Power, The (12 page)
Authors: Frank M. Robinson
“You don’t want to stop Tomorrow, do you, sonny?”
There was nothing behind her eyes. Like there had been nothing behind the beggar’s and nothing behind those of the soldiers who had slugged him. A certain vagueness, a certain blankness perhaps.
Just an old lady in black.
“Tomorrow belongs to those who own today, mother.”
“Who owns today?” she asked sharply. “Not you.”
“Who are you?”
“Do you think you’ll ever find out?”
“Yes.”
Shrill laughter boiled out of her withered throat. “Only if you live that long!”
She turned and walked away. When she disappeared around a corner he realized that he was absolutely alone.
Randolph, the other side of La Salle Street. The shadowed fronts of buildings, dead neon signs, and the indifferent glare of the street lamps. The still life of a sleeping city, broken only by the fluttering of a newspaper that lodged for a moment against a trash basket and then scuttled to a hiding place beneath a car.
He started walking again, then stopped.
Adam Hart was waiting for him at the end of the block.
A solitary figure in a slouch hat and a trench coat, the face, as always, in shadow.
Waiting for him to come closer.
He stared and the seconds ticked slowly by. He felt like a dog who had puddled on the carpet and was now going to be whipped by his master. He had a feeling something terrible was about to happen.
He tried to turn, to run.
He couldn’t move a muscle. The man at the corner held him in the palm of his hand.
Then the fingers of the hand that held him slowly curled inwards and he stopped breathing, as abruptly as if somebody had closed a valve. His heart slowed and he suddenly lost all feeling in his legs. His hands went numb and the numbness sped up his arms, towards his chest.
Adam Hart was flicking off the switches one by one.
He was suddenly looking at a blackness far deeper than just the night and he could sense himself crumpling slowly to the sidewalk. He touched the concrete at the same time a police prowl car rounded the corner, the searchlight flashing in the doorways.
There was the squeal of brakes and simultaneously full release and a complete easing of tension.
“Hey, Mac, you can’t sleep on the sidewalk here—sleep it off in the tank!” They helped him into the car.
The figure at the end of the block was gone.
HE
was scared but he didn’t go to pieces. He managed to lose his wallet between the car and the sergeant’s desk so when they searched him down, they found no identification. There was nothing to associate him with the William Tanner who was wanted for murder. When they asked him his name and address, he gave them a phony name and an address on West Madison. They didn’t even bother to check.
was scared but he didn’t go to pieces. He managed to lose his wallet between the car and the sergeant’s desk so when they searched him down, they found no identification. There was nothing to associate him with the William Tanner who was wanted for murder. When they asked him his name and address, he gave them a phony name and an address on West Madison. They didn’t even bother to check.
They threw him into the lockup for overnight and he thanked God for the crowded cell and the ravings of the drunks and the muttered, jumbled conversation of the others. He reveled in it for half an hour, then let himself lapse into a sound sleep. The ticking on his mattress was vermin-infested and his only pillow was his arm, but in the cell he was safe. The jam-packed jail and the confused mumble of thoughts were the best possible protection.
Heavy, steady slumber and then waking dreams that weren’t dreams so much as a drowsy, mental review of what had happened. A kaleidoscope of shifting pictures, the main one of a man in a slouch hat and a trench coat.
He woke up shaking and biting his arm to keep from screaming … .
“Okay, let’s get up! You bums can’t sleep all day—let’s shake a leg! Let’s roll out!”
They gave him a breakfast of bread and cereal and let him bathe in a slimy shower room and shave with a razor whose blade was crusted with dried soap and whiskers. At nine o’clock they took him before the judge who yawned, looked bored, and since he was a first offender, let him off with a reprimand. By Monday noon they had turned him loose in the world again and he was on his own.
He stayed with the crowds on the sidewalk and didn’t make the mistake of wandering into deserted sections of the public parks or venturing down streets that were empty of people. He headed back towards the Loop and the baking canyons between the steaming buildings.
Up Michigan Boulevard, thick with perspiring businessmen in wilted summer suits and women in thin, cotton dresses and a few sailors in baggy whites with sweat stains showing under their armpits. The lions in front of the Art Institute and the young saplings growing on the roof of the Grant Park garage …
He turned in at the public library, headed for the crowded newspaper room and read until noon. He had lunch, then found himself a bench in Grant Park, a stone’s throw from Buckingham Fountain. Kids playing in the water, lovers on the other benches, a family having a picnic on the grass nearby. The safety of numbers.
Van Zandt.
Nordlund.
DeFalco.
Scott.
Grossman.
Which one?
Consider the superman: He toils not, neither does he spin. Or perhaps he spins too much. Given a superhuman needle in a fivestraw haystack of humanity, how would you find him? He’s a step up the evolutionary ladder, far superior to me and thee.
Of course-there’s always one test which nature uses to judge new species.
Survival.
It might be as simple as that.
He counted the change in his pockets. Thirty-six cents. The five dollars he had had was still in his wallet and the wallet had been dropped in the gutter the day before and miles away. Thirty-six cents. Less than half a dollar to eat on and sleep on—or die on.
He wandered up North Clark Street and into a pawnshop, first glancing in the window to be sure there would be no other customer but himself.
“Something for you, sah?” The man was fat and oily and eager.
Tanner was noncommittal. “I don’t think so, just looking around.” The man’s eyes flickered over him quickly, he was a little puzzled. The customer was worn and haggard but his suit was of good cloth and by the fit he had bought it new … .
“We’ve got some nice watches, really a bargain. Bulovas, Longines …”
“I’m interested in a pistol,” Tanner said quietly “Say something of medium caliber, not too big.”
The man looked surprised, then reached into a showcase and laid a small automatic on the counter. “This is an Italian Beretta, really a beautiful gun.” He hesitated. “You have a permit, of course.”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t. How much?”
“For you, a couple of hundred.”
“That’s rather high, isn’t it?”
“Did I ask why you want to buy a gun without a permit?”
Before the owner could object, Tanner scooped up the gun and inspected it carefully. He flipped out the magazine then just as quickly put it back. “You make a habit of keeping these things loaded?”
The man behind the counter laughed nervously. “Of course not. We …”
Tanner leaned over the counter and pointed the Beretta at the fat man’s stomach. “You did this one, uncle,” he said dryly.
The man licked his lips. “You’re kidding,” he said flatly. “We never leave bullets in a gun.”
“Don’t you?”
The fat man’s hand started to slide to a drawer just underneath the counter.
“I wouldn’t,” Tanner said in a quiet voice.
The pudgy hand retreated. “What do you want?”
“This gun, a box of shells, and say fifty dollars expense money. It’s a bargain, uncle.”
The fat man shrugged and handed over the shells and the money. Tanner backed away towards the door. He was in the doorway when the fat man cleared his throat painfully and asked, “Was it really loaded, Mac?”
“Like you said, uncle, you never leave bullets in a gun,”
He ducked out, closing the door behind him so the fat man’s string of curses was partly muffled. Down the alley to the next street over and he was in the clear.
A mirror in a restaurant window caught his eye and he stopped for a moment.
Not the neat Professor Tanner anymore, are you? Not the young, handsome instructor who sported a pipe and tweeds and a bright, intellectual glint in the eyes. You’re looking a little seedy, Professor. Hair uncombed and a dirty, rumpled suit and clotted cuts on your face where the razor nicked you, and then the stitches Doc Schwartz took in Brockton. You’re a little haggard and your eyes are a little red and some people might say you had a wild look. You’ve gone a long way—down.
The Van Buren Street subway station and the cool, cellar-like air, a welcome relief from the stifling heat outside. He pushed some coins through the wicket and walked down the stairs to the platform.
There was one thing he could do, he thought, and that was to start at the beginning. To go back to the university and the room where they had all met that Saturday morning. To refresh his memory and maybe find a clue that would help. But if he went back, he would be making himself bait. Summer school hadn’t started yet, the campus would be deserted, and he would be alone.
He stood there and debated. Far down the track he could see the lights of a Howard Street train going north. He watched the lights grow bigger and finally made up his mind.
When the train left the station, he was on it.
The campus
was
deserted, the buildings gray and gloomy in the growing evening dusk. He worked his key in the door of the Science building and quietly slipped inside. The night watchman usually spent all night in a cubbyhole in the basement, reading thrillers and sitting with his ear glued to a blaring radio. He would be no trouble at all … .
was
deserted, the buildings gray and gloomy in the growing evening dusk. He worked his key in the door of the Science building and quietly slipped inside. The night watchman usually spent all night in a cubbyhole in the basement, reading thrillers and sitting with his ear glued to a blaring radio. He would be no trouble at all … .
He walked through the silent corridors and into the committee meeting room. The shadows were growing but there was enough light to make out the furniture and the worn marks in the tile floor. There was the long, heavily varnished table and the cheap, straight-backed chairs and the tinted photograph of an old professor, apple-cheeked and with mutton-chop whiskers, staring somberly down from the walls. Dust lay thick on the table and the window sills, marred by clean streaks where somebody had run his fingers or laid something down. And there were faint fingerprints in the dust on the molding and scratches around the door.
Somebody had gone over the room pretty thoroughly.
He stood there for a moment, wondering who it might have been and trying to concentrate on the mystery, rather than worry about his own exposed position.
Somebody coughed behind him and he whirled. He hadn’t heard the door open, he hadn’t heard the footsteps down the hall. But now Karl Grossman stood in the doorway, nervous and hesitant. Or was that a cover?
It is—I know it is!
Grossman started to waddle towards him, his hand outstretched.
“Professor Tanner! I …”
He let himself react automatically, not thinking at all, for thinking would tip his hand. The Beretta was in his hand and shots were splashing into the woodwork behind Grossman. He frantically worked the trigger, backing towards the window. He had a frozen picture of a shocked look on Grossman’s fat face and then the big man was weaving towards him and had wrapped his cordlike arms around his knees.
It was like watching a slow-motion film where time had crawled to a halt and he could see each individual frame as it flicked past. There was no thought, no emotion, no feeling.
He felt himself go down, smashing a chair behind him. He tried to reverse the automatic, to bring the butt down on Grossman’s skull. Then the physicist had his throat with one hand and was desperately straining for his gun hand with the other.
They rolled once and during the movement he worked the gun free and took hasty aim. Their bodies crashed into the wall and the thin molding near the ceiling gave way and the heavy photograph of the mutton-chopped professor plummeted down, at the same time the sharp crack of the Beretta filled the room.
Silence.
Smoke and blood and shards of glass. A frightened man on the floor beneath him, eyes glassy in a pasty face, stinking with the sweat of fear. But a man who was still very much alive. A man who wore crepe-soled shoes, so naturally he wouldn’t have made any noise coming down the corridor. An average man who would have died if it hadn’t been for the photograph that had shaken his aim. And it couldn’t possibly have been planned that way. It had been sheer good fortune for both of them.
Luck. The only reason why Grossman had survived. Which meant that the physicist was … safe.
He took another look at Grossman and the blood trickling from a fragment of torn ear and got shakily to his feet.
“I’m sorry, Karl. God, I’m sorry!”
Grossman got up and fumbled for a cigarette. His hands were shaking badly. “I cannot blame you, William. I think I know what you have been going through.”
Surprises. The world was full of them.
The chubby physicist gestured at the room. “I reran the experiment, without our people. I checked the room for little air currents. The tiny gap between the molding and the ceiling, any tiny hole in the wall, the little space between the door and the frame—everything. I assure you there was no way the paper umbrella could have moved. Normally.” He paused. “And I know about you.”
The pupils in Grossman’s eyes were more their normal size now. He dabbed at his ear with a handkerchief, glanced at the blood stains, and shrugged. “I did some checking on you—for which, my apologies.” His eyes narrowed. “It was very unusual. People who should know you claim you do not even exist.”
“People like who?”
Grossman walked to the window and stared at the darkening campus outside. “Your banker, your lawyer, your doctor, your dentist. They have never heard of you. And you would be amazed at the number of students who remember the courses you taught—but not the professor who taught them.”
Hart had been editing his past, Tanner thought. Rewriting his personal history so that he could be safely eliminated. Nobody would worry about him, nobody would be concerned. Because nobody would remember him.
“Did you find anybody at all who recalled me?”
“A few. The committee members, your secretary, and a Grandfather Santucci in Connecticut. And that was all.”
“Did you talk to Harry Connell?”
“He does not remember you.”
“He remembered me last Thursday.”
Flatly: “Thursday was a lifetime away.”
There were the sounds of footsteps running down the corridor. “Say, what’s going on here?” The indignant face of the night watchman poked into the room. “I heard shots and it wasn’t the radio … .” His eyes widened and he started to back out. “Mebbe I ought to call the cops … .”
Grossman took a bill from his wallet. “It was nothing, Joseph. Just a short talk.”
The watchman hesitated, his eyes on Tanner, and Tanner could almost hear him wondering where he had seen Tanner before and why it was important to remember him.
Tanner sidled past. “Let’s beat it, Karl.”
It wasn’t the night watchman that bothered him. It was the growing dusk and the stillness and the knowledge that they were alone and no match at all for other … visitors.
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