Fritz Leiber - The Sinful Ones

Rejoice, Mackay! Here’s a new applicant—a whole new world for you to lose yourself in. I know it’s had, Mackay but in an hour and thirty-seven minutes it’ll be five o’clock. If you can hold on until then and do what’s expected of you, you can walk out of here with your mind intact and no one will have the faintest suspicion of what’s happened to you. You’ll be free, Mackay, free!

Carr nudged his glass forward across the chromium surface.

The bartender reached for it. Carr turned toward Marcia. “Another?” he asked. “I’m one up on you.”

She smiled but kept hold of the stem of her glass. The bartender flicked up Carr’s and turned away.

“You want to have just the right amount of edge on you when you meet Keaton,” she said. “He goes a lot by first impressions.”

Carr nodded dutifully. Marcia looked very handsome tonight. Above the black dress her bare shoulders and neck were startling youthful. And on her face was that expression which Carr always found both exciting and disturbing—a look that incited daring, but threatened waspishness if the daring were not of just the right quality; a look that indicated she was intensely interested in you, but only in certain things about you.

Not, for instance, in your troubles. No matter how black.

“What’s the matter, Carr? You’re so silent.”

“Nothing.”

“One would almost think you weren’t looking forward to meeting Keaton.”

Carr finished his Manhattan. He touched his black tie. There was another uncomfortable silence. To break it, he started to talk at random.

“You remember Tom Elvested? He’s been pestering me to go out with some mysterious girl he insists is just my type.”

“Why don’t you?” Marcia said quickly. “It might be very amusing.”

Carr laughed. “I just mentioned it as an example of Tom’s bull-headedness. Once he gets an idea—”

“But why not?” Marcia pressed. “She might be young. That would be interesting for you.”

“Nonsense,” said Carr uncomfortably. “I gather she’s a wet blanket. Some sort of timid intellectual. I mentioned it as an example…”

His voice trailed off. He looked at his empty glass. Marcia looked at him.

“Time we were going,” she said.

In the taxicab she quickly turned and kissed him. Before he could respond she had moved away an was telling him the latest gossip of the publishing business. A few blocks and they were pulling up at the Pendletons’.

From the street, the bright lighted windows of the huge third floor apartment looked like the amusement deck of a medium-size ocean liner ploughing through the night. There were even the strains of music echoing down.

There was a flurry of movement in the street. Another taxicab drew behind theirs. A messenger boy with a cellophane box appeared from the opposite direction and ran up the walk. A large black dog, held on leash by a woman in furs, came snuffing toward Carr and he felt an abnormal twinge of fear. He and Marcia hurried up the walk. He held the door for her and for the couple which had emerged from the second taxi. The man thanked him with a slight bow. The girl, who had a delicately flushed British complexion, touched Marcia’s hand and they chatted.

As Carr followed their nicely filled stockings up the gray-carpeted stairs, he tried to think of something to say to the other man. But instead he found himself wondering what would happen if he had another attack of amnesia. That possibility hadn’t occurred strongly to him before, but now it obsessed his mind.

Was an amnesia attack like fainting, or like sleep? Would it hold off as long as you kept thinking about it? Presumably anything might set it off. Really he must see a psychiatrist in spite of everything.

A shrill laugh of greeting cam skirling down the stairs. He looked up and saw Katy Pendleton hanging over the landing like a fat doll with a face covered by tiny cracks. A fantastic green flower dripped from her hand.

“Look what Hugo sent,” she cried to them. “He can’t come. Detained at the consulate.” She waggled the orchid at Marcia and the British girl. “My dears, you look lovely. Come with me.” She handed the cellophane box to the messenger boy. “No reply.” Then quickly, to Carr and the other man, with a jolly grimace, “Mona will show you,” and sweeping back through the door she revealed a sharp-faced Negro maid she’d been eclipsing.

As Carr stepped inside he saw that the Pendletons’ apartment did have something of the layout of an ocean liner. Rooms opening to either side of two parallel central hallways. The big shadowy sun porch, its dark doors visible beyond dancing couples, might be the bridge. Next, the huge living room—main salon. Then a small stuffy-looking study hung with large, dark portraits—captain’s cabin. Then a library—second salon. Finally the luxurious staterooms. Dining salon and galley presumably at the stern.

The West Indian stewardess—Negro maid, rather—showed Carr a bed heaped with coats and hats, to which he added his own. Returning into the hall he saw Marcia talking earnestly to a small man who wore a soft white shirt under his tuxedo. Carr stopped short, feeling an uncomfortable coldness mounting inside him.

The small man slumped, his arms a-dangle, his thin features slack with tiredness. But this appearance was deceptive. He had a tic. Whenever it convulsed the muscles of his cheek, his dark-circled eyes flashed a penetrating, critical glance, and his fingers curled. It was as if he lurked behind a curtain which small puffs of wind kept twitching aside.

Marcia raised eyebrows at Carr. Carr went resignedly, knowing this must be Keaton Fisher.

But the introduction was hardly over, the dark-circled eyes had only begun to quick-freeze Carr, the limp fingers had not quite finished a pulse-taking handshake—which the tie suddenly converted into a spasmodic grip—when Katy Pendleton, who had been pinning the green orchid to a half-protesting redhead, interrupted.

“Oh, Mr. Fisher, I’ve promised to introduce you to the Wenzels. You’ll excuse us, I know.”

Marcia touched Carr’s arm. “Later.” She hurried off.

Momentarily relieved, Carr found himself a cocktail and drifted into the library, where a number of lively discussions were going on.

Carr recognized several people. But he hesitated at deciding which group to join and the conversation went so fast that his clever remarks were constantly getting outdated. He felt rather like an awkward girl nerving herself for the right moment to start jumping rope.

His uneasiness was fast reaching a peak where he might blurt out any sort of remark just so as to be noticed, when Marcia came along and said she wanted to dance.

As soon as Carr had his arms around her, he realized that here was the only person he wanted to talk to.

His other impulses had been merest camouflage. Why in this world, when something fantastically strange and terrifying had happened to him, should he waste thought or time on this noisy herd? It suddenly struck him that of course he must tell Marcia about his mysterious amnesia attacks. Whatever had made him think otherwise? What was love if you didn’t share? As they circled past the beaming brown faces of the musicians, he got set to tell her.

“Just as well Katy butted in,” Marcia whispered softly and swiftly. “That wasn’t the right time for your talk with Keaton. I’ve spoken to him and arranged things.”

He nodded. “Marcia,” he began with difficulty.

“Now listen carefully, Carr,” she said. “In about ten minutes Keaton will drift away from the library and go into the study. I’ll see to it that he’s alone. You watch for him and make sure not to get tied up with anyone. A few moments later, drift along after him.”