Fritz Leiber: The Sinful Ones

As Carr watched her doubtfully, a big area of gray cloth swam into view. It was Tom Elvested, come ambling over from the next desk. The girl gave Tome a quick, queer look, then went on scribbling. Tom ignored her.

“Say, Carr,” he began amiably, “Midge and I are going on a date tonight. She’s got a girl-friend I think you’d like. A swell kid, lot of brains, but sort of shy and retiring. We’d like you to come along with us.”

“Sorry, I can’t, I’ve got a date,” Carr told him irritably. It annoyed him that Tom should discuss personal matters in front of an applicant.

“Now, don’t get the idea I’m asking you to do social service work,” Tom went on, a little huffily. “This girl’s darn good-looking and a lot more your type than—” he broke off.

“Than Marcia, you were going to say?” Carr asked him. “At any rate it’s Marcia I’ve got a date with.”

Tom looked at Carr for a moment. Then, “Okay,” he said, fading back. “Sorry you can’t come.”

The frightened girl was still scribbling. The scratch of her pencil seemed to Carr the only real sound in the whole office. He glanced guardedly down the aisle. The big blonde with the queer eyes was still at the door, but she had moved ungraciously aside to make way for a dumpy man in blue jeans, who was looking around uncertainly.

The dumpy man veered toward Miss Zabel. Her top-knot bobbed up from her typewriter and she said something. His uncertainty vanished. He gave her an “I getcha, pal” not and headed for Carr’s desk.

The frightened girl noticed him coming, shoved aside paper and pencil in a flurry of haste, and stood up.

“Sit down,” said Carr. “That fellow can wait. Incidentally, do you know Tom Elvested?” She disregarded the question and quickly moved into the aisle.

Carr followed her. “I really want to talk with you,” he said.

“No,” she breathed, edging away from him.

“But we haven’t got anywhere yet,” he objected.

Suddenly she smiled like a toothpaste ad. “Thank you for being so helpful,” she said in a loud voice. “I’ll think over what you’ve told me, though I don’t think the job is one which would appeal to me.” She poked out her hand. Automatically he told it. It was icy.

“Don’t follow me,” she whispered. “And if you care the least bit for me or my safety, don’t do anything, whatever happens.”

“But I don’t even know your name…” His voice trailed off. She was striding rapidly down the aisle. The big blonde was standing squarely in her path. The girl did not swerve an inch. Then, just as they were about to collide, the other woman lifted her hand and gave the girl a stinging slap across the cheek.

Carr started, winced, took a forward step, froze.

The other woman stepped aside, smiling sardonically.

The girl rocked, wavered for a step or two, then walked on without turning her head.

No one said anything, no one did anything, no one jumped up, no one even looked up, at least not conspicuously, although everyone in the office must have heard the slap if they hadn’t seen it. But with the universal middle-class reluctance, Carr thought, to get mixed up in any trouble unless they were forced to, they pretended not to notice.

The big blonde flicked into place a shellacked curl, glancing around her as if as so much dirt. Leisurely she turned and stalked out.

Carr walked back to his desk. His face felt hot, his mind was turbulent. The office around him seemed out of key, turbidly sinister, a little like the scenery of a nightmare—the downtown gloom pressing on the tall, faintly grimed windows, the hazy highlights on the polished desks, the meaningless phrases hanging in the air.

The dumpy man in blue jeans had already taken the girl’s place, but for the moment Carr ignored him. He didn’t down. The scrap of paper on which the girl had scribbled caught his eye. He picked it up.

Watch out (it read) for the wall-eyed blonde, the young man without a hand, and the affable-seeming older man. But the small dark man with glasses is your friend.

Carr frowned grotesquely. “Wall-eyed blonde…”—that must be the woman who had been watching. But as for the other three—“small dark man with glasses is your friend…”—it sounded like a charade.

“Thanks, I guess I will,” said the dumpy man casually, plucking at something in the air.

Carr started to turn over the paper to see if she’d scribbled anything on the opposite side, when—

“No, I got a light,” said the dumpy man.

Carr looked at him and forgot everything else. The dumpy man had lit a match and was cupping it about three inches from his curiously puckered lips. There was a slight hissing noise and the flame curtsied as he sucked in. He smiled gratefully over this cupped hands at Carr’s empty chair. Then one hand shook out the match and the other moved in toward his lips, paused a moment, then moved out about a foot from his face, first and second fingers extended like a priest giving a blessing. After an interval the hand moved in again, the hissing inhalation was repeated, and the dumpy man threw back his head and exhaled through tightened nostrils.

Obviously the man was smoking a cigarette.

Only there was no cigarette.

Carr wanted to laugh, there was something so droll about the realism of the movements. He remembered the pantomimes in the acting class in college. You pretended to drive an automobile or eat a dinner or write a letter, without any props, just going through the motions. In that class the dumpy man would have rated an A-plus.

“Yeah, that’s right,” the dumpy man said to Carr’s empty chair, wagging his extended fingers over the brown-gummed ashtray.

Suddenly Car didn’t want to laugh at all. Obviously, as obviously as any such things can be, this man wasn’t an actor.

“Yeah, I did it about eight months. Came into it from weld assembly,” continued the dumpy man between imaginary puffs. “I was coming up from my second test when me and the wife decided to move here to get away from her mother.”

Carr felt a qualm of uneasiness. He hesitated, then slowly bent forward from where he was standing, until his face was hardly a foot from that of the dumpy man and almost squarely in front of it.

The dumpy man didn’t react, didn’t seem to see him at all, kept talking through him to the chair.

“Oh, it’s dirty work all right. I had my share of skin trouble. But I can take it.”

“Stop it,” said Carr.

“No, I passed it after I’d been there three months.” The dumpy man was amiably emphatic. “It was my full inspector’s I was coming up for. I was due to get my stamps.”

Carr shivered. “Stop it,” he said very distinctly. “Stop it.”

“Sure, all sorts of stuff. Circular and longitudinal magnetism. Machine parts, forging, welds, tie-beams…”

“Stop it,” Carr repeated and grabbed him firmly by the shoulder.

What happened made Carr wish he hadn’t. The dumpy man’s face grew strained and red, like an enraged baby’s. An intense throbbing was transmitted to Carr’s hand. And from the lips came a mounting, meaningless mutter.

Carr jerked back. He felt craven and weak, as helpless as a child. He edged away until he was standing behind Tom Elvested, who was engrossed with a client.

He could hardly bring his voice up to a whisper.

“Tom, I’ve got a man who’s acting funny. Would you help me?”

Tom didn’t look up, apparently didn’t hear.

Across the room Carr saw a gray-mustached man walking briskly. He hurried over to him, looking back apprehensively at the dumpy man, who was still sitting there red-faced.

“Dr. Wexler,” he blurted, “I’ve got a lunatic on my hands and I think he’s about to throw a fit. Would you—?”