[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
June 1956
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It's the not knowing that gets you. The wondering. Thinking sometimes
one way and sometimes the other. But never knowing for sure. Being
suckered is bad enough but _wondering_ whether you've been suckered is
rougher. Or whether you've let the biggest thing since fingerprints
slide right by you.
Someday the case may be solved. Then we'll know for sure--one way or
the other--Donovan and I. What case? Wait 'til I tell you. It won't
take long.
The thing started with as crazy a murder as two Homicide cops ever
got called in on. In a bar on Tenth Avenue near Grand--you probably
know the place and you probably read about the case. It was in all the
papers. But the whole story never saw print.
We were rung into it by a call from the squad car boys who got there
first. We walked in and a cop I didn't know pointed a thumb at a young
guy lying with his head on the bar and said, "Deader than a lamp post
for my money."
A young lad--around twenty-three or four--lying there as though he'd
had one too many and was sleeping it off. He _had_ downed one too many.
And he would spend all eternity sleeping it off.
He was all through.
The barkeep stood there with his apron hanging out and a baffled look
on his face. A look that had all the earmarks of being genuine. I said,
"Kennedy--Homicide. What happened?"
The barkeep shrugged and licked his dry lips. "I dunno. He just keeled
over. I got scared and called the cops."
The kid certainly looked like a morgue job, as I said, but we
don't take things like that for granted. The squad car boys had
called General Hospital and now a couple of internes came in with a
respirator. They didn't use it, though. One of them put his nose close
down to the kid's mouth and then looked at the barkeep. "You served him
a drink?"