The Mile Long Spaceship (11 page)

"May I help you, sir?" Although polite, there was none of the obsequious in the man's tone.

"My watch. I broke it." Talbot thrust the watch toward the man and awaited his reaction. The crystal was splintered, and the minute hand had fallen to the pavement when he had banged it against the lamp.

"Hm. Dropped it, I suppose. Pity." His fingers lovingly handled the watch, as if merely touching it gave him pleasure. "Fine watch. Don't see this kind very often any more." He gently pried off the back and bent over it with his jeweler's eyepiece in place, murmuring all the while he worked over it.

Mr. Talbot studied the other man surreptitiously. He hadn't known exactly what to expect, but certainly he had not expected this. From the reports he had received about the shop the old man must be at least ninety; Talbot would have to look up the dates again. But this man couldn't be the son. He was obviously too old for that, despite his green eyes and smooth face—something about his expression perhaps, or the startling whiteness of his shock of hair. Talbot averted his eyes quickly as the old man raised his head from the ruined watch.

"I think it will be all right now, sir." And he handed it back again, pointing with a pencil. "I'll have to keep it to grind a new crystal and replace the hand, you understand, but otherwise it's all right now. That spring there," and he touched it with the point of the pencil, "was broken, and I replaced it. There was some displacement of the other spring, but it hadn't broken—merely bent a little." His eyes were emerald green as he smiled at Mr. Talbot and retrieved the timepiece, affixing a label to it.

Talbot felt his mouth sagging and closed it with a snap. "Hmph. How soon will it be ready?" he asked gruffly, adding, "That crystal was hand ground, you know."

"Naturally. Many years ago I saw a lot of these, but recently they seemed to have disappeared entirely. Pity. Much is sacrificed by mass production."

Secretly, Talbot agreed; but he couldn't very well admit it to this person, so he grunted and left without another word. Had he looked back, he would have seen an amused smile play across the unlined face of the proprietor.

Back in his office, Mr. Talbot roared at his secretary, "Get Brigley up here!" He swung around in his chair and glowered at the city spreading out in every direction as far as he could see from the top of the Talbot Building. It was his city. He had built a good part of it and planned to build more. He had hotels and restaurants and office buildings and apartment houses. And he had two city blocks, had spent twelve years acquiring the deeds from the various owners, but now he was ready. The plans and permits were waiting to be used. The contractor was awaiting his call. All ready—except for a tiny shop of no consequence. He scowled ferociously as he heard the soft whisper of the door as it opened to Brigley.

"Mr. Brigley, how long have you been working for me?" He didn't turn to face the attorney, but continued to stare out over the city.

Brigley knew that tone too well not to know he was in for something, and accordingly he swallowed the pill he had snatched from his desk before answering the summons to the inner den. He said, "Fourteen years, sir." It was in the approved manner of a slave addressing his lord.

"Mr. Brigley, our association will terminate in precisely two weeks unless you can make some progress in the purchase of that shop. Now get out of here. I don't care how you get it, but I want that block—and I want it this month." He did turn then, and his face was so malevolent that whatever Brigley had started to say was stillborn in his throat; he departed hastily.

The attorney was busy the following days, no longer trusting his hirelings for the task—as had become his wont in the recent years.

"Look, Mr. Brigley, we can't condemn it simply because your boss wants us to. It's in perfect condition—built like the gold vault at Fort Knox. It'll be there long after we're both dead and forgotten. And the old man's a licensed electrician and has more up-to-date wiring than most of the hotels in town have." And more slyly, "Besides I heard Old Man Talbot supported the other side last election. Don't guess he swings much weight at city hall any more."

And later. "Sorry, Mr. Brigley. Like to help an old pal, but you know how it is. What with the investigations going on in the senate, and the D. A. making things rough right now, we can't touch the old man. Maybe in a year or two. He oughta be protected all right, and we'll be sure to get his name on the list in a year or two when things settle down again."

And later. "Gee, Mister. That place just wouldn t catch on fire any place I tried. And honest—when
I
can't get 'em to burn, they just won't burn."

And later. "Had it staked out all week, but the old man don't show, see? They say he lives upstairs and never goes out at all, and they must be right. Never even seen him. Delivery trucks go around back with supplies for the shop and some kid brings him groceries. No dice there, though. The kid is as skittish as a colt when you try to corner him about the old man."

And later. Brigley eyed the two men uneasily. They were too anxious, and the younger of them seemed hopped up to the eybrows. He kept licking his lips, as if he were anticipating a feast. His smile was on-and-off, so rapidly that watching his twitching face made Brigley feel ill. They were both under twenty. He moistened his own lips and whispered to them, "Don't forget now. Be sure you get him to the back room before you start anything. I'll stay back here in the alley and see to it that no one goes in the back way, and you lock the front door after you enter."

They muttered obscenities at him and swaggered toward the street, leaving him alone in the alleyway behind the shop. They hadn't seemed interested in who he was, or why he wanted it done—only in the hundred he had given each of them, and the second hundred he had promised them afterwards. He tried to make out the time, but the alleyway was already too dark for him to distinguish the numerals; he contented himself with the knowledge that sometimes the very young made the best accomplices after all, because of their impatience. They wouldn't loiter when there was money to be had.

One old man wouldn't take them very long. They would ransack the place, naturally, for salable loot—but that wouldn't matter to Brigley. The plan was that they were to leave by the back door when the job was done, and collect their money from him; after he left, he didn't care what they did to the place.

It grew darker, and Brigley began to pace the narrow alleyway more nervously. There hadn't been an outcry, so they must have accomplished their purpose. He supposed they were going over the place before they let him off the hook. His hands were very moist as he repeatedly placed them in his pockets and withdrew them. He wiped his face with his handkerchief for the tenth time, and suddenly couldn't stand it any longer. Cautiously he peered down the deserted street both ways before emerging from the alley. A car turning the corner and screeching its wheels nearly made him collapse, and he clutched the boarded-up front of the theater for support until the car was again out of sight.

There was a light in the shop now, throwing a golden rectangle out on the darkened sidewalk. Hesitantly he paused before it. They should have put out the light. Someone might think the shop was open and find it strange that no one was there to open the door. He glanced down the street again, and then quickly stood on his toes to see above the drawn curtains into the shop.

Old Mr. Delimarcarios was bending over a figurine on the counter top, his hair gleaming as it reflected back the light. It gave him an aura of saintliness. He was working on a statuette of a horse and rider. Deftly he was replacing the rider on the back of the animal, completely oblivious of the man staring through the window at his silvery head. Only when Brigley had gone did he permit himself the same amused look that had followed Mr. Talbot from the shop.

Brigley returned to his hotel apartment to face the bitter fact that, on the following day, he would be searching for another job. Not that one would be hard to find he reassured himself; but he had grown accustomed to the protection of the Talbot fortune backing his nefarious deals, and it would be hard to go back to practicing law again.

He smiled sardonically at the note from his wife asking for fifty dollars. It was perched against the decanter of scotch that was his first stoping place when he entered the apartment. She knew how to reach him when she wanted to go shopping. That was when he discovered that his wallet was missing. In a blind panic he began pacing the floor. Those kids! They must have snitched it from him, must have decided that he was a much better plum than the old man. When the phone rang, Brigley was ready for the hysteria that made the voice on the other end all but unintelligible.

"Mr. Brigley! What happened? What did he do? We're in California! You gotta help us!"

It became more coherent as the other one took the phone. "Listen, Brigley, if this is your idea of a gag, you'll be plenty sorry. The old goat got us aboard a jet or somethin' and got us to California. Now you get us back, and it's gonna cost you plenty before you're through with us."

Brigley dropped the receiver blindly back on the stand and groped for the scotch. In a numb sort of way, he believed them. But just to be sure he called back the operator and confirmed the fact that the call had come from California. He ignored the pealing of the telephone as he sat sipping the whiskey, trying to figure it out the remainder of the night

The next morning, his wife put him to bed and called the office for him. Very slowly she hung up the phone, her face setting in furious lines as she surveyed his snoring, odoriferous frame with contempt. Coldly methodical, she began packing her things. Losing the Talbot job meant that Brigley had only one direction to go now—it was down all the way, and she wanted out of it. She knew he would awaken feeling the need for the scotch as he hadn't felt it for years—fourteen in fact—and it might be weeks or months before he straightened out again. Maybe he wouldn't be able to stop at all this time without her there to help, but she didn't intend to wait it out this time.

Mr. Talbot read of Brigley's suicide with only one thought in mind: the land couldn't be bought. But there were ways and ways. And he was familiar with many of them.

Talbot's hero from history was Napoleon, and he emulated his idol as much as possible. He, too, was the conqueror. Only—unlike Napoleon—he meant to remain undefeated from start to finish. His battles were fought in the courts of law, and in side deals under the desks and tables that divided him from his goals. No one had ever held out for long when Talbot was driving for his predetermined objective. Small in stature, like Napoleon, large in achievement; such was Talbot's description of himself, via a ghost writer, for one of the slick magazines doing personality sketches of the builders of New York. From his office in the Talbot Building, he could look up to the Empire State Building, and it galled him to have to do so. It was only right that the tallest and best should bear his name—be a standing, living monument of his greatness, for all of mankind to admire and respect. That was his dream. He had the plans, and the land. To be stopped by one plot, a mere sixteen feet across, was unthinkable. Ultimately he would gain that, too, even if it meant outliving the old man. Angrily he pushed aside the intruding thought. Ridiculous, he told himself; there was a way, and he would find it. He riffled through the papers on his desk while he waited for the detective he had hired.

"I'm not responsible for anything Brigley did, or anything he tried to do. I told him he was fired, and whatever he did was on his own." The fool. Leaving so much evidence around. "You know he took his own life after his wife left him?"

The detective nodded and Mr. Talbot shrugged, adding, "Probably was deranged a long time and being fired was the last straw. Now what else did you find out?"

"Well, aside from Brigley's attempts to get to the old man, there's really very little activity concerning him that I could uncover. The land's been in the family since 1734. Several historians have recorded it as one of the first land transactions still documented and on file. It's been transferred from father to son ever since then, regular as clockwork. Every sixty years, the title changes hands from one Delimarcarios to the next. This one's named John. Had it for forty three years. Must have a son about somewhere. No trace of him, or a birth certificate or even a marriage license recorded for John. Might be some help there."

Mr. Talbot simply glowered at the detective and chewed on his lips. "Go on," he said finally.

"That's just it, Mr. Talbot. There isn't
anything.
Theres never been a complaint about his work. Reputation is spotless. Only thing at all suspicious is the volume of mail he receives, and the amount of the telephone bill each month. There's a lot of long distance calls, some even from overseas."

"Calls? Who would be calling him long distance?" Interest flared in his eyes as Talbot studied the man opposite him. "Ever do any wire tapping?"

"Nope. And don't intend to start."

They haggled over the price and eventually the opeerative agreed to give Mr. Talbot a transcript of each call received at the shop.

They tried a Greek interpreter, and a Syrian, and a Russian, and Egyptian. Before they were admittedly defeated on the calls, they had called in translators for every language for which they could find a translator. Each left in turn shaking his head.

"What do you suppose they are?" The detective stared morosely at the tape recorder as the discordant sounds rose and fell. It was a language; there were words in strange voices and more words in Delimarcarios' voice. But undecipherable.

"He's a spy. I knew there was something crooked about him. Must be Siberian, or something like that. I read that there are more than two hundred different dialects throughout China and Siberia." Talbot was jubilant, finally. "This does it."

"You can't use this as evidence of any kind. If the police find out that you hired me to do wire tapping, we'll both be in the soup." The detective hastily unplugged the machine and began wrapping the cord around it.