THE AMBULANCE MADE TWO TRIPS

By MURRAY LEINSTER

Illustrated by Scoenherr

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

Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald found a package before his door that morning, along with the milk. He took it inside and opened it. It was a remarkably fine meerschaum pipe, such as the sergeant had longed irrationally to own for many years. There was no message with it, nor any card. He swore bitterly.

On his way to Headquarters he stopped in at the orphanage where he usually left such gifts. On other occasions he had left Scotch, a fly-rod, sets of very expensive dry-flies, and dozens of pairs of silk socks. The female head of the orphanage accepted the gift with gratitude.

"I don't suppose," said Fitzgerald morbidly, "that any of your kids will smoke this pipe, but I want to be rid of it and for somebody to know." He paused. "Are you gettin' many other gifts on this order, from other cops? Like you used to?"

The head of the orphanage admitted that the total had dropped off. Fitzgerald went on his way, brooding. He'd been getting anonymous gifts like this ever since Big Jake Connors moved into town with bright ideas. Big Jake denied that he was the generous party. He expressed complete ignorance. But Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald knew better. The gifts were having their effect upon the Force. There was a police lieutenant whose wife had received a mink stole out of thin air and didn't speak to her husband for ten days when he gave it to the Community Drive. He wouldn't do a thing like that again! There was another sergeant—not Fitzgerald—who'd found a set of four new white-walls tires on his doorstep, and was ostracized by his teen-age offspring when he turned them into the police Lost and Found. Fitzgerald gave his gifts to an orphanage, with a fine disregard of their inappropriateness. But he gloomily suspected that a great many of his friends were weakening. The presents weren't bribes. Big Jake not only didn't ask acknowledgments of them, he denied that he was the giver. But inevitably the recipients of bounty with the morning milk felt less indignation about what Big Jake was doing and wasn't getting caught at.

At Headquarters, Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald found a memo. A memo was routine, but the contents of this one were remarkable. He scowled at it. He made phone calls, checking up on the more unlikely parts of it. Then he went to make the regular investigation.

When he reached his destination he found it an unpretentious frame building with a sign outside: "Elite Cleaners and Dyers." There were no plate-glass windows. There was nothing show-off about it. It was just a medium-sized, modestly up-to-date establishment to which lesser tailoring shops would send work for wholesale treatment. From some place in the back, puffs of steam shot out at irregular intervals. Somebody worked a steampresser on garments of one sort or another. There was a rumbling hum, as of an oversized washing-machine in operation. All seemed tranquil.

The detective went in the door. Inside there was that peculiar, professional-cleaning-fluid smell, which is not as alarming as gasoline or carbon tetrachloride, but nevertheless discourages the idea of striking a match. In the outer office a man wrote placidly on one blue-paper strip after another. He had an air of pleasant self-confidence. He glanced up briefly, nodded, wrote on three more blue-paper strips, and then gathered them all up and put them in a particular place. He turned to Fitzgerald.

"Well?"

Fitzgerald showed his shield. The man behind the counter nodded again.

"My name's Fitzgerald," grunted the detective. "The boss?"

"Me," said the man behind the counter. He was cordial. "My name's Brink. You've got something to talk to me about?"

"That's the idea," said Fitzgerald. "A coupla questions."

Brink jerked a thumb toward a door.

"Come in the other office. Chairs there, and we can sit down. What's the trouble? A complaint of some kind?"

He ushered Fitzgerald in before him. The detective found himself scowling. He'd have felt better with a different kind of man to ask questions of. This Brink looked untroubled and confident. It didn't fit the situation. The inner office looked equally matter-of-fact. No.... There was the shelf with the usual books of reference on textiles and such items as a cleaner-and-dyer might need to have on hand. But there were some others: "Basic Principles of Psi", "Modern Psychokinetic Theories." There was a small, mostly-plastic machine on another shelf. It had no obvious function. It looked as if it had some unguessable but rarely-used purpose. There was dust on it.

"What's the complaint?" repeated Brink. "Hm-m-m. A cigar?"

"No," said Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald. "I'll light my pipe." He did, extracting tobacco and a pipe that was by no means a meerschaum from his pocket. He puffed and said: "A guy who works for you caught himself on fire this mornin'. It happened on a bus. Very peculiar. The guy's name was Jacaro."

Brink did not look surprised.

"What happened?"

"It's kind of a strange thing," said Fitzgerald. "Accordin' to the report he's ridin' this bus, readin' his paper, when all of a sudden he yells an' jumps up. His pants are on fire. He gets 'em off fast and chucks them out the bus window. He's blistered some but not serious, and he clams up—but good—when the ambulance doc puts salve on him. He won't say a word about what happened or how. They hadda call a ambulance because he couldn't go huntin' a doc with no pants on."

"But he's not burned badly?" asked Brink.

"No. Blisters, yes. Scared, yes. And mad as hell. But he'll get along. It's too bad. We've pinched him three times on suspicion of arson, but we couldn't make it stick. Something ought to happen to make that guy stop playin' with matches—only this wasn't matches."

"I'm glad he's only a little bit scorched," said Brink. He considered. "Did he say anything about his eyelids twitching this morning? I don't suppose he would."

The detective stared.

"He didn't. Say aren't you curious about how he came to catch on fire? Or what his pants smelled of that burned so urgent? Or where he expected burnin' to start instead of his pants?"

Brink thought it over. Then he shook his head.

"No. I don't think I'm curious."

The detective looked at him long and hard.

"O.K.," he said dourly. "But there's something else. Day before yesterday there was a car accident opposite here. Remember?"

"I wasn't here at the time," said Brink.

"There's a car rolling along the street outside," said the detective. "There's some hoods in it—guys who do dirty work for Big Jake Connors. I can't prove a thing, but it looks like they had ideas about this place. About thirty yards up the street a sawed-off shotgun goes off. Very peculiar. It sends a load of buckshot through a side window of your place."

Brink said with an air of surprise: "Oh! That must have been what broke the window!"

"Yeah," said Fitzgerald. "But the interesting thing is that the flash of the shotgun burned all the hair off the head of the guy that was doin' the drivin'. It didn't scratch him, just scorched his hair off. It scared him silly."

Brink grinned faintly, but he said pleasantly: "Tsk. Tsk. Tsk."

"He jams down the accelerator and rams a telephone pole," pursued