The Big Fix Read online

general unwritten rule that anycitizen so utterly befogged as to permit his wealth to be lifted vialight fingers should lose it as a lesson!

  But then it did indeed occur to me that maybe I could make use of theGimp.

  I said, "What can I do, Gimpy?"

  "Mr. Wilson," he pleaded, "is it true that you're workin' forBarcelona?"

  "Now, you know I can't answer that."

  I could read his mind struggling with this concept. It was sort of liketrying to read a deck of Chinese Fortune Cards being shuffled beforethey're placed in the machine at the Penny Arcade. As the drunk oncesaid after reading the Telephone Directory: "Not much plot, but _egad_!What a cast of characters!" The gist of his mental maundering was achildlike desire to have everything sewed up tight. He wanted to win, tobe told that he'd win, and to have all the rules altered ad hoc toassure his winning.

  Just where he'd picked up the inside dope that Barcelona favored FlyingHeels, Moonbeam, and Lady Grace in the Derby I could not dig out of him.Just how Gimpy had made the association between this clambake andme--good old Wally Wilson--I couldn't dig either. But here he was withhis--by now--sixty-five bucks carefully heisted, lifted, pinched andfingered, and by the great Harry, Gimpy was not a-goin' to lay it acrossthe board on those three rejects from a claiming race unless he had acast-iron assurance that they'd come in across the board, one, two, andthree.

  I said slowly, "_If_ I were even thinking of working for Mr. Barcelona,"I told him, "I would be very careful never, never to mention it, youknow."

  * * * * *

  This bundle of The Awful Truth hit him and began to sink in with theinexorable absorption of water dropping down into a bucket of dry sand.It took some time for the process to climax. Once it reached Home Baseit took another period of time for the information to be inspected,sorted out, identified, analyzed, and in a very limited degree,understood.

  He looked up at me. "I couldn't cuff a hundred, could I?"

  I shook my head. I didn't have to veil my mind because I knew that Gimpywas about as talented a telepath as a tallow candle. Frankly between meand thee, dear reader, I do not put anybody's bet on the cuff. I do afair-to-middling brisk trade in booking bets placed and discussed bytelepathy, but the ones I accept and pay off on--if they're lucky--arethose folks who've been sufficiently foresighted to lay it on the linewith a retainer against which their losses can be assessed.

  On the other hand I could see in Gimpy's mind the simple logic that toldhim that as a bookmaker I'd be disinclined to lend him money which he'duse to place with me against a sure-thing long shot. If I were to "Lend"him a century for an on-the-cuff bet on a 100:1 horse, especially onethat I knew was sure to come in, I might better simply hand him onehundred times one hundred dollars as a gift. It would save a lot ofmessy bookkeeping.

  So the fact that I wouldn't cuff a bet for Gimpy gave him his own proofthat I was confirming the fix.

  Then I buttered the process.

  "Gimp, do you know another good bookmaker?"

  "Sure. But you're the best."

  "Know one that'll take a bet from you--one that you don't like?"

  "Sure, Mr. Wilson."

  "Then," I said hauling a thousand out of my wallet, "Put this on _ourhorses_ for me."

  He eyed the grand. "But won't Mr. Barcelona be unhappy? Won't that rundown the track odds?"

  I laughed. "The whole world knows them dogs as also-rans," I said."Gimpy, they put long shots like those into races just to clip thesuckers who think there is a real hundred-to-one chance that a 100:1horse will outrun favorites."

  "Well, if you say so, Mr. Wilson."

  "I say so."

  "Thanks. I'll pay it back."

  He would. I'd see to that.

  Gimpy Gordon scuttled out of my bailiwick almost on a dead run. He waspositively radiating merriment and joy and excitement. The note in hishand represented a sum greater than he had ever seen in one piece at anytime of his life, and the concept of the riches he would know when theypaid off on the Kentucky Derby was vague simply because Gimpy could notgrasp the magnitude of such magnificence. Oddly, for some unexpectedreason or from some unknown source hidden deep in his past, his mindpronounced it "Darby."

  * * * * *

  I returned to my African jungle still bored with the lack of anythingconstructive. I returned at about the point where Tarzan and Jane weregoing through that silly, "Me Tarzan; You Jane" routine which was evenmore irritating because the program director or someone had muffed theperfume that the Lady Jane wore. Instead of the wholesome freshness ofthe free, open air, Jane was wearing a heady, spicy scent engineered tocut its way through the blocking barrier of stale cigar smoke,whisky-laden secondhand air, and a waft of cooking aroma from thekitchen of the standard cosmopolitan bistro.

  Worse, it got worse instead of better. Where a clever effects-directormight have started with the heavy sophisticated scent and switched tosomething lighter and airier as Jane was moved away from civilization,this one had done it backwards for some absolutely ridiculous reason. Itfinally got strong enough to distract me out of my characterization, andI came back to reality to realize once more that reality had been strongenough to cut into the concentration level of a halluscene. There wasstrong woman-presence in my room, and as I looked around I found thatTomboy Taylor had come in--just as Gimpy Gordon had--and was sitting inthe other halluscene chair. She was probably playing Lady Jane to myTarzan.

  Tomboy Taylor had changed to a short-skirted, low-necked cocktail dress;relaxed with her eyes closed in my halluscene chair she looked lovely.She looked as vulnerable as a soft kitten. Remembering that it's thesoft vulnerable ones that claw you if you touch, I refrained.

  I went to my little bar and refilled my highball glass because swingingthrough the jungle makes one thirsty, and while I was pouring I took asly peek into Tomboy Taylor's mind.

  She was not halluscening. She was watching me. And when I made contactwith her, she radiated a sort of overall aura of amusement-emotion,covered up her conscious deliberation, and blocked any probing bydirecting me mentally, "Make it two, Wally."

  I built her one, handed it to her, and then said, "Folks these days surehave forgotten how to use doorbells."

  "If you don't want people coming in, Wally, you should restrict yourmindwarden a little. It's set to admit anybody who does not approach thedoor with vigorous intent to commit grave physical harm. When the thingradiates 'Come in and relax' is a girl supposed to stand outsidetwiggling on the doorbell?"

  I dropped the subject thinking that maybe I shouldn't have brought it upin the first place. It's one that can't be answered by logic, whereas afirm emotional statement of like or dislike stops all counter-argumentand I'd made the mistake of questioning my own judgment.

  So I eyed her and said, "Tomboy, you did not come here to indulge insmall talk."

  "No," she admitted. "I'm here to keep track of you, Wally."

  "Oh?"

  "Our great and good friend wants me to make notes on how clever you areat arranging things."

  "You mean Barcelona sent you."

  "That's about it."

  I looked at her askance. "And how long are you going to stay?"

  She smiled. "Until Flying Heels, Moonbeam, and Lady Grace come acrossthe finish line One, Two, and Three at Churchill Downs on Derby Day."

  I grinned at her. "Considering that trio of turtles, Tomboy, it may befor years and it may be forever."

  She held up her glass in a sort of a toast. "Or," she said, "'Til deathdo us part!"

  A little bitterly I said, "One might think that Barcelona doesn't trustme."

  She replied, "It isn't a matter of trust. Barcelona holds you among hisvery closest friends. He is well aware of the fact that you would doanything for him, that you prize his friendship so highly yourself thatyou would go to the most desperate lengths to keep it firm and true. Yethe realizes that the simple desire he has recently expressed does placeyou in a delicate mental
attitude. You are likely to feel that heshouldn't have expressed this desire since you feel obligated to fulfillit. He feels that maybe this obligation to maintain friendship at allcosts may cause resentment. Since Barcelona does not want you to resenthim, he sent me to be your companion in the hope that I might get someforewarning should your friendship for him begin to weaken."

  * * * * *

  Just why in this day and age she didn't just come out and say--orthink--flatly that she was there to keep me in line, I don't know. Butthere she was, talking all around the main point and delivering