I started pounding my brain. The fact that the stage was not dark when it seemed dark changed the whole picture and eliminated, I thought, everyone not familiar with the mechanics of the Mirror. It left only Hazel, Jack, the other barman, the two waiters—and Estelle herself. It was physically possible for an Unknown Stranger to have slipped upstairs, slid the shiv in her, ducked downstairs, but psychologically—no. I made a mental note to find out what other models had worked in the Mirror.
The other barman and the two waiters Spade had eliminated—all of them had been fully alibied by one or more customers. I had alibied Jack. Estelle—but it wasn't suicide. And Hazel.
If Estelle's fingerprint meant what it seemed, Hazel was out—not time enough to commit a murder, arrange a corpse, wipe a handle, and get downstairs to my side before Jack started the show.
But in that case nobody could have done it—except a hypothetical sex maniac who did not mind a spot of butchery in front of a window full of people. Nonsense!
Of course the fingerprint was not conclusive. Hazel could have pushed the button with a coin or a bobby pin, without destroying an old print or making a new one. I hated to admit it but she was not clear yet.
Again, if Estelle did not push the button, then it looked still more like an insider; an outsider would not know where to find the button nor have any reason to push it.
For that matter, why should Hazel push it? It had not given her an alibi—it didn't make sense.
Round and round and round till my head ached.
It was a long time later that I went over and tugged at the covers. "Hazel—"
"Yes, Eddie?"
"Who punched the buzzer in the eleven o'clock show?"
She considered. "That show is both of us. She did—she always took charge."
"Mmmm. . . . What other girls have worked in the Mirror?"
"Why, none. Estelle and I opened the show."
"Okay. Maybe I've got it. Let's call Spade Jones."
Spade assured me he would be only too happy to get out of a warm bed to play games with me and would I like a job waking the bugler, too? But he agreed to come to the Joy Club, with Joy in tow, and to fetch enough flat feet, firearms, and muscles to cope.
I was standing back of the bar in the Joy Club, with Hazel seated where she had been when she screamed and a cop from the Homicide Squad in my seat. Jack and Spade were at the end of the bar, where Spade could see.
"We will now show how a man can be two places at one time," I announced. "I am now Mr. Jack Joy. The time is shortly before midnight. Hazel has just left the dressing room and come downstairs. She stops off for a moment at the little girls room at the foot of the stairs, and thereby misses Jack, who is headed for those same stairs. He goes up and finds Estelle in the dressing room, peeled and ready for her act—probably."
I took a glance at Jack. His face was a taut mask, but he was a long way from breaking. "There was an argument—what about, I don't know, but it might have been over the trumpet boy she had swapped shows to meet. In any case, I am willing to bet that she stopped it by switching out the dressing room light to chase him out."
First blood. He flinched at that—his mask cracked. "He didn't stay out more than a few moments," I went on. "Probably he had a flashlight in his pocket—he's probably got one on him now—and that let him go back into that terrible, dark room, and switch on the light. Estelle was already on the stage, anointing herself with catsup, and almost ready to push the buzzer. She must have been about to do so, for she had started the egg timer. He grabbed the prop dagger and stabbed her, stabbed her dead."
I stopped. No blood from Jack this time. His mask was on firmly. "He arranges her in the pose—ten seconds for that; it was nothing but a sprawl—wipes the handle and ducks out. Ten seconds more to this spot. Or make it twenty. He asks me if the buzzer has sounded and I tell him No. He really had to know, for Estelle might have punched it before he got to her."
"Hearing the answer he wanted, he bustles around a bit like this—" I monkeyed with some glassware and picked up a bar spoon and pointed with it to the stage. "Note that the Mirror is lighted and empty—I've got the bypass on. Imagine it dark, with Estelle on the altar, a knife in her heart." I dropped the spoon down and, while their eyes were still on the Mirror, I brought metal spoon across the two binding posts which carried the two leads to the push button on the stage. The buzzer gave out with a loud beep! I broke the connection by lifting the spoon for a split second, and brought it down again for a second beep! "And that is how a man can— Catch him, Spade!"
Spade was at him before I yelled. The three cops had him helpless in no time. He was not armed; it had been sheer reflex—a break for freedom. But he was not giving up, even now. "You've got nothing on me. No evidence. Anybody could have jimmied those wires anywhere along the line."
"No, Jack," I contradicted. "I checked for that. Those wires run through the same steel conduit as the power wires, all the way from the control box to the stage. It was here or there, Jack. It couldn't be there; it had to be here."
He shut up. "I want to see my lawyer," was his only answer.
"You'll see your lawyer," Spade assured him jovially. "Tomorrow, or the next day. Right now you're going to go downtown and sit under some nice hot lights for a few hours."
"No, Lieutenant!" It was Hazel.
"Eh? And why not, Miss Dorn?"
"Don't put him under lights. Shut him in a dark closet!"
"Eh? Well, I'll be— That's what I call a bright girl!"
It was the mop closet they used. He lasted thirteen minutes, then he started to whimper and then to scream. They let him out and took his confession.
I was almost sorry for him when they led him away. I should not have been—second degree was the most he could get as premeditation was impossible to prove and quite unlikely anyhow. "Not guilty by reason of insanity" was a fair bet. Whatever his guilt, that woman had certainly driven him to it. And imagine the nerve of the man, the pure colossal nerve, that enabled him to go through with lighting up that stage just after he looked up and saw two cops standing inside the door!
I took Hazel home the second time. The bed was still pulled down and she went straight for it, kicking off her shoes as she went. She unzipped the side of her dress and started to pull it over her head, when she stopped. "Eddie!"
"Yes, Beautiful?"
"If I take off my clothes again, are you going to accuse me of another murder?"
I considered this. "That depends," I informed her, "on whether you are really interested in me, or in that agent I was telling you about."
She grinned at me, then scooped up a shoe and threw it. "In you, you lug!" Then she went on shucking off her clothes. After a bit I unlaced my shoes.
FREE MEN
FOREWORD
My next attempt to branch out was my first book: Rocket Ship Galileo. I attempted book publication earlier than I had intended to because a boys' book was solicited from me by a major publisher. I was unsure of myself—but two highly respected friends, Cleve Cartmill and Fritz Lang, urged me to try it. So I did . . . and the publisher who had asked for it rejected it. A trip to the Moon? Preposterous! He suggested that I submit another book-length MS without that silly space-travel angle.
Instead I sold it to Scribner's and thereby started a sequence: one boys' book each year timed for the Christmas trade. This lasted twelve years and was a very strange relationship, as my editor disliked science fiction, disliked me (a sentiment I learned to reciprocate), and kept me on for the sole reason that my books sold so well that they kept her department out of the red—her words. Eventually she bounced one with the suggestion that I shelve it for a year and then rewrite it.
But by bouncing it she broke the chain of options. Instead of shelving it, I took it across the street . . . and won a Hugo with it.
Rocket Ship Galileo was a fumbling first attempt; I have never been satisfied with it. But it has never been out of print, has appeared in fourteen languages, a
nd has earned a preposterous amount in book royalties alone; I should not kick. Nevertheless I cringe whenever I consider its shortcomings.
My next fiction (here following) was "Free Men." Offhand it appears to be a routine post-Holocaust story, and the details—idioms, place names, etc.—justify that assumption. In fact it is any conquered nation in any century—
"That makes three provisional presidents so far," the Leader said. "I wonder how many more there are?" He handed the flimsy sheet back to the runner, who placed it in his mouth and chewed it up like gum.
The third man shrugged. "No telling. What worries me—" A mockingbird interrupted. "Doity, doity, doity," he sang. "Terloo, terloo, terloo, purty-purty-purty-purty."
The clearing was suddenly empty.
"As I was saying," came the voice of the third man in a whisper in the Leader's ear, "it ain't how many worries me, but how you tell a de Gaulle from a Laval. See anything?"
"Convoy. Stopped below us." The Leader peered through bushes and down the side of a bluff. The high ground pushed out toward the river here, squeezing the river road between it and the water. The road stretched away to the left, where the valley widened out into farmland, and ran into the outskirts of Barclay ten miles away.
The convoy was directly below them, eight trucks preceded and followed by halftracks. The following halftrack was backing, vortex gun cast loose and ready for trouble. Its commander apparently wanted elbow room against a possible trap.
At the second truck helmeted figures gathered around its rear end, which was jacked up. As the Leader watched he saw one wheel removed.
"Trouble?"
"I think not. Just a breakdown. They'll be gone soon." He wondered what was in the trucks. Food, probably. His mouth watered. A few weeks ago an opportunity like this would have meant generous rations for all, but the conquerors had smartened up.
He put useless thoughts away. "It's not that that worries me, Dad," he added, returning to the subject. "We'll be able to tell quislings from loyal Americans. But how do you tell men from boys?"
"Thinking of Joe Benz?"
"Maybe. I'd give a lot to know how far we can trust Joe. But I could have been thinking of young Morrie."
"You can trust him."
"Certainly. At thirteen he doesn't drink—and he wouldn't crack if they burned his feet off. Same with Cathleen. It's not age or sex—but how can you tell? And you've got to be able to tell."
There was a flurry below. Guards had slipped down from the trucks and withdrawn from the road when the convoy had stopped, in accordance with an orderly plan for such emergencies. Now two of them returned to the convoy, hustling between them a figure not in uniform.
The mockingbird set up a frenetic whistling.
"It's the messenger," said the Leader. "The dumb fool! Why didn't he lie quiet? Tell Ted we've seen it."
Dad pursed his lips and whistled: "Keewah, keewah, keewah, terloo."
The other "mockingbird" answered, "Terloo," and shut up.
"We'll need a new post office now," said the Leader. "Take care of it, Dad."
"Okay."
"There's no real answer to the problem," the Leader said. "You can limit size of units, so that one person can't give away too many—but take a colony like ours. It needs to be a dozen or more to work. That means they all have to be dependable, or they all go down together. So each one has a loaded gun at the head of each other one."
Dad grinned, wryly. "Sounds like the United Nations before the Blow Off. Cheer up, Ed. Don't burn your bridges before you cross them."
"I won't. The convoy is ready to roll."
When the convoy had disappeared in the distance, Ed Morgan, the Leader, and his deputy Dad Carter stood up and stretched. The "mockingbird" had announced safety loudly and cheerfully. "Tell Ted to cover us into camp," Morgan ordered.
Dad wheepled and chirruped and received acknowledgment. They started back into the hills. Their route was roundabout and included check points from which they could study their back track and receive reports from Ted. Morgan was not worried about Ted being followed—he was confident that Ted could steal baby 'possums from mama's pouch. But the convoy breakdown might have been a trap—there was no way to tell that all of the soldiers had got back into the trucks. The messenger might have been followed; certainly he had been trapped too easily.
Morgan wondered how much the messenger would spill. He could not spill much about Morgan's own people, for the "post office" rendezvous was all that he knew about them.
* * *
The base of Morgan's group was neither better nor worse than average of the several thousand other camps of recalcitrant guerrillas throughout the area that once called itself the United States. The Twenty Minute War had not surprised everyone. The mushrooms which had blossomed over Washington, Detroit, and a score of other places had been shocking but expected—by some.
Morgan had made no grand preparations. He had simply conceived it as a good period in which to stay footloose and not too close to a target area. He had taken squatter's rights in an abandoned mine and had stocked it with tools, food, and other useful items. He had had the simple intention to survive; it was during the weeks after Final Sunday that he discovered that there was no way for a man with foresight to avoid becoming a leader.
Morgan and Dad Carter entered the mine by a new shaft and tunnel which appeared on no map, by a dry rock route which was intended to puzzle even a bloodhound. They crawled through the tunnel, were able to raise their heads when they reached the armory, and stepped out into the common room of the colony, the largest chamber, ten by thirty feet and as high as it was wide.
Their advent surprised no one, else they might not have lived to enter. A microphone concealed in the tunnel had conveyed their shibboleths before them. The room was unoccupied save for a young woman stirring something over a tiny, hooded fire and a girl who sat at a typewriter table mounted in front of a radio. She was wearing earphones and shoved one back and turned to face them as they came in.
"Howdy, Boss!"
"Hi, Margie. What's the good word?" Then to the other, "What's for lunch?"
"Bark soup and a notch in your belt."
"Cathleen, you depress me."
"Well . . . mushrooms fried in rabbit fat, but darn few of them."
"That's better."
"You better tell your boys to be more careful what they bring in. One more rabbit with tularemia and we won't have to worry about what to eat."
"Hard to avoid, Cathy. You must be sure you handle them the way Doc taught you." He turned to the girl. "Jerry in the upper tunnel?"
"Yes."
"Get him down here, will you?"
"Yes, sir." She pulled a sheet out of her typewriter and handed it to him, along with others, then left the room.
Morgan glanced over them. The enemy had abolished soap opera and singing commercials but he could not say that radio had been improved. There was an unnewsy sameness to the propaganda which now came over the air. He checked through while wishing for just one old-fashioned, uncensored newscast.
"Here's an item!" he said suddenly. "Get this, Dad—"
"Read it to me, Ed." Dad's spectacles had been broken on Final Sunday. He could bring down a deer, or a man, at a thousand yards—but he might never read again.
"'New Center, 28 April—It is with deep regret that Continental Coordinating Authority for World Unification, North American District, announces that the former city of St. Joseph, Missouri, has been subjected to sanitary measures. It is ordered that a memorial plaque setting forth the circumstances be erected on the former site of St. Joseph as soon as radioactivity permits. Despite repeated warnings the former inhabitants of this lamented city encouraged and succored marauding bands of outlaws skulking around the outskirts of their community. It is hoped that the sad fate of St. Joseph will encourage the native authorities of all North American communities to take all necessary steps to suppress treasonable intercourse with the few remaining lawless elements in
our continental society.'"
Dad cocked a brow at Morgan. "How many does that make since they took over?"
"Let's see . . . Salinas . . . Colorado Springs . . . uh, six, including St. Joe."
"Son, there weren't more than sixty million Americans left after Final Sunday. If they keep up, we'll be kind of thinned out in a few years."
"I know." Morgan looked troubled. "We've got to work out ways to operate without calling attention to the towns. Too many hostages."
A short, dark man dressed in dirty dungarees entered from a side tunnel, followed by Margie. "You wanted me, boss?"
"Yes, Jerry. I want to get word to McCracken to come in for a meeting. Two hours from now, if he can get here."
"Boss, you're using radio too much. You'll get him shot and us, too."
"I thought that business of bouncing it off the cliff face was foolproof?"
"Well . . . a dodge I can work up, somebody else can figure out. Besides, I've got the chassis unshipped. I was working on it."
"How long to rig it?"
"Oh, half an hour—twenty minutes."
"Do it. This may be the last time we'll use radio, except as utter last resort."
"Okay, boss."
* * *
The meeting was in the common room. Morgan called it to order once all were present or accounted for. McCracken arrived just as he had decided to proceed without him. McCracken had a pass for the countryside, being a veterinarian, and held proxy for the colony's underground associates in Barclay.
"The Barclay Free Company, a provisional unit of the United States of America, is now in session," Morgan announced formally. "Does any member have any item to lay before the Company?"
He looked around; there was no response. "How about you?" he challenged Joe Benz. "I heard that you had some things you thought the Company ought to hear."
Benz started to speak, shook his head. "I'll wait."
"Don't wait too long," Morgan said mildly. "Well, I have two points to bring up for discussion—"
"Three," corrected Dr. McCracken. "I'm glad you sent for me." He stepped up to Morgan and handed him a large, much folded piece of paper. Morgan looked it over, refolded it, and put it in his pocket.