The passionate pitchman
Date: 2024-05-10T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Human-alien encounters -- Fiction; Sales personnel -- Fiction; Teleportation -- Fiction

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Title: The passionate pitchman

Author: Stephen Marlowe

Illustrator: Alex Kotzky

Release date: May 10, 2024 [eBook #73594]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company

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

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PASSIONATE PITCHMAN ***

THE PASSIONATE PITCHMAN

By STEPHEN WILDER

Hector was just another salesman until the gorgeous Miss Laara came along with her Foolproof Method of Procurement. Miss Laara was fascinating. So were her methods. They introduced Hector into a world where inhibitions were unknown. Then the Syndicate moved in. They wanted to know about this procurement business. So will you.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic October 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Patty put a working stranglehold on Laara but it was Hector, underneath, who got the business.

The large-headed little man cornered Hector Finch after Heck had had his fourth martini at the sales convention.

Heck functioned rather well after four martinis, but he never remembered much afterward. He did remember vaguely, though, that the little man's head seemed too large. Not freakishly so—just somewhat too large. Nor was the man's small stature something a circus sideshow could make money on. The man was almost but not quite five feet tall, Hector Finch judged.

"I want to see you a moment," he told Heck politely. "If I may."

Hector nodded. He way-laid a waiter and short-stopped two brimfull cocktail glasses which had been heading elsewhere.

"Drink?" he asked the little man.

The little man nodded, took one of the glasses and upended it. He had poured the martini—it was a very dry martini—down his throat without swallowing. That, Hector decided, as they found an unoccupied corner of the convention hall in which were displayed the various electronic products of Weatherby, Inc., for which Heck was a salesman, was a considerable feat.

"I've been watching you," the little man said.

"Oh?" It probably meant, Heck told himself, that the little man was an employee-scout for one of Weatherby's competitors. Such scouts often came to these conventions and had a go at recruiting top-flight sales personnel.

"You're passionate, Hector Finch," the little man said suddenly and unexpectedly.

"I'm which?" Hector asked in surprise.

"Passionate. As a salesman, of course. I wouldn't know about your love life. You truly like to sell things, don't you?"

"Why, yes," Heck said enthusiastically, surprised that he had admitted it. This was, in a way, Hector Finch's secret. Other men loved big sports cars or fishing or hunting or trips to exotic places. Hector Finch's first love was selling. There was something, he always told himself, soul-satisfying in selling someone a product which, while good in its own right, they didn't really need. Something thrilling and ego-boosting....

"... and you're healthy and young and ought to have a life-expectancy of some fifty-odd years after today. Yes, Heck. You're the man we want."

"I'm sorry," Heck said promptly. "But I like my work with Weatherby, Inc. I couldn't possibly—"

"You have, I believe," said the little man with a smile, "a fiancée in the home office of Weatherby, Inc. By name, Patty O'Conner. Irish and—shall we say, tempestuous?"

"What about Patty?" Heck groaned. He thought he knew what was coming.

"Last night, after the first evening of the convention, you and a blonde named—"

"Never mind her name!" wailed Heck, remembering the evening with delight. "How did you know?"

"I said I've been watching you. Now, unless you want the story of you and the blonde woman—very aesthetically pleasing, by the way—to go directly to Miss O'Conner, you must agree to—"

"Anything," Heck said in despair. He loved Patty O'Conner. He wanted to marry Patty, and would. But they weren't married yet. And Heck was a firm believer in wild oats, the more to make marriage lasting and unsullied. He also knew Patty's violent Irish temper.

"Splendid. Incidentally, that bit with the blonde was superb, Heck. I mean, the way you sold yourself. At the beginning she didn't even like you, you know."

Heck beamed. "Seduction, like selling—" he began, then scowled. "Let's just hear your proposition," he said.

"First, a question. What would you say is the chief factor in selling over which the salesman has no control?"

"Location, of course," Heck said promptly. "You've got to be where the customer is. You've got to get that old foot in the door, as the expression goes—"

"Precisely. But I can go you one better, Heck. Could you sell bottled water to a thirsting man? a greasy-spoon hamburger to a starving man? life insurance to a man who's just learned he has an incurable disease?"

"You wouldn't need much of a salesman. Anyone could make sales like that."

"Heck, what's a salesman's dream?"

"Walking through walls, I guess. Getting at the customer no matter what."

"But we're grown men. We know that walking through walls is impossible."

"It was only a matter of speaking," said Heck, downing his fifth martini and thinking of Patty. If Patty ever learned about that blonde....

"Yes, to be sure. A matter of speaking. But did you ever hear of teleportation?"

"No," said Hector Finch promptly. How his head was whirling!

"Teleportation is instantaneous transport from one position in space, from one location, to another. It needs no time; it negates the dimension of time. Neither time nor space—nor walls, Heck—are a barrier to teleportation. This is what I offer you. With it you can be with the right product at the right place at the right time, and a customer's 'no' and locked door won't mean a thing to you."

"But why—"

"Because of your passion. We want to see what the combination of passionate salesmanship and teleportation can mean on Earth."

"On Earth. Er—"

"No. Certainly not. I'm not from Earth."

"Then—"

"Does it matter? Does it really matter to you? I am from elsewhere. Isn't that enough. Anyway...."

"But what do you want me to sell?"

"Anything. Everything."

"I don't—" lamely—"understand."

"Whatever is needed. Wherever it is needed. We've already rented a warehouse in your home city. It's stocked to meet almost any contingency. You sell anything, Heck. You sell it, though, when and where it is absolutely needed. It's a salesman's paradise: no one can refuse you. No one."

"But—Patty! I'll have to quit Weatherby. And Patty—"

"You're a salesman, aren't you? A passionate salesman? Don't you love Patty? Sell her the idea of coming along as your secretary. You can do it—if anyone can."

"But, but—"

"Be firm, Heck! Believe in yourself. Here." The little man held out something. It was a business card. "Your business card," the little man said. The card said: HECTOR FINCH, Inc. We Sell Anything, Anywhere, Anytime. There was an address and a telephone number on the card. Like it or not, unless the little fellow were insane, Heck was in business.

Hector Finch blinked. The little man was gone. Hector spent the next hour wandering around the convention floor, seeking him. He was nowhere. It was as if the floor had swallowed him up. Maybe I imagined the whole thing, Heck thought. He'd heard of people getting the DT's, even if they didn't drink excessively....

Just then the blonde of last night came undulating across the convention floor. She was a sales analyst for Jason Spooner, Inc., Weatherby's chief competitor. She had a figure which Heck could only regard as fantastic. She looked like a calendar pin-up girl in three dimensions. Bite-size, Heck thought. I mean, life-size. Bite-size and ready to eat. That was an ad.... Hooo, I'm high. I'm high as the proverbial kite.

"Heck!" called the blonde. "Heck, darling, I've been looking just all over."

Heck could think of only one thing: Patty. Last night had been a mistake. Patty.

Everything went dark for a split second.

Heck opened his eyes.

He was standing in a bedroom. A bright moon was riding high, shining through the open window.

It was Patty's bedroom. At least, Heck assumed it was. He had never been there.

The girl sleeping on the bed was Patty.

Not having ever been a movie star, Patty had never told a columnist in what state of dress or undress she slept. Nor had Heck ever asked her. Patty was not a prim girl, but neither was she incontinent, verbally or otherwise.

Standing there on the threshold of Patty's bedroom in the moonlight, Heck learned how Patty slept.

She slept with a slight, contented smile on her lovely face. She slept with her long Titian hair in careless disarray, framing her heart-shaped head on the pillow. She slept with the light cover thrown back and covering only her left calf.

And she slept, as they say, in her birthday suit.

There were delightful curves. There were delightful hummocks. There were delightful valleys. And highlights and shadows....

Heck stood uncertainly on the threshold, gaping. Should he enter the room? Should he beat a hasty and strategic retreat? Should he....

He took a hesitant step into the room. His foot struck something. It wasn't much of a sound, but it was enough. Patty was a light sleeper. Her eyes blinked open. She looked at Heck without seeing him. Maybe the moonlight blinded her.

"Get—out!" she yelled.

A man, Heck thought. She sees a man. She doesn't know it's me yet.

She was sitting up now, clutching the cover to her chin. She pointed imperiously at the door. "How dare you come in here? How dare...." She stopped. Rage replaced surprise and fear on her face. Patty was definitely no clinging vine type of girl.

She leaped from the bed, draping the light cover over her body. She made straight for Heck, fire in her eyes. "No second-storey man's going to get away with coming in here!" she cried, her Irish wrath rising. Apparently she still hadn't seen Heck's face. He tried to flee, but stumbled over whatever he had stumbled over before.

Patty reached him just as he righted himself. She was a tall girl, tall as Heck. She was not exactly Amazonian, but had a lush, well-built figure. Heck, for his part, was not exactly Herculean. With anger and some little vestige of fear pumping adrenaline through her blood and with health and vigor and half a night's sleep behind her while Heck was still considerably potted, she would have been a good match for him.

But Heck was at a disadvantage. Heck did not want to fight.

She caught his shoulders and turned him around to face her. She butted at him with her head. She kicked him in the shin. She balled her fists and hit his face. Heck tripped for a third time, and this time he fell down.

In one sweeping motion, the cover trailing like a cape, Patty clawed for the telephone on the dresser and dove down on top of Heck. She sat on his middle and lifted the phone from its cradle and said, her voice surprisingly cool: "Get me the police."

Frantically, Heck clutched at the telephone, depressing the cradle. Patty raised the heavy instrument threateningly.

"Wait!" Heck cried. "It's me—Heck!"

Patty's mouth opened. She didn't say anything, though. Then she looked at Heck and threw her arms around him. "Oh, Hector, Hector, did I hurt you?" she wanted to know.

"You definitely did not hurt me. I tripped, is all."

"I'm sorry, if I had known—Just a minute! Hector Finch, what are you doing in my bedroom?"

"I can explain everything," said Heck in a voice which said he could not explain anything at all.

"Well, you had better start explaining." Patty got up, leaving the telephone on the floor near Heck, who was busy rubbing his throbbing jaw.

Just then the telephone rang.

Heck picked up the receiver. "Yes?" he said.

"Are you the party who asked for the police?" the operator demanded.

"No, I'm not," Heck said truthfully.

"Well, someone at that number did. Do you still want the police?"

"No."

"Then why did you—"

"It was the children," Heck blurted. "I'm terribly sorry, operator. You know how children will play with the phone."

"At three o'clock in the morning?" the operator asked.

"They have insomnia," Heck said with inspiration, and hung up.

Patty had adjusted the cover into graceful, toga-like folds. She stood with her hands on her hips. Heck got up and backed slowly toward the door.

"Well?" Patty demanded wrathfully.

"You're dreaming," Heck said. "Don't you realize you're dreaming?"

"Dreaming? But you—"

"Dreaming. Yes, dreaming. You ought to know me by now, Patty love. Would I barge into your bedroom at three in the morning? Would I?"

"Well, I hadn't thought you would," Patty admitted. "But I certainly don't feel like I'm dreaming. And besides," she went on suspiciously, "a person in a dream never tells the person who is dreaming that she's dreaming. It just isn't done."

"It's done in this dream. Here, I'll pinch you."

"No, keep away from me!"

"Patty, I'm in Cleveland at the salesman's convention. I called you long distance from Cleveland tonight, remember? So how can I be here? You must have been thinking of me when you went to sleep, so you dreamed...."

"Don't be so rational. I want to believe you. But dreams aren't so rational, Heck."

"Get back into bed," Heck commanded. "You'll see you are dreaming. You—you'll be sleeping soundly again in seconds."

"I'm not getting back into anything until I find out if—"

Heck walked toward her. Her bold attack on what she thought had been a prowler was done half in sleep. She was only now coming to full wakefullness. He had to prevent that, or she'd know the truth. Naturally, he couldn't tell her about the little man with the slightly too big head and the something which he called teleportation and which seemed to work.

"Keep away from me, Heck. I'm warning you. We—we're not married yet. If this isn't a dream we won't get married, either."

But boldly Heck advanced on her and with a quick bending and swooping and lifting motion scooped her up in his arms and went with her to the bed. Before he deposited her thereon he kissed her mouth. Her lips were delicious.

"Ooo," she said. "What a dream! What a dream—"

"Go to sleep," Heck ordered. "This obviously can't be anything but a dream. Can it?"

She looked up at him sleepily. Apparently it was working. "N-no, Hector." She looked up at him. "Hector?"

"Yes," he said, backing toward the door, "what is it?"

"Hector, why can't you be—well, assertive, like the man in the dream? The dream Hector."

"I am. I am exactly how I am. You dream very accurately."

It was a mistake. Her eyes opened wider. She seemed more awake. "But Heck—"

"Sleep," he coaxed. "It's only a dream. Sleep."

She wanted desperately to believe him, and that was a big help. Her eyelids fluttered, grew heavy, closed. She breathed regularly. Heck went to the door.

And tripped a fourth time.

"Hector!" Patty shouted.

He closed the door behind him and ran. He heard her footsteps pounding across the bedroom floor, heard the doorknob being turned. He had to vanish, here in her living room, at once. If he vanished, if the teleportation really worked and took him away instantly, before she could open the door and see him, she would be convinced she had dreamed everything.

He concentrated his will on the teleportation, but made a mistake. He forgot to designate a destination.

Darkness came for a split second.

Then soft light.

A living room—but not Patty's.

A woman screamed, staring at him. The man with her cursed and threw a cocktail glass in an automatic hostile response. It struck Heck's temple and shattered.

The woman was the blonde sales analyst for Jason Spooner. She gaped at Heck open-mouthed. The man seemed familiar. Heck had met him recently, he knew.

Suddenly it came to him. The man was Amos Weatherby of Weatherby, Inc. Met him? He'd known Weatherby for years!

And Heck had seen the living room before. It was the main room of the two-room suite Amos Weatherby had taken at the convention hotel.

"Finch!" Weatherby cried.

Heck stood there, staring blankly. He was near no door. He could not summon his will to vanish via teleportation. He would have to learn how to master that.

"Finch, what are you doing here?"

What Heck was doing there was not at all obvious. But what Amos Weatherby and the blonde had been doing was obvious. Weatherby seemed to be in a rumpled state, hair, clothing, general appearance. The blonde's off-the-shoulder gown was considerably further off the shoulder than it should have been. Cocktail glasses were scattered about. There was a bottle of champagne in an urn.

Last night she made a play for me, Heck thought. Tonight, the boss. Well, the ex-boss. It came to Heck that it might all be Jason Spooner's idea, and that seemed as good a way out as any. It's like selling, he thought. I sold Patty the idea that she was dreaming, didn't I? Selling was one part luck, one part determination and one part figuring out what the potential customer thought he wanted and tieing that in with what you had to sell.

"Listen, boss," Heck said. "This dame made a play for me last night. Now it's you. I wonder how much Jason Spooner is paying her?"

"That's a lie!" the blonde cried. "He made a drunken pass at me last night and I told him to try again on somebody else. This is his revenge."

"Boss," said Heck, "don't you see? Either Spooner wants to get some trade secrets on next year's models or else he—he wants to put you in a compromising spot. Why—why any minute," Heck improvised, "a photographer might rush in here and start shooting pictures. What a way to discredit Weatherby, Inc! After all, you're a family man, and you can't take—"

Even as Heck spoke, a photographer suddenly came into the room. Through the walls? wondered Heck in dismay. No, he had merely materialized, as Heck had done.

With camera and strobe unit he walked purposefully across the room. "Right here, boss?" he demanded. The others did not know this, but he was addressing Heck. Apparently Heck had summoned him, via teleportation. He was part of Heck's new company, all donated by the man with the big head, like the cards, and the warehouse.

The blonde looked more surprised than anybody. Amos Weatherby had gone white as a sheet. His mouth opened but he couldn't get any words out.

"Scram!" Heck shouted. "Get out of here." The photographer vanished.

"Finch," Amos Weatherby said, mopping his brow, "you had better be able to explain this. All of it."

The blonde, after her first surprise at the photographer, seemed amused. "But does he really?" she demanded. "Do you, Heck?"

The boss-image was very strong in Heck's mind. He'd been an employee of Weatherby, Inc., ever since his two years of business college. Amos Weatherby was The Boss. You had to obey The Boss. But still, in a way, the blonde was right. Wasn't Heck going into business for himself? Hadn't the arrangements already been made by the little man with the slightly outsized head? But what about the blonde? thought Heck suddenly. How did the blonde know this?

"Well, Finch?" Weatherby asked.

And Heck heard himself saying: "This seems as good a time as any to tell you, boss. I—er—am quitting."

Weatherby looked at him for a moment, then bellowed: "Did some goldarn sales representatives from The Spooner Company offer you some kind of deal? I'll match it, Heck. Plus an additional bonus. Amos Weatherby needs salesmen like you!"

"Thank you, sir, but I'm going into business for myself."

"Yourself? With what for capital?"

The blonde smiled. To Heck it looked like a knowing smile. The blonde knew, all right. She understood everything. "I'm afraid I can't tell you that," Heck said. The blonde took his arm.

"Shall we teleport?" she said.

The last thing Heck saw was Amos Weatherby's sweating face. Then, with the blonde, he plunged into the now familiar blackness.

"But it's still dark," Heck said a few moments later as they continued to travel.

"Sure," came the unseen blonde's voice. "We just haven't gone all the way through."

Something soft nibbled at Heck's face. Nibbled? That wasn't nibbling! he told himself. It was a pair of lips and the lips were kissing him in the utter darkness.

"Ummm," said the blonde between kisses, "if we're going to work together, we might as well have some fun, too."

"But what about Patty?" Heck demanded. While waiting for an answer he explored tentatively then more forcefully with his own lips and hands. After all, the circumstances were unusual.

"Patty?" asked the blonde dreamily. "Paa-tii? Oh, yes, the girl friend. Well, just you bring her along to work for us if you want, as a secretary or clerk or something."

"For—us?" Heck asked.

"Us, of course. I'm part of Hector Finch. We Sell Anything."

"What part?" Heck asked suspiciously.

"Don't say it like that, lover. It was Baldid's idea."

"Who the hell's Baldid?"

"Little man? Big head?"

"Go ahead," said Heck resignedly.

"I'm to be your procurement agent, is all."

"Procurer," said Heck, "of what?"

"Procurement agent, I said. What do you think a procurement agent does? He gets things. You sell them, I'll get them. O.K.?"

"If Mr. Baldid said so, I guess it's O.K."

"Splendid," came the voice of the blonde in utter darkness. She was very close. Heck could smell the scent of her perfume. He felt the faint brushing of her blonde hair against his face as she moved her head in the darkness. "Now, do you want to go back and get a hotel room, or sleep here?" she asked Heck matter-of-factly.

"Well, to tell you the truth—"

"Why bother to be conventional, Heck? Besides, those are just the conventions of your world which are holding you back. Now, on my world—"

"You stay here," Heck said. "Wherever here is. I'm going back home. I'll see you at the new office tomorrow. Er—you know the address?"

"I ought to. I picked the place out for Baldid."

"Well, goodbye," Heck said, and teleported to his bachelor apartment in Metropolitan City, about half a mile from where Patty lived. Conventions, he thought. It was always something. He didn't mean the conventions which had stopped him from doing what the eager blonde wanted to do because he was engaged to Patty. He meant sales conventions. If all this had happened at anything but a sales convention, Heck would have been too incredulous to go ahead with his plans to start the new business. But at a sales convention? Anything and everything could happen at a sales convention....

Heck drifted off to sleep and dreamed that Patty and Baldid, secret lovers, were conspiring against him.

He was at the new office building at nine o'clock promptly. He should have felt sleepy, but did not. He was raring to go.

The building was seven storeys high. Heck had expected a dilapidated warehouse and a dingy suite of offices above it. What he saw was a gleaming glass-walled new office building in one of the best sections of town. A sign in raised metal-on-metal bank-style letters proclaimed the edifice to be the Finch Building. And that, Heck told himself in amazement, was more than either Amos Weatherby or Jason Spooner had.

The doorman smiled and tipped his hat. At first Heck, who smiled back a little self-consciously, did not know how the maroon-uniformed doorman knew him. But then he saw a big full-color portrait of himself hanging just to the left of the bank of elevators. Apparently the blonde had found it somewhere, or had had it made from a snapshot. The blonde thought of everything.

Heck got into the elevator. It was crowded with white-collar workers all of whom, Heck realized with a start, worked for him. They'd been talking animatedly when he entered the car, but the talk settled quickly into nervous silence. After all, weren't they in the presence of The Boss?

When the elevator got to the top floor and when the last of the other passengers got off, Heck stepped out on a plush red carpet and across it through a gate and past a row of smiling secretaries to an opaque-glass-walled suite of offices marked with the legend: Executive Offices.

There must have been half a dozen secretaries and clerks in the large ante-room. All were busy. All were gorgeous. If the blonde was responsible for hiring them, the blonde had taste. And obviously wasn't the jealous type. Or perhaps, Heck thought, Baldid had done the hiring. Or perhaps the girls just came with the building. Were they Earth girls? wondered Heck, or girls from the blonde's world? He found himself sighing with contentment. If they all had a collective moral sense the equal of the blonde's.... But what am I thinking? There's Patty. Isn't there?

"... waiting for you," a voice said.

"Er, what was that?" Heck realized that the secretary closest to the door leading to the Executive Offices had spoken to him.

"I said, sir, there is a Miss O'Conner waiting for you in your office."

Patty, Heck thought. He gulped. How had Patty learned of his new business so quickly? He was going to tell her, of course, but not immediately. He needed time to think. Unprepared, how could you explain a setup like this to a girl like Patty?

"... has called twice," the secretary was saying.

"I—uh—whom did you say has called twice?"

"Miss Laara, sir. The procurement agent."

"Ah, yes. Miss Laara. I'd better see her. At once. Yes. Yes, at once. Don't tell Miss O'Conner...."

Just then the door to the Executive Offices opened. An angry Patty stood there, hands on hips. "Don't tell Miss O'Conner what?" she demanded. "Heck, are you trying to avoid me?"

"Why, no, sweetheart. Whatever—"

Then Patty's face changed. The anger and the certainty were replaced by a small-girl look of surprise and awe. "Heck," she said in a soft voice, "what is all this? What has happened to you? How—how can you afford a setup that could bankrupt Amos Weatherby?"

"I can explain everything," Heck said, realizing how ridiculous and incriminating the words sound. "No, I mean it, I can." Of course he could. But whether she believed or not was another story.

"Now?" Patty asked.

"Not now. Right now I'm busy."

Patty had a new expression on her face. Hurt look. "At least give me some idea," she pleaded.

Heck stared at her blankly. There was nothing he could say. She would never believe his story about Mr. Baldid. Who in his right mind would? "I—I saved up!" he said, blurting the words.

"Saved up? If you'd been saving half your paycheck since I met you you couldn't have put a down payment on just the furniture in this one room. Heck! Heck, you're lying to me!"

He didn't deny it. He stared at Patty and shrugged his shoulders and adjusted his tie and teleported. The last thing he saw was Patty's very angry face....

Heck re-materialized in the Procurement Office, or rather in the waiting room of the procurement office. He looked around. He shuddered. He wanted to run.

The faces. You didn't have to study the WANTED posters in the post offices to recognize them. They were all of a type—and the type belonged on wanted posters. They were hard faces, brutal faces, cynical faces. They went with big, powerful bodies and heavily-padded, loud-styled clothing. They went with suspicious jacket-bulges and unreadable expressions. They went with organized crime.

The secretary, a very small brunette in a low-cut dress, did not seem to mind. In fact, she seemed a shade disappointed when Heck's comparatively small form pushed its way through to her desk. "There's something?" she said, then gave Heck a closer scrutiny. "Mr. Finch! I'm sorry, sir. I didn't recognize you."

"Is Miss Laara in?"

"Yes, sir. Of course. Interviewing, sir."

"For what?"

The receptionist stared at him in surprise. "For the procurement staff, naturally. Shall I tell Miss Laara you're here?"

"No. I'll go right in, thanks."

And Heck went to the door, and opened it.

"... ten percent of the price received for all material procured by you," Miss Laara, her blonde hair in an upsweep and harlequin glasses perched on her pretty nose, was saying.

She looked up. "Oh, hi. Hi, Heck."

Heck grunted, sat down in the one empty chair. The second visitor's chair in the room was well-filled by the enormous bulk of one of the hoodlum types being interviewed for the procurement staff. "Gee, lady," he said. "I dunno. Ten percent ain't so hot. If we was to sell to a fence we could figure on maybe thirty percent of the value of the merchandise."

"Sure, but working with a fence is catch as catch can. I guarantee you a steady market. Besides, you will also be guaranteed a capture-proof method of procurement. I already explained that to you."

"Prohibition was never like this," said the thug.

"Well, what do you say, my man? Come, come. There are others. If you don't want—"

"Naw, I didn't say that. I guess I'll take the deal. Only, lemme see that trick again. Walk through that wall."

"I already told you it wasn't really walking through walls. It is teleporting."

"Teleporting, shmeleporting. Gimme the gadget."

"There is no gadget. You are now working for us. You can teleport. And your specialty, Mr. Manetti—?"

"Tires. Automobile tires." Manetti walked toward the wall, chuckling happily.

"We'll expect a shipment today."

"Today? But—"

"You can teleport it, remember?"

Manetti nodded his head, got halfway to the wall and disappeared.

Laara flashed a smile. "How'm I doing, Heck?"

"I don't know. I just don't know."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Laara asked in a hurt voice. "By noon I ought to have the whole procurement force, and you say—"

"Crooks. Gangsters."

"What did you expect, a staff of Little Lord Fauntleroys? After all, if they have to burgle—"

"Burgle!"

"Of course. We don't have any working capital. How do you expect to get any merchandise to sell? We burgle it—but safely—via teleportation."

"That's against the law," Heck said.

Laara looked at him blankly. "Is it? Do you really care?"

"I really, definitely, truly care! Call off your procurement force, Laara. That's an order. Go out and get us some money."

"Where?"

"Why, from Baldid, of course."

"But Baldid doesn't have any money."

"No? No money?" Heck said in alarm.

"But I can get some. I can rob a bank via teleportation. Shall I go now?"

"No." Heck cried. "Don't do that. I didn't mean like that. Dismiss the staff. Forget the whole thing. I'll get a job. Maybe Jason Spooner will hire me. But I won't be a party to any wholesale burglaries."

"Very well," the blonde Laara said. "If that's what you want. But first I'd like to point out we have a staff of over five hundred in this building. They've all been here an hour or so. They'll all demand at least a day's pay, if you let them go. Some of them will demand two weeks pay and the courts might decide they're entitled to it. Do you imagine—can you imagine—where that would put you? In debt for life, Hector Finch, unless you go through with our business arrangements."

"Crooks and all?" Heck said in despair.

"I'm handling this. Crooks and all, is that clear?" The blonde stared at him defiantly. Defiantly? he wondered. But defiantly meant she was trying to defy him. It wasn't that way at all. If there was any defying that had to be done, it would be on Heck's part. The blonde was in the driver's seat. Heck wondered: who really runs Hector Finch. We Sell Anything? It certainly wasn't Heck.

Gangsters, he thought. Criminals. And how many robberies a day? He shuddered, and teleported.

He blinked.

He stared.

He gaped.

He had begun to materialize in a locker room. He had of course been in locker rooms before. But never in ladies' locker rooms.

And this was very definitely a ladies' locker room.

Heck heard the hiss and roar of showers, heard the talk of many girls. He saw them, too, in the aisles between the lockers. Some were dressed in mufti. Some were dressed in a kind of uniform with the letters HF stitched across the left breast. Some were dressed in fractions of each, or either. Some were in undies. Some were in towels. Some were not dressed at all. And every girl in the locker room was a beauty, sleek and well-formed and lovely to look at except that with all of them there, Heck thought, it was something like a man dying of thirst in the middle of the Sahara being thrust suddenly head first into a vat of beer. He'd want to drink a lot but he couldn't drink that fast and if he didn't watch out he might even go—in seconds—from dying of thirst to drowning.

Heck flushed, and decided to teleport. Before he could, however, a woman wearing a towel and a lot of wet skin grabbed his arm. "Stick around, honey," she said. "You're the boss, aren't you?"

"That's right, Miss. I—"

"You like the new uniform?"

"Well, I—"

"Georgette!" called the woman, who seemed to be several years older than the others and reminded Heck of his impression of what a madam ought to be like.

A strawberry blonde came over in the HF uniform and slowly pirouetted for Heck. The uniform was maroon and silver, with a tight clinging bodice and tapered slacks that fit her buttocks and legs like sun-tan oil. Heck gaped.

"Like it?" the strawberry blonde asked.

"That's enough, Georgette," the older woman said. "This is the boss."

Georgette went away, wagging an acre of pulchritude.

"What are you all going to be," Heck asked, "elevator operators?"

"Elevator operators?" repeated the woman, and laughed. It was a loud, unrestrained sort of laugh, but somehow not uncouth—exactly what Heck would have expected if the woman had been what Heck thought the woman looked like. "Dear me, no. Elevator operators!" And she went off into a second fit of laughter.

"Then what?"

"We're the sales staff, of course."

"Sales?" Blankly.

"Sales. It's Miss Laara's feeling that a sales staff ought to be expert at selling."

"Obviously," Heck said.

"Look at these girls! Can they sell, d'you think? In those uniforms they could sell Union Station to the police chief and make it stick."

"But their experience—"

"They're all experienced. They're chorus girls or burlesque girls or party girls or pr—"

"That's enough!" Heck cried. "You've made your point."

"Then all I want to know is, do you approve of the uniform or don't you approve of the uniform?"

Heck couldn't think. Everybody was running Hector Finch but Hector Finch. He took one more look around the locker room. Most of the girls were in their uniforms now. They had not minded Heck's being there. Why should they? They were all used to that sort of thing.

Heck should have been happy. Access to this room alone might have been worth five years of a healthy young bachelor's life. But he wasn't happy at all. Yesterday the ace salesman of a big electronics outfit. An ace salesman, who loved selling, perfectly, splendidly, magnificently adjusted. Today, the owner of a huge—and illegally functioning or soon to be illegally functioning—company. Well, the so-called owner. The owner in name only.

Because he hadn't made one decision....

"Excuse me," a voice said timidly. "I was told I might find Hector Finch here. Is Hector—" The voice trailed off. It was Patty's voice and now Patty saw Heck, sitting apparently unconcernedly, among all the uniformed and ununiformed and partially uniformed beauties.

"Heck!" she cried. "You come out of there! You come with me this minute." But then she looked at his face, saw the worry, the indecision, the confusion. "Heck," she said, her voice softening. "Heck, you poor guy. You look so befuddled. You come on with me, Heck."

Mechanically, he went. Laara ran procurement. The madam-like woman ran selling. Patty ran Heck. He was one hell of an executive.

They ran smack into their first serious trouble three days after the company began to function.

In those three days, Heck almost succeeded in turning his own head. His job apparently consisted of signing a few routine interoffice memorandums, making a daily tour of inspection, spending as much time as he wanted with the sales force, arbitrating disputes between some of the more tempestuous beauties either of the sales force or the secretarial staff, and trying to convince Patty, who had come that first day because she had seen an ad Laara had placed in the papers in Heck's name, that everything was going to be all right. He never did actually get right down to it and tell Patty the truth, but he didn't have to. On the second day, Laara told her. And, coming from Laara, not Heck, Patty believed every word.

And they were making money, as the expression goes, hand over fist. The first day, four hundred thousand in net profits. The second day, six hundred and fifty thousand. The third day, just short of a million. In three years at this rate, Heck thought, he'd be a billionaire. So why worry about little details like how the procurement force got merchandise to sell or how the sales force did the selling?

Then on the third day, while Heck was settling a petty dispute between Georgette and another saleswoman named Marcia, he got an intercom call from Laara.

"Heck, you'd better come down to my office. There seems to be some trouble."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Procurement trouble. Hurry up, before the police get here."

The word police sent Heck teleporting instantly. To hell with elevators and corridors, he told himself. To hell with a billion dollars. Police.... And if they were caught, they were caught with a warehouse full of stolen goods.

Heck materialized in the procurement office. A thug sat there nibbling at a finger half the size of a baseball bat. Laara was looking at him angrily. The thug resembled Manetti, but seemed bigger if not tougher. They all seemed to resemble Manetti.

"This is Mr. Fanetti," Laara said. "Mr. Fanetti, Mr. Finch."

"You mean, The Boss?" Fanetti said in a deep but awed voice. "A time like this I got to meet the boss? Jeez, boss, I'm sorry." For all his size and bulk, Fanetti cowered in front of Heck. He looked as if he expected Heck to hit him.

"What did Fanetti do?" Heck asked Laara. He was surprised that he could be so calm. It was Fanetti's attitude, he supposed. Fanetti's awe and respect did things for his ego.

"Let Fanetti tell it," Laara said, and Fanetti began:

"I work out of wholesale liquor, boss. Man, for three days it's just like prohibition all over again. Hell, I was a punk kid then, but I remember. You know? Honest, boss, I didn't—"

"Get to the point, Fanetti," Heck said curtly.

"We had this deal. The National Liquor Warehouse is in this city, you know?"

"That was Fanetti's first mistake," Laara cut in. "I told them. I tried to drum it into their stupid heads. It would be better to work other cities. With teleportation at their fingertips, what's the difference how far they went? They could have crossed oceans in split-seconds. But Fanetti couldn't get that through his thick skull."

Heck stood up impatiently, lighting a cigarette. Fanetti misunderstood the gesture, and raised a hand in front of his face to ward off an expected blow.

"Go ahead, for crying out loud," Heck said.

"Well, anyhow," Fanetti continued, "I been heisting Scotch and bourbon at the National Warehouse and doing great on my ten percent, boss. When, all of a sudden, along comes Scarface Willy."

"Scarface Willy?" repeated Heck. He smiled: it sounded too much like a TV crime melodrama for him to do otherwise. Then he remembered what Laara had said about the police. He stopped smiling. "Who is Scarface Willy?" he asked Fanetti.

"Just the kingpin bootlegger in Metropolitan City during prohibition, that's all!" Fanetti cried in a hoarse voice.

"But that was over twenty years ago," Heck protested.

Laara pointed out: "Don't you think Scarface Willy has to go on making a living?"

Fanetti said: "Scarface Willy is real mad, see? After prohibition, Scarface gets into the protection racket. He knows the liquor trade, see? He knows the liquor people. So he starts protecting all the liquor distributors in Metropolitan City, back in the thirties. And ever since."

"Including National, from which Fanetti has been taking out several hundred cases of liquor a day."

"Including National," Heck groaned.

"Today," Fanetti finished, "Scarface Willy meets me there. He's mad. He's boiling, lemme tell you. Fanetti, he tells me, you're looking to get killed. Fanetti, you're as good as dead if you take as much as another shot of liquor from National. Fanetti, he screams, I get fifty thousand bucks a year in protection money from National Liquor. How in hell can I protect National, he hollers, from guys like you who just make the goddamn liquor disappear? Fanetti, if you ever do that again, I will have you hit in the head and put in a cement overcoat and dropped in the river. So I tell him I ain't the boss and this gets Scarface Willy mad, too. He figures he is the boss of liquor in this city. He wants I should take him to you. As we have strict orders from Miss Laara that nobody but ourselves is to ever get telewachamacallited, I tell him he will have to come here on shank's mare. So, he's coming."

"Scarface Willy?" said Heck.

"Scarface Willy," said Laara, looking worried for almost the first time since Heck had known her.

"But what about the cops?" Heck asked.

"What can you tell Scarface Willy? That we'll stop? If we do, and he gets wise to the rest of our business, he can blackmail us for every cent we're worth. Or that we'll give him a cut? But then he'll want a cut of everything."

"You said the cops."

"That's after you kick Scarface Willy out on his rear end. He's got political connections in this city. Doubtless he'll use them."

"I'm going to do what to Scarface Willy?"

Fanetti got up and came over and pounded Heck's back with a hand like a punch-press. "You can do it, boss," he said. "I know you can do it."

Just then the intercom buzzed and a voice said: "This is Main Floor Reception, Miss Laara. A Mr. William Talese has just reached the elevator and is now going up. He has an appointment with—"

"I know who he has an appointment with," said Laara, and cut the connection.

"With me?" Heck asked glumly.

"Not yet with you. Want to soften him up first. Remember Georgette?"

Indeed he did. "Georgette?" he said. "Oh, yes."

"Mr. Scarface Willy Talese's first appointment is with Sales. With Georgette, to be precise. So, we wait an hour or so and see how much Georgette can soften him up. Then we bring him upstairs to see you. How does it sound?"

"Great, lady," Fanetti said, going over to Laara and raising the flat of his hand to repeat the optimistic thumping he had administered to Heck's spine.

"If you use that thing on me, Fanetti," Laura shouted, "you're finished here."

"Aw, lady," Fanetti said, looking at his hand. In repose his hand was not very big. In repose it looked only half the size of a whale's fluke.

They waited. For Heck, time crawled. Not that he was in a hurry to see Scarface Willy. But time crawled agonizingly because he didn't know exactly what Willy wanted and knew he'd have to wait a while before he found out. It was hard to believe that three days ago he was a salesman in love with his work and in love with his girl. Now he wasn't a salesman any longer although that had seemed to be Baldid's original idea. Now he hardly had time for his girl....

Buzz went the intercom. "Yes?" said Laara.

"This is Sophie," said a voice. Sophie was the madam-like woman. "Mr. Talese was here."

"What do you mean, was there?" asked Laara.

"Because he's come and gone. He wouldn't even look at Georgette. He had too much business on his mind to think of dames, he said. He meant it, Miss Laara. He said the only kind of dames he really liked, anyhow, was tall redheads with plenty of Irish in them. So—" here Sophie's voice suddenly took on a foxy quality—"I sent him right up to Mr. Finch's office."

"Mr. Finch's office?" repeated Laara. "But he was supposed to see us right here in Procurement. After all, it's a procurement problem."

"But a tall redhead with plenty of Irish in her!" cried Sophie with professional enthusiasm. "Don't you see?"

"Patty!" shouted Heck in dismay. "You want Patty to try what Georgette—"

He forgot all about teleportation. He began to run from the room.

"Stop him, Fanetti!" Laara cried. "Stop him!"

"The Boss?" Fanetti asked in an awed voice.

"You're in Procurement. You work for me. I'm The Boss. Stop him. Stop him or you're fired."

Fanetti let out what sounded almost like a sob, but rushed across the room at Heck. They came together and went down in a heap and in a moment Fanetti sat on Heck, pinning him to the floor.

"If you don't get the hell up, you oaf, you're fired," Heck said.

"And you're fired if you don't stay where you are," Laara said.

Clearly, Fanetti did not know what to do. He sat there looking sadly at Heck, looking sadly at Laara.

Then Heck remembered.

Heck teleported.

But Fanetti clung to him.

"I don't get you dames a-tall," Scarface Willy Talese said. "The skinny little strawberry blonde was all for it. I figure, that's the general idea. But I don't go for the skinny little strawberry blonde. You know? Some dames you go for and some dames you don't."

"I wouldn't know," Patty said coldly.

"Well, I go for you, baby," Scarface Willy said. "I go for you in a big way. And what Willy Talese goes for, he gets."

Patty stood behind the desk, her balance forward on the balls of her feet, her hands tensed on the edge of the desk, ready to run either way. Scarface Willy, a surprisingly small and dapper-looking middle-aged gentleman with only a very small scar pulling down the outside corner of his left eye and a custom-tailored outfit which must have cost him a cool three hundred dollars, stood in front of the desk. He went one way. Patty went the other way. Scarface Willy lunged over the desk. Patty hit him with a paperweight but he bobbed like a clever boxer and it only grazed his forehead. "Irish," he said. "I like your Irish, girl. I like everything about you."

"I—I'll bop you again," Patty vowed. "Or else I'll scream. Yes, I'll scream."

Willy was confused. Downstairs they hadn't behaved this way at all. The other girl was nothing like this. The other girl was all eagerness. It was always that way, though. The good things came tough.

Willy lunged a second time. Patty swung and missed him with the paperweight.

Heck and Fanetti materialized on the desktop. Fanetti was still sitting on Heck.

"Get off me," Heck said.

Fanetti got off, and vaulted off the desk.

"Fanetti, you!" screamed the surprised Scarface Willy.

"Aw, Boss," Fanetti bleated. It seemed he had a passion for calling people boss.

Scarface Willy clawed at the lapel of his custom-tailored suit. He withdrew a snub-nosed wide-bored automatic and made a fanning motion with it around the room. "All right," he said. "All right. Talese's had enough. Talese don't get treated like this. Talese gives protection, see? When Talese gives protection, he wants it to stick. See? You, Fanetti!"

"Yeah, Boss?"

"Sit on that guy again. You did that real good."

Fanetti looked at Scarface Willy. He looked at Heck. He shifted his feet uncomfortably.

"Because I'm getting out of here," Scarface Willy said. "With the dame. I don't like this joint. Dames who throw themselves at you. Dames who don't. People who pop up out of nowheres. A madam who calls herself a sales director. Maybe Red here can straighten me out. Can't you, Red?"

"I won't tell you a thing," Patty told him coldly.

Scarface Willy shrugged. "Not here, you won't. At my place. Are you going to sit on him, Fanetti?"

"N-no," Fanetti said after a while. The word was defiant. The tone was not.

Scarface Willy shrugged again. "I'll remember that, Fanetti. When the time comes. You!" Waving the gun.

"Me?" said Heck.

"Yeah, you. Come with me. We're going downstairs together. You and me and Red here. I'll have the gun in my pocket. You'll escort me to the street. Me and Red."

"You wouldn't dare kill us."

"Who said anything about killing you? Think I wanta face a murder-one rap? Fanetti!"

"Yeah?" Fanetti said.

"Come here."

Fanetti walked slowly in front of Scarface Willy. Then Fanetti saw the look on Willy's face and began to back away. He had a look of fascinated horror on his face. Coldly, contemptuously, Willy reached into his jacket again. He took out a long, barrel-tubed contraption and slowly screwed it on the end of his automatic. Fanetti backed away faster. He opened his mouth to say no.

Before he could say it, though, Scarface Willy shot him twice, once in the meaty part of each thigh. The silencer muffled the twin explosions almost completely. Fanetti crumpled in pain, writhing on the floor. Willy unscrewed the silencer from his gun and put it away. "Shall we go?" he said.

With a numbness clouding his mind and making coherent thought all but impossible, Heck walked in front of Scarface Willy and Patty to the office door. He jerked the door open and heard them walking behind him. He also heard Fanetti's moan. He told the receptionist:

"You'd better get a doctor, quick as you can."

"A doctor?"

Heck jerked a thumb behind him. "In there."

Then Scarface Willy came out, with Patty. She was walking before him. Unless you were looking for it, you did not see the bulge of the automatic which he held in his pocket. But if you were looking for it, as Heck was, it seemed as big as a sixteen-inch naval gun.

The pretty female elevator operator smiled and said a few things and obviously expected Heck to flirt with her as the car went down. Heck maintained a white-faced silence.

"Say, Mr. Finch, is anything the matter? You don't look so good."

Scarface Willy grunted a barely audible warning. Patty let out a sigh. "Working too hard, I guess," Heck told the elevator operator.

"Well, you're white as a sheet. Why don't you go down to the beach and get yourself a good sunburn one of these days."

"Maybe I will," Heck said automatically as the elevator reached ground level. He got out. The others got out behind him.

"The street," Scarface Willy said.

They went outside. A snarl of traffic passed sluggishly in the street. Horns tooted. Someone, probably a taxi driver, yelled. I can get away right now, Heck thought. The street was crowded. He could slip away. Scarface Willy wouldn't dare shoot. But Scarface Willy didn't want him. Scarface Willy wanted Patty....

"Listen," Willy said. "The girl goes with me. You get it? She goes, and you get time to think. Say, twenty-four hours?"

"To think about what?"

"Don't listen to him, Heck, whatever it is!" Patty said bravely.

"I'm cutting myself in, Finch. To think about—say, fifty percent?"

"Fifty percent!" gasped Heck.

Willy squeezed Patty's arm. Patty winced. "Fifty percent, bucko," said Willy. "A fifty-fifty split. Don't tell me now. I want you to think about it."

A long black car untangled itself from the steady snarling stream of traffic and cruised over to the curb. The chauffeur leaned back, opening the rear door. Pushing Patty ahead of him, Scarface Willy climbed in.

"What about me?" Heck wanted to know. "You can't take her without—"

"You stay where you are, bucko. I already told you."

The door slammed. Heck clawed at the handle. "Wait! Wait!" he cried. The car sped from the curb, almost bowling Heck over. "Help!" he shouted. "Help! Kidnapper!"

Already the car was out of sight in traffic. And Heck hadn't even looked at the license number. A curious crowd had gathered around him. Someone pushed his way through. A cop. Eying Heck speculatively. "Well," he said, "and what's this racket about a kidnapper?"

"Nothing," Heck said. "Nothing." If the cops came in on this, there was no telling what might happen to Patty. The mental numbness enveloping him again, Heck went back into the building.

"Maybe you'd better send for Baldid," Heck told Laara. "Because if anybody can help us, it's Baldid."

"But you're wrong, Heck," the blonde said promptly. "You couldn't be wronger. Baldid is a successful businessman, is all. He wouldn't know how to deal with this situation at all."

"Me," Heck groaned, "I'm not even a successful businessman. I'm nothing. I'm nobody."

"You're Hector Finch. Don't ever say you're nobody."

"That," said Heck resignedly, "is saying the same thing."

"Are you just going to sit here brooding while that man has your fiancée?" For the first time, as if danger were the impetus, Laara readily admitted that Patty was Heck's fiancée.

"I'm thinking. I'm trying to think. Listen, Laara, in order to teleport some place, do you have to know precisely where?"

"No. But you need a general idea."

"Just knowing that it's Scarface Willy's hideout or headquarters or whatever it is—would that be enough?"

Laara shook her head.

"Wait a minute!" Heck cried. "The doc's still here with Mr. Fanetti, isn't he?"

"I think so. They have to do something for Fanetti's legs before he can be moved."

"Poor Fanetti," Heck said, and took Laara's hand, and teleported from her office to his.

Fanetti was sitting up. His trousers had been removed and a sheet was draped over his legs. His face had an unhealthy pallor, as if he'd lost too much blood and needed a transfusion—which probably was the case.

"How are you, Fanetti?" Heck said.

Fanetti shrugged. "I been hit before," he told them, a little proudly.

The doctor said: "I've sent for an ambulance. This man needs three or four days in the hospital. He'll be all right after that."

"Fanetti, listen," Heck pleaded. "I need help. I need to know where Scarface Willy hangs out. I need to know badly."

"He took the big redheaded cutie?"

"Yes," said Laara.

"Jeez," said Fanetti in awe. "Kidnapping. That Scarface Willy'll do anything."

"You've got to tell me where I can find him."

"I'd like to, Boss. I'm on your side. You ought to know that."

"Well?"

"But I don't know!"

"You don't know?" Heck repeated the words in a shocked voice. Getting Fanetti to co-operate, he had thought, would be the toughest nut to crack.

"Nobody does, but maybe an inside few who got to. Willy's taking no chances. Hell, he's up on history. He knows what happened to guys like Dutch Schultz right in their own hangouts. So, he don't take no chances. I'm sorry, Boss."

"But there must be somebody can tell me."

Fanetti scowled. "I tell you what," he said. "The racetrack."

"The racetrack?"

"Yeah. A lot of Willy's friends hang out in the Clubhouse. You can't miss 'em. Especially on a weekday like this, they almost got the Clubhouse all to themselves. The suckers with the little bets hang out near the rail, but it's the Clubhouse for Willy's friends. You see...."

But Fanetti found himself talking to the doctor and to Laara. Heck had teleported.

... Out of blackness.

He heard a bugle call. He was high up over a grandstand in a terraced room almost the size of an auditorium. It was set up like an open-air restaurant with only one side open. That side faced the racetrack.

"They're coming from the paddock for the fifth race," a loudspeaker voice announced. "This is the forty-fourth running of the Belvedere Handicap for four-year-olds. Purse, fifty thousand dollars."

There was a bar and all but two or three of the patrons of the Clubhouse were clustered around it with drinks. Then, one by one, they drifted over to the barrier which overlooked the grandstand, the rail-enclosed viewing area, and the turf.

"Excuse me," Heck began. "I'm looking—"

But they went right by him. They were interested in the horses now coming to the post for the forty-fourth running of the Belvedere Handicap. They hardly saw Heck at all.

"Sultan's Lady," said one. "I got a hun'red ona nose."

"Sultan's, stupid. Can't you talk English?"

"Miramar," insisted another with smug confidence.

A bell clanged. A shout went up from below. The horses began to run.

"Excuse me," Heck said.

But all eyes might as well have been glued to the turf. In spite of himself, Heck watched the brief pounding flurry of the horses' hooves. When it was over and the crowd below settled back into anxious whispering, a loudspeaker voice said:

"There is a photo-finish in the fifth race, ladies and gentlemen, with Sultan's Lady and Miramar neck and neck."

"Sultan's Lady," said one of the Clubhouse patrons.

"Miramar!" hotly contested the other.

"Gentlemen," said Heck.

They all ignored him.

Heck took a deep breath and shouted at the top of his voice: "Mr. William Talese!"

Two or three of the men turned to him for the first time. "Hey, kiddo. You mean Scarface Willy? So what about him?" one of them demanded.

"I'm looking for him."

"He's looking for him," one of the thugs repeated in an amused tone.

"We, er, had a business deal," Heck improvised.

"Yeah? What kind of a business deal?"

"I am not at liberty to divulge that. But it will mean millions of dollars to Mr. Talese and some of his chosen friends. Mr. Talese said to meet him right here, but I haven't got all day. In fact, it's late already. So, where can I find him?"

"How do we know you're on the level?" one of them asked.

"Fanetti!" Heck cried on impulse. "Do you know what happened to Fanetti?"

"Naw."

"Me and Willy shot him," said Heck, "in both legs. That ought to prove I'm like this—" he crossed his index and middle fingers—"with Willy. Here, if you don't believe me, call this number."

One of them called the number. And spoke. And listened. And returned with an awed look on his face. "The little guy told the truth."

At that moment the loudspeaker blared: "In the fifth race, the results: Miramar and Sultan's Lady in a dead heat."

The two thugs at the barrier began to argue about the respective merits of Miramar and Sultan's Lady. Numbers flashed on the tote board. Sultan's Lady had won on the shorter odds and that meant something to one of the thugs. It seemed to mean the opposite to the other.

"Willy Talese," Heck said. "I've got to find where he hangs out. It's a matter of life and death. I've got to see him."

"I thought you said business." Suspiciously.

"Well, yes. Of course."

"Pal, I wish I could help you. Hey, do any of you guys know Willy's hangout address? Confidential, of course. For Willy's good friend here."

They all shook their heads blankly. The speaker told Heck: "And I'm Willy's number three lootenant. It shows you how careful you got to be these days. You just can't trust nobody."

"But somebody must surely know!"

"Well, listen," Willy's number three lieutenant said, "you might try Johnny The Cat Simese."

"Johnny the, uh—"

"Johnny The Cat Simese. He hangs out at Ada's gym, when he ain't bodyguarding Willy's corpus."

"You don't mean corpus, stupid," one of the other thugs said. "A corpus is a dead man."

"Well, anyhow," said the lieutenant.

"Ada's gym," memorized Heck. "Johnny The Cat Simese." He teleported. He vanished.

"Hey, what the hell?" one of the thugs said.

And another one: "Where'd the little guy go?"

They looked around. Naturally, there was no Heck.

Heck bounced on canvas.

He looked up. A menacing-looking fat man came toward him wearing bathing trunks and stale sweat. Another menacing-looking fat man was on the other side of Heck. This was in a wrestling ring. Outside the ring, an enormous woman some six feet tall and five feet wide and quite shapeless and chewing on a wad of tobacco big as a baseball yelled in a gravelly voice:

"Cut it, cut it! Where'd you come from, sonny-boy?"

"I'm looking for Johnny The Cat Simese," Heck said.

"I'm The Cat," a third wrestler, wearing a bathrobe, said, and came over to the ring. "What's he want, Ada?"

"How should I know?" the fat woman said, spitting a brown stream of tobacco juice.

"It's confidential," Heck said, "and it's urgent." He climbed awkwardly through the ropes and walked along the ring apron, then climbed down. He whispered in Johnny The Cat Simese's well-cauliflowered ear: "I'm looking for Mr. Talese."

"What makes you think I know anybody named Talese? Wait a minute! Talese! You mean Scarface Willy."

"Yes," said Heck.

The next thing that happened happened so fast that Heck hardly knew he was the target of a well-coordinated wrestling attack. Two big hands caught him. A big leg got behind him. He fell down. A big body fell on top of him, squeezing the wind out of his lungs. He looked bleary-eyed into Johnny The Cat's face.

"So!" Johnny The Cat cried exultantly. "So!"

"Wh—what's the matter?" Heck managed.

"As if you didn't know, pal. Get up!"

"That's impossible. You're on top of me."

Johnny The Cat got up. He propelled Heck to his feet and got his right arm in a hammerlock, forcing it up between his shoulder blades. "So," he said, "old Willy was right."

"R—right about what?"

"No rough stuff here, please," Ada said. "Only in the ring."

"This is the Chicago guy," Johnny The Cat declared.

Ada came over and slapped Heck's face. I can teleport, Heck thought in despair, but it wouldn't do any good. The Cat was holding him. "I've never been to Chicago in my life," Heck protested.

"Not much you ain't," said Johnny The Cat.

"Well, I haven't."

"You might as well admit it. You're Little Hymie. Well, ain't you?"

"No," said Heck. "I'm Hector Finch of Hector Finch, We Sell Anything."

"You're Little Hymie and you come here to rub out Scarface Willy. That Willy now, he's smart. He figures the knock-out boy has got to find him first, see? So he sends his troopers—"

"Troopers?"

"Like me, stupid. He sends us out on our usual business, figuring you, Little Hymie, would come looking for him by finding us."

"You're right," Heck said suddenly. "Take me to Scarface Willy for my punishment."

"Take you to him, pal? That's the last thing we'll do. We'll take you, all right. We'll take you outside for a little schlammin, then back you go to Chicago as a warning to the other boys that Scarface Willy is strong enough to buck the whole damn Syndicate if he wants-ta."

"Then, in that case, I am not Little Hymie."

"You just now said you was."

Big Ada said, somewhat exasperated: "Will you guys for cryin' out loud make up yer minds?"

Johnny The Cat said: "Hold on to him, Leech."

One of the two wrestlers in the ring climbed down and took the hammerlock from Johnny The Cat. Heck was still held so that he could not move. "I'm getting dressed," Johnny The Cat explained, and disappeared in the direction of a sign marked, Locker Room.

"Listen," Heck began.

"It ain't none of my business," Ada told him.

A few minutes later, Johnny The Cat came out. He took the hammerlock back from The Leech. "Need any help?" The Leech asked.

"My pleasure," said The Cat.

He pushed Heck ahead of him down a flight of stairs. It led outside to an alley.

"Now, pal," said Johnny The Cat.

He was still clutching Heck's arm, but Heck had no choice. He teleported.

Taking Johnny The Cat Simese with him.

"Hey, who turned out the lights!" Johnny The Cat yelled. "How come it's dark ina middle of the day?"

The darkness was absolute. Heck had teleported out without teleporting in anywhere. "It isn't dark," said Heck, improvising. "It's your eyes. I blinded you."

"You blinded me how?"

"Mental suggestion. Like—like a witch-doctor's curse."

"Say, are you kidding me or something?" But there was alarm in Johnny The Cat's voice.

"Would I kid about a thing like that? Do you want your sight back?"

"I feel just like I'm floating."

"You're dis-oriented because you can't see."

"Dis which?"

"Do you ever want to see again?"

"Yeah!" pleaded Johnny The Cat.

"Then take me to Scarface Willy. Right now."

A pause. Then: "So you can hit him in the head. No thanks. My life wouldn't be worth a plug nickel if I did."

"I am not Little Hymie. I have absolutely nothing to do with Little Hymie. I promise you that."

"That's what Little Hymie would say if he wanted to see the boss. If he wanted to kill the boss."

"So, stay blind."

Silence. Heck let the silence grow. He could feel Johnny The Cat Simese's big hand moving uneasily between his shoulder blades.

"Ain't you gonna say nothing else?" The Cat asked.

"Ain't you gonna ask again, pal?"

No answer.

"Ain't you gonna say I can see again if I take you to Willy? Ain't you?"

Finally Heck said: "You don't even have to take me. Just tell me where it is."

"I—I can't."

"Just think where it is!"

"I won't—"

Heck smiled suddenly in the darkness. "Try not to think about it," he said. "I've put the thought in your mind. You have to think about it now, don't you? You couldn't stop thinking about it if you wanted to. Where is Scarface Willy? You know, don't you, Johnny The Cat? Don't try and tell me you don't know. Where is he? Think about it! Where is Scarface Willy?"

After the long silence, Heck's sudden deluge of words brought a groan from the frightened Johnny The Cat. But abruptly the groan became a shout of anger. "I don't have to listen to you," Johnny said. "All right. I'm blind. All right. But I still got you. I can still give you that schlammin, Little Hymie."

Heck felt his hand forced up cruelly between his shoulder blades. He was spun around. Something cracked. He wondered if his hand were broken. He had only seconds now, he knew. Seconds before Johnny The Cat Simese began to administer the schlammin, gangdomese for a beating he'd bear the traces of for the rest of his life. He had tried to find Patty—and he'd lost. Patty was still in Scarface Willy's hands. And he, Heck, was all washed up. A little guy, he thought in a flood of self-pity, who was one of the best goldarn salesmen and perfectly happy being a salesman, but who was in way over his depth now.

He heard Johnny The Cat's harsh anticipatory breathing.

He knew Johnny The Cat was about to strike him with those huge, powerful hands.

He knew that in a matter of minutes he would be a beaten pulp....

"Try not to think of where Willy is!" he cried—and clutched Johnny The Cat Simese—and hoped—and teleported!

It was a large, comfortable looking room. It was not empty. It was far from empty.

"Patty!" Heck cried.

Because Patty was there.

She seemed very frightened. She was standing next to Scarface Willy and Heck got the impression she wasn't frightened because of him. She was frightened for him. Or maybe frightened with him.

Because Scarface Willy didn't look so good, either.

There were two other men in the room. One was somewhat below medium size—about Heck's own height. This must be Little Hymie, Heck thought. Little Hymie held a gun. The bigger man with him was sneering. It was Hymie who did the talking.

"O.K., Willy," he said, "then you and your moll are both going to get it."

"I'm not his moll!" wailed Patty.

Johnny The Cat hulked in bewilderment behind Heck. There was very little time left, Heck knew. Johnny The Cat was too bewildered to do anything....

Patty's eyes went big when Heck shouted her name a second time. Apparently the first time he hadn't materialized sufficiently for them to hear him. Willy stared at him in disbelief. The big man with Little Hymie began to turn around. He was every bit as big as Johnny The Cat Simese.

And the killer's small hand tightened on his gun—

Heck jumped, launching himself at Little Hymie. The gun went off, furrowing Heck's cheek. The slug plowed harmlessly into the ceiling. Heck and Little Hymie scrambled over and over on the floor. Heck got the gun from Little Hymie, then Little Hymie hit him and the gun went clattering across the floor.

Patty, Willy, Johnny The Cat and the other big man all lunged for it. Little Hymie hit Heck again, and Heck counter punched. Little Hymie bleated. Heck hit him again. Little Hymie subsided.

Heck looked up in triumph. His eyes went wide.

The other big man, Hymie's companion, had the gun. He was far bigger and far more capable than Hymie. It still looked more like curtains. It looked more like curtains than ever before. Hymie stood up groggily. "Over there with the rest of them," ordered Little Hymie.

The man with the gun waved it. Heck began to move.

"It's Muscles Freddy," Johnny The Cat said in awe.

"They sent Muscles Freddy here to do the job on you, Boss. I always knew you were big time."

Muscles Freddy waved the gun again. "Who gets it first?" he asked.

Little Hymie glanced up. Little Hymie's left eye was swelling rapidly. He shook a fist at Heck. "Give it to the little guy," he said. "The wise guy."

Heck gulped. He watched the big hand begin to squeeze, drawing the trigger back. The muzzle of the automatic pointed at his belly and seemed big enough to swallow him.

He teleported.

Not far—just across the room. Right behind Muscles Freddy.

"Hey, where'd he go!" Freddy cried.

"Behind you!" warned Hymie.

Freddy whirled.

Heck teleported again.

"Hey!" hollered Freddy. "He goes on and off like a neon sign."

Heck materialized alongside him, grappling for the gun. But Freddy drew it back and fired. Heck had beaten him to it by a split second. Heck had teleported.

"Damn neon sign!" repeated Freddy.

Heck re-materialized. Freddy gaped. Heck flashed off. Then on. On and off. Off and on. Every time he flashed on again he struck at the bewildered Muscles Freddy's gun-hand. Finally, as was inevitable, Freddy dropped the gun. Heck and Little Hymie dove for it, their heads striking together. Little Hymie drew back and slammed the edge of his palm across Heck's Adam's apple. Heck gagged, but held the gun in his hand and climbed to his feet. He hit Hymie in the jaw with the barrel of the gun on the way up, and Hymie fell down. Muscles Freddy stood there, looking at the gun. He was completely stunned.

"This is the first time in my life I ever called the police," said Scarface Willy, and went to the phone. He got halfway through dialing, and stopped. "I can't," he said.

"Why, Boss?" asked Johnny The Cat.

"The hideout."

"But if Muscles Freddy and Hymie know," Heck pointed out, "you'll have to change it anyway."

"Hadn't thunk of that," said Willy, and dialed again. While they waited for the police he told Heck: "I owe you a favor, see? On account of you saved my life. So, I tell you what. I'm letting you and the fiancée go. And I won't horn in on your business."

"Oh, Heck, you're wonderful!" cried Patty.

But Heck looked at Scarface Willy and shook his head; and while Patty looked shocked, he said: "No, pal. That won't do at all. You never were man enough to horn in on my business, you understand?"

Scarface Willy's face went mean and for a moment Heck thought the racketeer was going to try to take the gun from him. Heck spoke slowly and carefully, all the while watching Hymie and Freddy with the gun. The police came and took them away. Heck went on talking. He was going to be a salesman in this wild adventure after all. He had to sell Scarface Willy the biggest idea of all. He made his plea eloquently, richly, cleverly, like those very best of salesmen who can speak far better than any lawyer who ever pleaded a case. When he finished, Scarface Willy was almost in tears.

"All right," Willy said at last. "You saved my life after I kidnapped your girl. I know I'm a louse. I know it. I owe you a favor, pal. You're right. You name it."

"I want you to de-burgle," Heck said in triumph.

"Do which?"

"De-burgle. First our warehouse. Return everything we have to its original owner. You have the outfit that can do it, if we give you temporary use of teleportation. Then all our customers. You'll have to burgle the goods from them and de-burgle them to their original owners. Then you'll have to put up money to cover payment of our staff. We're liquidating. We'll pay our profits back to our customers, of course."

"How much will it cost me?" Willy wanted to know.

"Several score thousand dollars, I'm afraid."

Willy's face went white, but Heck had done too good a selling job. Patty beamed at him. He beamed at Patty. It would all be done, he knew.

There remained one detail. No, two. Laara. And the little fellow with the slightly over-sized head. Heck didn't think he'd have any trouble, though. He was reasserting himself as a salesman. He felt the happiness welling within him. Laara and the little guy would go home, where they belonged. That would be a cinch. He knew it would be. His troubles were over.

"You'll begin at once?" he asked Scarface Willy.

"Yes," Willy said. There were still tears in his eyes. "It's the least I can do."

Heck took Patty's hand.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"To get the details straightened out. To get married. To go on a honeymoon. To see Mr. Weatherby about getting my old job back—with a considerable raise in salary."

Patty's eyes turned sultry. "Go back to get married, darling, and kind of fill in."

"Well, we get married and go on a real honeymoon—"

She stood very close to him. "And on the honeymoon, we—"

He reddened, "Well, we—"

Patty moved even closer. He suddenly had difficulty with his breathing.

Patty murmured, "We do this—and this—and this—only more so—"

"Patty—please—"

"Oh, Heck, you're the most wonderful husband a girl could ever have—that is, you will be. You're so wonderful."

Heck smiled. As a salesman, he thought. Only as a salesman.

But he didn't say it.

THE END

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Table of Contents

- THE PASSIONATE PITCHMAN

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE