It was signed, Carl Tucker, Secretary. A thin line at the bottom of the page read: A Nonprofit Organization.
His first reaction was a defensive one; he suspected an oblique attack on his pocketbook. His second was curiosity: he went to the bedroom and located the telephone directory, but found no organization listed by the letterhead name. Okay, Mr. Tucker, he thought wryly, I’ll bite.
When no call came in the next three days, his curiosity was increased. But when Friday arrived, he forgot the letter’s promise in the crush of office affairs. The old man called a meeting with the bakery products division. Grunzer sat opposite Whitman Hayes at the conference table, poised to pounce on fallacies in his statements. He almost had him once, but Eckhardt, the bakery products manager, spoke up in defense of Hayes’s views. Eckhardt had only been with the company a year, but he had evidently chosen sides already. Grunzer glared at him, and reserved a place for Eckhardt in the hate chamber of his mind.
At three o’clock, Carl Tucker called.
“Mr. Grunzer?” The voice was friendly, even cheery. “I haven’t heard from you, so I assume you don’t mind my calling today. Is there a chance we can get together sometime?”
“Well, if you could give me some idea, Mr. Tucker—”
The chuckle was resonant. “We’re not a charity organization, Mr. Grunzer, in case you got that notion. Nor do we sell anything. We’re more or less a voluntary service group: our membership is over a thousand at present.”
“To tell you the truth,” Grunzer frowned, “I never heard of you.”
“No, you haven’t, and that’s one of the assets. I think you’ll understand when I tell you about us. I can be over at your office in fifteen minutes, unless you want to make it another day.”
Grunzer glanced at his calendar. “Okay, Mr. Tucker. Best time for me is right now.”
“Fine! I’ll be right over.”
Tucker was prompt. When he walked into the office, Grunzer’s eyes went dismayed at the officious briefcase in the man’s right hand. But he felt better when Tucker, a florid man in his early sixties with small, pleasant features, began talking.
“Nice of you to take the time, Mr. Grunzer. And believe me, I’m not here to sell you insurance or razor blades. Couldn’t if I tried; I’m a semi-retired broker. However, the subject I want to discuss is rather — intimate, so I’ll have to ask you to bear with me or a certain point. May I close the door?”
“Sure,” Grunzer said, mystified.
Tucker closed it, hitched his chair closer and said:
“The point is this. What I have to say must remain in the strictest confidence. If you betray that confidence, if you publicize our society in any way, the consequences could be most unpleasant. Is that agreeable?”
Grunzer, frowning, nodded.
“Fine!” The visitor snapped open the briefcase and produced a stapled manuscript. “Now, the society has prepared this little spiel about our basic philosophy, but I’m not going to bore you with it. I’m going to go straight to the heart of our agreement. You may not agree with our first principle at all, and I’d like to know that now.”
“How do you mean, first principle?”
“Well...” Tucker flushed slightly. “Put in the crudest form, Mr. Grunzer, the Society for United Action believes that — some people are just not fit to live.” He looked up quickly, as if anxious to gauge the immediate reaction. “There, I’ve said it,” he laughed, somewhat in relief. “Some of our members don’t believe in my direct approach: they feel the argument has to be broached more discreetly. But frankly, I’ve gotten excellent results in this rather crude manner. How do you feel about what I’ve said. Mr. Grunzer?”
“I don’t know. Guess I never thought about it much.”
“Were you in the war, Mr. Grunzer?”
“Yes, Navy.” Grunzer rubbed his jaw. “I didn’t think the Japs were fit to live, back then. I guess maybe there are other cases. I mean, you take capital punishment, I believe in that. Murderers, rape-artists, perverts, hell, I certainly don’t think they’re fit to live.”
“Ah,” Tucker said. “So you really accept our first principle. It’s a question of category, isn’t it?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“Good. So now I’ll try another blunt question. Have you — personally — ever wished someone dead? Oh. I don’t mean those casual, fleeting wishes everybody has. I mean a real, deep-down, uncomplicated wish for the death of someone you thought was unfit to live. Have you?”
“Sure,” Grunzer said frankly. “I guess I have.”
“There are times, in your opinion, when the removal of someone from this earth would be beneficial?”
Grunzer smiled. “Hey, what is this? You from Murder. Incorporated or something?”
Tucker grinned back. “Hardly, Mr. Grunzer, hardly. There is absolutely no criminal aspect to our aims or our methods. I’ll admit we’re a ‘secret’ society, but we’re no Black Hand. You’d be amazed at the quality of our membership: it even includes members of the legal profession. But suppose I tell you how the society came into being?
“It began with two men: I can’t reveal their names just now. The year was 1949. and one of these men was a lawyer attached to the district attorney’s office. The other man was a state psychiatrist. Both of them were involved in a rather sensational trial, concerning a man accused of a hideous crime against two small boys. In their opinion, the man was unquestionably guilty, but an unusually persuasive defense counsel, and a highly suggestible jury, gave him his freedom. When the shocking verdict was announced, these two. who were personal friends as well as colleagues, were thunderstruck and furious. They felt a great wrong had been committed, and they were helpless to right it...
“But I should explain something about this psychiatrist. For some years, he had made studies in a field which might be called anthropological psychiatry. One of those researches related to the voodoo practice of certain groups, the Haitian in particular. You’ve probably heard a great deal about voodoo, or Obeah as they call it in Jamaica, but I won’t dwell on the subject lest you think we hold tribal rites and stick pins in dolls... But the chief feature of his study was the uncanny success of certain strange practices. Naturally, as a scientist, he rejected the supernatural explanation and sought the rational one. And of course, there was only one answer. When the vodun priest decreed the punishment or death of a malefactor, it was the malefactor’s own convictions concerning the efficacy of the death wish, his own faith in the voodoo power, that eventually made the wish come true. Sometimes, the process was organic — his body reacted psychosomatically to the voodoo curse, and he would sicken and die. Sometimes, he would die by ‘accident’ — an accident prompted by the secret belief that once cursed, he must die. Eerie, isn’t it?”
“No doubt,” Grunzer said, dry-lipped.
“Anyway, our friend, the psychiatrist, began wondering aloud if any of us have advanced so far along the civilized path that we couldn’t be subject to this same sort of ‘suggested’ punishment. He proposed that they experiment on this choice subject, just to see.
“How they did it was simple,” he said. “They went to see this man, and they announced their intentions. They told him they were going to wish him dead. They explained how and why the wish would become reality, and while he laughed at their proposal, they could see the look of superstitious fear cross his face. They promised him that regularly, every day, they would be wishing for his death, until he could no longer stop the negative juggernaut that would make the wish come true.”