I roaded the car about five miles this side of Grinnell and we started looking for the McLain farm—the news reports had named Vincent and George McLain as the culprits. It wasn’t hard to find. At a fork in the road was a big sign, professional in appearance: THIS WAY TO THE SPACESHIP. Shortly the road was parked both sides with duos and groundcars and triphibs. A couple of hastily built stands dispensed cold drinks and souvenirs at the turn-off into the McLain place. A state cop was directing traffic.
“Pull up,” directed the Old Man. “Might as well see the fun, eh?”
“Right, Uncle Charlie,” I agreed.
The Old Man bounced out with only a trace of limp, swinging his cane. I handed Mary out and she snuggled up to me, grasping my arm. She looked up at me, managing to look both stupid and demure. “My, but you’re strong. Buddy.”
I wanted to slap her, but gave a self-conscious smirk instead. That poor-little-me routine—from an agent, from one of the Old Man’s agents. A smile from a tiger.
“Uncle Charlie” buzzed around, bothering state police, buttonholing people to give them unasked-for opinions, stopping to buy cigars at one of the stands, and in general giving a picture of a well-to-do, senile old fool, out for a holiday. He turned back to us and waved his cigar at a state sergeant. “The inspector says the whole thing is a fraud, my dears—a prank thought up by some boys. Shall we go?”
Mary looked disappointed. “No space ship?”
“There’s a space ship, if you want to call it that,” the cop answered. “Just follow the suckers, and you’ll find it. It’s ‘sergeant’, not ‘inspector’.”
“Uncle Charlie” pressed a cigar on him and we set out, across a pasture and into some woods. It cost a dollar to get through the gate and many of the potential suckers turned back. The path through the woods was rather deserted. I moved carefully, wishing for eyes in the back of my head instead of a phone. According to the book six agents had gone down this path and none had come back. I didn’t want it to be nine.
Uncle Charlie and Sis walked ahead, Mary chattering like a fool and somehow managing to be both shorter and younger than she had been on the trip out. We came to a clearing and there was the “space ship”.
It was the proper size, more than a hundred feet across, but it was whipped together out of light-gauge metal and sheet plastic, sprayed with aluminum. It was roughly the shape of two giant pie plates, face to face. Aside from that, it looked like nothing in particular. Nevertheless Mary squealed. “Oh, how exciting!”
A youngster, eighteen or nineteen, with a permanent sunburn and a pimply face, stuck his head out of a sort of hatch in the top of the monstrosity. “Care to see inside?” he called out. He added that it would be fifty cents a piece more and Uncle Charlie shelled out.
Mary hesitated at the hatch. Pimple face was joined by what appeared to be his twin and they started to hand her down in. She drew back and I moved in fast, intending to do any handling myself. My reasons were 99 percent professional; I could feel danger all through the place. “It’s dark in there,” she quavered.
“It’s perfectly safe,” the second young man said. “We’ve been taking sightseers through all day. I’m Vinc McLain, one of the owners. Come on, lady.”
Uncle Charlie peered down the hatch, like a cautious mother hen. “Might be snakes in there,” he decided. “Mary, I don’t think you had better go in.”
“Nothing to fear,” the first McLain said insistently. “It’s safe as houses.”
“Just keep the money, gentlemen.” Uncle Charlie glanced at his finger. “We’re late as it is. Let’s go, my dears.”
I followed them back up the path, my hackles up the whole way.
We got back to the car and I pulled out into the road. Once we were rolling, the Old Man said sharply, “Well? What did you see?”
I countered with, “Any doubt about that first report? The one that broke off?”