Collected Short Fiction, page 78
Whatever happened, Horner was suddenly determined to keep this good, sound, healthy body. A lifer in prison, Overman did not need it. Whereas Horner . . .
He shut the thoughts off. There was no predicting the future, no sense raising his hopes, only to have them dashed, sundered, when the law overtook him. He entered the elevator, went up to the fourth floor, walked uncertainly along the hallway. Suddenly, he was frightened. Could he explain the situation to Jane? It hardly seemed likely. It was asking a lot of anyone. How could Jane believe the wild story he would tell her? How could he . . . ?
Horner shrugged, and jabbed a finger against the bell-button. He waited a few seconds, hearing no response inside the apartment. Perhaps Jane was out. Perhaps, even now, she was down at the police station, tearfully describing Horner to the policemen on duty. “But officer, I can’t imagine what could have happened to him. He was always so punctual . . .” All at once the door opened.
Standing there staring at Horner was—Hugh Horner!
Horner’s first impulse was to run. What could he explain to Jane now? Whatever he tried was doomed to failure by the simple presence of the other Hugh Horner—of the convict, Lionel Overman, in Horner’s body, he now realized. He should have expected it. Overman and the other seven men in the observation room, the auburn-haired girl had said at Bodies, Inc., had approved of the switch. It was a question of money, the girl had said. And now Horner knew that was a lie. It had to be a lie. It wasn’t a question of money at all. Lionel Overman was a convict. And the others? Convicts too, Horner decided. Glad to trade twenty years of their lives for freedom . . . Apparently they had been recruited in prison by hirelings of Bodies, Inc. Apparently they knew the full score. Lionel Overman—in Horner’s body—seemed quite sure of himself.
“Good God!” Horner blurted. “You’re me! You have my body—Horner’s that is!”
“Quiet, you fool,” the other Hugh Horner told him. “The old lady’ll hear you. I’ll give you this much of a break: get lost and I won’t call the cops. But beat it—fast!”
“Now listen—” Horner began. His voice trailed off. He had nothing to say. He understood, but he was stunned. Intellectual understanding and emotional acceptance of a situation, he knew, having learned the hard way, were two different things. But he studied Lionel Overman in Hugh Horner’s body, and was more determined than ever that he would not go back, if going back were possible. The Hugh Horner he looked at was an ageing man. Forty-seven? He looked easily that old. He was a dumpy man with a sagging-jowled face, small, rather close-set eyes and a receding hair line. The eyes looked crafty, too: Horner had never known his eyes to look crafty before. Probably, that was Overman’s personality coming through.
“You listen to me,” Overman said, “and listen good. Get lost. I mean that brother. We both know the score, so don’t try to pull any of this bewilderment crap on me. I heard over the radio how you escaped, but hell, man, they got a seven state alarm out for you. I got enough trouble with that bag of an old lady inside—”
“What,” said Horner in a shocked voice, “did you say?”
“I got enough trouble with your bag of a wife, I said,” Overman told him. “Hell, man, maybe my body’s older now, but my memory ain’t. She’s a bag. A real bag. But what do you care, huh? You ain’t saddled with her any more.”
“Saddled with her?” Horner mumbled. “Saddled? I—I love my wife. How dare you call her a—a—” Horner went livid with rage, grabbed Overman’s arm.
The small dumpy man lurched toward him. “Hey, leggo—” Overman struck out awkwardly, unathletically, in the Hugh Horner body. Horner warded off the weak blows easily, and hit Overman once, expertly, on the point of the jaw just as Jane Horner called from within the apartment:
“Who is it, dear? What’s taking so long?”
Horner let the unconscious Overman fall. He was about to flee back to the elevator because he couldn’t face his wife now, not—apparently—as the man who had just knocked Hugh Horner unconscious. But an apartment door between theirs and the elevator opened and Horner had no choice but to duck into his own apartment.
Jane appeared from the direction of the kitchen. She was wearing an apron and she was dumpier than Horner remembered. Probably, Horner told himself, my own dumpiness prevented me from seeing her that way. She wore her hair in a bun and was forty-five and looked it. She was holding a heavy green-glass pitcher in her hand and looked down at what was apparently her unconscious husband on the floor and let out a scream—or began to, for Horner ran to her and clasped a hand over her mouth.
“I can explain everything,” he said, wondering if, indeed, he could. “If you promise not to shout or scream, I’ll let go of you.”
The trapped face nodded.
Horner let go and his wife said, “I know you. I know you now. I recognize you from the television. You’re that Lionel Overstreet—”
“Overman—but I’m not.”
“Who escaped from the prison up state. What—what did you do to my husband?”
“I,” said Horner, “am your husband.”
She looked at him. She looked at the Hugh Horner body, unconscious, on the floor. She sobbed hysterically and Horner said:
“You’re both coming with me, in your car.”
“A murderer! You’ll kill us.”
“Janey, listen to me. That time in Jones Beach before we were married and the top of your bathing suit came off while we were swimming—” It was something only she and the real Horner would know, but he had waited too long. He had been staring down at the unconscious Lionel Overman while he spoke, and when he looked up it was too late to ward off the green-glass pitcher which Jane was bringing down over his head. It exploded there.
So did the world—for Horner.
There was a buzzing. There was a roaring.
Horner opened his eyes. He was seated on the floor and his arms were bound. So were his legs. He looked across the foyer. Overman-in-Horner was similarly seated, similarly bound.
“You’re both driving me crazy,” Jane Horner said.
“You call the cops,” Overman-in-Horner asked.
“Not yet. I’ll give you both a chance. You,” she gestured at Overman, “weren’t acting yourself since you came home last night. You acted—well—cruel. That’s the only way I can describe it.”
“Of course he wasn’t acting himself,” Horner-in-Overman said. “Because he isn’t—me.”
“That makes sense, don’t it?” Overman sneered.
“And you wouldn’t say ‘don’t it,’ ” Jane told him. “And you,” she said to Horner, “when you let go of me I knew I was going to hit you with the pitcher and I couldn’t stop it, even when I wanted to when you said that about Jones Beach. We—we were alone, my husband and me. But how could you be my husband? You don’t look like him. You—you’re young enough to be my—my son.”
“Ask him,” Horner said, pointing at the bound Overman, “ask him about Jones Beach.” Horner smiled grimly, waiting. His own memory of Overman’s life was only fair, and spotty, and certainly not very good on particular details. Overman’s of his would be the same.
“What happened at Jones Beach before we were married?” Jane asked Overman.
“Twenty years ago?” How the hell should I remember?”
“He remembered,” said Jane in a bewildered voice, pointing at Horner.
“Ask him about our honeymoon,” Horner suggested.
“Where did we go on our honeymoon?”
“Er, Atlantic City,” Overman-in-Horner said triumphantly.
“How long did we stay?”
“Two weeks.”
“Who,” Jane asked, “was in the hotel room next door?”
“Who remembers a thing like that?” Overman said after a while.
Horner grinned. “I do,” he said, and named some old friends of theirs.
Jane made no comment, but asked other questions. They became increasingly intimate, and Overman could not answer most of them. But Horner, of course, answered them all.
Finally, Jane said, “I—I don’t know how it can be.” Her eyes were filling with tears as she looked down at Overman. “You—you’re my husband. You should be. But you don’t know the things he would know. It’s impossible, but you’re not—not—”
Her voice trailed off. She turned to Horner. “While you—you’re just a boy. You don’t look anything like my husband, but you know all the things he knows.”
Quickly, Horner told her. Overman tried to confound the incredible story with acid comments on its impossibility, but Jane heard Horner’s words and, when he had finished, she went to him slowly and untied him. She looked at him and said, also slowly, “You—you’re my husband. I know you are. I know it now. But you’re young. I can’t keep you, saddled—”
“That’s just what he said,” Horner said.
“But you’ll want your freedom, won’t you?”
“Hell,” said Horner, “no. I have a better idea. Bring the car around, Janey. We have a lot to do.”
“But this man who looks like—”
“He comes with us,” Horner said. He chafed his wrists and ankles and went inside quickly and soon returned with a Luger pistol, a memento of his Army days in Germany during the Second World War. “Get up,” he told Overman, then realized he could not. “Untie him,” he told Jane.
She did so. Overman got slowly to his feet. “Try anything and you’ll regret it,” Horner said. “Don’t go for the car, Janey. We’ll all three go for it together, Overman in the middle.”
Horner rammed the Luger into his jacket pocket and took hold of Overman’s arm, steering him for the door. They went into the hall together, and into the elevator. Jane flanked Overman nervously on the other side. The elevator was not empty. A couple named Shapiro from the sixth floor was in it and Jane smiled at them. Horner jabbed the Luger against Overman’s ribs and Overman gave them a weak smile too. Horner nodded at them in a friendly fashion.
Then they were all outside, and the Shapfros went their way. “The car?” Horner asked his wife. “Where is it?”
“Down the block,” she said, and they began walking. Horner’s grip on Overman’s arm was like iron. He was much stronger than the little middle-aged man, and both of them knew it. But Overman was desperate, and they both knew that too.
They got into the car. “You drive,” Horner told his wife. Overman sat between them and Horner told Jane to head out to Long Island. It would be a long drive and Horner knew he would have to watch Overman every mile of the way.
An hour later Horner said, “Turn there.” He was surprised that he remembered the way. It had all seemed dream-like in the taxi.
“What are you gonna do?” Overman asked. “Try and change back, that it?”
Horner shrugged. Actually, he did not know. He was playing the rest of it by ear, but if there was an answer anywhere, it would be at Bodies, Inc. He did not answer Overman, but told Jane to ignore the no vehicles sign and drive lip the lane alongside the high hemlock hedge.
They all got out of the car together. Horner took the Luger from his pocket now. There was no need to hide it, no reason to take chances. He lifted the door-knocker and let it fall and in a moment the beautiful auburn-haired girl opened the door.
“Yes?” she said, then snapped, “You! You had no business coming back here!”
“It wasn’t my idea,” Overman said with a bleak grin.
“It was mine,” Horner told her. “You didn’t say I’d be switching places with a convict. How many other poor suckers fell for it?”
“That’s no business of yours. We didn’t do a thing that wasn’t legal.”
“There are no statutes in the books to cover what you did, you mean,” Horner accused.
“It’s the same thing. Now go away, will you? There’s nothing we can do for you here.”
“I guess there is,” Horner said wearily. “I’ll tell you. I guess I’ll have to ask you to change us back.”
He didn’t like the idea. He wanted to be young. He thought after what had happened, and since Overman apparently knew the score, he had earned his right to keep the strong young body as his own. But there seemed no other way out and, besides, he knew now that he loved Jane deeply and could not show her the kind of love he wanted to, young enough to be her son. He would change back with regrets, but change he would. The dream of youth had ended for him . . .
The pretty auburn-haired girl was laughing. “But I thought you knew,” she said with finality. “We can’t possibly reverse the procedure. Once made, the change is irrevocable because the electromagnetic impulses which make up a human mind are delicate and could never stand the shock twice. It looks like you’re trapped, Mr. Horner. Or, should I say, Mr. Overman?”
Momentarily, he was stunned. He looked at Jane. Jane’s face was crumpling. She was going to cry. A dumpy, middle-aged woman on the brink of tears.
He whirled—too late! Overman was in the soft and dumpy Horner body, but Overman’s reflexes had apparently crossed over with him. He lunged for the Luger just as Horner brought himself out of the momentary funk which possessed him. The Luger was wrenched from Horner’s hand. It seemed to leap into Overman’s with a life of its own, then Overman swung it up and down and Horner felt the searing pain of it against his temple. He staggered and would have fallen, but Jane came to him, supported his weight until, slowly, strength flowed back.
“Go inside and call the cops,” Overman snapped at the girl. “This guy can’t prove nothin’. Let the dame rant if she wants, they’ll think she’s nuts and I’ll wind up with a separation. Snap to it, baby!”
“Don’t worry,” auburn-hair said, “I will.” And she disappeared inside.
“Hugh, oh, Hugh,” Jane said. “What will we do?”
“You’ll just wait for the cops,” Overman told them. He held the Luger on them steadily, watching them very closely.
Horner said, “I’m sorry, Overman. It isn’t loaded.”
Overman grinned at him, a wolfish grin. “Sure,” he said, “that’s why you held it on me all the way out here.”
“But I knew, and you didn’t. That makes a difference, doesn’t it? Don’t you see, it wouldn’t be loaded. It’s only a war souvenir. You’re not supposed to keep war souvenirs loaded. Well, are you?”
Overman looked uncertainly at the weapon, then at Horner. He got a fingernail under the edge of the ammo clip in the butt and was about to spring it when he said, “You’re bigger’n me. If it ain’t loaded, why don’t you—”
Horner cried, “I’m going to!” and leaped at Overman. The gun bucked between them, went off. Horner felt the heat of the slug’s passage in the air, then was grappling with Overman. The smaller man brought his knee up and a wave of nausea engulfed Horner. He clung to Overman, waiting for it to pass, keeping the Luger out of reach by holding Overman’s wrist up over his head.
Overman’s knee blurred up again, but this time Horner pivoted and caught it on his thigh. He lashed out with his free hand, striking Overman with all his might across the face, open-handed. Overman staggered back, stunned. Horner followed through with a short left hook, and the fight was over.
“I just phoned the police,” auburn-hair said, coming out. “I—wha—”
“Stand still,” said Horner. “Better yet, let’s go inside.” He turned to his wife. “Listen, Jane. The cops. I’ll have to run. There’s no way of proving—well, you know. But I want you to come with me. I love you.”
“I couldn’t go with you.
Like this. Twice your age. I—”
“I don’t want you to. You like this girl’s looks? She’s very pretty—”
“Now wait a minute!” shrieked auburn-hair.
“You wait. I don’t know how many suckers you trapped in convict’s bodies. You deserve whatever you get—like, for example, losing twenty years.”
Jane said, “But—but what is wrong with growing older the way we’re growing older?”
“Nothing,” Horner told her quietly, “if we’d allowed ourselves to live. But we didn’t. We just existed, always promising to do the things tomorrow—the things we always wanted to do—which somehow we never got around to. If you live, there’s nothing wrong with growing old. But we haven’t lived. And now, now Jane darling, we have a second chance. Jane—will you?”
She looked at him. There were tears in her eyes. “Yes,” she said finally. “Oh, yes, Hugh!”
Horner gave Jane the Luger. “Take her inside,” he said. “I’d better get Overman.”
The girl said, “You’ll never get away with it,” as Horner lifted the unconscious Overman to his shoulder and entered the house. “I’ve already called the police. They’re on their way.”
“Then we have nothing to lose,” Horner said. “If you don’t work fast, I’ll kill you. You understand?”
She looked at his face, studying him. She began to tremble. “But I don’t want to be old!” she wailed.
“And I didn’t want to be a convict—and neither did all those other men, whatever prisons they’re in now. Get a move on.”
There was a room. Two tables and machinery. Jane got on one of the tables, auburn-hair on the other. Auburn-hair was crying softly, bitterly. It was, Horner knew, just retribution. Probably, it was the only retribution ever meted out to her.
“We’ll have to run for it, maybe the rest of our lives,” Horner told Jane. “You want to?”
“With you? Yes, yes!”
Crying, auburn-hair told him what to do. Distantly, sirens were wailing. Horner activated the switches . . .
He looked at auburn-hair. “Jane?” he said. “Are you Jane?”
She smiled at him radiantly. She was beautiful. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, darling.”
“At Jones Beach—” he began.
“You got the bra of my bathing suit but wouldn’t give it back to me,” she said, and flushed.
“O.K., now let’s hurry. Outside. The cops are almost here.”
“Wait a minute,” Jane said. “I have a vague memory. She—she wouldn’t tell you . . .”
