Look at the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction Page 9

  “Well,” said Dr. Mitchell, “we’re all pretty well agreed now that we’ve got to operate on this man at once, or there’s a good chance he’ll die.”

  Harve was bathed, and his head was shaved.

  And he was rolled through the double doors and put under the blinding light of the operating room.

  The Luby brothers were kept outside. There were only doctors and nurses around Harve now—pairs of eyes, and masks and gowns.

  Harve prayed. He thought of his wife and children. He awaited the mask of the anesthetist.

  “Mr. Elliot?” said Dr. Mitchell. “You can hear me?”

  “Yes,” said Harve.

  “How do you feel?” said Dr. Mitchell. “In the Hands of God,” said Harve.

  “You’re not a very sick man, Mr. Elliot,” said Dr. Mitchell. “We’re not going to operate. We brought you up here to protect you.” The eyes around the table shifted uneasily. Dr. Mitchell explained the uneasiness. “We’ve taken quite a chance here, Mr. Elliot,” he said. “We have no way of knowing whether you deserve protection or not. We’d like to hear your story again.”

  Harve looked into each of the pairs of circling eyes. He shook his head almost imperceptibly. “No story,” he said.

  “No story?” said Dr. Mitchell. “After all this trouble we’ve gone to?”

  “Whatever Ed Luby and his brother say the story is—that’s the story,” said Harve. “You can tell Ed I finally got the message. Whatever he says goes. No more trouble from me.”

  “Mr. Elliot,” said Dr. Mitchell, “there isn’t a man or a woman here who wouldn’t like to see Ed Luby and his gang in prison.”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Harve. “I don’t believe anybody anymore.” He shook his head again. “As far as that goes,” he said, “I can’t prove any of my story anyway. Ed Luby’s got all the witnesses. The one witness I thought I might get—he’s dead downstairs.”

  This news was a surprise to those around the table.

  “You knew that man?” said Dr. Mitchell.

  “Forget it,” said Harve. “I’m not saying any more. I’ve said too much already.”

  “There is a way you could prove your story—to our satisfaction, anyway,” said Dr. Mitchell. “With your permission, we’d like to give you a shot of sodium pentothal. Do you know what it is?”

  “No,” said Harve.

  “It’s a so-called truth serum, Mr. Elliot,” said Dr. Mitchell. “It will temporarily paralyze the control you have over your conscious mind. You’ll go to sleep for a few minutes, and then we’ll wake you up, and you won’t be able to lie.”

  “Even if I told you the truth, and you believed it, and you wanted to get rid of Ed Luby,” said Harve, “what could a bunch of doctors do?”

  “Not much, I admit,” said Dr. Mitchell.

  “But only four of us here are doctors,” said Dr. Mitchell. “As I told Ed Luby, yours was a very complicated case—so we’ve called together a pretty complicated meeting to look into it.” He pointed out masked and gowned men around the table. “This gentleman here is head of the County Bar Association. These two gentlemen here are detectives from the State Police. These two gentlemen are F.B.I. agents. That is, of course,” he said, “if your story’s true—if you’re willing to let us prove it’s true.”

  Harve looked into the circling eyes again.

  He held out his bare arm to receive the shot. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Harve told his story and answered questions in the unpleasant, echoing trance induced by sodium pentothal.

  The questions came to an end at last. The trance persisted.

  “Let’s start with Judge Wampler,” he heard someone say.

  He heard someone else telephoning, giving orders that the cabdriver who had driven the murdered woman out to the Key Club was to be identified, picked up, and brought to the operating room of Ilium Hospital for questioning. “You heard me—the operating room,” said the man on the telephone.

  Harve didn’t feel any particular elation about that. But then he heard some really good news. Another man took over the telephone, and he told somebody to get Harve’s wife out of jail at once on a writ of habeas corpus. “And somebody else find out who’s taking care of the kids,” said the telephoner, “and, for God’s sake, make sure the papers and the radio stations find out this guy isn’t a maniac after all.”

  And then Harve heard another man come back to the operating room with the bullet from the dead man downstairs, the dead witness. “Here’s one piece of evidence that isn’t going to disappear,” said the man. “Good specimen.” He held the bullet up to the light. “Shouldn’t have any trouble proving what gun it came from—if we had the gun.”

  “Ed Luby’s too smart to do the shooting himself,” said Dr. Mitchell, who was obviously starting to have a very fine time.

  “His bodyguard isn’t too smart,” said somebody else. “In fact, he’s just dumb enough. He’s even dumb enough to have the gun still on him.”

  “We’re looking for a thirty-eight,” said the man with the bullet. “Are they all still downstairs?”

  “Keeping a death watch,” said Dr. Mitchell pleasantly.

  And then word came that Judge Wampler was being brought up. Everyone tied on his surgical mask again, in order that the judge, when he entered, mystified and afraid, could see only eyes.

  “What—what is this?” said Judge Wampler. “Why do you want me here?”

  “We want your help in a very delicate operation,” said Dr. Mitchell.

  Wampler gave a smile that was queer and slack. “Sir?” he said.

  “We understand that you and your wife were witnesses to a murder last night,” said Dr. Mitchell.

  “Yes,” said Wampler. His translucent chins trembled.

  “We think you and your wife aren’t quite telling the truth,” said Dr. Mitchell. “We think we can prove that.”

  “How dare you talk to me like that!” said Wampler indignantly.

  “I dare,” said Dr. Mitchell, “because Ed Luby and his brother are all through in this town. I dare,” he said, “because police from outside have moved in. They’re going to cut the rotten heart right out of this town. You’re talking to federal agents and State Police at this very minute.” Dr. Mitchell spoke over his shoulder. “Suppose you unmask, gentlemen, so the judge can see what sort of people he’s talking to.”

  The faces of the law were unmasked. They were majestic in their contempt for the judge.

  Wampler looked as though he were about to cry.

  “Now tell us what you saw last night,” said Dr. Mitchell.

  Judge Wampler hesitated. Then he hung his head, and he whispered, “Nothing. I was inside. I didn’t see anything.”

  “And your wife didn’t see anything, either?” said Dr. Mitchell.

  “No,” whispered Wampler.

  “You didn’t see Elliot hit the woman?” said Dr. Mitchell.

  “No,” said the judge.

  “Why did you lie?” said Dr. Mitchell.

  “I—I believed Ed Luby,” said Wampler. “He—he told me what happened—and I—I believed him.”

  “You believe him now?” said Dr. Mitchell.

  “I—I don’t know,” said Wampler wretchedly.

  “You’re through as a judge,” said Dr. Mitchell. “You must know that.”

  Wampler nodded.

  “You were through as a man a long time ago,” said Dr.

  Mitchell. “All right,” he said, “dress him up. Let him watch what happens next.”

  And Judge Wampler was forced to put on a mask and gown.

  The puppet chief of police and the puppet mayor of Ilium were telephoned from the operating room, were told to come to the hospital at once, that there was something very important going on there. Judge Wampler, closely supervised, did the telephoning.

  But, before they arrived, two state troopers brought in the cabdriver who had driven the murdered woman out to the Key Club.

  He was appal
led when he was brought before the weird tribunal of seeming surgeons. He looked in horror at Harve, who was still stretched out on the table in his sodium pentothal trance.

  Judge Wampler again had the honor of doing the talking. He was far more convincing than anyone else could have been in advising the driver that Ed Luby and his brother were through.

  “Tell the truth,” said Judge Wampler quaveringly. So the driver told it. He had seen Ed Luby kill the girl. “Issue this man his uniform,” said Dr. Mitchell. And the driver was given a mask and gown.

  Next came the mayor and the chief of police.

  After them came Ed Luby, Captain Luby, and Ed Luby’s big bodyguard.

  The three came through the double doors of the operating room shoulder to shoulder.

  They were handcuffed and disarmed before they could say a word.

  “What the hell’s the idea?” Ed Luby roared.

  “It’s all over. That’s all,” said Dr. Mitchell. “We thought you ought to know.”

  “Elliot’s dead?” said Luby.

  “You’re dead, Mr. Luby,” said Dr. Mitchell.

  Luby started to inflate himself, was instantly deflated by a tremendous bang. A man had just fired the bodyguard’s thirty-eight into a bucket packed with cotton.

  Luby watched stupidly as the man dug the bullet out of the cotton, took it over to a counter where two microscopes had been set up.

  Luby’s comment was somewhat substandard. “Now, just a minute—” he said.

  “We’ve got nothing but time,” said Dr. Mitchell. “Nobody’s in a hurry to go anywhere—unless you or your brother or your bodyguard have appointments elsewhere.”

  “Who are you guys?” said Luby malevolently.

  “We’ll show you in a minute,” said Dr. Mitchell. “First, though, I think you ought to know that we’re all agreed—you’re through.”

  “Yeah?” said Luby. “Let me tell you, I’ve got plenty of friends in this town.”

  “Time to unmask, gentlemen,” said Dr. Mitchell.

  All unmasked.

  Ed Luby stared at his utter ruin.

  The man at the microscopes broke the silence. “They match,” he said. “The bullets match. They came from the same gun.”

  Harve broke through the glass walls of his trance momentarily. The tiles of the operating room echoed. Harve Elliot had laughed out loud.

  Harve Elliot dozed off, was taken to a private room to sleep off the drug.

  His wife, Claire, was waiting for him there.

  Young Dr. Mitchell was with Harve when he was wheeled in. “He’s perfectly all right, Mrs. Elliot,” Harve heard Dr. Mitchell say. “He just needs rest—and so, I’d think, would you.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep for a week,” said Claire.

  “I’ll give you something, if you like,” said Dr. Mitchell.

  “Later, maybe,” said Claire. “Not now.”

  “I’m sorry we shaved off all his hair,” said Dr. Mitchell. “It seemed necessary at the time.”

  “Such a crazy night—such a crazy day,” she said. “What did it all mean?”

  “It meant a lot,” said Dr. Mitchell, “thanks to some brave and honest men.”

  “Thanks to you,” she said.

  “I was thinking of your husband,” he said. “As for myself, I never enjoyed anything more in my life. It taught me how men get to be free, and how they can stay free.”

  “How?” said Claire.

  “By fighting for justice for strangers,” said Dr. Mitchell.

  Harve Elliot managed to get his eyes open. “Claire—” he said.

  “Darling—” she said.

  “I love you,” said Harve.

  “That’s the absolute truth,” said Dr. Mitchell, “in case you’ve ever wondered.”

  A SONG FOR SELMA

  Around Lincoln High School, Al Schroeder’s first name was hardly ever mentioned. He was simply Schroeder. Or not so simply Schroeder, either, because his last name was spoken with a strong accent, as though Schroeder were a famous dead European. He wasn’t. He was as American as cornflakes, and, far from being dead, he was a vivid sixteen years old.

  It was Helga Grosz, the German teacher at Lincoln, who first gave the name a rich accent. The other faculty members, hearing her do it, recognized instantly the rightness of the accent. It set Schroeder apart, reminded any faculty member who discussed him that Schroeder represented a thrilling responsibility.

  For Schroeder’s own good, it was kept from him and from the rest of the student body just why Schroeder was such a thrilling responsibility. He was the first authentic genius in the history of Lincoln High.

  Schroeder’s blinding I.Q., like the I.Q. of every student, was a carefully guarded secret in the confidential files in the office of the principal.

  It was the opinion of George M. Helmholtz, portly head of the music department and director of the Lincoln Ten Square Marching Band, that Schroeder had the stuff to become as great as John Philip Sousa, composer of “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

  Schroeder, in his freshman year, learned to play a clarinet well enough in three months to take over the first chair in the band. By the end of his sophomore year, he was master of every instrument in the band. He was now a junior, and the composer of nearly a hundred marches.

  As an exercise in sight reading, Helmholtz was now putting the beginners’ band, the C Band, through an early Schroeder composition called “Hail to the Milky Way.” It was an enthusiastic piece of music, and Helmholtz hoped that the straightforward violence of it would tempt the beginners into really having a go at music. Schroeder’s own comments on the composition pointed out that the star farthest from the earth in the Milky Way was approximately ten thousand light-years away. If the sound of the musical salute was to reach that farthest star, the music would have to be played good and loud.

  The C Band bleated, shrieked, howled, and squawked at that farthest star gamely. But the musicians dropped out one by one until, as was so often the case, the bass drummer played alone.

  Blom, blom, bloom went the bass drum. It was being larruped by Big Floyd Hires, the biggest, the most pleasant, and the dumbest boy in school. Big Floyd was probably the wealthiest, as well. Someday he would own his father’s dry-cleaning chain.

  Bloom, bloom, bloom went Big Floyd’s drum.

  Helmholtz waved Big Floyd to silence. “Thank you for sticking with it, Floyd,” he said. “Sticking with it to the end is an example the rest of you could well follow. Now, we’re going to go through this again—and I want everybody to stick with it right to the end, no matter what.”

  Helmholtz raised his baton, and Schroeder, the school genius, came in from the hall. Helmholtz nodded a greeting. “All right, men,” Helmholtz said to the C Band, “here’s the composer himself. Don’t let him down.”

  Again the band tried to hail the Milky Way, again it failed.

  Bloom, bloom, bloom went Big Floyd’s drum—alone, alone, terribly alone.

  Helmholtz apologized to the composer, who was sitting on a folding chair by the wall. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s only the second time through. Today’s the first they’ve seen of it.”

  “I understand,” said Schroeder. He was a small person—nicely proportioned, but very light, and only five feet and three inches tall. He had a magnificent brow, high and already lined by scowling thought. Eldred Crane, head of the English department, called that brow “the white cliffs of Dover.” The unrelenting brilliance of Schroeder’s thoughts gave him an alarming aspect that had been best described by Hal Bourbeau, the chemistry teacher. “Schroeder,” Bourbeau said one time, “looks as though he’s sucking on a very sour lemon drop. And when the lemon drop is gone, he’s going to kill everybody.”

  The part about Schroeder’s killing everybody was, of course, pure poetic license. He had never been in the least temperamental.

  “Perhaps you would like to speak to the boys about what you’ve tried to achieve with this composition,” H
elmholtz said to Schroeder.

  “Nope,” said Schroeder.

  “Nope?” said Helmholtz, surprised. Negativism wasn’t Schroeder’s usual style. It would have been far more like Schroeder to speak to the bandsmen thrillingly, to make them optimistic and gay. “Nope?” said Helmholtz.

  “I’d rather they didn’t try it again,” said Schroeder.

  “I don’t understand,” said Helmholtz.

  Schroeder stood, and he looked very tired. “I don’t want anybody to play my music anymore,” he said. “I’d like to have it all back, if you don’t mind.”

  “What do you want it back for?” said Helmholtz.

  “To burn it,” said Schroeder. “It’s trash—pure trash.” He smiled wanly. “I’m through with music, Mr. Helmholtz.”

  “Through?” said Helmholtz, heartsick. “You can’t mean it!”

  Schroeder shrugged. “I simply haven’t got what it takes,” he said. “I know that now.” He waved his small hand feebly. “All I ask is that you don’t embarrass me any more by playing my foolish, crude, and no doubt comical compositions.”

  He saluted Helmholtz and left.

  For the remainder of the period, Helmholtz could not keep his mind on the C Band. All he could think about was Schroeder’s shocking and inexplicable decision to give up music entirely.

  At the end of the period, Helmholtz set out for the teachers’ cafeteria. It was lunchtime. He became gradually aware that he had company. Big Floyd Hires, the genially dumb drummer, was clumping along beside him.

  There was nothing casual about Big Floyd’s being there. His presence was massively intentional. Big Floyd had something of importance to say, and the novelty of that made him throw off heat like a steam locomotive.

  And it made him wheeze.

  “Mr. Helmholtz,” wheezed Big Floyd.

  “Yes?” said Helmholtz.

  “I’m—I—I just wanted you to know I’m through loafing,” wheezed Big Floyd.

  “Excellent,” said Helmholtz. He was all for people’s trying their hardest, even in cases like Big Floyd’s, where the results of trying and not trying were almost certain to be identical.

  Big Floyd now flabbergasted Helmholtz by handing him a song he had composed. “I wish you’d look at this, Mr. Helmholtz,” he said.