The Best of Robert Bloch

  "We could keep on spraying," Satterlee broke in eagerly. "There are other honest men—we could raise funds, make this a long-term project. And who knows? Perhaps after a few exposures the change would be permanent. Don't you understand? We can end war."

  "I understand," Tibbets told him. "You could end war between nations. And start hundreds of millions of individual wars, waged in human minds and human hearts. There'd be a wave of insanity, a wave of suicides, a wave of murders. There'd be a breakup of the home, the family, all the institutions that hold our lives together. The whole social structure would collapse. No, your weapon is too dangerous."

  "I realize it's a risk."

  Tibbets put his hand on the younger man's shoulder. "I want you to forget this whole business," he said soberly. "Don't make any plans of your own about manufacturing this gas and spraying it over the Capitol or the Kremlin. Don't do it, for all our sakes."

  Satterlee was silent, staring out into the night. Far in the distance a jet plane screamed.

  "You're an honest man," Tibbets said. "One of the few. I admire you for it. I'm not going to try and force you to give up that formula, because it isn't necessary. I believe in you. All I want is for you to tell me now that you won't try to change things. Leave the world the way it is." He paused. "Will you give me your word of honor?"

  Satterlee hesitated. He was an honest man, he realized, and so his answer was a long time coming.

  Then, "I promise," Satterlee lied.

  The World-Timer

  HE MAY OR may not have been human. It was hard to tell, because in a psychiatrist's office, you get all kinds.

  But he looked human—that is to say he had two arms, two legs, one head, and a slightly worried expression—and there was no reason for the receptionist to turn him away.

  Particularly since he was here to give free samples.

  "I'm from the Ace Manufacturing Company," he told the girl. "An old established firm. You've heard of us?"

  The receptionist, who dealt with an average of ten salesmen a day, nodded politely and proceeded to file her nails.

  "As the name indicates, we used to be a specialty house," the salesman continued. "Manufactured all the aces used in decks of playing cards. But lately we've branched out into Pharmaceuticals."

  "How nice for you," said the receptionist, wondering what he was talking about, but not very much.

  "Not ordinary products, of course. We have the feeling that most pharmaceuticals are a drug on the market. So we've come up with something different. As our literature indicates, it's more along the lines of the lysergic acid derivatives. In addition to the usual tranquilizing effect, it alters the time-sense, both subjectively and objectively. Mind you, I said 'objectively.' I'm sure your employer will be interested in this aspect, which is, to say the least, highly revolutionary—"

  "I doubt it. He's always voted Republican."

  "But if I could just discuss the matter with him for a few moments—"

  The girl shrugged and cocked her head towards the inner sanctum of Morton Placebo, M.D.

  "Nobody rides that couch without a ticket," she told him. "The standard fee is $50 an hour, first-class, or $30, tourist. That's with three on the couch at the same time. He says it's group-therapy, and I say it's damned uncomfortable."

  "But I'm not a patient," the stranger persisted. "I merely want to discuss my pharmaceuticals."

  "You can't discuss your hemorrhoids without paying the fee," the receptionist drawled. "Doctor isn't in business for your health, you know."

  The salesman sighed. "I'll just have to leave a few samples and some literature, I guess. Maybe he'll look it over and see me when I call back later. I'm sure he's going to be interested, because these little preparations will alter the entire concept and structure of psychotherapy."

  "Then he won't be," the girl decided. "Dr. Placebo likes psychiatry just the way it is right now. Which is to say, at $50 an hour."

  "But he will take the free samples?" the salesman persisted.

  "Of course. He'll take anything that doesn't cost money. In fact, he told me it was the free-fantasy which attracted him to the profession in the first place."

  She reached out her hand and the representative of the Ace Manufacturing Company placed a little packet of three tablets on her palm.

  "The literature is inside," he said. "Please ask the Doctor to study it carefully before he experiments with the dosage. I'll stop by again next week."

  "Don't you want to leave your card?" asked the girl, politely.

  "Of course. Here you are."

  He handed it to her, turned on his heel, and made his exit.

  The receptionist studied the card curiously.

  It was the Ace of Spades.

  Normally, Dr. Morton Placebo wouldn't have paid much attention to a salesman's sample; largerly because the very idea of paying was anathema to him.

  But, as psychiatrists are so fond of saying—and, quite frequently, demonstrating—the norm is an abstraction.

  And Dr. Placebo was always interested in anything which came to him without charge. Perhaps his receptionist hadn't been far wrong when she'd analyzed his reasons for entering a psychiatric career. All psychotherapists have their quirks.

  According to his eminent disciple and official biographer, Ernest Jones, the great Sigmund Freud believed in occultism, telepathy, and the magic of numbers. The esteemed Otto Rank developed a manic-depressive psychosis; Wilhelm Reich's rationality was impugned on occasion; Sandor Ferenczi suffered from unbalance due to organic brain-damage.

  Compared to these gentlemen, Dr. Placebo's problem was a minor one; he was a frustrated experimenter. Both his frustration and his stinginess had their origin in his childhood, within the confines of the familial constellation.

  In plain English, his father was stingier than he was, and when the young Morton Placebo evinced an interest in laboratory experimentation, the old man refused to put up the money for a chemistry set. Once, during his high school years, the young man managed to acquire two guinea-pigs, which promptly disappeared. He was unable to solve the mystery—any more than he could account for the fact that his father, who always carried peanut-butter sandwiches in his lunch-pail, went to work during the following week with meat sandwiches.

  But now, at fifty, Morton Placebo, M.D., was fulfilled. He had his own laboratory at last, in the form of his psychiatric practice, and no end of wonderful guinea-pigs. Best of all, the guinea-pigs paid large sums of money for the privilege of lending themselves to his experiments. Outside of his receptionist's salary, and the $25 he spent having the couch re-sprung after a fat woman patient had successfully re-enacted a birth-fantasy, Dr. Placebo had no overhead at all. With the steady stream of salesmen and their free samples, there was no end to the types of experimentation he could indulge in.

  He'd use pills which produced euphoria, pills which produced depression, pills which caused a simulation of schizophrenia, pills which had remarkable side-effects, pills which tranquilized, pills which stimulated; pills which resulted in such fascinating manifestations as satyriasis, virilescence and the sudden eruption of motor reflexes in the abductor minimi digit. He kept copious notes on the reactions afforded by LSD, peyotl extracts, cantharadin, yohimbine and reserpine derivatives. Whenever he found himself with a patient on his hands (or couch) who did not respond to orthodox (or reformed) therapy, Dr. Placebo—purely in the interest of science, of course—reached into his drawer and hauled out a handful of free pills.

  Thus it was that he was grateful when he received the samples from the Ace Manufacturing Company.

  "The literature's on the inside," his girl told him. He nodded thoughtfully and stared at the glassine packet with its three yellow pills.

  "Time Capsules," he read, aloud.

  "Alters the time-sense, both subjectively and objectively," the receptionist said, parroting what she remembered from the salesman's pitch.

  "Subjectively," snapped Dr. Placebo. "Can't alter it objec
tively. Time is money, you know."

  "But he said—"

  "Never mind, I'll read the literature." Dr. Placebo dismissed her and thoughtfully opened the packet. A small wadded-up piece of paper fluttered out onto the desk. He picked it up, unfolded it, and stared at the message.

  "Nstrctns

  Nclsd smpls fr prfssnl s nly. ch s cpbl f prdcng tmprl dslctn prmnntly nd trnsltng sr nt nthr cntnm r tm vctr."

  There was more to it, much more, but Dr. Placebo didn't bother attempting to translate. Apparently this literature was written in the same foreign tongue used by general medical practitioners when they scrawl their prescriptions. He'd better wait and get an explanation from his friendly neighborhood drug-store.

  He gazed at the samples once again. Time Capsules. Catchy name for a pharmaceutical product. But why didn't the Ace Manufacturing Company print its literature in English? He scanned the last line of the literature. "Dnt gt yr vwls n n prr."

  Made no sense. No sense at all.

  But then, neither did most of his patients. So perhaps the pills would do some good. He'd have to wait for a likely subject.

  The likely subject arrived at 3 p.m. Her name was Cookie Jarr, which was probably a polite euphemism for "sexpot." But what's in a name?

  Sexpot or Jarr, Cookie was obviously quite a dish. She sprawled, in obvious déshabillé, on the couch, and like the professional stripper she was, proceeded to bare her psyche.

  After a dozen or so previous sessions, Dr. Placebo had succeeded in teaching her the technique of free association, and now she obediently launched into a form of monologorrhea.

  "I had a dream under very peculiar circumstances the other night . . . I was sleeping alone . . . and in it I was a geek . . ."

  "One moment, please," murmured Dr. Placebo, softly. "You say you were a geek? One of those carnival performers who bites the heads off of chickens?"

  Cookie shook her auburn locks impatiently. "Not chickens," she explained. "I was very rich in this dream, and I was geeking a peacock." She frowned. "In fact, I was so rich I was Marie Antoinette. And they dragged me out for execution, and I looked at the executioner and said, 'Dr. Guillotine, I presume?' and he said, 'Please, no names—you must be the soul of indiscretion.' So then I woke up and it was four in the morning and I looked out of the window at this big neon sign that says OK USED CARS. You know something, Doc? I'd never buy an OK USED CAR. And I'd never eat at a place that says EAT. Or one that says FINE FOOD. And I'd never be buried in a funeral parlor approved by Duncan Hines. Do you think I'm superstitious? They say it's bad luck to walk under a black cat."

  "Perhaps," said Dr. Placebo, sagely. "And then again, perhaps not. We must learn to relate, to adjust. Life is just a bowl of theories." He gazed at her piercingly. "The dream sequence is merely symbolism. Out with it now—face the truth. Why did you really wake up at four in the morning?"

  "Because I had to go to the bathroom," Cookie snapped. "No, really, Doc, I'll level with you. It's the love bit. That damn Max keeps getting me down, because he's so jealous of Harry, only that's ridiculous because I don't like Harry at all, it's really Fred, on account of he reminds me of Jerry, the guy I'm crazy about. Or almost as crazy about as Ray." She paused, biting her lip. "Oh, I hate men!" she said.

  "Ummm-hmmmm," said Dr. Placebo, doodling on a scratchpad with which he was ostensibly taking notes but actually drawing phallic symbols which looked suspiciously like dollar-signs.

  "Is that all you got to say?" demanded Cookie, sitting up. "Fifty bucks an hour I'm paying, and for what? My nerves are killing me. You got any happy pills, Doc?"

  "Happy pills?"

  "Tranquilizers, or like whatever. Remember that stuff you gave me last month?"

  "Oh, the cantharides."

  "Yeah." Cookie smiled happily. "That was the greatest!"

  Dr. Placebo frowned; his memories did not coincide with Cookie's, particularly when he recalled the frantic aftermath of that episode when he had to drag her bodily from the ninth floor of the local YMCA. But the experimental urge was strong. Few men could look at Cookie without feeling the urge to experiment.

  "Well, there's something new," he said, cautiously.

  "Give."

  "It's called a Time Capsule. Alters the subjective time-sense and—er—all that jazz." He found himself lapsing into the idiom with Cookie; she was the sort who inspired lapses.

  "Meaning what?"

  "I'm not quite sure. I imagine it slows down the reflexes."

  "Relaxes you, huh? That's for baby."

  "You'll have to take it here, under test conditions."

  "The mad scientist bit? You are gonna hypnotize me and get fresh, is that it?"

  "Nothing of the sort. I merely mean I must observe any side-effects."

  "Stuff really turns you on, eh?" Cookie bounced up happily. "Well, I'm for kicks. Spill the pill for me, Bill."

  Dr. Placebo went to the water-cooler and filled a paper cup. Then he carefully extracted one of the yellow capsules from its cellophane container. He handed it and the water to Cookie.

  She gulped and swallowed.

  Then she lay back on the couch. "Wow, I'm in Dizzyville," she whispered. "Everything's like round and round—no squares—"

  Her voice trailed off, and for a very good reason.

  Now it was Dr. Placebo's turn to gulp and swallow, as he stared down at the empty couch.

  Cookie had disappeared.

  "Where is she?" Ray Connors demanded. "Come on, where is she?"

  Dr. Placebo sighed. He felt a horrible depression, quite unlike the shapely depression which had been left in the couch by Cookie's body.

  "She—she cancelled her appointment this afternoon," he said, weakly.

  "But I drove her over," the mustached young man insisted. "Went downstairs to do a bit of business—I'm booking a flea circus out in Los Angeles and I had to see about renting a dog so the troupe could travel in comfort—and then I came right back up to your office to wait. The receptionist told me Cookie was inside. So what happened?"

  "I—I wish I knew," Dr. Placebo told him, truthfully. "She was lying right there on the couch when she vanished."

  "Vanished?"

  Dr. Placebo nodded. "Into thin air."

  "Thin air, fat air, I don't believe it." Connors advanced on the pudgy little psychiatrist. "Come on, where you hiding the body?"

  "She vanished, I tell you," Dr. Placebo wailed. "All I did was give her one of these sample pills—"

  He indicated the packet on his desk-top and Connors picked it up. "This says Time Capsules, not Vanishing Cream," he snorted. "Look, Doc, I'm not one of your loony patients. I'm an agent, and you can't con me. So you got sore at Cookie and pushed her out of the window—this I can understand. Why don't you admit it and let me call the cops? We could get a big spread on this." He began to pace the floor rapidly. "Real headline stuff—JEALOUS HEAD SHRINKER SLAYS BEAUTIFUL PATIENT. Why, we'll push the Finch trial right off the front page! Think of the angles; exclusive interview rights, sob-stories to all the women's magazines, a nice big ghostwritten best-seller, a fat movie deal. Doc, you've got a fortune in your lap and you don't know enough to cross your legs! Now for ten per cent, I'll handle everything, you won't have to worry—"

  Dr. Placebo sighed softly. "I told you," he murmured. "She swallowed one of these pills and disappeared."

  "Fiddlesticks," said Connors. "Or words to that effect." And before Dr. Placebo could stop him, he walked over to the couch, sat down, ripped a pill from the cellophane confines of the package, and popped it into his mouth.

  "No—don't!" cried the Doctor.

  Connors shrugged. "You see? I swallowed one and nothing happens. I'm still here." He leaned back. "So how about it, Doc, you gonna level with me? Maybe you didn't push her out of the window. Maybe you carved her up and stuck the pieces in your filing-cabinet. Hey, that's an even better angle—MAD BUTCHER CARVES CHICK! OR RIPPER GETS FLIPPER WITH STRIPPER. For ten per cent of the gross, I'll fix it so you—" r />
  Young Mr. Connors fell back on the couch and closed his eyes.

  "Hey, what was in that last drink?" he mumbled. "I can't see."

  Dr. Placebo advanced upon him nervously. "That pill," he gasped. "Let me phone Dr. Glutea down the hall—he's a G.U. man, maybe he has a stomach-pump—"

  Connors waved him away. "Never mind," he whispered, faintly. "I can see, now."

  This was strange, to say the least, for he still had his eyes closed. Dr. Placebo bent over him, not daring to touch his rigid body.

  "Yeah, I can see. Stars. Nothing but stars. You running one of those science fiction movies, Doc? Sure, I'm hip now. There's the world. Or is it? I can see North America and South America, but where are all those funny lines?"

  "What funny lines?"

  "Like in all the geography books—isn't there supposed to be latitude and longitude?"

  "That's just on maps."

  "I dig. This isn't a map, Doc. It's for real . . . but it can't be . . . no . . . no . . ."

  "Please, Mr. Connors, pull yourself together!"

  "I'm pulling myself apart . . . Oh, Doc, if you saw what I see . . . like crazy, the world inside a big egg-timer up in the sky . . . sort of an hourglass, you know the bit?"

  "Go on," murmured Dr. Placebo.

  "There's sand or something running out of the end, into the other half of the timer . . . and now . . . a big claw, bigger than the whole world . . . reaching out and squeezing . . . squeezing the guts out of the earth . . . squeeeee . . .

  "Go on," repeated Dr. Placebo. But it wasn't necessary, for Connors had already gone on.

  The couch was empty.

  The little psychiatrist blinked and shook his head. He walked over to the desk and, indulging in a symbolic funeral, buried his face in his hands. "Now what?" he groaned. "Physician, heal thyself."

  Then he sat up and took stock of the situation. After all he was a physician; moreover, a skilled analyst. The thing to do was to consider the problem logically. There were several obvious courses of action.