The Witching Hour Read online

  “Doris,” he said weakly to the girl at the desk, “have you heard from Dion yet?”

  “Not yet, Mr. Blitz,” she said worriedly. “He doesn’t answer his telephone, and the clerk says he hasn’t seen him for a week.”

  “Keep trying,” Jerry said. “I need him, bad. If he can’t help me, the brewery is gone.”

  “Gone!” Doris echoed, startled. “What do you mean?”

  “I thought you knew,” Jerry said. “Baldwin loaned Dad the money to put out the new beer. Dad put up his shares in the brewery as security. What with expenses and inheritance taxes, I can’t raise a dime. If Baldwin can discredit the new brew, he can claim the stock for nonpayment.”

  “But that will give him the majority interest!”

  “That’s right,” Jerry said wearily. “Also the brewery.”

  “Oh, dear,” Doris said. “You do need Dion. I’ve tried the hospitals, the morgue, the police stations — ”

  “Have you tried the bars?” Jerry asked.

  She shook her head in surprise.

  “He’s my last chance,” Jerry groaned. “If he knew about the head on his brew, he might be able to fix it. He’s got to be somewhere. Leave word with any bartenders who know Dion that I need him.”

  “You think he’s a drinker?” Doris exclaimed.

  “Don’t you?” Jerry asked, startled. They stared at each other in silence. Then Jerry turned and went back into the board room.

  “By the way,” Baldwin said, taming around to look curiously at Jerry, “where is that new brewmaster of yours? I should think you’d have him here.”

  Jerry’s heart dipped into his stomach. “Dion?” he said. “He’s — on vacation.”

  Baldwin’s bland expression told Jerry that the evasion was transparent. Baldwin already knew that Dion was gone and how long he had been gone. Perhaps he even knew where he was. Jerry shook his head; that was carrying surmise too far.

  “But he’s only been with the company for a couple of months.” Baldwin pretended amazement. “You say he’s on vacation already?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Hm-m-m,” Baldwin mused. “An unusual fellow. In many ways, I understand. Would you mind telling us where you got him? And why you fired your father’s brewmaster of forty years’ experience?”

  “Gerhardt wasn’t fired,” Jerry said quickly. “He was retired on full pension. My father left instructions to hire Dion to fill Gerhardt’s place.”

  “Your father also left some heavy debts,” Baldwin said dryly. “Well, since we can’t have Dion’s expert opinion, we must turn to someone else.”

  He stood up, a small, straight reed of a man, and walked slowly to the door. Jerry sighed and looked down at the schooner. The foam had finally collapsed.

  The door opened. Behind Baldwin was a portly, white-haired man. Jerry stared with surprise at the round, red German face. “Gerhardt!”

  “Mr. Jerry,” said the old brewmaster. He had a trace of accent.

  “I don’t understand,” Jerry said in bewilderment. “What are you doing here?”

  “This retirement,” Gerhardt said heavily. “I am not happy doing nothing. ‘Get out,’ my wife says, ‘I don’t want you under my feet all day.’ When Mr. Baldwin says that I might work again, I like that. I am here to help.”

  To help, Jerry thought. To help whom?

  “I’ve asked for Mr. Gerhardt’s help,” Baldwin said. He looked around the table at the empty bottles. “We’ll need more samples.”

  “Also the brew sheets,” Gerhardt said.

  Jerry sighed and nodded. “I’ll have our chief chemist bring them up.” He flicked the intercom switch and told Doris to call George Fennell.

  The chemist arrived with a sweating bottle in one hand, held at a respectful distance from his body, and a large, black notebook in the other. Fennell had a long, thin body and a face to match. “Gerhardt!” he said.

  “Well, George, how is the brewing?” Gerhardt asked.

  “Not so good,” Fennell said sadly.

  Jerry took the bottle from Fennell’s limp hand, uncapped it and decanted it carefully into a tilted glass. The foam only necked the top of the beer.

  Gerhardt stared curiously at Jerry as he took the glass. He held it up to the light. “Good color,” he said. “Brilliant. But what is the matter with the head?”

  “Taste it first,” Jerry said.

  Gerhardt shrugged and tilted the glass judiciously to his lips. When he lowered it, his small, blue eyes were blinking. “Ah!” he said, with a partial, palatal stop that almost made it “Ach!” His eyes opened wide. “Dot is the perfect beer! Let me see the sheet.”

  After the long centuries of trial and error, of dreaming and experimentation, the perfect beer. Just the right blending of all the ingredients added in just the right quantities at just the right instants. The ideal alcohol content balanced against the carbohydrates, the protein, the mineral traces and the carbonation. Color, aroma, flavor, sparkle, foam.

  But it wasn’t the perfect beer, of course. Not with a head like that.

  Gerhardt looked up from the brew sheet, blinking blindly. “This I do not understand. These things are not unusual. The alcohol, now. It is three point six three; I would have thought it much higher.”

  “I understood this was five percent beer,” Baldwin said suspiciously.

  “It is,” Jerry explained. “Anything less than five and more than three point two is called five percent.”

  “The chemical analysis,” Fennell said suddenly, “is the only thing I can guarantee.”

  “What does that mean?” Baldwin said, turning toward the chemist.

  Fennell shrugged maliciously. “Dion didn’t care for paperwork. He refused to be bothered with it. I told him that there might be variations to check back on, but he laughed. ‘The brew,’ he said, ‘will be perfect.’ I insisted. He told me to please myself. ‘Put down anything that will make you happy,’ he said. ‘It is a small thing.’”

  “You let him get away with that?” Baldwin exclaimed.

  “You do not understand,” Gerhardt said scornfully. “The brewmaster, he is the absolute boss.”

  First Bill, Jerry thought, then Gerhardt and now George. Is there anyone who will not desert me? Oh, Dion, old friend, why have you deserted me, too? Dion! Is your name short for “Dionysus?” It would be a good name for a brewer, old vintner, old bull, old goat, old corn god, tree god, vine god. Wine is no longer the drink of the people, and you were always a people’s god. What should a Bacchus do today but brew? Oh, Dion, where are you?

  “Then the brew can’t be duplicated,” Baldwin was saying sharply. “Even if the head could be — er — amputated, you couldn’t be sure you would get the same brew.”

  “Dion can,” Jerry pointed out. “He did it thirty times in a row.”

  “Ah,” Baldwin said, “but he isn’t here. And who knows when he will return? It seems to me that this is sloppy management!”

  From around the table came a murmur of approval. Jerry bit his lip. “It brought out the best beer ever brewed,” he said.

  “And it can’t be sold. Perhaps it can’t even be brewed again.” Baldwin turned to Gerhardt. “Can it?”

  Gerhardt’s head was swinging back and forth between Jerry and Baldwin. “It is hard to say,” he said in bewilderment. “Brewing is not a science. It is an art. Strange things happen during the malting, the mashing, the boiling, the fermenting — ”

  “Beer,” Fennell broke in, “is a delicate blend of a number of ingredients which must be added in the proper quantities at the right time and the exact temperature. Organic catalysts play the biggest part, and their actions aren’t completely understood. Minute variations in temperature and timing as well as in quality make a big difference in the final product.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow — ” Baldwin began.

  “Well,” Fennell said patiently, “the distinctive flavor of Scotch whisky, for instance, is due to peat smoke abs
orbed by the barley during the kilning part of the malting process.”

  “Let’s get back to beer,” Baldwin said. “The distinctive quality of our new beer is this!” He picked up the half-full bottle and emptied it into Gerhardt’s glass.

  The beer gurgled creamily out of the bottle and foamed up in the glass. Out of the foam climbed a naked girl. This time she was stretching. Her hands were clasped behind her back, her arms drawn straight and tight, her shoulders pulled back. She stared at Jerry with blind foam-eyes.

  “Ach!” Gerhardt exclaimed. There was no mistake about the stop this time. “Dot’s a head!”

  The bubbles moved the figure gently. The foam girl almost seemed alive.

  “What,” Baldwin asked huskily, “is the reason for that?”

  Gerhardt shook himself. “There could many reasons be,” he said uneasily. “The kind of malt, the mashing temperatures — but it is the yeast! Jah! Whenever I have trouble with the brew, always it is the yeast!”

  “What do you think?” Baldwin asked, swinging around to face Fennell.

  “The yeast is the same pure strain we’ve used for years,” Fennell said. He stared at the figure on top of the foam and licked his lips. “I insist that it’s the carbonation and the gum arabic. Somehow they’ve combined to produce this — ”

  “Nonsense,” Jerry said firmly. “You’ve tested it a dozen times. The carbonation is two point four two on the nose, and the gum arabic is exactly the same. You’re both wrong. It’s — ”

  “What?” Baldwin asked. “It’s a perfectly natural phenomenon with a perfectly natural explanation. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Jerry said weakly. “Yes. Dion will know.”

  The paneled door flew open. A man in white coveralls stood in the doorway. “Mr. Blitz!” he shouted. “Come quick! There’s hell to pay in the racking room!”

  After they passed through the chill of the finishing cellar, the racking room was warm, but the workmen were frozen in their places. It was a big room, stacked neatly with aluminum barrels. One of the barrels stood on end near the racking machine in the center; a patent spigot had been forced through the cork stopper. Quart-sized metal mugs, foaming with beer, sat on a barrel beside the racking machine.

  From an overhead drum, four rigid tubes extended downward. Ordinarily there would be a barrel under each of them. They would be on their sides, bungholes pointing toward the ceiling. One would be starting to fill. One would be half-full. One would be full and foaming, the tube swiveled back out of the way while a beer-bellied, strong-armed laborer slipped a wooden bung into the hole and hammered it flat with a huge hard-rubber mallet. Other workmen would be rolling away the fourth barrel, and rolling in an empty barrel to take its place.

  But the work had stopped. Four barrels were full. The tubes had swiveled back. Foam was pouring out of the barrels. And dancing seductively on the barrels like a naked chorus line were four two-foothigh foam maidens, complete to the ankles.

  The men stared at them with stricken eyes, unable to move. Jerry swung toward the foreman. “Who told you to rack the new brew?”

  “Nobody, sir,” he said, licking his lips nervously, “but that’s all we have left.”

  Jerry was already moving down the line of barrels in the racking machine. As he approached, the girls seemed to sway sentiently toward him. He ignored them. He picked up the mallet, slipped a bung into a barrel and hammered it down. Four strokes, and the job was done. Jerry sighed and watched the foam things melt wistfully away.

  “That’s all,” he said. “We won’t be racking any more beer until further notice.”

  “You bet you won’t,” one of the laborers said angrily. “I quit.”

  He stalked away. The other workmen followed him. The foreman turned to Jerry. “You know what that means. They’ll all go out!”

  “I know,” Jerry said heavily and walked slowly to the elevator.

  As he stepped back into the board room, Baldwin was reaching for the door handle on the other side.

  “Oh,” he said, a little startled, “I’m glad you’re here. We’ve just taken a vote. If you can’t eliminate the objectionable head from the new brew, we’ll have to dump it. And that, of course, will mean a change in management.”

  Jerry nodded wearily. “How long?”

  Baldwin didn’t try to misunderstand. “Every minute wasted is money lost. We’ve got to get back into salable production. You’ve got until tomorrow morning.”

  They filed past him, not looking into his face: Baldwin, Reeves, Williford, Woodbury, Alberg.

  Bill stopped and drew Jerry aside. “Look, Jerry,” he muttered, “I’m sorry about — ”

  “Forget it,” Jerry said.

  “No, listen! When Baldwin asked me about the promotion possibilities, I mean — well, I could have held out — ”

  “Forget it, I said,” Jerry said coolly. “You’ve got a job to look after.”

  When they were gone, the room seemed strangely silent. Jerry stood in the doorway and looked at Doris. “How about you? Aren’t you leaving?”

  “No, sir,” she said. “Not until I’m fired.”

  Slowly Jerry relaxed. At least one person was faithful. Two persons

  — there was Joan. “Did you get in touch with Dion?”

  She shook her head despondently. “No, sir, but I talked to a couple of bartenders who knew him. I left word with them to call you if he showed up.”

  “So he drinks, eh?”

  “Oh, he drinks, all right. But the bartenders said they’d never seen him drunk. They seemed to think there was something remarkable about it.”

  “Maybe because he drinks so much,” Jerry said bitterly. “Damn it! I liked that man!” “I don’t understand how you came to hire him without learning more about him.” “My father hired him. Just before he died. That was the first time I met Dion. He and Dad seemed to be good friends. They were laughing and drinking together. Dad wasn’t feeling too well, even then, but Dion brought him to life.

  “Dad was sipping an unlabeled bottle of beer. He slammed his fist down on the table and said, ‘By all the gods, I’ll do it!’ And he turned to me and said, ‘If anything happens to me, you do it! A man should leave something behind him besides money!’

  “‘Do what?’ I asked.

  “‘Hire Dion as our new brewmaster! He’s going to brew us the best damned beer this country has ever seen!’”

  Jerry was silent, remembering. Doris said, “And he did, too.”

  “Yes, he did.” Jerry sighed. “And Dad didn’t live to taste it. Dion worked hard. I don’t think he left the brewery for weeks. He handled everything himself, from doughing-in to pitching the wort with yeast. And then, all at once, he got restless. He stopped showing up. And I haven’t seen him since.”

  “A strange man,” Doris said reflectively. “But I’m sure he had some good reason.”

  “Maybe,” Jerry said wryly. “It better be. It’s ruined me.”

  “That woman must have known,” Doris said suddenly.

  “That woman?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Blitz,” she said. “I mean Miss Blessing. Your fianc≥e. She was here a little while ago. She left this.”

  Doris opened the wide desk drawer and picked up a ring. She dropped it into Jerry’s hand. He looked at it. “Joan?” he said.

  “Now, don’t be upset,” Doris said maternally. “She isn’t worth it. She was only interested in your money. She said she never could stand the name ‘Blitz.’ The first trouble you get in — boom! You ought to get some nice girl,” she added impulsively. “Someone who’d be interested in you just for yourself.”

  “Now I’d have a hard time finding any other,” Jerry muttered. “How about you, Doris? Do you like the name ‘Blitz’?”

  “I think it’s a fine — ” she began, and stopped. “That is — I mean

  — I’m engaged, Mr. Blitz.” She held out her left hand. The diamond in the ring was a tiny flame. “Sure,” Jerry said. “Congratulations.”
He tossed the ring in his hand and slipped it carelessly into a pants pocket. “I’m going up to the penthouse. Have all the bottles of the new brew sent up there.”

  His shoulders straightened. He walked purposefully toward the door. He had lost his illusions. He had lost his girl. Within a few hours he would lose the beer and the brewery.

  It was the best beer ever brewed. He might as well make the most of it.

  Except for a lighted path between the living room and the kitchen, the penthouse was dark. In the living room was a coffee table. On the table was a full schooner of beer. Some of the beer had spilled over the edge; it made dark stains on the leather. On the schooner was a lovely head and a lovelier bosom.

  Jerry sat behind the coffee table and held up his glass to the girl. She had her head cocked.

  “Oh, many a peer of England brews

  Livelier liquor than the Muse,

  And malt does more than Milton can

  To justify God’s ways to man.”

  Jerry paused and nodded owlishly at the foam girl and sipped his beer.

  “Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink

  For fellows whom it hurts to think.”

  From deep down, Jerry brought up a resounding belch. A pleased smile spread over his face. “The perfect beer!” he said, waggling a finger. “What’d beer be without it? Eh? Ale, now. Ol’ Housman talks ‘bout ale, an’ he prob’bly didn’t know first thing ‘bout it. First thing ‘bout ale is it’s top-fermented; lagers’re bottom-fermented.”

  He sipped the beer again. “Beer,” he said, “is best served at tem-p’rature ‘tween forty-two and forty-five degrees Fahr’nheit. Foam’s best, vol’tile gases ‘scape, an’ del’cate ‘roma an’ pleasing flavor of beer’re preserved.”

  The girl’s head tilted a little farther.

  “‘Nother words,” Jerry said, “this beer’s too hot an’ you’re looking droopy. Here!” He emptied his glass into the schooner. Foam ran over onto the table and dripped onto the thick rug. The girl straightened up.

  “‘S better,” he said. With exaggerated care, he got up and maneuvered around the table. Once free of it, he rolled toward the kitchen as if his feet were several inches off the floor. When he came back, he had two cold, unlabeled bottles in his hand. He set them down on the table and carefully flipped the cap from one of them with an ivory-handled opener. Gently he tipped the beer into his glass and set the bottle down beside a number of others on the floor.