Wheels Within Part 3

"This will be hard to believe," Lima said, "and I will not try to prove it to you, but it is true. The mind has many powers which cannot even be imagined by anyone who has not lived with those powers as I have. When you called me, your mind attuned itself with mine, and its need and its demand were so powerful that together we turned time backward. You are now back in my dressing room, and it is the exact time at which you originally came out of your dream."

"That's impossible!" Bennett protested.

"Nevertheless, it happened. I only ask you to keep in mind one thing.

Someday, when your mind has been made more facile, you will understand how I am able to do this. It will even appear logical to you. Now, however, the only thing I can tell you is _believe it_!"

Bennett had no intention of m.u.f.fing this second chance. After he had collected the information about Tournay's criminal activities, he also dug into his past for a man who had cause to hate the contractor.

He found the man he sought, a man as ruthless and unscrupulous as Tournay himself, one who could fight him on his own ground.

Roger Clarkson had been the controller of a string of bookie joints, before he had been framed by Tournay, and convicted, to serve ten years in prison.

Clarkson had been released from prison six days before. He found that Tournay had gained control of his former criminal empire. Everyone, including Tournay, knew that the only thing preventing Clarkson from taking revenge was the opportunity.

Bennett sent his information to Clarkson and sat back to await the results. That evening, as he was about to leave his office building, some inner caution warned him to take no chances. He stepped cautiously out into the street, looked both ways for the gray sedan, and saw that the street was empty, before he walked to the corner.

He arrived there just in time to meet the long gray sedan as it drove up.

Once more he fought the awful exertion on the mystic's couch. This time he came out of the blackness with his mind clear. "You've saved me again," he said to Lima. "Have you turned time backward again?"

"Yes," she replied. "But I have given you all the help I can. The next attempt you make, you will have nothing on which to lean except your own strength."

"But why do I always arrive at the point where I'm being shot by Tournay, regardless of what course I choose? Is there no way I can beat him?"

"If you believe in fate as strongly as I do, you will accept that conclusion as inevitable. The long gray sedan is the symbol of your death. You cannot avoid it--at least not as long as you persist in pa.s.sive action."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Just this. You wish to see Tournay punished--your sense of justice demands it. But each time you try to have someone else administer that punishment. It appears to me that the only possibility of your breaking this fateful progression of events is for you to administer the punishment yourself. You probably realize the danger of trying that. But I can't see where you have any other choice."

"In other words, you feel that the only chance I have of preventing Tournay from killing me--is to kill him first?"

"Yes," Lima said. "Are you strong and hard enough to do it?"

Bennett thought for only a brief moment before he nodded. "I'm desperate enough, at any rate."

This time he did not leave immediately. He had to find out something first. He put his arms around Lima's shoulders and drew her toward him. She put her face up and he kissed her waiting lips. They were sweet and, if she did not return the ardor of his kiss, he did not notice it.

"Mr. Tournay is not in," the girl at the desk told Bennett. "You might try his home."

At a pay-booth in the lobby, Bennett called Tournay's home. The voice that answered was that of a tired woman, one who has given up hope.

"Mr. Tournay called me a short time ago and said that he would be in the office of a Mr. Leroy Bennett, in the Lowry building, if anyone called," the tired voice said.

Bennett hung up and caught a cab. His quarry had walked into an ideal place for their meeting. For better or for worse, he would soon bring this conflict to an end.

In his office, Bennett found that Tournay had been there and gone. He had left a message: "Tell Mr. Bennett that Lima sent me!"

So that was it--Lima had used Bennett as a dupe! He could not figure out her purpose, but he knew that he could never trust her again. She had been against him from the first. Perhaps even she, rather than Tournay, was the prime menace. He decided that he must kill them both, before they had the chance to kill him. Touching the small flat pistol snuggling in its shoulder holster, he knew the pursuit must continue immediately.

He rode the elevator to the ground floor, and he felt his mind working with a clarity and a precision which he had seldom experienced before.

This time he knew he would win.

Shrewdly, before leaving the building, Bennett looked out through the gla.s.s pane in the door first. He waited only a moment before he saw the long gray sedan as he had expected. They would not trap him again.

Ducking back, he walked rapidly toward a side exit.

Night had fallen by the time he reached the carnival building. He did not ring the bell. Instead, he walked to the rear, climbed the stairs of a fire-escape, and softly opened the window of a bedroom.

He stepped inside just as softly and stood listening for breathing. He heard none. This was probably too early for Lima to be in bed.

The bedroom door was open. Bennett could see a light coming from another part of the apartment--probably the living room. He paused to steel himself for what he must do. The time had come when he would have to be savagely ruthless.

He found Lima sitting on a couch, reading a book. He suspected that she still had some control over his mind and he had no intention of letting her influence him. She must be killed before she could read his intention.

"It didn't work." Bennett spoke just loudly enough to startle Lima into raising her head.

As she looked up, he shot her squarely between the eyes.

In an agony of frustration, Bennett saw the flesh of her forehead remain clear and undisturbed. He knew he could not miss at this range, yet she was unhurt. He lowered his sights and shot at the white neck beneath the fair head. She still sat there, returning his gaze, unperturbed, unmarked by the bullets.

He pumped the four remaining bullets into her body. The only part of her that moved was her lips.

"It's no use, Leroy," she said. "Haven't you guessed? You are still in your dream. You can't kill me there."

Suddenly the implication struck him with its awful simplicity.

"Good G.o.d!" His voice rose. "Do you mean I've never been out of my dream?" He hesitated while the thought sank in. "My remembrance of coming out of it was only part of the dream itself," he murmured.

"That was why you were able to turn time backward at will."

A cold calmness returned to him.

"Tell me," he said, "am I still in the dream?"

"Yes," Lima replied.

"Then I demand that you free me now!"

"As you wish," Lima said sadly. "And may G.o.d help you."

Bennett wrenched his body from the couch on which it lay and struggled to his feet. Though the dream had seemed real enough, he could look back on it now and see it as any other dream.

He breathed easier, and then stopped abruptly when he heard a voice behind him say, "You are still a dead man!"

Bennett whirled and found himself facing Tournay. And Tournay held a pistol aimed at his heart.