Джон Макдональд: Half-Past Eternity

Howard said angrily, “You could understand it if you’d just concede one point, lieutenant. I smashed the apparatus because I hated it, because it had killed Linda. Or rather Sam Banth killed her. But when the thing was working it made time go very quickly for the person inside it. Sam Banth was using it to decrease the reaction time of athletes, professional athletes. You’ve heard of Wally Christopher, I imagine.”

“Who hasn’t? Four eighty-three batting average.”

“He couldn’t hit until we treated him. We used a different method on him but it amounts to the same thing. Banth collects fifty percent of his gross. You grab him and he’ll help prove what I’m trying to say. Now try to understand. From something Linda said I think Banth got her to sign over her stock in Champions, Incorporated, to him. He took us to that room to kill us by putting us in that apparatus and making time go very quickly for us. When we were dead he was going to leave with the apparatus, I’m sure. The police would find two people dead of thirst and starvation.”

“I want to know how.”

“Look, lieutenant. What if you were locked in this office for ten days?”

“I’d die, naturally.”

“Then suppose I could fix you so that while you were living ten days, the rest of the world was living two or three minutes. It would only take you two or three minutes to die, wouldn’t it?”

Mareno scratched his gray head. “I don’t quite figure it.”

“Then, dammit, how come Miss Tomlinson is dead of what your own medical examiner calls dehydration? And how come we both can prove she was in perfect health at nine o’clock this morning, twelve hours ago? Answer it some other way, lieutenant. I wouldn’t be wearing this bandage if I hadn’t been slugged by Banth, would I?”

“Look, Dineen. My job is to turn enough over to the prosecuting attorney so he can make a case. What the hell!”

“Banth killed her.”

“Look. Could you rig up some kind of gadget and come into court, provided we catch Banth, and prove maybe with an animal how it works? The S.P.C.A. will crucify us, but I don’t see any other way.”

“I could do that.”

“Okay. Now what happened to Banth? What did he do after you slugged him and took Miss Tomlinson’s body out of that machinery?”

Howard looked away for a moment. He said easily, “I hit Banth and he fell. I took Miss Tomlinson’s body out. I was examining her and then I found that she was dead. I looked around the room and I saw that Banth had escaped from me.”

“I don’t see where the hell he went,” Mareno said. “He’s an easy guy to spot. We’ll pick him up sooner or later. What a hell of a day this has been for the department!”

“How so?”

“A guy is killed thirty feet from the place where the Tomlinson girl was killed. Nobody knows what killed him. Something hit him and broke him almost into two pieces. The whole town goes crazy all at once. We get calls that a cafeteria is serving disappearing food. Can you tie that?”

Howard Dineen wore an odd expression. “It sounds strange.”

“And that ain’t half of it, brother. Hysterical women phoning in about seeing ghosts in the daytime. They call in from all over the city and always it’s the same ghost, an old nekkid guy with a bushy beard that appears suddenly and then disappears just as they yell We combed a department store for him where three people seen him. No dice. Two bars or maybe it was three phone in that somebody is stealing liquor. Sergeant Rausch, a friend of mine covers one case. The bartender shows him. lie pours liquor into a shot glass. He pours out half the bottle before He can fill the glass. Rausch is quitting the force. Then we got maybe fifty, sixty cases of people all banged up, nobody knowing what hits ‘em. Busted arms, shoulders, legs, heads, backs. Two dead already and maybe two more going to be. A hell of a day. The witnesses say these people were walking along and all of a sudden they take a big dive onto the sidewalk or out onto the street,”

The phone rang. Mareno picked it up. He listened, replied in monosyllables and then hung up. He wiped one big hand slowly down his face.

“I quit,” he said weakly. “I resign.”

“What now?”

“They got a call to go back to that same address. Where you were. There is an old naked guy there with a white bushy beard and hair halfway to his waist. He was on the steps and nobody knows how he got there. The ambulance boys say he died of old age and pneumonia. It isn’t the ghost those women saw because they said the naked guy had a dark beard. I was sworn in by Valentine and he never told me there’d be days like this.”

Howard stood up. “Would it be all right if I left now?”

“It will suit me fine. Don’t plan on moving away or joining the army, though.” Mareno looked up suddenly. “Say, would you know anything about that old guy — no, that’s a silly question. We’ll be in touch with you. When we locate Banth you’ll have some work to do for us.

Howard Dineen walked out into the night city. The cool breeze that had come with the fading day chilled the perspiration on his forehead and upper lip. Around him was the sound of traffic, fragments of sentences, subterranean roar of the trains.

Above him the timeless stars moved in infinite orbits.