The Complete Stories, Vol. 1: Final Reckonings

  I pulled away.

  "What's the matter, Pappy — don't you like me?"

  "Of course I do."

  "Then don't act as if I was gonna bite you."

  "It's not that. But I meant it when I said I had no — er—intentions along such lines."

  "Sure, I know." She relaxed, perfectly content. "So I'll settle for your etchings."

  We pulled up and I recognized the building. I gave the driver a ten-dollar bill and told him to keep the change.

  "I can't figure you out, Mr. Beers," Shirley said — and meant it. "Way you toss that moola around."

  "Call it one last fling. I'm leaving town shortly." I took her arm and we stepped into the lobby. The self-service elevator was empty. I pressed the button for the top floor. We rose slowly.

  On the way up Shirley sobered suddenly. She faced me and put her arms on my shoulders. "Look here, Mr. Beers. I just got to thinking. I saw a movie once and — say, what I mean is, way you hand out dough and talking about leaving town and all — you aren't sick, are you? I mean, you haven't just come from the doctor and heard you're gonna die from some disease?"

  Her solicitude was touching, and I didn't laugh. "Really," I said, "I can assure you that your fears are groundless. I'm very much alive and expect to stay that way for a long time to come."

  "Good. Now I feel better. I like you, Mr. Beers."

  "I like you, too, Shirley." I stepped back just in time to avoid a hug. The elevator halted and we got out. I led her down the hallway to the stairs.

  "Oh, you have the penthouse!" she squealed. Now she was really excited.

  "You go first," I murmured.

  She went first. At the top of the stairs she halted, puzzled. "But there's a door here — it's the roof or something."

  "Keep going," I directed.

  She stepped out on the rooftop and I followed. The door closed behind us, and everything was still.

  Everything was still with a midnight stillness. Everything was beautiful with a midnight beauty. The dark body of the city stretched below us, wearing its neon necklaces, its bracelets and rings of incandescence. I've seen it many times from the air, many times from rooftops, and it's always a thrilling spectacle to me. Where I come from things are different. Not that I'd ever care to trade — the city's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

  I stared, and the blonde stared. But she wasn't staring at the streets below.

  I followed her gaze to the shadow of the building abutment, to the deep shadows where something shimmered roundly and iridescently in the darkness. It was completely out of sight from the surrounding buildings, and it couldn't be seen at first glance from the doorway here on the roof. But she saw it now, and she said, "Gee!"

  She said, "Gee! Mr. Beers — look at that!"

  I looked.

  "What is it, a plane? Or — could it be one of those saucer things?" I looked.

  "Mr. Beers, what's the matter? — you aren't even surprised." I looked.

  "You — you knew about this?"

  "Yes. It's mine."

  "Yours? A saucer? But it can't be. You're a man and — "

  I shook my head slowly. "Not exactly, Shirley. I don't really look like this, you know. Not where I came from." I gestured down toward the tired flesh.

  "I borrowed this from Ril."

  "Ril?"

  "Yes. He's one of my friends. He collects, too. We all collect, you know. It's our hobby. We come to Earth and collect."

  I couldn't read her face, because as I came close she drew away.

  "Ril has a rather curious hobby, in a way. He collects nothing but Bs. You should see his trophy room! He has a Bronson, three Bakers, and a Beers — that's the body I'm using now. It's name was Ambrose Beers, I believe. He picked it up in Mexico a long time ago."

  "You're crazy!" Shirley whispered, but she listened as I went on. Listened and drew away.

  "My friend Kor has a collection of people of all nations. Mar you saw in the tavern a while ago — Melanesian types are his hobby. Many of us come here quite often, you know, and in spite of the recent publicity and the danger, it's an exhilarating pastime." I was quite close to her now, and she didn't step back any farther. She couldn't — she stood on the edge of the roof.

  "Now, take Vis," I said. "Vis collects redheads, nothing but redheads. He has a magnificent grouping, all of them stuffed. Ril doesn't stuff his specimens at all — that's why we can use them for our trips. Oh, it's a fascinating business, I can tell you! Ril keeps them in preservative tanks and Vis stuffs them — his redheads, I mean. Now as for me, I collect blondes."

  Her eyes were wide, and she could scarcely get the words out for panting. "You're — going to — stuff me?"

  I had to chuckle. "Not at all, dear. Set your mind at rest. I neither stuff nor preserve. I collect for different reasons entirely." She edged sideways, toward the iridescent bubble. There was nowhere else to go, and I followed closely, closely.

  "You're—fooling me — " she gasped.

  "No. Oh, my friends think I have peculiar ideas, but I enjoy it this way. There's nothing like a blonde, as far as I'm concerned. And I ought to know. I've collected over a hundred so far since I started. You are number one hundred and three."

  I didn't have to do anything. She fainted, and I caught her, and that made things just perfect — no need to make a mess on the roof. I merely carried her right into the ship and we were off in a moment.

  Of course people would remember the old man who picked up Shirley Collins in the dance hall, and I'd left a trail of money all over town. There'd be an investigation and all that. There almost always was an investigation.

  But that didn't bother me. Ril has many bodies for use besides old Beers, whoever he might have been. Next time I'd try a younger man. Variety is the spice of life.

  Yes, it was a very pleasant evening. I sang to myself almost all the way back. It had been good sport, and the best was yet to come.

  But then, I like blondes. They can laugh at me all they please — I'll take a blonde any time. As I say, it's a matter of taste.

  And blondes are simply delicious.

  You Got to Have Brains

  MUST HAVE BEEN about a year ago, give or take a month, when Mr. Goofy first showed up here on the street.

  We get all kinds here, you know — thousands of bums and winos floating in and out every day of the year. Nobody knows where they come from and nobody cares where they go. They sleep in flophouses, sleep in bars, and in doorways — sleep right out in the gutter if you let em. Just so's they get their kicks. Wine jags, shot-an'-beers, canned heat, reefers — there was one guy, he used to go around and bust up thermometers and drink the juice, so help me!

  When you work behind the bar, like me, you get so you hardly notice people any more. But this Mr. Goofy was different.

  He come in one night in winter, and the joint was almost empty. Most of the regulars, right after New Years, they get themselves jugged and do ninety. Keeps 'em out of the cold.

  So it was quiet when Mr. Goofy showed up, around supper time. He didn't come to the bar, even though he was all alone. He headed straight for a back booth, plunks down, and asked Ferd for a couple of hamburgers. That's when I noticed him.

  What's so screwy about that? Well, it's because he was lugging about ten or fifteen pounds of scrap metal with him, that's why. He banged it down in the booth alongside him and sat there with his hands held over it like he was one of them guards at Fort Knock or wherever.

  I mean, he had all this here dirty scrap metal — tin and steel and twisted old engine parts covered with mud. He must have dug it out of the dumps around Canal Street, some place like that. So when I got a chance I come down to this end of the bar and looked this character over. He sure was a sad one.

  He was only about five feet high and weighed about a hunnerd pounds, just a little dried-up futz of a guy. He had a kind of a bald head and he wore old twisted-up glasses with the earpieces all bent, and he had trouble
with the hamburgers on account of his false choppers. He was dressed in them War Surplus things — leftovers from World War I, yet. And a cap.

  Go out on the street right now and you'll see plenty more just like him, but Mr. Goofy was different. Because he was clean. Sure, he looked beat-up, but even his old duds was neat.

  Another thing. While he waited for the hamburgers he kept writing stuff. He had this here pencil and notebook out and he was scribbling away for dear life. I got the idea he was figuring out some kind of arithametics.

  Well, I was all set to ask him the score when somebody come in and I got busy. It happens that way; next thing I know the whole place was crowded and I forgot all about Mr. Goofy for maybe two hours. Then I happened to look over and by gawd if he ain't still sitting there, with that pencil going like crazy!

  Only by this time the old juke is blasting, and he kind of frowns and takes his time like he didn't care for music but was, you know, concentrated on his figures, like.

  He sees me watching him and wiggles his fingers like so, and I went over there and he says, "Pardon me — but could you lower the volume of that instrument?"

  Just like that he says it, with a kind of funny accent I can't place. But real polite and fancy for a foreigner.

  So I says, "Sure, I'll switch it down a little." I went over and fiddled with the control to cut it down, like we do late at night.

  But just then Stakowsky come up to me. This Stakowsky used to be a wheel on the street — owned two-three flophouses and fleabag hotels, and he comes in regular to get loaded. He was kind of mean, but a good spender.

  Well, Stakowsky come up and he stuck his big red face over the bar and yelled. "Whassa big idea, Jack? I puts in my nickel, I wanna hear my piece. You wanna busted nose or something?"

  Like I say, he was a mean type.

  I didn't know right off what to tell him, but it turned out I didn't have to tell him nothing. Because the little guy in the booth stood up and he tapped Stakowsky on the shoulder and said, real quiet, "Pardon me, but it was I who requested that the music be made softer."

  Stakowsky turned around and he said, "Yeah? And who in hell you think you are — somebody?"

  The little guy said, "You know me. I rented the top of the loft from you yesterday."

  Stakowsky looks at him again and then he says, "Awright. So you rent. So you pay a month advance. Awright. But that ain't got to do with how I play music. I want it should be turned up, so me and my friends can hear it good."

  By this time the number is over and half the bar has come down to get in on the deal. They was all standing around waiting for the next pitch.

  The little guy says, "You don't understand, Mr. Stakowsky. It happens I am doing some very important work and require freedom from distraction."

  I bet Stakowsky never heard no two-dollar words before. He got redder and redder and at last he says, "You don't understand so good, neither. You wanna figure, go by your loft. Now I turn up the music. Are you gonna try and stop me?" And he takes a swipe at the little futz with his fist.

  Little guy never batted an eye. He just sort of ducked, and when he come up again he had a shiv in his hand. But it wasn't no regular shiv, and it wasn't nothing he found in no junk-heap.

  This one was about a foot long, and sharp. The blade was sharp and the tip was sharp, and the little guy didn't look like he was just gonna give Stakowsky a shave with it.

  Stakowsky, he didn't think so either. He whitened up fast and backed away to the bar and he says, "All right, all right," over and over again.

  It happened all in a minute, and then the knife was gone and the little guy picked up his scrap metal and walked out without even looking back once.

  Then everybody was hollering, and I poured Stakowsky a fast double, and then another. Of course he made off like he hadn't been scared and he talked plenty loud — but we all knew.

  "Goofy," he says. "That's who he is. Mr. Goofy. Sure, he rents from me. You know, by the Palace Rooms, where I live. He rents the top — a great big loft up there. Comes yesterday, a month rent in advance he pays too. I tell him, 'Mister, you're goofy. What do you want with such a big empty loft? A loft ain't no good in winter, unless you want to freeze. Why you don't take a nice warm room downstairs by the steam heat?' But no, he wants the loft, and I should put up a cot for him. So I do, and he moves in last night."

  Stakowsky got red in the face. "All day today that Mr. Goofy, he's bringing up his crazy outfits. Iron and busted machinery. Stuff like that. I ask him what he's doing and he says he's building. I ask him what he's building and he says — well, he just don't say. You saw how he acted tonight? Now you know. He's goofy in the head. I ain't afraid of no guys, but those crazy ones you got to watch out for. Lofts and machinery and knives — you ever hear anything like that Mr. Goofy?"

  So that's how he got his name. And I remembered him. One of the reasons was, I was staying at the Palace Rooms myself. Not in the flops, but a nice place on the third floor, right next to Stakowsky's room. And right upstairs from us was this loft. An attic, like. I never went up there, but there were stairs in back.

  The next couple of days I kept my eyes open, figuring on seeing Mr. Goofy again. But I didn't. All I did was hear him. Nights, he kept banging and pounding away, him and his scrap metal or whatever it was, and he moved stuff across the floor. Me, I'm a pretty sound sleeper and Stakowsky was always loaded when he turned in, so it didn't bother him neither. But Mr. Goofy never seemed to sleep. He was always working up there. And on what?

  I couldn't figure it out. Day after day he'd come in and out with some more metal. I don't know where he got it all, but he must have lugged up a couple of thousand pounds, ten or fifteen each trip. It got to bothering me because it was the sort of a mystery you feel you've got to know more about.

  Next time I saw him was when he started coming into the place regular, to eat. And always he had the pencil and notebook with him. He took the same booth every night — and nobody bothered him with loud music after the story got around about him and his shiv.

  He'd just sit there and figure and mumble to himself and walk out again, and pretty soon they were making up all kinds of stories about the guy.

  Some said he was a Red on account of that accent, you know, and he was building one of them there atomic bombs. One of the winos says no, he passed the place one night about four a.m. and he heard a big clank like machinery working. He figured Mr. Goofy was a counterfitter. Which was the kind of crazy idea you'd expect from a wino.

  Anyways, the closest anybody come was Manny Schreiber from the hock shop, and he guessed Goofy was a inventor and maybe he was building a rowbot. You know, a rowbot, like in these scientist magazines. Mechanical men, they run by machinery.

  One day, about an hour before I went on shift, I was sitting in my room when Stakowsky knocked on the door. "Come on," he says. "Mr. Goofy just went out. I'm gonna take a look around up there."

  Well, I didn't care one way or the other. Stakowsky, he was the landlord, and I figured he had a right. So we sneaked up and he used his key and we went inside the loft.

  It was a big barn of a place with a cot in the corner. Next to the cot was a table with a lot of notes piled up, and maybe twenty-five or thirty books. Foreign books they were, and I couldn't make out the names. In the other corners there were piles of scrap metal and what looked like a bunch of old radio sets from a repair shop.

  And in the center of the room was this machine. At least, it looked like a machine, even though it must have been thirty feet long. It was higher than my head, too. And there was a door in it, and you could get inside the machinery that was all tangled up on the sides and sit down in a chair. In front of the chair was a big board with a lot of switches on it.

  And everywhere was gears and pistons and coils and even glass tubes. Where he picked up all that stuff, I dunno. But he'd patched it all together somehow and when you looked at it — it made sense. I mean, you could tell the machine would do something, if you c
ould only figure out what.

  Stakowsky looked at me and I looked at him and we both looked at the machine.

  "That Mr. Goofy!" says Stakowsky. "He does all this in a month. You know something, Jack?"

  "What?" I says.

  "You tell anybody else and I'll kill you. But I'm scared to even come near Mr. Goofy. This machine of his, I don't like it. Tomorrow his month is up. I'm going to tell him he should move. Get out. I don't want crazy people around here."

  "But how'll he move this thing out?"

  "I don't care how. Tomorrow he gets the word. And I'm going to have Lippy and Stan and the boys here. He don't pull no knife on me again. Out he goes."

  We went downstairs and I went to work. All night long I tried to figure that machine of his. There wasn't much else to do, because there was a real blizzard going and nobody came in.

  I kept remembering the way the machine looked. It had a sort of framework running around the outside, and if it got covered over with some metal it would be like a submarine or one of them rockets. And there was a part inside, where a big glass globe connected up to some wires leading to the switchboard, or whatever it was. And a guy could sit in there. It all made some kind of crazy sense.

  I sat there, thinking it over, until along about midnight. Then Mr. Goofy came in.

  This time he didn't head for his booth. He come right up to the bar and sat down on a stool. His face was red, and he brushed snow off his coat. But he looked happy.

  "Do you have any decent brandy?" he asked.

  "I think so," I told him. I found a bottle and opened it up.

  "Will you be good enough to have a drink with me?"

  "Sure, thanks." I looked at him. "Celebrating?"

  "That's right," says Mr. Goofy. "This is a great occasion. My work is finished. Tonight I put on the sheaths. Now I am almost ready to demonstrate."

  "Demonstrate what?"

  Well, he dummied up on me right away. I poured him another drink and another, and he just sat there grinning. Then he sort of loosened up. That brandy was plenty powerful.

  "Look," he says. "I will tell you all about it. You have been kind to me, and I can trust you. Besides, it is good to share a moment of triumph."