Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  “Well, that’s very good of you,” Reggie said, touched. “I’ll remember it.”

  Der laughed casually. “You might bring Miss Maxwell, too. She seemed very fond of you.”

  “We might work it out,” Reggie said. “Sounds like a rum time.”

  “Wonderful!” Der said happily.

  After a while they drew up before a great iron gate at which a uniformed guard was stationed. Visible through the gates were a series of white buildings gleaming in the brilliant sun. And high above the gate was a sign that read: Magnum Studios!

  “This is it, we’re very close,” Der said.

  Reggie paid the driver (with money Mona had thoughtfully insisted he take) and approached the guard. Der was figuratively jumping with excitement by now. “We must go inside. There, that big window in the central building. That’s where I must go.”

  “Righto,” Reggie said.

  The guard strolled to meet him, smiling pleasantly.

  “Do you have a pass?” he asked.

  “Well, no,” Reggie said. “But this is terribly important. We’ve got to get inside. You see that big window in the central building? That’s where we go.”

  “Oh, that’s where you want to go,” the guard said, rocking on his heels. “By any chance do you know whose office that is?”

  “Well, no.”

  “That’s Mr. Maurice Mann’s office. He just happens to own this studio.”

  “Well, I’m sure he enjoys that,” Reggie said. “What’re our chances, old chap?”

  “Your chances? Well, let’s see now,” the guard said reflectively. “Supposing you walked up to the White House and said that you wanted to see President Eisenhower. What do you think your chances would be?”

  Reggie shrugged. “Longish, I imagine.”

  “Well, they’d be very good compared to your chances of seeing Mr. Mann,” the guard said, shaking his head.

  A horn sounded behind them, and he said, “Run along now, I’m busy. Sorry.”

  Reggie turned away dejectedly as a Rolls Royce pulled up beside him and stopped. Mona Maxwell put her blonde head out the rear window, and yelled, “Reggie! What are you doing here?” Reggie wheeled about. “What luck!” he said.

  “Look at that beautiful hair,” Der said softly.

  “Down, old chap,” Reggie said. He hurried to the side of the car, and said, “Look, old dear, can you get us into Maurice Mann’s office?”

  “ ‘Us’ ” Mona said, frowning. “Where’s your friend?”

  “I mean me,” Reggie said. “It’s frightfully important.”

  “But of course. Hop in. I’m going to see him right now.”

  “Ripping.” Reggie climbed into the car and tossed the guard a sprightly salute as they rolled into the lot. Five minutes later they entered the presence of Maurice Mann, after passing through three outer offices in which secretaries were busily engaged in polishing their nails.

  Maurice Mann was a tall, powerfully built man with a massive bald head. He walked around his desk, which took him almost a full minute, and embraced Mona with a paternal hug.

  “Grand to have you back home, darling,” he said heartily.

  Mona introduced Reggie and Maurice Mann squeezed his fingers mightily. “Grand to have you back home,” he said heartily.

  Der said, “Under his desk, that’s where I meet the machine. It’s waiting for me now. Under his desk, quickly.”

  Just then there was a violent commotion outside the door of Mann’s office. Voices were raised suddenly and angrily, and a woman screamed. The door burst open and Uncle Ed charged into the room, stiletto raised to strike. And behind him were Clive and Sari, imperturbable and distraught respectively.

  “We’ve trailed you like bloodhounds, by God,” Uncle Ed shouted.

  “Oh, Reggie, what’s happened to you!” Sari cried.

  “I have a change of clothes, sir,” Clive said quietly.

  Uncle Ed advanced on Reggie as Maurice Mann began to bellow for producers, directors, writers and finally, the police.

  Reggie hurled himself under Mann’s cavernous desk, and as he did he felt a sudden booming explosion within his head. The concussion knocked him cold, but before he blacked out he heard

  Der say, “So long, old man. It was pleasant.”

  Then, hours later, it seemed, he was pulled out from beneath the desk and hoisted to his feet. The tableau, he saw gloomily, hadn’t changed. Everyone was still babbling wildly, and Uncle Ed still brandished the nasty pig sticker.

  But then, over the noisy confusion, Clive’s voice fell like a bar of iron. “Drop that foolish knife, and drop it instantly,” he said, with enough volume to set the ashtrays on Mann’s desk bouncing musically.

  Uncle Ed let the knife fall from his hand, and then he slowly straightened to attention. His eyes were fixed immovably on a spot about two inches to the right of Clive’s ear.

  “I was once a Guards’ Officer,” Clive said apologetically to Reggie. “And I remembered this chap at last. Painful as it is for me to say so, sir, he was one of the least efficient kitchen orderlies in my company. The men called him Greasy Eddie, if my memory serves. Stand at ease,” he said to Uncle Ed in a kinder voice.

  “Thank you, sir,” Uncle Ed said. He looked miserably at Sari. “I always wanted to be a soldier, but I wasn’t much of one. And when I got pensioned off, I started to act the part.”

  It was then that Maurice Mann exploded in earnest. “Get out, get out, all of you,” he shouted. “I don’t want madmen and idiots crawling under my feet. You too, Mona, clear out of here.”

  Reggie stared at him coldly. “That is the not the way to address a lady,” he said.

  Mona caught Maurice Mann’s arm, and said coaxingly, “Relax, please. This is all in fun. Reggie here has been a great friend of mine.”

  “Well, all right, all right,” Maurice Mann said testily. He looked down his nose at Reggie and muttered something inaudible.

  Reggie smiled boyishly, and gave Mona a fleeting wink.

  “I say, this is a pleasure,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to meet Maurice Manning.”

  “I happen to be Maurice Mann.”

  “Oh!” Reggie said.

  There was a long silence. Then he turned to Sari and took her arm. “Come along, my dear. I’ve got a good, longish story to tell you.”

  “I’m sure it’s going to be long, at least,” she said, smiling.

  They were almost at the door before Maurice Mann caught up with them. “Look, I suppose I’ve behaved pretty crudely,” he said earnestly.

  Reggie waved a hand negligently. “I daresay,” he murmured.

  “Wouldn’t you like to look around the studio, and then come back here for lunch? Really, I’d be pleased if you would.”

  “I’d love to,” Sari said.

  “Well, all right then,” Reggie said pleasantly, and winked once more at Mona Maxwell. She was too much the lady to laugh, of course.

  And in the dark caves outside the city of Dar, Der sat in the center of a spellbound group, talking urgently to them as the winds clawed up and down the sides of the black chamber.

  “And her hair was the color of the starlight you see in the early morning,” he was saying.

  He had been talking for quite some time now, but no one was bored.

  THE CHASE

  First published in the November-December 1953 issue of Fantastic.

  You take a bright young man and his pretty little wife. To this combination, you add a huge stone wheel, a broken kite, a dusty old saddle, and what have you got? A hopeless conglomeration?

  Well, yes and no. Yes, when they confront the average person . . .

  DAVE MASTERSON arrived home as usual about six o’clock. He returned the doorman’s casual greeting, made some comment about the weather (it had been a blistering day) and then walked gratefully into the dim cool lobby of the East River apartment building in which he had been living for the past three months. The elevator operator smiled at him,
and made some typical remark about the heat.

  “Yes, it was a real scorcher,” Dave said.

  They shot up noiselessly to the seventeenth floor, and by the time he stepped from the car Dave was already feeling the restoring pleasure of home-coming. They—he had been married three months—wouldn’t have dinner right away, of course. First he’d get out of these clothes and shower. Polly would have drinks ready on the small terrace then, and they would spend a lucky, comfortable hour there watching the river boats and chatting over the day’s events. This was excellent therapy for the tensions that built up during a day devoted exclusively to planning campaigns to sell more and ever more Easy Fit shirts. You told yourself you wouldn’t let it happen, he was thinking as he walked down the thickly carpeted corridor to his apartment. You looked at your healthy face in the mirror each morning as you shaved, and you said, “Look, old man, this is just a business. It’s not a matter of life and death. So relax. Let the beavers go eagerly after their commissions and ulcers. But you play it smart. That’s the way. Relax! To hell with the half-hour crisis, the hourly catastrophe. You’ve got a nice little apartment (which costs more than you can afford) and a nice little wife (who’s eighty-six times better than you deserve) so don’t knock yourself in the great struggle to sell more Easy Fit shirts, and add a few more million dollars to old

  John Adams’ bank account.”

  You said all that, he thought, fitting his key into the lock, and you meant it—you meant it until the lather dried away. Then you got to the office and got involved in the old rat-race and all your good intentions went down the drain. Well, he thought cheerfully, maybe you really want an ulcer. Maybe you’d be bored silly on that South Sea Island you’re always threatening to retire to. To hell with it for the moment, he decided, smiling as he opened the door. Now is the time for a shower, a long cool drink, and a kiss from your brand-new wife, Polly.

  The blinds of the living room were pulled down against the slanting afternoon sun, and for an instant he stood in the doorway, blinking in the unaccustomed dimness,

  “Woman!” he called out. “Attend me! I have the carcass of a sabre-tooth account executive over my shoulder. Light the bonfire and rejoice.”

  It was then, as his eyes focused, that he saw her slim figure sprawled on the floor. She was lying face down, across what seemed to be a huge stone wheel, and one of her hands rested limply on a battered, dust-caked saddle.

  There were several other curious objects in the long elegantly furnished room, but Dave paid no attention to them; nothing mattered to him but his wife. Even the wild incongruity of a great stone wheel and an old dusty saddle in his living room failed to catch his interest for more than a fleeting instant.

  DAVE knelt beside her, calling her name furiously. Then, as she didn’t answer, he got her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. She was breathing deeply and evenly, and there was a tiny quiver of motion in her eyelids. He put her on the bed, straightened out her legs and began to rub her hands.

  “Baby, baby, what’s the matter?” he said, over and over.

  She moved her head slowly from side to side on the pillow but didn’t answer. Still gripping her hands tightly with one of his, Dave lifted the phone and dialed Operator. When a cool competent voice answered, he said, “Look, I’ve got to have a doctor right away. And the police. This is an emergency.”

  “Where are you phoning from?”

  Dave gave her his address and hung up . . .

  He sat beside the bed holding his wife’s hand as he waited for help. There was no change in her manner. She lay quietly, returning the pressure of his grip and moving her head slowly from side to side. But she didn’t speak or open her eyes. He touched her forehead and was slightly relieved to find that she had no fever. The ends of her closely-cut blonde hair were slightly damp, and he guessed that she had bathed or showered shortly before he had arrived home. He stared mutely at her pale still face, his lips moving in a vague, formless prayer. Help her, help her, help her. . . .

  Polly was a rather small girl with a trim hard body, and fine wheat-colored hair that was cropped close to her head in a poodle-cut. She had always impressed Dave with her enormous vitality and good humor; in the time he had known her, seven months, she had never been tired or depressed. She had delicate, pretty features, and loved clothes, the sun, and sports of all kinds. But, surprisingly enough, in addition to this she was extremely well-informed and owned a wide streak of common sense.

  Dave tried not to think of any of this as he stared helplessly at her still body. She was wearing very brief white shorts, almost a Bikini style, and nothing else but a halter and bright red sandals. It was the costume a child would choose for herself if she could get away with it, and Polly dressed that way for him when they weren’t having guests for cocktails. She looked very young and helpless, with her small blonde head moving restlessly, and her slender brown legs limp and languid on the bed.

  He rubbed his forehead with his fist, trying to fight down his fear, trying desperately not to think of what might happen to him if he lost her.

  And trying not to think of those incredible things in the living room; the great stone wheel, the dusty saddle, and the other objects that he had sensed rather than seen in the dimness . . .

  Then his doorbell sounded, sharply, insistently.

  The detective was named Bennet. He had arrived after the uniformed patrolman had phoned his district and admitted that it looked like something for an investigating officer. Bennet had arrived about ten minutes after the doctor, who was now in the bedroom with Polly.

  Bennet didn’t talk much. He was a tall rangy redhead, with mild blue eyes and a long nose which he fingered occasionally with an expression of vague surprise.

  “This junk,” Bennet said, waving a hand slowly about the living room. “You say you don’t know where it came from?”

  “That’s right,” Dave said. “It was here when I got home, that’s all I know. And my wife was lying right there.” He pointed to the big stone wheel. “None of it was here when I left for work this morning.”

  “Hmmmm,” Bennet said, looking about the room.

  In addition to the wheel and the saddle, there was a thin metal tube about an inch in diameter and nearly eight feet long. It was sealed at both ends, and weighed three or four pounds. Also there was a box kite, about four-feet square. Some of the thin wooden arms of its frame were broken, and the paper covering it was torn in a dozen places.

  THE WHEEL was the most outlandish of all these outlandish things. It was chipped and broken in many places, but it nevertheless weighed several hundred pounds. Dave and Bennet had tried to lift it but hadn’t succeeded in getting it more than a few inches off the floor.

  “How come you called the police?” Bennet asked mildly.

  “Well, who should I have called? The Fire Department? The Bureau of Licenses, maybe?”

  “Now take it easy,” Bennet said. “What I meant was, did you think somebody had attacked and slugged your wife?”

  “I didn’t think anything, I guess,” Dave said. “I was scared. What would you do if you came home and found your wife unconscious on the floor, and your living room looking like a junk yard?”

  “Well, I guess I’d do about what you did,” Bennet said. “But you’re still missing my point. What I’m after is whether you saw something, consciously or unconsciously, that made you think of yelling for the cops.”

  Dave shook his head slowly. “I’ve told you everything just the way it happened.”

  “Okay. Let’s try to find out who brought this junk up here. That shouldn’t be too hard.”

  He left the apartment and returned a few moments later with Charlie, the man who ran the building’s freight elevator. Charlie, a big, solidly built figure in a blue uniform, jerked his head uneasily at Dave.

  “How do, Mr. Masterson,” he said. And then he looked about the room and his eyebrows went up slightly.

  “You ever see any of this stuff before
?” Bennet asked him.

  Charlie shook his head slowly. He didn’t know what this was all about, obviously; he was ready to frown or grin as soon as he got his cue.

  “Well, how’d it get up here then?” Bennet said.

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said, rubbing his big hands along the sides of his trousers. He glanced nervously from Bennet to Dave. “Is something wrong, Mr. Masterson?”

  “I’ll ask the questions,” Bennet said, but he put this ancient formula pleasantly enough. “We just want to get to the bottom of where this stuff came from, and who brought it up here. If it didn’t come up on the freight elevator, what’s your best guess?”

  “I ain’t got any,” Charlie said, after a pause. “If I didn’t bring it up then nobody brought it up.” He stared indignantly at the objects whose presence made a mockery of his statement. “I mean I don’t know how they got here,” he said, at last, in a puzzled voice.

  “Is there just one freight elevator?”

  “That’s right, and I was on it all day.”

  “How about the passenger elevator?”

  “No, nobody could bring stuff like this into the lobby. It would come around to me. But it didn’t, understand?”

  “We’ll check the passenger elevators anyway,” Bennet said. “You stick around, Charlie.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When he left the room Charlie shifted awkwardly on his feet. “I hear the doctor came up here,” he said. “Is there something wrong with the Missus?”

  “I don’t know, I just don’t know,” Dave said wearily.

  “Well, I hope to God she’s all right,” Charlie said, and there was no mistaking the urgent sincerity in his voice. “She’s a great little lady. There’s some in buildings like that won’t talk to the likes of me, but that wife of yours hasn’t any ideas like that. She’s a great little lady, and if anybody put a finger on her I’d like to meet the guy, that’s all I’ll say.”

  “Thank you, Charlie,” Dave said. He turned away because he had the feeling that he might make a fool of himself if he looked Charlie in the eye.