Clifford Simak - Ring Around the Sun

The dime store manager had not done it, he was sure, for the dime store manager had said that he had never wondered where the stripes might go. He had just sat and watched and listened to the whistle.

He wondered why he, of all men, should find the way. And he wondered if the enchanted valley might not have been a part of fairyland as well and if somehow the girl and he might not have walked through another unseen gate. For surely the valley that he remembered was not the valley he had walked that morning.

There was only one way to find out, and that was to get a top.

A top, he thought. Somewhere, some place, somehow, I must find one.

But, of course, he had a top! Even while he frantically sought for one, he already had one. The handle would have to be straightened and it might need a bit of oil to clear away the rust and it would have to be painted.

More than likely it would be better than any other he could get, for it would be the original top that had sent him through before — and it pleased him to think that it might have certain special qualities, a certain mystic function no other top might have.

He was glad that he had thought of it, lying there, forgotten for the second time, in the glove compartment where he had tossed it after finding it again.

He walked up the street to the hardware store.

"I want some paint," said Vickers. "The brightest, glossiest paint you have. Red and green and yellow. And some little brushes to put it on with."

He figured, from the way the man looked at him, that he thought he was insane.

"What are you going to do, Jay?"

"I don't know. Just stay hid out, I guess."

"Why didn't you call me right away?" demanded Ann. "What are you way out West for? You should have come straight to New York. New York is the swellest place there is for someone to hide out. You might at least have called me."

"Now, wait a minute," Vickers said. "I called you, didn't I?"

"Sure. You called me because you're broke and want me to wire some money and you —»

"I haven't asked for any money yet."

"You will."

"Yes," he said, "I'm afraid I will."

"Aren't you interested in why I was trying to get hold of you?"

"Mildly," said Vickers. "Because you don't want me to get out from under your thumb. No agent wants their best author to get from under —»

"Jay Vickers," said Ann, "some day I'm going to crucify you and hang you up along the roadside as a warning."

"I would make a most pathetic Christ. You couldn't choose a better man."

"I'm calling you," said Ann, "because Crawford's practically frantic. The sky's the limit. I mentioned a fantastic figure and he didn't even shiver."

"I thought we disposed of Mr. Crawford," Vickers said.

"You don't dispose of Crawford," said Ann. Then she paused and silence hummed along the wires.

"Ann," said Vickers. "Ann, what's the trouble?"

Her voice was calm, but strained. "Crawford is a badly frightened man. I've never seen a man so thoroughly frightened. He came to me. Imagine that! I didn't go to him. He came into my office, puffing and panting and I was afraid I didn't have a chair in the place strong enough to hold him. But you remember that old oak one over in the corner, that old hunk over in the corner? It was one of the first sticks of furniture I ever bought for my office and I kept it as a sentimental piece. Well, it did the trick."

"What trick?"

"It held him," said Ann, triumphantly. "He'd have simply crushed anything else in the place. You remember what a big man he is."

"Gross," said Vickers. "That's the word you want."

"He said, 'Where's Vickers? And I said, 'Why ask me, I don't keep a leash on Vickers. And he says, 'You're his agent, aren't you? And I said, 'Yes, the last time I heard, but Vickers is a very changeable sort of man, there's no telling about him. He says, 'I've got to have Vickers. And so I told him, 'Well, go get him, you'll find him around somewhere. He said, 'The sky's the limit, name any price you want to, make any terms you want."

"The man's a crackpot," Vickers said.

"There's nothing crackpot about the kind of money he's offering."

"How do you know he's got the money?"

"Well. I don't know. Not for sure, that is. But he must have."

"Speaking of money," Vickers said. "Have you got a loose hundred lying around? Or fifty, even?"

"I can get it."

"Wire it here, right away. I'll pay you back."

"All right, I'll do it right away," she said. "It isn't the first time I've bailed you out and I don't imagine it will be the last. But will you tell me one thing?"

"What's that?"

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to conduct an experiment," said Vickers.

"An experiment?"

"An exercise in the occult."

"What are you talking about? You don't know anything about the occult. You're about as mystic as a block of wood."

"I know," said Vickers.

"Please tell me," she said. "What are you going to do?"

"As soon as I get through talking to you," said Vickers, "I'm going to do some painting."

"A house?"

"No, a top."

"The top of what?"

"Not the top of anything. A top. A toy kids play with. You spin it on the floor."

"Now listen to me," she said. "You cut out this playing around and come home to Ann."

"After the experiment," said Vickers.

"Tell me about it, Jay."

"I'm going to try to get into fairyland."

"Quit talking foolish."

"I did it once before. Twice before."

"Listen, Jay, this business is serious. Crawford is scared and so am I. And there's this lynching business, too."

"Send me the money," Vickers said.

"Right away."

"I'll see you in a day or two."

"Call me," she said. "Call me tomorrow."

"I'll call you."

"And, Jay… Take care of yourself. I don't know what you're up to, but take care of yourself."

"I'll do that, too," said Vickers.

HE straightened the handle which spun the top and he polished the metal before marking off the spirals with a pencil and he borrowed a can of sewing machine oil and oiled up the spinning spiral on the handle so that it worked smoothly. Then he went about the painting.

He wasn't much good at it, but he went about it doggedly. He carefully painted in the colors, red, then green, then yellow, and he hoped the colors were right, for he couldn't remember exactly what the colors had been. Although, probably it didn't make much difference what the colors were, just so they were bright and ran in a spiral.

He got paint on his hands and on his clothes and on the chair he laid the top on and he spilled the can of red paint on the floor, but he picked it up real quick so that scarcely any of it ran out onto the carpeting.

Finally the job was finished and it looked fairly good.

He worried about whether it would be dry by morning, but he read the labels on the cans and labels said the paint was quick drying, so he was somewhat relieved.

He was ready now, ready to see what he would find when he spun the top. It might be fairyland, and it might be nothing. Most likely it would be nothing. For more would go into it than the spinning of the top — the mind and the confidence and the pure simplicity of a child. And he didn't have that any longer.

He went out and closed and locked the door behind him, then went down the stairs. The town and the hotel were too small to have elevators. Although not so small a town as the little village that had been «town» to him in his childhood days, that little village where they still sat out on the bench in front of the store and looked up at you with sidewise glances and asked you impudent, prying questions out of which to weave the fabric of long gossiping.

He chuckled, thinking of what they'd say when the word got back to the little town, slowly, as news always gets back to a little town, of how he had fled from Cliffwood on the threat of being lynched.