The Project Gutenberg eBook ofNewshoundThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: NewshoundAuthor: Stephen MarloweRelease date: November 2, 2021 [eBook #66648]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: Greenleaf Publishing Company, 1955Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEWSHOUND ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: NewshoundAuthor: Stephen MarloweRelease date: November 2, 2021 [eBook #66648]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: Greenleaf Publishing Company, 1955Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Title: Newshound
Author: Stephen Marlowe
Author: Stephen Marlowe
Release date: November 2, 2021 [eBook #66648]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024
Language: English
Original publication: United States: Greenleaf Publishing Company, 1955
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEWSHOUND ***
NEWSHOUNDBy Milton LesserThe Fourth Estate was highly specializedin the 22nd Century; for example, a good newsmanpredicted coming events—and made them happen....[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromImagination Stories of Science and FantasyJuly 1955Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The Fourth Estate was highly specializedin the 22nd Century; for example, a good newsmanpredicted coming events—and made them happen....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromImagination Stories of Science and FantasyJuly 1955Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Darius McLeod leaned back comfortably and watched the mayor sweat.
His Honor popped a phenobarb tablet between his lips, tossing his head and gulping the pill down without water. His moist, nervous hands left their wet imprint on the desk top when he reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a clipping from the morning'sNew York World.
"You people elected me, McLeod," he said. "Now get me out of this mess."
"We merely supported your candidacy, Your Honor," McLeod said easily. "But let's see what you got there."
"It amounts to the same thing," the mayor pleaded. "For God's sake, give me a break."
McLeod shrugged and unfolded theWorldclipping on his desk. "Naturally, theWorldwill oppose your administration," he began. "Otherwise they'll never be able to live down theStar-Times'scoop on your election."
"That's precisely what I was saying. The way I understand it, you people will have to support your man. TheStar-Timescan't abandon me to the wolves, not now."
"I'm only a reporter," McLeod explained. "We report events, not make them."
"That's it. That's what I mean. The attitude. You're treating me like a child."
"You're acting like one."
"All I want is what's fair. Whatever you think is fair."
"Then let me read this thing." The column clipped from theWorldbore the cut-line COMING EVENTS. McLeod had always liked theStar-Times'LOOKING FORWARD better, although he had to admit that theWorld'scut of a swami rubbing his crystal ball had a certain fundamental appeal for the masses. House-written, theWorldcolumn appeared under the by-line of Nostradamus.
McLeod scanned the printed lines quickly. There was a prediction on the outcome of the World Series. It had better turn out incorrect, thought McLeod: theStar-Timeshad spent a small fortune building up the opposing team. There was something about the dangers of forest fires and an indirect reference to the possibility of a conflagration next week in the Adirondack Game Preserve. (TheStar-Timeswould be alerting its fire-fighting unit to prevent such a possibility, McLeod knew.) There was a talk of an impending war between Yugoslavia and France at a time when relations between the two countries were never more harmonious. McLeod wondered how theWorldwould ever swing it. He read the last two items aloud.
"'We think it's high time the mayor of New York be exposed for his corrupt political dealings. We wouldn't be surprised if the mayor were forced to resign his office in January.... What ace reporter of what rival New York daily is going to meet with a fatal accident next week? Remember, you read it here first!'"
"January," said the mayor as Darius McLeod folded the column and lit a cigaret. "That's next month."
"They could be talking about me."
"Eh? If I'm forced to resign, you'll be scooped."
"Yeah, scooped," McLeod mused. "We're their chief rival. I'm the big Huck-a-muck over here. Those dirty sons—they can get me out of the way and scoop us at the same time. Listen, Your Honor, check back with me later. I've got to see the City Editor."
"But I'm not politically corrupt—"
"We'll decide. We'll let you know," Darius McLeod shouted, already running from his glass-walled office and through the clattering din of the City Room, disturbing the milling knot of scribes and gunmen going over last minute instructions from the Crime Editor, shouldering by the line of trim, pretty co-respondents receiving their briefs from the Society Editor, almost knocking down the Medical Editor who was either on the point of finding a cure for theWorld'slatest plague or dreaming up one of his own, McLeod didn't remember which.
McLeod found Overman, the City Editor, perched on a corner of his desk and barking orders into a microphone. "What do you mean, he won't jump? We said he'd jump. Coax him. Push him if you can get away with it, I don't care. Don't make it obvious." Overman cocked his gaunt head to one side, listening to the receiver imbedded in his ear. He looked like a walking ad for hyper-thyroid treatment, with bulging eyes, hollow cheeks and fidgety limbs. He couldn't sit still and he didn't try. "All right, we'll hold up the story. And you're the guy who asked for a raise." Overman dropped the microphone hose back into its cubby and looked up. "Sometimes I wonder what the hell they think a reporter draws his salary for. What do you want, Darius?"
"TheWorld'sgunning for me, chief."
"I already saw it."
"Then don't just sit there."
"What do you want me to do, hold your hand? Of course theWorld'sgunning for you. Great story for them, and they also kill off our star reporter in the process.Ifthey get away with it."
"Damn it!" McLeod exploded. "This is the twenty-second century. If theWorldsays I'm going to meet with a fatal accident, then my life's in danger." McLeod winced at his own words. In a matter of minutes he had been reduced to the mayor's level and he didn't like it.
"Counter-prognostication has already taken steps, Darius. Don't go off the deep end on me. It happens like this every time. Even a top-flight reporter sheds his own sophistication when the story's about himself."
"How do you expect me to take it?"
"Just relax, that's all."
"Maybe you want me to write my own obituary."
"Don't try so hard to be funny. Excuse me." Overman cocked his head again and listened, then pulled out his microphone and barked: "All right, all right. Don't cry. We can't get them all. I'm not saying it was your fault. Report back in."
"What's the matter?" McLeod wanted to know.
"Harry Crippens is the matter. Remember Congressman Horner? That story yesterday?"
McLeod recalled it vaguely. Something about Horner committing suicide unexpectedly.
"Well, he didn't jump. TheWorld'sSecurity Forces rescued him and got a scoop. Another wrongo for us, Darius. That's the second story Crippens bungled this month."
"Maybe it wasn't Cripp's fault, chief." Crippens was a plump, owl-faced man with big, watery eyes swimming behind concave glasses. McLeod had always liked him. He was the grimmest, saddest, cryingest, most logical drunk McLeod had ever met. Wonderful drinking partner.
"I didn't say it was. Just thinking, though."
"If psychology flubbed a dub on Horner, you can't blame Cripp."
"Not what I mean. TheWorld'sprediction is vague, see? Who's a star reporter? How do you single the man out? Any big by-line guy will do, right?"
"I guess so."
"Crippens gets his share of by-lines, Darius."
"Hey, wait a minute—"
"Why spend the time protecting you next week if we don't have to? It's expensive and not a sure thing. We'd hate to lose you, Darius."
"Thank you."
"But Crippens is bungling. He ought to meet theWorld'srequirements. We do the job for them the first of next week. They get their story and we keep our number one man, alive. How does it sound?"
"Rotten," McLeod said. "I'm not going to sit by and let Cripp take that kind of rap for me. What kind of louse do you think I am, anyway?"
"Let it simmer, Darius. There's no hurry. I suppose His Honor has been around to use your crying towel?"
McLeod nodded. "That's right."
"I thought he would. It was your series of articles that got him elected in the first place. You saved my life, now support me. One of those deals. It was obvious theWorldwould try to show corruption after their own candidate lost."
"Is theStar-Timesgoing to protect Mayor Spurgess' record?"
Overman jerked his head from side to side, the stretched, translucent lids blinking over popping eyes. "It's always easier to prove corruption than disprove it, you know that. We'd be backing the wrong animal, Darius. I've got it figured, though."
"How do you mean?"
"They won't have much of a story if something violent happens to the mayor between now and next month. I don't want to see it in LOOKING FORWARD, though. Just make it happen and get the scoop. See? We can't let the mayor resign. This is the surest way."
"Anything particular in mind?"
"It's your assignment, Darius. Whatever you do is all right with me."
"That poor guy treated me like his father-image before. Well—"
"You're not weakening, are you, Darius? There's no time for emotion in this business, none at all. You've got to go out and get a story before some other outfit changes it on you. Or you've got to maketheirstories fail to happen. And whatever you do, you've got to keep the TV outfits guessing. If news starts happening according to Hoyle, we're all through. Us and theWorldand all the other newspapers wouldn't stand a chance, not with TV right on the spot. Keep TV guessing. Confused. Never sure. Give some crumbs to theWorld, even, if you have to.
"So there's no time for thalamic responses, Darius. Do I make myself clear?"
McLeod bristled. "You never had to give me that kind of lecture. You think I'm a cub or something? Don't worry about Mayor Spurgess, we'll fix him up."
"Splendid. But there's something else. Crippens."
"I told you how I felt about that. I don't want any part of it. Talk about your Judas's—"
"Crippens or you, Darius. TheWorld'sgunning. You know it."
"I can't tell you what to do. But I'll warn Cripp, that's all."
"That would make your own assignment rather difficult."
"What assignment are you talking about?"
"Crippens. The way I figure it, you have a lot at stake there. We'll let you handle Crippens."
"You're crazy!"
"You are if you refuse. We won't give you a single Security man for protection. Remember what they said in COMING EVENTS. Your one chance is to get Crippens before they get you and then let theWorldscoop us. I would suggest the first thing next Monday morning, but then, it's your baby."
"First Mayor Spurgess and now Crippens. Are you trying to make me a hatchetman?"
"A reporter, Darius. You've always been a good one."
"But Crippens is my friend."
"I wish we had another way out. Crippens has his place on theStar-Times, but we thought too much of him. We don't want to lose you, Darius. You can take that as an objective compliment and sleep easy. Your job's secure."
"Thank you very much."
"Don't be bitter. A man in the newspaper business is top-dog these days, see? I don't have to tell you. We're not passive receptors. We control things. We make things happen. We play God, but we've got competition. You've got to take the good with the bad, that's all. See what I mean?" All the while they had spoken, Overman had not moved from where he had perched his small frame on his desk, but his nervous legs had walked miles, his scrawny, sleeve-rolled arms had waved, flapped and gesticulated, his wide, bulging eyes had darted about the frenzied confusion of the great room where news was created and missed nothing. It was Overman's passion, McLeod knew, his alpha through omega. He suddenly wished it were that simple for himself. Less than half an hour ago, it would have been.
"We'll have our obituary people compose something tender for Crippens," Overman said. "Keep me informed, Darius."
"I haven't told you I'd do it."
"Whose obit would you rather see them write?"
"You could protect me instead."
But Overman jerked his head side to side again. "It's the same as politics. Much simpler to make news than to prevent it. The one sure way to protect you, provided you don't foul things up with Crippens."
"Well, I don't—"
"One of you makes the obituary page next week. TheWorld'salready seen to that. Take your choice, Darius."
"Yeah ... sure."
"And don't forget about Mayor Spurgess. You've got a busy time ahead of you. Good luck."
Walking back toward his own office, McLeod saw that the flow of co-respondents had slowed to a trickle. He swore softly. The last girl in line was Tracy Kent, a tawny-haired divorce specialist with an admirable record. McLeod liked Tracy, but it was strictly brother-sister stuff.
Tracy was going to marry Harry Crippens.
CHAPTER II
"Hey, Darius. A girl gets hungry for lunch around this time every day."
McLeod smiled. "Won't Cripp be along soon?"
"Search me." Tracy rubbed her stomach under the smooth, tautly drawn fabric of her dress. "When this piece of machinery starts to gurgle, I eat."
"Well, I was going to head over to the Press Club in a few minutes anyway. Don't you have to get yourself caught with someone today?"
"Later on. Tonight. Now I'm hungry."
Tracy Kent was long and almost lean with hips angular rather than rounded and the clean lines of her long-striding legs accentuated by the tight sheath of skirt as she walked with McLeod toward the elevator. She was all woman unless you happened to look at her a certain way, when you caught a glimpse of something coltish, almost like Peter Pan, in the way she carried herself or smiled at you. She did not look like a vamp, thought McLeod, which helped explain why she was such a successful co-respondent.
"One of these days I'm going to stop feeling like a brother toward you," McLeod promised as they climbed into his copter on the roof.
"You're flattering but tardy, Mr. McLeod. I'm going to marry the guy."
"Crippens?"
"Don't look at me that way. He's your friend, too." Tracy grinned as the rotors flashed above them, then pouted. "Darius, do we have to go to the Press Club for lunch?"
"Mixing business with pleasure, I guess. Got to see some people. Why, does someone bother you over there?"
"That Weaver Wainwright, always staring at me like he wants to sit down at his thinkwriter and let the world know what it's like with a co-respodent. Me."
"Wainwright's one of the men I want to see."
"TheStar-Times'hot-shot reporter hob-nobbing with that riff-raff from theWorld?"
"You named it," Darius McLeod said as their copter rose up from the roof of theStar-Timesbuilding and retreated from the checkerboard pattern of other copters resting on their landing squares. "Why the sour face?"
"Because I read COMING EVENTS, Darius. Do you think Wainwright's been assigned the job?"
"It's a damned good guess. He just got back from overseas. He's been sopping up spirits like a blotter over at the club and making nasty noises while waiting for a new job. This is probably his baby."
"Why, Darius?"
"Because he's their number one boy."
"No. I mean, why you?"
McLeod shrugged. "Does there have to be a reason? It's good copy for them. TheStar-Timesloses a guy who's been around, too. That's the newspaper business, Tracy. Don't look for any reason."
"Don't be so calm about it. What's Overman going to do?"
McLeod considered the question as he brought the copter down expertly through the lanes of local traffic here at the edge of the city. Off in the distance, rank on rank of hemispherical suburban homes marched off, in orderly rows, to the eastern horizon. The Press Club, almost directly below them now, had snipped half a dozen square miles from the patterned picture. It was castle, game preserve and sylvan retreat not for one monarch, but for hundreds. Newshounds, newshens, gunmen. Flashing letters swam up at them from the green woodland, blinking on and off garishly—THE FOURTH ESTATE.
If he told her Overman had failed to offer any protection, she'd realize another alternative had been selected. It would be better if he lied. "What's Overman going to do?" he repeated her question. "The usual. I'll be protected. Don't worry about me."
"But if Wainwright's all they say, he's like a bloodhound. Be careful, Darius."
"Hell, I said don't worry. I have till next week, anyway."
"This is Friday."
"Yeah, Friday." Their copter alighted with hardly a quiver. Uniformed lackies were already polishing the chrome and glass by the time McLeod helped Tracy to the ground. She came down lithely, long hair whipping about her face and brushing against McLeod's cheek. A girl scantily clad as an American Indian led them across the landing field and along a path through the gnarled oaks which made the Fourth Estate resemble more a chunk of Scotland than Long Island. But while they couldn't see the acres of neon tubing from the ground, their pulsing glow spoiled the effect.
The clubhouse itself was an architectural nightmare of quarry-stone, turrets, battlements—and great, soft-hued thermo-glass walls. Music stirred the air faintly with rhythm as they crossed the drawbridge (which actually worked, McLeod knew) and entered the lobby. The pretty little squaw disappeared and was replaced at once by the weaponcheck girl, dressed in top hat and tails, but not much else.
She smiled professionally at Tracy, then frisked her expertly, finding the trick pocket in her skirt and removing the tiny but deadly parabeam from her leg holster. Tracy grinned back like a yawning cat. "I'd have given it to you."
"I'm sorry, m'am. They all say that." The weaponcheck girl turned to McLeod. "It's the law around here, you know that. Good afternoon, Mr. McLeod."
The hands darted with quick, practiced precision over him after he nodded. He felt the sleeve-holster slip out by way of his armpit, was given a numbered check for both weapons as the girl hip-wagged away and suspended their weapons from hooks in her arsenal. They were then led to a table near the bandstand, where they ordered cocktails.
"It's an awful lot of fuss just to eat lunch," Tracy said. "Every time that weapon hen paws me like that, I want to scratch her big, wide eyes out. Darius, I'm still afraid for you. Is Wainwright here?"
"I haven't looked, but don't worry. I have till next week, anyway."
"They could kidnap you and hold you somewhere till they're ready to kill you."
McLeod tried to hide his momentary confusion by making a production of lighting his cigaret and smiling at someone he hardly knew at a nearby table. Tracy certainly had a good point—which he hadn't considered until now.
Tracy glanced about uneasily in the dim light. "Did Overman think of that? I don't see any Security men around."
McLeod exhaled a long plume of smoke and watched it get sucked into the unseen currents of the climatizer. "They don't let themselves get seen," he said easily. "They wouldn't be good Security men if they did, would they?"
"But what areyougoing to do, Darius? Can't you take some kind of positive action? It's not like you, just sitting around and waiting."
McLeod wanted to change the subject, for Tracy had a way of ferreting out the truth even if she suspected nothing. He'd always thought she was wasting her time as a co-respondent and often told her so, but she'd always countered by striking a bump-and-grind pose and saying she had all the equipment. "Have you heard about Cripp?" he asked her now.
"Only that he was going out on an assignment. Suicide I think."
"Unfortunately, the guy had a change of heart. They had to tear up the obit."
"Was it Cripp's fault?"
"I doubt it. Suicide and murder are two different things. Psychology fouled up, that's all."
"But Overman must have been furious, anyway. Poor Cripp."
"Overman'll get over it. Cripp's a good man."
Tracy shook her head slowly. "Thanks for saying it, but Cripp isn't cut out for the newspaper racket and you know it. A couple more flubs and Overman will begin to think Cripp belongs to the Anti-Newspaper League or something."
"Very funny," McLeod told her. "I can just see it now: Cripp a subversive."
"Shh!" said Tracy, raising a finger to her lips. "We shouldn't even talk about things like that. Mentioning the Anti-Newspaper League in here is like eating beefsteak in Delhi."
A figure approached their table and sat down at the empty chair without receiving an invitation. "Did I hear something about the Anti-Newspaper League?" the man demanded, chuckling softly. He was tall and gaunt but well-tanned, the whites of his eyes very bright against the skin of his face. He had a long, sad nose which drooped mournfully almost to his upper lip, mitigating the effect of his smile.
He was Weaver Wainwright, ace reporter of theWorld.
"We're just a couple of subversives, Mr. Wainwright," Tracy said.
"So that's why theStar-Timesis filling its pages with wrongos these days. How do you do, McLeod?"
"Never felt better. Ought to live to be a hundred, at least. Can we get you something?"
"As a matter of fact, I've just had lunch. Brandy might help my sluggish liver, though."
"Brandy it is," said McLeod, and gave the new order to their waiter when he arrived with a pair of Gibsons. "According to what I read in the papers, theWorld'sthinking of starting a Tong War with us." McLeod hid his impulse to smile by making a conventional toast to Tracy. He wondered how much his unexpected candor had unnerved Wainwright and decided to study the reporter's reaction carefully.
But Wainwright merely grinned, making the upper lip all but disappear and the nose become more prominent. "At least you read a good newspaper," he said. "I don't think it's fair for you to say we had war in mind, McLeod. Nothing of the sort. Our Prognostication division merely indicated that a certain well-known opposition newsman was going to meet with an unfortunate accident next week. While prognostication is pretty reliable—especially coming from a good newspaper—it's hardly the last word. Ah, here's my brandy." And he began to sip and stare over the rim of his glass at Tracy.
"Nice stay in Europe?" McLeod wanted to know. Under the circumstances, Wainwright's composure had been admirable.
"Fair. But then, you read the papers."
"You mean that business about Yugoslavia and France?"
"That's right. Your man—What's his name, Kitrick?—thought there would be peace. He's wrong, you know. All you have to do is touch a spark to the right fuse in the Balkans, I always said. Kitrick was trying to put the fire out by spitting."
"Wayne Kitrick didn't think there was any fire to put out," Tracy told theWorldreporter. "As of now, there isn't."
"Give it some time," Wainwright promised. "You see, the President of Yugoslavia was indiscreet in his youth, most indiscreet. With elections approaching there, he had the alternative of—well, you know what a newspaper can do to a man of position who's been indiscreet. Drink to it?"
They did. In spite of everything, McLeod had to admire Wainwright. In the old days, nations went to war for economic reasons, over diametrically opposed political philosophies, because of religion. Today, a sharp reporter dug deep to unearth closeted skeletons and moral potsherds and literally blackmailed a chief of state into war. Wainwright was sharp, all right. History might one day write up the whole series of twenty-second century wars as Blackmail Wars, but meanwhile the U. N. could only gnash its collective teeth while Wainwright picked up a fattened paycheck.
"I'll bet you're proud of yourself," Tracy said.
"I don't see why not. Kitrick will be reamed, my dear."
"And so will a few million innocent people."
"Perhaps you weren't fooling when you mentioned the Anti-Newspaper League. But of course, you're pulling my leg."
"I'm a co-respondent," Tracy said coldly. "I don't have to turn cartwheels over your end of the newspaper game."
"Tracy," McLeod said. This was one facet of the girl's character he'd never seen before. He could almost see the gears meshing into place inside Wainwright's skull. He didn't mind talk which bordered on the subversive, as long as it came from Tracy, who was quite outspoken about a lot of things, but Wainwright might have other ideas.
But Wainwright said, blandly, "From a moral standpoint you carve out your pound of flesh every now and then too, my dear. Or don't you think framing innocent men in compromising circumstances is immoral?"
"You wouldn't understand the difference," Tracy said.
"It is a difference of degree, not kind."
Tracy bit her lips and did not reply. It was like a revelation to McLeod. He suddenly wondered if Cripp knew how maladjusted his fiancee was.
Abruptly, Wainwright changed the subject. "Are you well insured, McLeod?"
"I never could figure out who to name as beneficiary."
"That's a shame."
"If you've planned anything now, I thought you'd like to knowStar-TimesSecurity Forces are all around us," McLeod bluffed.
"You underestimate me, sir. Prognostication comes up with the raw facts, which I sift for story material. I merely wait for things to happen. However, in case you have any inclinations to put the shoe on the other foot, I'm sure you realizeWorldSecurity men often lunch at the Fourth Estate."
That, McLeod suspected, was no bluff. Tracy was still nibbling on her lip but managed to cast a worried look in his direction. They ordered and ate in silence while Wainwright swirled and sipped another brandy.
"Have you heard about poor Mayor Spurgess?" Wainwright asked as McLeod cooled his coffee with cream.
McLeod scalded his lips. TheWorldreporter was playing cat-and-mouse with him, taunting him overtly. Perhaps Wainwright figured he could kill two birds with one stone, getting McLeod while McLeod tried to protect the mayor's record. He hoped Wainwright had not thought of Overman's alternative.
"You're a busy man," McLeod finally said.
"I detest inactivity. I assume since you wrote Mayor Spurgess into office, you are going to protect his name. Miss Kent, could you excuse yourself for a moment?"
Tracy waited until McLeod nodded, then stood up and mumbled something about going to powder her nose. McLeod lit a cigaret and waited.
"Now we can talk," Wainwright said. "Recognize the spirit in which this is said, McLeod: you're a fine reporter."
"Thanks."
"But you're as good as dead. We've written your obituary."
Strangely, the announcement brought no fear. Although it had only been a couple of hours, McLeod felt as if he'd been living with the idea for years. "You haven't printed it yet."
"In time. But we don't have to print it. Naturally, it's news, McLeod. You have a well-known name. But there are others equally well-known. More well-known. We can come up with a wrongo occasionally. Basically, we want to kill you because you're too valuable to theStar-Times."
"Your motive doesn't interest me. And I have some news for you: I'm a long way from dead."
"Don't be melodramatic, McLeod. We'll get you. A routine assassination-accident doesn't often become a wrongo, you know that. We have decided to make an offer to you."
Now McLeod's skin did begin to crawl. Statistically, the assassination-accident case was more fool-proof than any other. Gunmen commanded good salaries and did their work expertly. Ninety-five per cent accuracy could be expected. "I'm listening."
"Join theWorld."
"Come again?"
"I'm sure you heard me. Quit theStar-Timesand join us. We'll match your salary, we won't kill you—"
"But theStar-Times will!"
"You'd be valuable to us, aside from your abilities as a reporter. No doubt, they've included you in any long-range plans they might have. We'll have them piling up wrongos from now till doomsday."
"Which is exactly why they'll have me killed if I become a turncoat."
"We'll offer you full protection."
"I'm already getting full protection—from theStar-Times," McLeod lied. It was almost a tempting offer, although its virtues were purely negative. TheStar-Timeshad refused to offer him protection because Overman thought it would be simpler and more certain to serve up a substitute reporter for the kill. If McLeod accepted Wainwright's offer, at least he'd be able to sleep easy regarding Crippens. But if theWorld'sreal purpose was to remove McLeod from theStar-Times'staff, one way or the other, they might risk an all-out Tong War and still gun for him.
Besides, no turncoat newspaperman had ever survived six months. McLeod knew it and was sure Wainwright knew it and guessed theWorldreporter was promising him all he could under the circumstances—a temporary reprieve.
"I know what you're thinking," Wainwright told him. "TheStar-Timeswill get you if you turn on them. If necessary, they'll drop everything else until you're dead."
"Well, yes. That's just what I was thinking."
"I don't envy your position," Wainwright admitted. "You believe I'm offering you a few months more of life at best. But you're mistaken, McLeod.It will appear as if we have killed you.We can do it, working together. But I offer you life. The accident will all but destroy you, although means of identification will remain. Don't you see what I'm driving at? We can substitute some derelict for you, then change your appearance and employ you on theWorld. TheStar-Timeswill never know the difference."
It was a daring plan. It was just the sort of thing which made the newspaper business in general—and Weaver Wainwright in particular—so omnipotent these days. McLeod did not try to hide his interest. The plan had more than negative virtues, after all.
"How do I know I can trust you?" McLeod asked.
"I'm afraid you don't. But let it simmer. What it boils down to is this: you're going to have to take a calculated risk either way, McLeod. No doubt, you've devised some scheme to give us a fat wrongo instead of your corpse. It may or may not work. Statistics say it will not. On the other hand, I promise you life. My plan not only could work, itshouldwork. The risk there is that I may not be telling the truth. You'll have to decide ... here comes Miss Kent."
"The girl with the crooked face," said Tracy, sitting down. "Unless you tell me it's straight."
"As an arrow," said McLeod, hardly hearing his own words. The more he thought of Wainwright's plan, the better he liked it. If Wainwright were telling the truth, he'd be able to get both Cripp and himself off the hook at the same time. "I'll think about it," he told theWorldreporter, who was smiling and getting up to leave.
"Call me," Wainwright said, and was gone.
"What did he want?" Tracy asked.
"The usual," McLeod told her, realizing a near-truth was often the best lie. "That I join up with theWorldand get protected."
"You wouldn't last a month and you know it. So why did you tell him you'd think about it?"
"To let him think I was playing both ends against dead center, I guess. I don't know. I just want to come out of this thing alive, Tracy."
"I was thinking. There must be something we could dig up about Weaver Wainwright, something we could hold over his head so he'd rather be guilty of a wrongo than see it revealed."
"I doubt it. Anyway, you don't blackmail newspapermen."
"You don't kill them, either. Darius, did you ever stop to think how—how awfully evil this whole setup is? I don't mean just about you and how theWorldwants to make a story out of killing off the opposition. I mean everything. I mean Weaver Wainwright starting a war in Europe so his paper can get the inside story on it. I mean the President of Yugoslavia being blackmailed by a garden variety newspaperman. I mean Cripp getting chewed out because he went to cover a suicide and the man didn't jump. We ought to celebrate, don't you see? A human life was saved. I mean me getting myself caught with important men so their wives sue for divorce and we get the story. I mean disease that doesn't have to happen and medical cures held back until one paper or another can scoop them. I mean scientific discoveries which aren't made because research scientists and development engineers are on newspaper payrolls and perform their basic research and experiments, then wait for the newspaper stories to be released at an editor's leisure. I mean ... oh, what's the use? You're laughing at me."
McLeod was trying not to smile but meeting with little success. "I just never heard you talk like that before, that's all. Tracy, you're like a little girl in a lot of ways—idealistic, romantic, building castles on air and not accepting the real world, but—"
"Real!" Tracy cried. "It's phony from the word go. We're making it—to suit headlines."
"Stop shouting," McLeod said in alarm. "People are staring at you."
"I don't care about them."
"Well, I do. Before you know it, they'll be investigating you for Anti-Newspaper tendencies. What's the matter with you?"
"My God! Don't sound so gosh-awful righteous, Darius. You treat this newspaper business like a religion."
"Maybe I like being top-dog."
"So now you're going to get yourself killed. A sacrifice to the Headline God."
"Stop it," McLeod said. "I won't get killed if I can help it."
"And if Wainwright can help it too, is that the idea?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Sometimes I ... I hate you, Darius McLeod. That's what I'm talking about. They're going to kill someone else and change your face and let you work for theWorld." Tracy stood up and patted her lips with a napkin.
McLeod climbed to his feet too. "How did you know about that?"
"Don't bother getting up. I can find my way back alone, thank you."
McLeod sat down, staring at her.
"Maybe it's because I'm a spy. Maybe I work for theWorld." Tracy pivoted and stalked away, her heels click-clacking defiantly on the marble floor. McLeod gaped after her until she disappeared.
CHAPTER III
McLeod made an appointment to see Jack Lantrel, the Gunman Chief of theStar-Times, Saturday morning. He spent the remainder of Friday pondering and drinking a little too much. The combination yielded a hangover, but not even tentative conclusions. While Tracy Kent had become an unexpected enigma, he couldn't spend too much time on it. Wainwright's proposal nagged at all his thoughts, but he kept telling himself he couldn't trust theWorldreporter. And for the first time he found he didn't like the feeling of power inherent in a newspaperman's position. Having the power of life and death over nameless, faceless people was one thing, but playing the role of the Greek hag who snipped the thread of life with a pair of indifferent scissors for Crippens was quite another.
Lantrel met McLeod in the Gunman's office, greeted him and said, "Dragging me down on Saturday, this better be important." Jack Lantrel was a harried-looking little man. You always expected a great, bosomy wife to come charging in to henpeck him, although, like McLeod, Lantrel was a bachelor. He straightened the thinkwriter and the other items of office equipment on his desk with mechanical efficiency. He was an old fuddy-duddy, thought McLeod, but he had signed the death warrants for hundreds of people.
"It's a job," said McLeod.
"Well, that's what I draw my check for. But we work on a rigid schedule, Darius."
"Then call it a priority job. Mayor Spurgess."
Lantrel looked up from where he'd been drumming his fingers idly on the desk. "Motive is none of my business," he admitted. "But did you say you want to have Mayor Spurgess gunned?"
McLeod sighed. "Yeah."
"I'm glad my particular job is comparatively simple. You just elected the guy."
"And now we want him killed. Overman would sleep easier and so would I if you did it by tomorrow night."
Lantrel grunted something, prodded the intercom button on his desk and demanded in his high-pitched voice, "Will you please get me the habit file on Mayor Spurgess?" He turned to McLeod. "Sunday night, eh? That doesn't give us much time."
McLeod shrugged and watched a secretary bring in a bulging plastic file envelope which Lantrel flipped through expertly. "Here we are. Subject generally dines late Sunday night, reviews his Monday morning schedule, smokes a pipe and plays with the TV set until he's convinced there's nothing to interest him, then ... oh! here we are ... takes a walk around twenty-two hundred hours, alone, without his wife."
"Sounds simple," McLeod said.
"An assassination-accident," Lantrel informed him with surprising enthusiasm, "is never simple. Despite the statistical expectancy of success, there are too many random factors you have to contend with. If the weather's bad, perhaps subject won't take his evening constitutional. Perhaps subject's wife will break the pattern with some company for dinner. Subject might conceivably take a friend along with him. You see what I'm driving at?"
McLeod nodded. "All I want to know is this: can you do the job Sunday night?"
Lantrel scanned the file again. "Subject leaves his house at twenty-two hundred, returns by twenty-two forty-five. That gives us forty-five minutes. Probably, Darius."
"Good enough."
Lantrel slid a gunman form into his thinkwriter, hunched himself down in his chair and watched the machine type. Presently the sheet of paper slipped out the other side of the squat machine and McLeod read:
DATE: 14 Dec 2103
NAME: Darius John McLeod
ASSIGNMENT (CURRENT): City Desk
JOB NO.: 03-4-12
CLASSIFICATION: Top Priority
SUBJECT: Peter Winston Spurgess, Mayor, New York City
DATE OF EXECUTION (APPROX): 15 Dec 2103
METHOD: Vehicular, or other, accident
CODE: 4-12-DJM
APPROVED:/s/Jack LantrelJACK LANTRELGUNMAN EDITOR
THE UNDERSIGNED HEREBY CERTIFIES THAT JOB NO. 03-4-12, HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS 4-12-DJM, HAS BEEN ORDERED IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE EXISTING REGULATIONS GOVERNING ASSASSINATION-ACCIDENTS, AND THAT 4-12-DJM HAS BEEN APPROVED, ORALLY OR IN WRITING, BY THE City Editor. THE UNDERSIGNED IS COGNIZANT OF THE FACT THAT ANY FRAUD OR DECEIT IN THIS APPLICATION, WHETHER FOR PERSONAL GAIN OR OTHERWISE, IS PUNISHABLE BY SUMMARY REVOCATION OF HIS (HER) NEWSPAPER LICENSE.
DARIUS JOHN MCLEOD
It suddenly was no simple matter for McLeod to scrawl his name at the bottom of the sheet. He was aware of Lantrel, a puzzled expression on his face, watching him. It seemed entirely routine to affix his signature, but quite suddenly he was aware of the machinery that would put into operation. Gunmen would be selected for the job, would study Mayor Spurgess' habit file, would agree with Lantrel on themodus operandi. Within thirty-six hours, Mayor Spurgess would be dead.
Darius McLeod executioner?
Hardly. He was merely carrying out an assignment. Newspapers were active agents in the modern world. If it had not been his assignment, it would have been someone else's. You could hardly consider it murder. Murder was punishable today as it had always been—by capital punishment or a long prison term. A newspaperman was above reproach—or imprisonment.
McLeod saw the parallel that he had first seen in Overman's office yesterday. He was both executioner and victim. Even now as he was signing the application for Mayor Spurgess' death, perhaps Weaver Wainwright was signing one which read, SUBJECT: Darius John McLeod, reporter, New YorkStar-Times. TheWorldGunman Editor might now be studyinghishabit file, weighing the various factors to determine what situation seemed most promising as a vessel for his "accidental" death. Did the editor know that McLeod often spent weekends racing across country or down to South America in his jet? It was there in his habit file in all probability. Did he know that McLeod visited theStar-Timesspace station once every fortnight because he was being groomed to cover theStar-Timesdash to the moon, if ever they got the jump on theWorldspace station and could leave Earth's gravitational field without the near certainty of being tracked and shot down by aWorldrocket? Did he know the thousand one little habits which, combined in various predictable patterns, made up McLeod's life? Unfortunately, the answer had to be in the affirmative. It left McLeod feeling a little sick.
"What's the matter, Darius? Is something wrong?"
"Huh? No. Nothing." McLeod signed the application. "There you are."
"Fine," said Lantrel, placing the application in his out basket. "Call me at home tomorrow afternoon, Darius. I'll give you the details so you can cover the assignment. You know the number?"
McLeod said that he did and left. He wondered if Weaver Wainwright would make a similar call. The worst part of it was that he didn't know when.
When he reached his bachelor apartment in the East Seventies, the door recorder told him that two visitors, one male and one female, were waiting for him. McLeod felt the comforting bulk of his parabeam in its arm holster and loosened it there. If they had entered his apartment it was because their fingerprint patterns had been included in the locking mechanism, but he couldn't take any chances. He opened the door and sighed his relief.
"Morning, Darius," Harry Crippens greeted him cheerfully, bouncing up from a web-chair and extending his hand. "Shake hands with a reporter who just got a big, fat, unexpected raise."
McLeod lit a cigaret and said, "I'm very glad to hear that, Cripp. Did Overman tell you?"
"Nope. First I knew of it, I read it in the paper. Take a look."
As McLeod took this morning'sStar-Timesfrom Crippens, Tracy entered the living room from the kitchen. "Coffee in a minute, Cripp," she said. "Oh, Darius. We're making ourselves to home, as the expression goes. Did you see that crazy thing in the paper?"
"I'm about to," said McLeod.
"Crazy!" Crippens cried in mock horror. "I get a raise right before we get married and she says crazy."
"Well, it doesn't make sense."
McLeod turned to the Internal Affairs page of theStar-Times. With the newspaper profession supplanting Hollywood fifty-odd years ago as the world's most glamorous, articles on internal affairs had evolved from small islands of type in a sea of advertisements to a place of importance with their own daily page and special editor.
"Three column head," Crippens said proudly. "Liberal quotes from the King himself. Maestro Overman."
"That's what I mean," Tracy repeated. "Crazy. Only yesterday, he was chewing you out."
The article said that a new star was on theStar-Timeshorizon, and went on to discuss all the successful assignments Crippens had handled. There was no mention of his wrongos which, McLeod knew, were considerable. A two-column cut of Crippens at his thinkwriter was included and the caption rendered a thumb-nail biography. The article concluded by mentioning a raise in salary which gave Crippens more than Tracy and almost what McLeod earned.
"That's great," McLeod said, finding it difficult to maintain his enthusiasm. Damn Overman, he didn't miss a trick. Fattening the calf for slaughter.
"Now the girl's got to marry me," Crippens declared. "I earn more money than she does." He was flip, building effusively in the best newspaperman fashion. He was not the serious, intent Crippens McLeod had always known, although, on closer examination, McLeod realized that the owlish eyes looked quite sober.
"Quit your kidding," McLeod told him. "Harry Crippens would probably celebrate by discussing his next assignment, or making a study of the moral factors involved. What's the matter?"
"Not a thing," Crippens assured him easily. "Here, have a drink. It's your whisky."
"In the morning?" asked Tracy.
"This is a celebration, girl. There you go." And Crippens sloshed liquor into three glasses. His hands were shaking.
"I said what's the matter?" McLeod ignored the drink.
Crippens didn't. "Not a thing. Not a single, solitary thing."
"Go ahead and talk to him," Tracy said.
"Don't mind her, Darius. Have another?" Crippens poured for himself.
"Darn it, Cripp. Even if it means making me feel better?"
"Darius wouldn't do a thing like that, that's all."
"Like what?" McLeod wanted to know.
"I have to hand it to you," Tracy told him. "I thought you'd do your best to change the subject."
"Like nothing," Crippens said. "I mean it, don't mind her. She had some silly idea.... I don't even want to talk about it."
"Darius," Tracy asked abruptly, "what have you decided to do about Weaver Wainwright?"
"Please," said Crippens.
"I haven't made up my mind yet. I'm not going to let him kill me if I can help it."
"Do tell. Does Cripp fit into the picture at all?"
McLeod hoped he could substitute evasion for outright lying. "Why don't you ask Overman?"
"Because I'm asking you."
He didn't think Tracy would ask Overman. He didn't think Overman would tell her the truth if she did. He saw she was waiting for an answer and said, "If the answer to that question were yes, you wouldn't expect me to tell you. If it were no, I ought to consider it an insult, coming from friends."
"We never stood on ceremonies before, Darius."
"Tracy, for gosh sakes!" Crippens pleaded. "Darius is my friend."
"I'm still waiting for an answer."
McLeod walked to the door and opened it. Crippens opened his mouth to speak, but changed his mind. He glared at Tracy.
"Get out of here," McLeod said. He was behaving like a child he realized. But more than anything else, he needed time to think.
Tracy went through the doorway, staring straight ahead. McLeod wished she would look at him, or holler, or slap him. She said, "All right, Darius. If that's the way you want to play it."
McLeod heard them arguing in low tones as he shut the door behind them.
Just what do you do, he thought, when your whole world starts to blow up all around you? You don't kick over the remaining traces. You try to re-establish the familiar, comforting pattern in some small way.
McLeod called the mayor's residence and got through to Spurgess at once. The flabby, thick-jowled face looked sickly white, like putty.
"McLeod, thank God. I thought you'd forgotten."
"Not on your life. I just wanted to tell you everything's going to be fine. You won't have to resign your office for political corruption. We'll see to that."
"Oh, thank you," said Mayor Spurgess. "Thank you very much."
"Sure," said McLeod, and cut the connection. Give or take a couple, Mayor Spurgess had about thirty-six hours to live.
And McLeod?
Snow was falling in thick, slow flakes which melted on contact with the ground when McLeod went outside after lunch. Since neither theStar-Timesnor theWorldwas depending on the cold virus or influenza for medical headlines this season, it was comparatively safe venturing out in this weather.
This, McLeod thought, seeing it for the first time in a strange, new light, was the city. Gray-white sky, overflowing snowflakes. Slidewalks, covered for the winter, conducting crowds of bovinely unaware people from place to place. Steel and glass and stone, soaring skyward, disappearing in the feathery white snow which, up above, was not feathery at all but a solid gray pall.
Did the cud-munching people know the truth about newspapers? McLeod doubted it. The old name had remained—newspapers—but the function had changed. We give them each day their daily cud. We don't report. We motivate. You didn't find it anyplace. It wasn't written. It happened and it was accepted. Maybe they did know. It might make a good book, if people ever went back to reading books again. Not yellow journalism, but ROY G. BIV journalism, for all the colors in the rainbow. Concepts had changed. How? After the Third World War? The Fourth? People wanted to believe what they read. Each individual existence was precarious, cliff-edged, ready to fall or scramble back to safety. People believed. Almost, it was as if they had forgotten their Western Christian heritage, in which they moved through time from past to future, active agents in a static environment. Now they embodied the old Greek idea. People didn't flow. Time did. They stood backwards in the river of time, with the future flowing up, unseen, behind them, becoming the present, flowing on and becoming the past which lay, decipherable, before their eyes. Only newspapermen had eyes in the back of their heads.
Look out, cancer's coming. I read it in theWorld. (TheWorldMedical Corps sows the seed, and the incidence of cancer increases.) Good newspaper, theWorld. Always lets you know what's coming. I see where theStar-Timessays the cancer rate is dropping. Hope they're right. (Newspaper Medical Corps battle mightily, offstage, and theStar-Timeswins. Temporarily, no more cancer.) What do you know, theStar-Timeswas right.
Star-Timessays we ought to have a spaceship on the moon soon. Thrilling, isn't it (Star-Timesastronauts prepare to launch a two-stage rocket from their space station, butWorldastronauts intercept it with a guided missile and destroy it.) Well, looks like theWorldwas right. Space travel soon, but not yet.
Senator Blundy's daughter was attacked on the campus of that there college up-state, what's its name? You read about it in theStar-Times? You know, it's not so bad, being small time, I always say. Things like that only happen to important people. Yes sir, we're lucky.
Worldsays it's a Brinks, one of those unsolved robberies. Three million dollars from the Bank of New York! (ButStar-Timesdetectives go to work and find—or sometimes frame—the criminal.) Hey, it's not a Brinks anymore. Maybe I ought to read theStar-Timesmore often.
That Weaver Wainwright earns six hundred thousand dollars a year, but my kid wants to be a politician. Some kids you just can't figure.
McLeod wandered into a bar and got himself mellowed, then found another and repeated the process. When he returned to the street and made his way to the slidewalk, the snow had finally begun to stick. Someone in the bar had recognized him and asked for an autograph. It hadn't stirred him at all. Was he maturing or turning sour?
Returning home as dusk descended on the city and street lights gleamed on three inches of snow, McLeod learned from his door recorder that he had one female visitor. That would be Tracy, he thought, and prepared himself for more unpleasantness. Why couldn't they leave him alone?
"Come in, Darius. Shut the door." He did both, turned, and saw Tracy pointing a parabeam at him. His hand fumbled with the trick sleeve of his jacket, but the storm-coat got in his way. Tracy's parabeam zipped audibly and McLeod turned to stone.
CHAPTER IV
"I'll unfreeze your head so you can talk. You realize I ought to kill you."
His head tingled and he found that he could open his mouth, blink his eyes and twitch his nose. He couldn't turn his neck. From the chin down he was helplessly immobile. He was a disembodied brain with a face. He wished he were sober.
"Cripp still doesn't believe me," Tracy said. "He insisted I come back alone and apologize. So I came back."
"But not to apologize."
"To get some information, Darius. I could be wrong. I don't think I am."
"Out at the Fourth Estate yesterday, you knew what kind of proposition Wainwright had made me," McLeod said, stalling for time while he tried to summon a logical defense. His mind was almost a blank.
"Sometimes I talk too much. Yes, I knew. Never mind how. I'm doing the questioning, and I want answers. When I read about Cripp in the Internal Affairs section, I put two and two together. Wainwright's assignment had been vague, so I guessed you and Overman had decided some substitution might be in order."
McLeod was silent.
"I advise you to talk, Darius. If I killed you now, it would be a bit ahead of schedule, but I think that would still satisfy Wainwright. Don't you?"
"You're bluffing," McLeod said—and hoped. "You couldn't possibly be on assignment to kill me. So you'd be subject to the same laws which face the general public for murder."
"All right. Maybe I won't kill you. But you feel no pain under a parabeam, Darius. Remember that. I could start burning your hand with my lighter and work up to your elbow and you wouldn't even know—until I unfroze you."
"You wouldn't," McLeod said. "Maybe we don't see eye to eye now, but we're friends."
Tracy began nibbling at her lip. Her eyes were big and watery, as if she'd been fighting back tears. "Sure—I liked you. Maybe I still do. I don't know. I'm all mixed up. You know me, Darius. I'm liable to do anything—anything ... when I'm all mixed up like this. I don't want to hurt you, not if I can help it. I like you, Darius. We've had fun together. Great times."
"That's better." McLeod's confidence was returning. He'd be out of freeze in no time now. "Just unfreeze me, and we can talk about this like two sensible people."
"I like you, but I'm in love with Cripp." Tracy removed her lighter from a pocket of her blouse with trembling fingers. She lit a cigarette and didn't extinguish the flame. She came closer to McLeod.
"Cut it out," he said. He felt sweat rolling down his forehead from his hairline and making his eyes blink. Parabeaming did peculiar, unpredictable things to the metabolism. The room seemed furnace-hot.
"Then answer my question."
There was no sense being maimed, McLeod finally decided. Tracy knew the truth anyway. She just wanted to hear him say it. But now she brought a tiny mini-recorder into view from where it had been resting on a table and flipped the switch to on.
"What's that for?"
"Cripp. I want him to know. I want him to be able to protect himself from you. We're recording now, Darius. Answer this question: do you and Overman plan to use Cripp as a substitute corpse to satisfy Weaver Wainwright and theWorld? Is that why Cripp got his raise and all that unexpected publicity?"
McLeod licked his lips and tried to look down as Tracy's hand disappeared from view with the lighter. He saw no smoke but imagined his flesh beginning to crisp.
"Answer me. Did you and Overman plan to kill Cripp and give Wainwright his story that way?"
McLeod read nothing in her eyes, not even hatred. He said, "Yes. That's right."
Tracy shut off the mini-recorder, pocketed her lighter. She reversed the parabeam and McLeod felt his limbs begin to tingle with minute sparks of pain.
"Don't try anything," Tracy said. "I'm still pointing this at you." Her voice caught. She tried to speak again but sobbed.
McLeod brought his arm up slowly and examined it. No damage.
"I—I guess you know I couldn't do it, Darius. I couldn't hurt you. But I don't want you to hurt Cripp. I want to give Cripp a fair chance. Have you signed an application for his death yet?"
"No."
"Will you?"
They were friends again. McLeod couldn't sense it. Friends who might try to hurt each other, of necessity, but friends. "I don't know," he said.
"Give him a break, Darius. There must be another way out. I could tell you things, if I could only trust you...."
McLeod laughed easily, massaging his forearms. "Better not," he said. "Better get out of here."
"Maybe someday."
"Maybe. Thanks for telling me you couldn't do it. That's good to know." He shouldn't have said that. He was acting compulsively, striking back blindly.
The color left Tracy's face. "That was only because you haven't actually threatened Cripp yet. Don't rely on it, though."
She was striking back, too. He staggered to the door and watched her go. Crippens had himself a good woman there, the lucky s. o. b. Maybe that was why he hadn't rejected the idea of killing Crippens, McLeod thought.
Sleeping that night, after a dinner which felt like slag inside him, McLeod dreamed he had just signed an application for his own demise on the steps of City Hall while bands played and people cheered. Mayor Spurgess was there with a television camera and kept on pleading for McLeod not to renege, but Tracy clung to the mayor's arm and tried to lure him away to a co-respondent rendezvous. Weaver Wainwright and Overman lurked on the fringe of the crowd, both pointing at McLeod and laughing. Harry Crippens was the gunman.
When McLeod awoke, a gray dawn was seeping in through the windows. He showered and downed some bicarbonate of soda in water, but still felt like hell. A mantle of snow covered the silent streets outside and more snow was falling. Even the meteorologist's job wasn't guesswork now, McLeod thought wryly. Predicting snow, theStar-Timeshad sowed the clouds for it.
It was suddenly very important for Mayor Spurgess not to die.
Early in the afternoon, McLeod called Jack Lantrel at home, but a pert-faced girl smiled at him from the screen. "I'm sorry, Mr. Lantrel is not at home. Is there a message?"
"It's important that I reach him," McLeod said.
"Mr. Lantrel is out. He left no number. What is it in reference to?"
"4-12-DJM," McLeod said, and waited while the receptionist disappeared from view.
"You're Mr. McLeod, aren't you?"
"That's right."
"You don't have to worry about 4-12-DJM, sir. Everything will be taken care of."
"There's been a change of plans. I want the gunmen called off."
The professional smile was replaced by a frown. "Only Mr. Lantrel can do that."
"That's why I want to reach him. I told you it was important."
"But I don't know when he'll be back. Confidentially, sir, Mr. Lantrel just hates snow. When he read in the paper it was going to snow, he said he was leaving town. I'm sorry."
McLeod asked if she knew where Lantrel usually went.
"That's hard to say. He likes to forget about business, you see. He's down south," she added brightly. "Someplace down south. Is there any message?"
"Yes," McLeod said. "I'll be home all day. If Mr. Lantrel calls, have him contact me at once."
But as the afternoon dragged on, McLeod thought it unlikely that the Gunman Chief would receive his message. He had reached the unexpected decision about Mayor Spurgess quite suddenly and now found it almost beyond analysis. He neither liked the mayor nor disliked him. It was not the man who must live, but the symbol.
Symbol? Of what?
McLeod found the idea mildly ridiculous, almost as if he were drumming up trade for the Anti-Newspaper League, self-proselytizing. It wasn't that for the first time in his life, he told himself, he found an intrinsic evil in the newspaper business. It was simply that the system had hit home for the first time, unexpectedly. He had set the machinery in motion for Mayor Spurgess' death; Weaver Wainwright had done the same for him; Overman had decided theStar-Timescould not afford to lose his services but could manage without Harry Crippens.
There was no logical connection. If Mayor Spurgess died, that was that. Flowers and a sad song for the widow. But the Wainwright-McLeod-Overman-Crippens problem still remained unsolved. Not to mention Tracy Kent.
Had he become anti-newspaper? The term almost defied definition. The Anti-Newspaper League was one thing, formal, organized, purposeful. But anti-newspaper could mean a lot of things. It could mean slight deviation, non-conformity, the simple desire to earn your keep in some other line. Such a desire was never realized, however. There were only three classes of newspapermen: working reporters, corpses and retired hounds and hens who lived on newspaper farms in old-folk luxury. A newspaperman simply knew too much to be allowed to change his line of work.
No, there was a fourth type. There was the Anti-Newspaper League. What was the old word—Quisling? It referred to politics or some other fields of endeavor, McLeod thought. He wasn't sure what. They were on newspaper payrolls but tried to gum up the works.
Logic was getting him nowhere. He belonged to no cut-and-dry category.
He wanted Mayor Spurgess to live.
Lantrel failed to call by dinner-time or afterwards. At twenty-hundred thirty, McLeod zipped on an insulined jumper, checked his parabeam and went out into theStar-Timessnow.
CHAPTER V
Hidden heat-coils melted the snow which managed to drift over the slidewalks despite their protective canopies, but the streets were covered with snow now more than a foot deep. McLeod felt it crunch underfoot as he left the slidewalks and headed for the mayor's house.
His breath exhaled in quick vapor-puffs against the cold, brittle air. His feet were heavy in the snow but dry. His were the only set of footsteps marring the white blanket which covered everything.
It occurred to him all at once that Mayor Spurgess would likely forego his evening walk because of the weather. Which necessitated another type of accident. Lantrel's men were both experienced and imaginative. You could write a book categorizing all the possibilities....
Wind whipped around corners and sprayed McLeod's face with snowflakes. He heard a voice calling far off in the fuzzy white dimness, but soon it was gone. Finally, he reached the mayor's house—a red-brick, white-columned Georgian structure massive and secure on a large corner lot. He crouched behind a leafless privet hedgerow in the driveway and waited, peering up occasionally at the cheery yellow squares of light that were the second story windows. His ear-crono whispered the time to him: twenty-two hundred hours.
The tell-tale footsteps he had left in the snow were fast disappearing as the flakes fell thicker. He slid his parabeam out through the jumper's trick sleeve and felt the cold knife momentarily into his bare arm. The feeling of warm security, so paradoxical under the circumstances, left him. If he foiled Lantrel's gunmen, Overman would learn of it. If he didn't foil them but tried—which seemed more likely—Overman would also hear.
Just what was he doing here, anyway?
He flexed his stiff muscles and was on the point of standing up when he saw three figures approaching down the street, vague as ghosts in the snow. There was still time. He could intercept them and say he had come to cover the story, something which was expected of him. He wondered what sort of accident they had planned.
He jogged toward them through the snow, met them still half a block from Spurgess' house. Two were young, possibly still in training. They were tall and looked like soldiers in their slick jumpers. They stared at him arrogantly. The third was shorter, heavier, of calculating eye. The expression of the first two faces said:we're gunmen—whatever you are, we're better. The third face said:we'd as soon kill you as spit, but we don't kill except for hire or when provoked in the line of duty.