The Common Man Part 8

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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "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 ran 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 n.a.z.is 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."

It took them half an hour or so to sort out those materials each needed in his own contribution to the end product.

Their captor looked at his watch impatiently. "Let's get a move on, here. I thought this was going to take a few minutes."

Patricia said testily, "What's the hurry, Don?"

He grinned at her. "Tonight's the big night. This evening, just before closing, I walk into.... Well, you don't have to know the name. Like I said, it'll make the Brinks job look like peanuts. They lock up the place and leave, see? O.K., about two o'clock in the morning, when the city's dead, Larry and the boys drive up into an alley, behind. I go around, one by one, and sock the four guards on the back of the head.

Then I open up for Larry and they take their time and clear the place out. From then on, we got all the dough we need to start pyramiding it up on the Stock Exchange and like that."

Patricia had drawn on rubber gloves, pulled a lab ap.r.o.n around her. She began reaching for test tubes, measuring devices. She murmured softly, "What keeps you from telling yourself you're nothing but a crook, Don?

When we first met you--it seems a terribly long time ago, back there in Far Cry--you didn't seem to be such a bad egg."

"We didn't know, then, he was a cracked egg," Ross muttered. He looked to where Crowley slouched, his eyes narrow as though considering his chances of rushing the other. Crowley grinned and shook his head. "Don't try it, Buster."

Crowley looked at Patricia. "You don't get it, sister. It's like somebody or other said. The ends, uh, justify the means. That means...."

"I know what it means," Patricia said impatiently.

Dr. Braun, who rather hopelessly was also beginning to work at the equipment their captor had provided, said reasonably, "Don, the greater number of the thinkers of the world have rejected that maxim. If you will, umah, a.n.a.lyze it, you will find that the end and the means are one."

"Yeah, yeah, a lot of complicated egghead gas. What I'm saying, Pat, is that what I'm eventually heading for is good for everybody. At least it's good for all real hundred per cent Americans. Everybody's going to go to college and guaranteed to come out with what you three got, a doctor's degree. Everybody's going to get a guaranteed annual wage, like, whether or not they can do any work. It's not a guy's fault if he gets sick or unemployed or something. Everybody...."

"Shades of all the social-reformers who ever lived," Ross muttered.

"By Caesar," Braun said in despair, "I have an idea you'll get the vote of every halfwit in the country."

Crowley came to his feet. "I don't like that kind of talk, Doc. Maybe I'm just a country boy, but I know what the common man wants and what I'm going to do is give it to him."

Patricia looked up from her work long enough to frown at him. "What special are you going to get out of this, Don?"

That took him back for a moment and he scowled at her.

"Come, come," she said. "You've already admitted to we three just what you think and are going to do. Now, how do you picture yourself, after all this has been accomplished?"

His face suddenly broke into its grin, a somewhat sly element in it now.

"You know, when I get this all worked out, the folks are going to be pretty thankful."

"I'll bet," Ross muttered. He, too, was working at his element of compounding the serum.