Patricia’s face went expressionless, but Ross, knowing her well, could sense her dismay. Crowley was right. She had been trying to play a careful game but their supposedly average man had seen through her.
Crowley’s voice went thoughtful. “I been doing a lot of thinking this week. A lot of it. And you want to know something? You know what I decided? I decided that everybody talks a lot about the Common Man but actually he’s never had a chance to, like, express himself. He’s never been able to put over the things he’s always wanted.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of democracy?” Ross said sourly. “Who do you think elects our officials?”
“Shut up, I told you. I’m talking now. Sure, every four years the lousy politicians come around and they stick coonskin caps on their heads or Indian bonnets and start saying ain’t when they make their speeches. Showing they’re just folks, see? They go out into the country, and stick a straw in their mouth and talk about crops to the farmers, all that sort of thing. But they aren’t really common folks. Most of them are lawyers or bankers or something. They run those political parties and make all the decisions themselves. The Common Man never really has anything to say about it.”
Braun said reasonably, “You have your choice. If you think one candidate is opposed to your interests you can elect the other.”
Crowley grunted his contempt. “But they’re both the same. No, there hasn’t been no common man in Washington since Lincoln, and maybe he wasn’t. Well, I’ll tell you something. The kind of talk I hear down in the corner saloon from just plain people makes a lot more sense to me than all this stuff the politicians pull.”
Dr. Braun cleared his throat and stared at the seemingly empty chair from whence came the other’s belligerent voice. “Are you thinking of entering politics, Don?”
“Maybe I am.”
“Good heavens,” Patricia ejaculated.
“Oh, I’m not smart enough, eh? Well, listen baby, the eggheads don’t seem to be so great in there. Maybe it’s time the Common Man took over.”
Dr. Braun said reasonably, “But see here, Crowley, the ability to achieve invisibility doesn’t give you any advantages in swinging elections or.…” He broke off in mid-sentence and did a mental double take.
Crowley laughed in contempt. “The biggest thing you need to win elections, Doc, is plenty of dough. And I’ll have that. But I’ll also have the way to do more muck-raking than anybody in history. I’ll sit in on every important private get-together those crook politicians have. I’ll get the details of every scheme they cook up. I’ll get into any safe or safe deposit box. I’ll have the common people, you sneer so much about, screaming for their blood.”
Ross rumbled, “What do you expect to accomplish in office, Crowley?”
The voice became expansive. “Lots of things. Take this Cold War. If you drop into any neighborhood bar, you’ll hear what the common man thinks about it.”
The three of them stared at the seemingly empty chair.
“Drop the bomb first!” Crowley snapped. “Finish those reds off before they start it. In fact, I’m not even sure they’ve got the bomb. They’re not smart enough to.…”
“There was sputnik, you know,” Ross interrupted sourly.
“Yeah, but built by those captured German scientists. We’re way ahead of those Russkies in everything. Hit ’em now. Finish ’em off. The eggheads in Washington are scared of their own shadows. Another thing I’d end is getting suckered in by those French and English politicians. What does America need with those countries? They always start up these wars and get us to bail them out. And I say stop all this foreign aid and keep the money in our own country.
“And we can do a lot of cleaning up right here, too. We got to kick all the commies out of the government. Make all the commies and socialists and these egghead liberals, illegal. In fact, I’m in favor of shooting them. When you got an enemy, finish him off. And take the Jews. I’m not anti-Semitic, like, understand. Some of my best friends are Jews. But you got to realize that wherever they go they cause trouble. They stick together and take over the best businesses and all. O.K., you know what I say? I say kick them out of the country. And they all came over here poor and made their money here. So let them leave the way they came. We’ll, like, confiscate all their property except like personal things.”
Patricia had closed her eyes in pain long before this. She said, softly, “I imagine somewhere along in here we’ll get to the Negroes.”
“I’m not against them. Just so they stay in their place. But this integration stuff is bunk. You got to face facts. Negroes aren’t as smart as white people, neither are Chinks or Mexicans or Puerto Ricans. So, O.K., give them their own schools, up to high school is all they need, and let them have jobs like waiters and janitors and like that. They shouldn’t take a white man’s job and they shouldn’t be allowed to marry white people. It deteriorates the race, like.”
Crowley was really becoming wound up now. Wound up and expansive. “There’s a lot of things I’d change, see. Take freedom of speech and press and like that. Sure I believe in that, I’m one hundred per cent American. But you can’t allow people to talk against the government. Freedom of speech is O.K., but you can’t let a guy jump up in the middle of a theater and yell fire.”
“Why not?” Ross growled. “Freedom of speech is more important than a few movie houses full of people. Besides, if one man is allowed to jump up and yell fire, then somebody else can yell out ‘You’re a liar, there is no fire.’”
“You’re not funny,” Crowley said ominously.
“I wasn’t trying to be,” Ross muttered, and then blurred into sudden action. He shot to his feet, and then, arms extended, dashed toward the source of the voice. He hit the chair without slowing, grappled crazily.
“I’ve got him!” He wrestled awkwardly, fantastically, seemingly in an insane tumbling without opponent.
Patricia was on her feet. She grasped an antique bronze candle-holder and darted toward the now fallen chair and to where Ross was wrestling desperately on the floor. Crowley was attempting to shout, but was largely smothered.
Patricia held the candlestick at the ready, trying to find an opening, trying to locate the invisible Crowley’s head.
Frederick Braun staggered to his own feet, bewildered, shaking.
A voice from the door said flatly, “O.K., that’s it.” Then, sharper, “I said cut it out. You all right, Mr. Crowley?”
It was Larry. His thin black automatic was held almost negligently in his right hand. He ran his eyes up and down Patricia, taking in the candlestick weapon. His ordinarily empty face registered a flicker of amused approval.
Patricia gasped, “Oh, no,” dropped her bludgeon and sank into a chair, her head in her hands.
Ross, his face in dismay, came slowly to his feet. The redhead stared at the gunman, momentarily considering further attack. Larry, ignoring both Braun and Patricia, swung the gun to cover him exclusively. “I wouldn’t,” he said emptily.
Of a sudden, Ross’ head jerked backward. His nose flattened, crushingly, and then spurted blood. He reeled back, his head flinging this way and that, bruises and cuts appeared magically.
Crowley’s voice raged, “You asked for it, wise guy. How do you like these apples?”
The saturnine Larry chuckled sourly. “Hey, take it easy, chief. You’ll kill the guy.”
Ross had crumpled to the floor. There were still sounds of blows. Crowley raged, “You’re lucky I’m not wearing shoes, I’d break every rib in your body!”
Patricia was staring in hopeless horror. She said sharply, “Don, remember you need Ross! You need all of us! Without all of us there can be no more serum.”
The blows stopped.
“There will be no more serum anyway,” Braun said shakily. The thin little man still stood before his chair having moved not at all since the action began.
Crowley’s heavy breathing could be heard but he managed a snarl. “That’s what you think, Doc.�
��
Braun said, “By Caesar, I absolutely refuse to.…”
Crowley interrupted ominously. “You know, Doc, that’s where this particular common man has it all over you eggheads. You spend so much time reading, you don’t take in the action shows on TV. Now what you’re thinking is that even if we were going to twist your arm a little, you’d stick to your guns. But suppose, like, it was Pat we was working on, while you had to sit and watch.”
The elderly man’s brave front collapsed and his thin shoulders slumped.
Crowley barked a laugh.
Patricia by now, was bent over the unconscious Ross crying even as she tried to help him.
Crowley said to the silent, all but disinterested Larry, “Have these three put in separate rooms in that section they used for the violent wing when the place was a nuthouse. Have a good guard and see they don’t talk back and forth.”
“You’re the boss,” Larry said languidly.
* * * *
Crowley was thorough. For that they had to give him credit. They were kept divided, each in a different room-cell and with at least two burly, efficient guards on constant watch. They were fed on army-type trays and their utensils checked carefully. There was no communication allowed—even with the guard.
The second day, Crowley took measures to see their disappearance raised no alarm at either their place of employment or at their residences. This raised few problems since all were single and all had already taken off both from the job and from their homes in order to carry out their experiment. Crowley forced them to write further notes and letters finding excuses for extending their supposed vacations. He also had Larry return to the hotel suite, pay their bill, pack their things and bring them to the Catskill estate which had become their prison.
He had them make up lists of materials and equipment they would need for further manufacture of the serum upon which they had stumbled, and sent off men to acquire the things.
And on three occasions during the following weeks he had them brought from their cells and spent an hour or so with them at lunch or dinner. Crowley evidently needed an audience beyond that of his henchmen. The release of his basic character, formerly repressed, was progressing geometrically and there seemed to be an urgency to crow, to brag, to boast.
* * * *
* * * *
On the third of these occasions he was already seated at the table when they were ushered into the dining room. Crowley dismissed the guards with a wave of his hand as though they were liveried servants.
All had eaten but there were liqueurs and coffee, cigars and cigarettes on the broad table.
Ross sank into a chair and growled, “Well, what hath the great man wrought by now?”
Crowley grinned at him, poured coffee and then a dollop of Napoleon brandy into it. He gestured with a hand. “Help yourselves, folks. How you feeling? You been getting all the books you wanted? You look kind of peaked, Pat.”
“Miss O’Gara to you, you ape with delusions of grandeur,” she snapped. “When are you going to let us out of those prison cells?”
Crowley wasn’t provoked. The strong can afford to laugh at the malcontented weak. “That’s one of the things you never know,” he said easily. “You sure you want out? Something the Doc said the other day had a lotta fact in it. The fewer people know about this secret of mine, the better off I’ll be and the better off I am, the better off the whole country is going to be and I gotta think about that. I got responsibilities.”
“A combination of Engine Charley and Louis XIV, eh?” Ross muttered, running his beefy hand back over his crew cut. It was a relief to get out of his room and talk with the others, but he didn’t want Crowley to see that.
“What’s that?” the other was impatient of conversation that went above his head.
Dr. Braun explained gently. “One said, I am the State, and the other, anything that’s good for my corporation is good for the United States—or something quite similar.”
Crowley sipped at his coffee royal. “Well, anyway, Pat, the day you’re ready to leave that cell, you’d better start worrying cause that’ll mean I don’t need you any more.”
Ross growled, “You didn’t answer my question. Robbed any banks lately, great man?”
The other eyed him coldly. “Take it easy, Buster. Maybe in the early stages of the Common Man Movement we hafta take some strong-arm measures, but that stage’s about finished.”
Patricia O’Gara was interested in spite of herself. She said. “You mean you already have all the money you need?”
He was expansive. Obviously there was nothing to lose with these three and he liked a sounding board. In spite of his alleged contempt for eggheads there was an element in Crowley which wished to impress them, to grant him equal status in their own estimations.
“There’s a devil of a lot to know about big finance. You need a starter, but once you get it, the stuff just rolls in automatic.” He grinned suddenly, almost boyishly. “Especially when you got a certain little advantage, like me.”
Braun said, interestedly, “How do you put your advantage to work?”
“Well, now, I gotta admit we aren’t quite out of the woods. We need more capital to work with, but after tonight we’ll have it. Remember that Brinks job up in New England a long time ago? Well, we got something lined up even bigger. I work with Larry and his boys to pull it. Then there’s another thing cooking that Whitely’s been keeping tabs on. It looks like IBM is going to split its stock, three for one. I gotta attend their next secret executive meeting and find out. If they do, we buy in just before, see? We buy on margin, buy options, all that sort of jazz. Whitely knows all about it. Then we got another big deal in Washington. Looks like the government might devaluate the dollar. Whitely explained it to me, kind of. Anyway, I got to sit in on a conference the President’s gonna have. If they really decide to devalue, then Whitely and me, we go ahead and put every cent we got into Swiss gold. Then the day after devaluation, we switch it all back into dollars again. Double our money. Oh, we got all sorts of angles, Doc.”
“By Caesar,” Braun ejaculated. “You seem to have.”
* * * *
Patricia had poured herself some coffee and was sipping it, black, even as she stared at him. “But, Don, what do you need all this money for? You already have more than plenty. Why not call it all off. Get out from under.”
Ross grunted, “Too late, Pat. Can’t you see? He’s got the power urge already.”
Crowley ignored him and turned to her, pouring more coffee and cognac for himself. “I’m not running up all this dough just for me. You think you’re the only one’s got ideals, like? Let me tell you, I might just be a country boy but I got ambitions to put some things right in this world.”
“Such as.…” Patricia prodded, bitterness in her voice.
“Aw, we went through all that the other day. The thing is, now it’s really under way. If you was seeing the newspapers these days, you’d know about the Common Man Party.”
“Oh, oh,” Ross muttered unhappily.
“It’s just getting under way,” Crowley said modestly, “but we’re hiring two of the top Madison Avenue outfits to handle publicity and we’re recruiting some of the best practical politicians in the field.”
“Practical politicians!” Ross snorted. “Types like Huey Long, McCarthy, Pendergast, I suppose.”
The other misunderstood him. “Yeah, and even better. We’re going in big for TV time, full-page ads in the newspapers and magazines. That sort of thing. The average man’s getting tired of the same old talk from the Republicans and Democrats. Paul Teeter thinks we might have a chance in the next election, given enough dough to plow into it.”
Ross leaned back disdainfully. “What a combination. Whitely, the broker who has been barred from activity on Wall Street; Teeter, the crooked politician, but with connections from top to bottom; and Larry, whatever his name is.…”
“Morazzoni,” Crowley supplied. “You know where I first ra
n into his name? In one of them true crime magazines. He’s a big operator.”
“I’ll bet he is,” the redhead growled. “Probably with good Mafia connections. I’m surprised you haven’t attempted to take over that outfit.”
Crowley laughed abruptly. “We’re working on that, pal. Just take it easy and all these things will work their way out. But meanwhile I didn’t bring you jokers here to make snide remarks. I got work for you. I’m fresh out of that serum and you three are going to brew me up another batch.”
They looked at him, Dr. Braun, Ross Wooley, Patricia O’Gara, their faces registering stubbornness, revolt and dismay.
He shook his head. “Larry and some of his boys have experience. I gotta admit, I wouldn’t even want to watch.”
“I’m for standing firm,” Braun said stiffly. “There are but three of us. The most they can do is kill us. But if this man’s insanity is released on the world.…”
Crowley was shaking his head in deprecation. “Like when you say the worst we can do is kill you. Man, haven’t you heard about the Nazis and commies and all? You oughta read some of the men’s adventure magazines. How do you think Joe Stalin got all them early Bolsheviks to confess? You think they weren’t tough buzzards? Why make us go to all the trouble, when you’d just cave in eventually anyway? Save yourself the grief.”
Patricia said impatiently, “He’s right, I’m afraid. I would collapse rather quickly under physical coercion. You might last a bit longer, Ross possibly longer still. But in the end we would concede.”
Crowley said, as though in amazement, “You know, eggheads aren’t as stupid as some would reckon. O.K., folks, I got a laboratory all fixed up with your things. Let’s go. Ah, Ross, old pal, I’m carrying heat, as Larry would say, so let’s don’t have any trouble, eh?”
He had been as good as his word in regards to the laboratory. It was obviously one of the rooms used by the staff when the place had been a sanitarium. Now, each of the three had all the equipment and supplies they required.
Crowley took a seat at the far end of the room, facing them. There had been a guard outside the door when they entered and a call would bring him in seconds. Even so, Crowley sat in such wise that his right hand was ready to plunge inside his coat to the gun that evidently was holstered there. He said, “O.K., folks, let’s get about it.”
The Mack Reynolds Megapack Page 44
