Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  I cut him off.

  “And where are you from?” I prompted gently.

  “Oh,” he said, “I’m from the Future.”

  I HAD been prepared for a zany answer, but nothing like this.

  “The Future,” I gasped.

  “It’s a gag,” Sid Hunt stormed. “A cheap rib on my Follies of the Future. I’ll bet Swanson over at the Capitol is behind this. He’s boiling because I’m cornering all the business on the Stem.” The little man listened politely to this harangue, but without a flicker of comprehension in his eyes. Then he turned back to me.

  “Since you seem to be most intelligent person here,” he smiled. “Perhaps I’d better confine my explanations to you.”

  Being called intelligent by a fugitive from a strait-jacket is far from my idea of a graceful compliment, but I was too dizzy myself to protest.

  “You see,” the little nut was saying, “I am from the year, 4230. I was sent back to this era by my wife to do some research for her.”

  I was fascinated by the little fellow’s air of absolute sincerity.

  “How interesting,” I managed to say. “I encountered some slight difficulty in arriving here,” the screwball went on. “I overshot my mark the first try and landed right in the middle of a battle. One of the soldiers told me it was the American Civil War, so I flashed my wife and she brought me back to this Time.”

  Sid Hunt’s control shattered to bits. “Throw him out!” he screamed, beside himself. “Throw him out! If he ever sets foot in my theater again . . . Men from the future, civil wars, time machines, it’s all Swanson’s doings!”

  I felt inclined to agree with him, but there was something pathetic in the face the little fellow turned to me.

  “Please,” he said desperately, “you believe—”

  That was as far as he got. The stage hands grabbed him by the arms and hustled him away. I heard a door open, followed by a shrill yelp, then the sound of the door banging shut. Our little chum had departed—swiftly and forcibly.

  Sid Hunt was still fuming.

  “Civil War,” he muttered viciously. “Who’re they trying to kid?”

  There was no tactful answer for that one, so I kept quiet. We turned and were heading back for the wings, when I suddenly stopped and grabbed Sid by the arm.

  “Hey!” I yelled. “Where’s the machine?”

  “What machine?” he demanded irritably.

  I was staring about dazedly, my eyes popping incredulously.

  “The machine the little guy arrived in,” I said weakly.

  Sid Hunt glared around the emptiness backstage, and then an uneasy look crept into his eyes.

  “It’s gone,” he said blankly.

  I grabbed one of the hurrying stagehands.

  “Mike,” I said, “did you see the machine that dropped onto the stage a few minutes ago?”

  “Yeah. I helped shove it off into the wings.”

  “Well, where is it now?”

  He peered about, scratching his head.

  “You got me. Last time I saw it, it was settin’ right here. That was when Miss Ruby was crawling into it, I believe.”

  “RUBY!” I shouted. “You say Ruby climbed into that thing?”

  He looked at me reproachfully.

  “You know how she is, Mr. Flannigan,” he said defensively. “Like a little kid when there’s something new around here. She’s always poking into things to see what makes the wheels go ’round. She probably just wanted to look into that contraption. Nothing wrong in that, is there?” he finished truculently.

  “I hope not,” I said worriedly. For I was worried. Something was as screwy as hell. The way the machine had materialized in the first place was odd, and its disappearance now with Ruby probably in it could hardly be considered a normal, prosaic occurrence.

  “It’s some kind of a gag,” Sid Hunt said, but his voice lacked conviction. “Where do you suppose she is?”

  “I can’t even guess,” I snapped.

  “Ooooh,” he moaned. “She’s due on in a few more minutes. I can’t stand this any longer. Get me a bottle of aspirin and an ice pack.”

  “I’ve got something else to get first,” I said grimly.

  “What?”

  “Number 33;” I snapped. “He’s just goofy enough to know the answers to a lot of questions that are bothering me.”

  I left Sid Hunt standing there and dashed out through the stage entrance, but a glance told me I was too late. The alley leading to the street was deserted, and when I reached the street itself, I saw nothing but the anonymous stream of humanity that is constantly surging through Manhattan’s gulleys.

  The old saw about the needle and the haystack applied perfectly. How could I find one individual in this scurrying rush of people? Even though that individual was dressed in a silly costume, and was screwy enough to stand out anywhere, the task was a hopelessly impossible one.

  I tried asking a few of the pedestrians if they had seen anyone of his description, but after receiving monosyllabic grunts instead of answers, I decided that New Yorkers aren’t people after all and cut it out.

  There was nothing left but the hit-and-run, free-lance method. He couldn’t have gone far and there were only a certain number of places he could go, so I set out to try them all.

  For an hour I cruised in and out of restaurants, dives, shoe shops, taverns, working steadily uptown.

  I guess it was just blind luck that I finally discovered him. As I was leaving a gay night spot known as Danny’s Dive, I suddenly spotted his reflection in the bar mirror. He was at a table in the rear of the joint, surrounded by three carmine-lipped blondes.

  And I have never seen such an expression of happiness on any human countenance. The little fellow in the bunny suit was apparently in his element. On each knee he was balancing a blonde, and with one hand he was holding a tall glass, and with the other a leg of chicken. One of the girls had perched a silly hat on his head, giving him the look of a court jester at an orgy. He looked quite ridiculous—but quite happy.

  I THREADED my way across the postage stamp dance floor, pulled up a chair to his table and sat down.

  One of the curvesome blondes on his knee parted her red lips in a sirrupy smile.

  “Hiya, Big Boy,” she cooed.

  The little fellow shoved a strand of hair from his eyes and beamed brightly at me.

  “Ish wonderful,” he said happily. “Real food and drink instead of vitablets. Just can’t get over it. And girls, weak little girls who think I’m wonderful. Glorious, marvelous. Can’t get over it.”

  I saw that he was more than just a bit woozy. The table was loaded with toothsome delicacies and a half-dozen bottles of champagne were in the process of being emptied.

  He shoved a dish of chopped lobster and terrapin toward me, and then splashed a water glass full of champagne and pointed to it.

  “Drink up, drink up,” he cried. “It’s real, you hear, real.”

  “Before you get too drunk,” I said, “I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes. The machine in which you arrived disappeared after you left the theatre. On top of that one of the stars of the show is missing, and one of the workmen saw her climbing into the machine before it disappeared.”

  Number 33 shook his head sadly. “Too bad,” he muttered. “Too, too bad.”

  “What’s too bad?” I demanded.

  But instead of answering me the little fellow began to laugh uncontrollably. For perhaps a minute he was helpless in the grip of merriment, his eyes streaming with tears. Finally he wiped his eyes and, with an obvious effort, stopped laughing.

  “It’s so funny,” he chuckled, “I just can’t help myself. When my wife—” He got not farther than that, when he burst out laughing again, pounding his hand on his thigh in his hilarity.

  I was more than a little irked. “When your wife what?” I asked impatiently.

  “When my wife finds another man in the time machine,” he gasped, “she’ll be fit to be tied.”<
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  “It’s not a man,” I said, “it’s a girl.” The little fellow wheeled on me, almost upsetting the trim wench on his knee.

  “A girl?” he cried incredulously. For an instant he seemed thunderstruck, then, to my great annoyance, he was off on another laughing jag.

  “So much the better,” he chortled. “My wife will be absolutely wild.”

  I was getting tired of this drunken double talk.

  “Listen,” I snapped, “if you know where the machine and girl have gone, you’d better start singing before I forget the fact that I’m sixty pounds heavier than you.”

  He turned and regarded me solemnly. “They’re gone,” he said. “Gone for good.”

  “Where?” I barked.

  “Into the Future,” he answered. “You’re going to go into a nose-dive,” I snarled, “if you don’t start giving me the straight dope.”

  “It’s the truth,” he said, and there was an unmistakable ring of sincerity in his voice. “The absolute truth. They’ve gone into the Future. If the girl was in the time machine when my wife recalled it, then she’s certainly in the Future.”

  He nibbled a piece of lobster moodily and sipped his drink,

  “Poor girl,” he muttered.

  ABOUT ME I could hear the clink of glasses and the chatter of voices, and farther away I could hear the faint rumble of Manhattan’s traffic. So I wasn’t crazy, yet. But the little fellow’s horrible calmness and sincerity in discussing the Future as if it were a proper noun, gave me distinct shocks in the cranium.

  Maybe I was going crazy for I suddenly realized that I was trying to make a case for the guy’s attitude. I asked myself: How had the strange machine materialized and disappeared in the theatre? If it was a time machine, that would explain—I decided then I was crazy. Thinking seriously about time machines was proof enough that I would soon be needing keepers with white jackets.

  “Look,” I said, and my voice was oddly strained, “won’t the time—I mean—the machine come back again?”

  “Who cares?” ones of the blondes cried tipsily. “Let’s have ’nother drink, Ducky.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Champagne,” the blonde clip artist pouted.

  “Champagne,” the little fellow cried to a waiter. “Lots and lots of it.” By way of thanking my Maker for small favors, I was glad as the devil

  I didn’t have to foot the bill the little guy was running up.

  An idea hit me then, an idea that was so simple that I’d completely overlooked it till now. I grabbed the little fellow by the arm.

  “If you’re from the Future,” I said, “and the time machine has gone back without you, how’re you going to get there yourself?”

  He took his attention from the blonde and blinked at me.

  “I’m not,” he said. “I’m not going back. In the first place it’s impossible and secondly I don’t want to.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  He shuddered and gulped a mouthful of champagne.

  “The Future,” he said, “is Hell! Everything run by women. They don’t need us anymore and they know it. Someday they’ll exterminate us all. Men are slaves and the women are masters. My wife is a Custodian. Big job. Bosses me around all day, nothing to do at night but take a sleep tablet and forget about it. That’s ’nother thing. Pills, pills, pills! Food pills, drink pills, baby pills, rest pills. All a man does in the Future is take pills and orders. Ish terrible!”

  He dropped a succulent crumb of terrapin into his mouth and sighed ecstatically.

  “I love it here. Food, drink, women! What women! They like me, tell me I’m wonderful, treat me as an equal.” One of the blondes patted him on the cheek fondly.

  “Sure you’re wonderful, Honey. Let’s have just a teeny bit more lobster, huh?”

  “Lobster, lots of lobster!” the little fellow cried happily to a passing waiter.

  “You see,” he said triumphantly, “they do think I’m wonderful. Are all girls of this year like this?”

  I looked cynically at the greedy little wenches gorging themselves with his food and drink, and scheming behind their doll-like faces how they could clip him for more.

  “Fortunately,” I said, “No.”

  If he heard me he didn’t get it. He was tickling one of them under the chin and making noises like a grandfather.

  I LEANED against the back of my chair feeling savagely ineffectual. I’d never been in such a screwy position in all of my life. I was worried about Ruby, really worried. Yet the only explanation I could get as to her whereabouts was too silly to even consider.

  That she had disappeared into the Future was absurd. Then doubts began to hit me. The disappearance of the machine etc. I took a drink and followed it with two more.

  The giggles of the girls were growing shriller, and the smile on the little fellow’s face was widening joyfully by the second.

  “No more pills,” he cried happily. “No more orders, no more worry about becoming extinct. Here I have found Paradise beyond dreams. Oh you happy, simple people of the Past, you really live in the fullest sense of the word.”

  He jerked off the silly hat and waved it in wild circles over his head.

  “No more pills,” he shouted. “No more pills for ever and ever.”

  He sounded like an advertisement for More-Bran cereal.

  “Let’s go somewhere else, Ducky,” one of the mascaraed mamas pouted.

  “Sure, sure,” Number 33 cried magnanimously, “anywhere you say.” Without wasting an instant the three girls scampered off to get their wraps. The tall, dignified waiter stepped up and laid a long piece of cardboard before my little chum in the green suit.

  The little fellow set down his drink and picked up the bill.

  He turned it over in his hands and then looked at me, puzzled.

  “What do I do with this?” he asked. His voice was as naive as a child’s.

  “Pay it,” I said bluntly. “What do you think?”

  “With what?” he asked uncertainly.

  I experienced a peculiar sensation in the pit of my stomach.

  “Good Lord!” I groaned. “Haven’t you any money?”

  The waiter’s ears pricked up. He leaned forward.

  “Any difficulty gentlemen?” His voice was as suave as silk but there was an unpleasant undertone to it.

  Number 33 turned to me bewilderedly. I can spot phonies but at moments I’d swear the little fellow was dead on the level when he asked: “What’s money?”

  I closed my eyes and counted ten. Then I told him, trying to avoid profanity wherever possible.

  When I got through with my brief discourse on elementary economics he was staring at me incredulously.

  “You can’t be serious,” he said, blinking owlishly at me. “It’s absolutely unbelievable that intelligent human beings would carry metal and paper around with them to exchange for the necessities of life. It—it’s barbaric, that’s what it is.”

  “Barbaric or not,” I said, “it’s one of the quaint customs of the day. And if you have any ideas about disregarding it, you will soon learn that we have even more barbaric methods to discourage you.”

  I’d seen the waiter casually raise his hand and nod to two very rough, business-like looking gents who were lounging against a wall watching the crowd. “You’re joking,” the little fellow said flatly.

  I glanced up and saw that the bouncers were heading our way.

  “I wish I was,” I said dismally.

  The waiter picked up the check from the table and cleared his throat meaningfully.

  “The bill,” he said frigidly, “is sixty-eight dollars and fifty cents.”

  THE LITTLE fellow looked so puzzled and dismayed that I almost felt sorry for him. He looked entreatingly at me, as if expecting me to tell him it was all a joke.

  The bouncers sauntered close to us and then circled the table slowly like vultures waiting to pounce in for the kill. I glanced up and saw that the three blondes who had glutte
d themselves with the terrapin and champagne were coming back, coats over their respective arms.

  But before they reached the table they stopped. Being experts at appraising such situations they instantly interpreted the scene and realized that their sugar daddy was out of sugar.

  For only an instant did they hesitate. Then they turned casually and strolled away.

  The little fellow didn’t notice and I was glad.

  He was too engrossed with the decidedly unfriendly attitude of the waiter and the two bouncers, who had been joined by the manager, a swarthy, stocky fellow in a tight-fitting tuxedo.

  “Sixty-eight dollars and fifty cents,” the waiter repeated with unpleasant emphasis.

  Suddenly off to our right a jingling clatter sounded. Looking up I saw that some lucky guy had hit the coin machine for a few dollars in silver.

  The little visitor from the Future heard and saw also.

  For a second his face was puzzled and uncomprehending. Then a broad relieved smile broke over his features.

  “I see, I see,” he said delightedly. “You keep the money in boxes and then when you need some you just pull a lever. Very nice, very nice indeed.”

  I tried to explain that things didn’t quite work that way, but he would have none of it.

  “You can’t fool me twice,” he said gaily. “You did have me puzzled for a while, but I see how the system works now. I’ll go over and get what money we need.”

  I had the helpless feeling that steals over a man when he attempts to reason with a woman or a copper.

  “Go ahead,” I said wearily. I slipped him a half a buck and told him how to use it. At least, I figured, it would delay the inevitable reckoning.

  The waiter glared at him when he stood up and trotted over to the slot machine, but I guess he realized that since I was still at the table it wasn’t an attempt to dodge the check.

  So he concentrated his stern, unwelcome attention on me.

  “Is there anything else?” he inquired coldly.

  “Yes,” I snapped, “bring me a glass of water and a tooth pick. The splinterless kind.”

  The waiter opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say was drowned out in a sudden whirring clatter that was followed instantly by one of the sweetest sounds in the world—the heavy jingling roar of silver.