FIDO

Originally published in Unknown Worlds, October 1943.

The cabbie pulled to a stop in front of the apartment hotel and swung around in his seat. “Your number, mister,” he announced wearily.

Nick Bevins, his hands plunged deep into the trouser pockets’ of his rumpled tuxedo, looked up with a start. “Huh?” he muttered. “Oh, yeah.” He glanced at the meter, then pulled out a wallet from which he selected two bills. He handed these to the cabbie without waiting for change and climbed from the cab. It grumbled into motion and shot away.

Alone at the curb, Bevins absently rubbed the palm, of his right hand over the back of his left. He looked around him slowly, his large, slightly protruding brown eyes glistening in apprehensive expectancy.

It was early morning. A hint of dawn showed on the horizon at the eastern end of the street. The lamps burned with a pale luminescence in the fog which had crept in from Lake Michigan little more than three blocks distant. Darkness still pressed heavily upon this portion of Chicago’s north side, and the tall apartment buildings loomed cliff-like in the gloom, unlighted and featureless.

Bevin’s gaze had probed both sides of the street, from one end to the other. It seemed unfamiliar in the fog, almost eerie. But he saw nothing move, nor was there any sound. He had a growing sense of relief. Almost he was becoming convinced that his conviction of the past week that someone followed him was due merely to nerves.

A cold, thin breeze came in suddenly from the lake. Bevins shivered and drew the open ends of his overcoat about his short, slender figure. He felt an abrupt burst of impatience. What was he waiting for? Was he actually hoping to see something? He glanced at the glass and metal door that led into his apartment hotel, and in his mind there began the impulse which would set his legs into motion.

And then he froze into rigidity. For a moment his eyes had glanced from the door before him, and in the cone of light from the street lamp five yards distant, he thought he had seen something move. But when his frightened eyes darted to cover the spot, there was nothing to be seen except curling wisps of fog vapor. But he was certain that someone—or something—had stood for an instant in the circle of illumination.

Bevins felt a rush of terror. He was positive his experience wasn’t due to nerves or imagination. Someone was following him. Or something. Something that was as silent as the approach of death itself, that moved with such rapidity that it left only a flicker of motion in a turning eye.

Bevins’ mind completed its previous impulse and he rushed madly through the door. The night clerk, reading a magazine in the light above the telephone switchboard, looked up in alarm. “Oh! Morning Mr. Bevins.”

Bevins gave him a short nod and let himself into the self-operating elevator.

He punched the button for his floor and frowned in frightened thought while he nibbled the tip of his thin blond mustache. He wondered if Grange had found out that there was something wrong going on at the club and was having him followed. But Bevins shook his head. Big Steve Grange, didn’t work that way. He wouldn’t have him followed. He, Bevins, would just quietly disappear one dark night.

Bevins wondered how soon he could get the club books straightened out before Grange decided to look them over. He’d made a profit on International Life, but that would all have to go back into the club’s funds. He’d lost heavily on his Consolidated stock, however, and that made a balance of three hundred dollars short which would have to be covered up somehow.

Bevins shuddered. He knew now that he had been a fool to try to make money that way. Grange would have him killed if he learned that he, Bevins, had been speculating with club funds.

Bevins felt appalled at the thought of how close he was to disaster. Big Steve Grange was cruel, ruthless, utterly without mercy or compunction. He never forgave a mistake, nor did he ever pardon a crime. He was one of the last of the old-time racketeers, though still quite powerful. His practices had remained much the same through the years, but his methods had changed to conform with the times. He owned more than a dozen profitable enterprises of which the Variety Club—which Bevins managed—was only one.

Bevins frowned as he sought to recall what Grange had mentioned about the books that night. Grange had been at the club, with the latest of his mammas, and Bevins had sat at his table for a while. But he’d had too many drinks and Vic Hendron’s orchestra was swinging into a fast number, and he just couldn’t remember precisely what Grange had said. His mind retained only a reference to the books.

Suddenly Bevins realized that the elevator had stopped at his floor. He pulled open the door and let himself out into the hall.

He was fishing for his key when his eyes caught an abrupt flicker of motion at the further end of the hall. Ice water filled his veins and he gazed a long, dreading moment at the spot. But nothing else happened, and the hall was still. Bevins felt haunted. He knew now that something followed him. But he wished desperately that he knew just what it was. There would be a shred of comfort in the mere fact of knowing.

Bevins let himself quickly into his room and locked the door. He wondered suddenly if he really wanted to know. Something that moved so fast and was so silent just couldn’t be human. It had trailed him from the club, though he had heard no following car. How had it done so? And—Bevins gasped in dismay—how had it gotten into the building?

But whatever it was, whatever its uncanny abilities, it at least wasn’t dangerous. He had been followed a whole week now and nothing had happened to him. The thing just, followed him around, and when he noticed, it was gone.

Bevins felt a small return of his confidence. He found himself wishing again that he knew what it was. He pulled off his hat and coat, ran his fingers through his thinning blond hair and began to remove his tuxedo.

An unframed publicity photo of Patsy Clark atop the bookcase caught his eye. His sallow face became bitter and sullen. Patsy was a permanent entertainer at the club, and her voice was as lovely as she was herself. She sang popular numbers with a vivacity and charm that never failed to bring down the house. The picture wasn’t in colors, but Bevins knew that her long hair was light brown, glinting with golden lights. Her eyes were a sparkling hazel and her skin was white and dear. She was small but delightfully rounded, with a hint of plumpness at arms and hips.

Though Bevins was uncertain as to what Grange had said about the books, he remembered the exact words Patsy had used in rejecting his proposal that night. That was before he had started drinking. It was, in fact, the thing that had gotten him started.

Patsy had said, “I’m awfully sorry, Nick, but I just couldn’t marry you. You’ve been swell to me and I’m grateful. But, gosh, Nick, if I haven’t got anything for you, I just haven’t. You understand, don’t you?”

Bevins recalled that he had nodded, but he hadn’t understood. That was gratitude, he thought blackly now. Why, he’d taken Patsy in at the club when she was just a little nobody. He’d given her the chance to become what she was now. Why didn’t women look into their heads instead of their hearts in matters of this sort?

Of course, Bevins forgot the little wave of desire which had swept over him when he had first seen Patsy, the day she had appeared at the club looking for a job. She’d been very pretty with her plain hair-do and her simple dress. He’d wanted her as he had never wanted any woman before, and he’d hired her on the strength of that alone. Patsy’s own silver voice and wonderful little personality had taken care of the rest, but Bevins chose to forget that.

The thing which Bevins found most humiliating about the situation was that he was really willing to marry Patsy, though there were any number of other women he could have without legal entanglements. There were a lot of cheap entertainers who would be willing to be nice to him for the chance to appear at the club. But he wanted Patsy.

Scowling, Bevins went into the bedroom and climbed into a pair of green silk pajamas. It was that band leader, Vic Hendron, Bevins thought furiously. He should never have signed up Hendron’s orchestra for that three-week engagement. Hendron had been playing at the club for over a week now, and Bevins had often seen him and Patsy standing close together, talking and laughing as if nothing else in the world mattered but what they had to say to each other. Bevins was vain about his dapper sleekness, but there were times when he did envy Hendron for his height and handsome, vigorous youth.

Bevins dropped onto the bed and pulled the covers about him. He was preparing to turn out the light on the night table beside him when something moved into sight in the bedroom doorway. Bevins looked. His mouth dropped open as though it had relinquished relationship with the thin blond mustache above it. His brown eyes, usually slightly popped, seemed ready to jump from their sockets. A chilling tide of horror such as he had never known overwhelmed him.

A thing squatted in the doorway. It looked like an insane mixture of St. Bernard dog and chimpanzee, but neither of these two familiar animals possess long, silver hair, horns, claws, and inch-long fangs. The thing did not move, neither did it make a sound. It merely looked at Bevins with weird yellow eyes that had neither iris nor pupil.

Bevins felt a wild need for a scream, but he was incapable of accomplishing one. He just had time to remember his wish that he could see the thing which had been following him. Then he quietly fainted.

* * * *

When Bevins awoke it was past noon. He lay still for a moment, looking around the bedroom, dark with its shades still drawn. He was relieved when he found nothing. His courage returned. He climbed out of bed, stretched, then pulled up the shades.

A sudden thought made him pause in the act of pulling off his pajama, top. Maybe the thing was still in the apartment, in another room. He looked into the living room—and there it was.

The thing lay curled up in an armchair for all the world like a nightmarish, overgrown dog. It turned vacant yellow eyes to Bevins and just looked.

Bevins managed a thin bleat this time. He clung weakly to the door frame, his muscles bunches of quivering horror. His frightened mind sought desperately for some answer as to what he should do. Abruptly, he remembered that the thing had appeared to him only because he had wanted it to. Perhaps if he wanted it to go away—

“G-get out!” Bevins quavered.

It worked. The thing paled into colorlessness, became transparent. The outlines of its form thinned like smoke in a breeze and it was gone.

Bevins released his breath in a gasping sigh. He rubbed the palm of his right hand over the back of his left.

He wondered if he had gone mad. He was a little surprised to find himself thinking quite clearly and rationally about it, and finally he decided that wasn’t quite the answer. Neither was nerves or hallucinations. What he had experienced was too real and crystal-clear for that. He thought of liquor, but he was careful enough of his job never to get himself actually drunk. A heavy drinker might see such an animal, but it would take a lot of whiskey to do it.

Bevins came to the conclusion that there was nothing really wrong with himself. It was the thing. What it was and why it had taken to following him, he couldn’t guess. He tried it a moment, but his mind began to wander into realms so dark, dank, and hideous that he was afraid to continue. But the fact remained that it existed. It had appeared when he wanted to see it, and it had gone away when he told it to do so. Whatever the thing was, then, wherever it had come from, it possessed a quite definitely tractable nature.

Bevins’ mind reeled beneath the sudden blow of the realization that the thing had been in the apartment with him all morning. And nothing had happened! He was still safe and sound.

He shook his head in bewilderment. It seemed that he had acquired a mighty strange pet! Not only was it harmless, but obedient as well.

Though still a little worried about the future, Bevins nevertheless felt a return of his courage and confidence. He was not very much astonished to find that he had accepted the thing, frightful appearance, uncanny powers, and all.

Bevins dressed and groomed himself with his usual painstaking care, had breakfast downtown, and got to work in his office at the club. He attended to various routine matters first. Then, his forehead wrinkled in anxiety and concentration, he got down to fixing the books. It required a lot of imagination and manipulation of expenses, but at last he was satisfied with his efforts. The books wouldn’t stand up under expert scrutiny, but they would pass Grange’s none-too-educated gaze. Bevins felt safe enough.

Affairs at the club that night moved with the rapidity and hectic gaiety with which they always did. The bar was covered with a haze of cigarette smoke, the closely grouped tables were noisy with talk and laughter, and the dance floor was crowded. The floor show went smoothly, and Vic Hendron’s orchestra played well. Patsy was lovely in a patriotic red, white, and blue gown.

Later, Bevins saw the band leader and the girl, seated close together at the bar. He watched in jealous anger, wondering how they found so much to say to each other. And as he watched, he saw them touch lips in a swift kiss.

When he returned home again that evening, he was more than a little drunk. He felt furious and reckless. This latter to the extent where he suddenly decided to summon the thing.

“Hey!” he called. “Hey, wherever you are! Come here.”

The air seemed to thicken before his uncertain eyes. It formed an outline, then a darkening transparency, and finally the thing squatted before him.

Bevins sobered a little just from looking at it. He felt a sudden stab of dismay at his temerity.

“Scram!” he ordered quickly.

The thing went unhesitatingly. Bevins smiled slowly, and his narrow chest expanded with a sudden feeling of power.

* * * *

Bevins summoned the thing often in the days that followed. He had lost all fear of it and had accepted the fact of its existence to the extent where he no longer wondered what it was or where it had come from. That it responded docilely to his slightest whim was enough for him. He even spoke to it when he had too much to drink at the club, and it seemed to listen to his monologues of jealousy and frustration with a stolid kind of understanding. It was from this sole quality that Bevins developed a queer affection for the thing. He named, it Fido.

Fido was a silent and unresponsive pet. It appeared and vanished in its mysterious way obediently enough at Bevins commands. But otherwise it squatted in its habitual position on the floor, looking up at him with vacant yellow eyes.

Grange appeared unexpectedly at the club one afternoon with Toby Baugh, his strong-arm man, and demanded to see the books. Bevins nervously produced them and then watched apprehensively while Grange’s cold blue eyes, ran over the columns of figures.

Finally Grange grunted and looked up. He eyed Bevins frigidly.

“Nick, have you been fooling around with these books?” he asked flatly.

Bevins gulped, his voice into action, “Why, no, Mr. Grange,” he lied desperately. “What gave you the idea—”

“I’ll tell you what gave me the idea!” Grange snapped. “I stopped in to see my stockbrokers yesterday, and they told me they heard that you’ve been speculating on the market. You evidently tried to keep it quiet, but it leaked out. Now listen, Nick, where did you get the money?”

Bevins rubbed the palm of his right hand over the back of his left. He stammered. “I…I had some money saved up, Mr. Grange.”

“Don’t give me any of that, Nick!” Grange snarled with an impatient gesture. “I know you well enough to know that you never save a cent. You bought up several thousand dollars’ worth of International Life and Consolidated stock a short time ago. That’s pretty big money, and you could never have afforded it yourself.” Grange paused while his blue eyes, cold and grim as glacial ice, probed into Bevins’ shifting brown ones.

“Nick, where did you get the money?”

Bevins’ eyes darted about the office in panic. He was cold with the chill of approaching doom. He noticed Toby Baugh sidling toward him, and eager grin on this thick lips. Toby Baugh was big and powerful, with the long swinging arms of a gorilla.

“Where did you get the money, Nick?” Grange repeated.

“I…I borrowed it. Honest, Mr. Grange.”

“Borrowed it eh? Where, Nick? From club funds?”

“No, Mr. Grange! You know I wouldn’t do that.”

“No? I know you pretty well, Nick. Now listen. I can’t find anything wrong with these books, but I’m pretty certain you’ve been using club money in your speculating deals. I could call in an accountant to check things over but that would waste time. Tell me—have you been using club money?”

“No, Mr. Grange,” Bevins cried thinly. “Honest—”

Grange’s lips pressed together in a thin line. He raised a beckoning arm. “Toby.”

Baugh’s little eyes lighted and his heavy-features spread, into a leer. He crossed the remaining distance toward Bevins, his long arms swinging up.

Bevins drew back in terror. He knew what Baugh could do to him. He thought desperately of the gun in the desk drawer, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to reach it in time. And then he thought of something else. Fido. He thought of the thing in the same way that a man thinks of a faithful, protecting dog.

As Baugh’s, powerful right hand shot out to grasp him, Bevins yelped, “Fido!” And then Baugh had him. The tough’s hairy, left hand smacked stingingly across his cheek.

“Tell the boss what he wants to know, Nick.”

Bevins’ eyes strained for the thickening of the air which would herald Fido’s appearance. At last it came. And it seemed to Bevins that it came a little faster than usual.

Baugh’s left hand raised again. But it never landed. Silent as death, Fido leaped upon him.

Grange emitted a hoarse cry of surprise and shock. Baugh gasped, “What the—”

But Bevins watched with vengeful eagerness. Strangely, Baugh evinced no effect of weight or overbalance. The tough was horribly conscious of the weird form clinging to him, but he did not seem to feel it. It was as though Fido were somehow insubstantial. And to Bevins, Fido appeared queerly to sink into Baugh.

Gurgling in fear, the tough flailed his long arms in a frenzied effort to dislodge the thing which gripped him. But sound and motion went suddenly out of him, like air from a pricked balloon. His eyes glazed and he slumped slowly to the floor. Fido stepped away from him and settled into its usual squatting position.

Bevins stared at Fido in surprised discovery. The thing had—changed. It looked slightly larger how, and its silvery hair was tinged with blue.

“What is that thing?” Grange whispered. “What did it do to Toby?”

Bevins was breathing fast, and his protruding eyes glittered with exultation. He had learned something tremendously important. Fido was still obedient—but harmless only if he wished it so. It could also be used as a weapon for defense, or—and most significant—as a tool for murder.

In reckless disregard of Fido squatting close by, Grange knelt to examine the prone form of Baugh. Then he looked up, his blue eyes wide with dismay and appall. He seemed suddenly old.

“Toby’s dead,” Grange husked. “He…he’s cold as ice.”

Bevins said nothing. He watched the other with a kind of vindictive speculation.

Grange stood up slowly. He flicked a fearful glance at Fido. “Nick, what is that thing?”

Bevins shrugged. “Frankly, I don’t know, Mr. Grange. But I find Fido a quite useful pet.”

“We’ve got to call a doctor,” Grange said suddenly.

Bevins stepped over to the desk, took out his revolver from the drawer and slid this into a pocket. “I’ll do all the talking, Mr. Grange. Understand?”

Grange nodded slowly. His blue eyes went cold, but the next instant he veiled his gaze.

“Scram, Fido,” Bevins ordered.

Fido vanished silently, and even more rapidly than he had appeared. It seemed to Bevins that the thing had not only changed, but had taken on new energy as well.

Bevins turned to the telephone and put in a call for a doctor in a nearby building. The doctor appeared shortly. He was elderly, bald, and wore a harried expression.

“We found the body there on the floor when we came in this afternoon,” Bevins explained smoothly. “He seems to have been dead for some time.”

The doctor examined Baugh with birdlike rapidity. Then he stood up, brushing at his hands. “Heart failure,” he announced. He seemed vaguely puzzled, but wrote out the death certificate unhesitatingly enough. Later, a mortician’s crew came in with their wicker coffin, and Baugh’s remains were carted out.

Grange turned toward, the door. “I haven’t finished this, Nick,” he reminded grimly.

Bevins held up a hand. “Neither have I, Mr. Grange. Sit down, please.”

“What do you want?”

“This,” Bevins began triumphantly. “You’re going to call your lawyer here to the office immediately. When he arrives, you’re going to sign the club over to my name.”

“I will not!” Grange snapped.

“Fido,” Bevins called softly.

Grange reached for the telephone.

* * * *

Bevins returned to his apartment that night, drunk with liquor and triumph. He was now the owner of the Variety Club. The crisp rustle of the papers in his coat pocket attested that the transfer was outwardly legal and proper enough. But clear even in his whiskey-sodden mind remained the picture of Grange’s face, white with impotent fury. Bevins wasn’t too drunk to remember that there was something he had to do about that.

He rubbed the palm, of his right hand over the back of his left. “Fido!” he called.

“We aren’t finished with Grange,” Bevins told the thing. “Not by a long shot, Fido, old boy. Think he’s just going to shrug off the transfer and forget about it? I’ll say he won’t.”

“Grange is going to do his damnedest to have me bumped off now. A shot in the back, or a smack over the head and then the river. But we won’t wait for that, will we, Fido, old boy? We’ll beat him to the punch, won’t we?

“Now look, Fido, this is what you’re going to do.” Grange lived in a two-story house in Evanston. Bevins had been there several times, both on business and to parties. Now he gave the thing explicit directions for reaching the house.

“Sic him, Fido!” Bevins finished.

A satisfied smirk spread over Bevins’ face the next afternoon when he read in the papers that Big Steve Grange had died the previous night of a strange heart attack.

* * * *

One of the first things Bevins did in his new independence was to vacate his quarters at the apartment hotel. He moved into a large hotel in the Loop where he now was less than two blocks from the club. The rooms were large and luxurious. Furniture and decorations were all ultra modernistic, glittering in their severely simple perfection.

What pleased Bevins the most about the place was the large, full-length mirror in the hall. This faced the entrance to the rooms, and Bevins never failed to examine himself in it, both when he came in and when he went out.

He adjusted matters at the club entirely to his own liking now, as befitted his role of owner. Then he settled down to enjoy his new life. The only thorn in the side of his contentment was Patsy.

There was something, however, which gave Bevins a little hope. Vic Hendron’s run was due to end in a few days, and he felt, without the handsome band leader in the way, that the girl would gradually change her mind about him.

One night, shortly before show time, he passed Patsy’s dressing room to see the girl standing in the open doorway, looking down at her nervously twisting hands. “What’s the matter, honey?” he asked. “Anything I can do?”

Patsy looked up at him with troubled hazel eyes, “Nick, I’d like to talk to you.”

“Certainly, honey,” Bevins replied promptly. He knew, since he intended to ingratiate himself into her affections, that there was no better time to start than the present. He followed Patsy into the dressing room.

The girl turned to face him. “Nick,” she began, “I hate to do this, but I’m leaving the club.”

Bevins’ world dropped out from under his feet. He was deluged in a sudden downpour of shock and dismay. “Patsy!” he gasped. “You can’t do this!”

“I’m sorry, Nick. You see, I’m going to marry Vic next week, and then I’m going to sing with his band.”

“Patsy—you can’t! Listen, kid, I’m nuts about you—wild about you! I’d die without you! Why, Patsy—”

The girl made a weary gesture. “Oh, Nick! We’ve been through that before. Please try to be sensible. I told you where you stood and, gosh, I just can’t change to make you happy. I love Vic.”

Bevins stared at her in silent bitterness. The perfume of her was in his nostrils, and her loveliness had the aching poignancy of something soon to be lost. He looked at her small face, twisted in an expression of pained sorrow. He saw again her clear skin and the golden lights in her soft hair.

Abruptly, he was violently, furiously angry. He grasped her arms in a frenzied clutch.

“Think you’re going to run out on me, huh?” he shouted. “I’m not good enough for you, eh? Why, I took you in here when you didn’t have two cents to your name. I made a headliner out of you, and now—”

Bevins felt himself suddenly grasped from behind and whirled about. Something smashed sickeningly into his chin and he went staggering backward to crash into a dressing screen. He found himself looking up into Vic Hendron’s indignant white face.

“You skunk!” the band leader snapped. “Get up and I’ll give you another sample of what happens to the guy who tries to manhandle Patsy.”

The girl grasped his arm. “No, Vic,” she interceded. “Let him alone.”

Hendron relaxed a trifle. “I was coming to see you, Patsy,” he explained. “I heard this guy blowing his top off and came in here to see him mauling you. If he hurt you—”

The girl shook her head quickly. “No, Vic, please. It’s all right now.”

“O. K., if you say so.” Hendron looked at Bevins and jerked a thumb toward the door. “Get out, mug,” he growled. “And don’t let me catch you near Patsy again.”

Bevins climbed shakily to his feet. At the door he darted Hendron a final glance of malevolent fury. Then he went out, slowly rubbing the palm of his right hand over the back of his left.

That night Bevins got himself stinkingly, loathsomely drunk. But the plan which he had formed floated like a raft above the liquor with which he flooded himself. No amount of drinking could dim it from his mind. He knew just what he was going to do. When he arrived at his rooms he was going to summon Fido. And then—Bevins chuckled evilly. Fido would take care of Hendron.

Bevins staggered to his hotel. He took the elevator, to his floor, curtly refusing the assistance of several grinning bellboys. He grunted knowingly to himself. He wasn’t as drunk as they thought. He knew just where he was going, and just what he was going to do.

Bevins had some difficulty in getting his key into the lock. But finally he managed it and the door swung open.

The hall was unlit, but illumination from the outer passage flooded in. Bevins started to enter the hall. But at the threshold he stopped rigidly, a thrill of fear racing through him.

There in the hair was another man! Instantly Bevins knew who it must be. Hendron!

“Fido!” Bevins cried. “Get him!”

And then, sobered a little by his fright, he remembered the full-length mirror in the hall. He remembered, too, that Fido implicitly obeyed his every command. The thing wouldn’t be fooled by the mirror as he had been.

But all this came too late.

Full of life energy from Baugh and Grange, Fido appeared in a flash. And before Bevins could shriek out the counter order which would mean continued existence, the thing was upon him.

* * * *

Later, Fido went out to the street by a means which only it knew. It squatted invisibly on the sidewalk, its mind questing for the thoughts which would once more give it direction and impulse. Fido had no mind of its own.

It only sensed in a dim way that it now needed a new master.

The hour was late and the people along the street were few. But Fido waited with stolid patience.

A man swung past on uncertain legs, his thoughts inchoate in a fog of liquor. Then a scrub woman plodded by, her dull mind heavy with weariness. There were others, but Fido remained motionless like a machine that can be started only by the turning of a certain switch.

At last that for which Fido was waiting came. A man strode slowly past, his thoughts volcanic and desperate.

“I won’t be able to pay Farris blackmail much longer,” the man was thinking. “And then the rat’ll tell Ann about me and Virginia. Ann’ll tell her old man, and that’ll mean my job. Then, Virginia—”

Fido responded to the thoughts mechanically. This man had the qualities which gave it life and sustenance. The thing got up and followed the man.

Fido had found a new master.