"A Muscle Was Twitching in the Gunman's Neck; His Finger Began To Tighten on the Trigger"

HERE we have a science fiction writer adroitly crossing over into crime fiction, where he demonstrates the superiority of . . .

"Mind Over Mayhem."

By Mack Reynolds (1917-83; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and e-fanzines HERE).

Illustrator unknown.

First appearance: New Detective Magazine, November 1950.

Reprinted in New Detective (U.K.) #2, 1951 and 100 Crooked Little Crime Stories, 1994.

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at SFFAudio (HERE).

   "I noticed that he still crooked his little finger."

BODY LANGUAGE, we're told, is often more eloquent than the spoken word. Fair enough, but if someone with a gun claims he can read people that way then he'd better be really good at it; otherwise, it could mean a one-way trip to the slammer . . .

Main characters:

~ Jerry ("Haven't got a home, Sam; just a hotel room with four walls and a bed and a chair or two and a couple hundred pocket books"), Sam ("In your hat"), and the stranger ("You can size a person up in just a few minutes by the way they walk and talk and by their gestures").

Resources:

- Mack Reynolds normally grazed in the SFF pulps, to wit: "He Took It with Him" (HERE), "Dark Interlude" (with Fredric Brown HERE), "The Adventure of the Snitch in Time" (with August Derleth ) and "The Adventure of the Ball of Nostradamus" (with August Derleth, both HERE), "Gun for Hire" (HERE), "The Adventure of the Extraterrestrial" (with August Derleth HERE), and "My Best Friends Are Martians" (HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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