Title: The Little Red Bag
Author: Sohl, Jerry
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Little Red Bag" ***


                  _Nuts to wild talents! Mine was no
              satisfaction, never earned me a penny--and
              now it had me fighting for my life in_ ...

                          THE LITTLE RED BAG

                             By JERRY SOHL

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
              Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


About an hour out of San Francisco on the flight to Los Angeles, I made
the discovery. I had finished reading the _Chronicle_, folded and put
it beside me, turned and looked out the window, expecting to see the
San Joaquin Valley but finding only a sea of clouds instead. So I
returned my attention to the inside of the plane, to the overstuffed
gray-haired woman asleep beside me, to the backs of heads in seats
before me, across the aisle to other heads, and down to the blonde.

I had seen her in the concourse and at the gate, a shapely thing. Now
she had crossed her legs and I was privileged to view a trim ankle and
calf, and her profile as she stared moodily across the aisle and out a
window where there was nothing to see.

I slid my eyes past her to others. A crossword-puzzle worker, a
togetherness-type-magazine reader.

Inventory completed, I went back to looking at the clouds, knowing I
should be thinking about the printing order I was going to Los Angeles
for, and not wanting to.

So I started going through the purse of the woman next to me. Perhaps
that sounds bad. It wasn't. I'd been doing it for years and nobody ever
complained.

It started when I was a kid, this business of being able to explore
the insides of things like purses and sealed boxes and locked drawers
and--well, human beings. But human beings aren't worth the trouble.
It's like swimming through spaghetti. And I've got to stay away from
electric wires. They hurt. Now don't ask me _how_ they hurt.

Maybe you think it's fun. For the most part, it really isn't. I always
knew what was in Christmas presents before I unwrapped them, and
therefore Christmas was always spoiled for me as a kid. I can't feel
the color of anything, just its consistency. An apple senses about the
same as a potato, except for the core and the stem. I can't even tell
if there's writing on a piece of paper. So you see it isn't much. Just
the feel of shapes, the hardnesses and softnesses. But I've learned to
become pretty good at guessing.

Like this woman next to me. She had a short, cylindrical metal object
in her purse with waxlike stuff inside it--a lipstick. A round, hard
object with dust inside--a compact. Handkerchief, chewing gum, a small
book, probably an address book, money in a change purse--a few bills
and coins. Not much else.

I was a little disappointed. I've run across a gun or two in my time.
But I never say anything.

       *       *       *       *       *

I learned the wisdom of keeping my mouth shut in the fourth grade when
Miss Winters, a stern, white-haired disciplinarian, ordered me to eat
my sack lunch in the classroom with her instead of outside with some
of the other kids. This was the punishment for some minor infraction.
Lunchtime was nearly over and we'd both finished eating; she said she'd
be gone for a few moments and that I was to erase the blackboard during
her absence, which I dutifully did.

Class had hardly resumed when she started looking around the desk for
her favorite mechanical pencil, asking if any of us had seen it, and
looking straight at me. I didn't want her to think I had taken it while
she was out of the room, so I probed the contents of her purse, which
she always kept in the upper right drawer of her desk.

"It's in your purse," I blurted out.

I was sent home with a stinging note.

Since then I've kept quiet. At one time I assumed everybody was able
to sense. I've known better for years. Still, I wonder how many other
people are as close-mouthed about their special gift as I am about mine.

I used to think that some day I'd make a lot of money out of it, but
how? I can't read thoughts. I can't even be sure what some of the
things I sense in probing really are.

But I've learned to move things. Ever so little. A piece of paper. A
feather. Once I stopped one of those little glass-enclosed light or
heat-powered devices with vanes you see now and then in a jeweler's
window. And I can stop clocks.

Take this morning, for example. I had set my alarm for five-thirty
because I had to catch the seven o'clock plane at San Francisco
International Airport. This being earlier than I usually get up, it
seems all I did during the night was feel my way past the escapement
and balance wheel to see where the notch for the alarm was. The last
time I did it there was just the merest fraction of an inch between the
pawl and the notch. So I sighed and moved to the balance wheel and its
delicate ribbon of spiraling steel. I hung onto the wheel, exerting
influence to decrease the restoring torque.

The wheel slowed down until there was no more ticking. It took quite
a bit of effort, as it always does, but I did it, as I usually do. I
can't stand the alarm.

When I first learned to do this, I thought I had it made. I even went
to Las Vegas to try my hand, so to speak, with the ratchets and pawls
and cams and springs on the slot machines. But there's nothing delicate
about a slot machine, and the spring tensions are too strong. I dropped
quite a lot of nickels before I finally gave up.

So I'm stuck with a talent I've found little real use for. Except that
it amuses me. Sometimes. Not like this time on the plane.

The woman beside me stirred, sat up suddenly and looked across me out
the window. "Where are we?" she asked in a surprised voice. I told her
we were probably a little north of Bakersfield. She said, "Oh," glanced
at her wristwatch and sank back again.

Soon the stewardesses would bring coffee and doughnuts around, so I
contented myself with looking at the clouds and trying to think about
Amos Magaffey, who was purchasing agent for a Los Angeles amusement
chain, and how I was going to convince him our printing prices were
maybe a little higher but the quality and service were better. My mind
wandered below where I was sitting, idly moving from one piece of
luggage to another, looking for my beat-up suitcase. I went through
slips and slippers, lingerie and laundry, a jig saw puzzle and a
ukulele.

I never did find my suitcase because I found the bomb first.

       *       *       *       *       *

The bomb was in a small bag--a woman's bag judging by the soft,
flimsy things you'd never find in a man's--and I didn't know it was a
bomb right away. I thought it was just a clock, one of those small,
quiet alarms. I was going to pass it by and go on, but what held me
was that something was taped to it. By the feel, I knew it must be
electrician's tape. Interested and curious, I explored the clock more
closely, found two wires. One went to a battery and the other to hard
round cylinders taped together. The hairs stood up at the base of my
neck when I suddenly realized what it was.

The clock's balance wheel was rocking merrily. Quickly I went up past
the train of gears to the alarm wheel. If this was anything like my own
alarm clock, this one had something like ten minutes to go.

It was forty minutes to Burbank and Lockheed Air Terminal.

My mind was churning when I turned from the window to look around
at the unconcerned passengers, the woman at my side asleep again. I
thought: Which one of these.... No, none of them would know it was
there. I glanced out the window again; clouds were still in the way.
We'd be leaving the valley for the mountain range north of Los Angeles
soon, if we hadn't left it already. No place to land the plane there.

But of course that had been the plan!

My heart was beating in jackhammer rhythm; my mouth was dry and my mind
was numb. Tell somebody about the bomb before it's too late! No, they'd
think I put it there. Besides, what good would it do? There would be
panic and they'd never get the plane down in time--if they believed me.

"Sir." My head jerked around. The stewardess stood in the aisle,
smiling, extending a tray to me, a brown plastic tray bearing a small
paper cup of tomato juice, a cup of coffee, a cellophane-wrapped
doughnut, paper spoon, sugar and dehydrated cream envelopes, and a
napkin.

I goggled at her, managed to croak, "No, thanks." She gave me an odd
look and moved along. My seatmate had accepted hers and was tearing at
the cellophane. I couldn't bear to watch her.

I closed my eyes, forced my mind back to the luggage compartment, spent
a frantic moment before I found the bag again. I had to stop that
balance wheel, just as I stopped my alarm clock every morning. I tried
to close everything off--the throb of engines, the rush of air, the
woman sipping coffee noisily beside me--and I went into the clock and
surrounded the seesawing wheel. When it went forward, I pulled it back;
when it went back, I pulled it forward. I struggled with it, and it was
like trying to work with greasy hands, and I was afraid I wasn't going
to be able to stop it.

Then, little by little, it started to slow its beat. But I could not
afford to relax. I pushed and pulled and didn't dare release my hold
until it came to a dead stop.

"Anything the matter?"

My eyelids flew open and I looked into the eyes of the woman next to
me. There was sugar from the doughnut around her mouth and she was
still chewing.

"No," I said, letting out my breath. "I'm all right."

"You were moaning, it sounded like. And you kept moving your head back
and forth."

"Must have been dreaming," I said as I rang for the stewardess. When
she came I told her I'd take some of that coffee now. No, nothing else,
just coffee. I didn't tell her how much I needed it. I sat there clammy
with sweat until she returned. Coffee never tasted so good.

       *       *       *       *       *

All right, so I had stopped the bomb's timer. My mind raced ahead to
the landing. When they unloaded the luggage, the balance wheel would
start again. I wouldn't be able to stay with it, keeping it still.
I considered telling the authorities as soon as we landed, or maybe
calling in ahead, but wouldn't that just bring suspicion, questions.
Maybe I could convince them I could stop a clock--but not before the
bomb exploded. And then what? My secret would be out and my life would
be changed. I'd be a man not to be trusted, a prying man, a man
literally with gimlet eyes.

Mountain crags jutted through the clouds. We were in the range north of
the city. Here and there were clear spots and I could see roads below,
but there were also clouds far above us. It was very beautiful, but it
was also very bumpy, and we started to slip and slide.

To my horror I found that the balance wheel was rocking again. Closing
my eyes and gritting my teeth, I forced my senses to the wheel, tugging
and pulling and shoving and pushing until it finally stopped.

A jab in the shoulder. I jumped, startled.

"Your cup," my seat partner said, pointing.

I looked down at the coffee cup I had crushed in my hands. Then I
looked up into the eyes of the stewardess. I handed it to her. She took
it without a word and went away.

"Were you really asleep that time?"

"Not really," I said. I was tempted to tell the woman I was subject to
fits, but I didn't.

It was only a few minutes to landing, but they became the longest
minutes of my life as time after time I stopped the rocking wheel when
the plane dipped and bumped to a landing.

Leaving the apron with the other passengers, I tried to walk as
unconcernedly as they through the exit gate. I would have liked walking
through the terminal and out the entrance and away, but I could not. I
had my suitcase to get, for one thing. The damned bomb was the other.
So I strolled out into the concourse again to look at the plane and
watch the baggagemen at work, transferring the luggage to two airfield
carts. They weren't as careful as I would have been.

It was impossible to tell from this distance just which bag contained
the bomb; I could hardly identify my own scarred suitcase. The
assortment of bags--a strange conglomeration of sizes and colors--was
packed in some places six deep, and it rolled toward the gate where
I was standing. I didn't know whether to stay or run, imagining the
balance wheel now happily rocking again. The load went past me down a
ramp to the front of the air terminal where the luggage was unloaded
and placed in a long rack. I went with it.

There was a flurry of ticket matching, hands grabbing for suitcases,
and a general exodus on the part of my fellow passengers, too fast to
determine who had got the one with the bomb. Now all that was left was
the attendant and I had two bags--my own battered veteran of years, and
a fine new red overnight case, small enough to be the one.

I lit a cigarette, reached out. Inside were a woman's things and--a
clock. The escapement was clicking vigorously.

I didn't moan this time. I just closed my eyes, stretched toward
and grabbed the balance wheel I was getting to know like my own. I
entered into a union with it so strong that after I had reduced it to
immobility, it was like waking when I opened my eyes.

       *       *       *       *       *

The baggage claim attendant was staring at me. For only a moment I
stared back. Then I quickly reached for my baggage check and presented
it to him. His hand hovered over the handle of the little red bag and I
was ready to yell at him. But then, matching numbers on the tags with
his eyes, his hand grasped the handle of my own suitcase and pushed it
toward me.

"Thanks," I said, taking it. I glanced ever so casually toward the
remaining bag. "One left over, eh?"

"Yeah." He was so bored I was tempted to tell him what was in it. But
he was eying me with a "well-why-don't-you-get-along?" look.

I said, "What happens if nobody claims it?"

"Take it inside. Why?"

He was getting too curious. "Oh, I just wondered, that's all."

I stepped on my cigarette and walked toward the air terminal entrance
and put my suitcase on the stone steps there. A redcap came hurrying
over.

"Cab?"

I shook my head. "Just waiting."

Just waiting for somebody to pick up a bomb.

I lit another cigarette and glanced now and then toward the baggage
claim area. The red bag was still there. All sorts of theories ran
through my head as to why it should still be there, and none satisfied
me.

I should not have been there, that much I knew; I should be with a
man named Amos Magaffey on Sixth Street at ten o'clock, discussing
something very mundane, the matter of a printing order. But what could
I do? If I left the airport, the attendant would eventually take the
bag inside and there would be an explosion, and I wouldn't be able to
live with myself.

No. I had to stay to keep the balance wheel stationary until--until
what?

A man in tan gabardine, wearing a police cap and badge, walked out of
the entrance to stand on the stone steps beside me while he put on a
pair of dark glasses. A member of the airport police detail. I could
tell him. I could take him down to the little red bag and explain the
whole thing. Then it would be his baby and I would be off on my own
business.

But he moved on down the steps, nodded at the redcap, and started
across the street to the parking area. I could have called to him,
"Hey, officer, let me tell you about a bomb in a little red bag." But
I didn't. I didn't because I caught a movement at the baggage claim
counter out of the side of my eye.

The attendant had picked up the bag and was walking with it up the ramp
to the rear of the air terminal. Picking up my own suitcase, I went
inside in time to see him enter through a side door and deposit the bag
on the scales at the airline desk and say something to the clerk. The
clerk nodded and moved the bag to the rear room.

I could visualize the balance wheel once again rocking like crazy. How
many minutes--or seconds--were left? I was sweating when I moved to the
counter, and it wasn't because of the sunshine I'd been soaking in. I
had to get as close to the bag as I could if I was going to stop the
clock again.

"Can I help you?" the clerk asked.

"No. I'm waiting for someone."

I turned my back to him, put down my suitcase, leaned against the
counter and reached out for the wheel. I found I could reach the
device, but it was far away. When I tried to dampen it, the wheel
escaped my grasp.

"Do you have my suitcase?"

I blinked my eyes open and looked around. The blonde in the plane stood
there looking very fresh and bright and unconcerned. In her right hand
she had a green baggage claim check.

The clerk took it, nodded, and in a moment brought out the overnight
case and set it on the scales. The girl thanked him, picked it up,
glanced at me indifferently, and then started for the entrance with it.

"Just a moment," I found myself saying, grabbing my bag and hurrying
after her.

       *       *       *       *       *

At her side and a little ahead of her, I said, "Listen to me."

She looked annoyed and increased her stride toward the door.

"It's a matter of life or death," I said. I wanted to wrest the bag
from her and hurl it out through the doorway into the street, but I
restrained myself.

She stopped and stared. I noticed a short, fat man in a rumpled
suitcoat and unpressed pants staring, too. Ignoring him, I said,
"Please put the bag down. Over there." I indicated a spot beside a
telephone booth where it would be out of the way.

She didn't move. She just said, "Why?"

"For God's sake!" I took the case. She offered no resistance. I put her
bag and mine next to the booth. When I turned around she was standing
there looking at me as if I had gone out of my mind. Her eyes were blue
and brown-flecked, very pretty eyes, and my thought at the moment was,
I'm glad the bomb didn't go off; these eyes wouldn't be looking at me
or anything else right now if it had.

"I've got to talk to you. It's very important."

The girl said, "Why?" I was beginning to think it was the only word she
knew. At the same time I was wondering why anyone would want to kill
someone so lovely.

"I'll explain in a moment. Please stand right here while I make a
telephone call." I moved toward the phone booth, paused and said, "And
don't ask me why."

She gave me a speculative look.

I must not have seemed a complete idiot because she said, "All right,
but--"

I didn't listen for the rest. I went into the booth, closed the door,
pretended to drop a coin and dial a number. But all the time I was in
there, I was reaching out through the glass for the clock. At this
range it wasn't difficult to stop the balance wheel.

Just the same, when I came out I was wringing wet.

"Now will you please tell me what this is all about?" she said stiffly.

"Gladly. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and I'll explain."

She glanced at the bags. I told her they'd be all right. We followed
the short, fat man into the coffee shop.

Over coffee I explained it all to her, how I had this extrasensory
ability, how she was the first person I had ever revealed it to, and
how I had discovered what was in her overnight bag.

During the telling, her untouched coffee grew a skin, her face grew
pale, her eyes grew less curious and more troubled. There were tears
there when I finished. I asked her who put the bomb in her bag.

"Joe did," she said in a toneless voice, not looking at me any more but
staring vacantly across the room. "Joe put it there." Behind her eyes
she was reliving some recent scene.

"Who is Joe?"

"My husband." I thought she was going to really bawl, but she got
control again. "This trip was his idea, my coming down here to visit my
sister." Her smile was bleak. "I see now why he wanted to put in those
books. I'd finished packing and was in the bathroom. He said he'd put
in some books we'd both finished reading--for my sister. That's when he
must have put the--put it in there."

I said gently, "Why would he want to do a thing like that?"

"I don't know." She shook her head. "I just don't know." And she was
close to bawling again. Then she recovered and said, "I'm not sure I
want to know." I admired her for saying it. Joe must have been crazy.

"It's all right now?" she asked.

I nodded. "As long as we don't move it."

I told her I didn't know how much more time there was, that I'd been
thinking it over and that the only way out seemed to be to tell the
airport policeman. After I explained it to her, the girl--she said her
name was Julia Claremont--agreed to tell him she thought there was a
bomb in her bag, that she had noticed a ticking and had become worried
because she knew she hadn't packed a clock. It wasn't good, but it
would have to do.

"We've got to get it deactivated," I said, watching the fat man pay for
his coffee and leave. "The sooner the better."

       *       *       *       *       *

I finished my coffee in one gulp and went to pay the bill with her.
I asked her why she didn't claim the bag at the same time the other
people had. She said she had called her sister and the phone was busy
for a long while.

"She was supposed to meet me, and when she wasn't here, I got worried.
She said she isn't feeling well and asked me to take a cab." She smiled
a little. It was a bright, cheery thing. I had the feeling it was all
for me. "That's where I was going when you caught up with me."

It had become a very nice day. But the bottom dropped out of it again
when we reached the lobby.

The two bags weren't there.

I ran to the entrance and nearly collided with the redcap.

"See anybody go out of here with a little red bag and an old battered
suitcase?"

"Bag? Suitcase?" he mumbled. Then he became excited. "Why, a man just
stepped out of here--" He turned to look down the street. "That's him."

The dumpy man I'd seen was walking off; Julia's bag in his right hand,
mine in his left. He seemed in no hurry.

"Hey!" I shouted, starting toward him.

The man turned, took one look at me, and started to run. He came
abreast an old gray, mud-spattered coupe, ran around, opened the door
and threw both bags into the rear seat as he got in.

The car was a hundred feet away and gathering speed by the time I
reached where it had been parked. I watched it for a moment, then
walked back to the entranceway where Julia was standing with the
redcap, who said, "That man steal them suitcases?"

"That he did," I said.

Just then the airport policeman started across the street from the
parking lot. Redcap said, "Better tell him about it."

The policeman was sympathetic and concerned. He said, "We'd better get
over to the office."

But we never left the spot because an explosion some blocks distant
shattered the air. Julia's hand grasped my arm. Hard.

"Jets," the redcap said, eying the sky.

"I don't know," the policeman said. "Didn't sound much like a jet to
me."

We stood there. I could visualize the wreckage of an old gray coupe
in the middle of a street, but I couldn't visualize the driver. That
was all right. I didn't want to see him. I didn't know what Julia was
thinking.

She said, "About those bags," and looked at me.

The officer said, "Yes, miss?"

"I--I don't care about mine. I didn't have much of anything in it."

"I feel the same way," I said. "Would it be all right if we didn't
bother to report it?"

"Well," the policeman said, "I can't _make_ you report it."

"I'd rather not then," Julia said. She turned to me. "I'd like some
air. Can't we walk a little?"

"Sure," I said.

We started down the street, her arm in mine, as the air began to fill
with the distant sounds of sirens.





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