The call on the TV-phone came right in the middle of my shaving. They
have orders not to call me before breakfast for anything less than a
national calamity. I pressed "Accept," too startled to take the lather
from my face.
"Hi, Gyp," George Kelly said to me from the screen. "Hurry it up, boy."
He made no reference to my appearance on his screen. "Quit draggin' your
feet!"
This I take from George Kelly. First of all, he's Director of the F.B.I.
Even more important, he's my boss. "Hey, George," I protested, knowing
he would not have called on a routine matter. "I got up before breakfast
as it is. What's up?" I hardly needed to ask. When they call me, it's
always the same sickening kind of trouble.
"Fred Plaice and his gang got their hands on a telepath in the District
last night," George told me. "It's been on the newscast already.
There'll be a damned ugly mob at the office--a lynch mob. Listen, Gyp, I
want you to go through the main entrance this morning."
I nodded my willingness to fight my way through the crowd that would be
gathering at the office. Usually I have my taxi drop me on the roof of
the building. Call it a petty vanity if you want. It's one of the
perquisites of being Washington brass.
"Swell, Gyp," George Kelly said, as if there had been any question about
whether I'd come in through the main entrance. "The public has a world
of confidence in you. Now, damn it, Gyp, if they want to make a fuss
over you this morning, let them. We've got to get that snake out of the
building alive!"
"Oh, no," I protested. "You don't mean Fred took a telepath to the
office?"
"I'm afraid so," George said, his tone so neutral that I couldn't take
it as personal criticism. "See you down there." His rugged features
faded from the screen as he cut the image.
I had my driver drop the skim-copter to the street when we got to
Pennsylvania Avenue within a block of the building, and he skimmed to
the outskirts of the crowd that was pressing around the entrance. There
were four or five hundred people there, milling around like a herd of
restless cattle. Tighter knots of humanity were pressed around the usual
four or five firebrands who were ranting and yelling for
blood--telepathic blood.
The guards around the entrance, apparently tipped by George Kelly,
started yelling, "Let him through!" They charged the mob to open a lane
for me. The crowd drew back sullenly. As I pressed toward the guards, I
could see the fear and panic on the faces around me.
Then a man recognized me. "God bless Gyp Tinker!" he bellowed in a voice
loud enough to conjure an echo out of a prairie. People started jumping
like so many animated pogo sticks, trying to get a sight of me over the
heads of others. By the time I reached the steps, the whole mob was
cheering and yelling, "Gyp!"
As George Kelly had asked, I paused on the steps and held up my hands
for a chance to speak. It's flattering when they give you silence. In
the space of two breaths it was like the inside of a morgue.
"Thanks, friends," I called out to them. "George Kelly and I have
already gotten the facts on the telepath who was captured here in
Washington last night. There is absolutely no cause for alarm. I hope
you'll go to your homes and offices promptly. Let's not give the
Russians any more satisfaction than we have to. And rest easy, friends.
We'll use the full summary powers conferred by Congress."
They gave me a terrific cheer. You'd think I had said something. At
least they were reminded of the summary powers granted the F.B.I. to
deal with telepaths, because of the gruesome danger they are to all of
us.
* * * * *
Anita Hadley, my secretary, was waiting for me in the outer office,
although it was a good hour before we were supposed to open.
"He's in there," she said, pointing to the door to my private office.
"The snake?" I asked, startled.
"Fred Plaice," she said. "And he's got the snake in there with him." Her
gray eyes flashed. She could guess how I felt about that.
"Come along," I said to her, and went into my office.
"Hi, Gyp," Fred Plaice greeted me, grinning. "Got a present for you." He
gave his prisoner a shove, making him stumble a couple steps toward me.
The telepath was a stoop-shouldered balding gent with large feet. He
certainly didn't look like a walking bubonic plague, but then, they
never do. Instinctively I closed my thoughts to him.
"What's this snake doing here, Fred?" I asked my Section Chief quietly.
He flushed. He knew my policies. "What did you expect me to do with
him?" he said hotly. "This isn't some common snake we picked up out in
the country. We snagged this viper right here in Washington, Gyp! I
suppose I should have spirited him out of town on the midnight jet!"
"Yes," I said. "That would have been my idea. Do you realize that all
this publicity has gotten us a mob of five hundred people around our
doors, a mob that's waiting to lynch this prisoner of yours?"
The man gulped and started to say something, but Fred hit him hard
between the shoulder blades. "Shut up," he said. "Nobody cares what you
think." He walked up close to me. "Sure I know there's a mob down
there," he said. "And I know why they're there. Plain scared to death of
what it means to have had a telepath loose in Washington. You're wrong
to hustle this guy out of town, Gyp. Look at this pathetic case--does he
look like a superman?"
I looked at the snake. "No," I agreed. "He looks like they roped him
somewhere in West Virginia a few months ago, put shoes on him, and
brought him to town."
"Right," Fred snapped. "Let the mob get a look at him. The contrast of
you dragging him along by the ear and him stumbling along behind you is
the sort of thing the public laps up. It'll put you right in the
driver's seat."
"I thought Congress had already done that," I reminded him coldly. No
bureaucrat could want powers more absolute than mine. "Unfortunately," I
growled at him. "I gave orders that no snakes were to be brought into
this building without my prior consent. This ineffective-looking
hill-billy has possibly read a thousand minds since you dragged him in
here. How much of what he has picked up around here this morning will be
peeped by some Russian telepath before you get him out of town?"
"Relax," Fred scoffed. "He's a short-range punk."
That was too much. "I'll do my own thinking, Fred," I said. "From now
on, you follow orders."
* * * * *
I turned on the telepath. "Before I sentence you," I said. "What have
you got to say?"
"I never hurt nothin'," he grumbled.
They're all alike, so help me. "You are a telepath?" I asked him.
"Shoah."
"Prove it," I demanded, opening a chink in my mind.
His long red face twisted in a crooked grin, showing poorly-cared-for
teeth scattered here and there in his gums.
"Yo' think I never had no orthodonture, whatever _thet_ is," he said.
I shut my mind like a clam. If there's anything I detest, it's the
ghastly creeping of a telepath into my own thoughts. "Hello, Pete!" he
exclaimed. "Yo' done shet yo' mind!" He shook his head. "Ain't never
seen a body could do _thet_!" I'll bet he hadn't. There are only a few
of us who can keep telepaths out of our thoughts. It takes a world of
practice. Well, I'd had that.
"Can you do that?" I asked the snake.
He shook his head. "No, suh," he admitted.
"So here you are," I said, more heatedly. "Wandering around in a town
full of _secrets_--Washington, the capital of your country, where the
military, the diplomatic people, the security people, all of them have
locked in their heads the things that keep us one step ahead of the
Russians. Isn't that true?"
"I reckon. But--"
"But nothing," I snapped, getting sore about it for the thousandth time.
"And you, you miserable snake, you _can't_ keep your thoughts from being
read by another telepath. No telepath can. Your mind is open _two_
ways--to let thoughts in but, damn it, equally to leak out anything you
know." I smiled coldly at him. "Can you get my thoughts now?"
The telepath shook his head. "Still got yo' mind closed," he said. He
sounded bitter about it.
"You're right," I told him. "Something that few can do, and that _no
telepath can do_! How can we let you wander around Washington leaking
out thoughts of every secret your mind might accidentally have overheard
from some ranking official? How many Russian telepaths have been
accredited to their Embassy? How many crypto-telepaths have the Reds got
in town? How many secrets have you _already_ given away? How big a
traitor have you been?"
That was the one that got him. "Traitor!" he yelled at me, starting
across the office to where I stood leaning against my desk. Fred grabbed
him and twisted his arm cruelly to stop all movement.
"Cut that out!" he snapped.
"Cut it out yourself, Fred," I said. "Just because you're sore at me,
you don't have to take it out on the snake."
The telepath was not to be silenced. "My folks been in this country over
three hundred years," he stormed at me. "And it takes someone like you
to call me a traitor!"
I am very dark, and my hair is black and curly. I don't mind. With my
heredity, it should be.
"Under the power vested in me--" I started.
"Aw, shet up," he said, turning to walk to the door. "I reckon I know
the rest!"
Anita stayed behind after Fred Plaice dragged the snake out with him.
"Better get me George Kelly on the 'visor," I said to her.
"Right away," Anita said, coming over to my desk. "But first--"