Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  The strange figure stared silently at the awed crowd with dark, fathomless eyes, then he turned and walked silently to the side of the stage.

  THE draperies parted again and the barker, dressed now in an oriental costume, stepped onto the stage. He held up one hand and walked to the front of the stage.

  “Myfisto,” he announced solemnly, “is ready to commence his exhibition. His first demonstration will be one of simple hypnosis. And for this it will be necessary to ask the assistance of a member of the audience.” His eyes flicked calculatingly over the crowd. “Aha,” he cried, “I see the very gentleman we need. Will the handsome young man in the first row kindly step up on the stage? There’s nothing to be alarmed about. No danger at all.”

  Mortimer peered about excitedly, looking for the handsome young man who was to take part in the experiment.

  He saw no one that fitted the description. His attention was jerked back by a sharp dig in the ribs.

  “Go ahead buddy,” the fat man in the seat next to him whispered. “Show him you ain’t afraid. Show’m you got the guts.”

  “Me?” gasped Mortimer. “What . . .” He broke off and jerked his eyes back to the stage. The barker was pointing at him.

  “No, no,” he cried. “I can’t. That is I . . .”

  “It won’t take a minute,” the barker shouted over Mortimer’s thin protests. “Let the young man through down there. Help him along.”

  The fat man put a heavy hand on Mortimer’s shoulder and gave him a helpful shove that dumped him into the aisle.

  “Go on,” he whispered encouragingly. “He said there wasn’t nothin’ to be afraid of.”

  Helpful hands jerked Mortimer to his feet, pushed him along until he stood at the bottom of the steps that led to the stage.

  The barker hopped down the steps, grabbed Mortimer’s hand in a vise-like grip and dragged him up the steps onto the stage.

  Mortimer stared helplessly about him. The barker had left his side, the audience had quieted to an expectant hush and Mortimer looked up to see Myfisto, the mental marvel, moving slowly toward him.

  “Be not alarmed,” Myfisto said in a deep, mellifluous voice. “You are becoming drowsy, a peaceful sleep is stealing over you.”

  This was not exactly the truth. Mortimer had never felt more thoroughly and completely awake.

  For a space of several seconds Myfisto’s black, all-knowing-eyes bored into Mortimer’s very soul; and then he looked up and signaled the barker.

  “Our subject is ready,” he said. “Let us prepare.”

  The barker bowed low, hurried off the stage—to return wheeling before him something that looked like a tea table. On top of the table reposed a square metal box, with wires leading from it to disappear under the table.

  Myfisto stepped to the table, lifted the lid of the box and drew forth a curious shining object that looked like a stream-lined football helmet. On the side of the device there were several rheostats and gadgets and on the cone-shaped top of the peculiar object, tiny, shining wires were coiled in thick little clusters.

  Mortimer edged closer and peered over Myfisto’s shoulder. He saw that the interior of the dome was completely lined with glistening threadlike filaments. From these, insulated wires led to the box on the table.

  Myfisto turned slightly.

  “You will put this on,” he said in a tone of voice that brooked no argument.

  “But,” gasped Mortimer, “I don’t

  “Fits excellently,” Myfisto cut in as he raised the shining headpiece and pressed it down firmly on Mortimer’s head.

  Mortimer trembled. The thing felt funny on his head. The filament wires were pressing into his scalp as if they wanted to crawl right into his brain.

  The barker turned and walked to the front of the stage.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he bawled, “this object you see on the head of the subject is a device that coordinates electrical impulses with human thought waves. By this, the thought waves of Myfisto, the mental marvel, can be carried by electrical vibrations to the receptive brain of the subject. Thus the will of the subject becomes completely subservient to the will of the master.” An expectant hush settled over the audience as the barker retreated and Myfisto raised one arm dramatically over his head.

  “Quiie-et,” he hissed. “I must have absolute silence.”

  He picked up a rheostat from the table, peered at it closely and then bent down and threw a switch on the side of the box.

  Instantly a faint humming reverberated across the stage.

  MORTIMER looked about helplessly. There was a strange tingling sensation in his ears, a sensation that became more pronounced as the humming noise grew in volume. The wires pressing against his head seemed to be vibrating gently as the humming settled to a steady purr.

  He felt a peculiar giddy sensation stealing over him as the wires seemed to burn into his very brain, as the strange tingle spread from his ears to the base of his skull.

  Sweat stood out on his brow as the headpiece grew warm. He looked despairingly at Myfisto just in time to see him snap another switch on the other side of the box.

  At the same instant he felt a sharp, painful prick at the base of his skull. As if a red hot needle had been jabbed into his flesh.

  “Ouch,” he cried, “that hurt.” He grabbed the headpiece with both hands and jerked it off his head, and held it out accusingly. “What’s the idea?” he demanded angrily.

  Mortimer’s comically indignant pose snapped the audience out of their temporary trance. Waves of laughter, loud, ribald laughter, broke from their lips to crash deafeningly about Mortimer’s blushing ears.

  Mortimer stared helplessly about him, his face a dull crimson, his eyes smarting with angry tears. They had got him up on the stage to make a fool out of him, to provide the audience with a laugh. That was all there was to it. To make an object of ridicule and derision out of him.

  With this realization came a swift, bitter anger. He turned to the barker and waved a puny fist under his nose.

  “Think you’re smart, don’t you?” he fumed. “Making a laughing stock out of honest, law-abiding citizens. Well there’s nothing funny about it,” he shouted rather pointlessly, “nothing funny about it at all.” He wheeled and marched indignantly to the steps but before he could descend the barker caught his arm.

  “You got the wrong idea,” he said anxiously. “Something funny as hell happened just now.”

  But Mortimer cut him off.

  “Oh, you think it’s funny,” he cried. “Well then, just . . . just . . .” he plumbed his brain for the most scathing, derisive retort he could think of . . . “just go take a running jump for yourself. You, too,” he shouted at Myfisto, “both of you, go ahead. See if I care.”

  With tears of humiliation blinding him, he pounded down the steps and fought his way through the crowd, his soul burning with bitter disgrace as the gleeful cries of the crowd suddenly swelled to riotous, screaming laughter.

  Laughing at him, he thought with sickening mortification. Well, let ’em laugh. Struggling and sweating, he forced his way blindly through the milling audience and without a backward glance, broke free and plunged through the flap of the tent . . .

  Mortimer had not looked back . . . but if he had, he would have seen that the sudden clamorous roar of the crowd was not directed at him, but at something else far more amazing, far more arresting.

  Myfisto and the barker had stood stock still as Mortimer stamped off the stage, a bewildered, dazed expression spreading over their features.

  And then like men in a hypnotic trance they had raced to the edge of the stage and leaped into the air. A long, flying leap that landed them with a crash on the laps of the patrons of the third row of the tent.

  They had taken a running jump for themselves!

  THE tent was in an uproar as they attempted to extricate themselves from the tangle of legs and chairs. But over the din Myfisto’s voice could be heard shouting:

  “Catch h
im. Don’t let him get away.”

  He scrambled to his feet, jerking the barker with him.

  “Hurry,” he hissed in the other’s ear. “Follow me. We must stop him.”

  In another ten seconds, panting and disheveled, they burst through the flap of the tent. Myfisto gazed wildly about the milling throngs and a groan burst from his lips.

  “We are too late,” he gasped. “He is loose.”

  “What’s it all about?” the barker asked bewilderedly. “What do you want that little guy for? And say,” he cried suddenly, “what made us act like a pair of screwballs just now? Leaping off the stage into the audience.”

  Myfisto was still gazing distractedly at the faces that drifted by him and as he turned to the barker there was a frightened, terrified look in his eye.

  “We couldn’t help ourselves,” he groaned. “We couldn’t resist his will.”

  His voice broke into an excited babble, “It’s the headpiece,” he groaned.

  “It’s worked. Gave that little man a terrible power. An irresistible will. Nobody can disobey him. We must stop him before he innocently unleashes the horrible power that is his.”

  “Are you goin’ batty?” the barker said scornfully. “We’ve been usin’ that thing for months in our act. It’s nothin’ but a phony; a gag to impress the audience. You know that as well as I do. You’re goin’ batty, I tell you.”

  “No, I’m not,” Myfisto cried. “That headpiece was an invention of mine designed to increase by electrical stimulation the forces of will that are dormant in every human psyche. But it never worked; I thought it was a failure. So I used it in the act for effect. But now, somehow, it worked on this little man. We’ve got to stop him.”

  “Cripes,” gasped the barker, incredulously. “If what you say is true, if nobody can resist that little guy’s will, he’s liable to turn this town upside down.”

  “That’s why he must be stopped,” Myfisto groaned. “When I was completing this machine I also developed an antidote for its effect. It may not work—but it’s our only chance. We must find him, strip that power from him, before he has a chance to use its hideously destructive force . . .

  TEN minutes later, looking like anything but a latent destructive force, Mortimer slouched into the bustling lobby of the Snappy Service building, his steps lagging as if they were reluctant to carry him to the elevator.

  In comparison with Mortimer’s beaten appearance a whipped cur would have looked like a jaunty, confident creature. The humiliation at the carnival, the prospects of facing the gangsters, the loss of his girl, all these rested on the shoulders of his spirit with a leaden, crushing weight. Gone was any notion of resisting or fighting back.

  “What happens, will happen,” he muttered with gloomy unoriginality.

  He stepped into the elevator and squeezed back into the comer as the lunch hour crowd jammed in after him.

  “Twelve, please,” he squeaked over the mumble of voices.

  More people were crowding into the elevator and Mortimer was crushed back against the wire netting of the car as they forced their way in. He wondered with uncertain timidity whether he had been heard.

  “Twelve,” he cried again. “Twelve, please.”

  The elevator operator, a haggard, perspiring young man, turned around and snapped.

  “Okay, bud, I heard you.” He turned back to the controls but suddenly the exasperated expression was wiped from his face to be replaced by one of respectful obedience. “Yes, sir,” he stammered, “right away.”

  The door slammed shut with a bang, the throttle lever shot into place and the elevator started upward with giddy, unaccustomed speed.

  “Three,” a voice said.

  “Five,” said another.

  Seven, eight and ten had been called by the time the elevator shot past the third floor.

  “Hey, what’s the idea?” a man cried. “I called three.”

  The elevator operator did not reply, merely shoved the throttle over another notch. The elevator responded with another burst of speed.

  “Young man,” a woman screamed shrilly, “let me off. You passed my floor!”

  Other voices joined in the clamor and by the time seven, eight and ten had been swiftly passed, the noise in the car had swelled to a noisy babble.

  “My time’s valuable,” the burly man in front of Mortimer shouted. “I’ll take this up with the management.”

  Before he had got the last words out of his mouth the elevator stopped with sickening abruptness and the doors clanged open.

  “Twelve, sir,” the operator said respectfully.

  “Now,” the man in front of Mortimer bellowed, “let’s see who it is that’s so much more important than the rest of us.”

  “Pardon me.” Mortimer quaked fearfully. “Could I step by, please?”

  The man whirled and glared at Mortimer.

  “So,” he snapped, “it’s you, is it? Who do you think you are, the King of Siam?”

  “No, not at all,” Mortimer stuttered, edging past his burly bulk. The angry, impatient muttering grew in volume as Mortimer struggled and twisted in an effort to force his way out of the jammed car. It was with a relieved sigh that he finally squirmed his way into the corridor. He turned, an apology trembling on his lips, but the operator, in response to the indignant demands of his passengers, had slammed the door and started back down.

  “Well,” gasped Mortimer, “what do you think of that?”

  He walked toward the Snappy Service office shaking his head wonderingly. What had made the operator disregard the other passengers and whisk him up to the twelfth floor? He wrinkled his forehead trying to figure the thing out. Why should the elevator operator . . .

  It was then he remembered the extra loud tone of voice he had used in calling his floor. He stopped suddenly, a strange excitement rushing over him. The loud voice! The commanding voice! That was what the will power book had insisted upon in every lesson.

  Was it possible . . .? Could it be that the will power lessons were beginning to work?

  HE was still puzzling over the strange occurrence when he seated himself at his desk for the afternoon; and it was still buzzing around his head like an annoying fly when the first client of the afternoon sauntered up to Mortimer’s desk and dropped himself into the chair alongside it.

  Mortimer looked up to see a fat, flashily dressed little man regarding him with sly blue eyes set in a pink, bland face.

  “What can I do for you?” Mortimer inquired, tearing himself away from the riddle of the elevator. “Something in the nature of a loan?”

  “As a matter of fact,” the fat little man said, “I could use a hundred or so. One of those things, y’know,” he shrugged nonchalantly. “Caught a little short between the pater’s monthly check. I could’ve borrowed a stack from young Vandergilt but I just learned he’s out of town.”

  “Well, that’s too bad,” Mortimer said solicitously. It was his first experience with a real, honest-to-goodness playboy and as he handed the application blank to him he said eagerly, “just fill this out and I’m sure we’ll take care of you.” And as the flashily dressed “playboy” started away, he added perfunctorily, “Answer all questions accurately and truthfully to the best of your ability.” The pink-faced little man nodded and moved to the writing desk, seated himself and spread the form out in front of him.

  Mortimer watched him as he started to write and then he turned back to his desk, his thoughts and worries returning with him.

  It was a quarter of one and Slug McNutty had promised to be back “after lunch.” he was due any minute. Looking over at Betty’s desk he realized that she wasn’t back from lunch yet. He thought of dimly lighted cocktail bars and Jon’s glibly persuasive tongue and his soul writhed with jealousy and anger.

  He writhed unhappily for a bit and then he turned his thoughts to the more menacing of his problems. The gangsters and their demand that he “case the joint” for them. Gnawing nervously at his pencil he tried desper
ately to think of some way out of his predicament.

  It was about that time that the little man returned and with trembling fingers laid the application on Mortimer’s desk.

  Mortimer looked up and to his surprise the man was quailing visibly, a furtive, guilty look on his face as he peered about the office.

  Looking back to the application blank, Mortimer spread it open on his desk and examined it.

  “What . . . what the . . .” he gasped, but he was unable to finish the sentence for his mouth had dropped open in sheer astonishment.

  For the flashily dressed “playboy” had written in answer to the question on the blank:

  OCCUPATION—Confidence man.

  PURPOSE OF LOAN—To skip town.

  REFERENCES—None, except the ones I forged.

  For a second Mortimer’s brain reeled giddily and then he peered incredulously at the “playboy” who stood twisting his hat miserably in his hands.

  “Why . . . what do you mean?” sputtered Mortimer.

  “It’s a racket,” the self-indicted con man said hoarsely. He paused and swallowed nervously and a gleam of terror showed in his eye. “I’ve worked it all over the country, but—” he broke off, peering about apprehensively, “you told me to put down the truth and I . . . I just couldn’t help myself. I just had to do what you said. I don’t know whether I’m going balmy or not, but one thing’s certain. I am going.”

  Before Mortimer could open his mouth the fat little man had wheeled, and with surprising speed, raced across the office and bolted through the door and out of sight.

  Mortimer stared after the flying coattails, his mouth hanging open in ludicrous bewilderment and a dazed, unbelieving expression on his countenance.

  He looked down at the application blank and as he did a sentence that the confidence man had spoken jumped before his eyes.

  I just had to do what you said. Mortimer trembled with excitement. Twice in a row his commands had been obeyed. It must be the will power lessons that were responsible for these amazing occurrences. He remembered a phrase from the book: