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The opening · free to read
Illustrated by ENGLE
Amnesia? Well, maybe--but how and where had he earned that $50,000?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Infinity June 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Bethelman came to quite suddenly, and found himself standing on the corner of 44th Street and Madison Avenue. He was dizzy for a moment--not from any physical cause, but from the disorientation. The last thing he could remember, he had been sitting in a bar in Boston, talking to Dr. Elijah Kamiroff. After the interview was over, they'd had a few drinks, and then a few more. After that, things began to get hazy.
Bethelman rubbed his head. It wasn't like a hangover; his head felt perfectly fine. But how in the devil had he gotten here? He looked around. No one was paying any attention to him, but no one pays any attention to anyone on the streets of New York. Still feeling queer, he headed east on 44th Street.
He wanted to sit down for a bit, and the nearest place was the little bar halfway between Madison Avenue and Grand Central Station. He went in and ordered a beer.
What the hell had happened? He'd had too much to drink on several occasions, but he'd never gone to sleep in one city and awakened in another. Dr. Kamiroff must have put him on the plane; the biochemist didn't drink much, and had probably been in better shape than Bethelman had been.
He glanced at his watch. Two-fifteen! Wow! The city editor would be wondering where he was.
He went to the phone, dropped in a dime, and dialed the city desk. When the editor's voice answered, he said: "Hickman, this is Bethelman; I'm sorry I'm late, but--"
"Late?" interrupted Hickman, "What're you talking about? You've only been gone half an hour. You sick or something?"
"I don't feel too good," Bethelman admitted confusedly.
"That's what you said when you left. Hell, man, take the rest of the day off. It's Friday; you don't need to show up until Monday if you don't want to. Okay?"
"Yeah," said Bethelman. "Sure." His mind still didn't want to focus properly.
"Okay, boy," said Hickman. "And thanks again for the tip. Who'd have thought Baby Joe would come in first? See you Monday."
And he hung up.
Bethelman stood there looking foolish for a full five seconds. Then things began to connect up. Friday! It shouldn't be Friday.
He cradled the phone and walked over to the bar where the barman was assiduously polishing a beer glass.
"What day is this?" he asked.
"Friday," said the white-jacketed barman, looking up from the shell of gleaming glass.
"I mean the date," Bethelman corrected.
"Fifteenth, I think." He glanced at a copy of the Times that lay on the bar. "Yeah. Fifteenth."
Bethelman sat down heavily on the barstool. The fifteenth! Somewhere, he had lost two weeks! He searched his memory for some clue, but found nothing. His memory was a perfect blank for those two weeks.
Automatically, his hand went to his shirt pocket for cigarettes. He pulled out the pack and started to shake one out. It wouldn't shake, so he stuck his finger in the half empty pack to dislodge a cigarette. There was a roll of paper stuck in it.
He took it out and unrolled it. It was a note.
You're doing fine. You know something's wrong, but you don't know what. Go ahead and investigate; I guarantee you'll get the answers. But be careful not to get anyone too suspicious; you don't want to get locked up in the booby bin. I suggest you try Marco's first.
The note was unsigned, but Bethelman didn't need a signature.
The handwriting was his own.
He looked at himself in the mirror behind the bar. He was clean shaven--which he hadn't been when he was drinking with Dr. Kamiroff in Boston. Also, he was wearing his tweed topcoat, which he had left in New York. A search of his pockets revealed the usual keys and change. In his billfold was three hundred dollars in cash--more than he'd ever carried around in his life--and a receipt for a new twenty-dollar hat. The receipt was dated the tenth.
He took off his hat and looked at it. Brand new, with his initials on the sweatband.
Evidently, he'd been doing something the past two weeks--but what?
He remembered talking to Kamiroff about the variability of time--something about a man named Dunne. And he remembered the biochemist saying that time travel was physically impossible. For a second or two, Bethelman wondered whether he'd been projected into the future somehow. But if he had, he reasoned, he'd still be wearing the same clothes he'd had on in Boston.
No, he decided, it's something else. I've gone off my rocker. I'm daffy as a dung beetle. What I need is a good psychiatrist.
But that didn't explain the note.
He took it out and looked at it again. It still said the same thing. He decided that before he went to a psychiatrist, he'd do what the note said. He'd go to Marco's.
After all, if he couldn't trust himself, who could he trust?
Marco's was a little place down on Second Avenue. It wasn't the most elite bar in New York, but it wasn't the worst dive, either.
Marco was standing near the door when Bethelman entered. "Ah! Mr. Bethelman! The package you were expecting is here. The--ah--_gentleman_ left it." The beaming smile on his face was a marvel to behold.
"Thanks," Bethelman said.
Marco dived behind the bar and came up with a package wrapped in brown paper and an envelope addressed to Bethelman. The package was about three inches wide, a little less than six inches long, and nearly an inch thick. He slid it into his topcoat pocket and tore open the envelope.
There should be close to ten thousand dollars in the package, the note said. You promised Marco a grand of it if number 367 won--which, of course, it did. He got hold of the runner for you.
Again, the note was in his own handwriting.
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