Science Fiction - Daily Short Stories

The Big Fix - George O Smith

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Duration:: 1h 0m
Broadcast on:: 06 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Click Smart coupons to save more than ever before at Family Dollar. From cleaning products to snack and mealtime faves, we have Smart coupons savings for you. Download the new app to clip coupons and claim your savings today! Family Dollar helping you do more! Every day we rise, challenging ourselves to work for what we believe in. At U.S. Border Patrol, protecting our borders is more than a job. It's a calling. Agents answer the call, working together to keep our country and community safe. If you are ready for a new mission, join U.S. Border Patrol and go beyond. Learn more at cpp.gov/careers. The Big Fix by George O. Smith It was April, a couple of weeks before the Derby. We were playing poker, which is a game of skill that has nothing to do with the velocity of horse meat. Phil Howlin kept slipping open, but he managed to close up before I could tell whether the combination of 3-5-2-4 meant a full house of fives over fours, or whether he was betting on an open-ended straight that he hadn't bothered to arrange in order as he held them. The Greek was impenetrable. He also blocked me from reading the deck, so that I could estimate his hand from the cars that weren't delved out. Chicago Charlie's mind was easy to read, but no one could trust him. He was just as apt to think hi to score someone out, as he was to think low to suck the boys in. As for me, there I was, good old Wally Wilson holding a pat straight flush from the eight to the queen of diamonds. I was thinking full house, but I was betting like a weak three of a kind. It was a terrific game, between trying to read into the other guys' brains and keeping them from opening mine and blocking the Greek sly stunt of tipping over the poker chips as a distraction. I was also concerned about the 8,000 bucks that was in the pot. The trouble was that all four of us and fully intended to rake it in. My straight flush would be good for the works in any normal game with wild cards, but the way this bunch was betting I couldn't be sure. Phil Howlin didn't have much of a shield, but he could really read, and if he read me, either my mind or my hand, he'd automatically radiate, and that would be that. I was about at the point of calling for the draw, when the door opened without any knock. It was Tom Boy Taylor. We'd been so engrossed with one another that none of us had caught her approach. The Greek looked up at her and swore something he hadn't read in Plato. "Show down," he said, tossing in his hand. I grunted and spread my five beauties. Phil growled and shoved the pot in my direction, keeping both eyes on Tom Boy Taylor. She was something to keep eyes on, both figuratively and literally. The only thing that kept her from being a thionite dream was the Pittsburgh Stogi that she insisted upon smoking, and the only thing that kept her from being some man's companion in spite of the Stogi was the fact that he'd have to keep his mouth shut or she'd steal his back teeth, if not for fillings, then for practice. "You, Wally Wilson," she said around the cigar, "get these grifters out of here. I got words." The Greek growled, who says, Barcelona says, "I do not have to explain who Barcelona is. All I have to say is that Phil Howland the Greek and Chicago Charlie arose without a word and filed out with their minds all held tight behind solid shields." I said, "What does Barcelona want with me?" Tom Boy Taylor removed the Stogi and said evenly. Barcelona wants to see it flying heels, moonbeam, and lady grace next month. "When I had got done gulping," I said, "you mean Barcelona wants me to fix the Kentucky Derby?" "Oh no," she replied in a very throaty control toe, that went with her figure and her thousand dollars worth of simple skirt and blouse. "You needn't fix anything. Just be sure that it's flying heels, moonbeam, and lady grace in that order. One, two, three. Do I make Barcelona quite clear?" I said, "Look, Tom Boy. Neither of them platers can even run that far, let alone running ahead." Barcelona says they can and will. She leaned forward and stubbed out the Pittsburgh Stogi, and in the gesture she became wholly beautiful, as well as beautifully wholesome. As she leaned toward me, she unfogged the lighter surface of her mind and let me dig the faintly leaking concept that she considered me physically attractive. This did not offend me. To the contrary, it pleased my ego mightily until Tom Boy Taylor delicately let the barrier down to let me read the visual impression, which included all of the implications contained in the old cliche. "And don't he look natural?" "How?" I asked on the recoil. "Can I fix the Derby?" Barcelona says, "You know more about the horse racing business than any other big-time operator in Chicago," she said smoothly. Barcelona says he doesn't know anything about horse racing at all, but he has great faith in your ability. Barcelona says that if anybody can make it flying, heels, moonbeam, and lady-grace, one, two, three, Wally Wilson is the man who can do it. In fact, Barcelona will be terribly disappointed if you can't. I hired her carefully. She was a composed and poised beauty, who looked entirely incapable of uttering such words. I tried to peer into her mind, but it was like trying to read the fine print of a telephone directory through a knitted woolen shawl. She smiled at me, her shapely lips curving graciously. I said, "Barsalona seems to have a lot of confidence in my ability to range things." With those delicate lips still curved sweetly, she said, "Barsalona is willing to bet money on your ability as a manager." At this point, Tom Boytailer fished another Pittsburgh stogie out of her $100 handbag, bit off the end with a quick nibble of even, pearly white teeth, and stuffed the cigar in between the arched lips. She scratched a big kitchen match on the seat of her skirt after raising one shapely thigh to stretch the cloth. She puffed the stogie into light and became transformed from a beauty into a hag. My mind swore it was like painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Out of the corner of her mouth, she replied to my unspoken question. "It helps to keep grippers like you at mine's length." Then she left me alone with my littered card table and the 8,000 buck final pot, and the unhappy recollection that Barcelona had gotten upset at something Harold Grimmer had done, and he'd gone into Grimmer's place and busted Grimmer flat by starting with one lousy buck and letting it ride through eighteen straight passes. This feat of skill was performed under the mental noses of about eight operators trained to exert their extra-sensory talents towards the defeat of sharpshooters who tried to add paraphysics to the laws of chance. Lieutenant Delancy of the Chicago Police came in an hour later. He refused my offer of a drink, hand of smoke, and then because I didn't wave him to a chair, he crossed my living room briskly, and eased himself into my favorite chair. I think I could have won the waiting game, but the prize wasn't good enough to interest me in playing. So I said, "Okay, Lieutenant, what am I supposed to be guilty of?" His smile was veiled. "You're not guilty of anything so far as I know. You're not here to pass the time of day. No, I'm not. I want information. What kind of information?" "One hears things," he said vaguely. "Lieutenant?" I said. "You've been watching one of those halicine who'd done it dramas, where everybody stands around making what he's saying composed of disconnected phrases. You'll next be saying evil lurks in the minds of men in a sepulchral intonation. Let's skip it, huh? What kind of things does one hear and from whom?" It starts with Gympie Gordon, whose mind meanders. He shrugged. Gympie Gordon's meandering mind is well understood for what it is, he said, but when it ceases to meander long enough to follow a single train of thought from beginning to logical end, then something is up, such as what, for instance. The lieutenant leaned back in my easy chair and stared at the ceiling. "Wally," he said, "I was relaxing in the car with Sergeant Holiday driving. We passed a certain area on Michigan near Randolph, and I caught the strong mental impression of someone who, in this day and age, mind you, had had the temerity to pickpocket a wallet containing $27. The sum of $27 was connected with the fact that the rewards made the risk were taking. There were distinct impressions of playing that $27 across the board on three very special nags at the Derby. The impression of the $27 changed into a mental vision of a hand holding a sack of peanuts. There was indecision. Should he take more risk and run up his available cash to make a larger killing? Or would one Joseph Barcelona take a standoffish attitude if some outsider were to lower the track odds by betting a bundle on flying heels, moonbeam, and lady grace? I said, "Lieutenant, you have a pickpocket to chug. Horse betting is illegal." Since wagering on the speed of a horse has been redefined as "the purchase of one corporate share to be valid for one transaction only and redeemable at a par value to be established by the outcome of this aforesaid single transaction, horse betting is legal. This makes you an investment counselor, short-term transactions only, and removes from you the odious gnome-clature of bookie. However, permit me to point out that the buying and selling of shares of horse flesh does not grant a license to manipulate the outcome. You sound as though you're accusing me of contemplating a fix. Oh, no, not that. Then what? Wally, flying heels, moonbeam, and lady grace were refused by the National Association of Dog Food Caners because of their substandard health. If I'm not mistaken, the Derby Association should have to run the race early that Saturday afternoon. Early? Uh-huh. Early. You see, Wally, the blue laws of the blue grass state make it illegal to run horse races on Sunday, hence the start of the Derby must be early enough to let our three platers compete the race before midnight. Lieutenant, there still stands a mathematical probability that that the rest of the field will catch the Martian glanders as they lead our three dogs past the clubhouse turn? Lieutenant, you are wronging me. I haven't said a thing. Then why have you come here to bedevil me, Lieutenant? If Barcelona has ideas of arranging a fix? If Barcelona has such notions, Wally Wilson would know about it. Everybody, I said, entertains notions of cleaning up a bundle by having a hundred-to-one shot come in by a length. Even Barcelona must have wild dreams now and then. Come off it, he snapped. Something's up, and I want to know what's cooking. Lieutenant, you're now asking me to describe to you how someone might rig the Kentucky Derby in a world full of expert telepaths and perceptives and manipulators. A large number of which will be rather well paid to lend their extra sensory power to the process of keeping the Derby pure. He eyed me sourly. Remember fireman O'Leary? That's an unfair allegation, I replied. The rumor that he started the Chicago fire is absolutely unfounded. As I recall, Fireman O'Leary came by his nickname about 100 years after the holocaust that started on to Coven's treat in 1871. It seems that Fireman O'Leary was most useful in helping the Phillies home in Washington Park by assaulting them in the region of the Bangtail with small bollocks of pure incandescence. He was a pyrotic. That is false accusation. It was never proved, admitted to Lieutenant, because anyone who accused anybody of making use of extra sensory facilities in 1971 would have been tossed into that establishment out on Narragansett Avenue, where the head-shrinkers once plied their mystic trade. Things are different now. Indeed they are, Wally, which is why I'm here. No one but a fumbling idiot would try anything as crude as speeding a dog over the line by pyrotics or by jolting animals with a bolt of electrical energy. So, so considering the sad and sorry fact, that human nature does not change very much despite the vast possibility for improvement, we must anticipate a fix that has been contrived and executed on a level that takes full cognizance of the widespread presence of PSI function. But again, why me? Was not Fireman O'Leary an ancestor of yours? He was my maternal grandparent. And so you do indeed come from a long line of horse operators, don't you? I resent your invidious implications. And wasn't Wireless Wilson the paternal ancestor from whom the family name has come? I fail to see the allegation that my father's father employed telepathy to transmit track information faster than the wire services has never been proved. He smiled knowingly. Wally, he said slowly. If you feel that allegations have somehow impugned the pure name of your family, you could apply for a review of their several appearances in court. It's possible that Fireman O'Leary did not use his pyrotic talent to enhance the running speed of some tired old dogs. But clip smart coupons to save more than ever before at Family Dollar. From cleaning products to snack and mealtime faves, we have smart coupons savings for you. Download the new app to clip coupons and claim your savings today. Family Dollar, helping you do more. So I think we understand one another, Wally. There's also reason to believe that psionic talent tends to run in families. You're a PSI man and a good one. If I ever hear of anything, you'll let me know, he said flatly. And if flying heels, moonbeam and or lady grace, even so much as succeed in staying on their feet for the whole race, I'll be back demanding to know how you, Wally Wilson, managed to hold them up. After which the good Lieutenant Delancy left me to my thoughts, which are most uncomfortable. Barcelona had to be kept cheerful. But the dogs he'd picked could only come in first, unassisted, if they happened to be leading the field that started the rex race, and even then the post time would have to be delayed to give them a longer head start. That meant that if our three platers came awake, everybody would be looking for the fix. Anybody you plan to caper would sure have to plan it well. Barcelona hadn't planned the fix. He merely stated a firm desire, and either Barcelona got what he wanted, or I got what I didn't want, and I had to do it real good, or Delancy would make it real hot for me. I was not only being forced to enter a life of crime, I was also being forced to perform cleverly. It wasn't fair for the law to gang up with the crooks against me. And so with the mind feeling sort of like the famous sparrow who'd gotten trapped for three hours in a badminton game at Forest Hills, I built a strong high ball and poured it down while my Holocene set was warming up. I needed the high ball as well as the relaxation, because I knew that the drama being presented was the hundred and empty-um three-make of Tarzan of the apes, and for ninety solid minutes I would be swinging through trees without benefit of alcohol. Tarzan, you'll remember, did not learn to smoke and drink until the second book. The Holocene did relax me, and kept my mind from its worry even though the drama was cast for kids, and therefore contained a maximum of tree swinging and ape gymnastics and a near-darth of Lady Jane's pleasant company. What was irritating was the traces of wrong aroma. If one should not associate the African jungle with the aroma of a cheap bar, one should be forgiven for objecting to Lady Jane with a strong flavor of tobacco and cheap booze on her breath. And so I awoke with this irritating conflict in my senses to discover that I dropped out of my character as Tarzan and my surroundings of the jungle, but I somehow brought the stench of cheap liquor and moist cigarettes with me. There was an occupant in the chair next to mine. He needed a bath, and he needed a shave, but both would have been wasted if he couldn't change his clothing too. His name was Guimpy Gordon. I said, "Get out." He whined, "Mr. Wilson, you just gotta help me." "How?" "For years," he said, "I've been living on peanuts. I've been running errands for hard coins. I've been swiping the take of a red cross box." I snapped at him. "Oh, Mr. Wilson, he whined. I simply gotta make a stake. I'ma go on to send it back when I win." "Are you gonna win?" "Can't I?" For a moment I toyed with the idea, being honest with the Guim. Somehow, someone should tell the duffer that all horse players died broke, or that if he could make a living, I'd be out of business. Guimpy Gordon was one of life's unfortunate. If it were to rain gold coins, Guimpy would be out wearing boxing gloves. His mental process is meandered because of too much methyl. His unfortunate nickname did not come from the old-fashioned reason that he walked with a limp, but from the even more unfortunate reason that he thought with a limp. In his own unhealthy way he was, could we call it lucky by any standard of honesty? In this world full of highly-developed side-talent, the Guim could pick a pocket and get away with it because he often literally could not remember where and how he'd acquired the wallet for longer than half a minute. And it was a sort of general unwritten rule that any citizen so utterly be fogged as to permit his wealth to be lifted via light fingers should lose it as a lesson. But then it did indeed occur to me that maybe I could make use of the Guimpy. I said, "What could I do, Guimpy?" Mr. Wilson, he pleaded, "Is it true that you're working for Barcelona?" Now you know I can't answer that. I could read his mind struggling with this concept. It was sort of like trying to read a deck of Chinese fortune cards being shuffled before they're placed in the machine at the penny-carcade. As the drunk once said after reading the telephone directory, "Not much plot, but e-gad, what a cast of characters." The gist of his mental monitoring was a childlike desire to have everything sewed up tight. He wanted to win, to be told he'd win, and to have all the rules altered ad hoc to assure his winning. Just where he'd picked up the inside dope, the Barcelona-favored flying heels, moonbeam, and lady Grace in the Derby, I could not dig out of him. Just how Guimpy had made to the association between this clam-bake and me, good old Wally Wilson, I couldn't dig either. But here he was with his, by now, sixty-five bucks, carefully heisted, lifted, pinched and fingered, and by the great hairy, Guimpy was not going to lay it across the board on those three rejects from a claiming race, unless he had a cast iron assurance that they'd come in across the board one, two, and three. I said slowly, "If I were ever thinking of working for Mr. Barcelona," I told him, "I would be very careful never, never to mention it, you know." This bundle of the awful truth hit him and began to sink in, with the inexorable absorption of water dropping down into a bucket of dry sand. It took some time for the process to climax. Once it reached home base, it took another period of time for the information to be inspected, sorted out, identified, analyzed, and in a very limited degree understood. He looked up at me. "I couldn't cuff a hundred, could I?" I shook my head. I didn't have to veil my mind because I knew that Guimpy was about as talented a telepath as a tallow candle. Frankly, between me and thee, dear reader, I do not put anybody's bet on the cuff. I do a fair to middling brisk trade in booking bets placed in disgust by telepathy. But the ones I accept and pay off on, if they're lucky, are those folks who've been sufficiently foresighted to lay it on the line with a retainer against which their losses can be assessed. On the other hand, I could see in Guimpy's mind the simple logic that told him that as a bookmaker, I'd be disinclined to lend him money which he'd used to place with me against a sure thing long shot. If I were to lend him a century for an off-the-cuff bet on a hundred to one horse, especially one that I knew was sure to come in, I might simply better hand it 100 times 100 dollars as a gift. It would save a lot of messy bookkeeping. So the fact that I wouldn't cuff a bet for Guimpy gave him his own proof that I was confirming the fix. Then I buttered the process. Guimpy, do you know another good bookmaker? Sure, but you're the best. No one that'll take a bet from you, one that you don't like. Sure, Mr. Wilson. Then I said, hauling a thousand out of my wallet. Put this on our horses for me. He eyed the grand. But won't Mr. Barcelona be unhappy? Won't that run down the track odds? I laughed. The whole world knows them dogs has also ran, as I said. Guimpy, they put long shots like those into races just to clip the suckers who think there's a real hundred to one chance that a hundred to one horse will outrun favorites. Well, if you say so, Mr. Wilson, I say so. Thanks, I'll pay it back. He would. I'd see to that. Guimpy Gordon scuttled out of my bailiwick almost on a dead run. He was positively radiating merriment and joy and excitement. The noted his hand represented a sum greater than he had ever seen in one piece at any time of his life, and the concept of the riches he would know when they paid off on the Kentucky Derby was vague simply because Guimpy could not grasp the magnitude of such magnificence. Oddly, for some unexpected reason, or from some unknown source hidden deep in his past, his mind pronounced it derby. I returned to my African jungle, still bored with the lack of anything constructive. I returned at about the point where Tarzan and Jane were going through that silly, me Tarzan, you Jane routine, which was even more irritating because the program director or someone had muff to perfume that Lady Jane wore. Instead of the wholesome freshness of the free open air, Jane was wearing a heady, spicy scent engineered to cut its way through the blocking barrier of stale cigar smoke, whiskey-laden second-hand air, and a waft of cooking aroma from the kitchen of the standard cosmopolitan bistro. Worse, it got worse instead of better, where a clever effects director might have started with the heavy, sophisticated scent and switched to something lighter and airier as Jane was moved away from civilization. This one had done it backwards for some absolutely ridiculous reason. It finally got strong enough to distract me out of my characterization, and I came back to reality to realize once more that reality had been strong enough to cut into the concentration level of a Holocene. There was strong woman presence in my room, and as I looked around I found that Tom Boy Taylor had come in, just as Guimpy Gordon had, and was sitting in the other Holocene chair. She was probably playing Lady Jane to my Tarzan. Tom Boy Taylor had changed to a short-scirted, low-necked cocktail dress. Relaxed with her eyes closed to my Holocene chair, she looked lovely. She looked as vulnerable as a soft kitten, remembering that it's the soft, vulnerable ones that claw you if you touch, I refrained. I went to my little bar and refilled my highball glass because swinging through the jungle makes one thirsty, and while I was pouring, I took a sly peek into Tom Boy Taylor's mind. She was not Holocene, she was watching me, and when I made contact with her, she radiated a sort of overall aura of amusement emotion, covered up her conscious deliberation, and blocked my probing by directing me mentally to make it too, Wally. I built her one, handed it to her, and then said, "Folks these days sure have forgotten how to use doorbells." If you don't want people coming in, Wally, you should restrict your mind warden a little. It's set to admit anybody who does not approach the door with a vigorous intent to commit grave physical harm. When the thing radiates, come in and relax, is a girl supposed to stand outside twiggling on the doorbell? I dropped the subject, thinking that maybe I shouldn't have brought it up in the first place. It's ones that can't be answered by logic, whereas a firm emotional statement of like or dislike stops all counter-argument, and I made the mistake of questioning my own judgment. So I eyed her and said, "Tom Boy, you do not come here to indulge in small talk." "No," she admitted. "I'm here to keep track of you, Wally." "Oh." "Our great and good friend wants me to make notes on how clever you are at arranging things." "You mean Barcelona sent you." "That's about it?" I looked at her, a scant. "And how long are you going to stay?" She smiled. Until flying heels, moonbeam and lady grace come across the finish line one, two, three, at Churchill Downs on Derby Day. I grinned at her. Considering that trio of turtles, Tom Boy, it may be for years and it may be forever. She held up her glass in a sort of a toast. Or, she said, "Till death do us part." A little bitterly, I said, "One might think that Barcelona doesn't trust me." She replied. "It isn't a matter of trust. Barcelona holds you among his very closest friends. He is well aware of the fact that you would do anything for him, that you prize his friendship so highly yourself that you would go to the most desperate lengths to keep it firm and true. Yet he realizes that the simple desire he has recently expressed does place you in a delicate mental attitude. You are likely to feel that he shouldn't have expressed this desire since you feel obligated to fulfill it. He feels that maybe this obligation to maintain friendship at all costs may cause resentment. Since Barcelona does not want you to resent him, he sent me to be your companion in the hope that I might get some forewarning should your friendship for him begin to weaken. Just why, in this day and age, she didn't just come out and say or think flatly that she was there to keep me in line, I don't know. But there she was, talking all around the main point and delivering the information by long-winded inference. Even so, without her Pittsburgh stogie, Tom Boy Taylor was a mighty attractive dish. And I knew that she could also be a bright and interesting conversationalist if she wanted to be. Under other circumstances, I might have enjoyed the company, but it was no pleasure to know that every grain of her won- Clip Smart coupons to save more than ever before at Family Dollar. From cleaning products to snack and mealtime faves, we have Smart coupons savings for you. Download the new app to Clip coupons and claim your savings today. Family Dollar helping you do more. This is the story of the one. As a maintenance engineer, he hears things differently. To the untrained ear, everything on his shop floor might sound fine, but he can hear gears grinding, or a belt slipping. So he steps in to fix the problem at hand before it gets out of hand. And he knows Granger's got the right product he needs to get the job done, which is music to his ears. Call clickgranger.com or just stop by. Granger for the ones who get it done. 114 pounds of War Du Bois was Barcelona's personal property. At that moment, I realized that I was not too much concerned with what Barcelona's reaction might be. Instead, I was wishing that things were different, so that any activity between us would be for our own personal gain and pleasure, rather than the order of or for the fight against one Joseph Barcelona. There was one consolation. Tom Boyd Taylor had not come equipped with a box of Pittsburgh stogies with which to make my appreciation of beauty throw up its lunch. She said sweetly, "The better to ensnare you, my dear." But as she spoke, for just a moment, her thick, woolly mind shield thinned out enough for me to catch a strange, puzzled grasp for understanding. As if for the first time she had been shown how admiration for physical attractiveness could be both honest and good. The my repugnant attitude over her Pittsburgh stogies was not so much based upon the spoiling of beauty by the addition of ugliness, but the fact that the act itself cheapened her in my eyes. Then she caught me peeking and clamped down a mine screen that made the old so-called Iron Curtain resemble a rusty sieve. "I'm the one that's supposed to keep track of you, you remember," she said, once more covering up and leaping mentally to the attack. "I remember," I said, "but will you tell me something?" "Maybe," she said in a veiled attitude. "Is your boyfriend really interested in cleaning up, or is he interested in watching me squirm out of a trap he set for me?" "In the first place," she said, "I may have been seen in Barcelona's presence, but please remember that my association with Mr. Joseph Barcelona has always been strictly on a financial plane. This eliminates the inference contained under the phrase "boyfriend." "Check?" "Okay, Tom boy, if that's the—that's not only the way I want it," she said, "but that's the way it has always been and always will be." "Second, I have been getting tired of this nickname, Tom boy. If we're going to be wracked this close together, you'll grate on my nerves less if you use my right name. It's just plain Nora, but I'd like to hear it once in a while." "I nodded soberly. I held out a hand, but she put her empty eyeball glass in it instead of her own little paw. I shrugged and mixed, and when I returned and handed it to her, I said, 'I'll make you a deal. I'll call you Nora just so long as you maintain the manners and attitude of a female, feminine, lady-type woman. I'll treat you like a woman, but you've got to earn it. Is that a deal?" She looked at me. Her expression shy and as defenseless as a bruiser type caught reading sentimental poetry. I perceived that I had again touched the sensitive spot by demanding that she be more than physically spectacular. Her defenses went down, and I saw that she really did not know the answer to my question. I did. It had to do with something that only achievement of a godlike state or extreme old age would change. This time it was not so much the answer to why little boys walk high fences in front of little girls. It had much more to do with the result of what happens between little boys when the little girl hides her baseball hat and straightens a scene of her stockings when one certain little boy comes into sight. Joseph Barcelona did not admire my ability. He had, therefore, caused me to back myself into a corner where I'd be taken down a peg, shown up as a second raider with a little girl as witness. And why had Barcelona been so brash as to send a little girl into my company in order for her to witness my downfall? Let me tell you about Joe Barcelona. Normally on a citizen's often complain that Barcelona is living high off in the hog instead of slugging it out in residence at Stateville, Joliet, Illinois. With their straight line approach to simple logic, these citizens argue that the advent of telepathy should have rendered the falsehood impossible, and that perception should enable anybody with half a talent to uncover hidden evidence. Then, since Mr. Joseph Barcelona is obviously not languishing in jail, it is patent that the police are not making full use of their talented extra sensory operators nor the evidence thus collected. And then, after having argued thus, our outstanding citizen will fire off a fast thought to his wife and ask her to invite the neighbors over that evening for a game of bridge. None of these simple type of logicians seem to be aware of the rules for bridge or poker that were enforced prior to extra sensory training courses. Since no one recognized psionics, the rules did not take telepathy, perception, manipulation into any consideration whatsoever. Psionics hadn't done away with anything including the old shell game. All psionics had done was to make the game a chance into a game of skill and made the game of skill into a game of talent that required better control and longer training in order to gain full proficiency. In Barcelona's case, he had achieved his own apparent immunity by surrounding himself with a number of hirelings who drew a handsome salary for sitting around thinking noisy thoughts, noisy thoughts, jarring thoughts, stunts like the concentration interrupter of playing the first 20 notes of Brahms lullaby in perfect pitch and timing and then playing the 21st note in staccato with a half tone flat. Making mental contact with Barcelona was approximately the analog of eavesdropping upon the intimate cooing of a lover sweet-talking his lady in the middle of a sawmill working on an order three days late under a high priority and a penalty clause for delayed delivery. People who wonder how Barcelona can think for himself with all that terrific mental racket going on do not know that Barcelona is one of those very rare birds who can really concentrate to the whole exclusion of any distraction short of a vigorous threat to his physical well-being. And so his trick of sending Nora Taylor served a threefold purpose. It indicated his contempt for me. It removed Nora from his zone of interference so that she could really witness firsthand my mental squirmings as I watched my own come up and bearing down on me. It also gave him double the telepathic contact with me and my counterplans, if any. In the latter you see Barcelona's way of collecting outside information was to order a temporary ceasefire of the middle noise barrage and then he'd sally forth like a one-man mental commando raid to make a fast grab for what he wanted. Since the best of telepaths cannot read a man's opinion of prunes when he's thinking of peanuts it is necessary for someone to be thinking of the subject he wants when he makes his raid. Having two in the know and interested doubled his chance for success. There was also the possibility that Barcelona might consider his deliberate leak to Gimpi Gordon ineffective. Most sensible folks are disinclined to treat Gimpi's delusions of grandeur seriously despite the truth of the cliche that states that a one-to-one correspondence does indeed exist between the procession of smoke and the existence of pyrotic activity nor a tailor would add some certification to the rumor. One thing simply had to be there must be no mistake about placing information in Lieutenant Delancy's hands so as to create the other jaw of the pincers that I was going to be forced to close upon myself. I tried a gentle poke in the general direction of Barcelona and found that the mental noise was too much to stand. I withdrew just a bit and closed down the opening until the racket was no more than a mental rumor and I waited. I hunched that Barcelona would be curious to know how his contact girl was making out and might be holding a ceasefire early in this phase of the operation. I was right. The noise diminished with the suddenness of turning off a mental switch and as it stopped I went in and practically popped Barcelona on the noodle with how to do Joseph. He recoiled at the unexpected thrust but came back with Wally Wilson. Got him in it. I looked at the calendar, counted off the days to Derby Day in my mind and told him that I had that long at the very least and probably much much longer. "Thanks you." "Me thanks," I replied. "Wally boy," he returned, "you aren't playing this very smart." "Suppose you tell me how you'd be playing it," I bounced back at him. "Tell you how I have heard." He went vague on me. "If I were of a suspicious nature, I will begin to wonder about certain connective events. For instance, less hypothecate. Let's say that a certain prominent bookmaker had been suspecting of planning to put a fix on a certain important horse race, but of course nothing could be proved. Now from another source, we suddenly discover strong evidence to suggest that this bookmaker is not accepting wagers on the horses he is backing, but conversely is busy laying wagers on the same nags through the help of a rather inept go-between. I grunted aloud, which caused Nora Taylor to look up in surprise. I was tempted to say it aloud, but I did not. I thought, "In simple terms, Joseph, you are miffed because I will not cover your bets." "I thought nothing of the sort." "Let's hedge?" "I love you too, Joseph." "Well, are you or aren't you?" "Are I what?" "Going to top the frosting by financing your little scheme to put the pinch on me?" "Now, Wally." "Can it, Joseph. We're both big boys now, and we both know what the score is. You know and I know that the first time I or one of my boys takes a bet on any one of the three turtles you like, the guy who laid the bet is going to slip the word to one of your outside men, and you're going to leap to the strange conclusion that if Wally Wilson is accepting bets against his own fix, he must know something exceedingly interesting." "Now, who's been saying anything about a fix, Wally?" "The people," I thought bluntly, "who have most recently been associated with your clever kind of operator." "That isn't very nice, Wally." "If it had been a telephone conversation, I'd have slammed the telephone on him. The Mealy mouth louse and his hypocritical gab was making me mad, and I knew that he was making me mad simply to make me lose control of my blanket. I couldn't stop it, so I let out my anger by thinking, 'You think you're clever, because you're slipping through sly little loopholes, Joseph. I'm going to show you how neat it is to get everything I want, including your grudging admission of defeat, by the process of making use of the laws and rules that work in my favor. You're a wise guy," he hurled back at me. "I'm real clever, Barcelona, and I'm big enough to face you, even though Phil Howland, the Greek, and Chicago Charlie make like cold clams of the mention of your name. Why, you punk! Go away, Barcelona. Go away before I make up my mind, make you eat it." I turned to Nora, and regarded her charms and attractions, both physical and mental, with open and glowing admiration. It had the precalculator result, and it wouldn't have been a bit different if I had filed a declaration of intent and forced her to read it first. It even satisfied my ambient curiosity about what a telepath grinding of the teeth in frustrated anger would transmit as. And when it managed to occur to an unemployed thought center of my brain, that the lines of battle were soft and sweetly curved indeed, Joseph Barcelona couldn't stand it anymore. He just gave a mental sigh and signaled for the noise-makers to shut him off from contact. Derby Day. The first Saturday in May dawned warm and clear with a fast, dry track forecast for post-time. The doorbell woke me up, and I dredged my apartment to identify Nora fiddling in my two-bit kitchen with ham and eggs. Outside, it was Lieutenant Delancy practicing kinematics by pressing the button with a levitated pencil instead of shoving on the thing directly. I'd changed the combination on the mindwarden and Nora's suggestion. As I struggled out of bed, Nora flashed, "You get it Wally and me." She was busy manipulating the ham slicer and the coffee percolator and floating more eggs from the refrigerator. The invitation and the acceptance for enough breakfast was still floating in the middle atmosphere heavy enough to smell the coffee. I replied to both of them, "If he can't get in, let him go hungry." Lieutenant Delancy manipulated the door after I'd reset the mindwarden for him. He came in with a loud verbal greeting that Nora answered by a call from the kitchen. I couldn't hear them because I was in the shower by that time. However, I did ask, "What gives, Lieutenant? It's Derby Day. Yeah, so what?" "I'm going to watch it from here," he thought incredulously. "Why not? Be a big jam down there." "I have a box," he said. "No, how?" "Both the Derby Association and the Chicago Police Force have assigned me to protect you from the evil doings of sinners," he said with a chuckle. "And I suggested that the best way of keeping an official eye on you was to visit you at the scene of the alleged intended crime, and to serve that end they provided me with a box where we could all be together. I tossed. And if we do not elect to go to Kentucky, he chuckled again. Then I shall have to arrest you. For what? There is an old law in the city statute that declares something called massive cohabitation to be illegal. You have been naughty, Wally." Nor exploded. "We have not," she cried. Lieutenant Delancy laughed like a stage villain. "The law," I mentioned, he said, after a bit of belly-laffing, was passed long, long ago before telepathy and perception were available to provide the truth. At that time, the law took the stand that any unmarried couple living together would take advantage of their unshaper-owned freedom. And if this state of cohabitation went on for a considerable length of time, called massive, but don't ask me to justify the term, the probability of their taking pleasure in one another's company approached a 100% positive probability. Now, this law was never amended by the Review Act, hence the fact that you have been chastely occupying separate chambers has nothing to do with the letter of the law that says simply that it is not lawful for an unmarried couple to live under the same unshaper-owned roof. I came out of the shower, tawling myself, and manipulating a selection of clean clothing out of the closet in my bedroom. The law, I observed, is administered by the intent of the law, and not by the letter, isn't it? "Oh, sure," he said, "but I'm not qualified to interpret the law. I'll arrest you and bring you to trial, and then it's up to some judged rule upon your purity and innocence of criminal intent, and freedom from moral, taint, or turpitude. Maybe take weeks, you know?" And watched the alternative, I grunted. "Flight," he said, in a sinister tone, as I came out of my bedroom, putting the last finishes to my necktie, "flight away from the jurisdiction of the law that proposes to warp the meaning of the law to accomplish its own ends. And you, my duty," he grinned, "is to pursue you." "In which case," observed Nora Taylor, "we might as well fly together and save both time and money." "That is why I have my personal skybug all ready to go, instead of requisitioning an official vehicle," he said. He scooped a fork full of eggs and said, "You're a fool, Wally. The lady can cook." I chuckled. "And what would happen if I hauled off and married her?" "You mean right here and now?" "Yeah." "Sorry. I have to restrain you. You see, you couldn't get a legal license, nor go through any of the other legal activities. Herego, there would be a prima-fashy illegality about some part of the ceremony. Without being definite as to which phase, I would find it my duty to restrain you from indulging in any act the consummation of which would be illegal." Nora said in a pseudo-pechement tone, "I've been damned with very faint praise. How so?" Wally Wilson has just said that he'd rather marry me than go to the Kentucky Derby with you. Lieutenant Delancey said, "I urge both of you to come along. You see, my box is also being occupied by an old friend of yours. I managed to talk him into joining us, with reluctance he consented." "I'm a mind-reader," I said. "Our friend's name is Joseph Barcelona. As they say on the space radio, I firm over and out." Barcelona was there with two of his boys. Watching them were four ununiformed officers. Nora and I and Lieutenant were joined later by Guimpy Gordon, who might have been radiating childlike wonder and a circus air of excitement at actually being at the Derby. He might have been. No one could cut through the constant, maddening, mental blah-blah-blah that was being churned out by Barcelona's noisemakers. He greeted me curtly, "I'd Nora hungrily." He said, "You look pretty confident, Wilson." "I can't lose," I said. "No. Frankly, I don't see how you can win." I smiled. Without mentioning any names, Joseph, I feel confident that the final outcome of this racing contest will be just as you want it to be. I shall ask that no credit be given me, although I shall be greatly admired by our mutual friend, Miss Nora Taylor, who will think that I am truly wonderful from making you happy. And it is more than likely that she may marry me once I have shown you and she and Lieutenant Delancy that I am a law-abiding citizen as well as a man who values friendship enough to do as his old pal Joe Barcelona desires. "It's going to be one of the neatest tricks of the week," he said. "It will be done by the proper application of laws," I said modestly. Behind us, yimpy Gordon light-fingered a half dollar out of Delancy's pocket and was attracting the attention of a hot dog peddler by waving his program. Some folks nearby were eyeing Barcelona's noisemakers angrily, but making very little visible protest once they identified him. Nora was reading her program and underlining some horses. The whole place began to grow into a strange excited silence as the track board began to go up. It was to be a nine horse race and at the top of the list were three, count them three, odds on favorites. First, Murdoch's hoard, one to two. Second, May Hughes Jet, three to five. Johnny Brack, five to seven. Piper's son, eight to five. Daymare, three to one. Helen O'Loy, eight to one. And then, of course, there were our three mud turtles which must have been entered by someone who thought the Kentucky Derby was a claiming race and who hoped that the La Pajas glue people would make a bid for the three mounds of thoroughbred horse flesh that dropped dead in the back stretch. Flying heels, one hundred to one. Moonbeam, two fifty to one. Lady Grace, five hundred to one. The rack hadn't hit the top of the slide before there was a sort of mass movement towards the mutual windows. The ones who didn't go in person tried to hurl betting thoughts in the hope of getting there early and failing this, they arose and followed the crowd. Slowly the odds began to change. The figures on our three platers began to rise. There was very little activity on the other six horses. Slow thinking, Gippy Gordon, started to get up, but I put out a hand to stop him. "But the odds are dropping," he complained. "Gimpy," I said. "They pay on the final listing anyway. But would you like a tip?" "Sure," he said nervously. "My tip is to keep your cash in your wallet. Put it on the nose of some horse, and it's likely to get blown away by a high wind." The odds were changing rapidly. What with psionic information receivers, trend predictors, and estimated anticipators, the mutual computers kept up with a physical transfer of funds, figured out the latest odds, and flipped the figures as fast as the machinery could work the dials. In no more than a few minutes, the odds on the three platers looked more like the odds on horses as to the chance of winning. Barcelona looked at me. "What did you do, wise guy?" "Who, me? Well, I didn't do anything that you did not start, except that maybe I was a little more generous." "Speal," he snarled. "Why, shucks, Joseph. All I did was to slip good old Gimpy Gordon to tip. How much? Just a lousy little thousand dollar bill. A grand? For what, wise guy? Why, for just for telling me what horses you picked for the Derby?" Barcelona looked at the odds on his horses, flying heels had passed even money, and was heading for a one to two odds on. The other platers were following accordingly. "And what did you tell Gimpy, Wilson?" "You tell him, Gimp," I said. "Why, Wilson just said that we should ride along with you, Mr. Barcelona, because you are such a nice guy that everybody works awfully hard to see that you get what you want." "There's more," roared Barcelona. "Only that I shouldn't mention it to anybody, and that I shouldn't place my bet until the mutual windows open, because if I did, it would louse up the odds and make you unhappy." Gimpy looked at Barcelona's stormy face, and he grew frightened. "Honestly, Mr. Barcelona, I didn't say a word to nobody, not a word." He turned to me in wine planably. "You tell him, Mr. Wilson, I didn't say a word." I soothed him. "We know you didn't, Gimpy." Barcelona exploded. "Yee, gods," he howled. "They used that gimmick on me when I lost my first baby tooth. Don't put your tongue in the vacant place," they said, "and don't think of the words 'gold tooth,' and it'll grow in natural gold." As he spoke, the odds on flying heels changed from a staggering one to eight to a more even staggering one to ten. That meant that anybody holding less than a ten-dollar bet on such a winner would only get his own money back, because a tract does not insult its clients by weighing them down with coins in the form of small change. They keep the change and call it "breakage" for any amount over an even dollar money. "Delancy" said to Barcelona. "You've had it, Joseph." Barcelona snarled. "Put the big arm on Wilson here. He's the fast man with the big fix." Wilson didn't fix any race, Joseph. He just parlayed some of the laws of human nature into a win for himself and a lose for you. "Now see here. What's this guff about human nature?" "Well, there's the human desire to ride with a winner and the human frailty that hopes to get something for nothing, to say nothing of the great human desire to be on the inside track or in the know, so that they can bet on the sure thing." "And so," said Delancy, "we have about 20,000 human beings, full of human nature, holding tickets on your three dogs, Joseph. They bet their money because the inside dope said that the big fix was in. And I can tell you what 20,000 people are going to do to this inside dope when their nags run last is going to make Torquamada ask permission to return to life for a second inquisition, this time with extra sensory tortures. He turned to me as Barcelona went pale. "Well," he said, "one a bet that somebody doesn't remember that old question of whether it's possible to break every bone in a man's body without killing him. I'd be a fool to cover that one," I said. "But I'll play even money and on either side of whether Joseph dies or lives through the process." "Stop it!" screamed Barcelona. He grabbed me by the arm. Wilson, he pleaded. "Can you stop what I mean? Can you fix it?" "Sure," I said. "Legally?" "Yep, but it'll cost you just money, just money, and admitting that you lost, Joseph." "I lose," he said. "Go ahead." "Okay, Joseph. Now let's be real honest. Those three long short turtles belong to you, don't they?" "Yes, and right now you wouldn't even want to see them run, would you? In fact, you really want that they shouldn't run." "Yes, all right, Joseph. Call off your noise-makers and toss the head steward a thought. Tell them you're scratching your entries." "But that won't stop the people from losing their money." "Natch, so next you broadcast the thought, that because of this terrible grievous error, you are refunding their money out of your own pocket, since the track association will not, or is not obliged to." He turned to his pair of rattlesheads and snarled, "All right, shut up." A mental silence fell that was like the piece of rest after a busy day. As Barcelona was tossing his cancellation at the steward, and preparing to make a full, implausible explanation to the gambling instinct of the Kentucky Derby crowd, I considered the matter carefully. "Let's see," I thought. "He wants them not to run, and so he can't complain to me if they do not. I didn't fix the race, so Lieutenant Delancy can't accuse me of that. That make everybody happy, and I win." A small hand stole into mine. "What about me, Wally?" Nora asked sweetly. "I look down at a finite dream come true, by the glow in her eyes, that admired no one else but me. Your mine," I reminded her, "until flying heels, moonbeam, and lady grace, win one, two, and three at the Kentucky Derby." Or, she said mischievously, "till death do us part." I was instructing her how to respond to a kiss as a lady should respond, when about 200,000 noisy, exuberant human natures yelled and radiated and thought, "They're off!" But they didn't mean us. They were watching a bunch of long-faced hayburners chasing one another around a dusty track. Human nature ain't changed a bit. It's just more complicated in an extra-sensory sort of way. "End of the Big Fix" by George O. Smith Ready for an audio experience like no other? Dive into the world of infinite sounds with crystal clear high fidelity, only on saw good media. Visit sawgoodmedia.com today and start exploring the boundless universe of sounds that will soothe, inspire, and revitalize your senses. Start listening today and experience uninterrupted serenity at sawgoodmedia.com. Hey there, it's Solomon from Sawgood Media. A lot of our listeners have asked how to get ad-free access to our podcast. You asked and we answered. 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