WESTERN ELECTRIC SLEEPLESS RECEPTIONIST
115 Volt A.C. Only
“Hee!” shrilled the motionless lips, just by Mundin’s ear. “That’s far enough, Mundin. You were right, I suppose, Mrs. Green.”
Mundin leaped back as though the 115 volts of A.C. had passed through his tonsils. A flicker of light caught his eye; the two milky glass cabinets had lighted up. He looked, peripherally aware that Norma had crumpled beside him.
He wished he hadn’t
The contents of the cabinets were: Green and Charlesworth. Green, an incredibly, impossibly ancient dumpy-looking, hairless female. Charlesworth, an incredibly, impossibly ancient string-bean-looking, hairless male. Mercifully, the lights flickered out.
Another voice said, but from the same motionless lips, “Can we kill him, Mr. Charlesworth?”
“I think not, Mrs. Green,” the Sleepless Receptionist answered itself in the first voice.
Mundin said forcefully, “Now, wait a minute.” It was pure reflex. He came to the end of the sentence, and stopped.
The female voice said sadly, “Perhaps he will commit suicide, Mr. Charlesworth. Tell him what he is up against.”
“He knows what he is up against, Mrs. Green. Don’t you, Mundin?”
Mundin nodded. He was obsessed by the Sleepless Receptionist’s eyes, now piercingly aimed at him again—attracted, perhaps, by the movement.
“Tell him!” shrieked Mrs. Green. ‘Tell him about that girl! Tell him what well do to her!”
“A Daughter of Evil,” the voice said mechanically. “She wants to take G.M.L. away from us.”
Mundin was galvanized. “Oh, no!” he cried. “Not you! Just Arnold and his crowd!”
“Are Our Fingers Us?” the voice demanded. “Are Our Arms and Legs Us? Arnold is Us!”
The female voice piped, “The girl, Mr. Charlesworth. The girl!”
“Painted courtesan,” observed the male voice. “She wants to free the slaves, she says. Talks about Mr. Lincoln!”
“We Fixed Mr. Lincoln’s Wagon, Mr. Charlesworth,” chortled the female voice.
“We did, Mrs. Green. And we will Fix Her Wagon too.”
Mundin, thinking dazedly that he should have been more careful where he put Ryan’s yen pox, it was stupid of him to get it mixed up with his vitamin pills, said feebly, “Are you that old?”
“Are we that old, Mrs. Green?” asked the male voice.
“Are we!” shrilled the female. “Tell him! Tell him about the girl!”
“Perhaps not now, Mrs. Green. Perhaps later. When we have softened them up. You must go now, Mundin.”
Mundin automatically picked up his coat and helped Norma to her feet. He turned dazedly to the door. Halfway he stopped, staring at the milky glass. Glass, he thought. Glass, and quivering, moving corpses inside, that a breath of air might——
‘Try it, Mundin,” challenged the voice. “We wanted to see if you would try it.”
Mundin thought, and decided against it
‘Too bad,” said the voice of Charlesworth. “We hate you, Mundin. You said we were not God Almighty.” “Atheist!” hissed the voice of Mrs. Green.
Chapter Twenty-Two
back in ryan’s office Mundin said, lying, “It wasn’t so bad.”
Ryan had taken advantage of their absence to get coked to the eyebrows. He said dreamily, “Think of them. Hundreds of years old. You know what H. G. Wells said around 1940? ‘A frightful queerness is coming into life.’ Nothing went right, no matter what you did. Green, Charlesworth must have been hitting their stride about then. You know what Jonathan Swift called Green, Charlesworth? Struldbrugs. Only people were on to them, then. Gulliver said they had a law, no Straldbrug could keep his money after he was a hundred. Think of them. Hundreds and hundreds of years old, hundreds and hundreds and hun——”
Don Lavin touched his shoulder and he stopped. Harry Coett was smiling affably at his thumbnail. He started and said gently, “How about a drink?”
Mundin poured it for bom, pretending not to notice that the big man was weeping.
“We must proceed to an orderly liquidation,” said Nelson, his eyes roving from one corner to another. “Naturally any further action along our previous lines is out of the question.”
Norma appeared at the door. Mundin had left her with the company nurse; but she had obviously pulled herself completely together. “Is it all settled by now?” she demanded grimly.
Mundin said, “Everybody seems to be in agreement.” He felt weighted down by a tremendous apathy. Green, Charles-worth. They spoke, and the Titans lay down to die. Four men who aggregated eight times his age, thirty times his experience—you couldn’t buck it.