"Look," I said. "I have an idea. If it's a joker, perhaps I can talk
him out of it better than you boys. You'll need that wire today, and
the joker might just be drunk and obstinate enough to hang on all day
long to spite you. Maybe he knows you won't dare report it. I'm not
steamed up; maybe I'll reason with him better because I'm not. You
want me to?"
Mort and Mike gave me grateful glances.
"You get ridda that wise guy," Mike said, "and we'll never ferget it!"
"Go to it, chumly," Mort said, "and if you lose that louse, we'll make
it up to you!"
I went over to the booth and, stepping inside, took the receiver from
the hook. I had a jovial, let's-be-friends opener all ready.
"Hello, pal," I said amiably.
The voice that came to my ears was distinctly unlike what I'd
expected. I don't quite know _how_ or _why_ it sounded so strange and
eerie, but it did. It was a man's voice, coming over the wire the way
long distance calls used to sound before they got transmission
technique down pat.
"Hello there," said the voice. "Have they arrived yet?"
It wasn't the voice of a drunk. And if it were that of a practical
joker, the poker-faced quality of it was perfect acting. It sounded
earnestly, eagerly serious.
"You mean Adolf and Benito?" I asked. I was willing to play ball for a
few minutes if it brought results. Besides, I was curious.
"Yes."
"Why do you want to talk to them?" I asked.
"_I_ don't want to talk to them. My boss does," the voice answered.
"Then put your boss on," I said. "I'll talk to him."
"You are neither Hitler nor Mussolini," the voice replied. "He wishes
to speak only to them. He's very busy. Too busy to waste time in idle
conversation. Please fetch Hitler and Mussolini to the wire."
"Who are you?" I demanded.
"I have already covered that ground with the other parties I spoke to
before you," the voice said. "Please hurry and bring Adolf and Benito
to the phone. This connection is getting progressively worse. It can't
last much longer. We spent several years getting it through, you
know."
"Did you now?" I asked politely.
"Yes we did," the voice answered stiffly. Then, annoyed: "_Must_ you
waste this precious time? Please bring Hitler and Mussolini to the
telephone as quickly as possible."
* * * * *
There was a fuzzy crackling over the wire. Like a ship-to-shore
connection.
"Listen, pal," I said. "This joke is costing a couple of guys some
lucrative trade. You are tying up a telephone they need badly in their
business, or didn't you know that?"
"That can't be helped," the voice said stiffly.
"Be a good sport and get off the wire," I said.
"I have no intention of doing that until my boss has talked to Hitler
and Mussolini," the voice said coldly. I knew a positive statement
when I heard one. I hung up, clambered out of the booth, spread my
hands expressively to Mike and Mort who stood there eagerly waiting
for some good word.
"No soap," I said. "I don't think you got a joker on there, and I'd
swear you haven't got a drunk."
"What have we got, then," Mike demanded. "A smart copper waiting to
trap us?"
I shook my head. "I think you got a loony," I said. "But don't quote
me." I started toward the door. "I got work to do, gents, but I'll
look in again a little later. Hope you get rid of your pest."
"We'd better," Mike moaned dismally.
"Brother," Mort declared, pulling his hair and making a sincerely
distraught face, "you're not kidding!"
I looked at the telephone booth and shook my head. "Somebody is," I
told them....
* * * * *
For perhaps three hours I was able to concentrate on my work, with the
telephone booth distraction cropping up only about every fifteen
minutes or so to give me the fidgets.
At the end of that time, a little before two o'clock, I finally
covered up my reproachful typewriter and, on the excuse that I wanted
a coke, left the office to go down and see how the boys were doing
with the determined loony on their telephone.
The "cigar store" was crowded with the usual early-afternoon
hang-arounders when I walked in. Mort and Mike, each behind a dice
board, were accommodating trusting suckers who had somehow gotten the
mistaken idea that Hooligan was a game you beat every other time.
Mike, looking up, noticed my entrance first. He signaled to me,
muttered an excuse to the dice roller at his board, and came quickly
around the counter. He took me by the arm and steered me out into the
building lobby.
"Listen, pal," he half-whispered, "fer gawdsakes don't say anything
about the jerk on the telephone. Mort and me ain't told anyone, fer
fear of the ribbing we'd get, plus the kick in the pants it would give
our regular betting business over the counter."
"You mean the guy's still on the telephone?" I demanded.
Mike nodded a little sickly. "We can't get him off. And since we ain't
letting on to no one about the phone being fritzed that way, every
time he rings, we pretend we're getting an odd change, or some
scratches or result. Mort an' me have been running our legs off, using
a telephone next door to get our prices and results and such dope from
the syndicate. But don't let on. We ain't told no one!"
"Okay," I promised. "I'll keep mum. But who in the hell do you suppose
it is?"
Mike lowered his voice even more, looking furtively around the
building lobby.
"Confidentially, although we don't dare draw attention to our joint
since the State's Attorney is telephone prowling, Mort and me decided
you was right. It must be a loony. All we can do is wait until he gets
tired and gets off."
I nodded. "That's about all you can do," I agreed. "Does he still want
to talk to Hitler and Mussolini?"
Mike nodded disgustedly. "Worse than ever. Calling every twenty
minutes now. Mort and me is going crazy answering them calls and
pretending they ain't nothing but syndicate results."
"I don't blame you," I said. "I would, too." Mike went back into the
store and behind the dice board. I took a coke out of the cooler and
uncapped it on the side of the machine.
Mort sent me a message in his glance, and I nodded reassuringly to
him.
"I don't know anything," I said.
Mort grinned a sick, grateful sort of grin, and went back to the task
of taking quarters from his customers. Taking my time with my
cigarette, I finished my coke. Then the telephone rang, as I'd been
waiting for it to do.
Mort dashed to the booth, closed the door as he entered, and for
several flushed minutes appeared to be talking into the phone and
writing something on a scratch pad. But I knew it was an act from the
pained expression on his face. I knew that the loony was babbling away
again and that Mort was having to listen for the sake of the pose.
When at last he hung up, he emerged mopping his face with a gaily
colored handkerchief. The look he shot me was confirmation enough that
the loony was still on the wire.
* * * * *
Unable to feel too sorry for the boys, I concealed a grin behind a
yawn, nodded to them both, and left the place. Upstairs once more in
my office I got back into a rather muggy stream of work on which I
found difficulty concentrating.
For some reason I couldn't at first explain to myself, I kept thinking
about the telephone loony of Mike and Mort's. Not because of the
ironically ridiculous turmoil it threw them into, but for some other
reason far more subtle, but which I was unable to put my finger on.
The thing amused me, puzzled me, and yet, somehow was beginning to
trouble me. Not through any great sympathy for Mike or Mort, of
course. It will be a cold day when my heart bleeds for bookmakers. But
something or other _was_ growing more and more bothersome. I thought
about it a while, then shoved it out of my mind and got back to work.
I was able to grind along for a couple of hours without having it come
back into my mind. And when it popped up again, I shoved it away once
more just as quickly. I had to get that work out, and I knew I
wouldn't if I stewed any longer over the telephone loony who was quite
probably still playing hob with Mike and Mort at that moment.
It was a little after five o'clock, five-fifteen, to be exact,
when--work or no work--the thing hit me. Bang! Like that I knew what'd
been in the back of my mind.
How in the name of blazes had the telephone loony been able to stay on
that wire so indefinitely? Why hadn't the operator broken in to end
the connection each time Mort or Mike hung up? It seemed logical that
she would have done so. The loony couldn't have just held onto the
telephone and been right on tap the moment Mort or Mike picked up the
hook. The loony could have called them, of course, but it would have
been impossible for him to be on hand every time they picked up the
telephone when it hadn't been ringing!
I left my typewriter, not even bothering to remove the page in it, and
hurried out of the office. Downstairs I found the "cigar store"
completely deserted except for Mike and Mort. The day's races were
over, and dice customers who were willing enough to roll cubes in
office time, had headed homeward.
"Brother," Mort greeted me, "you were right and how!"
"About the loony--" I began.
"That's right," Mort said. "He was as loony a loony as I've ever heard
of. We finally got rid of him."
"Got rid of him?" I blurted the question.
"Yeah," Mort nodded. "And I hope for good. He just faded off, about
half an hour after his voice began to get dimmer and dimmer, and that
was that."
"But--" I began.
"And wait'll you hear who that bug thought he was."
"Gabby who?" I asked.
"Gabby, nuts. I messed it up the first time. He thought he was
Gabriel, the _Angel_ Gabriel, no less!" Mort exclaimed, tapping the
side of his head.
"The Angel Gabriel?" I echoed.