Somewhere in the depths of his vast black cavern Yoh-Agparth shuddered uneasily. “Never,” he muttered, and the echoes of his rolling voice cracked the other side of the mountain in the Himalayas.
I’LL FOLLOW YOU TO HELL!
First published in the November 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
Ryan was a copper of the old school. He had determination—and more. He’d trail a man into hell itself. But he found that the trip is usually made on a one-way ticket.
THEY BROUGHT him in about three in the morning, a slender, graying man with mild, bewildered eyes, and propped him against the counter of the Third Detective Division. One of the cops, a fresh-faced youngster named Wilson, called out, “Customer, gentlemen. Service please.”
A brooding waiting mood lay over the place—a night-mood that fitted in perfectly with tile dirt, cynicism, and basic hopelessness of a police station.
Cops, as a breed, are not the most cheerful people in the world. Their business the very nature of it—makes them pessimists. Night after night the lawless—the blank-eyed offenders—are brought in. And not one is ever guilty. They are all maltreated, imposed-upon citizens, and they’ll be the first to tell you so. They tell the cops how badly they are abused and the cops listen with hard, stiff faces and then throw them into the tank until they can tell their stories to the judge and usually the judge finds that they themselves are the abusers—the abusers of the society which gives them aid and encouragement.
The good citizens do not see these offenders; the judge sees them but briefly. The police, however, are stuck with them in the interim; the police listen to their whinings and their lies. So the cynicism of the police can be understood.
There were three detectives, the night-shift, in the stale-smelling, dimly lit room. Two were sleeping, one on a wooden bench under the green-shaded windows, the other slumped down in a chair, a gray felt hat pulled down over his eyes. The third, a powerfully built man with reddish-brown hair, was awake, hunched over a report on his desk. This was Ryan, known as the toughest cop in the toughest district in Philadelphia. Ryan never napped on duty; he was always grimly, hopefully awake. Now he stood slowly, moving with the lazy grace of a confident animal, and strolled across the cigarette-littered floor to the counter. He was a tall broad man, solid as a slab of granite, with hard flat features, and eyes that were gray and deep and merciless.
“What have you got?” he said, glancing with impersonal disgust at the slender graying man between the two cops.
“A drunk,” the fresh-faced cop named Wilson said. He grinned. “But there was an odd angle about him, so we decided to turn it over to the high-priced help. Meaning you hawkshaws, of course. I—”
“Don’t be cute about it,” Ryan said, looking steadily at Wilson. “Just give me the facts.”
The cop, Wilson, nodded and wet his lips. The impact of Ryan’s deep pitiless eyes left him slightly breathless. “Sure, sure,” he said. “We found him in the gutter at the intersection of Sixth and Market. He was laying about twenty feet from a jeweler’s store that had the window knocked in. There was no robbery report from there, but the protection service boys were out on it, of, course. Nothing missing from the jewelry shop, it turned out, but this character was on the scene, and so—” Wilson shrugged, glad to get his story over, unwilling to add any irrelevant details which might irritate Ryan.
“Okay, any identification?” Ryan said.
“Nothing.”
“Money, social security card, clothing labels?”
“There was nothing. He don’t even have a cigarette butt on him.”
Ryan stared at the slender little man for a moment or so, noting his pale intelligent face, his mild, oddly, bewildered eyes, his silvery hair. Possibly a dopey, he thought. There was something about him slightly off-key.
“Bring him in over to my desk,” he said, at last. “I’ll have a talk with him.”
“That’s another thing,” Wilson said. “He don’t talk.”
Ryan grinned, and something glittered deep in his merciless eyes. “He’ll talk, all right.”
“Want us to stick around in case he goes off his nut, or something like that?” Wilson said.
RYAN TOOK his time lighting a cigarette. He stared over the flame at Wilson. “Thanks,” he said finally. “Thanks a lot. But I’d like it better if you’d do as you’re told and get the hell back to your car. That okay with you?”
There was no more conversation. The cops did as they were told, dumped the graying little man beside Ryan’s desk, and left. Outside, in the bleak dark street, the fresh-faced cop named Wilson swore savagely and looked up at the green-shaded windows of the detective division. “Who the hell does he think he is?” he said, his voice low and bitter.
Wilson’s partner, an old-timer named Flannigan, shrugged briefly. “Don’t try to warm up to Joe Ryan,” he said. “He’s got about the same kind of heart you’d find in a rattlesnake. Just keep your mouth shut around him, that’s the best bet.” Flannigan looked up at the green-shaded windows. “I feel a little sorry for that fellow we brought in,” he said.
“Yeah, so do I,” Wilson said slowly.
They both shrugged then and walked down to their squad car, which waited for them gleaming and black under chilling winter rain.
“Let’s start with your name,” Ryan said, facing the slender man with the silvery hair.
There was no answer. The little man stared back at him, bewildered, uneasy, confused.
“Now get this straight,” Ryan said in a low hard voice. “We’re going to find out all about you, name, address, family, what you’re doing in town, everything. We’ll get it, believe me. We can do it nice and fast, or we can do it tough and slow. You make the choice, buddy.”
Again, there was no answer.
Ryan felt a savage anger building up in him, swiftly, dangerously. This was always the way it went, he thought. You offered them the break, the out, and they sneered at you, called you a fool in the silent depths of their minds. Ryan’s philosophy was a bleak and lonely one: the world, his world, was crowded with thugs, hoodlums, whores, racketmen, chiselers, rapists, deadbeats of all varieties and sorts. That decent people might exist was an academic point to Ryan; he never met them. The sort who made up his world were dangerous, implacable enemies; they would get him if he didn’t hit them first, and hit them hard. He knew no other way of doing his job.
“Okay, we’ll try once more,” he said slowly. “What’s your name?” There was no answer.
Ryan stood, tipping his chair over backward. Before it struck the floor he had jerked the little man to his feet and struck him savagely across the mouth. The chair crashed to the floor, and the sound of it obliterated the shocked desperate shriek that forced itself through the little man’s lips.
“Now we’re in business,” Ryan said, breathing heavily. “you can make noises. Now make some sense. What’s your name?”
THERE WAS no answer. Swearing, Ryan slapped him again, and dropped him back in his chair. The little man stared at Ryan as he might stare at some prehistoric monster come to life. There was no longer bewilderment in his eyes; his expression was one of numb, desperate disbelief. His lips moved. “Why?” he asked. “Why?” The single word was spoken haltingly.
“Oh, you want to ask questions now,” Ryan said. “This is good. Well, I’ll play along. I hit you because you’re a little slow to talk, buddy. If you don’t want another sample, keep talking, and talk fast. What’s your name?”
“I—I can tell you nothing,” the little man said. He seemed stunned. Almost as an afterthought, he added, “I have never been struck before.”
“You’re going to talk, get it?” Ryan said. He was breathing harder now, and he felt the reins he kept on his temper slipping through his hands. They pushed him to it, he thought, almost desperately. These deadbeats, bums, hoodlums—the responsibility was theirs, not his. “What’s your name?” he shouted, jerking the little man to his feet.
Five minut
es later Ryan called downstairs to the House Sergeant. “Send up a couple of men,” he said. “This drunk I got here just passed out. Dump a bucket of water over him and lock him up for a few hours.”
“Okay. You got his name?”
Ryan slammed the receiver down without answering. He paced the floor, drawing deeply on his cigarette.
Occasionally he glanced at the small huddled body of the little man lying on the floor. Stupid, stubborn, ignorant jerk, he thought. What was he trying to hide? Did he think he could get away with it by just keeping his mouth shut?
The turnkey and the House Sergeant’s clerk came in and carted the little man out, carrying his frail slender form as easily as they would that of a child. When they were gone Ryan threw his cigarette away and rubbed his forehead tiredly. He sighed finally and went to the basin in the corner of the room and began to wash his hands. This was a ritual of his, unexplained and unexplainable, but it was one he never varied. After using his hands on a man, Ryan scrubbed them thoroughly, painstakingly, with strong soap and hot water. Sometimes a newcomer to the division kidded him about this peculiarity, but no one was likely to make that mistake twice. Ryan didn’t know why he washed his hands after striking a man; but he didn’t like to be kidded about it. He didn’t even like to think about it.
Twenty minutes later, as Ryan was looking over a report on one of his cases, the phone rang. It was the House Sergeant. “Ryan, I just got a tip-off from the Hall that we’re getting some visitors. It’s big stuff. The Superintendent and the Mayor, and a few carloads of brass.”
“What’s up?” Ryan said.
“Damned if I know. But you’d better wake up those sleeping beauties of yours.”
“Okay, thanks.” Ryan replaced the phone, rubbed his forehead for a few seconds, and then shrugged.
He stood and snapped on the strong white overhead lights. He shook the detective sleeping in the chair, and walked over and kicked the bench the other man was lying on.
“The Superintendent’s coming out,” he said as they sat up, blinking and yawning. “Yeah, that’s right, the Superintendent. And the Mayor’s with him. Better splash some water on your faces.”
THE DELEGATION from City Hall arrived within ten minutes. It was a formidable group: Mayor Jeremy Morrison was in the lead, plump, nervous, and harried, and following him was Dick Gibbons, Superintendent of Police, and three men whom Ryan didn’t recognize. One of the strangers, a tall, quietly dressed man with heavy dark eyebrows and a lean sensitive face, was vaguely familiar to Ryan. He had seen the man somewhere before, of that much he was sure; but he couldn’t connect a name of identity to those well-bred, distinguished features.
Morrison did the talking. “Ryan, we have a report that a thin gray-haired man was brought in here about half an hour ago. Is that correct?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Ryan said. He sensed a sudden excitement in the group; the tall man with the sensitive face let out his breath slowly. What the hell was going on, Ryan wondered. Why this stir over a nameless little drunk?
“Where is he?” Morrison said.
“Downstairs in the cell block,” Ryan said. “They just carried him down there.”
“ ‘Carried’ ?” The tall man spoke for the first time in a voice that was low but authoritative. “Was he injured?”
“No, he was okay.” Ryan said. “He—well, he gave me some trouble and I had to handle him a bit.”
Something changed in the tall man’s face, and Ryan felt a touch of color come up into his cheeks. The tall man was staring at him as if he were a particularly repellent form of vermin.
“You had to handle him a bit, eh?” the tall man repeated.
“He wouldn’t talk,” Ryan said. “I asked him who he was, that’s all, and he wouldn’t talk.” He felt anger surging through him now. They were all looking at him as if he were some kind of monster. “How the hell am I supposed to do this job, anyway? The only way to handle these bums is to—”
The tall man made a sharp silencing gesture with his hand. “I’m not interested in your philosophy of police work,” he said, in an icy voice. “It would fit perfectly with gas chambers and racks, I’m quite sure.”
Ryan took an involuntary step forward. “Now just a minute,” he said.
Gibbons, Superintendent of Police, said, “Shut up, and stay shut up, Ryan. That’s an order.”
“Let’s go down to the cell block,” the tall man said.
Ryan fought back the words that were pounding for release in his mind. The habit of obedience was strong in him, almost an instinctive reflex of his will. He was capable of swinging at the tall man, although he knew he was someone of importance, but the command of Gibbons, his chief, stopped him dead in his tracks.
THE GROUP filed out of the Detective Division, and went downstairs to the first floor of the station. Ryan followed them, his jaw set angrily. They went through to the roll-call room, and the House Sergeant lumbered out of his office and bellowed for the turnkey. There was no answer. “Must be in the cell-block,” the sergeant muttered. “I’ll take you back.”
He opened the door leading to the cell-block.
Ryan heard Gibbons curse.
He looked over his shoulder and saw the turnkey lying on the floor, and the door of a cell standing open. The cell was empty.
There was a furious but despairing bit of activity after that, in which it was ascertained that the slender gray-haired little man had apparently vanished into thin air. The turnkey was revived, and told a vague, bewildered story.
“We brought him in here and dumped him on the cot,” he said, shaking his head slowly and staring anxiously at his circle of questioners. “I came back a while later and he was standing up, right at the door. He beckoned to me, and I walked over to him, thinking, you know, he wanted a drink or something. When I got up close to him—” The turnkey paused, frowning, and rubbed his gray head. “Well, I don’t know just what happened. He reached out and touched me on the side of the face—I mean, he hit me on the face. He must have hit me: sure. That’s all I remember.”
“Well, for God’s sake, did he just walk out then?” Gibbons demanded of no one in particular.
The House Sergeant rubbed his damp forehead. “He could have, I guess. I mean, once he got out of the cell he could walk into the roll room and go out the side door.”
“He can’t be far,” Ryan said. “Let’s move. We can pick him up in ten minutes.”
The tall man studied him carefully, thoughtfully. “This started with you,” he said, in his low voice. “You had the opportunity to—” He paused and shrugged, a gesture of weariness and despair. “However, you chose to exercise your sadistic needs on him, and drive him away from here.”
Ryan said, “I tell you we can get him in ten minutes. Just who the hell is he, anyway?”
The tall man glanced at the Mayor, ignoring Ryan. “I certainly hope this specimen isn’t typical of the men on this city’s police force.”
Mayor Morrison, an expert politician, reacted almost instinctively to the prod in the tall man’s voice. “You can believe me he isn’t,” he said, in the ringing tones he would use to a Women’s Voter’s League Against Crime. Glaring at Ryan, he said, “You’re suspended until further notice. I want you to turn your badge and gun in immediately. There’ll be a Police Court hearing on this matter, I can promise you.”
“Okay,” Ryan said. He was trembling slightly and there was a thin white line about his mouth. Nothing showed in his face. “Okay,” he said again, and his voice was slightly thicker. He turned and strode away from the group, his heels striking the floor with measured, angry defiance.
TEN MINUTES later Ryan stalked away from the station house, his topcoat collar turned up against the chilling drizzle. Light from neon signs flashed and danced on the gleaming car tracks, and above him the bare black limbs of winter trees shook in the face of a high whistling wind. Ryan saw and heard nothing; his eyes, fixed straight ahead, were glassy with a moisture that was not r
elated to the rain.
He was hardly aware of the hand that caught his elbow. Turning, slightly dazed, he saw Ed Fremont, a reporter from the city’s morning paper.
“Well, what do you want?” Ryan snapped.
“Damn it, what’s going on at the district?” Fremont said. “What’s the Mayor and Superintendent doing out on a night like this?”
“I don’t know a thing,” Ryan said.
Fremont raised his eyebrows. “Nothing, eh? You saw that tall guy with the Oxford-type face, I suppose. Didn’t that make you a little curious?”
“I don’t know a thing,” Ryan repeated in the same tone. He caught Fremont’s lapels, in a big hand. “Who was that guy?” he snapped.
Fremont laughed. “Sure, you’re curious,” he said. “Ryan, you should look at a newspaper occasionally. Reading flyers exclusively isn’t too broadening a hobby.”
“Who was he?” Ryan growled.
“Well, that gentleman is the Under Secretary of these United States,” Fremont said. “What did he want at a two-bit slum station? Come on, give me a break. Just a hint, Ryan.”
Ryan pushed Fremont away from him slowly, and continued on down the street, eyes fixed straight ahead, cursing the tall man in a low, raging voice.
RYAN WOKE late the following afternoon. He had drunk a pint of whisky to put him to sleep, and now there was an iron band of pain pressing across his forehead, and his eyes blinked against the late sunlight filtering into his room. For a moment he lay still, thinking of what had happened, and then he climbed out of bed, hurrying as if to escape his memories. After shaving and dressing, he left his room and went down to the street: It was a cold, depressing day, with a weak sun trying futilely to force its way through massive ranks of dark clouds. Ryan turned into the restaurant where he usually ate, and ordered tomato juice, coffee and doughnuts. After swallowing the food hastily, he went into a phone booth and called his district.
“This is Ryan,” he said, recognizing the House Sergeant’s voice. “Did they pick up that little drunk yet?”
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 290