting discussion about racial philosophies with Mr. Khan. And then—” Mr. Wu broke off with his silly smile, a smile that was suddenly very unfunny. He bowed politely, never letting his gun waver from Khan and his men for an instant.

  “Please,” Mr. Wu repeated courteously. “You have ten minutes.”

  WE left, of course, and precisely ten minutes after that, as we were speeding along the highway in a car driven by a slant-eyed young chap, the entire countryside was rocked for a radius of five miles. The explosion was tremendous, and great orange streaks shot skyward.

  There was a pretty bad moment in which I had a vision of a courtly, frock-coated, smiling little man with a crimson stain above his heart and an inquisitive gleam in his almond eyes—the imperturbable, painfully correct Mr. Wu.

  And then I pushed this picture out of my mind, and looked down at the girl in my arms. Joan was sleeping as peacefully as a baby. But I knew that in less than two hours she would be restored to normal, and that those eyes would open, and I would be looking again at the mentally grown up girl I loved.

  THE MASTERFUL MIND OF MORTIMER MEEK

  First published in the May 1941 issue of Fantastic Adventures.

  All he had to do was command, and he was obeyed! But would his power work when his very life depended on it?

  MORTIMER MEEK raked a cold eye over the desks and typewriters of the Snappy Service Loan Company. Squaring his narrow shoulders he pointed an accusing finger at a lattice wire wastebasket.

  “So,” he hissed, “it’s you, Bloody Bill, who started this mutiny. With your guns and your gold you’ve corrupted my sailors, incited them to rebel.”

  Here Mortimer Meek paused dramatically, glared about the empty office, and then flung his head back at a defiant tilt.

  “Well it won’t work,” he cried, his voice swelling to a squeaky shout, “because you are helpless against the power of my will. You are powerless to resist my commands. And I command you to put down your guns. Put down your guns and clear off the bridge of my staunch ship, the whole sorry lot of you.”

  As the last command echoed through the office, Mortimer jerked himself up to his full height of five feet four inches and raised one arm challengingly above his head, triumph and vindication radiating from every inch of his puny frame.

  “Mortimer Meek,” a bewildered feminine voice snapped behind him, “whatever in the world are you doing?”

  To say that the sudden voice startled Mortimer would be putting it mildly. He reacted as if he had been prodded with a red hot poker. A surprised squawk ripped from his throat and he sprang from the floor, his spindly arms flailing desperately.

  Returning to earth, as it were, Mortimer’s knees buckled suddenly, dumping him with a sickening thud on the hard floor. Flat on his face, his arms and legs spreadeagled like a butterfly on canvas, he presented a ludicrous spectacle.

  Painfully conscious of this, Mortimer scrambled to his feet, to face a girl—the girl in Mortimer’s life, as a matter of fact—whose delicate, lovely features registered every expression from exasperated annoyance to scornful amusement.

  “Betty,” he gasped, “I didn’t know you were here. I mean,” he struggled on desperately, “you don’t usually get down to work this early. I got here ahead of time so I could practice.”

  “Practice for what?” Betty asked in a tone of voice that would have bored through chrome steel.

  “I didn’t tell you about it,” Mortimer said excitedly, “because I wanted to surprise you.” There was a jittery tremor in his voice and his heart was behaving foolishly as it always did in Betty’s presence.

  “You see,” he explained, “I’m taking a correspondence school course in will power. Every lesson I have to overcome a difficult situation. This morning I had to put down a mutiny on board my ship. All by myself and with just my will power. The book says it isn’t fair to use weapons no matter how tight a spot you’re in.”

  “Oh does it?” Betty planted her hands on her shapely hips. “Does it really?”

  “Yes it does,” Mortimer rushed on blissfully unaware of the storm signals. “That’s one of the most important things.

  “But,” he added slyly, “sometimes I cheat. As a matter of fact, just last week I had to pull a knife on a big bully down in Mexico.”

  BETTY was ordinarily a patient, sweetly understanding creature but one would never guess it from her present reaction.

  “Mortimer Meek,” she blazed, “what has happened to you? This is the most terrible thing I’ve ever heard of.”

  “But it was self-defense,” Mortimer pleaded, “he was about to strangle me.”

  “Oh I don’t mean that,” Betty said helplessly. “I mean this nonsense about will power lessons. Talking to yourself, dreaming all of these wild, impossible situations. That’s what I mean. You’re going crazy.”

  “Crazy?” Mortimer said in a grieved voice. “You just don’t understand, that’s all. I’m trying to develop my will power so that people will respect me. Why it’s the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me.”

  “If that’s what you think,” Betty said grimly, “then I’m through with you. Until you get these wild ideas out of your head you can just forget about those . . .” her voice was suddenly uneven “. . . those plans we had.”

  “But I can’t give it up,” Mortimer cried frantically. “I paid for the course in advance.”

  “Then I hope you’ll be very happy with it,” Betty said brokenly, She brushed a large tear angrily from her cheek, then turned and marched away.

  Mortimer started after her, frantic pleas trembling on his lips, but his pursuit was abruptly checked by the opening of the office door and the entrance of the tall, cadaverous figure of Jeremiah Judson, president of the Snappy Service Loan Company.

  Jeremiah Judson’s motto was: “All work and no play is the way to spend the day,” and with the possible exception of an income tax blank, nothing infuriated him more than the sight of an idle employee.

  He stopped at sight of Mortimer’s hesitating figure and then coughed meaningly.

  Jeremiah Judson did not waste coughs or anything else for that matter. This particular cough hinted strongly that time was passing and that there was work to be done, and furthermore there were hundreds of capable men who would be glad to take over Mortimer’s job if he were tired of it.

  Mortimer hesitated, torn between love and fear, but finally the latter triumphed and with a last mournful look at Betty’s retreating figure, he turned and ducked across the office to his desk.

  SAFE at his desk, where he interviewed prospective borrowers, there were routine matters to handle, and the office began to hum with the activity of a new day, people of all sorts to question and interview.

  But through all these diversions a part of Mortimer’s mind dwelt moodily on the events of the morning.

  It was terrible to think that Betty was through with him. Terrible to think of facing life without her beside him. Suddenly he decided on a great sacrifice. He’d give up his will power lessons—that’s what he’d do. He’d tell her so at noon.

  “I’ll go to her on bended knee,” he murmured fervently, “and beg her forgiveness.”

  “Now ain’t dat poetic,” an unpleasantly nasal voice growled next to his desk.

  Mortimer looked up, startled. He saw a large, tough looking young man, attired unbecomingly in a loudly checked, extremely cut tweed suit. His features were heavy and coarse and from his tightly clenched teeth a stubby cigar jutted bellige
rently.

  “Don’t let me distoib ya,” the loudly dressed young man said with heavy sarcasm, “I c’n wait till ya finish dat poem. Time’s nuttin’ to Slug McNutty.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Mortimer said stutteringly. “I must have been thinking of someone—of something else. Won’t you have a seat?”

  “Don’t mind if I do, chum,” the large young man slid into a chair next to Mortimer’s desk and shoved his white fedora back to the crown of his head.

  “What was it you wanted to see me about?” Mortimer asked.

  Slug McNutty looked quickly about the office and then leaned closer to Mortimer.

  “All I want from you, chum, is a little information. And I’m tellin’ ya, de easier de talk flows de easier it’s goin’ ta be on you.”

  “Why . . . why,” gasped Mortimer, breathlessly, “what do you mean?”

  “Just dis,” the nasal growl sank to an ominous whisper. “Dis outfit of yours is makin’ a special shipment of dough dis week in an armored truck. All I want to know from you is where dat truck is goin’ to be at t’ree o’clock tomorrow aftanoon.”

  It took a little time for the full impact of Slug McNutty’s words to make themselves felt on Mortimer’s brain but when they did his knees began to tremble under the desk. He gazed desperately, beseeching about the office. Why . . . why, he thought wildly, this man is a gangster.

  Mortimer knew the armored truck would be at the corners of Plaza boulevard and Fifth Place at three the next afternoon. The shipping clerk had mentioned that to him but if he told that to the gangster . . . why he would be an accessory to the crime.

  “I can’t tell you,” he croaked dazedly, “it wouldn’t be honest . . . you must be joking.”

  “If you t’ink it’s a joke,” McNutty growled, “you got a good sense of humor. Dat truck is goin’ to be knocked over tomorrow aftanoon and if you ain’t willing to play ball wit us we’re goin’ to have to knock you off instead.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Mortimer gasped, as a rising tide of panic engulfed him. He thought of crying out, screaming for help, but one frantic look at the gangster’s ominously hardened jaw convinced him that his first scream would also be his last.

  “Please,” he begged, “don’t pick on me. I don’t want to be a criminal.”

  “We ain’t pickin’ on ya,” McNutty returned impatiently, “we just want a little cooperation, that’s all. Now look. I’m goin’ to give ya de rest of de mornin’ to get me de dope I want and I’ll be back here after lunch. If you ain’t got it you ain’t goin’ to be nuttin’ but a memory at dis time tomorrow. And don’t get any smart ideas about spillin’ dis to anybody cause from now on one of de boys is goin’ ta be on your tail. Get me?”

  Mortimer stared with glassy, terrified eyes at the huge, ominous figure of the gangster and his head bobbed weakly on his neck.

  “I get you,” he whispered hoarsely. “I get you.”

  HIS heart continued to leap at his ribs like an imprisoned bullfrog for minutes after the heavy figure of Slug McNutty had disappeared from the office. And then as reason began to return, the hideousness of his plight struck him with the force of a loaded night stick.

  If he acceded to the gangster’s demands he would be guilty of grand larceny—just as surely as if he held up the truck himself. But if he didn’t—he shuddered at the thought—there was no dodging the fact that Slug McNutty meant business.

  He groaned and sank his head in his hands. Why did this have to happen to him? What would Betty say? The last thought snapped him upright in his chair.

  Betty was through with him!

  But no . . . when she learned of his trouble she couldn’t stay angry with him. The thought cheered him slightly. He would see her at noon, take her to lunch and pour out his troubles into her sympathetic ear. She could help him, suggest something that might untangle him from this mess.

  He felt a glow of confidence spreading its comfortable warmth about him as he thought of this. Feverishly impatient he watched the hands of the clock move with agonizing slowness from hour to hour, until at last they crossed at twelve and the bell announcing the lunch hour pealed through the office.

  Before it stopped echoing Mortimer was out of his chair and halfway across the office. Betty was standing next to her desk adjusting a jaunty little hat on top of her dark curls when he reached her side.

  “Darling, I’ve been a fool,” he panted, “I’ve got something terribly important to talk to you about.”

  “I’m sorry,” Betty said coolly. “I’m afraid it will have to wait.”

  She pulled out a tiny mirror and studied her carmined lips critically. “I have a date for lunch and I’m late now.”

  “About ready Betty?” a smooth masculine voice asked from behind them.

  Betty looked up and flashed a brilliant smile over Mortimer’s shoulder.

  “I’m all ready, Jon,” she said brightly.

  Mortimer turned, his eyes following the direction of Betty’s smile. They encountered a slender, foppishly dressed young man whose blandly handsome features were creased in a smug, superior smile.

  The foppishly dressed young man was Jon Debaere, a junior executive of the Snappy Service Company. Mortimer had never trusted him and now he realized that his suspicions had been well grounded.

  “Just a minute,” he said indignantly. “You’re not taking my girl to lunch or anywhere else for that matter.”

  Jon smiled. A languid, superior smile. “You seem to be in your usual state of confusion,” he purred, “but supposing we leave it up to the young lady. After all, it’s her choice. What do you say, Betty?”

  Betty hesitated and Mortimer seized the occasion to demonstrate his ignorance of feminine physchology.

  “You’re not going with him,” he bleated shrilly. “Do you hear me?—You can’t.”

  Betty reacted as any member of her sex would have. Her lips pressed tightly together and she marched past Mortimer and put her hand on Jon’s arm.

  “Shall we leave?” she asked, looking up at him. “I find the air getting a little close in here.”

  “But . . . but,” gurgled Mortimer, “you can’t do this. I need you. I’m in trouble. I’ve got to . . .”

  “Sorry, old man,” Jon broke in lightly “Just another case of the better man winning.”

  Before Mortimer’s beaten and distracted brain could think of a rejoinder the two had moved off, and laughing gaily, passed through the door, out of the office.

  Mortimer watched the door swing shut behind them, and a lump the size of a billiard ball crawled up his throat. His shoulders slumped wearily and his chest felt as if an elephant had suddenly sat on it. Gloom and despair blanketed his brain and with all this came the sharp, stinging sense of irretrievable loss.

  “She’ll be sorry,” he muttered bitterly, “when she sees me lying on the floor, riddled with machine-gun bullets, wallowing in my own blood.”

  With this chilling thought settling over his spirit like a damp pall, he turned and plodded listlessly out of the office.

  FIVE minutes later, leaving the building, he joined the throng of lunch-bound office workers. Immersed in his own troubles, Mortimer staggered on blindly for blocks until his way was obstructed by a hurrying stream of humanity, bound—he discovered on looking up—for a noisy carnival that had planted its mushroom-like tents and loud red posters on a vacant lot in the city district.

  Ferris wheels were revolving, perspiring barkers were clamoring for the attention of the crowd and on a makeshift stage set back from the street, four scantily clad girls were wiggling their provocative torsos to the very vocal appreciation of the multitude.

  Mortimer paused, fascinated. Carnivals and circuses had always possessed a strange enchantment for him. The bewitching glamor of the devil-may-care performers dazzled him and acted as a heady draught of wine to his sober soul.

  He had no intention of dallying. In fact he reminded himself as he took the first timid steps into the sawdust sprinkled
enclosure, that he would only look around.

  Peering delightedly at the strange sights, he was borne along by the crowd and finally jostled in front of a small platform on which a heavy set barker was waving his arms for attention.

  “Quieee-et pleeeeze,” the barker’s raucous voice rolled over the crowd like a wool blanket. An expectant hush settled over the milling throng.

  “The exhibit which you are about to witness,” he shouted impressively, “has thrilled and amazed every country of this great world. It is the most stupendous, incredible soul-chilling demonstration that human eyes have ever been privileged to behold. Myfisto, the incomparable, the one and only mental marvel, is waiting inside this tent to baffle you, to bewilder you, to mystify you with the wisdom and clairvoyance that have been handed down to him from the ancients who lived and died when Time was in her teens.” The barker paused and wiped his face with a red and white handkerchief before launching into his peroration.

  “And now,” he bellowed, “the show is starting. Get your tickets while there is still time. This is an opportunity that comes but once in any man’s existence. Don’t let the price—the tenth part of a dollah—prevent you from witnessing the most amazing man the world has ever produced—Myfisto—the mental marvel.”

  As he finished speaking a five-piece band broke into a wild march that sent

  Mortimer’s normally conservative blood dancing crazily through his veins.

  He had no intention of going inside and therefore it was a slight surprise to find himself seated in the front row of the small tent peering expectantly at a dimly lighted stage hung with oriental trappings.

  His troubles had disappeared into the limbo of lost things and with naive delight Mortimer waited to be mystified, amazed and bewildered.

  He did not have long to wait. The heavy draperies parted slowly and a tall, impressive figure strode dramatically onto the stage. His skin was dark, almost black, and he was dressed in a strange, white garment that buckled at his shoulders and fell in rippling folds to the floor. His head was swathed in a red turban and where the bands crossed on his forehead a huge bright emerald blazed.