Read Ebook: Tinker's Dam by Tinker Joseph Schoenherr John Illustrator

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Ebook has 213 lines and 10563 words, and 5 pages

"What the devil!"

"Hell, no," I growled. "Does George Kelly know?"

"No," she said.

"How did you find out, Anita?"

She shrugged. "I stand pretty good with a couple of the guys in Fred's section. One of them tipped me on the 'visor at home before I came to work. That's how I knew to be down here, actually."

I scowled over that one. "What did your buddy tell you?"

"Fred had said he'd have your O.K. to execute the second snake by noon and that everything about her was top-secret."

That was enough. "Get Fred and this top-secret snake in here, Anita, and right now! Forget about that call to the Director."

"Not that it makes any difference," I snapped. "But why?"

"That's exactly what I'm not going to tell you," he said. "Listen, Gyp, have I ever tried to stick it in you, in any form?"

Fred's a hot-shot. He's the hardest-charger among my Section Chiefs. But I had never found his ambitions extending to my own job as head of the Division of Psychic Investigation. "You're still here," I conceded. "I guess I never caught you at it, Fred."

"And you never will, Gyp," he said. "You've given me the greatest breaks a guy ever got. This time I'm returning the favor."

He didn't ask me how I knew, but I could see it annoyed him.

"The biggest break you ever got," he insisted. "This thing is so hot it will burn you to death. Another crypto-telepath, right here in the District. I want to make summary disposition of her, and I don't want you to so much as look at the papers. Just give me instructions to use my own discretion."

"It's perfectly legal," Fred said sullenly and beside the point. "Congress has given you summary--"

"Boy, oh boy!" I said. "This doesn't sound like the way to stay out of trouble. What is so dangerous about this telepath?"

"Nothing doing," Fred said. "I know I'm asking for a blank check. There's no other way for me to help you play it."

"This is your own idea, Fred?"

"Sure."

"Talked it over with Anita?"

That settled it. I would trust Anita with the crown jewels.

"No dice, Fred," I said. "Give me the facts."

"The facts!"

He straightened up from where he had hung over my desk during the whole argument. "This cuts my guts right out," he said. "Suspect apprehended around two o'clock this morning and now in detention at the City Jail. Native white female, age fifty-eight. Named Maude Tinker." He stopped.

I couldn't start. Maude Tinker! My given name is Joseph Tinker--although they all call me Gyp. "What ..." I got out at last. "What did she look...?"

"Has she made any statement, Fred?" I asked softly, staring at the surface of my desk.

"She demanded to be taken at once to the Chief of the Division of Psychic Investigation, Mr. Joseph Tinker," he said.

"Give any reason?"

He was quiet for a while, until I looked up. "She said," Fred told me, "she said Gyp Tinker was her son."

I smiled wanly at him. "Obviously I can't let a statement like that go unchallenged, not in my position as the man charged with extirpating the danger of the snakes," I said.

"Obviously," Fred agreed. "Now that you know about it. If you had done as I asked, Gyp ..."

"Get her over here, Fred," I said. "I'll see her at once. And send Anita in as you leave."

"Sure, Gyp," he said, starting for the door.

"And thanks, Fred," I said. "But it never would have worked."

"Maybe not," he conceded from the door. "But the guy in the jam would have been me, not you."

I turned my swivel around and stared out the window at the Mall and didn't move until the light scent of Anita's perfume reminded me that I had asked her to come in.

I swung around. "You watch out for that Fred Plaice," Anita said, almost scoldingly.

"You mean, start watching my back, like I never did before? How did I get this far?"

Her frown softened a little. "You don't miss many bets," she said. "Not my Gypper. But this thing of Fred's holding back on the other telepath he picked up last night has all the earmarks of a real slippery move."

"Did Fred tell you anything about it on the way out?"

"Just that he was bringing the telepath from the City Jail right back with him, and that you wanted to see her at once."

"This snake is a woman, aged fifty-eight, Anita," I told her. "She gave the name of Maude Tinker and says she's my mother," I added, without any particular expression.

"He felt it would be better if I never knew about it," I admitted. "What do you think I should do, Anita?"

Her heart-shaped face grew more solemn. "I think it would be bad to try to cover it up," she decided. "And I'm glad you didn't let Fred do that to you. Some newscast would be sure to get hold of the story and there'd be snide accusations. All this talk recently about the heredity of psi powers is bad, too. That's what she's trying to cash in on. And if the public thought that the man in charge of catching and pulling the fangs of all the snakes was a hereditary telepath, they'd be after your scalp in no time."

"So?"

"Scotch it. See her, face her down, prove her charge is ridiculous, and ship her west."

I smiled a little dimly. "Just one complication."

"Yes, Gyp?"

"This Maude Tinker, says Fred, is a gypsy."

Anita's face did the most abrupt change. I had never seen her furiously angry. She's a typical high echelon Washington secretary, cool, extremely well-mannered, cheerful without being bumptious. But this time she was downright mad.

"I told you," Anita said.

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