“DO YOU know anything of the affairs of lining men?” he asked.
“Vy, naturally. I know all about dem,” the voice answered.
“Can you see the future course of human events?” Enrico persisted. “For instance, can you tell what the stock market is going to do, how the war is going to turn, which horse will win the derby, things like those?”
“Vy, of course,” the voice said. There was an expansive, patronizing tone to the voice, now. “Anything you vant to know, I can tell you. Ven I vas alive I vas one of the great philosophers of the world. Kant and Hegel stole all of dair vorks from mine. Now zat I am over here in the After-Life, everyzing iss crystal clear. Und I vas right about my predictions uff what it would be like here. Vat iss it you vant to know?”
Enrico straightened in his chair and a fever of hope and anticipation rushed through his veins. With this source of foresight at his command, to what heights could he not aspire? The potentiality that lay within his grasp was enough to stun the mind. Sure knowledge of the outcome of sporting events, political elections, wars, stocks—it was staggering to contemplate the power and wealth that such foresight would bring to him.
“The National derby is being run tomorrow,” he said, and his voice was hoarse with excitement. “Could you tell me the winner?”
“Vy, sure, if dot iss vat you vant to know. First, let me tell you a story. Ven I vas alive I had the fastest horse in the whole country. Von day vile riding on the countryside a storm came up. Vind and rain and lighting. Vun big bolt broke over my head, und I saw dot it vas coming for me direct. Joost in time I yell ‘Giddap!’ und avay ve go ahead of the lightning bolt. For fife miles ve raced, und finally ve left the lighting bolt behind us. Dot vas von fast horse, let me tell you.”
Enrico was hardly listening.
“But what about the Derby?” he demanded. “Nimble Heels is the favorite at five to one. The only horse in the race that hasn’t got a chance is Bucephalus, at eighty to one.”
“Bucephalusl” cried the voice excitedly. “Dot’s the horse who vill vin.”
“Bucephalus?” echoed Enrico incredulously.
“Dot’s right. I knew hiss grand sire, the mount of the vonderful Alexander the Great. Und let me tell you, the fix iss in.”
“So the fix is in,” Enrico said softly. A smile hovered around his lips. This was perfect. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“My poy,” the voice said, “it iss in the bag.” The voice lowered to a confidential whisper. “I vas talking to Alexander, himself, not tventy minutes ago. He let it slip. Bucephalus can’t lose.”
“And neither can I,” Enrico cried. “Adios!”
HE LEFT the chamber and hurried to his office, changed his turban for a snap-brim felt hat and left his establishment on the run.
His lawyer was incredulous.
“I don’t understand,” he said, staring at Enrico as if he had gone mad. “You want all of your holdings, your business, converted into cash by three o’clock this afternoon?”
“That is right,” Enrico said. “Everything!”
His lawyer ran a distracted hand through his hair.
“You understand, of course, that you’re going to take a serious loss on this transaction?”
Enrico smiled and thought of Bucephalus at eighty to one.
“Never mind that,” he said. “Just convert my holdings and business into cash. Regardless of the loss, I must have the cash. Do you understand?”
The lawyer shrugged and reached for the phone.
“I’ll get right on it,” he said.
AT FIVE that afternoon Enrico entered his bookie’s office with thirty five thousand dollars in his wallet. That sum represented the convertible value of everything he had owned in the world. His business, his property, his savings accounts, his cars, everything had been sacrificed to raise the amount.
Whistling cheerfully, he tossed the money on the desk.
“Bucephalus, on the nose!” he said.
The bookie, a small, dour, gray man, looked up from under his green eyeshade, and his normally expressionless eyes were wide with astonishment.
“Are you sure you know what you’re saying, Mr. Alvira?” he queried sharply.
“Perfectly,” said Enrico.
The bookie looked gloomily at the money.
“I can’t take it all,” he said. “I’ll handle what I can and wire the rest to Philly, N’yawk, Chicago and Boston. Okay?”
“As long as it’s on Bucephalus on the nose,” Enrico said, “I don’t care how you handle it.”
“Okay,” the bookie shrugged, “it’s your dough. But I’m afraid it ain’t goin’ to be for long.”
He made a notation on his book, handed Enrico a receipt and tossed the money into his drawer.
“Much obliged,” Enrico said, and left the office.
The next morning at the hour of the running of the National Derby, Enrico was seated comfortably before his radio, as the excited voice of the announcer broke in with an electric, spine-tingling shout:
“They’re off!”
Enrico relaxed comfortably in the luxurious surroundings of his office. No, they weren’t his any longer, he realized with a contented sigh, but when this race was over he wouldn’t have to worry about offices or work, ever again.
“Nimble Heels is in the lead, Skyrocket and Quicksilver trailing slightly as the pack thunders into the back stretch . . .”
The announcer’s voice was frantic with excitement.
Enrico straightened up in his chair and lit a cigarette.
Where was Bucephalus?
“Nimble Heels is drawing away at the jar turn. Skyrocket is running second, three lengths back. The rest of the pack is strung along back stretch
Enrico stood up and brushed the perspiration from his forehead. He threw his cigarette away.
Where was Bucephalus?
“. . . Into the home stretch now, it’s Nimble Heels in the lead and Skyrocket coming up fast, making his bid now. It’s still any horse’s race. Only one horse is definitely out, having stopped over on the back stretch to nibble leaves from the infield trees. He’s walking from tree to tree and his jockey has given up and lighted a cigarette. It’s a very amusing sight. I’ll get his number . . . yes . . . 17 . . . that, folks, is Bucephalus . . . definitely out. It’s Nimble Heels by a nose, folks.”
ENRICO collapsed into a chair and clapped his hands to his forehead. He was too stunned to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe.
Stopping to nibble tree leaves . . . Bucephalus!
Wiped out! All his money, all his holdings, his business, everything riding on a horse that had stopped to nibble tree leaves.
With a wild screech he leaped to his feet and charged from the office into the red-draped chamber.
He stood in the center of the gloomy room, glaring in hysterically helpless rage from corner to corner.
“It’s all your fault,” he screamed. “You told me Bucephalus was going to win. You fraud! You liar!”
“Didn’t he vin?” the voice asked in mild surprise. “Somezing must haff slipped up.”
Enrico pressed his hands to his temples, shaking with rage.
“Why did you do this to me?” he cried bitterly. “Why did you tell those lies?”
“Veil,” the voice said in embarrassment, “it vas—”
The voice stopped speaking and there was a dead silence m the room.
“What’s the matter?” Enrico demanded.
“Shhhh!” the voice said. “I haff been caught. Zey are coming for me now. Zey haff discovered zat I haff been breaking the rules by talking mit you.”
“I wish,” Enrico said with shrill anguish, “that they caught you before you ruined my life.”
“Zis iss gootbye,” the voice said sadly.
Enrico dropped into a chair and covered his head with his arms.
“Get out I” he screamed. “I never want to hear you again. Get out, whoever you are.”
“Oh, you don
’t know who I am?” the voice asked in surprise.
“No, and I don’t care,” raged Enrico.
“But you must know,” the voice continued cheerfully. “Zen you vill know how honored you haff been. I am the great Baron Munchausen!”
“Baron Munchausen!” gasped Enrico.
“Dot is right. Haff you efer heard of the time when I chumped my horse up to a cloud; und just as I was going to chump back I—”
The voice faded away in a strangled gurgle, as if someone had clapped a hand forcibly over the mouth of the speaker.
The room was quiet. Enrico slumped back in the chair and stared sightlessly at the red-draped walls.
Baron Munchausen! The greatest and most prolific liar the world had ever produced.
Enrico thought of his thirty five thousand dollars and the property, business and assets it had represented. All gone now.
He shook his head sadly.
“The fraud!” he muttered bitterly.
THE PICTURE OF DEATH
First published in the November 1942 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
This hulking, brutish man was a marvelous subject for a painting—until the character turned out to be too close to actual truth!
WHEN I walked into Harry Saunders’ office on the tenth floor of Republic Magazines’ new building, he looked up from his desk and nodded pleasantly.
“Sit down,” he said, waving me to a chair beside his desk. “Smoke?”
I sat down, accepted the cigarette and lit it carefully. From Saunders’ manner I began to hope he might have good news.
“Well, what’s the verdict?” I asked, trying to make the question as casual as possible. I’m afraid I didn’t quite succeed in that attempt. It isn’t easy to act unconcerned when your week’s meals and lodgings depend on an art director’s decision.
Saunders didn’t answer immediately. He leaned back in his chair and took a great deal of time in lighting his cigarette. I knew he was stalling. He was a nice guy and he didn’t like to say no soap. But he finally got around to it.
He looked at me with troubled eyes. “Id like to buy your illustrations,” he said, “but there’s an element of reality lacking. Your backgrounds are okay, your composition is nice, but your male characters just don’t have the brutality and toughness they should.”
I smiled bitterly and shrugged my shoulders.
“If I haven’t got it, I haven’t got it,” I said. “I’ve been in the ‘art’ business for a dozen years, but I’m learning that ‘art’ hasn’t got anything to do with making a living with magazine illustrations. Thanks, Harry, you’ve done the best anyone could for a misguided mural painter.”
I crushed out the cigarette and stood up, but Harry said, “Wait a minute.” He stood up and stepped around his desk.
“Don’t let a few rejections lick you,” he said. “At least, try once more. Do a villain for me, a rough, tough, nasty gent that I can really be scared of. Forget the background and incidental characters.”
“Okay,” I said, and moved to the door. “I’ll do it tonight and bring it in first thing in the morning.”
“Oh, by the way,” Harry said. He coughed and looked away in embarrassment. “If you could use a few bucks for a while—”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll be okay, Harry.”
I opened the door and walked down the corridor to the elevators. Outside the building it was rapidly getting dark, and a soft snow was falling on the hurrying pedestrians.
I turned my collar up and started walking. An hour later I let myself into my bleak, cold, cramped attic-studio. I turned on the light over my drawing board and then turned up the gas under the coffee pot.
I had never been a fast craftsman and I knew that the job of drawing one character would take most of the night. I didn’t particularly look forward to the hours that stretched ahead of me. Drawing is hard work for me.
Work that I love, but, nevertheless, work.
While the coffee was heating, I blocked in a frame for my main figure. I hadn’t the faintest idea of what my character would be. Not having the money to afford models, I was forced to use my imagination in creating illustrations.
AS I sat before the board, toying with ideas, I happened to glance out the window and see, across the narrow court, the figure of a man outlined against a window.
He had his back to the window, but as I watched, he turned and I had a full view of his features. They were brutal and coarse, and in his small, deep-sunk eyes there was something unimaginably evil. From his shoulders and arms I could see that he was powerfully built, probably of enormous strength. His hair was coarse and black.
The light in his room shone full on his face, and I was able to analyze each feature and line carefully.
Automatically I picked up my drawing pencil. I was hardly conscious of what I was doing, so absorbed was I in the man across the court. Something in the bestial brutality of his features fired my imagination, inflamed my senses and set my heart pounding.
My pencil flashed across the drawing paper with swift, sure strokes. I had never drawn with such ease and effect in my entire career. It was as if some psychic influence was at work, driving me on, ordering my thoughts and directing my hand.
I was afraid, terribly afraid, that the man would turn away from the light before I completed the sketch.
I worked furiously, studying my subject with white-hot concentration, and feverishly transmitting the almost sadistic brutality of his features to the drawing paper.
At last the thing was done. And at that same second the man across the court turned away from his window, and the light in his room disappeared.
I felt enormously lucky and strangely exhilarated.
I studied the drawing carefully. It was simply done, yet there was an undeniable impact in its effect. I had caught the essence of chilling evil that, to my eyes at least, was stamped unmistakably on the face of the man across the court.
I felt like celebrating. Here, the job I had been dreading as an all-night session was completed in ten minutes. But most gratifying was the realization that I had done a coldly realistic piece of work. The illustration was good, I knew. Something of myself, and something from my subject had merged together to create this drawing.
With a rare feeling of jubilance I went to the closet and took down one of my cherished possessions, a full pint of good whiskey. I had been saving it until I had something to celebrate, and this seemed the proper occasion.
I had three drinks in a row, silently toasting myself each time. I am not accustomed to liquor, and when I finally lay down on my cot, my head was spinning very pleasantly.
WHEN I awoke it was morning.
A faint early light was creeping in through the window, and I had a bad headache. I still had my clothes on.
I stood up and pressed my hands to my temples. Gradually the memory of the previous evening returned. I didn’t feel so bad then. At least I had a good piece of work to show Saunders.
I washed, changed my shirt and, feeling almost normal again, I drew back the shades and let the North light pour into the room. I was anxious to inspect the drawing in the sometimes damning light of day.
I swung the drawing board around, and let the clear morning light splash over the illustration I’d done of the man across the court.
The sight that met my eyes caused me to gasp in astonished horror.
The illustration was completely changed!
The figure of the man was bent in a crouch, and his lips were flattened against his teeth in demoniacal leer. In his hooked, talon-like hands was an axe, smeared and bloody.
And, most horrible of all, between his spread feet was the form of a young girl, her head hacked almost completely from her shoulders.
I sat down, my knees suddenly weak. The horrible force of the gruesome drawing was physically staggering.
The illustration was a masterpiece of macabre horror.
But who had done it? The central figure was mine, but had someone
visited my room in the dead of night to add the gruesome details of the murder?
I stared at the illustration for many long minutes. There was something plucking at my subconscious, some psychic half-memory of this scene, as if possibly I had dreamed or imagined it years ago.
I shook my head irritably at this thought. I was indulging in a form of self-hypnosis, trying to convince myself of something or other.
There was a rational explanation to this phenomenon, I told myself firmly. The style of the art was mine throughout the picture. I recognized that instantly. Therefore I had drawn in the figure of the murdered girl, changed my central character into a bestial maniacal killer, dramatized the illustration into a blood-chilling picture.
That much was obvious. But how had I done all this? And why did I have no recollection of it?
There was only one answer to both those questions. I must have changed the illustration during my drink-befogged sleep. That was the only logical solution. Possibly the unaccustomed stimulus of the alcohol had provided the subconscious impetus to return to the drawing board and re-design the illustration.
Possibly . . .
I removed the illustration from the drawing board and rolled it up tightly.
There was no sense worrying about the thing. It was done; that was that. This realistic view comforted me more had my attempts at rationalization. I left my studio with the illustration under my arm and walked uptown to the Republic Magazines’ building.
WHEN I spread the illustration on Harry Saunders’ desk, a half hour later, his eyes brightened with interest and he stood up excitedly.
“Now you’ve got it,” he said, slapping me on the shoulder. “This picture has got some guts to it. It’s realistic and convincing.”
He stared a long moment at the illustration.
“Did you get the idea for this scene from the morning newspaper?” he asked abruptly.
“No,” I said, surprised. “I got it from—”
My voice and thoughts trailed away. Where had I got the idea?
“What do you mean?” I demanded. “I haven’t seen the morning papers yet. Was there some sort of murder last night?”
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 134