Six Stories by Robert A. Heinlein Part 6

"Come now," she said kindly, "facts are never as bad as our fears-"

"Why do you say so? Why shouldn't they be much worse?"

"Why, because they just aren't." She stopped, suddenly conscious that her Pollyanna saying had no truth in it, that it was the sort of thing adults use to pacify children. She thought of her own mother, who had gone to the hospital, fearing an appendectomy-which her friends and loving family privately diagnosed as hypochondria-there to die, of cancer.

No, the facts were frequently worse than our most nervous fears.

Still, she could not agree with him. "Suppose we look at it in the worst possible light," she suggested. "Suppose you have been doing something criminal, while in your memory lapses. No court in the State would hold you legally responsible for your actions."

He looked at her wildly. "No. No, perhaps they would not. But you know what they would do? You do, don't you? Have you any idea what they do with the criminally insane?"

"I certainly do," she answered positively. "They receive the same treatment as any other psycho patient. They aren't discriminated against. I know; I've done field work at the State Hospital."

"Suppose you have-you looked at it from the outside. Have you any idea what it feels like from the inside? Have you ever been placed in a wet pack? Have you ever had a guard put you to bed? Or force you to eat? Do you know what it's like to have a key turned in a lock every time you make a move? Never to have any privacy no matter how much you need it?"

He got up and began to pace. "But that isn't the worst of it. It's the other patients. Do you imagine that a man, simply because his own mind is playing him tricks, doesn't recognize insanity in others? Some of them drool and some of them have habits too beastly to tell of. And they talk, they talk, they talk. Can you imagine lying in a bed, with the sheet bound down, and a thing in the next bed that keeps repeating, 'The little bird flew up and then flew away; the little bird flew up and then flew away; the little bird flew up, and then flew away-' "

"Mr. Hoag!" Randall stood up and took him by the arm. "Mr. Hoag-control yourself! That's no way to behave."

Hoag stopped, looking bewildered. He looked from one face to the other and an expression of shame came over him. "I . . . I'm sorry, Mrs. Randall," he said. "I quite forgot myself. I'm not myself today. All this worry-"

"It's all right, Mr. Hoag," she said stiffly. But her earlier revulsion had returned.

"It's not entirely all right," Randall amended. "I think the time has come to get a number of things cleared up. There has been entirely too much going on that I don't understand and I think it is up to you, Mr. Hoag, to give me a few plain answers."

The little man seemed honestly at a loss. "I surely will, Mr. Randall, if there is anything I can answer. Do you feel that I have not been frank with you?"

"I certainly do. First-when were you in a hospital for the criminally insane?"

"Why, I never was. At least, I don't think I ever was. I don't remember being in one."

"Then why all this hysterical balderdash you have been spouting the past five minutes? Were you just making it up?"

"Oh, no! That . . . that was . . . that referred to St. George Rest Home. It had nothing to do with a . . . with such a hospital."

"St. George Rest Home, eh? We'll come back to that. Mr. Hoag, tell me what happened yesterday."

"Yesterday? During the day? But Mr. Randall, you know I can't tell you what happened during the day."

"I think you can. There has been some d.a.m.nable skulduggery going on and you're the center of it. When you stopped me in front of the Acme Building-what did you say to me?"

"The Acme Building? I know nothing of the Acme Building. Was I there?"

"You're d.a.m.ned right you were there and you pulled some sort of a shenanigan on me, drugged me or doped me, or something. Why?"

Hoag looked from Randall's implacable face to that of his wife. But her face was impa.s.sive; she was having none of it. He turned hopelessly back to Randall. "Mr. Randall, believe me-I don't know what you are talking about. I may have been at the Acme Building. If I were and if I did anything to you, I know nothing of it."

His words were so grave, so solemnly sincere in their sound that Randall was unsettled in his own conviction. And yet-d.a.m.n it, somebody had led him up an alley. He s.h.i.+fted his approach. "Mr. Hoag, if you have been as sincere with me as you claim to be, you won't mind what I'm going to do next." He drew from the inner pocket of his coat a silver cigarette case, opened it, and polished the mirrorlike inner surface of the cover with his handkerchief. "Now, Mr. Hoag, if you please."

"What do you want?"

"I want your fingerprints."

Hoag looked startled, swallowed a couple of times, and said in a low voice, "Why should you want my fingerprints?"

"Why not? If you haven't done anything, it can't do any harm, can it?"

"You're going to turn me over to the police!"

"I haven't any reason to. I haven't anything on you. Let's have your prints."

"No!"

Randall got up, stepped toward Hoag and stood over him. "How would you like both your arms broken?" he said savagely.

Hoag looked at him and cringed, but he did not offer his hands for prints. He huddled himself together, face averted and his hands drawn in tight to his chest.

Randall felt a touch on his arm. "That's enough, Teddy. Let's get out of here."

Hoag looked up. "Yes," he said huskily. "Get out. Don't come back."

"Come on, Teddy."

"I will in a moment. I'm not quite through. Mr. Hoag!"

Hoag met his eye as if it were a major effort.

"Mr. Hoag, you've mentioned St. George Rest Home twice as being your old alma mater. I just wanted you to know that I know that there is no such place!"

Again Hoag looked genuinely startled. "But there is," he insisted. "Wasn't I there for- At least they told me that was its name," he added doubtfully.

"Humph!" Randall turned toward the door. "Come on, Cynthia."

Once they were alone in the elevator she turned to him. "How did you happen to play it that way, Teddy?"

"Because," he said bitterly, "while I don't mind opposition, it makes me sore when my own client crosses me up. He dished us a bunch of lies, and obstructed us, and pulled some kind of sleight of hand on me in that Acme Building deal. I don't like for a client to pull stunts like that; I don't need their money that bad."

"Well," she sighed, "I, for one, will be very happy to give it back to him. I'm glad it's over."

"What do you mean, 'give it back to him'? I'm not going to give it back to him; I'm going to earn it."

The car had arrived at the ground floor by now, but she did not touch the gate. "Teddy! What do you mean?"

"He hired me to find out what he does. Well, d.a.m.n it, I'm going to find out-with or without his cooperation."

He waited for her to answer, but she did not. "Well," he said defensively, "you don't have to have anything to do with it."

"If you are going on with it, I certainly am. Remember what you promised me?"

"What did I promise?" he asked, with a manner of complete innocence.

"You know."

"But look here, Cyn-all I'm going to do is to hang around until he comes out, and then tail him. It may take all day. He may decide not to come out."

"All right. I'll wait with you."

"Somebody has to look out for the office."

"You look out for the office," she suggested. "I'll shadow Hoag."

"Now that's ridiculous. You-" The car started to move upward. "Woops! Somebody wants to use it." He jabbed the b.u.t.ton marked "Stop," then pushed the one which returned the car to the ground floor. This time they did not wait inside; he immediately opened the gate and the door.

Adjacent to the entrance of the apartment house was a little lounge or waiting room. He guided her into it. "Now let's get this settled," he commenced.

"It is settled."

"O.K., you win. Let's get ourselves staked out."

"How about right here? We can sit down and he can't possibly get out without us seeing him."

"O.K.".

The elevator had gone up immediately after they had quitted it; soon they heard the typical clanging grunt which announced its return to the ground floor. "On your toes, kid."

She nodded and drew back into the shadows of the lounge. He placed himself so that he could see the elevator door by reflection in an ornamental mirror hanging in the lounge. "Is it Hoag?" she whispered.

"No," he answered in a low voice, "it's a bigger man. It looks like-" He shut up suddenly and grabbed her wrist.

Past the open door of the lounge she saw the hurrying form of Jonathan Hoag go by. The figure did not turn its eyes in their direction but went directly through the outer door. When it swung closed Randall relaxed the hold on her wrist. "I darn near m.u.f.fed that one," he admitted.

"What happened?"

"Don' know. b.u.m gla.s.s in the mirror. Distortion. Tallyho, kid."

They reached the door as their quarry got to the sidewalk and, as on the day before, turned to the left.

Randall paused uncertainly. "I think we'll take a chance on him seeing us. I don't want to lose him."

"Couldn't we follow him just as effectively in a cab? If he gets on a bus where he did before, we'll be better off than we would be trying to get on it with him." She did not admit, even to herself, that she was trying to keep them away from Hoag.

"No, he might not take a bus. Come on."

They had no difficulty in following him; he was heading down the street at a brisk, but not a difficult, pace. When he came to the bus stop where he had gotten on the day before, he purchased a paper and sat down on the bench. Randall and Cynthia pa.s.sed behind him and took shelter in a shop entrance.

When the bus came he went up to the second deck as before; they got on and remained on the lower level. "Looks like he was going right where he went yesterday," Randall commented. "We'll get him today, kid."

She did not answer.

When the bus approached the stop near the Acme Building they were ready and waiting-but Hoag failed to come down the steps. The bus started up again with a jerk; they sat back down. "What do you suppose he is up to?" Randall fretted. "Do you suppose he saw us?"

"Maybe he gave us the slip," Cynthia suggested hopefully.

"How? By jumping off the top of the bus? Hm-m-m!"

"Not quite, but you're close. If another bus pulled alongside us at a stop light, he could have done it by stepping across, over the railing. I saw a man do that once. If you do it toward the rear, you stand a good chance of getting away with it entirely."

He considered the matter. "I'm pretty sure no bus has pulled up by us. Still, he could do it to the top of a truck, too, though Lord knows how he would get off again." He fidgeted. "Tell you what-I'm going back to the stairs and sneak a look."

"And meet him coming down? Be your age, Brain."

He subsided; the bus went on a few blocks. "Coming to our own corner," he remarked.

She nodded, naturally having noticed as soon as he did that they were approaching the corner nearest the building in which their own office was located. She took out her compact and powdered her nose, a routine she had followed eight times since getting on the bus. The little mirror made a handy periscope whereby to watch the pa.s.sengers getting off the rear of the bus. "There he is, Teddy!"

Randall was up out of his seat at once and hurrying down the aisle, waving at the conductor. The conductor looked annoyed but signaled the driver not to start. "Why don't you watch the streets?" he asked.

"Sorry, buddy. I'm a stranger here myself. Come on, Cyn."

Their man was just turning into the door of the building housing their own office. Randall stopped. "Something screwy about this, kid."

"What do we do?"

"Follow him," he decided.

They hurried on; he was not in the lobby. The Midway-Copton is not a large building, nor sw.a.n.k-else they could not have rented there. It has but two elevators. One was down and empty; the other, by the indicator, had just started up.

Randall stepped up to the open car, but did not enter. "Jimmie," he said, "how many pa.s.sengers in that other car?"

"Two," the elevator pilot answered.

"Sure?"

"Yeah. I was breezin' with Bert when he closed the door. Mr. Harrison and another bird. Why?"

Randall pa.s.sed him a quarter. "Never mind," he said, his eyes on the slowly turning arrow of the indicator. "What floor does Mr. Harrison go to?"

"Seven." The arrow had just stopped at seven.

"Swell." The arrow started up again, moved slowly past eight and nine, stopped at ten. Randall hustled Cynthia into the car. "Our floor, Jimmie," he snapped, "and step on it!"

An "up" signal flashed from the fourth floor; Jimmie reached for his controls; Randall grabbed his arm. "Skip it this time, Jim."

The operator shrugged and complied with the request.