The Man with the X-Ray Eyes
Dream World – February 1957
(1957)*
Randall Garrett
(as by Leonard G. Spencer)

	You were too close when a bomb went off. You land in a hospital—and your nurse walks in completely nude! Then you realize what's happened—you have X-ray eyes. So how are you going to use this strange gift? Spend all your time ogling the gals? Not by a long shot. It's good fun, but you want to make a buck so you head for Las Vegas as fast as you can get your pants on. But does fame and fortune follow? Read the story of what happened to you and find out.
	
-

	Arthur Turpin was the part of Exercise Q-Bomb which the public never heard about.

	The Army brought him in for medical examination after the explosion of the first Q-Bomb at Desert Rock, Nevada, a location which has been aptly described as a wonderful place to throw old razor blades and, therefore, a wonderful place for superbomb experiments. He was a slightly bewildered young man who - seemed to be in perfect physical shape. The exhaustive medical tests confirmed this, the military brass scratched its collective head, and Arthur Turpin, who should have been dead from radiation poisoning, was prepared for discharge from the emergency medical center in Desert Rock.

	"I could have saved those doctors all that trouble," Arthur told his nurse on the eve of his departure. "I knew there wasn't a thing wrong with me."

	The nurse, Lieutenant Alice Davenport, shook her head and said, "You're a very lucky young man. You were close enough to Ground Zero to absorb enough radiation to kill a regiment."

	Arthur shrugged. He'd begun to enjoy his brief role as a medical curiosity. "Couldn't help it," he beamed. "I was delivering a planeload of orchids from Yucatan to the Golden Heron Hotel in Las Vegas, when—" 

	"I know the story," Nurse Davenport said. "Your plane came down with engine trouble."

	"Sure. How was I to know I was smack dab in the middle of a superbomb test?"

	Nurse Davenport leaned over Arthur's bed. "Just one more thermometer, Arthur. They insist on that."

-

	Arthur shrugged again. The late afternoon sun, slanting in through the window, highlighted the gold in Alice Davenport's hair. The crisply starched nurse's uniform swelled and curved toward Arthur. The thermometer was thrust toward his mouth. With looks like that, he thought, she ought to be in one of those supper clubs over in Las Vegas. She ought ...

	Arthur gaped.

	He almost swallowed the thermometer.

	Nurse Davenport's crisp nurse's whites shimmered—and vanished. The rest of the hospital room was perfectly intact: the two chairs, the other bed, the screen, the door to the bathroom, and the partially ajar closet door. But Alice Davenport apparently leaned over his bed wearing nothing but pink undergarments and Nevada-desert-sun-tanned skin. Then the pink dissolved, shimmering, and two strips of almost shocking white crossed Alice's firm, lovely, tanned body.

	Too stunned for any reaction but the most obvious one, Arthur reached up and touched her to confirm or deny the sudden disappearance of her clothing. What he felt was the starched smoothness of the now unseen nurse's whites. Alice wasn't naked at all. She only looked naked.

	She also looked furious. "You—you pinched me!"

	"Amazing," Arthur said.

	"And stop looking at me like that. As if I—as if I, well, you know, like it says in all the mystery novels. 'He undressed her with his eyes.' "

	"Yes," Arthur said. "Yes, indeed."

	"And don't talk with a thermometer in your mouth."

	"But I've got to tell you! I did it with my eyes! I must have, because it feels like you're wearing—"

	"I told you to stop that!" Alice slapped his face. The thermometer fell out of his mouth. Alice poked it back in so hard it almost disappeared. "Now keep still."

	"I'll prove it to you," Arthur said.

	"You'll prove what to me?"

	"That I can feel what you're wearing but can't see it."

	"Wh-what did you say?"

	"You're wearing pink—well, you know. There's a monogram on the—the bottom part. Right?"

-

	Alice's face looked like a boiled lobster. But an astounded boiled lobster.

	"Furthermore," said Arthur with a momentary scientific detachment that surprised him, "you have a small, rather attractive mole directly below your left—uh, on the left side of your torso near the ribs."

	Alice slapped his face again, and removed the thermometer. "Aha! You have a fever. I knew it. You're delirious."

	Arthur leered. He couldn't help it. "Who wouldn't run a fever at a time like this?"

	"Well, it isn't much of a fever," Alice admitted. "Then you must have been spying in the nurse's dorms. You peeping Tom!"

	"They never let me out of this room except for tests and you know it."

	"Then you can actually see through—what I'm wearing?"

	Arthur nodded contentedly.

	"Don't just lie there. Shut your eyes!"

	Arthur smiled dreamily.

	Alice whipped the sheet off the unoccupied bed and draped it, cloakwise, about her shoulders. "It's no use," Arthur said, beaming, "I can see through that too. I guess you better go and tell the brass hats. They were looking for something peculiar to happen to me, weren't they?"

	Wincing but dutiful, Alice said: "Please locate and describe that mole again."

	Arthur did so. Alice flushed, going through lobster to boiled beet. Arthur had always wondered where a pretty blonde girl's blushes started from. Now he had the facts.

	"I'll be right back," Alice said, and swished angrily from the room.

	She was gone an hour and a half. The sun had set, Arthur had supped on standard Army fare and had been told to dress in his street clothing. The night nurse—a middle-aged, stiff-backed, hatchet-faced spinster whom Arthur secretly called The Bayonet—came on duty.

	"Have to admit you've been a good patient," The Bayonet rasped.

	Arthur said nothing. He hoped his new gift would not manifest itself now, with The Bayonet as a specimen. It did not.

	"We'll miss you here," The Bayonet said. "Like a well-behaved patient. Goodness knows they're rare in the Army."

-

	Just then Alice came back. Over her nurse's whites she wore a heavy cardigan sweater buttoned to the neck. "Does this help?" she asked, standing with her hands and arms arranged awkwardly in front of her body.

	"Does what help?" The Bayonet asked.

	"Nothing," Alice said.

	Arthur smiled noncommittally, and said nothing. He was enjoying this, even though he now saw Alice exactly as The Bayonet saw her, fully clothed. "What did they say?" Arthur finally asked.

	"I told them you had—well, you know—" 

	"X-ray eyes?"

	"Yes. X-ray eyes, that's what I said."

	"What did you say?" The Bayonet asked.

	Arthur scowled. "Are they going to keep me here for more tests?" he asked glumly.

	Alice bit her lip, shook her head, and managed to look very unhappy. "Far from it," she said. "You're free to go."

	"But—"

	Alice's big blue eyes filled with tears of indignation. "They don't believe me!"

	"But you told them the truth!"

	"They said I'd been working too hard. Eight months without a leave. Much too hard. They drew up leave papers for me. I'm on leave right now."

	"Well, the way I see it," Arthur said cheerfully, "I've earned a little vacation myself. Besides, I have to collect on that planeload of orchids. It's less than eighty miles to Las Vegas. Want to join me?"

	"I don't know what I want. I want to think. Please leave me alone."

	"Don't bite my head off," Arthur said. "After all it isn't my fault, is it?"

	"Of course it's your fault. If you didn't have those X-ray eyes and if I hadn't gone and told the truth without thinking, I was up for promotion to captain. Now I'm sure they're going to pass over me. And all on account of your darned X-ray eyes!"

	"You two," said The Bayonet coldly, "are a couple of refugees from Section Eight."

	Ignoring her, Arthur said: "Sure you won't join me in Vegas?"

	But Alice ran from the room crying.

	Disappointed but looking forward to his week-end in Las Vegas, Arthur said goodbye to The Bayonet and headed for the administration wing of the hospital—and freedom. He met Alice in the hallway. She'd been crying, but she sniffled and said angrily: "Besides, what do you have to go to Las Vegas for? The girls in the nightclubs there are already undressed, aren't they? What's in it for you, you—X-ray eyed Cassanova?"

	Deciding that he would understand his X-ray vision a lot sooner than he would understand women, Arthur left the hospital and began to walk toward Las Vegas on State 91. A Caddy with California plates and a platinum blonde at the wheel who looked as phoney as a fifteen-dollar-bill stopped to pick him up ...

-

	The sign said: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE INCORPORATED TOWNSHIP OF PARADISE A.

	"Paradise A?" Arthur asked the synthetic blonde. They had seen the neon of Las Vegas' famous Strip for miles across the Nevada desert through the clear, cool night air. "What's Paradise A?"

	"Ain't you ever been in Vegas before?" the synthetic blonde asked in disbelief.

	"No," said Arthur, "I was delivering a planeload of Central American orchids to the Golden Heron, and—"

	"Golden Heron, honey? Ain't that wonderful? I'm going to the Heron myself. It's down the road a way in Paradise B."

	"Yes," said Arthur. "Tell me about these Paradises?"

	"Aw, I never understood so good. They save taxes that way—incorporating. Well, here we are, Daddy."

	They turned off the road and rolled to a smooth stop in front of a gold sandstone building just a little smaller than the Empire State Building lying on its side and with more glittering glass than the Corning Works could turn out with night-shifts.

	"Good evening, Miss Cynthia," the braided, brassed and be-medaled doorman greeted. On closer examination, Arthur discerned that the medals were ten-dollar gold pieces.

	"Hiya, Daddy," Miss Cynthia said. The doorman looked pained.

	Miss Cynthia turned to Arthur with a smile that showed even white teeth. "Maybe I'll see ya inside, Daddy," she said.

	Just then Arthur's trick vision asserted itself. His eyes widened. He sighed. For all her apparent equipment, Miss Cynthia was decidedly flat-chested, but it was nice to learn—firsthand, as it were—how it was done.

	"Wacha staring at?" Miss Cynthia asked.

	"Absolutely nothing," Arthur said truthfully.

-

	The gleaming glass door swung open for them, Miss Cynthia undulating off in one direction, toward the Club Heron; Arthur in another, toward the manager's office.

	An efficient-looking receptionist in a man-tailored suit, horn-rimmed glasses, and a voice that would freeze a lava-flow sat at a modernistic desk before a closed door which bore the legend: MR. CHESTER MORNY, MGR. "There was something?" the receptionist asked.

	"Mr. Morny, please. Mr. Arthur Turpin calling."

	"You have an appointment?"

	"I'm four days late, but it wasn't my fault."

	"Was it Mr. Morny's fault?" the receptionist asked coldly.

	"Let's just say it was an unavoidable delay."

	The receptionist's mouth opened a quarter inch. "Say, aren't you the wilted orchid man?"

	"What do you mean, wilted? I flew those orchids in, under refrigeration, from Yucatan. The bill comes to ten thousand dollars, even. I've come to collect."

	"Ten thousand dollars for a planeload of wilted orchids? Mr. Morny was very mad. You ought to just go away."

	"I'll see Mr. Morny, please."

	The receptionist studied her carmined fingernails "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Turpin. Mr. Morny isn't in."

	Arthur looked at the massive oak door. He was getting the hang of his X-ray vision now. It was like holding your breath optically. You held your breath optically and things dissolved. Like the massive oak door. The office behind it was enormous, with a carpet that looked as if it needed mowing, glass-and-teakwood furniture, and a man sitting at a desk against the far wall counting money. There seemed to be a great deal of money and the man appeared to get a great deal of pleasure from counting it.

	"He's in there, all right," Arthur said. "He's sitting at his desk, counting money. It's more money than I ever saw in my life. If he just left the small change for me, it would probably cover my bill."

	The receptionist's mouth opened a full half inch. In lesser women that would be the equivalent of a dead faint. "But how did you ever—I mean, I said Mr. Morny was definitely not in, to you or to anyone. Good evening, Mr. Turpin."

	Arthur should have been angry, but he was more interested, at the moment, in his X-ray eyes. He'd really got the hang of them now. He stared at the receptionist and made her man-tailored suit dissolve. The receptionist's man-tailored suit covered a boyish figure. There was nothing there for Arthur—or anyone who'd seen Alice Davenport. But there was ten thousand dollars coming to him—and a kind of wild talent with which to earn them.

	"I'll be across the lobby in the Club Heron if Mr. Morny changes his mind," Arthur said.

	"He won't change his mind."

	Arthur grinned. "You never know," he said, and went across the lobby to the Golden Heron's big gambling room. A good place to pass the time while waiting.

-

	It was straight out of a Hollywood Cinemascopic, Stereophonic musical—or maybe, for once, Hollywood had borrowed its ideas from Las Vegas and not the other way around. It was glitter and bright lights and expensively-dressed gamblers and stone-faced, bored-voiced croupiers, and black-jack and craps and roulette and chuck-a-luck and big green felt-covered poker tables in back. It was noise and confusion and the sudden tensions and abrupt silences of fortunes being exchanged at the drop of a card.

	Arthur found a table at which they were dealing draw poker, jacks or better. He used the five hundred dollars he'd been holding to pay for the repair of his single-engined airplane and bought chips. He lost four hundred in the first four pots, and except for the remaining hundred in chips, did not even have carfare back to Desert Rock.

	Then he thought: What's the matter with me? I've forgotten all about my eyes.

	He folded from the next pot when he saw, through the backs of the cards, a flush in hearts facing him across the table. In the following pot he was dealt two tens and two sevens and drew a third ten. A man across the table had also drawn a full house, with trip-nines. The man placed a cautious bet, expecting a raise, but there wasn't any other power at the table. Arthur called the small bet with his remaining money, and won the pot. His X-ray eyes told him to drop out of the next three after the ante, but he won the fourth with three sixes. He now had a base of sixteen hundred dollars with which to work. Half an hour later he'd won fourteen thousand dollars.

	He began to feel guilty. It wasn't house-money: there was only one house-player in the game. Still, he thought, a man could make a fortune like this. Las Vegas, then the Haitian gambling casinos, then Cuba, finally Monte Carlo. Why feel guilty? Why stop? A man came to the poker table with whatever talents he had, didn't he? Arthur wasn't cheating. He simply had more talents than anyone else. He had X-ray eyes.

	There was a pause in the play. The house-player got up, excusing himself. Another house-player took his place. It was the synthetic blonde, Miss Cynthia.

	"Well, hello, there, Daddy," she greeted. "I see ya doing all right."

	"Pretty good," Arthur said.

	Miss Cynthia, who didn't seem to have a brain in her head, had plenty of brains for poker. Before long the other players had drifted away one by one and a large crowd—perhaps half the people in the casino—had come to watch Arthur and Miss Cynthia match poker faces. The pile of chips before Arthur had now lost all meaning to him. The blues alone were worth over a hundred thousand dollars ...

	"How many?" Miss Cynthia said.

	Arthur had a pair of Jacks. "I'll take three." This was after the initial betting. Miss Cynthia had bet five thousand dollars, house-money, and Arthur had called her.

	"I'll play these," Miss Cynthia said after giving Arthur his three cards. He drew a ten, a seven, and a king. He looked at the backs of Miss Cynthia's pat hand as she repeated her five-thousand-dollar bet. She had a three, a seven, an eight, a king and a queen. The suits were not identical. She had made a ten-thousand-dollar bluff and she was so very good at it that ordinarily it would have worked. With Arthur, of course, it could not. He called her five thousand, and bumped five. Miss Cynthia raised one eyebrow, lit a cigarette, smiled, shrugged, and folded her hand. Arthur pulled the money as a collective sigh went up around the table.

	"Guy's got nerves of ice," someone said.

	"Ice water in his veins, you mean," another man answered.

	Someone tapped Arthur's shoulder as the next hand was dealt. He craned his neck, forgetting to disconnect the X-ray vision. He recognized the tiny mole on the otherwise flawless skin. He grinned in surprise and delight and looked up at her face for the confirmation he didn't really need. It was Alice Davenport, looking very lovely in—or out—of civilian clothes.

	"Well, hello there," Arthur said.

-

	Smiling, Alice bent down and whispered in his ear. But there was no smile in her voice. "Do you realize what you're doing? You're cheating. Morally if not any other way."

	"Oh, yes? They owe me ten thousand dollars!"

	"Sure, but with what you've got in front of you, you could use ten-thousand-dollar-bills for cigarette lighters."

	Arthur beamed. "It's a nice thought, isn't it?"

	"Can you open?" Miss Cynthia asked.

	Arthur fanned his cards with little concern, studying them. Then, suddenly, he hoped the expression didn't show on his face. He'd drawn his first spectacular hand of the evening. Four—count them—Aces. Alice gaped.

	"Stop that," Arthur whispered. "And how'd you find me?"

	"Who said I came looking for you?"

	"Well, didn't you?"

	"I—I guess so. I wanted to see what would happen to you. I felt responsible because they wouldn't believe me at the hospital."

	"Responsible? What could possibly happen to me? And you still haven't answered my question."

	"Oh, that. You talked about a man at the Golden Heron who owed you ten thousand dollars for your planeload of Central American orchids. It was obvious you'd come here."

	"Can you open?" Miss Cynthia repeated.

	"Oh," Arthur said offhandedly, "I guess so. Say, twenty thousand dollars?"

	Oo's and ah's floated up from around the table. Arthur tossed a handful of blue chips to the center and Miss Cynthia counted hers out carefully. "Wouldn't be trying to bluff right back at little old me, Daddy, would you?" she demanded.

	"Who," said Arthur, "me?"

	Alice whispered: "I still say that morally you have no right—"

	"O.K.," Arthur beamed at her. "I'll play this one without you-know-what. Promise."

	"Really?"

	"Yes," said Arthur.

	Alice looked at his fanned cards again and whispered, "Big deal. How can you lose?"

	"Cards," Miss Cynthia said.

	"I guess I'll play these," Arthur told her.

	"One to the dealer," said Miss Cynthia, unperturbed. She discarded and drew the top card from the deck. Arthur had an impulse to read it through the back, but fought it down. After all, he'd promised, hadn't he? Besides, the chances of Miss Cynthia drawing to beat four aces were astronomical.

	"Well?" Miss Cynthia said after a while.

	"Twenty more," Arthur said. He meant twenty thousand, and everyone knew it. Everyone watched and waited, hardly breathing. Even the croupiers at the deserted roulette wheels came over to watch.

	"Let's say your twenty, and twenty better," Miss Cynthia told him quietly.

	With meticulous care, Arthur got a cigarette going, inhaled, blew smoke, studied the table through it. He fought down an impulse to use his X-ray vision.

	"You promised," Alice said triumphantly.

	"Yeah," Arthur admitted. "I promised." What was the difference? he asked himself. He was sweating for nothing. Say Miss Cynthia held two pair. Say she was lucky and drew a full house. Arthur's four aces still would beat her. Or say she'd also drawn four of a kind pat—unlikely as it was—and had called for one card to throw him off. Whatever four of a kind she had couldn't beat his four aces. Or say she'd held four cards to a straight or a flush and had filled it. She still lost, didn't she? The only hand that could beat his was a straight flush, and who ever heard of a straight flush and four aces in the same draw.

	"I'll call your raise," Arthur said slowly, "and bump you back twenty thousand more."

	Miss Cynthia grunted, called him Daddy, and raised again. "You promised," Alice said once more.

	Everyone thought she was telling Arthur he'd promised to bump Miss Cynthia back. He did so. And so did Miss Cynthia. Soon the mound of chips at the center of the table was enormous. By the time Miss Cynthia contented herself with just calling him, Arthur had very few chips remaining in front of him.

-

	He unfolded his hand dramatically and said, "Four bulls." He began to rake in the money.

	"Read 'em and weep," a man behind him said. "Read and weep, house gal!"

	Miss Cynthia smiled her canine-tooth smile for the first time at the table. "I'm sorry for you, Daddy," she said in a voice which told everyone she was really not sorry at all, "but you'd better put your little old hands back in your pocket or wherever you keep them." She dropped her cards face up on the table.

	There was a stunned silence, then groans of sympathy for Arthur. The near-impossible had happened. Miss Cynthia had drawn a single card in the face of Arthur's four Aces and had filled a straight flush, Queen high, with it. She was the winner.

	"I—I'm sorry," Alice said. "But I guess maybe it serves you right."

	Arthur counted his chips disconsolately. He had a little more than seven thousand dollars left. "Not quitting, are you?" he asked Miss Cynthia.

	"Not if you aren't, Daddy." The crowd settled back expectantly.

	At that moment a huge man in a monkey suit drifted over to the table with the receptionist in the man-tailored suit. "That's him, Otto," the receptionist said in her icy voice. "I'm sure of it. Arthur Turpin."

	Otto wrapped fingers as big as salamis around Arthur's elbow. "I'm sorry, folks," he said in a surprisingly mild and cultured voice, "but this gentleman is all finished playing for the moment. Will you come with me, sir?"

	"I don't see any reason why I should," Arthur protested.

	"You're sure, Louise?" Otto asked the receptionist.

	"Positive," Louise said.

	"Boss wants to see you, Jack," Otto said, the cultured smoothness fading from his voice and leaving more than a suggestion of menace.

	"He been cheating?" one of the previous losers at the poker game demanded almost gleefully. "Might a known it."

	"Didn't say a thing about cheating, folks," Otto said. "Everything's going to be fine. Just fine. Go right ahead playing as if nothing happened." He whispered so only Arthur could hear: "You coming without trouble, Jack, or do I break your arm off and let you carry it back to Mr. Morny's office? How about it?"

	"I'll go with you," said Arthur, deciding that the big man could probably do just that.

	"Listen, please!" Alice cried earnestly. "If he's in some kind of trouble because of what he's done, it's probably my fault. I'm a nurse. I'm—his nurse. I can explain everything. May I come too?"

	"Sister," said Otto, "if you can explain everything then you got no choice. You don't have to ask. You just come along with us, and no fuss, huh?"

	Arthur stood up. Otto's free hand took Alice's elbow, and the big man steered them both away from the poker table. Several patrons who'd wanted to play for stakes considerably smaller than those Arthur had been playing for, immediately sat down at the table. Miss Cynthia dealt as if nothing had happened.

-

	Chester Morny was a trim little man with a moustache and a Nevada suntan and hard cold eyes as expressive as agates. His hair was rumpled. So was his tuxedo jacket. "You're Arthur Turpin?" he asked.

	"Yes," said Arthur, "I am. And if you're Chester Morny, you owe me ten thousand dollars."

	"You want I should hit him, boss?" Otto asked.

	Chester Morny shook his head and said: "Louise, will you please repeat what Mr. Turpin told you."

	"He said you were in the office counting money, chief."

	Chester Morny nodded. "Could he possibly have known that?"

	"No, sir. Only you and Otto and I know that Friday night's your time for recording the weekly gross. Only the armored truck driver and guard—"

	"But there weren't any," Chester Morny said coolly. "That is, they were a phoney driver and a phoney guard, Mr. Turpin. Your confederates, may I suggest?"

	"My confederates?"

	"Yes, Mr. Turpin. It's pretty clear that you used the planeload of orchids as a front, as an excuse to get in here and—"

	"That's absolutely ridiculous!"

	"—as they say, case the joint."

	"I never did any such thing."

	"No?" Louise asked sweetly. "Then how did you know Mr. Morny was in there counting the money? Can you tell us that?"

	"You're darned right I can," Arthur said hotly. "I can see through walls and doors and things, that's how."

	"He can see through walls and doors and things," Morny said dryly.

	"You want I should hit him, boss?" Otto asked, more hopefully this time.

	"I will let you know," Morny told the eager henchman, "when such a possibility interests me." He turned smiling to Arthur. "Now surely, Mr. Turpin, you can't expect me to believe that."

	Arthur scanned the room quickly, nervously. On the wall behind the desk was a picture showing the facade of the Gold Heron in full color. Behind the picture with his X-ray vision Arthur saw a safe. "I'll prove it to you," he said. "Your safe is—" he pointed dramatically at the picture—"over there."

	"That doesn't prove a thing," Louise sneered. "Can you think of a better place for a safe?"

	"Wait a minute," Arthur said. "I'm not finished. In the safe is—let me see—a manilla envelope containing IOU's written by several prominent people, some jewelry, and a file drawer of letters."

-

	Arthur stepped back, turned away from the picture, and stared triumphantly at Chester Morny. "There, doesn't that prove my point?" he demanded.

	"Hit him, Otto," Morny said.

	The big man's club-like fist lashed out, the room tilted, there was a numbness in Arthur's jaw, and he sat down against the wall. He struggled slowly but angrily to his feet: it was one thing when the Army doctors hadn't believed Alice Davenport's story of his wild talent; it was another thing altogether when he demonstrated it and was doubted. He rushed at Otto, but the big man fended him off easily with one hand and asked Moray: "You want I should really cool him, boss?"

	Morny shook his head. "You outsmarted yourself, Turpin," he said. "You just proved—if there ever was any doubt—that you masterminded the robbery. For who but one of the thiefs would have known the contents of the safe? No, Turpin, you can't get away with any cock-and-bull stories about seeing through walls. A hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars was stolen from this safe. I want that money."

	"Don't look at me," Arthur said. "Call the cops."

	Otto snorted. "Who do ya think the cops is in Paradise B?" he asked. "I'm the cops."

	"What he means," Morny explained, "is that since the townships of Paradise A and B were incorporated for the convenience of the hotels, the hotel private detectives make up the police forces."

	"And I'm the house dick here," Otto declaimed. "You want the cops—You got 'em here."

-

	Morny went on: "As you may have noticed when coming into the Golden Heron, there is a stone and barbed wire fence—the barbed wire masked in shrubbery—surrounding the hotel. All exits through this fence are now closed. Somewhere in the hotel or on its grounds are your confederates. I want them and I want the money, but I don't want the publicity of a major robbery. Therefore," finished Morny in a cold, precise voice, "find your confederates, find the money, return it to me, and you're free to go."

	"But I want my money!" Arthur protested. "I won seven thousand dollars at the poker table. If they're still holding that for me, I'll count it as part of the unpaid bill. That means you still owe me three thousand dollars for delivering a planeload of orchids from Yucatan."

	Morny ignored him. The girl stays with me," he said. "Security, you might say."

	"But she's only a nurse at the—"

	"Sure, and you can see through walls and I read tea leaves. Now, will you be good enough to get going, Turpin? Are your confederates guests at the hotel? Are they hiding on the grounds somewhere?"

	"I demand that you release Miss Davenport."

	"Jack," growled Otto, "you ain't in a position to demand nothing."

	"May I tell him something?" Alice asked Morny.

	And, when Morny nodded, she went over to Arthur and whispered: "Don't worry about me. If the real crooks are hiding out in the hotel somewhere, you ought to be able to locate them with your X-ray eyes. So locate them and we're free to go. Please, Arthur. Will you try?"

	"Please? Don't be silly, I've got to."

-

	In spite of their plight, Alice smiled. "Well, here's your chance to be what the psychologists say is everybody's secret desire: a Peeping Tom to end all Peeping Toms."

	"Very funny," Arthur said. But buried somewhere at the back of his mind was a pleas-ant, almost a tingling, sensation at the thought of seeing the idle rich—most of them from Hollywood's fabulous movie colony on the other side of the high Sierras—at play.

	"Chief," the receptionist told Morny suddenly, "I think someone ought to go with him."

	"Otto will be watching him at all times, Louise. But if you were going to volunteer, thank you just the same."

	"Otto's plenty busy, isn't he? Besides, I don't mean to follow Mr. Turpin. I mean to accompany him, to be with him at all times and make sure he doesn't contact or warn his confederates in any way. I'll be perfectly safe. Turpin wouldn't dream of trying anything with his moll in your custody."

	"I'm not his moll!" Alice cried.

	Morny nodded slowly. "You have a point, Louise. Yes. Yes, indeed. You may accompany him."

	With a cold smile, Louise found Arthur's elbow and tucked her hand under it. "Shall we go?" she said, almost sweetly.

	"Unfortunately," Arthur told her, "yes."

	They left so swiftly that Alice did not even have a chance to say good-bye.

	Twenty minutes later Louise told Arthur: "That's the swimming pool sundeck ahead there."

	Arthur heard the sound of happy voices, laughter, splashing water. "But it's almost midnight," he protested.

	"We have midnight swims at the Heron."

	They stepped out on the hard surface of the sundeck. Blue spotlights gleamed on the surface of the water. A waiter came by with a tray of cocktails and Louise plucked two martinis off. "Here," she said, giving one to Arthur, "to us."

	"What do you mean, to us?"

	Louise clinked glasses with him. "It's obvious, isn't it?"

	"Not to me, it isn't."

	"Then I'll tell you. Mr. Morny assumed you had, as he put it, cased the joint. But if you cased it so thoroughly that you knew the complete contents of the safe, that would mean that you'd already opened the safe. If you already opened it, you wouldn't have needed any confederates to do the actual job for you while you were out front playing poker. Conclusion is," she went on coldly, precisely, "you knew the contents of the safe without opening it. Either I told you, or Otto told you, or Mr. Morny told you himself. But I don't believe that for a minute. Result: that means you actually can see through walls and things."

	Arthur sighed. "I'm glad somebody believes me. Will you please go back and tell Mr. Morny so Miss Davenport and I can get out of here?"

-

	Louise smiled at him. It was quite a smile. It did things to her cold, aloof face. It made her beautiful. "Not on your life," she said. "That's why I volunteered to go along with you." She drew Arthur off into a stand of yellow oleander bushes masking the sundeck. She came close to him in the darkness.

	"Delightful fragrance," she said. "Isn't it?"

	"Yes," said Arthur.

	"It's my perfume," said Louise.

	"Oh," said Arthur.

	"Here," said Louise.

	Arthur felt his head drawn forward and down. The fragrance of musk and oleander and jasmine came closer, enveloping him. Something soft prodded his face and the next thing he knew he was being held by warm soft arms and kissed by warm, moving, parting, exciting lips.

	"Arthur," Louise murmured. "Arthur, don't you see? With your ability to see through walls and things, there isn't anything we couldn't do. We could clean out every gambling casino in Vegas, and then—"

	Arthur took a deep breath. Louise's kissing had stirred him. Her cold, aloof look was only a front: a hot-blooded girl, if a coldly calculating one, hid behind it. He interrupted almost reluctantly: "I already thought of that possibility." He leered, trying a cold front of his own. "I didn't think a partner was necessary. In fact—" as the aura of Louise's fragrance came toward him again—"I think I'd better get out of here right now."

	He turned and took three strides across the sundeck and collided with something big and unyielding.

	"Where ya think ya going, Jack?" Otto demanded.

	Louise came out of the oleanders. "Over to the cottages," she suggested quickly. "We may have a lead."

	"Yeah? What kind of lead?"

	"I'll tell you when I'm sure myself," Louise said in her frostiest voice. "Meanwhile, if you'll just leave us alone ..."

	"Boss said I ought to keep an eye on you."

	"Oh, yes? You're going to ruin everything. Go back and tell the chief I said so."

	"Well, I dunno—"

	"Come on, Arthur," Louise said, and took his hand, and ran.

	Their feet flew on the sun-deck, then along a lamplit path bordered by more oleanders, by hibiscus and fragrant sand verbena, then across an expanse of sand and through a parking lot in which rows of five-thousand-dollar sedans and more expensive sports cars were lined.

	"We're not going to the cottages," Louise panted. "We're going to the main building. They'll never think of looking for us there. Besides, that's where my room is."

-

	And, not many moments later, Louise shut the door behind them, crossed the floor to the window wall and drew the draw drapes, then turned on the light. The light, which came from hidden recesses in the wall, was faintly blue. It was a blue room, with blue amorphous carpet strips on a blue tile base, blue drapes, even blue tinted furniture, reflected in a blue-tinted mirror wall and a blue-tinted mirror covering the ceiling. Only the bed—a large Hollywood bed—was dazzlingly white.

	"You like it?" Louise asked. "The bedspread's ermine."

	"Ermine," repeated Arthur.

	"You don't mind if I change out of my business clothes, do you? Won't be a minute."

	"Sure," said Arthur, thinking that as soon as she went into the curtained dressing alcove he would get out, but fast.

	"So we won't be disturbed," Louise said, and crossed to the door. It had a keylock inside and out. Louise locked it from the inside and slipped the key where women have been known to slip keys. Then she went into the dressing alcove and the curtain rustled and moved.

	"Why don't you make us some drinks?" Louise suggested. "Fixings in the highboy."

	Obediently, Arthur went to the highboy, opened it and found a small, well-provisioned bar. As in a dream, he mixed a pitcher of martinis. This, he told himself, couldn't be happening. He was clearly being propositioned. More than propositioned, he was being madly pursued.

	For his X-ray eyes, he told himself. But it was nice to think otherwise, as it had been nice to think of cleaning out every big gambling establishment in North America before heading on to greener pastures on the Riviera ...

	"I told you it wouldn't take a minute," Louise breathed.

-

	The curtains parted. Louise came into the room wearing a pale blue fog. At least in the blue light it looked like a pale blue fog. Actually it was a peignoir as tenuous as Arthur's fading dreams of glory.

	He'd been wrong about Louise's figure. Boyish was the wrong word. Louise was coltish, with long firm limbs and the loveliest of shadows and curves under the clinging silk of the peignoir. Arthur's pulses pounded with mounting excitement as she drifted toward him, the silk of the peignoir rustling faintly. Then all at once he remembered Alice Davenport's words. She'd said he would not need his X-ray vision in Las Vegas. She'd said it angrily because she thought Las Vegas would turn his head. Well, wasn't she right? Hadn't she come after him, because she felt responsible? Wasn't she Chester Moray's hostage, thanks to him?

	"The drinks?" Louise purred.

	"Here," Arthur said dismally.

-

	Louise clinked her glass against his glass. They drank. Arthur hadn't eaten since leaving the hospital and the martini raced through his veins to his head. He felt curiously light-headed. It was an interesting, and a most pleasant, sensation. He put his glass down on the highboy. When he lifted it again, it was full. Strange, he thought dreamily. He'd emptied it. He drank. Louise smiled at him. His head whirled and whirled. The blue fog rustled closer. He took three steps backward and sat down on the white ermine bedspread. The blue fog settled alongside him. Louise's face blurred up at him. Louise smiled seductively and said something. He didn't understand the words, but the words didn't really matter. Louise touched him. Her lips touched his lips, and clung there. They settled back slowly on the white ermine. Blue fog and jasmine and whirling head ...

	"The gadget," Louise said from a long way off.

	"Gadget? What gadget?" Dreamily.

	"The gadget you use. Come on, Arthur. Arthur ..."

	"Gadget I use for what?"

	"The gadget you use to see through walls and things. Can't I just see it, Arthur darling? Can't I just have one look at it."

	"No gadget," Arthur mumbled.

	"But Arthur, I already proved to you why I know there has to be a gadget. Arthur? Please, Arthur, just a little peek?"

	"No. You don't understand. There isn't a gadget. Just my eyes."

	"Just—your—eyes?" Louise's voice sounded distant, distrustful.

	"Just my X-ray eyes."

	He was staring at white ermine. The blue fog rose, drifted away. The blue fog's voice said, "I don't believe you. There has got to be a gadget. If you think you can play fast and loose with me, Arthur Turpin, I'll ..."

	"So don't believe me," Arthur said. "Look, am I wearing any gadget over my eyes?"

	"No-o."

	"And the door's shut?"

	"Yes, of course."

	"Then if I tell you what's in the hall on the other side of it, will you believe me?"

	"Tell me." Doubtfully.

	Arthur stared. The door dissolved.

	Arthur sat bolt upright.

	He stood up on wobbly feet. His head reeled. "Quick!" he said. "Get out of that pegnoir. I mean, get into something else. Quick!"

	"What's the matter?"

	"It's Otto, coming this way."

	Seconds later, a big fist pounded on the door.

-

	Louise rushed frantically into the dressing alcove, stripping off the peignoir and revealing the bare, beautiful ivory of her back as she ran. After his first surprise, Arthur went almost casually to the door. What was he worrying about Otto for? There wasn't anything special about Otto, was there? Just a big mass of muscle with the brains of a trained seal. But there was something special about Arthur Turpin, all right. He'd been feeling his wings, so to speak; he'd been pushed around long enough. It was clearly time to assert himself now ...

	Some of the starch went out of him when he couldn't open the door because Louise still had the key. Out in the hall Otto pounded and made threatening noises. He was pounding with something harder than his fist now. Arthur dissolved the door with his X-ray vision, and blanched. Otto was banging on the wood panel with a blue steel automatic only a little smaller than a sixteen-inch naval gun.

	In a surprisingly short time Louise came to the door wearing her man-tailored suit. Arthur held his hand out and she gave him the key without a word. She was very pale.

	"Pardon me for saying so," Arthur told her, "but I don't get you. A few minutes ago you were for dividing the financial world up between us. But now, just because Otto comes along—"

	"You don't understand. Mr. Morny has a hold on everyone working for him."

	"A hold?"

	"Call it blackmail if you want. There's a skeleton in just about every closet, isn't there? Mr. Morny found my skeleton a long time ago. I was crazy to think I could get away with anything."

	"Openupinere!" roared the enraged Otto.

	Shrugging, Arthur used the key and jerked the door in. An unprepared Otto lurched into the room and sailed across it to the dressing alcove, his hands flailing at air and finally dragging down the heavy drapes. They cloaked him from head to ankles and he staggered about the room trying to claw free of them. The more he tried, the more entangled he became.

	"Hurry," Arthur said, pushing Louise ahead of him into the hallway. He followed her, shut the door, locked it, and grinned. "That ought to hold Otto for a while," he said.

	"Mr. Morny will be furious. What are you going to do now, Arthur?" Louise was obviously frightened, but there was more respect in her voice for Arthur than there had been previously.

	"Why, find the crooks, of course. Come on."

-

	That was easier said than done. With an almost exhausted Louise trailing along, Arthur spent the remainder of the night and the early morning hours searching the Golden Heron with his X-ray vision. At first he was embarrassed by some of the middle-of-the-night and behind-closed-doors escapades his wild talent revealed to him, but after a while he achieved the necessary detachment to go ahead with his systematic search. At first he described some of the scenes to Louise as delicately as possible, naming the participants if he recognized them from moving pictures or magazine features, but Louise's eyes became so bright with a blend of curiosity and avarice—curiosity because second hand at least she was seeing how celebrities lived behind closed doors, avarice because she told Arthur they could become the most successful extortionists the world had ever seen—that Arthur soon told her nothing.

	It was past eight in the morning and the first early risers at the resort were getting up for breakfast when Arthur finished his search, without success. Theoretically, of course, the thieves could have hidden their loot somewhere on the Golden Heron's many landscaped acres. X-ray vision wouldn't help Arthur find it then, but it seemed more likely that they had kept the money with them so that, if the opportunity presented itself, they could leave the Heron's grounds at a moment's notice.

	"Well, that's that," Arthur said.

	"You didn't find it?"

	"I didn't find it."

	"What are you going to do? Mr. Morny will be furious."

	"Listen," Arthur said, "he's insured, isn't he?"

	"Yes, I suppose so. So what?"

	"So why is he so worried about losing the money? All he's got to do is put a claim in, and—"

	"The publicity."

	"I still don't get it. That kind of publicity never hurt a business like this. It would add glamor."

	"Notoriety is the last thing Mr. Morny wants."

	"Then there's still something very fishy about it. Wouldn't Morny's insurance company realize he didn't want notoriety? And if they realized it, wouldn't they respect his wishes and his needs?"

	"You lost me somewhere in there, Arthur."

	"I mean, Mr. Morny is acting mighty darned peculiar for a man who just lost almost two hundred thousand bucks and only has to make a telephone call to his insurance agent to be reimbursed."

	"So?"

	"So we're going to see Mr. Morny. Come on." 

	"But—"

	"But nothing. I'm beginning to think your Mr. Morny had me all lined up as his fall guy. If I hadn't depended so much on my X-ray vision, I'd have realized it sooner. Are you coming or aren't you?"

	"Arthur, you're so different than you were when you first came. You've suddenly changed so!"

-

	Arthur shrugged. He'd never been a milktoast, but he'd never been a Goliath-slaying David, either. He'd been a pretty ordinary guy in an anything but ordinary profession. It wasn't everyone who flew rare flowers and animal specimens up from the jungles of South and Central America for a living. But his profession had dominated, and Arthur Turpin, the individual, had never amounted to much. Now he sensed that the freak accident, the dose of Q-radiation which had so strangely altered the process of vision in his eyes and his brain, had done something else to him. It had acted, in the course of one night, as a catalyst for his personality.

	"Are you coming?" he asked again. Louise was a beautiful girl. He did not love her. Now, Alice Davenport was someone he might in time fall in love with, but that was besides the point. The point was that he, Arthur Turpin, had a perfect right to expect beautiful women—like Louise, like Alice, even like the poker-playing blonde, Miss Cynthia—to be at his beck and call. He was Arthur Turpin, wasn't he?

	"Y-yes, Arthur," Louise said dutifully.

	With her, and with a purposeful gleam in his eye, Arthur set off down a path bordered by blooming yellow oleander bushes.

-

	They reached the bedroom wing of the main building a few minutes later. The staff of the Golden Heron was busy at a hundred varied jobs getting the resort ready for its new day. Gardeners, plumbers, electricians, stonemasons, painters, polishers—all worked before the brick facade of the building in the hot, early morning desert sun. Arthur went by with Louise and they didn't even stop their work to look. Arthur glanced at the brick wall of the building, more from habit than from curiosity. The wall dissolved and a woman's bedroom took its place.

	It was Miss Cynthia, stretching languidly after a night's sleep, and wearing about what you would expect a pretty girl to be wearing when she stretched languidly after a night's sleep. Work went on all about him; naturally, he was the only one who saw. He was about to turn away with the philosophical observation that if you could see into any bower you wished, and through any garments you wished, after a while the female form became, like any other pleasure abused, an item almost of indifference. This was very unfortunate to Arthur, who was young and sufficiently hot-blooded, and he vowed not to abuse his wild talent in the future.

	But he did not turn away or shut off his X-ray vision. For just then Chester Morny entered the room on the other side of the brick wall.

	Miss Cynthia quickly cloaked her nakedness with a robe and made an indignant face. Chester Morny smiled and said something. Miss Cynthia smiled too. Chester Morny held up his hand. It was not empty. It most definitely was not empty.

	In Mr. Morny's hand was a roll of bills fat enough to choke a brontosaurus.

	"He's got it!" Arthur cried indignantly. "He had it all the time!"

	"Who?" demanded Louise. "Who has got and has had what?"

	But instead of answering, Arthur dragged her toward the building entrance.

	Three tough-looking characters reached it at about the same time they did. At first Arthur paid no attention to them, except to note that two of them seemed even bigger and tougher than Otto, and the third a considerably bigger and more confident version of Chester Morny. But then the figures went the same way that Arthur went with Louise. Across the lobby and down the hall and through the arch and down another hall. To a stop before the same door.

	"You got your hooks into Morny too, buddy?" the more capable looking version of

	Chester Morny asked Arthur.

	"Why, no. I—"

	"See if he's clean, Horse," the man said.

	One of the thugs ran a pair of hands almost the size of awol bags over Arthur's wrinkled suit. "He's clean, boss," the man called Horse said.

	Boss nodded, and knocked on the door. But how, Arthur wondered, does he know Morny's in Miss Cynthia's room?

-

	In a moment Miss Cynthia opened the door. When she saw who it was she, smiled the incredible canine smile and said, "Marty, I thought you'd never get here."

	"Who is it, Cynthia?" Chester Morny called from inside the room.

	"Telegram, Chet," Miss Cynthia said in an innocent voice. "They want you to sign personally."

	The man named Marty said: "When he comes to the door, Horse, clobber him."

	"Right, boss," the Horse said.

	Chester Morny appeared at the door, blinking. The Horse swung his right fist up, then down. It was the biggest fist Arthur had ever seen. It struck Chester Morny's head. It made a dull sound against the crown of his head and he seemed to sink half a foot into the floor. Without a sound he began to fall forward. The Horse caught him on the way down.

	Arthur took Louise's elbow and turned around. "We were just going," he said.

	"Hold it," Marty snapped. Arthur and Louise held it.

	"Tick Tock," Marty addressed the second thug, "you take Mr. Morny out to the car. Horse, you and I will escort these two."

-

	Tick Tock carried Chester Morny. The Horse produced a gun which looked like a miniature in his huge fist but actually was a .45 automatic. Arthur and Louise preceded him out the door at the end of the hall. Marty and Miss Cynthia followed them.

	"You got the money, baby?" Marty asked the poker girl.

	"You bet, honey," Miss Cynthia said. It surprised Arthur. It was the first time Miss Cynthia called someone anything but Daddy.

	"Him and his crazy ideas," Marty said.

	"You mean Chet, honey?"

	"Sure. We've got the girl. Keep the girl, he said, and we'd get the money. I went along at first, Cynthia. Then I got to thinking. If we were caught at it, the charge would be kidnaping. Why should we take the chance? I asked myself. We didn't owe Morny a cent. He owed us a hundred seventy-five grand. He—"

	"Would the girl be Alice Davenport?" Arthur asked.

	"Shut yer trap," The Horse said.

	Just then Otto came running ponderously toward them, mayhem in his small, beady eyes.

	"Take him, Horse," Marty said unconcernedly.

	The Horse and Otto met head-on. Arthur thought of the irresistible force and the immovable object, but was wrong. Perhaps The Horse was the nearest human equivalent of the irresistible force, but Otto was far from the immovable object They struck in a wild flurry of enormous arms. It lasted all of five seconds. At the end of that time, Otto was horizontal. The Horse hadn't even worked up a sweat.

	"As I was saying," Marty told Miss Cynthia calmly, "it was Morny who owed me the dough, not the other way around. I didn't want to take any chances. Why should I? I must have been crazy yesterday. What was his idea, anyway?"

	Miss Cynthia showed her canines as they approached a long, black, seven-passenger car. "He stole his own money. A hundred and seventy-five grand, exactly what he owed you."

	"He's got a nerve. He runs a gambling joint himself. Not as big as mine, sure, but he ought to know that a loser never welches."

	"He was going to pay you. He was going to collect the insurance on the money he stole himself. Then he thought the insurance company might get suspicious, and he looked around for a fall guy. He found this one." Miss Cynthia indicated Arthur.

	"You mean he was going to frame him?"

	"Not so the law could make it stick. Just enough so the insurance company wouldn't be suspicious."

	"You've got the money?"

-

	Miss Cynthia patted her false front as they got into the car. Tick Tock was behind the wheel. Chester Morny was just coming to in one of the jump seats. Marty went in front with Tick Tock, The Horse and his gun got in back with Morny, Louise,

	Miss Cynthia and Arthur, and the car rolled away.

	"Horse," said Marty after a few moments. "Blindfold them."

	The Horse did so. The blindfold was drawn tight across Arthur's eyes. Naturally he would be able to see through it, but he didn't broadcast this information. He squinted, and frowned. He could see through it, all right—but only faintly. Everything was blurry.

	"Why the blindfolds?" Chester Morny asked sullenly.

	Marty seemed quite chipper. "Because I may let you go after we get where we're going. If I do, I don't want you knowing how you've come or where you've been."

	"May let us go?" Arthur asked.

	"I wouldn't want any trouble with the law," Marty said. "What I did last night in a weak moment was kidnaping. I may have to ... well, The Horse may have to do a job on you."

	"My pleasure, boss," The Horse said with devotion to duty.

	"You—mean—" moaned Louise "—kill—us?"

	Marty grunted. Through his blindfold Arthur saw the shadowy, blurry face of The Horse. His X-ray vision was fading more every moment. Apparently it wasn't going to be permanent, and Arthur was almost glad. It had brought him nothing but trouble. But, he decided with a sigh, its permanence might be hardly more than a rhetorical consideration. For The Horse was smiling. If The Horse got his orders, he wouldn't mind killing them. All of them.

	The car drove swiftly out into the desert.

-

	"Everybody out," Marty said two hours later after they rolled to a stop.

	Awkwardly, the blindfolded prisoners piled out, The Horse following them with his .45 automatic Miss Cynthia and Marty, arm in arm and smiling, brought up the rear. A door opened, squeaking on rusted hinges. A voice said, "You got a regular delegation, boss."

	"The girl all right?" Marty asked.

	"Sure, boss. Only what are we going—?"

	At that moment more footsteps came running and a girl's voice cried, "Arthur! It's you, Arthur. I was so frightened, I ... oh, Arthur ... Arthur, you're a prisoner too." It was Alice Davenport, first wildly happy, then suddenly, bleakly, bitterly crestfallen.

	"Well, boss?" The Horse asked. His attitude reminded Arthur of Otto, but compared with The Horse, Otto was strictly an amateur.

	"Please," Morny begged suddenly, "you've got to give me a break. I would have paid you, I was going to pay you, I never intended to welch. But I—I have other debts. I—"

	"A big-shot gambler like you?" Marty said sardonically. "In debt? That wouldn't be gambling debts, would it?"

	"I—I don't know what made me do it. Yours and the other big gambling joints on the Strip, Marty. I owe a fortune. I can't pay you now. Give me time. Let me collect from the insurance ..."

	"But you're forgetting something, Morny. We already have your money. Cynthia, give it to me."

	Arthur heard a rustling sound, then a bleat of despair from Morny. "I'm ruined," he cried. "Ruined."

	"Look out, Miss Cynthia!" the man named Tick Tock called.

	Arthur heard a scream, a quick scurrying movement of feet on sand. "Stop him!" Marty shouted. "He's taken the money from Miss Cynthia. He's—"

	There was more shouting. Arthur felt something heavy collide with him. He was pushed, lost his balance, stumbled. He clawed out and came into contact with an arm almost as big around as his own waist, and hard as granite. It was The Horse.

	"Kill him!" Marty cried. "Kill Morny, he's trying to get away. He'll report us for kidnaping and we'll never be able to prove he's responsible."

	"The little guy—" The Horse protested. Arthur was clinging to his gun arm.

	Marty's words sounded like a pronouncement of doom. "Then kill him too."

	The enormous arm shook. Arthur, clinging grimly, was almost flung aside. He crouched abruptly, scooped up a handful of sand, flung it. The Horse howled. Arthur grabbed blindly at his gun-hand while The Horse went on howling and pawing at his blinded eyes. Arthur grabbed the gun away and stumbled back three steps and fell down in the sand, holding onto the .45 grimly.

	"Rush him, for crying out loud!" Marty cried. "He's blindfolded, he can't see a thing."

	"Wait!" Arthur commanded in a voice which held an authority he did not feel. "I can see you. I can see you all. The blindfold doesn't matter. I'll shoot the first man who comes near me. I'll shoot to kill."

	"That's right," Louise said hurriedly. "He can see through things. I don't know how he does it, but he can."

	"He's got X-ray vision," Alice said solemnly.

	"They're bluffing," Marty said. "They're crazy."

	"Yes?" Arthur shouted. "Miss Cynthia, turn around. Face me. That's right. Stand there. Marty," he went on relentlessly, "look at her. What would you say her bust measures, thirty-seven?"

-

	Miss Cynthia cried out indignantly, but Marty said, "You heard him."

	"Thank you," said Arthur. "Now then, Miss Cynthia, have I ever seen you—ah, in deshabille?"

	"No," Miss Cynthia said, still indignant.

	"Miss Cynthia," said Arthur in a cool, detached voice, "wears a very ingenious false front. She is flat-chested." Miss Cynthia cried out in rage. "Well, Marty, isn't she?" Arthur demanded triumphantly.

	There was a silence. Miss Cynthia was sobbing. Finally Marty said: "He can do it. He can actually see through things. Clothes, his blindfold, everything."

	"You, Horse," Arthur commanded. "Come here. Slowly, one step at a time. That's right. This blindfold is hurting my eyes. Remove it."

-

	Of course, Arthur could have done it himself, but he knew that if he could cow the most powerful of the thugs, the rest would be easy. He heard The Horse advancing slowly across the sand, one heavy step at a time. The world seemed to stand still. He could imagine The Horse's huge arms swinging at his sides—arms that could crush the life out of Arthur in a moment. He could imagine The Horse's face, confused, uncertain, but brutal. "Slowly," he said. "Slowly. I'm watching you."

	Another pause. A very long pause. The still, hot air, the angry sun, the desert sands—all seemed to wait. There was no sound from The Horse now, but he was close. Very close.

	Then the blindfold was jerked from Arthur's face.

	He stepped back quickly, brandishing the .45 in the bright sunlight. "Remove your own blindfold," he told Louise. He saw a solid-looking ranch-house, a stand of cactus. "Go inside," he told Alice. "Find some rope or some drapery or something to tie these people with." Alice nodded, and disappeared inside. Arthur had never fell so masterful in his life. He could cope with any situation now, he told himself. Any situation at all.

	"You, Tick Tock," he said. "Go and find Mr. Morny. Bring him back, but don't hurt him. Miss Cynthia, put the money down." Miss Cynthia did so. "Louise, you find a telephone and call the police." Louise obediently went into the house.

	Fifteen minutes later, Tick Tock returned with Morny. "You can have your money," Arthur told Marty, "after I take the ten thousand that's coming to me, and provided the police let you keep it." He took the ten thousand. He felt like a giant. He had never felt so wonderful in his life. He tossed the remainder of the thick role indifferently at Marty.

	When the police came, Arthur explained the situation and said he would be glad to drop into town to make a legal deposition. With Alice he was driven back to Las Vegas by the chief of the Las Vegas police.

	Alice said: "You were wonderful out there."

	Arthur said: "I want to get to know you better, much better. All right?"

	"Then Louise—?"

	"Meant nothing to me."

	"Boy, thank the lucky stars for your X-ray vision. It really got us out of a jam."

	"Did it?"

	"Why, of course. If you hadn't been able to see through that blindfold, the gun wouldn't have done you much good."

	"I'd seen Miss Cynthia with my X-ray vision before," he said. "And you'd better tell me about that lovely little mole. I'm beginning to forget what it looks like."

	Alice blushed. "But you—"

	Arthur shook his head. "Apparently the radiation which gave me X-ray vision was only temporary. It wore off on the drive out into the desert. By the time we arrived, I couldn't see a thing."

	"Then you—"

	"Yes," said Arthur. "I bluffed them."

	Alice nuzzled against him. "You were wonderful out there. You'll get to know me better, all right. I'll see to it."

	And, Arthur knew, she would.

The End