Get Off the Unicorn (23 page)

 

“Finder's Keeper,” “A Proper Santa Claus,” and “Smallest Dragon-boy” were written at Roger Elwood's behest. He wanted short stories by McCaffrey. My estimable agent, Virginia Kidd, said that it was best not to limit McCaffrey, so I had to. The original ending of “A Proper Santa Claus” did not suit its intended market. I have reinstated
my
downbeat ending because
it
is logical.

 

 

The Great Canine Chorus

P
ETE
R
OBERTS OF
the Wilmington, Delaware, K-9 Corps has as his partner a German shepherd named Wizard. One night, just after they took the beat, Wizard started acting itchy, nervous, whiny. He was snappish, not like himself at all. He kept trying to pull Pete toward Seventh Street.

That wasn't the beat, as Wiz well knew. But Pete decided there might be a good reason. Wizard was a canny dog; he could pick a culprit out of a crowd by the smell of fear the man exuded. And he'd saved Pete from two muggings already this year. So, protesting, Pete let Wizard lead him to a block of buildings being torn down as part of an urban renewal program.

Wizard became more and more impatient with Pete's apprehensive, measured pace, and tried to tug him into a jog. Pete began to feel worried, kind of sickly scared. Suddenly the dog mounted the worn stairs of one of the buildings about to be demolished. He pawed at the door, whining.

Who's that?
a voice asked, high and quavering like an old lady's.
Pa?
It couldn't be too old a female, then.

Wizard barked sharply three times in the negative signal he'd been taught.

Hi, dog. Do you see my pa?

Wiz got down from the steps, looked up and down the street, then barked again three times.

Pa's so late, and I'm so hungry
, the voice said.

Pete, who had eaten well an hour earlier, was suddenly overwhelmed with hunger—a sullen kind of stomach cramp that he'd experienced in Korea when his unit was cut off for four days. The kind of gripping pangs you get when you're hungry all the time.

“Lady, I'm going down to the deli on the corner. I'll be right back with something to tide you over till your pa gets back.” Pete made the announcement before he realized it. He left Wizard to guard the door.

He ordered a sub with no onions (somehow he knew she wouldn't want them), two cokes and a banana.

I'm in the back room
, said the voice when he and Wizard entered the hall.

Pete had had the distinct impression the voice had come from the front of the building. It was too thin to have carried far. The stench in the filthy hall sickened Pete. No matter how many years he might spend on the force, he'd never get used to the odor of poverty. Maybe it was the stink that brought a growl from Wizard.

Pete pushed open the back door and entered the pitifully furnished room. On an old armchair by the window was a wasted little figure, like a broken doll thrown down by a careless child, limbs askew. By now he expected a girl, a child, but this was such a
little
girl!

Wizard got down on his belly, licking his lips nervously. He crawled carefully across the dirty floor. He sniffed at the tiny hand on the shabby arm of the chair, whined softly. The little hand did not move away, nor toward him, either.

What kind of a father, Pete fumed to himself, would leave a kid, a mere baby, alone in a place like this?

I'm no baby, mister. I'm nine years old,
she informed him indignantly.

Pete apologized contritely, blaming his error on the glare from the single window. He wouldn't have thought her more than five, six at the outside. She was so pitifully underdeveloped. She was clean, as were her shred of a dress and the old blanket on which she lay, but the rest of the room was filthy. Her pinched face had a curious, calm beauty to it. When Pete knelt beside her, he saw her eyes were filmed and sightless. And when she spoke, her mouth did not move.

He found himself breaking off small pieces of the sub and feeding them to her. She sipped the Coke through a straw and a look of intense pleasure crossed her face.

1 knew I remembered how wonderful it tasted,
she said. But not with her lips.

The truth dawned on Pete; this child was a telepath. Impossible? He hadn't actually believed any of that crap. But there was no other explanation.

“You aren't talking,” he said. “You don't make a sound.”

I am too talking,
answered the child soundlessly.
And you're answering.

Pete gulped, hastily trying to mend matters. “You just don't speak the usual way.”

I do everything kind of different. At least my pa's always complaining I do.
Her head turned slowly toward him.
You don't suppose something's happened to Pa, do you? I can't hear very far away when I'm hungry.

Guiltily, Pete fed her another bite. “When did you eat last?”

Pa was home this morning. But all we had was bread.

Pete vowed passionately to himself that he was going to see Welfare immediately.

Oh, you mustn't!
pleaded the soundless voice. Wizard, ears flattened, growled menacingly at Pete. She was clearly frightened of Welfare.
They'd take me away, like they took my sister, and put me in a barred place and I'd never hear any birds or see Pa. They might cut me up 'cause my body doesn't work right.
She still spoke without sound.

“Aw, honey . . .”

My name's Maria, not honey.

“Maria, you got it all wrong. Wizard, you tell her. Welfare helps people. You'd have a clean bed and birds right outside the window.”

It'd be a hospital. My ma died in a hospital because no one cared. Pa said so. They just let her die.

Wizard whimpered. Pete felt frightened himself. He soothed Maria as best he could with promises of no hospitals, no cutting, plenty of birds. What she didn't finish of the sandwich, he wrapped up and put beside her. He started to peel the banana for her but she refused it.

It's a treat for Wiz for bringing you here.
She laughed.
He listens to people.

Pete grinned.

“How on earth did you know that fool dog loves bananas?”

Nothing could have been funnier to Maria, and her laughter was so contagious Pete grinned foolishly. Even Wizard laughed in his canine way, his tongue lolling out of one side of his mouth. Suddenly the atmosphere changed.

I hear Pa coming. You'd better leave. He wouldn't like having the fuzz in here.

“Then why did you let me in?”

Wizard. Dogs always know. I talk to dogs all the time. But I've never talked to one as smart as Wizard before. You get out now. Quick.

Pete felt a violent compulsion to take to his heels. Once they were around the corner the impulse vanished, so he waited a few moments and then peered out at the building. He saw a shambling figure go into the house where they had found Maria.

Pete was shaken by his encounter with the girl: shaken, confused, and frightened. She had taken him over, used him to suit her needs, and then cut him off in fear when all he wanted to do was help her. He worried about her all the way to the hospital: her pitiful life in those awful surroundings . . . and that strange talent.

He had a friend, a drinking buddy, who was interning at Delaware Hospital. Finding Joe Lavelle on duty in the emergency ward that night, Pete told him a little about the girl. “And what's going to become of her, living like that?”

“I'd say she was dead already and didn't know it,” Joe snorted.

The thought of Maria dead choked Pete up. Her fragile laugh, her curious calm beauty gone? No!

“Hey, Pete!” The intern watched the cop's gut reaction with amazement. “I was only kidding. Why, I couldn't even guess what was wrong with her without an examination. She could have had polio, meningitis, m.s., any variety of paralysis. But I'd say she needed treatment, fast. And I'd certainly like to see this kid who can make a stalwart defender of this one-horse town quake in his boots like this.”

Pete growled and Wizard seconded it.

Laughing, Joe warded off an imaginary attack with his arm, just as his phone rang. Pete resumed his patrol.

The next morning, resolved to help Maria in spite of herself, he bought a frilly dress, bundled it and food and Wizard into his car, and went back to the house. He “talked” to let her know he was coming.

There was no answer. The back room was deserted. Except for the de-stuffed armchair by the window and two Coke bottles on the floor under it, Pete could have sworn no one had been in the house for months.

“Find Maria, Wiz,” Pete ordered.

Wizard sniffed around and, with a yelp, raced out the door. He sniffed around outside and seemed to find a trace. Pete followed him in the car. Wizard acted just as if he knew exactly where he was going. He got halfway down the next block, then stopped as if he had run into an invisible wall. He lay down on the sidewalk, put his head on his paws, and whined. Then he slunk back to Pete at the curb.

“Find her, Wizard!” The dog crouched down and laid his ears back. It was the first time he had ever disobeyed that tone of voice.

“Maria! We're your friends! We want to help!” Pete called, oblivious to the stares. He was sure she could hear him. He waited, apprehensive, unsure.

No!
came the one disembodied word, filling his skull till his head rang. There was no arguing with it.

“At least tell Wiz if you're hungry, Maria. He can bring you food. I promise I won't follow.”

 

Twice in the next three weeks, Wizard darted into a deli, whining pathetically. The first time, it took Pete a minute or so to grasp what the big dog wanted. Then he'd get a sandwich and a Coke to go, put it in a bag, roll the top into a handle for Wizard to carry. Then he'd wait till the dog returned. He was determined to prove to Maria that he'd keep his promise. He didn't want to lose contact with her.

In the meantime, he did a little library research on telepathy, but the textbooks were too much for him. When he asked the librarian for something a guy could understand, he was shown the science fiction shelves.

Maria didn't act like fictional telepaths. According to the stories, she should be able to get food when she wanted it, commit robberies undetected, start fires, transport herself and anyone else anywhere, aid society, and perform minor miracles. Like heal herself, even. The prospects were magnificently endless. Yet she was stuck in some hideous, hot horrible back room, half-starved and slowly dying of neglect.

The one thing Pete had to accept was the fact that Maria kept in touch with Wizard but excluded him. Since Pete considered Wizard every bit as smart as most men, he wasn't offended; but he felt powerless to help her as only another human could.

The next set of inexplicable incidents began about four weeks after Pete and Wizard first encountered Maria. They were pacing the beat on the hotel side of Rodney Square when the dog got restless. He strained against the leash until Pete let him go to see where he'd head. At a dead run, Wizard streaked down Eleventh Street, right over into Harry West's beat.

Harry walked with Pirate, the biggest dog on the force. Pete couldn't figure Harry in trouble. But he was wrong. He heard the sullen rumble of an angry crowd by the time he reached French Street. Wiz was already around that corner and in the middle of a fight. Pete whistled for squad cars as he broke into the edge of the crowd, swinging his nightstick. He could hear Wizard growling angrily. He heard a yelp and then the growling of a second dog. He stumbled over Harry, bleeding from a head wound. Pete got Harry clear of the stampede just as the squad cars arrived.

Both dogs were at work, snapping, snarling, darting around, and the crowd thinned rapidly. In a matter of minutes, all but the bitten, bruised, and brained had evaporated into the hot night.

“How'd you get here so fast?” Harry demanded as he came to. “I heard Wiz just as some kook pelted me with a bottle.”

“Well, Wizard just took off,” was Pete's unenlightened reply.

“Glad he did. We came down on a Code One, but when Pirate and I got to the edge of the mob to get them moving, they closed in like we was Christmas in July. Somebody got Pirate in the head and I couldn't turn anywhere without getting clobbered.” Harry dabbed at the cuts on his hands. “I'd sure like to know what set them off.”

Wizard and the bigger dog were wandering around the street, nervously sniffing. The paddy wagon arrived, and Wiz and Pirate assisted in rounding up the incidentals, just begging for one legal bite. Then they started whiffling around again.

“What's with the dogs?” Harry asked Pete as he helped him into a car. “Look at old Wiz pumping.”

Wizard's tail was wagging like he was on his way to a steak fry.

“Maria!” Pete gasped and called Wizard to heel. The dog came bounding over, wriggling with delight. “Find Maria!” But Wizard barked three times, sneezed, and shook his head. Pirate came up, nuzzled Harry, sniffed Wizard, and then
he
barked three times.

“I got a girl that only talks to dogs yet,” Pete said in bitter disgust.

Back on their own beat, Pete tried to figure out why Maria would have called Wizard. Harry and Pirate weren't in trouble at the time Wiz took off. Maria must have been worried . . . yeah, that was it! Worried about her old man! She'd called Wizard because her old man had been in that crowd.

And that explained why Wizard was so happy-acting. He'd found Maria's father's trail leading away from the rumble.

Pete left a note for Harry to keep an ear and an eye open for any crippled kids on his beat and to let him know if Pirate ever acted . . . strange. She might keep in touch with Pirate, too, since the big dog had been involved in getting her father out of a tough scrape.

Two of the men picked up that day were known numbers runners. They stuck to their story that the cop had come busting in where he wasn't wanted and his damn dog had spooked the crowd into the rumble. They just “happened” to be there.

 

For the next few weeks Pete got no signs from Wizard that Maria was in any distress. This bothered him almost as much as hearing from her when she
was
hungry. At headquarters they were hearing nasty rumors about a new numbers racket. Certain hoods were being seen in new cars, in new quarters, acting up. Two runners were picked up on suspicion, in the hope of cracking them. They had to be released twenty-four hours later, clean, but one of them had bragged a little. Pete heard one of the detective lieutenants complaining bitterly about it.