The Man with the Wooden Spectacles. Harry Stephen KeelerЧитать онлайн книгу.
telephone slugs. With the result that he met for the very first time in his young life—met, that is, in a sense—one of Chicago’s famous figures; no less, in fact, than—
For a man in a pharmacist’s tan coat, back of a counter just to one side of the line, was speaking to a customer who, himself, leaned, in profile, on the counter, chin in hand and—the pharmacist, that is—was saying:
“Yes, Mayor Sweeney, this particular remedy of mine will knock out any headache that ever existed. Except, of course—ahem—”
Mr. Wainright, being always glad to meet the famous, turned slightly in line to survey his Mayor.
Mayor Gardiner Sweeney, now turning about in his hand a small demoniacal-looking green-glass bottle, was a man of about 50, with rather small greenish-blue eyes, and curly hair peeping out from under a black derby hat.
His tweed clothes were rich, and a gold encased elk’s tooth, with huge diamond in the tip of the tooth, swung from a massive chain on his vest, His face was pale with the paleness of one who smoked far too many cigars; it was lined, too, with the lines of one who had sat in too many troublesome late-houred political meetings.
“I’ll take it, Vado,” he was grunting. “But don’t bother to wrap it up. For I’m hopping in my car outside—and going home for the day.”
“Okay, Mayor—and no charge!—it’s on the house—but—just a minute, Mayor. Been having these—er—headaches long?”
“Some time. Though this one, plainly, is from a Welsh rarebit I ate day before yesterday. And—but why do you ask?” The mayor’s voice was grumpy, as one whose intimate physiology had been pried into!
“We-ell—I think I would have my headaches looked into by a doctor, for headaches, Mayor, are symptomatic of so many things. A fact! And if your doctor says there’s no organic trouble at the base of them —well— now I know you’ll laugh—”
“I won’t laugh. What in hell is there in Life to laugh at, anyway? What is it you suggest?”
“Well—that before drenching your system with acetanilid—which is in all headache remedies—and maybe putting your heart permanently on the blink—you see what a psychotherapeutist can do.”
Mr. Wainright, now passing a nickel over the wicket, smiled faintly at those words. Considering who and what he was about to call up!
“One of those ducks,” grunted Mayor Sweeney, “who talk pain away?—but from nuts only? Hell, Vado, he couldn’t talk this headache of mine away—if for no other reason than that I’m sane—not just 100 per cent sane, Vado, but 101.333 per cent!” Mr. Wainwright, now obtaining his slug, could not but help note the drugstore proprietor frowning puzzledly as one who knew—exactly as did Mr. Wainwright himself!—that he who is too downright convinced of his own sanity is, almost always, in danger. “I’ll stick to your Vado’s Knockit,” the Mayor was continuing, pocketing the bottle. “Or Bromo Seltzer. All right, Vado. Thanks for the bottle—and I’ll send you over a pair of tickets tomorrow for the Policeman’s Benefit.” And Chicago’s “top man” was going out the door, on his way home to treat his headache with Vado’s Knockit, and, perhaps, to brag to his own wife that he was 101.333 per cent sane. Though at this juncture of matters Mr. Wainwright, actually grinning at the paradoxical concept of a man being more sane than sane!—101.333 per cent so!—had secured a slug, and was now entering a telephone booth. Where, looking up a number, he dialed it.
A girl’s voice answered.
“I want,” he said, “to speak to Dr. Gregor Miranovski, the hypnoti—that is, hypnotic therapeutist—on a very very serious matt—”
“Dr. Miranovski,” said a girl’s voice, “is out of town.”
“Thank—you!” He hung up. “Well, he’s out, all right.
So I may be able to use him. If I can pull an imitation of him—on the phone.”
Now, outside on the sidewalk again, a cab drew up in response to his signal.
“The River,” he told the driver simply.
The driver looked astounded. As he had a right to be, at anybody desiring to ride such a short distance. But philosophical where strange fares were involved, he jerked his meter, and with a lurch that flattened his fare against the cushions, sped riverward.
At the Clark Street bridge, Mr. Wainwright climbed blithely out, paying off the taximeter “pull” of 25 cents with a silver half-dollar from which he waved back the change.
Down the stone stairs of Wacker Drive Mr. Wainwright hastily made his way, to, in fact, the concrete embankment along the river. A diver was working midway of the block between Clark Street and Dearborn Street, the cranks of his air machine being turned by two laborers.
A small group of loungers were looking on from the actual embankment—and a larger group from the Upper Drive level.
The young man frowned.
This large and generous audience was going to complicate exceedingly what he now must do—and do quickly.
Slowly he walked to where the diver was submerged.
But past and on. And he was just about halfway between the diver’s position and Dearborn Street—at Piling 47, to be exact, in view of the black numbers stencilled on it—when the lucky break of breaks came.
Lucky, that is, for this particular young man.
For a great, clumsy helicopter was bearing clutteringly down on the region, from the southeast, its double horizontal wings making a terrific roar. It was only a few hundred feet above river and street. The bridges, at both ends of this block, became suddenly thick with people—arrested, in motion. Streetcars stopped. And automobiles also on the drive above. Everybody in the entire vicinity—except one—raised his chin and faced the sky.
That one exception was the diver, working far down the water’s surface.
And perhaps even he too looked upward. Who knows? At which, Mr. Wainwright, with a chuckle, just tore off the end of his paper wrapping—tilted his package—and the sledge within slid forth into the silent water with a slight splash—and was gone instantly. The while the helicopter let out a great final roar of its blades which brought all chins a millimeter higher.
And before it was drifting away to the west—and traffic was miraculously resumed again—Mr. Wainwright was again climbing into a cab on the Upper Drive level at Dearborn Street.
“Clark and Washington Streets,” he said, naming the very point where, but a fraction of an hour before, he had read that story detailing the catastrophic fall of one J. D., safe burglar, and had, himself, evolved a great radical idea in connection therewith!
His face was a bit thoughtful now, as he walked rapidly back toward the Klondike Building.
He stopped, however, at the little watch-repair shop where he had ordered the watch engraved.
And it was ready! Had been ready no doubt for 5 minutes.
The “I. V.” had been neatly converted into a “P. W.”—and the fresh cuts had been darkened with some acid.
“Oke,” Mr. Wainwright said briefly, and laid down 2 dollars.
And departed.
Again entering the Klondike Building.
And again taking the stairs.
And again striking Floor 8 in one minute.
Where again he repaired to the door of 806.
Nobody was in the hall. With quite supreme confidence, he slipped the master key he had purchased into the Police Padlock. It opened easily—exactly as he had known it would! He slipped it off and into his side coat pocket. And shoving the door slightly inward, and half turning, he slipped backward into the room—thus assuring himself that nobody in the hall was seeing this