Title: The Trap
Author: Curtis, Betsy
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Trap" ***


                         Transcriber's Note:

    This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1953.
    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
    copyright on this publication was renewed.


                               the TRAP


                           By BETSY CURTIS


     _She had her mind made up--the one way they'd make her young
      again was over her dead body!_

       *       *       *       *       *



Old Miss Barbara Noble twitched aside the edge of the white scrim
curtain to get a better look at the young man coming down the street.
He might be the one.

The young man bent a little under the weight of the battered black
suitcase as he crossed Maple and started up Prospect on Miss Noble's
side. She could see him set the case down on the wide porch of the
Raney house and wipe his forehead with a handkerchief. Then she lost
sight of him as he advanced to the door. He could be a visitor to the
Raney's, but they were out of town on vacation. He could be a
salesman.

Miss Barbara shifted her rocker to the other side of the window where
she could watch without having to disturb the curtain. This
second-floor sitting room made an excellent lookout. She quickly
scanned the street in the other direction, but there was no sign of
movement in the hot sunlight. She settled down to watch the black
suitcase sitting uncommunicatively at the edge of the porch.

It must have been all of two minutes before the young man appeared
from under the over-hanging roof and picked up the case. A persistent
fellow. He went down to the sidewalk and approached her own house,
came up on her own front doorstep, tried to set the case down on the
narrow stoop, couldn't, straightened up and rang the bell. A raucous
buzz filled the sitting room.

       *       *       *       *       *

Barbara Noble leaned toward the window, pulled back the curtain a
scant inch, and studied his back as he looked at the windows on the
other side of the front door. Limp yellow hair and a big perspiration
stain in the middle of a dark sport shirt were her chief impressions.
He could be a bona fide salesman working hard at it. She wouldn't let
him in, of course; but she felt a little sorry for him lugging that
big case around in this weather. Then he turned and looked straight at
the window behind which she was hiding, and she let the curtain go
suddenly. Had he seen it move? The buzzer sounded again, imperiously.

Miss Barbara got up stiffly, moved to the big vizer screen in the
nearest corner, and switched it on. The man might have something
interesting and she couldn't get out to shop the way she used to. She
smoothed her lilac housedress and left the room to descend the stairs
to the front door.

In the tiny front hall she hesitated, then opened the door inward
about eight inches. Deftly the man stuck the broad brown toe of his
shoe into the opening and looked down at her. She grinned as she saw
his expression of shock.

She was old, really old. Her sparse white hair was pulled so tightly
into a knob on top of her head that the plentiful wrinkles on her
forehead and around her eyes seemed to run vertically, giving her an
oriental look. The hand she rested on the door jamb was a waxy-white
claw, a blue vein standing up prominently under the skin tight-drawn
over gnarly finger joints. He had probably never seen a woman much
past middle age.

"Well?" Her croak was high and rough.

       *       *       *       *       *

The young man recovered himself and began his spiel. "Madame, I
represent one of the best-known and most reputable firms in the
country. Our products have received three international medals for
purity and effective performance. They...."

"What are you selling, young man?"

"I have the privilege of being a field representative for Taffeta
Beauty Aids. Please accept this generous ten-ounce bottle of our
Diamond Dew Refreshest Lotion...." He reached into his side pocket and
brought it out, offered it with the most appreciative smile, his 'you
hardly need this' smile.

Her hand did not reach out. "I don't want any. Goodbye!" The door
tightened against his foot.

"But madame," his foot did not budge and his smile became both
engaging and pleading, "all I ask is a chance to show you our line.
Our products sell themselves. Besides, I'm paid on a demonstration
basis--so much for every potential customer who receives our free
sample and so much for every home demonstration. You wouldn't want me
to lose two-fifty when it would take only six and a third minutes of
your time exactly to look over one of the most amazing displays
ever...."

"Well, I don't know...."

"I know you'll enjoy watching our Tissue Cleanser in action and seeing
the new simplicity of our Home Re--...." (oops, he'd almost said it)
"... Hair Relustrification Kit. I promise you that your few minutes
won't be wasted."

"Yours would be, young man. I don't buy that stuff."

"You may be one of the lucky few women who don't need our products,
but I don't think you can say that before you've seen them."

"I never did see such persistence, honest to goodness!" Her face
assumed a crabbed smile. "Come along then."

       *       *       *       *       *

She moved back from the door into the darkness of the house; and the
salesman shifted his case back to his left hand, pushed the front door
wide and took a quick long step inside. He was just in time to hear
the slight click of the closing of a second door in front of him. He
reached for the knob, turned it; but the door was locked. The outside
door still stood open, caught by the end of the sample case.

The July daylight from outside showed him that he was in a tiny
entrance hall not more than forty inches each way. He pulled the case
in and by squeezing against the inner door allowed the front door to
close. Anyhow, he was inside the house. He rapped sharply on the inner
door.

The latch on the front door snapped to and instantly the hall was
flooded with light from a tremendous bulb in the ceiling, which,
surprisingly, was twenty feet above him.

A harsh voice, tinny with tremendous amplification but unmistakably
that of the old woman, filled the hall, "ALL RIGHT, YOUNG MAN. I HAVE
THE VIZER TURNED ON YOU. LET'S SEE THE DEMONSTRATION. I BELIEVE YOU
SAID SIX MINUTES. GET ON WITH IT."

Screening his eyes with his fingers, the salesman scanned the walls
and ceiling for the vizer lens, found it beside the five-hundred watt
bulb pouring blindingly down on him, on the other side of a speaker
grille.

"C-certainly, madame." What a layout. As he automatically laid his
case on the floor and opened back the top against the front door, his
eyes searched the walls for indications of openings which might mean
unexpected defenses such as anesthetic tanks. The only breaks in the
two smooth white plaster surfaces which he could see as he squatted
before the case were a horizontal row of glass bosses on each side at
about the height of his knees.

"Now, since my face," he closed his eyes and flashed a toothy smile,
like a video actor, up at the vizer lens, "is subjected to the daily
care of Taffeta Products," he turned his face down to the case and
gritted his teeth, "I must smear facial muscle softener into the left
half to show the action and appearance of muscles which have lost
their tonus." He whipped the cover off a small ivorine jar and rubbed
his cheek vigorously with a brownish salve. "You will note that this
softener also contains a percentage of grime which lodges in the
pores."

He heard a gasp from the speaker grille when he displayed a face whose
left cheek and brow were sagged, wrinkled and hideously brown
speckled. From somewhere behind the gasp, he heard a continuous tinkle
of tiny bells.

His hands moved among the bottles and jars, raised a round silver box
which he held up. "The delicately perfumed applicator pads for all
applications of Taffeta Preparations are pre-saturated with Firmol
Tone Charger. I dip the pad into this solution of Enhancing Hyssop,"
he did so, "and work it gently into the pores. The results are
instantaneous!" He turned up his original video star appearance.

       *       *       *       *       *

While bending his body forward to reach the articles strapped to the
top of the case, he noticed that the tone of the distant bells was
raised. Screwing a circular hairbrush to the thread of a collapsible
tube, he sank back on his haunches. The bell tones were lower. He
placed a hand on one of the glass bosses nearest the inner door,
apparently to steady himself. An even lower tone was added to the bell
notes. Obviously electric eyes with a set of bell signals in the old
woman's present location. He smiled down at the floor--to himself.

[Illustration]

"Now I want you to notice closely this object which I will show you."
He held up the brush with the tube screwed on its back and turned it
about. "Do you know what this is?"

There was no answer from the speaker but its own hum and the tinkle of
the bells. "What does it look like?" He spoke rapidly, pleasantly.
There was still no answer.

He rose quickly and tried the knob of the inner door again. He could
hear the bell notes lower in pitch as he pressed against the door.

"LET ME SEE THE THING AGAIN, YOUNG MAN. HONEST TO GOODNESS, WHAT
DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE WHETHER OR NOT I KNOW WHAT IT IS? IT LOOKS
LIKE A HAIRBRUSH WITH SOME DO-JIGGER ON THE TOP."

He jumped back to the center of the hall. "This brush is the essential
feature of our sensational Hair Relustrifier Kit. The tube screwed to
the top feeds the specially developed Brilliancette directly through
each hollow bristle to reach every part of the hair." He ran or rather
scrubbed the brush through the right side of his long fair pompadour
with small rotary motions. When he removed the brush, that side of his
head was covered with crisp yellow ringlets which shone under the
light like sculptured gold.

"THAT'S SOME SORT OF A TRICK! DO IT ON THE OTHER...." Her voice was
interrupted by a syncopated clicking. A telephone signal. "JUST A
MOMENT, YOUNG MAN." The hum of the speaker cut off and the sudden
silence seemed full of the echoes of the bells.

       *       *       *       *       *

Instantly the man dropped the gadget into the case and grabbed a
handful of cleansing tissues from a box in it. He snapped down the top
of the case and whipped the straps through the buckles. Then he shoved
the case against one of the side walls and sat on it to flip off his
shoes and socks. Shoving his back tightly against the wall, he bent
his knees up and pushed his bare feet flat against the other. After
placing the wad of tissues in his lap, he put his hands against the
wall below his buttocks and, like an experienced mountain climber,
inched his way rapidly up the 'chimney' of the hall. When his head
touched the ceiling, he braced himself firmly with his left hand and
reached with his right for the tissues in his lap. Protecting his hand
with several of the white papers, he felt above him for the base of
the light bulb, unscrewed it, and dropped it gently onto the rest of
the tissues still in his lap. The sudden blackness was smothering.

Heat seeped through the tissues more rapidly than he had expected; and
the effort to keep his knees from contracting and spilling him in the
utter darkness to the floor fifteen feet below was agony.

When he finally reached the floor, he placed the bulb on it beside the
sample case. Then he opened the front door and closed it again,
leaving the door caught open a fraction of an inch by the latch
against the frame. Taking an anesthetic cartridge out of his pants
pocket, he broke the seal, taking care not to trigger it, and returned
to his crevice-climbing posture. He lifted himself again above the row
of electric eyes and waited, cartridge in hand, leg muscles cramping
painfully.

       *       *       *       *       *

After Miss Noble had turned off the speakphone, she pulled herself
away from the fascinating view of golden curls and scuttled over to a
stiff ladder-back chair beside the telephone stand. She lifted the
antique cradle phone (none of these modern invasions of privacy like
the vizerphone) and spoke warily into the mouthpiece.

"Who is it? What do you want?"

"Barbara?" A man's voice was urgent.

"This is Miss Noble speaking," she replied haughtily.

The voice was savage. "Well, this is _Doctor_ Harris, then. Have you
looked at the mail today? I got my directors' meeting notice this
morning."

"Yes, I got one. The fifth of August," she said impatiently.

"And this seems to be our year. There's been a girl here already this
morning with some story about my having advertised for a housekeeper.
She told it to the doorphone and wouldn't leave when I said I didn't
want anybody--but it only took one drop of skunk oil in the hallway to
send her packing." The horrid chuckle that came from the receiver was
so raucous that Miss Noble held it away from her ear.

"Blonde or brunette?" she asked noncommittally.

"Blonde--and really young, not a damn rejuvenee!"

"Rod Harris! You actually went and peeked at her, you old goat!"

"Only through the one-way."

"Well, since the company knows that a pretty girl is still good bait
for an old ninny, you're as good as a goner. They'll have _you_
rejuvenated before long."

"They won't get a chance to! And I'm going to get old enough so I
can't even lift a hand to thumb my nose at the company. Then I'm going
to go and die and the Juvine Perpetual Youth Corporation will scream
in agony as it disbands and makes public property of its hallowed
formulas as per the original articles of incorporation ... and _you_
will probably get a new set of false teeth and take the treatment
again since you could get it real cheap when the monopoly's finished
and not have to disturb your millions salted away in the sugar bowl."

This mixture of facetiousness and downright sarcasm was only surpassed
by Miss Noble, who snapped back, "Don't you sneer at me, Doctor Roland
Harris, when you know perfectly well that the _only_ reason I have to
go on living this long is to make sure that you are really dead first.
You didn't invent rejuvenation all by yourself without the aid of
Barbara Noble, Ph.D., and the company has the sole right to the
process until we're _both_ dead. And, if you start peeking at plump
blonde wenches at this point, I suppose I'll have to live till Los
Alamos freezes over!"

"All right, all right. But she wasn't plump. She wasn't any bigger
than you are. Besides, you know I'd rather have dinner with you. My
man Marko could give us roast beef with all the fixings and afterward
I want you to hear my latest discovery. It's the best damn
extempore-singer you've ever heard, Jeery Wade--fellow in his first
late fifties, no fluff-brain of a juvenee--a blood and thunder
baritone that'll lift that knob of hair clean off your scalp. Let's
say you get here about six-thirty and I'll phone him we'll be over at
his place for a session of hollering about eight."

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Noble's scorn needed no vizer to carry it over the wire in full
force. "I'm not going to budge out of this house until after the
director's meeting and then only if the shops stop all delivery
service. This time I'm not taking any chances. Life is too much of a
bore to have to put up with it for another eighty years even for your
marvelous singer who would probably go and get rejuvenated just as I
got to enjoy him. And _nothing_ could induce me to listen to an
evening of your stories for the nine hundredth time. If there's one
thing I'm thankful for in this scatter-brained age, it's the marriage
dissolution law that's got me free from your anecdotes after three
separate terms of fifty years each."

"Now, Barbara, was it that bad?" Roland Harris sounded distressed.

"Do you really think I could be honestly grateful to the Corporation
for a hundred and fifty years of listening to that disgraceful old
thing about the Martian, the Venusian, and the robot?"

"Well, if you feel that way about it, I'll keep my discoveries to
myself. I hope your fancy hallway keeps you safe till you rot."

"It's doing all right," replied the old woman smugly. "I have a young
pup down there right now cooling his number thirteens and waiting to
pretend to interest me in some new face paint and hair gik. My
electric eye set and vizer are less repulsive than your skunk oil and
_twice_ as effective."

"They're not going to stop me from having a good time while I last,
anyhow. I think they're through with me for today; and I'm going to
hear Jeery Wade, anyhow. He'll make up a hooting good song about all
this when I tell him."

"Take care of yourself, Rod ... goodbye," said Miss Noble, almost
concernedly.

She dropped the phone into its cradle, rose, and went back to the
vizer screen, switching on the speaker as she sat down. Only then did
she notice that the screen was entirely dark except for a vague sliver
of gray.

"Are you still there, young man?" she asked the microphone.

There was silence from the speaker. The hammer on each bar of the long
metal xylophone of the electric eye signal hung motionless.

"He's gone ... and left the front door unlatched too. And I thought he
was persistent." She was disappointed. "He owes me four more minutes
of fun."

She got up slowly and started for the door. "That curly hair stuff is
new since my last sixties, too. I wonder if it would work on white
hair ... I'd better go down and close the door. Can't have just
anybody coming into one's house."

       *       *       *       *       *

She descended the stairs, opened the door from the front room, then
took one step forward into the hall. Before she could interpret the
soft bump of the salesman's bare feet as they struck the floor, she
was encircled by his strong arm; and the hiss of the anesthetic gun
was loud in the small area of the hall. Limply she sagged against his
arm.

The hissing of the gun stopped. The young man slipped it into his
pocket and, turning, thrust the inner door wide open with his now free
hand. Entering the tidy front room, he kicked the door shut behind him
and gulped in the good air before he headed for the back of the house,
cradling the small body easily in his arms. Failing to find there what
he was looking for, he went up the narrow white-railed stairway to the
second floor. Across the landing, the gleam of porcelain showed
through a half-open door.

He laid his burden carefully on the vari-colored braided rug by the
tub and began to draw a warm bath, testing the temperature frequently
with his hand. When water reached the overflow outlet, he turned off
the tap and sprinted downstairs for his sample case. The hall was
still chokingly full of gas; and after grabbing out the case, he
slammed the door again. He brought the case up to the bathroom, where
he opened it on the floor beside the form of the old woman. He lifted
out the tray, revealing masses of silvery tubing and a number of
flasks of iridescent solutions nestling among loops of rubber
insulated wiring. One flask he emptied into the bath, making the water
seethe and turn a cloudy green.

Then, dashing down the stairs again, he began looking for the
telephone. His search became more and more hurried, as he opened
cupboards and drawers in front room and kitchen with no success.
Returning upstairs, he almost missed the instrument in the
sitting-room because he was expecting the familiar sight of a round
vizer screen. He stood over the phone and dialed.

"Hey, Alice!"

"What luck, Riggy?"

"I'm in. The old lady's out cold on the bathroom floor. Primer
solution's in the bath at five above tepid. I'm shoving her in
now--with all her clothes on, of course--and I've wasted a lot of time
already looking for this hypoblastic phone, so beat it on over here
with Margy and get to work."

"Are you ordering me around, Rigel O'Maffey?"

"You know I never did this job on a woman. And don't forget, honey,
we'll get enough out of this to get a new copter together. C'mon now."
He put the phone back in, the cradle before she could answer.

       *       *       *       *       *

Back in the bathroom, he drew a long thermometer from the case, took a
careful reading on the water, ran in a little more hot from the faucet
and left it running the slightest dribble.

Carefully lifting the small body of Barbara Noble, Ph.D., he slid it
gently into the water feet first over the end, smoothing down with one
hand the percale housedress which ballooned as she went into the
water. Finally he knelt beside the tub, holding her head out of the
water in the crook of his elbow.

A banging on the inner door downstairs some fifteen minutes later
reminded him of the force with which he had slammed it in his hurry to
reach the uncontaminated air of the front room. He looked longingly
across the bathroom at the racks of towels on the other side, but
finally, as the banging stopped and a feminine voice began yelling,
"Hey, Riggy! Let us in!" he grabbed up the bright rug and wadded it
under the scrawny neck.

The girls scolded him all the way up the stairs for not leaving the
door unlocked, while he tried to explain, at the same time, that he
had to hold up the woman's head.

"Screepers, Riggy, what do you think the perfectly good pair of
water-wings in your case is for?"

Humbled, he departed as the girls took over the beginning of the
complicated, fortnight-long process of the rejuvenation of Barbara
Noble.

       *       *       *       *       *

The receptionist behind the ebony desk, whose gold plate proclaimed it
as the headquarters of the Juvine Perpetual Youth Corporation, crammed
shut the drawer before her. A metallic clink from within was the fall
of a mirror with which she had been assisting the application of
scarlet which now fluoresced gently on her full lips.

Tossing her head (which showed the crop of glistening black curls to
the fullest advantage) in a preoccupied manner, she addressed the man
who stood before her desk. "How can the Juvine Perpetual Youth
Corporation serve you?" Her hastily assumed look of efficient
importance was replaced by melting eagerness as she took in the
chiselled perfection of features and the broad shoulders of the young
man in knife-creased bronze spunlon.

"I'm Harris. For the directors' meeting." His voice was curt.

"_You're_ Doctor Harris? The Director? Oh, do come in." She rose from
the desk and went around the end of it to open the high wrought-gold
gate and hold it wide for him. "You're a little early. I'll take you
down to the Board Room." Eager willingness to help was apparent in her
every gesture.

"Thanks, I know the way," he informed her, brushing past.

She followed him, however, across the patio-like reception room, with
its exotically gardened borders and splashing fountain, down the long
corridor past glowing murals of men and women swimming, dancing and
playing tennis, past tapestry shielded doorways to the great bright
arch at the end. Before he went through, she caught his sleeve.

"I should be pleased to steno for you today, if you need me."

He turned and looked at her as if he had not known she was behind him.
"Thanks, but I sha'n't need one. It'll be a short meeting." He smiled
down and patted her cheek. "But if I'm not entirely satisfied with the
proceedings, maybe I can dictate a little afterward."

She laughed as if that were a special joke between them and retreated
rapidly down the corridor before he had time to turn and miss the
splendor of her graceful carriage.

His eyebrows were still raised and the corners of his mouth curved in
appreciation when he passed through the arch and into the vast room
under the clear bubble of a tremendous skydome.

       *       *       *       *       *

A girl was sitting there, her back to him, looking out over the
simmering city streets to the cool rise of mountains beyond. He
recognized at once the slight figure, the sheen of the long curling
auburn bob, the poise of her head and slim hand resting on the arm of
the chair.

"Babs!"

She turned half around. "Hello, Rod."

He grinned and sank down in the next chair. "Here we are again."

"Knocked out by your own skunk oil?" she asked pointedly.

"No. Company copter man got me leaving Jeery Wade's. What happened to
you? I thought you were walled up neatly for the declining years."

"The cosmetic man ambushed me in the hall. But I've got another fifty
years to figure out something better ... if I still need it."

"What do you mean _if_ you still need it? Are you changing your mind
about rejuvenation?"

She smiled. "Well, you know it's always fun at first. But I'm having
my lawyer come to this meeting. I've got an idea we can change the
articles of agreement so that the process can finally become public
property at the end of another fifty years instead of only after our
deaths. Then if we want to go on and die, nobody" (she waved her hand
around the great room at the little group of athletic men and
glamorous, expensively gowned women moving in through the arch)
"nobody will have any financial interest in rejuvenating us. Then,
too, our own fat incomes will lapse; and since that's the reason we
set up the articles the way they are--so we'd never be in danger of
starving, that is--we'd have the more interesting choice of whether to
die off or get young again and go back to work. Would you sign a
fifty-year termination, Rod?"

"Would you marry me for the fifty years, Babs?" His voice was gentle,
pleading.

"Honest to goodness, now, aren't you really pretty tired of me?" she
asked earnestly, turning to face him.

"No, I can't say I am. You're pretty special, doctor, and you're
special pretty." It was a ritual.

"You know you're the only man. I'll marry you. Will you sign?"

"Of course I'll sign. I would have anyhow when I knew you wanted me
to. And Babs--maybe we could get some sort of jobs now--sort of to get
in practice. I'll bet we could rent a lab somewhere and do commercial
analyses for a while until we got hit by another idea for research."

"Rod, that's the best idea you've had in the last hundred and fifty
years. But we could have a honeymoon first, couldn't we?"

"That's your best suggestion in the last seventy years. And maybe we
could get Jeery Wade and his wife to rejuvenate and go with us. After
the first couple of weeks, that is."

       *       *       *       *       *

They left the meeting arm in arm, somewhat ahead of the rather
disgruntled group of directors, who stayed behind to lament the end of
a good thing. In the garden room, Barbara stopped to choose an orchid.

Rod Harris wandered on to the receptionist's desk, where the girl of
the black curls waited, smiling.

He looked back at Barbara, then smiled down at the girl. "Just like I
said ... a short meeting. No need for any dictating. Lucky you."

"Oh, I don't know," she countered coyly.

"Say, I heard a story the other day you might like. Do you like
stories?"

"What kind of story?"

"You'd have to be the judge of that."

Suddenly Barbara was with them, pinning on a bronze and green blossom.
"C'mon along, dear. We've got a good many things to do before we
leave."

He opened the golden wicket for her and followed her out. Turning back
toward the desk, he called to the girl, "I may be back in a few weeks
to see about a job. Remind me then to tell you the one about the
Martian, the Venusian and the robot."

                                                         --BETSY CURTIS

       *       *       *       *       *





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