While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction

  Millikan sobbed. He ran from the boardroom into his office, took a loaded revolver from his desk. As Breed and Dr. Everett burst in upon him, he blew his brains out, thereby maturing life insurance policies in the amount of one cool million.

  And there lay one more case of the epizootic, the epidemic practice of committing suicide in order to create wealth.

  “You know—” said the chairman of the board, “I used to wonder what was going to become of all the Americans like him, a bright and shiny new race that believed that life was a matter of making one’s family richer and richer and richer, or it wasn’t life. I often wondered what would become of them, if bad times ever came again, if the bright and shiny men suddenly discovered their net worths going down.” Breed pointed to the floor. Now he pointed to the ceiling. “Instead of up,” he said.

  Bad times had come—about four months in advance of the epizootic.

  “The one-way men—designed for up only,” said Breed.

  “And their one-way wives and their one-way children,” said Dr. Everett. “Dear God—” he said, going to a window and looking out over a wintry Hartford, “the principal industry of this country is now dying for a living.”

  (illustration credit 5)

  HUNDRED-DOLLAR KISSES

  Q: Do you understand that everything you say is going to be taken down by that stenographer over there?

  A: Yes sir.

  Q: And that anything you say may be used against you?

  A: Understood.

  Q: Your name, age, and address?

  A: Henry George Lovell, Jr., thirty-three, living at 4121 North Pennsylvania Street, Indianapolis, Indiana.

  Q: Occupation?

  A: Until about two o’clock this afternoon, I was manager of the Records Section of the Indianapolis Office of the Eagle Mutual Casualty and Indemnity Company of Ohio.

  Q: In the Circle Tower?

  A: Right.

  Q: Do you know me?

  A: You are Detective Sergeant George Miller of the Indianapolis Police Department.

  Q: Has anyone maltreated you or threatened you with maltreatment or offered you favors in order to obtain this statement?

  A: Nope.

  Q: Did you, at approximately two o’clock this afternoon, assault a man named Verne Petrie with a telephone?

  A: I hit him on the head with the part you talk and listen in.

  Q: How many times did you strike him with it?

  A: Once. I hit him one good one.

  Q: What is Verne Petrie to you?

  A: Verne Petrie to me is what is wrong with the world.

  Q: I mean, what was Verne Petrie to you in the organization of the office?

  A: We were on the same junior executive level. We were in different sections. He wasn’t my boss, and I wasn’t his boss.

  Q: You were competing for advancement?

  A: No. We were in two entirely different fields.

  Q: How would you describe him?

  A: You want me to describe Verne with feeling, or just for the record?

  Q: Any way you want to do it.

  A: Verne Petrie is a big, pink, fat man about thirty-five years old. He has silky orange hair and two long upper front teeth like a beaver. He wears a red vest and chain-smokes very small cigars. He spends at least fifteen dollars a month on girlie magazines.

  Q: Girlie magazines?

  A: Man About Town. Bull. Virile. Vital. Vigor. Male Valor. You know.

  Q: And you say Verne Petrie spends fifteen dollars a month on such magazines?

  A: At least. The things generally cost fifty cents or more, and I never saw Verne come back from a lunch hour when he didn’t have at least one new one. Sometimes he had three.

  Q: You don’t like girls?

  A: Sure I like girls. I’m crazy about girls. I married one, and I’ve got two nice little ones.

  Q: Why should you resent it that Verne buys these magazines?

  A: I don’t resent it. It just seems kind of sick to me.

  Q: Sick?

  A: Girlie pictures are like dope to Verne. I mean, anybody likes to look at pin-up pictures off and on, but Verne, he has to buy armloads of them. He spends a fortune on them, and they’re realer than anything real to him. When it says at the bottom of a pin-up picture, “Come play with me, Baby,” or something like that, Verne believes it. He really thinks the girl is saying that to him.

  Q: He’s married?

  A: To a nice, pretty, affectionate girl. He’s got a swell-looking wife at home. It isn’t as though he’s bottled up in the Y.M.C.A.

  Q: There is never anything else in the magazines besides pictures of girls?

  A: Oh sure—there’s other stuff. Haven’t you ever looked inside one?

  Q: I’m asking you.

  A: They’re all pretty much alike. They all have at least one big picture of a naked girl, usually right in the middle. That’s what sells the magazine, is that big picture. Then there’ll be some articles about foreign cars or decorating a bachelor penthouse or white slavery in Hong Kong or how to choose a loudspeaker. But what Verne wants is the pictures of the girls. To him, looking at those pictures is just like taking the girls out on dates. Cummerbunds.

  Q: Pardon me? What was that last? Cummerbunds?

  A: That’s another thing they generally have articles on—cummerbunds.

  Q: You seem to have read these magazines rather extensively yourself.

  A: I had the desk right next to Verne’s. The magazines were all over the place. And every time he brought a new one back to the office, he’d rub my nose in it.

  Q: Actually rub your nose in it?

  A: Practically. And he always said the same thing.

  Q: What was the thing he always said?

  A: I don’t want to say it in front of a lady stenographer.

  Q: Can’t you approximate it?

  A: Verne would open the magazine to the picture of the girl, and he’d say, approximately, “Boy, I’d pay a hundred dollars to kiss a doll baby like that. Wouldn’t you?”

  Q: This bothered you?

  A: After a couple of years, it was getting under my skin.

  Q: Why?

  A: Because it showed a darn poor sense of values.

  Q: Do you think you are God Almighty, empowered to go around correcting people’s sense of values?

  A: I do not think I am God Almighty. I do not even think I am a very good Unitarian.

  Q: Suppose you tell us what happened when you came back from lunch this afternoon?

  A: I found Verne Petrie sitting at his desk with a new copy of Male Valor magazine open in front of him. It was open to a two-page picture of a woman named Patty Lee Minot. She was wearing a cellophane bathrobe. Verne was listening to his telephone and looking at the picture at the same time. He had his hand over the mouthpiece. He winked at me, as though he was hearing something wonderful on the telephone. He signalled to me that I should listen in on my own telephone. He held up three fingers, meaning I should switch my phone to line three.

  Q: Line three?

  A: There are three lines coming into the office. And I looked around the office, and I realized that there was somebody listening in on line three on every telephone. Everybody in the office was listening in. So I listened in, and I could hear a telephone ringing on the other end.

  Q: It was the telephone of Patty Lee Minot ringing in New York?

  A: Yes. I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s what it was. Verne tried to tell me what was going on. He pointed to Patty Lee Minot’s picture in the magazine, then he pointed to Miss Hackleman’s desk.

  Q: What was going on at Miss Hackleman’s desk?

  A: Miss Hackleman was out with a cold, and one of the building janitors was sitting in her chair, using her telephone. He was the one who was making the long-distance call that everybody else was listening in on.

  Q: You knew him?

  A: I’d seen him around the building. I knew his first name. It was stitched on the back of his coveralls.
His first name was Harry. I found out later his whole name was Harry Barker.

  Q: Describe him.

  A: Harry? Well, he looks a lot older than he is. He looks about forty-five. Actually, I guess, he’s younger than I am. He’s pretty good-looking, and I think he must have been a pretty good athlete at one time. But he’s losing his hair fast, and he’s got a lot of wrinkles from worrying or something.

  Q: So you were listening to the telephone ringing in New York?

  A: Yes. And I accidentally sneezed.

  Q: Sneezed?

  A: Sneezed. I did it right into the telephone, and everybody jumped a mile, and then somebody said, “Gesundheit.” This made Verne Petrie very sore.

  Q: What did he do, exactly?

  A: He got red, and he whined. He whined, “Shut up, you guys.” You know. He whined like somebody who didn’t want a beautiful experience spoiled by a bunch of jerks. “Come on, you guys,” he whined, “either get off the line or shut up. I want to hear.” And then somebody on the other end answered the telephone. It was Patty Lee Minot’s maid, and the long-distance operator asked her if it was such-and-such a number, and the maid said yes it was. So the operator said, “Here’s your number, sir,” and the janitor named Harry started talking to the maid. Harry was all tensed up. He was making a lot of funny faces into the telephone, as though he was trying to make up his mind about how to sound. “Could I speak to Miss Melody Arlene Pfitzer, please?” he said. “Miss Who?” said the maid. “Miss Melody Arlene Pfitzer,” said Harry. “Ain’t nobody here named Pfitzer,” said the maid. “This Patty Lee Minot’s number?” said Harry. “That’s right,” said the maid. “Melody Arlene Pfitzer—” said Harry, “that’s Patty Lee Minot’s real name.” “I wouldn’t know nothing about that,” said the maid.

  Q: Who is Patty Lee Minot?

  A: Don’t you know?

  Q: I’m asking you for the record.

  A: I just told you: she was the girl in the cellophane bathrobe in Verne’s magazine. She was the girl in the middle of Male Valor. I guess she is what you would call a glamorous celebrity. She’s in the girlie magazines all the time, and sometimes she’s on television, and one time I saw her in a movie with Bing Crosby.

  Q: Continue.

  A: You know what it said under her picture in the magazine?

  Q: What?

  A: “Woman Eternal for October.” That’s what it said.

  Q: Go on about the telephone conversation.

  A: Well, the janitor named Harry was kidding around with the maid about Patty Lee Minot’s real name. “Call her Melody Arlene Pfitzer sometime, and see what she says,” he said. “If it’s all the same to you,” said the maid, “I don’t believe I will.” And Harry said, “Put her on, would you please? Tell her it’s Harry K. Barker calling.” “She know you?” said the maid. “She will if she thinks about it a minute,” said Harry. “Where you know her from?” said the maid. “High school,” said Harry. “I don’t believe she’ll want to be bothered just now, on account of she’s got a TV show tonight,” said the maid. “She isn’t thinking much about high school just now,” she said. “I used to be married to her in high school,” Harry said. “You think that might make a difference?” And then Verne hit me on the arm.

  Q: He hit you?

  A: Yes.

  Q: You’re claiming that he assaulted you before you assaulted him?

  A: I suppose I could, couldn’t I? That’s an interesting idea. If I was to hire a shyster lawyer, I suppose that’s maybe what he’d claim. No—Verne didn’t assault me. He just hit me on the arm to get my attention, hit me hard enough to hurt, though. And then he practically smathered the picture of Patty Lee Minot all over my face.

  Q: Smathered?

  A: Practically smeared it all around.

  Q: And what did the maid say on the telephone when she learned that Harry K. Barker had once been married to her employer?

  A: She said, “Hold on.”

  Q: I see.

  A: And then, after she left the telephone, I said, “Hold on,” and Verne blew up.

  Q: You made a little joke on the telephone, and Verne didn’t like it?

  A: I just imitated the maid, and Verne went through the roof. He said, “All right, wise guy, shut your trap. I get to hear your heavenly voice all day long, every day, year in and year out. I am just about to hear the voice of Patty Lee Minot in person, and I’ll thank you kindly to keep your big yap shut. I’m paying for this call. This call is coming out of my hide. You’re welcome to listen, but kindly shut up.”

  Q: Verne was paying for the call?

  A: That’s right. The call was his idea. It all started when he showed Harry the picture of Patty Lee Minot in the magazine. Verne told Harry he’d pay a hundred dollars to kiss a doll baby like that, and Harry said it was funny he should say that. Harry told Verne he used to be married to her. Verne couldn’t believe it, so they bet twenty dollars on it, and then they put in the call.

  Q: When Verne blew up at you, you didn’t fight back in any way?

  A: I just took it. He wasn’t in any mood to be trifled with. It was just as though I was trying to bust up his love life. It was just as though he was having a big love affair with Patty Lee Minot, and I came along and wrecked it. I didn’t say a word back to him, and then Patty Lee Minot came on the line. “Hello?” she said. “This is Harry Barker,” Harry said. He was trying to be smooth and sophisticated. He was lighting a little cigar Verne had given to him. “Long time no see, Melody Arlene,” he said. “Who is this really?” she said. “Is this you, Ferd?”

  Q: Who is Ferd?

  A: Search me. Some friend of hers who is a practical joker, I guess. Some glamorous, fun-loving New York celebrity. Harry said, “No, this is really Harry. We were married on October fourteenth, eleven years ago, Melody Arlene. Remember?” “If this is really Harry, and I don’t believe it is,” she said, “how come you’re calling me up?” “I thought you might like to know how our daughter is, Melody Arlene,” said Harry. “You never have tried to find out anything about her over all these years. I thought you might like to know how she was doing, since she is the only baby you ever had.”

  Q: What did she say to that?

  A: She didn’t say anything for a minute. Finally she said, in a very tough, twangy voice, “Who is this? Is this somebody trying to blackmail me? Because if it is, you can go straight to hell. Go ahead and give the whole story to the newspapers, if you want to. I’ve never tried to keep it a secret. I was married when I was sixteen to a boy named Harry Barker. We were both juniors in high school, and we had to get married on account of I was going to have a baby. Tell the whole wide world, for all I care.” And then Harry said, “The baby died, Melody Arlene. Your little baby died two years after you walked out.”

  Q: He said what?

  A: His and her baby died. Their baby died. She didn’t even know it, never bothered to find out what became of her daughter. This, according to Male Valor magazine, was woman eternal, every red-blooded male’s dream girl. And you know what she said?

  Q: No.

  A: Sergeant, this Woman Eternal for October said, “That’s a part of my life I’ve blotted out completely. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t care less.”

  Q: What was Verne Petrie’s reaction when she said that?

  A: No special reaction. His piggy little eyes were all glazed over, and he was showing his teeth and kind of gnashing them. He was off in some wild daydream about himself and Patty Lee Minot.

  Q: And then what?

  A: And then nothing. She hung up, and that was that. We all hung up, and everybody but Verne looked sick. Harry stood up, and he shook his head. “I wish to God I’d had more sense than to call her up,” he said. “Here’s your twenty bucks, Harry,” said Verne. “No thanks,” said Harry. He was like a man in a bad dream. “I don’t want it now,” he said. “It would be like money from her.” Harry looked down at his hands. “I built her a house, a nice little house. Built it with my own hands,” he said. He
started to say something else, but he changed his mind. He shuffled out of the office, still looking at his hands. For about the next half hour, it was like a morgue around the office. Everybody felt lousy—everybody but Verne. I looked over at Verne, and he had the magazine open to the picture of Patty Lee Minot again. He caught my eye, and he said to me, “That lucky son of a gun.”

  Q: Who was a lucky son of a gun?

  A: Harry Barker was a lucky son of a gun, because he’d been married to that wonderful woman on the bed. “That lucky son of a gun,” Verne said. “Boy,” he said, “since I’ve heard her voice on the telephone, she’s one doll baby I’d give a thousand dollars to kiss.”

  Q: And then you let him have it?

  A: Right.

  Q: With his own telephone? On top of his head?

  A: Right.

  Q: Knocking him cold?

  A: I knocked Verne Petrie colder than a mackerel, because it came to me all in a flash that Verne Petrie was what was wrong with the world.

  Q: What is wrong with the world?

  A: Everybody pays attention to pictures of things. Nobody pays attention to things themselves.

  Q: Is there anything you would care to add?

  A: Yes. I would like to put on the record the fact that I weigh one hundred and twenty-three pounds, and Verne Petrie weighs two hundred pounds and is a full foot taller than I am. I had no choice but to use a weapon. I stand ready, of course, to pay his hospital bill.

  (illustration credit 6)

  GUARDIAN OF THE PERSON

  “I wish there wasn’t all that money,” said Nancy Holmes Ryan. “I really wish it wasn’t there.” Nancy had been married for an hour and a half now. She was driving with her husband from Boston to Cape Cod. The time was noon, late winter. The scenery was leaden sea, summer cottages boarded up, scrub oaks still holding their brown leaves tight, cranberry bogs with frosty beards—

  “That much money is embarrassing,” said Nancy. “I mean it.” She didn’t really mean it—not very much, anyway. She was enduring the peculiar Limbo between a wedding and a wedding night. Like many maidens in such a Limbo, Nancy found her own voice unreal, as though echoing in a great tin box, and she heard that voice speaking with unreasonable intensity, heard herself expressing extravagant opinions as though they were the bedrock of her soul.