A For Anything

2

The sun, just past the meridian, made a glaringly bright rim of light around each of the closed dark shades. Except for this brilliance, and two or three random bits of metalwork picked out by the sunlight, the room was in hot half-darkness. The air was close and stale. On the laboratory bench was a clutter of electronic test equipment, carelessly piled. A book had been knocked to the floor, where it lay disheveled among wads of paper, dust, bits of insulation and wire. In the far corner, half a stack of massive loose-leaf binders, precariously piled atop a filing cabinet, had fallen. From under these protruded the legs and body of a man.

The piled books stirred, rose and parted with a gravestone clatter. A head emerged, crowned with dust. A hand came up to hold it. There was a groan.

Mr. Gilbert Wall, of Western Electronics, for it was he, sat up painfully and looked around him. His hair was rumpled, his tanned face covered with grime. There was a large bruise, beginning to turn yellow and blue, around his right eye, which was swollen half shut. Wall touched this bruise, gingerly, and groaned again. "Maniac," he muttered to himself.

He sat up straighter, looking momentarily apprehensive. "Swing?" he called. There was no answer.

Blinking, Wall turned and noticed the brightness against the drawn shades. He started, and looked at his wristwatch. "Quarter after one!" he ejaculated. He looked around wildly, then scrambled to his feet and wincingly went to the bench, His hands did not find what they sought. He glared around once more, half distractedly. "My God!" he said.

On the wall beside the door there was a telephone. Wall saw it and went there. He took the receiver down, heard a dial tone, and dialed "O."

"Operator," he said shakily, "get me Los Angeles." He gave the number. "I want to speak to Nathan MacDonald -- Nathan -- N as in nut -- that's right, and hurry. This is an emergency call."

"My trunks are all busy to Los Angeles," said the voice. "Will you wait, or shall I call you back?"

Wall swallowed. "Operator, this is Roy M. Jackson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation speaking. This is a matter of the national interest. Now put that call through, if you please."

There was a pause. "May I have your identification number, sir?"

Damn. "Operator, I've just been assigned. I do not have an identification number yet. You'll just have to take my word for it. This call must go through."

"Sir, I can't break in on a trunk call unless you have an identification number."

"Give me the head operator."

After a few moments there was another voice. "Sir, this is Miss Timmins. May I help you?"

Wall repeated his story, in a voice of passionate sincerity.

"Sir, one moment, I'll have the operator connect you with the office of the Clearwater chief of police."

"I don't want the police, I want Los Angeles!" said Wall, glaring.

"That's the best I can do for you, sir. If Chief Underwood will vouch for you, or if you would come to the telephone office and show your identification -- "

"Put the Chief on," said Wall. He was thinking: Underwood; now why did that name ring a bell?

By the time he got the man on the line, he had remembered. "Underwood, this is Gilbert Wall speaking." (If the operator was listening in, let her.) "Perhaps you remember me. We met at the Masonic convention two years ago -- Norm Hodge introduced us, do you recall?"

"Why, yes, sure I do, Mr. Wall," said "Underwood's voice. (The old memory never failed; Wall could see the man's face clearly in his mind's eye, jowly and obsequious, a typical disappointed small-town public servant.) "How are you anyway!"

"I'm just fine, and yourself?"

"Well, not too bad! I can't complain. What can I do for you?"

Wall's hand went to the knot in his necktie. "Underwood -- what do they call you, uh -- " (what was the man's name) -- "Ed?"

"Ed, that's right."

"And you'll call me Gil, won't you? Ed, here's my little problem. I'm in Clearwater for the day on some confidential work, I can't tell you over the telephone, but between us two, a Mr. Hoover is very, very interested in this."

"Oh, is that right? Well, you know, anything I can do -- "

"Just one thing if you would, Ed. I've got to make an urgent call to L.A. and it happens the trunks are busy. You see I'm working against time, Ed, you understand, and every minute counts. So if you would call the head operator, Miss Timmins her name is, and more or less vouch for me -- Incidentally, before we hang up, I wonder if we could have dinner together before I leave. I can explain this thing to you then in a little more detail, of course."

"Why, sure, Gil," said Underwood, "that would be great. Now let me see, you want me to tell the head operator -- "

"Just that you know me and so on, and ask her to do us the courtesy of putting my call through. Tell her I'm at - " He read off the number of the phone from the dial card. "And, ah, I'll call for you at home say 'bout eight o'clock, family too, of course, will that be all right?"

"Fine."

"Fine, Ed, I'll be seeing you and thanks a million." Sweating, Wall hung up and rummaged in his pockets for a cigarette.

A few minutes later the telephone rang. Wall snatched the receiver down and said, "Gilbert Wall speaking."

"Mr. Wall, are you the party who called a few minutes ago -- with reference to a call to Los Angeles?"

"Yes, that's correct, operator."

"Sir, that was not the name you gave me then, was it?"

"No," said Wall coldly, "that was my cover name I gave you. I was obliged to give my undercover name to Chief Underwood, to get him to identify me."

There was a slight hesitation. "Well, I'll have the operator put that call through for you," said the voice uncertainly. "Just hold the wire, please."

Wall waited, smoking nervously. He smoothed back his sleek hair with his palm, fingered the gold cufflinks to make sure they were still there, noticed a loose shirt button with annoyance. His billfold was in his breast pocket; fountain pen, keys, notebook, all right.

"Hello?" An unfamiliar male voice.

"I have a call for Mr. Nathan MacDonald. Is he there?"

The right number then; but where was Miss Jacobs, the switchboard operator?

"He's tied up, can I take a message?"

"Hello," said Wall, interrupting the voice of the operator, "this is Gilbert Wall -- let me talk to MacDonald."

"Oh, Mr. Wall. This is Ernie, the office boy. I'll uh, I'll put you right through."

Another pause. "Hello, Gil."

Wall exhaled with relief. "Hello, Nate. Boy have I had a time with this call, but never mind that now. Listen, that Ewing is a maniac. I mean it. First of all, Nate, our tip was correct, that gadget of his, that Gismo really works. There is no doubt about it." The silence struck him as odd. "Hello, Nate? Are you listening?"

"I heard you." Wall could see the heavy-jawed face, all straight lines -- mouth, flat nose, narrow eyes, gray hair combed straight across, tops of the horn-rimmed glasses as straight as a ruler. MacDonald sounded like that, dry, unemotional even in crises, and yet there was something in his tone that bothered Wall.

"Well, it's just as bad as we thought. Or worse. He absolutely would not listen to reason, Nate, and what's worse, the s.o.b. got away from me." Wall touched his temple gingerly, and winced. "It may have been my fault, I more or less lost my head and made some threats, trying to throw a scare into him, and -- He took me by surprise, I never thought he had it in him, and he knocked some books over on me, and that's why I haven't called until now. Nate, I was out cold all night, until just a few minutes ago. I'm still not-myself. Now, my idea is, he'll be hiding out somewhere. He's probably scared witless over all this -- assaulting me, and so on. Do you check me on that, Nate?"

The voice said, "Probably."

"Well, we've got to move fast, Nate. I know it was my ball and I bobbled it, I admit that, but we've got to find that guy. Swear out a warrant, or -- how would this be -- suppose we tell the. Health Service people he's infected with bubonic plague, or something? ... Nate?"

The voice said, "There's a lot of noise here."

Wall heard a faint, distant murmur, as if a crowd of people were talking (shouting?) in the background. Then there were some underwater clicks, and MacDonald's voice again: "What are your plans now, Gil?"

"Plans?" said Wall, taken aback. "Well, I can either stay here -- I've got a date with the local chief of police, I can keep that, if we decide to work through him -- Or if you want me to come back for a skull session, Nate, I can charter a plane. But listen, we've got to get on the ball with this thing. I mean, if that maniac, Ewing, ever gets it into his head to distribute that thing, that Gismo -- Nate, my mind just boggles. I can't picture it."

"I'm watching it," said MacDonald's voice indistinctly.

"What?" said Wall after a moment. "What did you say, Nate?"

"I'm watching it happen," said MacDonald's voice. "What did you think Ewing was doing all this time?"

What?" said Wall again.

"Those things were in the morning mail delivery here. Two in a box. At least a hundred people got them. Along about ten, people started copying them and giving them away to their friends and relations. Now they're fighting in the streets."

"Nate -- " said Wall brokenly.

"I've got mine. Sent Crawford down for them. Packing now, or you wouldn't have got me. I happen to know a place in Wyoming that's built like a castle -- you could hold off an army there. Well, take care of yourself, Gil. Nobody else will."

"Nate, give me a minute now, I just can't believe it -- "

"Turn on your TV," said MacDonald. There was a click, and the wire went dead.

Wall stared blankly at the receiver, then turned slowly. There was a little portable TV set standing on the bench. He walked over to it, leaving, the telephone receiver swinging at the end of its cord, and turned on the switch. The TV blurted: " -- and down Sunset Boulevard, from Olvera Street west. And here's a flash." The screen lighted, showed a raster, but no face appeared. "Police Chief Victor Corsi has issued a call for special volunteer policemen to handle the crowds. It's my hunch he won't get any. The big question today is, Have you got a Gismo? And believe me, nothing else matters. This station will stay on the air to keep you informed as long as possible, but no thanks to its poltroon of a general manager, I. W. Kidder, or its revolting program director, Douglas M. Dow, who took off for the hills as soon as they got theirs. For my own part, I say balls to them both. And balls to the Pacific Broadcasting Company and all its little subsidiaries! Balls to Mayor Needham! And balls to -- "

Wall turned the set off. The voice stopped; the bright frame shrank, twitched, shriveled to a point of light, that faded and went out.