Strange Fish Kenneth Robeson

Paris Stevens was often recognized by people she hadn't the slightest recollection of having seen before, so she thought nothing of it. The fat man had bumped into her. He'd apologized. She didn't know him. That was all. Paris gave him a briefly impersonal smile, and skipped on her way.

Skipping was only figurative. It described how she felt. She felt fine, fresh and bright as a daisy in the springtime. It was a wonderful morning. It was a wonderful improvement over hospitals.

She had a new hat, too. It was in the box she carried, a zany of a hat. She'd paid over fifty dollars for it.

Her limousine was waiting at the curb. The car wasn't exactly a block long, but it was the nearest thing to it you could get these days. The chauffeur wore gray−green livery. Paris got in. “Home, Abner,” she said deliciously.

Paris leaned back luxuriously—and a funny thing happened. She remembered the fat man. She remembered his large, round, somewhat cheese−colored face, and his large round moist eyes. The eyes were as expressionless as ripe plums resting in a gravy bowl. Something—perhaps it was the eyes—made the cold−footed ants go up and down Paris' spine.

Bless us to Betsy, what's gotten into me, Paris wondered. I didn't know Fatty. I never saw him before. He's nothing in my life.

STRANGE FISH

The limousine rolled up Fifth Avenue. People on the sidewalks craned their necks to look at the limousine, because such cars were not often seen these days. Some of them said excitedly that there went Paris Stevens.

One acquaintance waved at Paris. Gonnerman, the cop at the corner of Fifty−seventh, gave her a grin and a salute.

Golly, it's good to be home, Paris thought. It's good to be home and have a few million dollars and have the cop at the corner of Fifty−seventh wave at you. It's good to be alive, and it's good to have plans, and it's good to know you're in this good God−blessed wonderful United States.

Paris Stevens was a very beautiful girl. But this wasn't a complete description, because Paris was a character.

She was more interesting than her looks, if that was possible.

Paris was a career girl—after a fashion. She had a ranch in Oklahoma, and the ranch had more oil wells on it than it had cattle, and she had a perfume business on Madison Avenue which would go back to booming after the war.

Paris was domineering; she frequently said sharp, clever things before she thought, wouldn't take advice, and she did not have a high opinion of men in general. She regarded the human male as a form of bumbling oxen.

She occupied a fabulous Park Avenue duplex, at which the car now stopped.

Abner, the chauffeur, said, “The fat man followed us home.”

“What?”

“I will,” said Abner, “give him a kick in the pants, if you say.”

“You must be mistaken,” Paris said in a puzzled tone.

“No, I ain't,” Abner said. “Take a look. He hopped a cab. It's that yellow Sky−View.”

“I refuse,” said Paris, “to have this beautiful day marred by a fat man.”

She resolved that she would walk into the apartment house without looking back to see whether the fat man was there in a cab, but her resolution slipped, and she took a peek. He was there. His round cheese face and moist plum eyes were looking at her.

She couldn't have explained why she shivered.

PARIS slipped out of her mink and gave it to Callahan, her colored maid. She unwrapped the new hat she'd bought and put the silly thing on her head. It was nice. Of course, Paris thought, the months I went around wearing WAC headgear may have softened me up a little for a thing like this.

Now, suddenly, she was sure that tears were in her eyes. She leaned back, and let them come. It was so good, so awfully damn good, to be away from the grim river of destruction and death, and dogged, awful tiredness that was war. It was so good to feel like crying. She did.

She had been in the WAC about a year and a half, and despite her marked ability for organization and telling people what to do in civilian life, she hadn't risen higher than sergeant. She had, however, gotten across. She STRANGE FISH

STRANGE FISH

was one of the first WAC contingent to land in Africa, and later she was one of the few of that group who got to England, then into Normandy shortly after the first big strike was made into the Continent. One day a Junkers came over and dropped a random bomb, and it landed practically exactly on the roof of the building where Sergeant Paris Stevens was greasing an ambulance. When she got out of the hospital, they presented her with a medical discharge. That had been yesterday; that is, she had finally been released from what she hoped was the last hospital, yesterday. She was as good as new. Not very strong, but all together again.

She perched the hat on top of its box where she could look at it, and bounced down on a chaise−lounge. She should, she thought, make some plans; and the first plan should be for a vacation.

Actually, she would like to have planned a dozen activities, but the doctor had assured her she had no more strength than the proverbial cat, and she knew he was right. A vacation, then, was the first thing in order.

But that needn't come for a day or two. First, she'd go to a theater, a good restaurant, and buy some more clothes.

That night she went to Viville's, the beautiful restaurant on Park in the Fifties and had onion soup made the way the French weren't making it these days. People came over to her table. Acquaintances. She had looked forward to this first night on the town. But somehow nothing seemed to strike sparks.

At the theater later, she had the same feeling. Emptiness. Something lacking. She just didn't feel as if she belonged to anything.

The play, for instance, didn't take hold of her as it should have. Yet it was a good play; the critics had said it was good, and she knew excellent theater when she saw it. Nothing was touching her, somehow.

She was not pleased, when she went home before midnight, with her first evening on the town. She noticed a serious look on Abner's face, but its significance didn't touch her then.

And when she entered her apartment, loneliness immediately took her. It was a forlorn feeling. Callahan, her colored maid, was out tonight. Callahan had a married sister who lived in Harlem, and Callahan spent her off nights up there. The loneliness wasn't flimsy; it was uncomfortable. It was a dark mood. It was worse than a mood. Paris couldn't understand it.

I have, she thought, no relatives. Not a living soul that I can call family. I'm a rather attractive vegetable, but I'm the only one growing in the patch now. They're all dead.

Good God, what's wrong with me tonight? She dropped down on a chair, and tried to laugh at herself.

Then she had an idea. She picked up one of the telephones—the blue one, which was a direct wire to the room of Abner, the chauffeur, in the garage annex—and got Abner's hoarse voice.

“Abner,” she said. “Why were you looking so gloomy on the way home?”

Abner hesitated, and when he did answer, she knew he was evading. “I'm sorry if I gave that impression, Miss Paris,” Abner said. “I'm feeling perfectly all right.”

“Cut that out, Abner!” Paris said. “You haven't been able to fool me in years. Now out with it. What's eating you?”

Abner sulked for a moment.

STRANGE FISH

“I didn't want to tell you,” he said uneasily, “but I saw that fat man two or three times this evening. I think he was following you.”

The cold ants suddenly re−traveled Paris' spine. The creepy feeling was so strong that she wondered: what on earth is eating me?

She knew that Abner was worrying. He was the worrying type. A cranky old biddy. He'd fret all night, if she didn't ease his mind.

“Don't worry about it,” she said, more lightly than she felt. “Tomorrow, if he's still around, I'll have Gonnerman or some other nice cop change his line of activity.”

“But what's he following you for?” Abner blurted.

“I haven't the slightest shade of an idea,” Paris said truthfully. “Now quit worrying, and go to sleep.”

“Thank you, Miss Paris. Good night.”

“Good night,” Paris said.

She sat there, analyzing the strange fright that had seized her. This morning she'd felt fine, so it couldn't have been one of her indigo days. The change had come that afternoon. She had seen the fat man, and after that things hadn't been the same. The fat man, then, was upsetting her.

It was strange that the fellow should have such an effect on her nerves.

DAYLIGHT was streaking the eastern clouds with flame−colored light when Paris was awakened. It was a bizarre morning sky, packed with clouds that looked sulky and dramatic. It took Paris some seconds to begin wondering what had awakened her.

The east wall of her bedroom was all plate glass, the better to see the breathless view of the Queensborough bridge and the river beyond. But this morning the view seemed composed entirely of the dark clouds.

Paris decided that Callahan had shown up for work, and had made some small noise that had awakened her.

“Callahan!” Paris called.

There was no answer, and the stillness seemed to draw her nerves tight. She wished she had had a gun, but there wasn't one. Guns are not usually kept lying around New York apartments.

Oh, she was dumb! There was a shotgun in the closet with her sports things. She slipped from between the covers and got the gun, a good 12−gauge skeet weapon. She loaded it. By now she felt a little foolish.

She went to the door, holding the gun casually, convinced now that there was nothing alarming.

The fat man was in her living room.

For Paris, it was an awful start, discovering him. She jumped. Convulsive surprise brought her finger tight on the skeet gun's trigger. The gun's roar was ear−splitting.

STRANGE FISH

The shot charge hit nowhere near the fat man. It tore a smear of paper off the west wall, scooping off plaster.

Up straight went the fat man. He had been going through Paris' handbag, the one she had carried last night. He probably jumped a good two inches off the floor.

He was already running when he hit the floor. He made for the door, head back, eyes first on Paris, then on the door. He managed, however, to maintain a coldblooded dignity. He didn't seem really scared. And he seemed furiously angry.

“Stop!” Paris shrieked. “Stop, or I'll shoot!”

He didn't stop.

Paris didn't shoot again.

She pursued the fat man instead. He slammed the first door as soon as he was through it, but didn't lock it.

Paris got it open. The fat man was going across the hall to the front door. He yanked the front door open and popped out into the long elevator hall.

Callahan, the colored maid, was standing at one of the elevators. Callahan was talking to Roberto, her boy−friend, who operated the elevator.

“Callahan!” Paris cried. “Stop that fellow!”

The fat man shot past Callahan into the elevator. He grabbed the controls. Roberto said something angry, shoving him away. The fat man hit Roberto just above the belt buckle, a blow that doubled Roberto on to the floor.

The elevator disappeared downward, with the fat man's hand on the control.

CALLAHAN stared at Paris, then at the shotgun, then said, “Cut off my head and call me Hitler, Miss Paris!

What on earth is you all doing to that nice Mister Watt.”

“Who?” Paris gasped.

“That nice Mister Ben Watt. Him you was chasing.”

Paris stared at the maid in amazement. “Callahan, you know that guy?”

“Yes'm, I sure do.”

“Who,” Paris demanded, “is he?”

Callahan blinked owlishly. “Why, Missy, isn't he your interior decorator?”

A few questions brought the rest of it out. The man had fooled Callahan. He had told Callahan that Paris had engaged him to do over her apartment; he had said that Paris had ordered him not to worry her or bother her with details. Paris was in the hospital at the time. It was a logical story. The man had acted like an interior decorator. He brought materials, color charts, made sketches.

STRANGE FISH

“How often,” Paris asked, “was he in my apartment?”

“Nearly every day.”

Paris called the police. Within thirty minutes, a police detective was there. Paris had described the fat man over the telephone, and the detective brought some rogue's gallery pictures. None of the pictures were of the fat man.

After the detective had gone, Paris fainted. She just lay back and passed out.

She wasn't out long. After she awakened, she lay still, weak and ill, and thought . . . She was just out of the hospital. She was in no shape to cope with anything violent. She was too weak; she had no spirit for it.

She thought of her ranch in Oklahoma.

She called Callahan.

“Get me a ticket to Tulsa, Oklahoma,” she directed Callahan.

Chapter II

THE morning sunlight was bright on Tulsa's Union Station, on the Philtower Building, and the other buildings. Johnny Toms was at the steps when the pullman porter helped Paris off the train.

“How,” said Johnny Toms. His face was expressionless.

“How,” Paris said. Then she laughed. “Heap long time no see you, Chief.”

Johnny Toms grinned a little. But all he said was, “Sure thing.”

He wore moccasins, corduroy trousers, beaded belt, violent plaid shirt. His black hair was long, combed to look as if there should have been a feather in it. He had a majestic hooked nose and snapping black eyes.

Paris indicated her bags. “Heap baggage,” she said. “Think you can carry?”

“Ugh,” Johnny Toms said.

Paris wanted to laugh again. Johnny Toms was a fake. He was actually about one−tenth Osage Indian, if that.

But he liked to give the impression that he was a laconic redskin of the old school.

Johnny Toms was tops as an Indian when he was emotionally moved—when he was very pleased, very sad, or very angry. In his most aroused moments, he practically stopped speaking English.

“How are things on the ranch?” Paris asked.

“So−so.” His dark face was carefully wooden. “Cows got blackleg. Horse crop no good. Cowboys lazy.

Losing money.”

Which meant that the ranch would show a good profit this year.

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