Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [1]
A rattle of knuckles at the door announced a narrow-faced man with thin hair and a toothbrush mustache slid into the room.
"Hi, Laff, howza boy?" the newcomer rubbed knuckly hands together. He wore a purple shirt and white suspenders supporting trousers cut high above bony hips.
"Hello, Spender," O'Leary greeted him without enthusiasm.
"Say, Laff, you couldn't slip me a five until Tuesday?"
"I'm busted, Spender. Besides which, you owe me five."
"Hey, what's the book?" Spender edged in beside him and poked at the pages. "When do you get time to read all this stuff? Pretty deep, huh? You're a funny guy; always like studying."
"This is a racy one," O'Leary said. "The press it was printed on was smashed with crowbars by a crowd of aroused peasants. Then they ran the author down and gave him the full werewolf treatment—silver bullet, stake through the heart—the works."
"Wow!" Spender recoiled. "You studying to be a werewolf, O'Leary?"
"No, I'm more interested in the vampire angle. That's the one where you turn into a bat—"
"Look, Laff, that ain't funny. You know I'm kind of like superstitious. You shouldn't ought to read them books."
O'Leary looked at the other speculatively. "What I need now is some practical experience—"
"Yeah, well, I'll see you, boy." Spender backed out the door.
O'Leary finished his repast, then stretched out on the lumpy bed. The water stains on the ceiling hadn't changed since yesterday, he noted. The opalescent globe shielding the sixty-watt bulb dangling on its kinked cord still contained the same number of dead flies. The oleander bush still scraped restlessly on the screen.
He flipped open Schimmerkopf's book at random and skimmed the print-packed pages. The sections on mesmerism were routine stuff, but a passage on autohypnosis caught his eye:
That part made sense, O'Leary nodded. It had happened to him just a few nights ago. It was almost as though his awareness had been attuned to a different channel of existence; as though he had emerged from half-sleep at the wrong floor, so to speak, and stepped off the elevator into a strange world, not totally different, but subtly rearranged—until the shock of realization had jarred him back to the familiar level of stained wallpaper and the lingering memory of Brussels sprouts boiled long ago. And if you could produce the effect at will . . .
O'Leary read on, looking for precise instructions. Three pages further on he found a line or two of specifics:
Lafayette considered. He owned no gems—not even glass ones. Perhaps a spoon would work. But no—his ring; just the thing. He tugged at the heavy silver ornament on the middle finger of his left hand. No use; the knuckle was too big. After all, he'd been wearing it for years now. But he didn't need to remove the ring; he could stare at it just as well where it was, on his hand.
Lying on his back in the twilit room, he looked up at ancient floral-patterned paper, faded now to an off-white. This would be a good place to start. Now, suppose the ceiling were high, spacious, painted a pale gold color . . .
O'Leary persevered, whispering persuasively to himself. It was easy, the professor had said; just a matter of focusing the Psychical Energies and attuning the Will . . .
Lafayette sighed, blinked through the gloom at the blotched nongolden ceiling; he rose and went to the icebox for another warm beer. The bed squeaked as he sat on its edge. He might have known it wouldn't work. Old Professor Schimmerkopf was a quack, after all. Nothing