Costigan's Needle

by Jerry Sohl

  “And let Inland lose a million dollars?”

  It bothered Devan that Orcutt should continue to smile so confidently. The man seemed to be enjoying himself when he ought to be apologetic or at least explanatory.

  “Inland isn’t going to lose a cent, Dev.”

  “You bet it isn’t. And do you know why? It isn’t going to invest in research outside this building.”

  “Think so?”

  “I know so.” Devan had been standing. Now he sat in a leather-bottomed chair that hissed air when it received him. He drew another chair over and put his feet in it. “When is the board of directors’ meeting?”

  “This afternoon. You know something? It amazes me how you have found out so much, yet I know you haven’t been near this place.”

  “This afternoon, eh? Aren’t you pushing this thing a little?”

  “I’m pushing it with all I’ve got, to be honest.”

  “Then what are you going to do when I go on record as opposing the recommendation of the executive committee?”

  “That would certainly look silly, wouldn’t it? It passed the committee, you know.”

  “Don’t tell me Tooksberry voted for it.”

  “No. Can’t say that he did.”

  “Well, then, the board will see that, since the committee passed it in my absence, it really is a draw. Two to two.”

  “But it won’t count. You were notified of the meeting. It was all open and aboveboard. The fact that you were out of town was an unfortunate circumstance.”

  “You waited until I was out of town.”

  “Wait a minute, Dev!” Orcutt jerked the pipe out of his mouth and ashes cascaded from it. His eyes were cold and the corners of his mouth had frozen. “It’s not like you to say things like that. Not like you at all. Besides, it’s not true,” Orcutt said grimly.

  “Then will you please explain why it happened just after I went away?”

  “I wish I knew how much you know about it so we could speak frankly. In case you don’t know, it came up suddenly.”

  Devan laughed without humor. “I can see Sam Otto waiting until I leave town to rush up here and sell you a damn fool idea.” He felt anger rising, got to his feet and went to the twin portholes, pushed the button that revolved the Polaroid screens so that he could look out into the assembly department.

  Intricate little brains for guided missiles were being put together out there. Parts for computers and thinking machines, for devices as passé as radar alongside electronic gadgets that the public had not yet learned existed. But that was only one part of the plant. There were other places in the building where catalogued items for public sale were made. And there was one room where Inland put together a device that incorporated radioactive metal according to government specifications and not even Orcutt had any idea what it was for, whether it was complete in itself or became part of a larger mechanism. That was on the floor where most of the research was done.

  He heard Orcutt clear his throat. “Maybe I can understand how you feel, Devan. I don’t trust Sam Otto either. But you might as well know right now that it’s not a damn fool idea.”

  Orcutt wasn’t pleading. He talked as if he believed what he was saying. Whatever Sam Otto had done, Devan reasoned, he had certainly sold Edmund G. Orcutt.

  “Look,” Devan said, turning from the darkening windows. “I know Sam Otto better than you do. I’ve known him for years. He’s been trying to sell me on gadgets and surprises and wonders ever since I first entered electronics professionally back in 1940. He even kept track of me when I was in the army to get me to back this idea or that when I got out. Not one of his contraptions was worth a damn. He doesn’t care about that, though. He’s just in it for what he can get out of it. He sticks you with a project, takes five per cent of the appropriation, skips out and leaves you with some screwball who never had anything in the first place while Sammy is out looking for another screwball who thinks he’s got something.”

  “Sam Otto likes you,” Orcutt said.

  “To him I’ll always be a potential sucker. He can’t afford not to like me.”

  “He was disappointed you weren’t at the meeting.”

  “I’ll bet he was.” Devan looked sharply at Orcutt. “Just how sold on this thing are you?”

  Orcutt was wearing his smile again. “All the way, Dev.”

  Devan threw his hands in air. “I give up. I’ve always liked you, Ed. Now I don’t understand you.”

  Orcutt opened a drawer, withdrew a few sheets of paper. “You mentioned five per cent. Take a look at this agreement. It hasn’t been signed yet, of course, but it will be, after the board meeting this afternoon. I’ll save you time by telling you you won’t find Sam’s name on it anywhere. Know why?”

  “I’ll bite.”

  Orcutt leaned across the desk. “He doesn’t get a cent out of the appropriation.”

  Devan took the papers, riffled them, looked at a paragraph here and a paragraph there. A man named Dr. Winfield Costigan was to get a million dollars for an experiment he was to conduct. Devan threw them back on the desk.

  “All right,” he said. “What’s Sam Otto in this thing for, then?”

  “Sam believes in it, Dev. Same as I do.”

  Devan grunted. “I have to see that to believe it. Maybe this guy Costigan really sold him a bill of goods. Wouldn’t that be a laugh after all these years! Selling Sam a space ship!”

  “Space ship?” Orcutt stared at him for a moment, then broke into a hearty laugh that made tears come to his eyes. “That’s rich, that is. The funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. Your informant didn’t get that one straight, Dev, but I can see how it happened. If you only knew, you’d be laughing, too.”

  “Well, what is it then?” Devan asked, reddening.

  Orcutt’s face sobered. “I can’t tell you that, Dev. It’s a matter of the utmost secrecy. All of us have agreed not to mention it here.” Devan was getting more and more annoyed.

  “Is that right? Want to know my opinion? I’d say Dr. Costigan and Sam Otto have you fellows all tied up with a pretty pink ribbon.”

  “You can think that if you want to, Devan, but right now I want you to take a trip with me.”

  “Where?”

  “To Dr. Costigan’s workshop.”

  Devan didn’t move. “Ed, I value your opinion a lot, but nothing and I repeat nothing could be so earth-shaking that it can’t be mentioned in the office of the company putting up the funds, much less in the presence of a member of the executive committee. Another thing: Why didn’t you let Miss Treat take the notes for the meeting? Shall I tell you why? Because you knew she’d tell me all about it if you did.”

  “Now you’re completely off the track, Devan. It was Miss Treat herself who turned down the note-taking task. She knew if she wasn’t there it would sound more intriguing to you and make you hurry back.”

  “I don’t believe it. Why should Miss Treat want me to hurry back?” Devan was exasperated. “You don’t make sense, Ed.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Dev! Can’t you see it? The girl’s in love with you! We’ve all seen it. We knew what was going on.”

  “Miss Treat?” Devan laughed. “Why, Ed, she can’t be. I’m a married man. I have two children.”

  “Is that any criterion for love? Don’t be so naive, Dev. She’s been eating her heart out ever since you said you were going to Florida. She had a compulsion to get you back and she did.”

  “But she had a damn good reason, as far as I’m concerned, love or no love. She knew I wouldn’t like the idea of Inland spending this money on a flight of fancy.”

  “Since we’re being frank, Dev, let me tell you something. You’re just too damn sure of yourself. You’re too certain you know everything. It so happens I’m staking my future in the field on this single venture.” Orcutt knocked ashes from his pipe. “Now we might go and ask Jimmy about it, or we might mention it casually to Glenn and you’d see their reaction. But there’s nothing like s
eeing the thing yourself. I knew you were coming and I’ve made the arrangements. So come on.”

  The building that Orcutt said the gadget was in was an old five-story brick factory that Devan guessed hadn’t been used for at least three years. They circled the block several times in Orcutt’s Cadillac, the big man swearing softly because all the parking spaces were filled.

  “Some people park way down here and walk to their jobs in the Loop,” Orcutt said, wheeling the car around another corner. “When we move in we’re going to need space for company parking. But I don’t see how we’re going to get it.”

  Devan didn’t say anything. Although he didn’t want to prejudge the proposed project, he felt reasonably sure that his feeling about it would be justified. Whatever it was, there could be no reason to take it this far from Inland. There was plenty of room for research in the big plant and there’d be no parking problem there. Best of all, it would put the project underfoot, if there was to be a project.

  They parked two blocks away and walked testily along hard-packed snow that covered the sidewalks. As they neared the empty building, they went past a tavern, a plumbing supply house with corroding copper tank floats and a disordered array of faucets, pipes and accessories behind dirty windows, a printing establishment with yellowed broadsides and type samples on display, a clean and white-painted front that proclaimed the building “Sudduth’s Rescue Mission.” There was a Bible in the window and a spotlight brightened the pages to which it was open. Next door was a grocery—Hodge’s Grocery—dimly lighted, steamed-over plate glass spoiling the view inside.

  Just below the ornate cornice topping the five stories of the next building, and spreading across the hundred-foot front were faded gold letters, “Rasmussen Stove Company,” on a filigreed background. Some of the letters had, through years of weather, come loose and now were slanted, one against another. The “e” of “Stove” was missing. Devan wondered whatever had become of it.

  “I don’t think it’s been a stove company for twenty years,” Orcutt said, following Devan’s look upward. “During the war, light tools were made here. Pliers and chisels. Come on.” He approached the front door and knocked.

  Devan saw that the old door was equipped with a new lock. Then he saw the door open a few inches. An old man with rheumy eyes, a face full of blue veins and wearing a muffler and earmuffs peered out at them.

  “I’m Edmund Orcutt,” Orcutt said. “Dr. Costigan is expecting us.”

  The door chain Devan hadn’t noticed before was slid out and dropped. The old man stood in the doorway.

  “Identification,” he said.

  “Identification?”

  “Got to make sure,” the man said, not moving aside. “Mr. Otto said to make sure.”

  “Sam Otto can go to hell,” Orcutt said, drawing out his billfold and showing the old man who he was.

  “How about him?” the old man said, pointing at Devan.

  “He’s with me.”

  The old man shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t know about that. Mr. Otto—”

  “Well, I do. We’ve got to come in. It’s cold out here.”

  “It ain’t any warmer inside.” He stepped aside and when the two had stepped through he said, “Just a minute.” Then he closed the door and rattled the chain in place. “I’d better go up with you.”

  The chill inside, as in any unheated building, seemed worse than the cold outside in spite of the fact that the old man had a portable kerosene heater working near his post at the door. Their breaths made large plumes of fog as they walked across the scarred floor to the rear of the dim interior. Here there were stairs that creaked and groaned as they walked up, the sounds jarringly loud because the building was empty.

  In the middle of the second floor Devan saw a large, unpainted plywood shed with clean windows and fluorescent lights inside.

  Several strands of braided electric wires ran from the structure’s roof along the rafters and out a window that had lost its glass long ago. He could see no one inside the shed as they followed the door guard across the floor, but when they were nearly there the door was flung open and Devan saw Sam Otto.

  It was the same Sam Otto, broad of face and broad of beam, his big teeth white in a wide grin, the cigar Devan knew would be there protruding from the ruddy face. The same eagerness, the same bright eyes. And, Devan guessed, the same glib tongue.

  “Devan, Devan!” Sam came out as if to embrace him and, as Devan stepped to one side, caught an arm, found the hand and shook it. “Glad to see you. You, too, Mr. Orcutt. Dr. Costigan, we have visitors! Come in, come in. Plenty of room. Too cold out there.” He dismissed the old man. “It’s all right, Casey.”

  Sam bobbed on his feet impatiently and worried them into the room like a mother hen. “I know you, Devan. This one you’ll never believe. But then Mr. Orcutt didn’t believe it either, did you, Mr. Orcutt?” He laughed and poked Orcutt in the ribs with his elbow. “I’ve really got something this time. Oh.” He sensed the need of an introduction when Devan nodded to the fourth man in the room. “Dr. Costigan, this is Devan Traylor. Devan, I want you to meet Dr. Costigan. I’d better close that door. Got a heater in here, but it doesn’t do too well when that door’s open.”

  Devan shook the hand of a tall, slim man with thinning gray hair and moist gray eyes. The hand was limp, the body a little stooped, as if the doctor were embarrassed by his height. Devan guessed his age at around sixty.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Dr. Costigan said. His voice was low and soft. His manner was that of a shy man. “Are you with Inland, Mr. Traylor?”

  “Is he with Inland?” Sam came up and slapped Devan on the back. “He’s only one of the directors, Doctor, that’s all. And a regular member of the executive committee, too.”

  The scientist looked at him with renewed interest.

  “He was in Florida,” Orcutt explained, shedding his coat. “Came back when he heard about the project.”

  “Oh, yes. The absent one.” Dr. Costigan’s smile was but a brief visitation. “They said there was one short.”

  “Didn’t you tell Dr. Costigan we were coming?” Orcutt asked Sam with some annoyance.

  “Never bother the doctor with unimportant details,” Sam said. Then he laughed. “Not that Devan is an unimportant detail. Sure not. But the doctor has enough to think about. Think what he’s got to do! I figured you’d get here when you got here. Now, a—”

  “I just wanted the doctor to know what I had in mind,” Orcutt said.

  “Why, yes,” Sam said. “Of course. The doctor knows, don’t you, Doctor?” Dr. Costigan only raised his eyebrows, seemed about to say something when Sam went on. “How’ve you been, Devan?”

  “I’ve been better,” Devan said with a sickening feeling that he was wasting his time. The thing was getting more ridiculous all the time. He wished he had never come. “I suppose it’s about time, isn’t it, Sam, to show me that little outfit that turns blank paper into twenty dollar bills at the turn of a crank? Or is this the one that has an electric furnace that turns out real diamonds? Or a gold brick?”

  “Always joking,” Sam chuckled. “The same old Devan. You’ll get a kick out of him, Doctor. Great joker.”

  Dr. Costigan looked alarmed. “Sam, I thought—”

  Sam took out his cigar and put it on the edge of a desk. “How were we to know Mr. Traylor was coming, Doctor? Life’s like that, isn’t it? The unexpected and all that. A promise is a promise, I know, but then we must remember Mr. Traylor is an important man at Inland.”

  “But so many people!” The doctor was worried. “I told you I’d show it once and you agreed.”

  “But, Doctor! Mr. Orcutt’s brought Devan all the way down here to see it.”

  “I don’t blame you, Dr. Costigan,” Devan said. “If I had my way, anything as important as the thing you have wouldn’t be shown to anyone either. It wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t been through this many times before with Sam.”

  “Just a minute, De
van,” Orcutt said. “I’m afraid I’m to blame, Dr. Costigan. I promised Devan he could see the machine.” Then he went on firmly, “He’s got to see it if we’re going to get the approval of the board this afternoon.” He looked at his wrist watch. “It’s eleven now. The board meets at one thirty. There’s a lot to be done.”

  Devan dropped into one of the chairs, lit a cigarette and looked at the three of them in disgust. “Look,” he said. “I’ve been in the business for a good, long time. I doubt that anything merits all these shenanigans unless it is something better than the H-bomb. Whatever this thing is you have, cart it out and let’s see it. I think you should know, Doctor, I think it’s a phony deal all the way through and if you don’t show this thing I’m going to tell the board just what I think of this whole setup.”

  “Devan,” Sam said in a hurt voice. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Better let him see it, Doctor,” Orcutt said. “Otherwise it looks like no deal.”

  For a moment Dr. Costigan stood in the middle of the room, his eyes bright with fury. Then he straightened and turned to a door on the far side of the room.

  “Very well,” he said, producing a key and inserting it into a large padlock.

  Devan had an almost uncontrollable urge to laugh, but restrained himself. He looked at Orcutt and Sam and saw the eagerness in their faces and wondered how much of the act was for his benefit. When the doctor had the door open, Devan crushed out his cigarette and followed them through the door.

  It was a small room, he guessed about ten feet by twelve, lighted by several fluorescent lights along the walls. There was a bench running along one side of it and tools familiar to the electronics trade were arranged neatly on the wall above.

  The rear of the bench was littered with radio and electronics parts, items Devan recognized as a sweep generator, test instruments, oscilloscope, voltage control transformer, voltage stabilizer, and cabinets of resistor and capacitor assortments and other radio trivia. Except for the wall to the right with larger instruments in racks and a multitude of lights, buttons, switches and meters, it could have been an amateur’s radio repair shop, although he would have been a well-heeled amateur.