Tinker's Dam Part 1

Tinker's Dam.

by Joseph Tinker.

_There is something very fundamental indeed about the ancient showman's trick--divert their attention from the thing you're really doing ..._

Ill.u.s.trated by Schoenherr

The call on the TV-phone came right in the middle of my shaving. They have orders not to call me before breakfast for anything less than a national calamity. I pressed "Accept," too startled to take the lather from my face.

"Hi, Gyp," George Kelly said to me from the screen. "Hurry it up, boy."

He made no reference to my appearance on his screen. "Quit draggin' your feet!"

This I take from George Kelly. First of all, he's Director of the F.B.I.

Even more important, he's my boss. "Hey, George," I protested, knowing he would not have called on a routine matter. "I got up before breakfast as it is. What's up?" I hardly needed to ask. When they call me, it's always the same sickening kind of trouble.

"Fred Plaice and his gang got their hands on a telepath in the District last night," George told me. "It's been on the newscast already.

There'll be a d.a.m.ned ugly mob at the office--a lynch mob. Listen, Gyp, I want you to go through the main entrance this morning."

I nodded my willingness to fight my way through the crowd that would be gathering at the office. Usually I have my taxi drop me on the roof of the building. Call it a petty vanity if you want. It's one of the perquisites of being Was.h.i.+ngton bra.s.s.

"Swell, Gyp," George Kelly said, as if there had been any question about whether I'd come in through the main entrance. "The public has a world of confidence in you. Now, d.a.m.n it, Gyp, if they want to make a fuss over you this morning, let them. We've got to get that snake out of the building alive!"

"Oh, no," I protested. "You don't mean Fred took a telepath to the office?"

"I'm afraid so," George said, his tone so neutral that I couldn't take it as personal criticism. "See you down there." His rugged features faded from the screen as he cut the image.

I had my driver drop the skim-copter to the street when we got to Pennsylvania Avenue within a block of the building, and he skimmed to the outskirts of the crowd that was pressing around the entrance. There were four or five hundred people there, milling around like a herd of restless cattle. Tighter knots of humanity were pressed around the usual four or five firebrands who were ranting and yelling for blood--telepathic blood.

The guards around the entrance, apparently tipped by George Kelly, started yelling, "Let him through!" They charged the mob to open a lane for me. The crowd drew back sullenly. As I pressed toward the guards, I could see the fear and panic on the faces around me.

Then a man recognized me. "G.o.d bless Gyp Tinker!" he bellowed in a voice loud enough to conjure an echo out of a prairie. People started jumping like so many animated pogo sticks, trying to get a sight of me over the heads of others. By the time I reached the steps, the whole mob was cheering and yelling, "Gyp!"

As George Kelly had asked, I paused on the steps and held up my hands for a chance to speak. It's flattering when they give you silence. In the s.p.a.ce of two breaths it was like the inside of a morgue.

"Thanks, friends," I called out to them. "George Kelly and I have already gotten the facts on the telepath who was captured here in Was.h.i.+ngton last night. There is absolutely no cause for alarm. I hope you'll go to your homes and offices promptly. Let's not give the Russians any more satisfaction than we have to. And rest easy, friends.

We'll use the full summary powers conferred by Congress."

They gave me a terrific cheer. You'd think I had said something. At least they were reminded of the summary powers granted the F.B.I. to deal with telepaths, because of the gruesome danger they are to all of us.

Anita Hadley, my secretary, was waiting for me in the outer office, although it was a good hour before we were supposed to open.

"He's in there," she said, pointing to the door to my private office.

"The snake?" I asked, startled.

"Fred Plaice," she said. "And he's got the snake in there with him." Her gray eyes flashed. She could guess how I felt about that.

"Come along," I said to her, and went into my office.

"Hi, Gyp," Fred Plaice greeted me, grinning. "Got a present for you." He gave his prisoner a shove, making him stumble a couple steps toward me.

The telepath was a stoop-shouldered balding gent with large feet. He certainly didn't look like a walking bubonic plague, but then, they never do. Instinctively I closed my thoughts to him.

"What's this snake doing here, Fred?" I asked my Section Chief quietly.

He flushed. He knew my policies. "What did you expect me to do with him?" he said hotly. "This isn't some common snake we picked up out in the country. We snagged this viper right here in Was.h.i.+ngton, Gyp! I suppose I should have spirited him out of town on the midnight jet!"

"Yes," I said. "That would have been my idea. Do you realize that all this publicity has gotten us a mob of five hundred people around our doors, a mob that's waiting to lynch this prisoner of yours?"

The man gulped and started to say something, but Fred hit him hard between the shoulder blades. "Shut up," he said. "n.o.body cares what you think." He walked up close to me. "Sure I know there's a mob down there," he said. "And I know why they're there. Plain scared to death of what it means to have had a telepath loose in Was.h.i.+ngton. You're wrong to hustle this guy out of town, Gyp. Look at this pathetic case--does he look like a superman?"

I looked at the snake. "No," I agreed. "He looks like they roped him somewhere in West Virginia a few months ago, put shoes on him, and brought him to town."

"Right," Fred snapped. "Let the mob get a look at him. The contrast of you dragging him along by the ear and him stumbling along behind you is the sort of thing the public laps up. It'll put you right in the driver's seat."

"I thought Congress had already done that," I reminded him coldly. No bureaucrat could want powers more absolute than mine. "Unfortunately," I growled at him. "I gave orders that no snakes were to be brought into this building without my prior consent. This ineffective-looking hill-billy has possibly read a thousand minds since you dragged him in here. How much of what he has picked up around here this morning will be peeped by some Russian telepath before you get him out of town?"

"Relax," Fred scoffed. "He's a short-range punk."

That was too much. "I'll do my own thinking, Fred," I said. "From now on, you follow orders."

I turned on the telepath. "Before I sentence you," I said. "What have you got to say?"

"I never hurt nothin'," he grumbled.

They're all alike, so help me. "You are a telepath?" I asked him.

"Shoah."

"Prove it," I demanded, opening a c.h.i.n.k in my mind.

His long red face twisted in a crooked grin, showing poorly-cared-for teeth scattered here and there in his gums.

"Yo' think I never had no orthodonture, whatever _thet_ is," he said.

I shut my mind like a clam. If there's anything I detest, it's the ghastly creeping of a telepath into my own thoughts. "h.e.l.lo, Pete!" he exclaimed. "Yo' done shet yo' mind!" He shook his head. "Ain't never seen a body could do _thet_!" I'll bet he hadn't. There are only a few of us who can keep telepaths out of our thoughts. It takes a world of practice. Well, I'd had that.

"Can you do that?" I asked the snake.

He shook his head. "No, suh," he admitted.

"So here you are," I said, more heatedly. "Wandering around in a town full of _secrets_--Was.h.i.+ngton, the capital of your country, where the military, the diplomatic people, the security people, all of them have locked in their heads the things that keep us one step ahead of the Russians. Isn't that true?"