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Title: Double Identity

Author: Henry Farrell

Illustrator: Robert Fuqua

Release date: May 8, 2021 [eBook #65282]

Language: English

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOUBLE IDENTITY ***




                            DOUBLE IDENTITY

                          By Charles F. Myers

               Grant Dermitt's stories showed remarkable
            creative ability. His hero, Fleetwood Cassidy,
            was the greatest fictional character--alive!...

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
              Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
                               June 1951
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


_He demonstrated again that rangey reach of his and slammed a fistful
of hard knuckles into the putty face in front of him. Mario went down
on the thick carpet, his fat nose spurting blood like a drinking
fountain for vampires. He was just another one of those larded slobs
and, true to the type, he began to blubber. The blonde in the corner
froze in place like a lead statue in a snow storm._

_"Wait!" Mario whined. "Wait a minute, Cassidy. I'm not stalling. I
just want to make a deal, that's all."_

_"You've made a deal," Fleetwood snapped. "How do you like it, fat
boy? Now where's the stuff?"_

_Mario lolled his head to one side, holding his hand to his nose.
Fleetwood raised his foot, and he came around fast._

_"Don't!" he said. "Over there on the mantle, in the ivory box."_

_Fleetwood kept them both covered and crossed to the mantle. He picked
up the box and flipped back the lid. Expensive fire, the cold kind of
fire that comes from stones, flashed out at him. He closed it again and
dropped it into his pocket._

_"Look, Cassidy," Mario said, still sitting on the floor, "look, I took
the rocks, I admit that, but I didn't rod Blanchard. Somebody else
cooled him before I ever got to the dump...."_

_"Sure, Mario, sure," Fleetwood nodded, "you're the neat type. You just
ran over in your dust cap to tidy up the death room. My client will be
tickled to pieces to find out what a nice orderly vulture you turned
out to be." He swiveled around toward the blonde. "And you'd better get
yourself a new playmate, lamb-chop. This one won't even be able to keep
you in rompers from now on." He gave Mario one last glance, to warn him
to stay down, and legged it for the door. This was the kind of place
and the kind of people he loved to leave behind._

_She must have pole-vaulted across the room to have made it so fast; he
was just reaching for the knob when her perfume pressed in on him from
behind. He turned around, left his hand resting on the knob._

_"Yeah?" he said._

_"What you said," she drawled in a lazy, boudoir voice, "I mean about
me getting myself a new playmate. You're right about that, Cassidy...."
She held the idea out to him, waiting for him to take it up on the
beat. He let it lay. She smiled, but her eyes turned as hard as a
bride's biscuits. "Anyway, you could be right."_

_"And so...?" Fleetwood asked._

_The smile stayed fixed, but she shrugged. "So maybe the music we'd
make together wouldn't exactly be Brahms. But it wouldn't be Guy
Lombardo, either. You've got the rocks, but your client doesn't know a
thing about that unless you tell her. I have ... other things. And I
can be sweet when I want." She moved closer and planted an arm around
his neck, leaning in to make herself comfortable. "I can be so sweet
you almost couldn't stand it. Almost."_

_"So can a cyanide soda," Fleetwood said dully. "Sweet and final." He
lifted her arm away from his neck, and it might have been a noose. He
let it drop._

_When he went out the door her smile had got itself all bent._

       *       *       *       *       *

The hallways of the Grande Apartments were carpeted as thickly as
the living quarters. It was the only place in town where you could
sneak up on someone at a dead trot. Fleetwood plushed along in the
direction of the elevators. He was nearly there, just abreast of a
drinking fountain, when it hit him, just like it had those other times
before. He stopped and reached out a hand to steady himself against the
fountain.

In a moment his head began to clear a little and he straightened,
running a lean, trembling hand through his carrot-colored hair. Even
so he clung to the fountain a bit longer and when he finally let go it
was only to free his hand so he could check his pulse. The attacks were
coming closer together now, he reflected. But so were the events which
usually led up to them--the incidents of violence, the sight of blood.

It was crazy, a sort of general softening and mellowing, the kind of
thing that makes you bait for the boys with the cushiony couches and
the expensive ears. It was downright absurd. He had to get hold of
himself.

He searched his mind warily for his own thoughts, as an agent might
search for saboteurs. He looked for those innermost stirrings of the
soul, the ones that breathe of fear and anxiety. But there was nothing.
And that was crazy too. It was as though he'd never had a thought in
his life, or even an experience from which to draw a thought. It was
like amnesia, and yet it wasn't amnesia at all. He knew that he was
Fleetwood Cassidy and he knew that he was a private investigator who
worked independently. But that was where he ran into the wall. But the
really frightening part of it was the veiled feeling that even if he
should manage to scale the wall and look behind it, he'd find--exactly
nothing!

Of course, he told himself, the thing to do was to think back to that
place in time where the spells--the softening--had begun. There lay the
real clue. But it was so much easier said than done. He could project
his thoughts backwards, after some effort, to the day before when he
had jumped into a taxi, shouted to the driver to "follow that car,"
then found himself in a nervous panic lest they were travelling at a
rate of speed in excess of the legal limit. But that was just another
small, humiliating example--by no means the beginning.

       *       *       *       *       *

He forced his thoughts back still farther, but it was rather like
ramrodding a rifle with a ballbat. He arrived finally, by dint of the
most extreme concentration, back in the apartment of that sloe-eyed,
full-lipped and tempestuous beauty, Dolores Nobella. He had given
her a hundred dollars for evidence against her mother, and she had
lifted her skirts with a graceful, crimson-taloned hand and inserted
the bills deftly in the top of her stocking. All of a sudden it had
come to Fleetwood that Dolores, even for a girl with long legs, wore
disturbingly tall stockings--and he had turned away, coloring at the
collar. He, Fleetwood Cassidy, had blushed, and what was more, now that
he thought of it he blushed again.

That was the end. Or rather the beginning--the beginning of Fleetwood's
strange new emotional pattern.

At any rate he felt better having at least established the point
of departure, even if it didn't make the riddle of his growing
metamorphosis one whit clearer. He boosted himself away from the
drinking fountain and continued along the hallway with the eerie
feeling that he was moving toward some prearranged meeting with Destiny.

He was still a soul adrift, so to speak, when he pushed his way out of
the Grande and stood pondering in the afternoon sun. The sidewalk,
the street, the traffic, the confused and crowded skyline--all of
these things, in turn, presented new problems of identification and
orientation, as though he was seeing them all for the first time and
didn't know quite what to make of them. And yet.... And yet--what?
It was as though his mind had made another sudden turning and again
brought him up against the blank wall. The past, even the immediate
past that included the events in the Grande Apartments, slipped away
from him and were lost. When he tried to think back there were only
words in his mind in place of faces, places, events--words like caper,
rod, dame, murder. They brought with them no mental association with
anything real or experienced. He passed a hand slowly over his eyes.
Surely he was losing his mind.

With heavy concentration he forced his attention to the row of
automobiles along the curb. He had the feeling that one of them
belonged to him, but he hadn't the slightest idea of which one it might
be. He closed his eyes and waited. The spell would pass. The others had.

       *       *       *       *       *

He opened his eyes and hopefully surveyed the row of cars for a second
time. There was something about the blue convertible. He moved forward,
thinking to check the registration slip, when a smart-looking woman in
green tweed walked up to the car, got inside, glanced at him curiously
and quickly started the engine. He edged back, coloring about the neck
and ears.

He waited a bit longer but the lost feeling didn't leave him. If
anything it only grew stronger. He turned aimlessly back toward the
Grande Apartments, then started with a gasp of dismay.

The Grande Apartments were gone, and in their place was an
establishment called The Handy Drug Store! Fleetwood tried to think
clearly, more clearly than he ever had before. It wasn't any good;
there wasn't any logical answer. Warily, he approached the store and
went inside.

He by-passed the cigarette counter and the magazine racks, noted their
contents curiously, and climbed aboard a stool at a long counter. At
least it was a place to sit down and rest. A girl approached from the
other side of the counter and made a quick pass at the area in front of
him with a paper napkin.

"Yes?" she inquired.

Fleetwood turned and looked at her, and it happened. His eyebrows shot
up, his heart stood still. He felt faintly ill in a surprised, elated
sort of way. Never had he dreamed that there could be such a creature.
This girl, this ... this fragment of heaven! She couldn't possibly be
real. She was so extraordinarily ordinary!

"What would you like?" the girl said, and Fleetwood tingled anew just
at the sound of her voice; its tone was so enchantingly flat and nasal.
Never had he dreamed that it was possible for any woman to speak with
so little innuendo. He was shaken to the very core. He realized that
because of this girl something very important was happening to him, but
he couldn't quite put his finger on it. The mystery of the disappearing
Grande Apartments faded from his mind.

"I beg your pardon?" he murmured in an effort to induce the girl to
speak again.

"I said, what do you want?" the girl repeated, and her grey-brown eyes
looked into his unconcernedly.

It was too good to be true! Here she was, this extraordinary female
person, apparently eager, even impatient, to fulfill his slightest
wish, just for the naming. Fleetwood took a firm grip on the edge
of the counter. If this was a dream he didn't want to interrupt it
by being too rash. His eyes dwelt on her hair, tabulating the exact
measure of its fascinating dullness.

"Bourbon and water?" he said cautiously. "Double?" He couldn't remember
exactly what it meant, but it seemed a likely entry.

"Huh?" the girl said. "What was that?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Fleetwood's heart sank; he'd said the wrong thing, and the first
crack out of the box, too. Obviously, he had blundered somehow into a
strange land where people spoke in prepared dialogues, and the moment
he'd opened his mouth he'd gone up in his lines. There was a proper
response to the question, "what do you want?" but "bourbon and water"
was not it. He glanced around nervously as two young women arrived at
the magazine racks behind him and simultaneously picked up copies of
the _New York Toast_. Neither returned his glance or even gave the
slightest indication that they were aware of his existence, much less
his dilemma. He looked back at the girl who had now begun to eye him
rather curiously. Plainly she was waiting for him to get on with it; he
had to try again, no matter how much he might disappoint both of them.

"Scotch and soda?" he offered timorously.

"Gosh," the girl said, "where do you think you are?"

"I don't know," Fleetwood said and attempted what he hoped was the sort
of glance that pleads understanding. "I mean to say...."

"Are you being funny about a cup of coffee, or do you really think
you're in a bar somewhere?"

"Coffee?" Fleetwood said. He seized upon the word as a drowning man
might snatch at a drifting life preserver. Besides, it dinged a small
bell of recognition somewhere in the back of his mind. "Yes," he
murmured, "coffee, please."

"Okay, then," the girl said, and left.

Fleetwood reflected on this exchange in a thickening mood of
perturbation. Retracing, haltingly, its tangled bypaths, it seemed
to lack in retrospect those bright glimmerings of reason that one
looks for in a friendly conversation. The end result appeared to
be that he was merely about to receive coffee, which his confused
faculties identified only as something murky and brown, of undetermined
usefulness. He had hoped for more. As he thought on it, however, voices
reached to his inner ear. The girls at the magazine racks had tuned up
conversationally. Chit-chat was their medium, of the sort that, for all
its lack of substance, takes on a certain penetration after a time. In
the end, Fleetwood found himself slipping, no matter how unwillingly,
into the role of the eavesdropper. As it was, though, he couldn't have
selected a more illuminating moment in which to fall from grace.

"I've been following him for years," one of the girls said as Fleetwood
dialed in full strength. "I watch for him every time he comes out."

"Fleetwood Cassidy?" the second girl responded. "Oh, sure. I'm always
watching for him."

       *       *       *       *       *

At this exchange, the back of Fleetwood's neck could not have
bristled more smartly had someone begun currying operations with a
pair of spiked boots. He straightened rigidly on his stool, twitched
significantly about the ears and nose and, in short, affected all
the most usual aspects of a beagle alerted to the first whiff of a
super-scented fox. Coming as it did in the exact moment of his greatest
befuddlement, this overheard snatch of conversation had a telling
effect. All at once it posed questions, suggested half-answers and
plunged him headlong into a whole new field of bewildering conjecture.
It all came too suddenly, however, for him to know how to react to it.
For a moment he simply froze to his stool and stared straight ahead
like a hypnotized hen.

It was this reactional delay, then, which bogged him down at the
decisive moment. By the time he jarred himself into action and twisted
around on the stool, the girls had already moved away. One of them, in
fact, was well along in the act of handing over the cash for a copy of
the _Saturday Morning Call_ to the cashier by the door.

"Hey!" Fleetwood said weakly. "Here, there...!"

But time had drained out. The girl completed her transaction with the
cashier, joined her friend at the door, and the two of them legged it
in unison out to the sidewalk and into the burgeoning sunset. By the
time Fleetwood had reached the doorway they had lost themselves in the
crowd.

"Hey," Fleetwood murmured with limp regret and turned back to find that
the girl had returned to the counter and placed a steaming cup at his
place. She was watching him with worried interest.

"You want this joe, don't you?" she asked as he returned.

"Yes," Fleetwood said, settling himself and gazing dully into the
cup. "Yes, I want it." He lifted the cup and sampled the coffee which
suddenly tasted quite familiar to him. But the greater part of his
mind was concerned with other things. He looked up at the waitress who
was still standing before him.

"I wonder," he said, "did you notice those two young women who were
just here? The ones standing there at the magazine racks?"

The girl inclined her head thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded.

"Clare and Connie?" she said.

"You know them?"

"Uh-huh. Sort of."

"Who are they?"

"Who _are_ they? Clare and Connie?"

"Yes. What about them?"

"Well, that's their names, Clare and Connie," the girl said. "That's
all I know."

"But what do they do?" Fleetwood said, trying it another way. "Have you
ever heard?"

"Oh," the girl said. "They're telephone operators. They come in here
all the time."

"Telephone operators?" Fleetwood did his best to digest this patently
indigestible piece of information. No matter how he chewed it it still
didn't fit with what had just happened. He drummed his fingers on
the counter for a moment. "Are you sure you couldn't be mistaken?"
he asked. "It couldn't be that maybe they work for some sort of
investigator or the government, could it?"

"Oh, no," the girl said positively. "Why should they do that?"

"Well," Fleetwood said, watching her closely, "I overheard them talking
just now, and they were saying something about following someone
called Fleetwood Cassidy."

"Oh, sure," the girl said and smiled in a way that didn't in the least
degree mar her expression of profound placidity. "Everyone follows him."

Fleetwood gaped. "Huh?" he said.

"Uh-huh," the girl said. "The _Call_...."

She broke off as an elderly man hailed her from the other end of the
counter. "Hey, Kitty," he pleaded. "I haven't got all night, you know."

"Sure, Max," Kitty answered amiably, and departed.

"Wait!" Fleetwood said, but she didn't turn back.

       *       *       *       *       *

Fleetwood furrowed his brow and pondered her last words. The call ...
she had said. The call. The call of what? The call _to_ what, for that
matter. Then it struck him like a coarsely threaded bolt flung out of
the blue.

The _Call_! Of course! The _Saturday Morning Call_! The very magazine
which one of the girls, Clare or Connie, had bought and tucked so
conspicuously under her arm on leaving the store. Fleetwood's mind
raced. It was perfectly plain, cut and dried like an apricot in season.
The _Call_ was the signal, the emblem of some secret society or
organization which, for their own sinister purposes, was keeping tabs
on him. The members made themselves known and communicated with each
other through displaying the _Call_ under their arms. But why? It was
absurd; by his very profession he was supposed to be a watcher, not a
watchee.

As he pondered this latest and newest equation he turned his gaze
automatically to the magazine racks and the several issues of the
_Call_ which were on display there. He looked, and fell back aghast,
unable to believe his eyes But there it was nonetheless, in spite of
his disbelief:

BEGINNING IN THIS ISSUE! the banner across the cover gasped
breathlessly, FLEETWOOD CASSIDY AND THE KIPPERED CAPER!

As well he might, after taking this in, Fleetwood went limp on his
stool, washed through with conflicting emotions. It was plain that
either he or the world had lost all sanity. He closed his eyes and
commanded his head to stop reeling. Even so, it was some moments before
he regained sufficient composure to reopen his eyes and bend down to
take up one of the magazines for a closer inspection. And when he did,
it rattled and flapped about in his grip like a struggling egret in a
blizzard.

He maneuvered the magazine to the counter and eased an elbow onto it to
hold it still. He gazed at it hollowly for some moments before, taking
his courage in his hands, he opened it and churned through it to the
first page of THE KIPPERED CAPER.

He stared in silent wonder. There, rendered in natural tints, staring
back at him with all the sweep and grandeur purchaseable from the hand
of a top flight commercial artist, was his own face.

"Awrr!" said Fleetwood. "Uphh!" And for the moment that comprised his
entire comment on the discovery.

Time lost all meaning to Fleetwood. For all he knew whole hours might
have slipped by as he sat there staring down at the illustration. There
was one thing, though, about which he was positive; he had never posed
for the portrait in the magazine. But then how could they have gotten
such an exact likeness? And there was his name too. Something more than
weird coincidence was involved here, he was certain of it. He started
violently as the voice sounded in his ear.

"More coffee?"

The girl Kitty was standing before him again, the _Silex_ poised
expertly over his cup. Fleetwood stared up at her with haunted eyes.
His mouth worked loosely for several moments before he produced
intelligible sound.

"L--look!" he said, twisting the magazine around in her direction.
"Look at that!"

Kitty put down the _Silex_ and studied the picture with grave interest.
"Seems familiar," she murmured. Then she made a quick clucking noise of
recognition. "Of course! That's Fleetwood Cassidy, the fellow in the
story. But just for a moment it looked like somebody else I've seen
around...." She looked up at Fleetwood. "It's you, isn't it? You pose
for Fleetwood Cassidy!"

"No," Fleetwood said despairingly. "That's just the trouble. I don't
pose for Fleetwood Cassidy. I've never heard of Fleetwood Cassidy. I
mean I _am_ Fleetwood Cassidy. Anyway...."

       *       *       *       *       *

But Kitty's attention had already gone back to the illustration. "I
always thought this fellow, Grant Dermitt, just made you up out of his
head. You a good friend of his?"

"Grant Dermitt?" Fleetwood asked. "Who's he?"

"The guy who writes about you," Kitty said. "Oh, you know; you're
kidding me." She smiled down at the illustration, unaware that just
beyond her nose its flesh-and-blood counterpart had become distorted
with a look of slack-mouthed stupefaction. "Just listen here to what
it says about you." She began to read from the page opposite the
illustration:

_Fleetwood shoved Caroline away from him, and she plumped down on the
sofa like a mail bag heaved off a passing train, soft and sullen._

_"Save it for the next sucker," he drawled. "When I'm ready to go
shopping for coffins I'll let you know. But I'm not ready, not just
yet."_

_Her face became a white mask of anger. "I'll kill you, Cassidy!" she
shrilled. "You can't push me around and not bleed for it sooner or
later. I'll kill you, damn you!"_

_"You'll try," Fleetwood nodded with a wry smile. "But take a tip,
sugar, when you come gunning for me don't wear that negligee. It
doesn't give you any place to hide the weapon. In fact it doesn't give
you any place to hide anything."_

_When he sauntered out the door she was still staring at him, her face
twisted and mottled in the firelight like an artist's paint rag._

"Gosh!" Kitty said, looking up from the magazine. "Gee!"

But Fleetwood didn't hear her. Suddenly a lot of things were falling
into place and it was like deciphering a coded letter only to find
out that the message you'd been working so hard to unsnarl was one
telling you you'd never been born, that you were just a figment of
your own imagination. He remembered the face in the firelight--and the
negligee--and all the rest of it. But it wasn't a _real_ memory. It was
only the shadow of something that hadn't really happened at all, merely
the phantom remembrance of a reverie or a dream.

       *       *       *       *       *

Suddenly a dazed, trance-like expression clouded his eyes. He shoved
himself away from the stool, turned and started toward the door.

"Hey!" Kitty yelled. "Hey, just a minute! You owe me ten cents!"

But Fleetwood continued to the door, stepped out to the sidewalk, and
glanced purposefully down the row of parked cars....

"Just imagine!" Kitty breathed. "Just feature you being real!"

"No," Fleetwood murmured. "No." He looked up at her, beyond her, his
eyes filled with a shocking realization. "No, I'm not real. I...."

       *       *       *       *       *

_The grey coupe ground to a stop in the drive and Fleetwood got out.
As he rounded the shrubs he could see that there were lights on in the
house. That was good; Evelyn was home. It was a nice lay-out, swank and
beautiful but very refined, like Evelyn herself. He could hear the wash
and roll of the ocean from somewhere beyond and below. He patted his
pocket, felt the box, and legged it up the steps._

_Maybe Evelyn wouldn't exactly fall in his arms--her good training
would blow the whistle on that one--but maybe she'd lean in his
direction a little, especially when she saw that the stones were still
all there. He reached out and put his finger to the buzzer._

As he waited, a qualm crossed his mind, the ghost of something he
couldn't quite remember. There was a dim, fleeting glimpse of another
world, a world made up of a counter, the face of a girl, a magazine....
But it wouldn't focus properly; his memory couldn't make the hurdle.
The door opened and Evelyn Anders was standing before him.

_"Fleetwood," she said. She held her hand out to him and smiled.
"Please come in, won't you?"_

_Maybe it was something in those cool blue eyes of hers, or maybe it
was just that the harsh light over the door made her look pale; he got
the idea that behind her gracious manner there was a sharp edge of
nervousness. He got it stronger as she released her hand and made one
of those small, miscellaneous gestures toward her hair._

_"Hello, Ev," he said. "I know it's not manners to just drop in like
this, but I've got something to show you."_

_She didn't answer as she moved aside to let him in. He stepped into
the hallway and waited for her to close the door. As she did so, he
took in the jade green dinner gown and reflected that it was the kind
of yardage that gave you the idea but let you think you'd gotten it all
by yourself. Evelyn had class with a soft "a," but it wasn't stuffy,
not on her._

_"My maid's off tonight," she said, putting her arm through his and
leading him toward the living room. "You can talk freely."_

_She maneuvered him to the divan in front of the fireplace and managed
it so that they sat down in graceful unison. She leaned back and
suddenly the dinner dress had a neckline._ The qualm flipped again on
the surface of Fleetwood's mind, like a minnow breaking the mirrored
calm of a mountain pool. He edged away from Evelyn. She was saying
something, but suddenly her voice had a senseless, clattering sound.

"What?" he said desperately. "What are you saying?"

_"... so I hope you have something nice to show me," she was saying as
his senses suddenly cleared. "I could use a dash of something nice just
now."_

_"Oh, yes," Fleetwood said and reached into his pocket. He took out
the ivory box and held it out to her._

_"The case!" she said, and he noticed that her hand trembled as she
took it. "Are they ... are the stones all right?"_

_"They're all there," Fleetwood said and waited for the touch, the
glance that he had hoped would be his reward. "You may jump a little,
though, when I tell you where I got them."_

_"Oh?" she murmured. Her gaze remained fixed on the box and its
contents._

_"Mario," Fleetwood said. "He lifted them the night of the killing." He
sat back and waited._

_There wasn't a touch or a glance. There wasn't even a flicker of
surprise. He should have gotten it straight right there, but it wasn't
until she turned and glanced back over her shoulder that he really
tumbled. He jumped up, but Mario was already in the doorway. The gun in
Mario's hand was only the companion piece to the cold ruthlessness in
his eyes._

_Evelyn got up from the divan and faded back into the shadows beside
the fireplace. She still had class, cowering there in the dimness, but
you could sound the "a" through your nose._

_"So that's how things match up," Fleetwood said. He turned away from
Mario and stared at Evelyn, a dumb move, the kind of thing a guy does
when he finds out that the angel in his life got her halo from the
local tinsmith. "You're wasting yourself, Ev," he said softly. "You
didn't have to team up with a rotten slob like that, not a gal like
you. It's like pitting platinum buttons on a suit of flannel drawers--"_

       *       *       *       *       *

He stopped short and swung about. It was more than a qualm this time;
it was a full-blown mental flip-flop. What the hell was he thinking
about, turning his back on a guy with a loaded gun in his hand? Maybe
it was romantic as the devil to stand around orating to a beautiful
woman on manners and morals in the face of death and destruction but it
certainly wasn't good sense. And now that he came to think of it, what
in heaven's name was he doing in a preposterous situation like this
anyway? Whatever was going on it certainly couldn't be allowed to go
any further.

"Now, look, fella," he said soothingly, turning back to Mario, "let's
cut out all this nonsense before someone gets hurt."

_Mario came toward him, his putty face impassive. Evelyn started from
the shadows._

_"You're not going to kill him?" she cried. "Mario!"_

"No, Mario!" Fleetwood said with a feeling of complete madness. "No.
You musn't get yourself worked up like this!"

_"Shut up!" Mario snapped. "Maybe you gave out the invitations, honey,
but it's still my party."_

_"You said you wouldn't!" Evelyn said. "You promised, Mario!"_

"Yes, Mario," Fleetwood murmured worriedly, staring at the gun, "you
promised."

_"How stupid can you broads get?" Mario sneered. "You think I'm going
to let him talk?"_

_"No, Mario! No!"_

"She's right, Mario," Fleetwood said, nodding in vigorous accord. "You
should listen to her. Besides I won't talk. I wouldn't even know what
to say."

_"Turn around, Rover Boy," Mario said, motioning with his gun._

Fleetwood fully realized by now that he couldn't possibly make himself
heard to them, but the situation demanded at least a try. He turned to
Evelyn. "Talk to him," he urged. "Do something. Call the police!"

_"Mario!" Evelyn cried, and covered her face with, her hands. "Not
here! Please don't do it here!" She began to cry hysterically._

_There was a pause, then a grunt from Mario that might have meant
anything. A battalion of ants began to crawl up and down Fleetwood's
spine. Mario's plodding footsteps sounded directly behind him. He
tensed against whatever was about to happen. Then, in a rush, a small
whirring sound descended swiftly behind his ear and his head split
with pain. The floor opened into a black abyss in front of him and he
plunged toward it headfirst._

       *       *       *       *       *

In the same moment, the counter, the girl, the magazine, and the world
that contained them became blindingly vivid and real. His mind suddenly
cleared and he picked himself up from the floor in a mood of fretful
indignation.

Of course he hadn't dropped into any black abyss of unconsciousness;
he'd merely stumbled and fallen from sheer nervousness. And a damned
thick bit of business it was too. It made you look like a fool. As a
matter of fact, now that he had a moment to collect his thoughts, he'd
had quite enough of this prosey nonsense and he was fully prepared to
assert himself against it. He got up, brushed himself off with careful
deliberation, and turned defiantly to his companions.

"Look, you two," he said firmly, "I'm sick and tired of this childish
sketch, and it's about time you knew it. You can go on with all the
melodramatic clap-trap you like, but for my part I'm...."

The rest of it jammed up tight in his throat.

The two were not listening; in fact they were no longer in any
condition to listen, even if they wanted to. They stood frozen,
transfixed in positions of action--and jarringly two-dimensional! They
were precisely like life-sized cardboard cut-outs of themselves. They
stood, supported by heaven only knew what means, staring at the spot
where he had fallen.

But that wasn't the worst of it. They were incomplete representations
of themselves into the bargain. Neither of them had mouths; the woman's
face was simply a sketched outline, Mario's a drawing of an irregular
lump of putty. Fleetwood stared at them; he didn't know what he had
expected--perhaps that they would be transformed like himself. The last
piece of the puzzle fell into place. He looked about.

The room had become a vague, unreal area in time, containing only
a fireplace, a divan and two doorways. Looking on its clouded grey
confines, he felt himself hovering crazily between fact and fancy. But
this time he wasn't puzzled or frightened by the sensation. Turning, he
forced himself to move against the room and away from it, out of the
house. It was hard to make progress in a world where space and distance
stretched and contracted in alternate convulsions, where substance did
not exist upon which to gain a footing....

       *       *       *       *       *

"Well for Pete's sake!" Kitty sputtered. "So you came back!"

Fleetwood glanced up and shook his head. She was gazing at him from
across the counter.

"Uh-huh," he said vaguely.

"Well, you still owe me ten cents." She held out her hand. "The way you
pop in and out of here like you were magic, I'm not taking any more
chances. Pay up."

Fleetwood fished about in his pocket and, much to his own surprise,
withdrew a coin. He held it out for Kitty's critical inspection.

"Four bits," she said. "I'll bring you your change." She went to the
cash register and, after the necessary manipulations, returned with
three smaller coins. "I had you figured for a deadbeat," she said.
"I'm sorry."

"It's okay Kitty," Fleetwood said.

"Kitty?" she said, then shrugged. "Well, okay, I guess."

Fleetwood gazed at her absently, his mind on other things for a moment.

"What's the matter?" Kitty asked. "You look worried. You looked kind of
dopey before, but now you look worried too."

"This Grant Dermitt," Fleetwood said. "What do you know about him?"

"Grant Dermitt?" Kitty said.

"The fellow who writes about me. You know."

"Oh, yeah. Grant Dermitt. What about him?"

"That's what I want to know," Fleetwood said. "What about him?"

"I don't know why I enjoy talking to you," Kitty said. "It never gets
us anywhere. What do you want to know about this Grant Dermitt? Not
that I can tell you anyway."

"I want to see him," Fleetwood said. "I have to get in touch with him."

"Why don't you call him up on the telephone? He lives somewhere here in
town. I heard at the Towers. What do you have to see him about?"

"I really don't know," Fleetwood said, "not for sure."

"You're funny," Kitty said.

"Yeah, I guess I am," Fleetwood reflected. He left the counter and
crossed to the phone booths. Picking up the directory he turned to the
T's. He looked back at Kitty.

"You can bring me some coffee, if you want."

"Okay," she nodded and departed in the direction of the urns.

       *       *       *       *       *

Finding the listing for the Towers, Fleetwood turned to the telephone
and reached toward it. Then he checked himself. He left the booth and
returned to the counter where Kitty and the coffee were waiting for him.

"Find your number?" Kitty asked.

"Uh-huh." He nodded and stared down into the brown liquid in the cup.
"Yeah."

"Aren't you going to call?"

"Yeah. Only all of a sudden I feel funny about it. It's something I've
got to do, only I don't know just how to do it, to make it come out
right. It's awfully important." He looked up at her quite suddenly. "Do
you like me, Kitty?"

She smiled with slow confusion. "Sure. I like lots of people."

"No," Fleetwood said, shaking his head. "That's not what I mean. Do you
_like_ me?"

Her gaze moved thoughtfully over his face. "You're funny, like I said,"
she murmured. "You act--well, kind of daffy. And your ears stick out.
But...." She nodded with sudden decision. "Sure, I like you, Fleetwood.
I like you fine."

Fleetwood grinned at her and realized by the strangeness of it that he
was enjoying the sensation for the first time in his life. It was nice
to grin at someone. And all at once he knew quite certainly what he had
to do--and that it was the right thing to do. He spun around on the
stool and started away. Then he stopped and turned back for a moment.

"I like you too, Kitty," he said and went into the phone booth.

"Well, for Pete's sake!" Kitty said and turned and looked at herself
unbelievingly in the mirror behind the register. "Gee whiz!"

The Towers was apparently the sort of establishment which believes in
bending every effort to prevent the telephone and the English language
from going any further than they have to as a means of communication.

"And who shall I say is calling?" the supercilious voice of the Towers
enquired.

"Fleetwood Cassidy," Fleetwood told the Towers. "_Mr._ Fleetwood
Cassidy."

"Very well, Mr. Cassidy, just one mo.... Did you say _Fleetwood_
Cassidy?"

"I did," Fleetwood said. "And tell Mr. Dermitt it's a matter of life
and death."

"I see," the Towers mused with modulated forebearance, "it's a little
joke, eh? Who shall we say is _really_ calling?"

"Never mind," Fleetwood said. "Just say it's a friend on a matter of
extreme urgency. Snap into it."

"Oh, very well," the Towers said, plainly piqued, "if you insist."

       *       *       *       *       *

A silence followed, punctuated by several non-committal clicks and an
intermittent buzzing. Finally the voice of the Towers resumed.

"Mr. Dermitt will speak to you, sir," it announced regretfully. "Please
hold on while he changes instruments."

There was a final click and the voice of the Towers was supplanted by
the voice of Grant Dermitt. It expressed an even blend of harassment
and vexation.

"Now, look here, Paul," it said, getting right down to brass tacks,
"this isn't the time for you to be calling up with your bum jokes,
telling the clerk you're Fleetwood Cassidy. I'm in a jam with this yarn
and I haven't got time to be cute. Now, what's on your mind?"

"I don't know Paul," Fleetwood said, "so I'm in no position to speak
for him. But I'll be very happy to tell you what's on my mind. And
that's plenty. In fact I'm only calling to warn you I'm on my way over
to tell you about it right now."

"What?" Grant Dermitt said. "Who is this anyway?"

"Fleetwood Cassidy," Fleetwood said, "that's who. And don't tell me I
can't be, because I am."

"Now, just a minute," Grant Dermitt broke in. "Whoever you are, you've
got a lousy sense of humor. And if you've got anything important to
say, which I dismiss as a serious possibility, you'd better get on with
it before I hang up, which I am just about to do."

"Okay," Fleetwood said. "I'll run over the facts, touching lightly on
the high spots. We'll shoot in the details later when I see you. My
name is Fleetwood Cassidy. I'm six feet tall, have red hair, grey-green
eyes and ears that noticeably protrude. I've been going through a lot
of damnfool nonsense for quite some time because of you and I'm fed
up to the teeth with it. I'd like to see you in order to turn in my
resignation in person, but if you prefer, I'll be just as pleased to
send it to you through the mails. If you don't believe...."

"You're crazy," Dermitt interrupted. "I'm hanging up."

"Just a minute," Fleetwood said firmly. "There's more and it gets more
interesting as it goes along. I've just come from being deceived by a
woman named Evelyn who has class, alternately pronounced with a hard
and soft 'a', slugged behind the ear by a putty-faced gunman named
Mario and pitched headfirst into a black abyss. But I decided the whole
sequence was too corny, so I got up off the floor, dusted myself off
and called you up just to say hello. Does any of that ring a bell with
you, Dermitt?"

"What!" Dermitt yelped. "How do you know about all that? You
couldn't.... Why, I just this minute.... Who _are_ you?"

"Fleetwood Cassidy," Fleetwood said blandly. "Do I come over and see
you?"

There was a sputtering sound at the other end of the line, then a wash
of confused silence.

"Do I?" Fleetwood persisted.

"Y-yes," Dermitt said in a greatly reduced tone of voice. "I guess so."
There was another beat of silence, then a spate of false laughter. "Of
course I still think this is all just a gag."

"Sure," Fleetwood said, "you'll be sick with laughter."

       *       *       *       *       *

Grant Dermitt lived on the ninth floor of the Towers, where, as
Fleetwood observed, the swank began in the foyer and increased, from
floor to floor, as you went up. The brocaded elevator attendant glided
in for a smooth landing, slid back the doors and confided in muted
tones that Mr. Dermitt's digs lay due north and could best be reached
by taking a steady heading in that direction. Fleetwood nodded with
thanks and proceeded on schedule and according to plan.

He presented himself at the door marked 9-B and pressed the buzzer,
not, however without a pause first for a deep meditative breath. There
was no question in his mind that his next step, the one that would take
him across Mr. Grant Dermitt's door-sill, would be the most decisive
in his entire life. He poised himself, therefore, in an appropriate
attitude of semi-military vigilance and waited for the encounter to
take place.

There was hardly any lapse between the sound of the buzzer inside the
apartment and the echo of rapidly approaching footsteps. The footsteps,
however, for all their orderly progression, stopped abruptly just
short of the inner side of the door. In the pause that followed,
Fleetwood reflected with understanding sympathy that he was not alone
in the need to brace himself against the impending interview, and he
found courage in this fact. Then the door opened and zero hour had
arrived.

Never had Fleetwood seen a larger, blacker pair of spectacles, nor
indeed had he even suspected that there was such a pair in existence.
In fact it was not until he had recovered from the shock of these
spectacular glasses that he was able to give their wearer so much as a
thought. It was only then that he came to the decision that perhaps it
wasn't so much that the glasses were large but that Grant Dermitt was
small.

Dermitt could not have been over five and a half feet tall, and his
head was large and flat on top so as to give him an odd, hammered-down
appearance. Though he was obviously somewhere in the mid-thirties, his
face had retained the alarming pinkness of adolescence. Through his
glasses he peered up at Fleetwood with a sort of thoughtful horror.

"Oof!" he said by way of greeting. "Uhhhh!"

Fleetwood understood perfectly; it was probably quite a shock to the
little fellow. He nodded in affable reply and filtered through the door
into the entry.

As his host finally managed to rattle the door into a closed position,
he made his way into the living room which was straight ahead. A wall
of glass, to the left, afforded an unbroken and dramatic view of the
city. The furniture was functionally modern, and to the right was a
sort of alcove containing a desk, typewriter and three file cabinets.
The over-all effect was very glittering, very urbane.

"You've got a nice lay-out here," Fleetwood commented chattily.

       *       *       *       *       *

Quivering visibly in the doorway, his host, however, was in no frame of
mind for conversational hanky-panky about interior decoration.

"You...!" he erupted. "You _are_!"

"Of course," Fleetwood nodded. "I told you I was, didn't I?"

"But you can't be!"

"I had a hunch you were going to say that," Fleetwood said.

"Oh, my word!" Grant Dermitt made his way to the nearest chair and
plumped himself down into it. "My word!" he repeated. He stared at
Fleetwood lengthily, plainly engaged in an inward struggle with his
own senses. "But it's only a resemblance," he said finally. "That's
all it _could_ be, just a fantastic coincidence." His gaze entreated
Fleetwood. "Isn't it?"

Fleetwood shook his head and settled himself comfortably into the
chair opposite. "Shall I tell you the plot of your present story?" he
drawled. "Or would the experience be too painful?"

"Oh, dear!" Grant Dermitt said, making a small random gesture with his
hand. "There is that, too, isn't there? No one could have known those
things you told me on the telephone...."

"No one but me," Fleetwood said. "And who would know them better?"

"I simply don't know what to make of it," Dermitt moaned. "It's too
crazy to believe, but...." He looked up at Fleetwood. "When did this
happen?"

Fleetwood told him of the qualms, the spells, the small awakenings
which had culminated in the final, major one that evening.

"I see," Dermitt said when he had finished. "In a way it begins to make
sense. It checks with all the trouble you've been giving me lately."

"I've been giving _you_ trouble!" Fleetwood said self-righteously.
"What about the trouble you've been giving me? And not just lately. To
date, under your gentle auspices, I have sustained twelve broken noses,
seventeen crushed ribs, nine bullet wounds in the shoulders--five
right, four left--three skull fractures and a sprained thumb. As for
the black eyes, superficial lacerations, burns and random bruises,
we'll just pass those by as too numerous and picayune to inventory
at this time. However--and I wish to make this abundantly clear--I'm
stuffed to the glottis with the whole muggy business. In fact, to be
perfectly honest with you, Dermitt, my nerves won't stand any more of
it. You can't imagine how it shakes me to face a loaded gun anymore,
let alone turn my back on one, as you had me do this evening. If I
should ever have to repeat such a performance I wouldn't be a bit
surprised if I broke down and had a severe attack of the vapors. You
may call me a sissy if you like, but the wear and tear on my nervous
system is beginning to tell in my emotional reactions and I don't want
any more of it."

"Yes," Dermitt said, momentarily overwhelmed. "I suppose I have been a
little rough on you, but I...."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Exactly," Fleetwood cut in. "And never a hint of any sort of
compensation or old age retirement. Not that that's the main
consideration. If you had made me into one of those gentleman,
garden-party type detectives, that would be an entirely different
matter. Those boys go to all the best places, rub elbows with the
cream of society and live off the fat of the land. They have a chance
to improve themselves socially and prosper in the bargain. But this
other routine, this rowdyism and mucking about with the absolute scum
of the earth--well, let me tell you, it takes it out of a man and puts
nothing back in return. So you'll understand when I say I'm quitting
and getting out."

"Quitting!" Dermitt half rose from his chair, his eyes large enough
to almost fill the circles of his enormous glasses. "Do you mean you
actually intend--"

"I do," Fleetwood nodded emphatically. "Now that I have the chance to
get out of the thing and take up a real life for myself I mean to do
so. I felt it was only fair, though, to look you up first and explain
my reasons."

"But you can't!" Dermitt squeaked. "You're just a fictional character!
You can't do that to me!" He swallowed excitedly, held out a hand of
supplication. "I didn't mean to be so hard on you, Cassidy. Believe me,
if I had only known...."

"I know," Fleetwood said. "And I don't bear any grudges. As far as that
goes I'm exceedingly grateful to you in a way. After all, if it weren't
for you I might never have seen the light of day at all. In fact, if
you don't mind, there are moments when I'm somewhat inclined to regard
you in much the same way as a son might regard his father."

"Oh, my God, no!" Dermitt exploded, leaving his chair entirely. "This
is madness! It can't be happening, it simply can't!" He whirled about
suddenly and fixed Fleetwood with an anguished eye. "Who sent you here
to do this to me?"

"No one," Fleetwood said. "I just came. You've got to believe...."

"This is a gag--a trick!"

"Oh, hell," Fleetwood sighed dejectedly, "now we're right back where we
started."

"You'd better tell me who sent you," Dermitt said shakenly. "You've got
to, because I can't stand any more of it!"

"My view exactly," Fleetwood put in gently.

"I'll go crazy! I'll go to pieces right here in front of you! I'll
shatter like a crystal! Would you like that?"

"No," Fleetwood said. "Doesn't sound pleasant at all." He looked at
Dermitt with speculation. "Do you mean you actually could disintegrate
right here at my feet? Is it really possible for people to do that sort
of thing?"

"Oh, Lord!" Dermitt shrieked. "Tell me who sent you. Please, _please_!"

"I really don't know what to say," Fleetwood sympathized. "I'd love to
tell you this is only a joke, since it seems to mean so much to you,
but I honestly can't. I'm strapped by the facts, if you see what I
mean."

       *       *       *       *       *

Fleetwood's tone seemed to soothe Dermitt a trifle, for he returned to
his chair and fell limply into it. For a space, he sat staring down at
the carpet in a markedly haunted way, his hands twitching in his lap.
Finally he looked up.

"I don't believe you," he murmured, and if he had anything more to say
he was obviously quite beyond saying it for the moment. There was a
prolonged silence in which Fleetwood became restive. He cleared his
throat. Dermitt jumped.

"Look," Fleetwood said, seeing that any further negotiations were
entirely up to him, "we've got to settle this business one way or
the other. I want to get out of this fiction racket. In fact, I
must. That's why I came here. But, obviously, if I'm going to quit
successfully you're going to have to extend a certain amount of
cooperation. At least you're going to have to stop using me in your
stories. Along those lines I can't see any possibility of an agreeable
settlement until you are convinced beyond any doubt that I am actually
me. I suppose I'm going to have to prove it to you."

Dermitt rallied a bit at this. "And you'll never do that," he said,
"not to my satisfaction. I just won't believe it. I refuse."

"Maybe you will," Fleetwood said. "You'll have to help me, though, I'm
afraid."

"What are you going to do?"

"You'll see." Fleetwood paused for reflection. "Now, then, in that last
scene you have me diving into a black abyss. That was the last bit of
it, wasn't it?"

" ... _the floor opened into a black abyss in front of him_," Dermitt
quoted, "_and he dived in headfirst._"

"That's right," Fleetwood nodded. "What's the next line?"

"The next line?" Dermitt said. "How should I know? I haven't written it
yet."

"But you must have some idea. Suppose you go over there to your desk
and write it out right now--just as an experiment?"

"Huh? What are you up to?"

"Just try it and see what happens. I'd rather like to know myself as a
matter of fact."

Keeping his eyes on Fleetwood, Dermitt got up slowly and crossed to
the desk in the alcove. "You're mad," he said uncertainly. "You're out
of your mind."

"No," Fleetwood said with a wry smile. "I'm out of _your_ mind.
Besides, you dwell too much on insanity. That's morbid in a fellow your
age." Dermitt said something under his breath, but Fleetwood didn't
hear it. "Now just sit down and write the next line as it comes to you.
And watch me, too, while you do it. I think we may both learn something
interesting."

       *       *       *       *       *

Dermitt sighed deeply and seated himself before the typewriter. "Oh,
well," he sighed, "what have I got to lose now?" His face however held
the expression of a man who was on the verge of losing everything; he
was whistling in the dark. He turned to the typewriter and pressed a
trembling hand to his left temple.

"Just one line, though," Fleetwood cautioned him. "No more than that."

"The way I'm feeling," Dermitt muttered, "I'll be lucky to do that
much." He lowered his uncertain fingers to the keys and began to type:

_Through the cushiony darkness that engulfed him, a voice called out
to Fleetwood with metallic shrillness_ ... (At the very first tap of
the keys, Fleetwood felt himself falling into black unconsciousness. He
smiled with satisfaction and let it happen.) ... _like a silver cord
plucked by a skeletal hand._

Fleetwood awoke slowly as the keys stopped tapping and the room grew
still. He was still seated in the chair. He stretched himself and
glanced across at Dermitt, whose eyes were now even larger than his
glasses. The little man, lost in sputtering inarticulation, merely
pointed at Fleetwood.

"You ... you ... you!" he managed finally. "You _faded_! Right in front
of my eyes, you vanished!" He quivered emotionally. "Oh, my God!" He
boosted himself unsteadily away from the desk and out of the chair.
He came tottering across the room toward Fleetwood. "Wha ... what
happened?"

Fleetwood shrugged. "It's perfectly plain, isn't it? You transferred me
to paper."

"Then you _are_!"

Fleetwood spread his hands significantly.

       *       *       *       *       *

Dermitt moved back to the chair and executed another collapse. It is
not likely that the stock crash of '29 could have produced a more vivid
picture of the Ruined Man. His arms hung slack at his sides.

"No wonder the story's been going so badly lately," he groaned. "No
wonder you haven't been consistent in print." He looked up slowly.
"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing special," Fleetwood said. "Live a little, I suppose. I haven't
made any definite plans yet. Maybe I'll just do something quiet, like
raising flowers."

"You mean--like you said--you're just walking out on me?"

Fleetwood nodded. "But I'd really prefer it if you wouldn't look at it
just that way."

"But you can't, Cassidy, you just can't. Not just now anyway. I need
you. I've got to finish that story. I've got to have the money from it.
I'm up to my ears in bills and obligations. I can show you if you don't
believe me.... My--our last one, The Kippered Caper, is going awfully
well on reactions and they've already promised me a better price on
this one...."

"I'm sorry," Fleetwood said, "really I am."

"But you _can't_!" Suddenly he stopped, and a look of inspired
shrewdness came into his cherubic features. Magnified by his enormous
glasses, the new light in his eyes was hard to miss. Fleetwood didn't
like the look of it.

"I won't let you," Dermitt went on in a much calmer tone. "I'll put you
on paper, and you'll have to stay there until I'm done with you. You
can't dictate to me. I'll write night and day. I'll take pills to keep
me awake, and...."

"I was afraid you might take this tack," Fleetwood said. "But it won't
work. As you've said yourself, you've been having all sorts of trouble
with me lately. That means I've developed a will of my own, even on
paper. If you shove me back into that story you're going to have more
trouble than you ever dreamed of. You'll never get the story finished.
I meant it sincerely when I said I bear you no ill will, but you've
got to remember I'm here to fight for my life."

"I see," Dermitt said, deflated. He leaned back, then sharply forward
again. "Look, Cassidy, why can't we just make a friendly deal over this
thing? There isn't much left to do on this yarn, hardly anything at all
really. It's just a matter of finishing up. Why don't you stick it out
with me until I'm finished? I'll never write about you again, I swear.
I'll develop a whole new character." He looked to Fleetwood hopefully.
"I'll pay you a regular salary, too, so much an hour--retroactive."

       *       *       *       *       *

Fleetwood shook his head. "Huh-uh. I'm tired, Dermitt. If I have to mix
it up with any more gunmen or double-dealing dames I'll have a nervous
breakdown. I'm not kidding." His gaze moved to the window and the
glittering vista stretching out into the eternal distance of the night.
"Besides, I've met a girl...."

"A girl?" Dermitt said, incredulous. "How could you meet a girl? When
did you have the chance?"

"This afternoon. In a drug store. But...."

"My God, you work fast, don't you? You didn't do anything unprintable,
did you?"

"Of course not," Fleetwood said with sudden primness. "Besides, it's
none of your business what I do outside of working hours."

Nonetheless, Dermitt pursued the subject further. "What's she like?"
he asked. "Limpid eyes, full of subtle invitation? Green flecked with
gold?"

"I should say not," Fleetwood said, shuddering at the thought. "Kitty's
eyes, as nearly as I can remember, are more mud colored. Flecked with
sand, if they must be flecked with anything. They're astonishing."

"Huh?" Dermitt said, taken aback. "But I'll bet her mouth is something
to wire home about, eh? Petulant and full? Soft and warm?"

Fleetwood shook his head. "Narrow as a string," he said reminiscently.
"Hard and cool. Kitty is no ordinary girl, you understand."

"Are you sure she's any kind of girl at all?" Dermitt asked hesitantly.
"What about her nose? She has a nose, hasn't she?"

"Of course," Fleetwood said. "Two openings at the end for air, of
course. It's just a nose, I suppose, but she's got one all right."

"Uh-huh," Dermitt nodded with subdued spirits. "And hair?"

"She got that too," Fleetwood affirmed. "Lusterless, it is, and sort of
brownish. I've never seen anyone like her. She's absolutely tremendous."

"Fat, too, huh?" Dermitt murmured, "on top of everything else." He
shook his head regretfully.

"Oh, no," Fleetwood put in. "You misunderstand. Her figure, I should
say, could be described as definitely so-so."

"Holy smoke!" Dermitt cried. "So that's the kind of dame you pick
out--you, Fleetwood Cassidy, who, thanks to me, has been in constant
and close contact with some of the most fascinating females in fiction!"

"Oh, those tomatoes." Fleetwood sighed a jaded sigh. "I'm tired of all
those sexy dames. They get so ordinary after a while. When you've seen
one of them you've seen them all."

"Ordinary!" Dermitt said, outraged. "All of my women are unique
artistic creations! And you're darned lucky to have been in the same
stories with them. At least they...." He controlled himself with an
effort and forced a smile. "But getting back to this--this Kitty of
yours, what I had in mind was that maybe I could work her into the
story too. God only knows how I'd do it, but what if I did? Then would
you be willing to finish it out?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Fleetwood sat up sharply. "No!" He fairly yelled it. "Emphatically no!
You leave Kitty out of this. If you so much as put her name on paper
I'll...."

Dermitt smiled with a certain formidable satisfaction. "You'll what?"
he asked quietly. "I've been thinking how logical it is, that if I have
the power to transform a fictional person into a live being, then I
must also be able to reverse the process and make a live character into
a fictional one."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"I might. And suppose I did? Suppose I transcribed Kitty to paper?
I might even change her a little while I'm doing it. Then you'd just
about have to go back into the story, wouldn't you, if you ever wanted
to see her again?"

"But...."

"But what, Mr. Cassidy?"

"You wouldn't, Dermitt," Fleetwood said limply. "You wouldn't."

Dermitt lifted his gaze noncommitally to the ceiling. "She might make
an interesting character at that," he mused, "if I used her to the
proper advantage." He yawned. "For laughs, that is, and contrast."

"Now, look, Dermitt," Fleetwood said anxiously. "I...."

"Yes, Mr. Cassidy?"

"You say there isn't much of this story left to do?"

"Just a bit, really."

"How long would it take?"

"That depends," Dermitt shrugged. "If everything goes smoothly, if I
can depend on the full cooperation of my characters, it shouldn't take
more than a day. Two days at the outside."

"I see," Fleetwood said. "And how much rough stuff will there be?"

"No more than usual. Maybe a kick or two in the groin. A flesh wound,
naturally."

Fleetwood winced. "Is it absolutely necessary? Do I always have to get
myself shot in the last chapter?"

"If the readers demand it, what can I do?"

"Obviously your readers are from an extremely low level of civilized
society. I'm surprised that a bunch of savage, sadistic-minded brutes
like that know how to read."

"It's no good resorting to insults," Dermitt said mildly. "In fact, you
had better mind your manners or this Kitty of yours is going to get the
surprise of her pallid little life."

For a long moment Fleetwood was silent, weighing the alternatives.
"Okay," he said finally, giving in to the inevitable. "Okay, you win.
All I ask is that you get it over with as soon as possible."

"Fair enough," Dermitt said with satisfaction. "And I'm prepared to be
reasonable about the thing, Cassidy. In fact I'm willing to go to work
right now, if you like. All _I_ ask, though, is that you subdue those
cowardly impulses of yours until I'm finished." He got up, crossed to
the desk and sat down before the typewriter.

       *       *       *       *       *

Watching with apprehension, Fleetwood stirred nervously and started
to speak, but Dermitt motioned him to be quiet. The little man flexed
his fingers, adjusted his monstrous glasses and regarded Fleetwood
thoughtfully. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them with a
nod of decision. He began to type.

A shudder of weakness passed through Fleetwood's long frame, and he
tried to cry out, but suddenly his voice was only an echo of the
clattering keys....

_Fleetwood stirred, and consciousness seeped into his mind like a cold,
grey fog._

"_Fleetwood!_"

_A voice called to him with quiet urgency. He looked up and saw
Evelyn's face blur into focus close above his own. Her arm was about
his shoulders and she was pulling him toward her._

_"The kiss of death?" Fleetwood said flatly._

_"Don't," she whispered. "Please don't. I didn't know he was like
that...."_

_"Where is he?"_

_It was a moment before she spoke, as though she needed time to make up
her mind. "He's getting the car," she said. "He'll be back in a moment
to take you with him. You've got to get out of here. I want you to."_

_Fleetwood glanced down at the gun beside her on the floor. "You're
going to save me at gunpoint, huh?" he asked._

_"He made me take it." She picked it up and held it out to him. "Here,
you can have it if you want." She pressed it into his hand._

_"How'd you get into all this?" he asked, sitting up. "You make a lousy
gun moll. I'll bet you can't even smoke a cigar."_

_Her smile was bitter. "I needed money," she said. "Gambling debts,
that sort of thing. It wouldn't be a new story, not to you. All I had
were my jewels, and I didn't really have those; Blanchard took them for
security. I had to get them from him. At first I figured I could get
them easily enough, if I gave Blanchard the right story. I had it all
worked out, and Blanchard always had a yen for me. Anyway, I was going
to have Mario sell them for me on the quiet, then I was going to pay
Blanchard off and keep the rest for myself. I didn't want Blanchard to
know I was all the way down to the bottom. Pride, I guess."_

_"But Mario was smarter than you." He said it flatly._

_She nodded. "It was his idea to fake the robbery so we could collect
the insurance money too. I think I agreed just to get out of facing
Blanchard with a lie." She laughed harshly. "That's very funny, isn't
it? Anyway, Mario was going to dispose of the jewels through a fence.
All he wanted for his services, he said, was fifty percent of the final
sale."_

_"He said," Fleetwood prompted._

       *       *       *       *       *

And even as he said it the thought flickered in the back of his mind
that he was wasting an awful lot of valuable time jawing with this dame
when he should be getting the hell out of there. He controlled the
impulse. He thought of Kitty.

_"Yes," Evelyn sighed. "Really he wanted everything. Me, too. But that
doesn't matter any longer. You've got to get out of here." She got up
and helped him to his feet. "You'll have to hurry."_

_He flipped the gun; it was as empty as a chorus girl's head. He looked
up at Evelyn._

_"I--I didn't know," she said stupidly. "Mario just handed it to me."_

_He grabbed her by the arm and spun her around before she could get
away from him. "There's nothing for winning like using a cold deck,
is there, honey?" he snapped. He gave the arm a twist and her face
registered pain. "Where is it? Where's the ammunition?"_

_"I don't know!" she cried. "Mario didn't...."_

_He pulled the arm up behind her and leaned down on it. The cords in
her neck came out like harp strings. "Where'd you put it?"_

_"Over there!" she gasped, bending forward. "In the drawer of the
cabinet."_

_He let her go and went to the cabinet. She hadn't lied. The slugs
rolled forward as he pulled out the drawer. He scooped them up and
fitted them into the gun. When he turned around she was still rubbing
her arm, staring at him with frightened eyes._

_"What are you going to do?" she whimpered._

_"I'm not going to sneak out of here and let your boy friend shoot me
down with this rod planted on me. Just how much would you be willing to
bet this is the murder weapon the cops are looking for?"_

_"What are you going to do with it?"_

_"I'm going to trade with Mario when he gets tired waiting out there
and comes back inside. Guns or bullet, baby, there's going to be a
swap."_

_"No!" she cried. "No, Cassidy. No more killing." She moved close to
him, swiftly, imploringly. "Mario's coming back for you. That's the
truth. You must believe me, you have a chance to get out of here with
your life. Take it while you still have it. That's all that matters
now. You're right about the gun; it's the one. I knew you'd find out
sooner or later. That's why I wanted you to have it, to put an end to
all this rottenness. Take it or leave it, it doesn't really matter so
much, only get out of here before Mario gets back."_

_"Who're you really worried about?" Fleetwood asked. "Mario or me? Or
do you know yourself?"_

_"Why should it matter so long as you stay alive? If you don't go
you'll only be engraving your own tombstone. Mario won't give you a
chance. He's probably got you spotted from outside right now."_

       *       *       *       *       *

In all justice, Fleetwood's reaction to these words came quite by
reflex. It was simply that his newly-awakened sense of survival had
responded to the lady's admirable logic in the same quick manner of a
coiled spring answering the touch of release. His reply leaped from his
lips before he had time to properly weigh and consider.

"How do I get out of here?" he said.

No sooner were the words out of his mouth, however, than he realized
what he had done; the lady, Evelyn, stood before him an unreal,
life-sized paper doll. Fleetwood permitted himself a cough of chagrin.

"Oops," he said mildly, then went on to qualify, addressing himself to
the ceiling in the same way a simpler soul might direct a conversation
to the heavens. "I'm sorry, Dermitt, but after all, you did have to go
and build up all that sticky suspense. And I warned you, you know, that
my nerves aren't reliable."

He waited a space, not knowing quite what to expect. The silence grew
and thickened. The room faded as before into hazy obscurity.

"Well," Fleetwood shrugged. "We tried, but I guess it's just no good,
old man." He started toward the fuzzily outlined doorway. "No hard
feelings, I hope."

Then suddenly he stopped as the room jolted back into sharp focus and
the door opposite the one toward which he was moving swung open to
permit the entrance of a girl in maid's regalia. She was a singularly
undistinguished young woman both in face and figure. Her hair was
sand-colored and her complexion was dull. Fleetwood started feverishly.

"Kitty!" he yelped.

Kitty appeared neither to notice nor to hear. She addressed herself to
the restored Evelyn.

_"You rang, madam?" she enquired nasally._

_"Yes, Kitty," Evelyn said. "I need a drink dreadfully if you don't
mind."_

_"Yes, ma'm," Kitty said and turned away._

"Hello, Kitty," Fleetwood said tensely.

Though there was much in Kitty's glance as she passed Fleetwood she
gave no sign that she had heard him. Her eyes met his only with an
expression of restrained disdain, much the sort that a sophisticated
cat might bestow on a mechanical mouse which had snapped its spring.
With a lift of her chin she left the room.

"Hey!" Fleetwood yelled. "Hey!" He addressed himself again to the
ceiling. "Now, look here, Dermitt, you monster," he said, "you can't go
doing this sort of thing. Besides, you're only ruining your own story;
the dame already said the maid wasn't here tonight. You can't come
running new characters into the thing now. It doesn't make sense!"

_"I don't know why I keep that dismal child around," Evelyn said
flintily, quite unmindful of any interruption. "For laughs, I suppose,
or contrast. A bit of comic relief never hurt anyone."_

       *       *       *       *       *

Fleetwood ran to the doorway through which the aloof Kitty had
disappeared and found himself in a hall. He caught a glimpse of her
skirt as she passed from sight into a lighted room at the back of the
house and took out in hot pursuit.

The room, when he got there, proved to be a kitchen, and Kitty was at
the far end, busily transferring liquid by careful measure from a full
bottle into an empty glass. Fleetwood approached her uncertainly. She
finished her chores with the glass, then turned to him, apparently not
at all surprised at seeing him there. She picked the glass up from the
counter.

_"A drink, sir?" she said, and forcibly and quite without warning
flung the liquor into his face. "Get outa here and leave me alone, you
flat-footed bum."_

"Kitty!" Fleetwood bubbled through the cascading bourbon. "Kitty, don't
talk like that!"

_"Out!" Kitty snarled, cinching her faded eyebrows a notch closer
together. "Beat it, Sherlock!"_

"Kitty," Fleetwood pleaded, "you don't understand. This isn't real,
none of it. You don't belong here at all. It's Dermitt who's doing this
to you, making you act this way. He's just trying to get even with me
for messing up his continuity. You don't really hate me, Kitty, you
like me. Think, Kitty, think hard. You said so."

_By this time Kitty had progressed to the cutlery drawer in a markedly
purposeful manner and was in the act of withdrawing a carving knife,
the blade of which gleamed in cold, brilliant concert with her angry
eyes._

_"Sorry you have to leave so abruptly, Mr. Cassidy," she said with
lethal sweetness. "But we all have to go sometime, don't we?" She
brandished the knife so that it cut the air with a menacing whoosh. "My
kid brother had to, when you helped put him in the chair."_

Fleetwood saw the point, but only momentarily, for he was already on
his way back to the hall and safety. Taking cover behind the frame of
the door he peered around its edge.

"I forgive you, Kitty," he said sadly. "I realize that this is none
of your doing and I still hold the knowledge in my heart that you're
really quite fond of me."

_"I'll cut your heart out, if you don't fade outa here," Kitty gritted
back at him. "Scat!"_

Fleetwood scatted. But not in a mood of docile acquiescence. Fate
had handled him quite nastily during the last several minutes and,
therefore, deserved to be dealt with in kind. He addressed himself to
Fate, using the surname.

"Dermitt," he said between clenched teeth, "now you've gone too far.
Far, far too far. I told you to leave Kitty out of this. If you have
trouble now you've only got yourself to blame. Remember that."

       *       *       *       *       *

He retraced his steps through the hallway and back into the living
room, where he seated himself solidly on the divan. Favoring Evelyn,
who was still in evidence, with the most perfunctory of glances, he
folded his arms adamantly across his chest and crossed his legs.

"I refuse to make another move," he announced haughtily, "until both
Kitty and I are released from this preposterous narrative. And you may
take that as an ultimatum. I don't care if we're all left dangling by
our participles until we rot like grapes on a vine." And with that he
settled into an attitude of stolid resistance, breaking the silence
only once more for a terse sign-off. "Besides," he added, "your writing
smells like a large dead fish."

Stillness overlayed the room like a dense and redolent mist. Evelyn,
still vividly defined, remained fixed in position like a figure in a
waxworks tableau. A moment passed. Then it happened.

The room jolted, with the swift shock of a train compartment yanked
forward by a sudden start from the engine. But that was all, just a
jolt with an immediate settling. Evelyn moved slightly, but Fleetwood
contained his surprise in a slight lift of the eyebrows. He knew
without question that this somehow heralded a counter action from
Dermitt, but he couldn't guess what it might be. He tensed himself
determinedly against whatever might follow. It followed swiftly enough.

_Evelyn swung about, drawing her hand to her mouth._

_"Mario!" she cried._

_Mario, his mouth drawn down in a grim line, stood in the doorway, gun
in hand._

So that was Dermitt's maneuver, Fleetwood reflected complacently; he
meant to push the action forward by sheer force of will.

"It won't do any good, Dermitt," he said. "I won't budge."

He glanced around, pleased to note that both the gun and Mario's
murderous gaze were directed toward the place which he had deserted
when he'd left the room to follow Kitty.

_"Move, Cassidy," Mario grunted. "Get goin' before you turn out to be a
mess on the lady's rug."_

"Hah!" Fleetwood snorted unconcernedly. "Go on and shoot a hole in the
wall, you big imaginary fathead. See if I care."

       *       *       *       *       *

But even as he said it, the sensation came over him; it was the qualm
in reverse, a subtle drain on his reserve of resistance. Dermitt
retained more of a hold over him than he had believed. The terror of
this sudden realization compelled his attention to such a degree that
it was a moment before he realized that he had actually risen from the
divan and was moving toward the spot that would place him directly
in range of Mario's gun. With an almost superhuman effort he forced
himself to stop.

"No," he panted. "No, Dermitt, you can't make me do it. I won't." He
dragged himself heavily back toward the divan, as though struggling
against a powerful wind. But after only a few steps he slowed, then
stopped altogether, unable to move even an inch further. His will was
stalemated against Dermitt's.

Then, quite suddenly and most surprisingly, he felt himself released.
He fell forward, caught himself against the arm of the divan and swung
around into it. He leaned back panting and waiting. Dermitt hadn't
given up, he was sure of that; he had simply switched methods.

_"Drop that rod, sucker," Mario snarled. "It's empty." He laughed.
"Boy, do you look silly, Cassidy. Drop it before I drop you."_

_"No!" Evelyn screamed. "It's loaded, Mario! He found out! Mario!
Don't!"_

_Mario didn't even give her a glance on that one. "So's a fountain
pen," he said. "Okay, Cassidy, this is the last time I'm tellin' you."_

Fleetwood watched this interplay with careful interest. As silly as it
seemed, possibly Dermitt meant to just go ahead with the thing without
him. Then he knew better, as Kitty appeared from the hallway, crossed
the room with somnambulistic precision and placed herself solidly in
the projected line of fire. Fleetwood felt a new thrill of terror;
Dermitt was using Kitty as a hostage. Either he would go ahead with the
planned action and trade gunfire with Mario or Kitty was going to be
killed.

He reached quickly into his pocket where he had put the gun. It wasn't
there. Then he remembered that it naturally wouldn't be; he was out
of the story and the weapon, being fictional, existed only in the
story. The only way to return it to his possession was to enter into
the action again. He cast off his moorings and leaped forward with a
fleeting picture of Mario's finger closing in on the trigger.

The ensuing moments were characterized by a series of crashes which
began in a quiet sort of way but rapidly mounted to a nerve-shredding
climax. The first crash was really only a thud occasioned by a
collision of bodies as Fleetwood threw himself against Kitty. The
second instantly grew out of the first as Kitty toppled to the floor.
The third was the natural result of Mario's finger pressing down on
the trigger. The rest of it, the screams and random dialogue, was lost
to Fleetwood as hot pain licked through his hands and up his arm.

_"You've hit him!" Evelyn screamed. "He's bleeding!"_

_"Just winged him." Mario growled. "He'll bleed a hell of a lot more
than that before the night's out."_

_There was a clattering at Fleetwood's feet and he realized that he had
let go of the gun without knowing it. He looked down at it. The blood
dripping from the tips of his fingers was splashing against the barrel.
That's what he got for letting a dame take his attention when he was
on the spot. Business before pleasure, they always said. He'd have to
remember that from now on--if he lived to remember anything._

"Fleetwood!"

       *       *       *       *       *

The scream jarred Fleetwood out of the stream of events which included
Mario and Evelyn. He looked around and almost shouted for joy. Sitting
on the floor, Kitty was staring up at him, her eyes wide with wonder.

"Where are we?" she asked frightenedly. "What's going on?"

It was miraculous! Apparently the recent violence had snapped her back
into the realm of reality; after all she was not originally a fictional
creation like the others. Smiling down at her, Fleetwood realized that
the pain had gone from his hand, the wound had vanished; he too had
escaped Dermitt's world of fiction through Kitty's awareness. The
action had been broken just enough. He looked about. The room had begun
to fade, Mario and Evelyn were slipping out of dimension. Together,
they could make it; two wills were stronger than one.

"Hurry!" Fleetwood said, helping her up. "We've got to get out of here
while we've got the chance."

"But, what?..." Kitty murmured dazedly. "Who are those strange looking
people?"

"Never mind them," Fleetwood said. "Just hurry." He bustled her along
toward the doorway, around the frozen figure of Mario and out into the
entry.

"I don't understand ..." Kitty said.

Reaching the outer door Fleetwood grasped the knob and threw it open.
Then he stopped, so abruptly that Kitty collided against him. Before
them, blocking the way, stood a small, hammered-down looking man in
enormous black-rimmed glasses. He was holding a gun in his hand which
he advanced to Fleetwood's chest.

"Dermitt!" Fleetwood gasped. "What are you doing here?"

"Get back in there," Dermitt said grimly, wagging the gun.

"You can't do this, you two-bit hack," Fleetwood said. "You can't be in
this story too."

"It's my story, isn't it?" Dermitt said nastily. "I can be in it if I
want to. I wrote myself in just to be on hand to keep an eye on you."

"It's anybody's story by the looks of it," Fleetwood said. "And you're
just another inconsistent character. Of course you've already made such
a hash of the thing I don't suppose it really matters."

"I'm Mario's henchman," Dermitt said firmly. "My name is Lester, and
I'm here to help him handle you. And believe me, Cassidy, I'm already
so sick of your interference I don't care much what happens to you. Now
get back in there and do what I tell you."

       *       *       *       *       *

A curious intensity emanating from behind the eccentric spectacles
caused Fleetwood to give ground. He turned to Kitty to warn her to stay
behind him. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words shriveled on
his tongue as she met his gaze darkly, with a look of extreme loathing,
then turned on her heel and marched back into the living room.
Fleetwood whirled back to Dermitt.

"It's no use," Dermitt said smoothly, "she's back in character. And
you'll follow her lead if you know what's good for you--and her."

Fleetwood turned and followed Kitty back into the center of the room,
toward the divan.

"Kitty ..." he said, but she gave no sign that she even heard him.

_"Hi, Lester," Mario said._ He was restored to dimension.

_"Havin' a little trouble?" Dermitt said from the corner of his mouth.
"I heard a shot."_

"Boy, are you corny," Fleetwood said spitefully. "You're all this
stinker needed." Dermitt swiveled his gun in his direction.

_"He got a rod from the lady," Mario smiled. "I had to slap his wrist
with a bullet to get him to let go."_

_"He won't act up any more," Dermitt said. "If he does he'll be a dead
character."_

Across the room Fleetwood swung around in a paroxysm of pain and
grabbed his wrist. Blood began to drip again from the ends of his
fingers. At his feet lay the gun, just as before. He had slipped back
again into Dermitt's pattern of action. The writer had tricked him with
the sudden pain.

_"How about it, Cassidy?" Mario said. "You comin' outa here on your
feet or by your heels? It doesn't matter a damn to me, you know."_

_"Okay," Fleetwood said. "Have it your way, Mario--for just a little
while."_

_"For long enough," Lester snarled._

Fleetwood started forward, but the struggle within his mind, the
straining effort to focus his mind in the direction of reality, did not
cease. The pain throbbing in his hand, however, interfered badly. He
bit his lip hard to provide a counter irritant. He stopped; the pain
disappeared.

"Now, dammit, Dermitt!" he said with final exasperation, "that doesn't
even hold water, and you know it. Why would any guy in his right mind
just shrug his shoulders and take off with a couple of murderous rats
as calmly as though he were on his way to the garden to pick lilacs?
Any guy would give himself a last chance and make a break for it. How
in the devil can you expect your readers to swallow swill like that? I
wouldn't even...."

       *       *       *       *       *

There was something in Dermitt's round face--a dangerous angry
red--that warned him to stop. The little man was on the verge--perhaps
beyond.

"So!" Dermitt exploded with a high scream. "You've not only ruined my
story, now you're going to give me a lecture on writing! That does it
absolutely, Cassidy, that's the end! I created you and, by God, I can
destroy you too!"

As he spoke, he made fumbling preparations with his gun. "You'll
never get out of this yarn alive! You'll die on paper just where you
were born!" The glitter in his eyes, amplified by the glasses, was
unmistakably that of a man who had snapped his bolt.

_"Did you ring, madam?" Kitty said suddenly, with idiotic unconcern._

_Evelyn turned in response to this incongruity and smiled warmly. Then
she went limp against the back of the divan. "Eeeeeeeee!" she screamed
with shrill hysteria._

_"Gotta gat ... gotta gat ... gotta gat ... gotta gat ... gotta gat."
Mario began to chant, rolling his eyes insanely._

_"Madam, did you ring, madam?" Kitty chimed in. "Madam?... Madam?...
Madam?"_

_"Gotta gat," Mario said, grinning crookedly. He stepped back two
paces with jerky rapidity and pointed his gun at the ceiling. "Gotcha
covered, shamus."_

These stunning proceedings, occurring as they did in overlapping
rapidity, had a startling effect, even on Dermitt. He looked up from
his gun distractedly.

_"Did you ring, madam?" Kitty said, persisting with the same old
refrain. "Ring-a-ling-a-ling, madam?"_

_Mario fired three shots into the ceiling in rapid succession.
"Gotcha," he tittered. "Gotcha with my gat, yuh rat, yuh."_

_"Bless yuh," Evelyn said and moved away from the divan with a
lighthearted pirouette that delivered her to the center of the room
directly between Fleetwood and Dermitt._

"Oh, my God!" Dermitt wailed. It was plain that the little man was no
less stunned than Fleetwood at these outcroppings of his own madness.
Fact and fancy had gotten so snarled together that the result was
roaring insanity. He shook his head as though to clear it.

_"Why don't you shoot me, Mario?" Evelyn said, running her hand wildly
through her hair. "Kill me, too, and be done with it. God knows it
wouldn't be any great loss to the world after what I've done." She
turned to Fleetwood in a convulsive movement. "Go, Cassidy, make a
run for it. I'll shield you until he kills me. You can use my body to
protect yourself. Only promise you'll kill him--after he kills me.
That's all I want now, just to die and know that he's going to die
too." She smiled crookedly. "And when you check up on that gun you'll
find out it's registered in my name. That's right, I killed Blanchard.
I went to him to ask him for the jewels and he wouldn't let me have
them. We got into a fight over them. It was an accident, I suppose.
I don't really know how it happened--I just did it. I lost my head
and ran and I had to send Mario back to get the jewels for me. He was
the only man I knew filthy enough for that kind of job. And I was
frightened half to death...." Her voice trailed off slowly. She sank to
the floor like a discarded scrap of tissue paper._

       *       *       *       *       *

It was only then that Fleetwood noticed that Dermitt had renewed his
intentions with the gun. With frenzied eyes he was sighting down the
barrel. Fleetwood tried to control the churning sensation in his head.
The distinction between reality and imagination was lost to him too.
Where, he wondered frantically, did one begin and the other end?

"Okay, Cassidy," Dermitt gritted. "This is the finish. Period!"

_"Ring-a-ling-a-ling, madam?" Kitty snickered, presenting herself in
front of Fleetwood._

"Get out of the way, Kitty," Fleetwood said.

She looked around at him. "Oh, Fleetwood!" she smiled. "I like you
so much." Then with a sudden frown, as though remembering something
unpleasant, she dealt him a stinging blow across the mouth and moved
rapidly away.

"Period!" Dermitt screamed and curled his finger down over the trigger.

Fleetwood threw himself to the floor in conjunction with the explosion
of the gun. It was close timing. The bullet thunked into the wall
behind him. Whether it was by accident or some unconscious planning in
his mind, his hand slapped down over the grip of the gun on the floor.
All in one movement, he grasped the gun, rolled over and fired blind
in Dermitt's direction. There was a scream of pain, a beat of silence,
then a dull thud. Fleetwood jumped to his feet, holding the gun ready.

"Oh, my God!" Fleetwood gasped.

Across the room, huddled on the floor, Dermitt sat in a spattering of
his own blood, clutching his stomach. Fleetwood ran to him.

"Dermitt!" he cried.

"I'm hit in the stomach," Dermitt groaned. "You've got to help me,
Cassidy, you've got to!"

"Get out of the story!" Fleetwood said. "Get out of here before you
die!"

"I can't. I can't move. Something's gone wrong with my legs."

"Let me help you up," Fleetwood said, slipping his hands quickly under
Dermitt's arms. "I'll carry you."

"No!" Dermitt screamed. "No! I can't stand the pain!"

Fleetwood released him. "What can I do?" he asked helplessly.

"Oh, Lord!" Dermitt wailed. "Let me think, let me think!" His face
contorted as a spasm passed through his body. Then he relaxed again
and opened his eyes. "You get out," he said. "That's it. Get to the
typewriter as fast as you can ... rewrite this ... mark out the part
where you shoot me ... make it a miss ... or a flesh wound.... It's the
only way. But hurry, for Godsake!"

"Okay," Fleetwood said. "I've got to get Kitty, though, and take her
with me."

"No," Dermitt put in quickly. "Write her out, too, when you get there.
It'll be faster. Hurry, Cassidy, hurry! I can't stand too much more of
this."

"All right." Fleetwood said. He whirled about and ran for the door. He
turned back once, just before leaving, to look at Kitty, but the room
was already in a state of half-dissolve and she was only a dim, grey
figure in the distance. He hurried outside.

As he ran forward into the swirling blackness ahead, the house quickly
evaporated behind him....

       *       *       *       *       *

He didn't know how he had gotten back to Dermitt's Towers apartment.
It seemed that he had been there all along. He was sitting in the same
chair, as though he'd merely dozed there for a time. He shook his head
to clear it. Then he remembered.

He turned and saw Dermitt slumped over his typewriter, his hands
clutched to his abdomen. Fleetwood frowned. So that was the way of it;
the writer had managed to project himself into two separate dimensions
simultaneously, a dangerous undertaking even for a sane man. Fleetwood
shoved himself out of the chair and hurried to the alcove.

As he approached, Dermitt stirred weakly and opened his eyes and
twisted them in his direction. There was no blood, no wound--no
visible, physical wound--but still Dermitt was dying.

"Hurry!" he whispered. "I ... I blacked out. I guess I went a little
crazy for a while. Please save me."

Fleetwood took him under the arms, and, ignoring his moans of pain,
half-dragged, half-carried him to the nearest chair. He eased him into
the chair and turned back. Then he stopped and looked around at the
little man again. He sucked in his breath with a start of surprise.

Dermitt was losing substance! He was actually fading away into a shadow
of himself. The dying fictional projection was carrying away the
physical one. The wound was too vital, too real to the writer for him
to draw resistance from the fact of its fictional source. There wasn't
much time.

"Hurry, Cassidy!" Dermitt mouthed soundlessly. "Hurry!"

Fleetwood pulled himself away from the spectacle of the fading
bug-eyed little author who had forced him through volumes of abuse and
harassment, who had actually attempted to murder Kitty and himself. He
ran to the typewriter.

He sat down and poised his hands over the keys. Then, with one last
intense glance in Dermitt's direction, he began to type....

       *       *       *       *       *

The drug store sparkled from its cleaning of the night before. Morning
sunshine, showing through the plate-glass windows, conspired with the
indirect lighting to make the displays, the jars, the bottles, the
paper clips and snake bite kits gleam like a rajah's ransom. Fleetwood
perched himself on the stool at the end of the counter and leaned
forward in an attitude of expectation. Presently he was rewarded.

"Fleetwood!" Kitty called, catching sight of him. She came swiftly to
dock at the napkin holder in front of him. "I was hoping you'd show up
today. I had the goofiest dream about you last night."

"I'll bet," Fleetwood said with a sigh of happy relief. Explanations
weren't going to be necessary after all.

"I'd tell you about it," Kitty went on, "but every time I try to get
it straight in my head everything just gets all mixed up. I was mad at
you, I remember, but at the same time I didn't really want to be."

"That's good," Fleetwood said, "that you didn't want to be, I mean.
Otherwise, you might have got up with a chip on your shoulder and you
wouldn't go out to dinner with me tonight."

"Huh?" Kitty said. "Are you asking me?"

"That's what I came here for," Fleetwood nodded. "Will you go?"

"Oh, I'll go, all right," Kitty said. "I'll be ready from seven thirty
on, any time you're ready. Gosh!" Her smile faded a bit. "You look
awfully tired, though...."

"I'll have to get some rest," Fleetwood agreed. "I worked last night."

"All night, you mean?" Kitty asked. "But that reminds me, what do you
do anyway? I should have asked you yesterday, I guess."

Fleetwood hesitated. Then, with a deep breath, he took the plunge. "I
write," he told her. "Stories."

"No kidding? What kind?"

"Oh, mysteries," Fleetwood said with extreme offhandedness. "About
a private detective, a little hammered-down looking guy with big
glasses who always gets into a lot of trouble. He gets kicked around
and stepped on and shot up until the last chapter when he catches the
murderer and they haul him off to the hospital. It's pretty rugged
stuff."

"Gee," Kitty said solemnly, "the poor little guy. I feel sorry for him."

A small, private smile touched Fleetwood's lips. "Don't," he said.
"After all, he's only a fictional character."

Then, with apparent irrelevance, his glance moved away and took in the
gleaming brightness of the morning, the store, the busy world outside.
Finally he looked back at Kitty and grinned.

"Gosh!" he sighed ecstatically. "This is really living!"



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