The Man Who Stopped at Nothing (1951) Page 5

  “What did worry you?”

  “I can’t imagine what we’ll do when we get there. We’re helpless to interfere with him. We’ll just be observers.”

  “All right. We’ll be observers until he brings me back again. Then I’ll get off the table and conk him.”

  “But Dorn! Then you’ll be alive! You’ll be back on the lower plane and you won’t even remember me. You ‘won’t know I exist.”

  “That’s right. While I was in the laboratory, I couldn’t remember a thing about this plane. And yet, when I’m here I can remember what went on down there. How does that happen?”

  “The higher always governs the lower.”

  “Then we ought to be able to handle Linipus.”

  Sally shook her head. “That isn’t the way it works. Don’t-ask me why. I don’t know. It just doesn’t.”

  “Well, we’ll have to wait for the breaks.”

  A moment’s pause.

  “Say, isn’t it taking us a long time to get there? Where does this Limpus live? In Tibet?”

  At that moment the wind ceased to whine. The air pressure dropped to zero. “We’re here,” Dorn said. He opened his eyes.

  “We made it.-. Look’.”

  Sally opened her eyes to see a weird place strictly in the Frankensteinian mood. There were tables tilled with chemical equipment, strange electrically driven machines, a high ceiling hidden away behind eerie dimness.

  BUT THE place was entirely deserted except for one morose individual seated on a packing case reading a copy of Variety. The man was eating his lunch.

  “Is that Limpus?”

  “No.”

  “Then maybe he’s Limpus’ assistant.”

  “I didn’t see any assistant when I was here /before.”

  “It’s strange. I don’t see you lying around on any of these tables.”

  “I’m just as glad you don’t. I was stark naked and I doubt if Limpus is the kind to pull a sheet over anybody.” Dorn frowned as he surveyed the quiet room. “You know, I don’t get it. This ft all just as it was and yet it’s not familiar. It looks like the same place, but it doesn’t feel like it.” Came a yell from off in the distance: “On the set! On the set, everybody! Let’s look alive!”

  Came the dawning: “You know where we are? In Hollywood. No wonder it was a long trip. I visualized a movie horror-setting and the higher plane delivered, but it couldn’t be expected to know which one I wanted.”.

  “You mean Limpus copied his laboratory from a movie set?”

  “Exactly. He told me he saw the movie sixty or seventy times in order to get it exact.”

  “Then how does it happen they’re still making the movie?”

  “This is a sequel, no doubt. They use the same set over and over again. The public doesn’t know the difference. They aren’t as observing as Limpus.”

  The set had now become crowded with people who were running to and fro, hauling, yelling, and making a great to-do. A mad-professor type strode by, his black eyes, accentuated by makeup, burning like two hot coals. The heroine, flanked by two maids, came down the set, walking straight toward Sally and Dorn. They remained where they were and when the actress had gone on, Dorn chuckled.

  “Who’d have thought the day would come when Hetty LaMott walked right through me?”

  “I don’t, like her,” Sally said. “She looks coarse.”

  “But in a nice way.”

  Lights flared all over the place and a man came in wrapped in a sheet. He climbed on one of the tables, pulled the sheet over his face, and apparently went to sleep.

  “That’s me,” Dorn said. “I mean, that’s the guy they bring back in the movies. Looks like a pretty easy job.” Sally’s concern was deepening. “Dorn, what are we going to do? We tried to find Limpus and failed. Will we come-back here every time we try to reach him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe we’ll have to wait until they tear this set down.”

  “That will be sometime in 1965. The demand for horror pictures goes on and on. And, what with television, they’ll probably be building more of them—not tearing any down.”

  “Then what can we do?”

  “Let’s go to my office. I want to see how Felix is making out.”

  Sally sighed. “I guess we may as well. Wait a minute.” She walked over to where Hetty LaMott was seated in a canvas chair with the makeup girl freshening her face.

  Sally took the-lipstick out of the maid’s hand and examined it critically. “There’s nothing special about this. It’s the same stuff I used to buy in the dime store.”

  Dorn standing beside her, grinned. “Why don’t you try some?”

  “We don’t need such things on the higher plane.” She dropped the stick into her pocket. I’ll keep it for a souvenir.”

  Dorn did not reply.

  I’m ready to go now,” Sally said. “What are you looking at?”

  “The pleasures of a past existence,” Dorn sighed.

  Sally followed his eyes down to the point where the low cut bodice of Hetty LaMott’s dress ended in a V.

  It was so low one could-easily visualize things even lower down.

  Sally’s eyes were wide and innocent. “Is that attractive?- Does it draw you?”

  “No,” Dorn said sharply. “I’m of the higher plane now. Let’s go.”

  THEY OPENED their eyes in the office of Dorn Lattimore, Real Estate and Insurance. Dorn pointed to the little wisp of a man sitting behind the desk. “That’s Felix. Look at him. He’s always worried about something. I could never find out what.”

  “Worry can age you. Who is the other man?” She referred to a round-faced individual who was seated beside the desk.”

  “That’s Matthew Torp. He did some work on my house—added another room. He evidently read the newspapers and came kiting up here with his-bill.”

  As though Dorn’s words were a cue, Matthew Torp took a folded paper from his pocket and laid it on the desk before Felix. The latter picked it up in nervous fingers, opened it.

  “You’ll find it all itemized,” Torp said easily. “‘Course, I’d have given Dorn more time, bless his departed soul, but with the way things are—did he owe much money?”

  “Quite a little,” Felix replied. Something around seven thousand dollars.”

  Dorn’s voice screamed out in sudden indignation: “You’re a liar by the clock! I never owed that much in my life! My liabilities don’t run over three thousand dollars!”

  “Save your breath, Dorn. ”They can’t hear you.”

  Dorn turned indignantly. “But he’s lying.”

  Sally shrugged; “It doesn’t matter. That’s all on the lower plane. You musn’t let it upset you.”

  “It does-upset me!”

  Felix unfolded the bill. Dorn looked over his shoulder and almost hit the ceiling. “Why you dirty pirate! You fat gangster! We agreed on eleven hundred dollars! This bill reads nineteen fifty.”’

  Dorn turned to Sally. “They’re stealing my money! They’re robbing me blind.”

  “What difference does it make? You have no further use for it.”

  “But what about my wife and children?”

  “I didn’t know you had a wife.”

  “Quit being technical—my widow then.”

  Sally shrugged. “It shouldn’t matter to-you in-the least;”

  “But it does!” Dorn stamped, back and forth across the office. “Well, maybe I don’t care about the money. As a matter of fact, I don’t seem to.. As long as room and board don’t cost anything and I can travel free, money doesn’t seem to be very important.”

  “Now you’re taking a sensible viewpoint.”

  “But I’m still mad; it’s the principle of the thing. This lard-head is making a sucker out of me!”

  “I’m afraid there isn’t much you can do about it.”

  ‘I’ll find something—”

  FELIX WAS speaking and Dorn stopped to listen. Felix appeared to be embarrassed as w
ell as old and worried. “This puts me in a rather delicate spot, Mr. Torp. I hardly know what to say, but I guess I must face it.”

  “Face, what?” Torp wanted to know.

  “The truth. You see—well, it wasn’t generally known—in fact no one knew it, but Mr. Lattimore was in rather desperate financial straits. I’m very much afraid his creditors will have to be satisfied with about ten cents on the dollar.”

  Dorn began tearing at his hair. He began screaming at Felix. He began calling Felix lower vibrational names that would have turned a longshoresman pale.

  “They can’t hear a word you’re saying, Sally reminded him.

  “But he’s a crook—a thief! There’s nine thousand cash in that’safe—or there was when I left the office last!”

  “How did you happen to keep so much money around?” Sally asked.

  “I had to do it that way or else pay income tax. Wait a minute—what does it matter to you? You said ‘money isn’t important.”

  “It isn’t. I was just curious.”

  Torp was also busy blowing his top. Tempers were flaring on both planes. “Why, the dirty crook! Then he got me to do that work knowing he couldn’t pay me!”

  “And thinking I’m dead,” Dorn yelled back, “you walk In here with your bare face hanging out and charge me these prices. Who’s calling who a crook?”

  Torp, of course, paid no attention, and Felix got in a word: “I think you malign Mr. Lattimore.”

  “How much is his house worth?” Torp wanted to know.

  “Would you throw a widow and her children into the street?”

  “I sure would! How much is it worth?”

  “About twenty thousand, but it makes no difference. The house is in Mrs. Lattimore’s name.”

  Torp groaned. “He sure was a cagey sneak!”

  “Don’t call me a sneak, you robber!” Dorn bellowed.

  Torp got a sudden thought. “What about insurance?. He was in the business. He certainly carried some.”

  “About forty thousand dollars.”

  THE FAT contractor sighed with relief. “We’re all right then.” He wiped his face and grinned. “You had me worried there for awhile.”

  “But you mustn’t count on the insurance. It can’t be collected until they find Mr. Lattimore’s body. So far, they haven’t had much Tuck, and it doesn’t look as though they’re going to have any.”

  “It’s pure, thievery!” Torp shouted. “There ought to be a law! I’m going to call a creditor’s meeting. We’ll lobby for legislation. They can’t do this to us.”

  Felix got up from his chair. “I wish you all the luck in the world, Mr. Torp. In the meantime, I have work to do.”

  Torp struggled up out of his chair. “You’ll hear from us later. Don’t think you’re getting away with this!”

  “I’ll be glad to hear from you. I’ll no doubt be appointed to look after Mr. Lattimore’s affairs. Let me know when the creditors are willing to settle at a reasonable figure.”

  “You call ten cents on the-dollar reasonable?”

  Felix shrugged. “It’s better than nothing. ”

  Torp stormed but of the office, brushing through Sally who was standing by the door. “I don’t like him,” she said. “He’s greasy. Do you have many creditors like him?”

  “I have very few creditors. Not more than five or six. Ferguson, Wilson, Diehl. Lord! How can a man go through life not knowing his secretary and bookkeeper is an out-and-out crook?” Dorn shook a doubled fist at Felix, who was calmly going through some papers.

  Dorn strode to the wall safe and twirled the dial. He opened the door and thrust his arm inside. His hand came out holding a ten-dollar bill.

  “Ten bucks. Out of nine grand he leaves ten bucks for my widow and orphans. A fine specimen of humanity.”

  Sally went to him and laid a hand on his arm. “Dorn, don’t get so worked up. They’ll get along. People always get along. We’ve got more important things to worry about. We’ve got to locate Limpus—remember?”

  “That’s right,” Dorn said grimly. “It’s even more important now. We’ve got to get my body so Vicky can collect the insurance. If she doesn’t get it, she’s sunk.”

  “Have you any suggestions as to how we go about it?”

  “No: Have you got any? After all, you’ve been on this plane longer than I have. You should know your way around.”

  “I’ve been giving it some thought. I believe I’ve found where we made our mistake.”

  “I wish you’d explain.”

  “You visualized his laboratory and there was another one just like it. But there certainly can’t be another man just like Limpus. If you visualized him, it might work.”

  “Clever idea,” Dorn said. “Shall we try it now, or do “you want something to eat first?”

  “I’m hungry. Let’s find a drug store.—It isn’t as good as a cafeteria, but it’ll do.”

  THEY LEFT Dorn’s office and went to a place on the corner where Dorn had often eaten while still alive. Dorn took two salmon sandwiches and two cups of coffee from a pair of stenographers who were having a snack on the boss’s time. They sat at the counter and refreshed themselves.

  When they had finished, Dorn got off his stool and took Sally’s hand. “Do you remember what Limpus looked, like?” Sally asked.

  “I kissed him. I ought to remember.”

  Dorn closed his eyes. He conjured up the whisker-strewn face, the lean sparse body.

  The wind whistled about his ears.

  “‘Looks as though it’s working,” Dorn said.

  “Don’t be too confident. We thought it was working the last time.”

  “That was different. As a matter of fact, it worked then too. Just a technicality that we didn’t find Limpus.”

  The wind died and the air was again, warm. They opened their eyes. They looked around, then stared at each other blankly.

  “We’re right back where we started,” Dorn said.

  “That’s true.” Sally pointed to the counter. “There’s the crust of my sandwich still on the plate.”

  “Funny. Things are getting worse. Before, we at least went somewhere.”

  Then Jan Limpus walked past them and entered a telephone booth.

  “That’s him.” Dorn said, pointing. “It’s Limpus.”

  “But what’s he doing in Stonegate?”

  “I don’t know, but he’s making a telephone call right now.”

  They lost no time in approaching the booth Limpus had entered. They watched Limpus drop a dime and spin the dial.

  “Who do you suppose he’s calling?”

  “How do I know? I’m no mind reader,” Dorn replied.

  Jan Limpus said, “Hello—-hello! Is this Miz Dorn Lattimore?”

  “He’s calling Vicky.”

  “Do you suppose, he’s a friend of hers?”

  “Of course not!” Dorn snapped.

  “I’m a fellow, named Limpus, Miz Lattimore—Jan Limpus. I got me a little place up the line a few miles in the woods. A place the State Police couldn’t find if they hunted the next fifty years. I been reading the papers and I drove down here thinking maybe you and I could do a little business, private-like.”

  “I wish I knew what she was saying,” Dorn said.

  “Why don’t you put your ear to the receiver and find out?”

  “Of course. Why not?”

  Dorn stepped into the booth.

  Sally said, “Well?”

  “She asked him what he wants.”

  “Think maybe it better be private,” Limpus said. “Maybe I can come over?”

  A MOMENT later Dorn reported to Sally, “She says she’s not interviewing strangers during her bereavement.”.

  Limpus sighed. “That’s too bad.”

  “She wants to know why he can’t tell her over the phone.”

  “Guess I can. I called to ask if you want your late husband’s body back.”

  “She said, ‘What do you think?’.” Dorn glanced qu
ickly at Sally. “Vicky always was quick with the repartee.”

  “I figured probably you would. I read the papers;. Seems he’s got quite a chunk of insurance. I’ve heard tell you can’t collect no money without no body.”

  “She says stop wasting time and get to the point.”

  “Well, I got the body. Been using it for some experiments, but it’s getting kind of worn out and I guess I’m not going to have any luck. I’m getting kind of tired of this Frankenstein business anyhow. Want to open a motel on Highway Six.”.

  Dorn forgot to report Vicky’s reply, which was, “What is this? Some kind of a gag?”

  “Not at all, Miz Lattimore. But with that body being worth forty thousand dollars, it comes pretty high by the pound. Seems like you ought to be willing to pay a little something to get it back.”

  “She says she’ll see him In hell first.”

  “And furthermore,” Vicky went on, “don’t think you’re so clever. The State Police will find your hideout and I’ll tell them all about this little conversation. You’ll spend your declining years in jail, Mr. Whoeveryou-are.”

  “Jan Limpus is the name, ma’am. Sorry you take it that way. I sure did want that motel. Sure you won’t change your mind?”

  Dorn jerked his head sharply away from the receiver. “I didn’t get all that,” he told Sally.

  Limpus said, “Goodbye, ma’am. It was nice talking to you.”

  He quitted the booth and stood for a few moments picking his teeth with a match stick. He seemed to be debating some weighty problem. After a while, he went to the back counter and waited until the clerk saw him and came over to be of service.

  “You got any lye?” Limpus asked.

  “How much did you want?”

  “A couple of five-pound bags.”

  “He’s going to dispose of my body!” Dorn cried.

  SALLY SMILED. “That’s right. Isn’t it wonderful? All’s well that ends well, as the man once said. Darling, let’s go and find a hotel. I’m tired.”

  “Not on your life!”

  “But I have no life!”

  “I’ve told you before, stop being technical.”

  “Then you’re not going to let this thing drop?”

  “I certainly am not! I’m going to follow this-maniac. My body isn’t going to rot away in some lime pit. It’s going to be buried decently and Vicky’s going to get that insurance.”