Chapter 2

"Absolutely! Of course, it does not make any real difference--"

"But it does annoy you--investigations of your income tax and deporting your men now and then?"

"Well, what of it?"

"Simply this. After some years of effort, I am at last able to say that I control the Government."

"That is the silly brag of a child," sneered the Old Man.

"Not at all," and as he said that, Willowby reached down and picked up a handful of pebbles. "See these stones? In the same way I hold in my hand a majority of the Supreme Court, over two-thirds of the Senators and most of the Representatives. I can swing the votes of enough of the states to pass any kind of legislation I wish. Now here is my proposition. You handle the cities. I will turn over the country to you. Together we will run the nation, and all I want is just one thing--just one little favor from you."

"I bet I can guess what that is," laughed the Old Man.

"No doubt, but let me tell you. I want to be the next President."

"I thought so."

"I think we ought to be together on this thing. Perhaps I could be elected without your help, even in spite of your opposition. But if I am, I will, naturally, try to destroy you. We might end up like the Kilkenny cats. But if we are allies, I have eight years of power and you have eight years of liberty in which to plunder the richest nation in the world. How about it?"

The Old Man drew a deep breath.

"Is this on the level?"

"It has to be. I have a reputation, and it is respectable. I am placing myself in your hands. What is there to prevent you from giving the press an interview tomorrow?"

"You would deny it!"

"But no one would listen to me."

"I suppose not. What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to give the order to your leaders. There are a hundred of them, perhaps a few more. No doubt my list is not absolutely accurate. Call them in, from Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, Boston and Philadelphia. Have them all in one room. You introduce me. Let me talk to them. I will open the war chest, fifty million to start with, and more to come. You promise them anything you want, and I will make the promise good."

"And you will be there? Right in the room with me?"

"I will be there."

"I won't do it!" growled the Old Man. "I never have and I never will. I don't do things that way. A whisper to one or two, and the business is done, but not a hundred at one time. Some of these boys have never seen me."

"Then you want to turn me down?"

"Not exactly, but I am opposed to that meeting."

"Then we are through talking. I will take you to the five-ten train, or, if you want to, I will have my chauffeur drive you to the city."

"Let's talk it over."

"No."

"How about having six of the Big Boys there?"

"No! All on my list or none."

"Your list?"

"Certainly! I am not sure that it is absolutely correct, but it satisfies me."

"Let me see it."

"No reason why you should not."

The Old Man took the paper that was handed to him. It was no casual glance, he gave the names. At last he handed it back to the little man with the casual comment:

"I suppose that is not all you know about my organization?"

"I suppose not. Why not be sensible about this, Mr. Consuelo? If we fight, we will simply kill each other, but if we become allies who can stop us? But I must be sure of you, and the only way I can be sure is to have you talk to your men, and then let me talk to them. We can have the meeting at night in my offices, you know where, top floor of the Empire Trust. No one need be any the wiser. Half an hour, and all the men can go back with the money in their pockets and the orders in their brains."

"O.K. When shall we meet?"

"A month from today at ten P.M."

"Good. I'll give the orders, but I want the money, the fifty million. It is not much, but part of it will help keep the Big Boys in line. Some of them won't like the idea very much."

"A little cash will influence them. Now, how about taking you back to the city?"

* * * * *

Winifred Willowby made preparations for entertaining his one hundred guests. His largest office was transformed into an assembly room. Its inch-thick carpets, overstuffed chairs and mahogany trimmings gave it an air of luxuriant comfort. There were special chairs for the Big Boys and two very special chairs for the Old Man and the Host of the evening. A large picture frame, hanging on one wall, and carefully covered, gave a hint as to part of the evening's ceremony.

The Empire Trust belonged to Willowby. He had built it so that he could have a private office on the top floor, the sixty-third from the ground. The elevator reached this floor, but there were no steps. Many buildings surpassed it in height, but none in the view that it gave of the city. The guests who arrived first commented on the view and expanded their chests when they realized that they carried that city in their vest pockets.

At last every chair was occupied. It was a peculiar gathering. It included judges, politicians, pseudo-business men, several lawyers and even the Mayor of one of the largest cities in the Mississippi Valley. Facing them, sat the Old Man and Willowby.

Of the hundred men in the audience not one was at his ease. Most had come because they were afraid to stay away. Many hoped that they would not be recognized. The majority doubted the wisdom of such a meeting and felt that the Old Man was slipping mentally. It was the first time that many of them had even seen him. He was almost as much of an unknown to them as the little man sitting next to him. A peculiar silence hung over the assembly. More than one man fondled the handle of his automatic. No one seemed to be sure of what was going to happen next. It was a fortunate thing that the meeting was held at night; with the audience composed of such men. A daylight gathering would have been impossible.

The Old Man and Willowby held a short whispered conference, and then the leader of American Racketeers stood up. What had been silence before, now became the hush of death. The Old Man was going to talk, and everyone wanted to hear what he had to say. It did not take him long to start.

"You Big Boys have been running the cities before," he growled, "but from tonight on we are going to run the country. Congress and the Supreme Court are going to dance to our music and like it. Our new friend here has promised to deliver the goods, and he does not want much in return. I have told him that we will trade, and what I say goes. Now, you boys listen to Willowby, and remember that I am back of him."

Then he sat down. As far as the records are concerned, that was the longest speech the Old Man made in his life. The Boys hardly knew what to do; they felt they should applaud, but not being certain remained quiet. Then Willowby stood up.

"I do not want very much, gentlemen," he remarked. "I only want to be the next President of the United States, and I can be, with your help. Let me show you a picture."

He walked over to the covered picture, pulled a cord and unveiled it and there, life size, were the Old Man and Willowby shaking hands. Anyone could tell who they were and what they were doing. That brought the house down. Everybody felt that it was time for a little noise. Some of them, who knew the Big Boy well enough, went up and congratulated him on the new political alliance. In the confusion, Winifred Willowby slipped out of the room and no one noticed his absence.

But some one did notice the sideboard and started to sample the bottles. Soon everyone was drinking a little. But the Old Man did not drink. He just sat there, moodily chewing his cigar and wondering how much of the fifty million he could keep for his share.

Nobody saw the first rat. It dropped from behind the picture and ran under a chair. The next rat did the same. Perhaps fifty rats were in the room before their presence was noticed. By that time they were coming faster, by the dozen, by the hundred. That was different. One rat in a large room meant nothing. A hundred, five hundred in the same room could mean almost anything.

And now they were literally pouring out from back of the picture. A cursing man pulled it to the floor and there was a large hole in the wall, two feet in diameter, and out of that hole the rats were pouring, big brown, hungry rats, dropping to the floor and starting to hunt for food. The puzzled men jumped up on top the chairs; the rats stood on their hind legs and looked at the large chunks of food with black beady, binoculars. The Old Man just sat there, chewing his cigar and cursing. He knew what it all meant seconds before anyone else.

A number of the most fearful men made a dash for the elevator. They were driven back by a torrent of rats climbing up the elevator shaft. Then _fear came--and panic_. With gun and heel, and broken chairs for clubs, they started in to kill rats, and for every one they killed, a hundred fastened to them with chisel teeth. To make it worse, the lights went out, and they were there in the dark, with mutilation as a beginning and death as an ending, and still the rats poured into the room, up the elevator shaft and out of the hole in the wall.

* * * * *

The Old Man walked across the room, kicking the struggling bodies of his followers out of his pathway. Rats ran up his legs and tried to bite his hands, his face; he swept them off him as a tiger would wipe ants off his fur; at last he came to the window. There was the city of New York in front of him, the city of a million twinkling lights, the tomb of a billion dead hopes; the Morgue of a Nation, covered by laughing, painted faces. He raised the sash and sat on the sill.

"Damn Willowby!" he said. "What a fool I was. But I am going to die clean. No rat is going to send me to Hell!"

And then he dropped.

In the room the struggle kept on--for an hour and then two. At last the screaming ceased, and the only sound was the gnawing of the rats, the crunching of their teeth and their satisfied, little squeaks of pleasure.

The next morning Winifred Willowby called on the Chief of the Secret Service of New York. With him were several men from Washington.

"I want to tell you something," he said. "A large group of men borrowed my office to have a meeting last night. They wanted privacy and secrecy and they had heard of my place in the Empire Trust Building. So I loaned them the entire floor for the night. But my janitors tell me that something terrible happened. An army of rats invaded the place, as they have been doing with other places in the city, and literally ate every man there; that is, all except one, a fellow by the name of Consuelo, and he preferred to jump out of a window and die clean on the pavement."

"Consuelo?" asked the Chief. "Not the Old Man? Not _that_ Consuelo?"

"I think that is the one. Here is a list of the men who were there. I thought you might like to look it over before you gave it to the papers."

The Chief took the list and read it, puzzled.

"Do you mean these men were there last night?"

"I understand so."

"And now they are dead?"

"I think so. Of course, that is for the coroner to say."

"Do you know who these men were?"

"I suppose they were business associates of Consuelo. At least, that is what he told me."

"They were the hundred biggest gangsters in America. They were the brains of everything vicious in American society. There is not a man there whom we have not been after for years, but we just couldn't pin anything on them. Their death in one night gives the decent people in our country a new lease on life. We can go ahead now and get the little fellows. But, tell me, Mr. Willowby, how did it happen?"

"I told you. They had a meeting and the rats came. You know there was a rat racket which no one thoroughly understood. Anyway, the rats came--and killed them. No one can tell exactly what did happen, because everyone who was there was killed. That is all. I am sorry that it happened in my office--but I thought I was doing the man a favor to loan him the place for the meeting."

* * * * *

That night Crawford and Willowby were talking things over. In rushed Rastell and Wilson, brushing the indignant butler aside.

"We have heard a thousand rumors," began Rastell, "and read as many foolish statements in the papers about the rat tragedy, and we just couldn't wait a minute longer. You just have to tell us what happened. We are not going to leave you till you do."

"You tell them, Crawford," whispered Willowby. "Whenever I talk about it, my voice becomes squeaky."

"It happened this way," explained Crawford. "After you started to work, Mr. Willowby decided to go over and study the story of the Piper right in the town of Hamelin. We went there and there was no doubt that the town people really believed that it really happened. They told us all about it, and the more we listened and paid them, the more they told. They gave us the very tune the Piper played to make the rats follow him. It was a simple little thing, and we made some phonograph records of it. It seems that when the rats hear that tune, they want to get as close as they can to the source of the music. Then one old man--he gave us some additional bars which he claimed drove the rats frantic for blood, and we made a record of that also.

"Afterwards we came back to America and went up into Pike County. Not so many rats there but enough to experiment with. We tried the short tune and the long tune and they worked on the American rats just like they did on the Hamelin ones. We put two and two together and decided that the rat racketeers in New York were using this method of attracting rats. Just put a repeating phonograph in a building and start it playing, and then the rats would come and eat everything to pieces. Of course, we did not know the psychology of it, but I suppose it has something to do with the effect of musical vibrations on the rat's nervous system.

"Then Mr. Willowby thought that it would be a good idea to make a great rat trap and attract all the rats in the city to it. He had a good deal of work done in the Empire Trust, and rigged up a phonograph with a lot of loud speakers in different parts of the basement. He ran a lot of ropes down a ventilating shaft for the rats to climb on. I think it was his original idea to have them come up to his office by the millions and then use some kind of gas on them. At least, he wanted to get rid of the rats. Someone must have turned on the phonograph with the entire record. Mr. Willowby left the room, went down the elevator and being somewhat absent-minded, told the elevator boy that he could go for the night. Of course, he was surprised to hear all about it the next morning. All he wanted to do was to get rid of the rats."

"Exactly!" purred Mr. Winifred Willowby.

And he lit another cigarette.

THE END

FOOTNOTES:

[1] When the magician (the Piper) had led the one hundred and thirty children out of the city, two hundred and seventy-two years before the gate was built.

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ April 1956 and was first published in _Amazing Stories_ November 1931. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.