The Big Fix Page 4

theinformation by long-winded inference.

  Even so, without her Pittsburgh stogie, Tomboy Taylor was a mightyattractive dish, and I knew that she could also be a bright andinteresting conversationalist if she wanted to be. Under othercircumstances I might have enjoyed the company, but it was no pleasureto know that every grain of her one hundred and fourteen poundsavoirdupois was Barcelona's Personal Property. At that moment I realizedthat I was not too much concerned with what Barcelona's reaction mightbe. Instead, I was wishing that things were different so that anyactivity between us would be for our own personal gain and pleasurerather than the order of or the fight against one Joseph Barcelona.There was one consolation. Tomboy Taylor had not come equipped with abox of Pittsburgh stogies with which to make my appreciation of beautythrow up its lunch.

  She said, sweetly, "The better to ensnare you, my dear."

  But as she spoke, for just a moment her thick woolly mind shield thinnedout enough for me to catch a strange, puzzled grasp for understanding.As if for the first time she had been shown how admiration for physicalattractiveness could be both honest and good. That my repugnant attitudeover her Pittsburgh stogies was not so much based upon the spoiling ofbeauty by the addition of ugliness, but the fact that the act itselfcheapened her in my eyes.

  Then she caught me peeking and clamped down a mind screen that made theold so-called "Iron Curtain" resemble a rusty sieve.

  "I'm the one that's supposed to keep track of you, you remember," shesaid, once more covering up and leaping mentally to the attack.

  "I'll remember," I said. "But will you tell me something?"

  "Maybe," she said in a veiled attitude.

  "Is your boy friend really interested in cleaning up, or is heinterested in watching me squirm out of a trap he set for me?"

  "In the first place," she said, "I may have been seen in Barcelona'spresence but please remember that my association with Mr. JosephBarcelona has always been strictly on a financial plane. This eliminatesthe inference contained under the phrase 'Boy Friend.' Check?"

  "O.K., Tomboy, if that's the--"

  "That's not only the way I want it," she said, "but that's the way italways has been and always will be. Second, I have been getting tired ofthis nickname 'Tomboy'. If we're going to be racked this close together,you'll grate on my nerves less if you use my right name. It's just plain'Nora' but I'd like to hear it once in a while."

  I nodded soberly. I held out a hand but she put her empty highball glassin it instead of her own little paw. I shrugged and mixed and when Ireturned and handed it to her I said, "I'll make you a deal. I'll callyou 'Nora' just so long as you maintain the manners and attitude of afemale, feminine, lady-type woman. I'll treat you like a woman, butyou've got to earn it. Is that a deal?"

  She looked at me, her expression shy and as defenseless as abruiser-type caught reading sentimental poetry. I perceived that I hadagain touched a sensitive spot by demanding that she be more thanphysically spectacular. Her defenses went down and I saw that she reallydid not know the answer to my question. I did. It had to do withsomething that only the achievement of a God-like state--or extreme oldage--would change.

  This time it was not so much the answer to why little boys walk highfences in front of little girls. It had much more to do with the resultof what happens between little boys when the little girl hides herbaseball bat and straightens the seams of her stockings when one certainlittle boy comes into sight. Joseph Barcelona did not admire my ability.He had, therefore, caused me to back myself into a corner where I'd betaken down a peg, shown-up as a second-rater--with the little girl as awitness.

  And why had Barcelona been so brash as to send the little girl into mycompany in order for her to witness my downfall?

  Let me tell you about Joe Barcelona.

  * * * * *

  Normally honest citizens often complain that Barcelona is living highoff'n the hawg instead of slugging it out in residence at Stateville,Joliet, Illinois.

  With their straight-line approach to simple logic, these citizens arguethat the advent of telepathy should have rendered the falsehoodimpossible, and that perception should enable anybody with half a talentto uncover hidden evidence. Then since Mr. Joseph Barcelona isobviously not languishing in jail, it is patent that the police are notmaking full use of their talented extrasensory operators, nor theevidence thus collected.

  And then after having argued thus, our upstanding citizen will fire offa fast thought to his wife and ask her to invite the neighbors over thatevening for a game of bridge.

  None of these simple-type of logicians seem to be aware of the rules forbridge or poker that were in force prior to extrasensory trainingcourses. Since no one recognized psionics, the rules did not taketelepathy, perception, manipulation, into any consideration whatsoever.Psionics hadn't done away with anything including the old shell game.All psionics had done was to make the game of chance into a game ofskill, and made the game of skill into a game of talent that requiredbetter control and longer training in order to gain full proficiency.

  In Barcelona's case, he had achieved his own apparent immunity bysurrounding himself with a number of hirelings who drew a handsomesalary for sitting around thinking noisy thoughts. Noisy thoughts,jarring thoughts, stunts like the concentration-interrupter of playingthe first twenty notes of Brahms' Lullaby in perfect pitch and timingand then playing the twenty-first note in staccato and a half-tone flat.Making mental contact with Barcelona was approximately the analogue ofeavesdropping upon the intimate cooing of a lover sweet-talking his ladyin the middle of a sawmill working on an order three days late under ahigh priority and a penalty clause for delayed delivery.

  People who wonder how Barcelona can think for himself with all of thatterrific mental racket going on do not know that Barcelona is one ofthose very rare birds who can really concentrate to the whole exclusionof any distraction short of a vigorous threat to his physicalwell-being.

  And so his trick of sending Nora Taylor served a threefold purpose. Itindicated his contempt for me. It removed Nora from his zone ofinterference so that she could really witness firsthand my mentalsquirmings as I watched my own comeuppance bearing down on me. It alsogave him double the telepathic contact with me and my counter-plans--ifany.

  In the latter, you see, Barcelona's way of collecting outsideinformation was to order a temporary cease-fire of the mental noisebarrage and then he'd sally forth like a one-man mental commando raid tomake a fast grab for what he wanted. Since the best of telepaths cannotread a man's opinion of prunes when he's thinking of peanuts, it isnecessary for someone to be thinking of the subject he wants when hemakes his raid. Having two in the know and interested doubled his chancefor success.

  There was also the possibility that Barcelona might consider hisdeliberate "Leak" to Gimpy Gordon ineffective. Most sensible folks aredisinclined to treat Gimpy's delusions of grandeur seriously despite thetruth of the cliche that states that a one-to-one correspondence doesindeed exist between the perception of smoke and the existence ofpyrotic activity. Nora Taylor would add some certification to the rumor.One thing simply had to be: There must be no mistake about placinginformation in Lieutenant Delancey's hands so as to create the other jawof the pincers that I was going to be forced to close upon myself.

  * * * * *

  I tried a gentle poke in the general direction of Barcelona and foundthat the mental noise was too much to stand. I withdrew just a bit andclosed down the opening until the racket was no more than a mentalrumor, and I waited. I hunched that Barcelona would be curious to knowhow his contact-girl was making out, and might be holding a cease-fireearly in this phase of the operation. I was right.

  The noise diminished with the suddenness of turning off a mental switch,and as it stopped I went in and practically popped Barcelona on thenoodle with:

  "How-de-do, Joseph."

  He recoiled at the unexpected thrust, but came back with: "Wally Wilson!Got a minute?"

/>   I looked at the calendar, counted off the days to Derby Day in my mindand told him that I had that long--at the very least and probably much,much longer.

  "Thinks you!"

  "Methinks," I replied.

  "Wally boy," he returned, "you aren't playing this very smart."

  "Suppose you tell me how you'd be playing it," I bounced back at him."Tell you how I have erred?"

  He went vague on me. "If I were of a suspicious nature, I would begin towonder about certain connective events. For instance, let's hypothecate.Let's say that a certain prominent bookmaker had been suspected ofplanning to put a fix on a certain important horse race, but of coursenothing could be proved. Now from another source we