Short Fiction · Status Quo (9/10)

He shook hands with Larry. “It’s been a long time,” he said in perfect English. “That conference in Warsaw, wasn’t it? Have a chair, Mr. Woolford.”

Larry took the offered chair and said, “How in the world did you expect to get by with this nonsense? We’ll have you declared persona non grata in a matter of hours.”

“It’s not important,” Eivazov shrugged. “I have found what I came to find. I was about to return to report nyway.”

“We won’t do anything to hinder you, colonel,” Larry said dryly.

Eivazov snapped his fingers. “It’s all amusing,” he said. “In our country we would quickly deal with this Movement nonsense. You Americans with your pseudo-democracy, your labels without reality, your⁠—”

Larry said wearily, “Please, Frol, I promise not to convert you if you promise not to convert me. Needless to say, my department isn’t happy about your presence in this country. You’ll be watched from now on. We’ve been busy with other matters⁠ ⁠…”

Here the Russian laughed.

“… Or we’d already have flushed you.” He allowed his voice to go curious. “We’ve wondered about your interest in this phase of our internal affairs.”

The Russian agent let his façade slip over farther, his heavy lips sneering. “We are interested in all phases of your antiquated socioeconomic system, Mr. Woolford. In the present peaceful economic competition between East and West, we would simply loathe to see anything happen to your present culture.” He hesitated deliberately. “If you can call it a culture.”

Larry said, unprovoked, “If I understand you correctly, you are not in favor of the changes the Movement advocates.”

The Russian shrugged hugely. “I doubt if they are possible of achievement. The organization is a sloppy one. Revolutionary? Nonsense,” he scoffed. “They have no plans to change the government. No plans for overthrowing the regime. Ultimately, what this country needs is true Communism. This so-called Movement doesn’t have that as its eventual goal. It is laughable.”

Larry said, interestedly, “Then perhaps you’ll tell me what little you’ve found out about the group.”

“Why not?” The Russian pursed his lips. “They are composed of impractical idealists. Scientists, intellectuals, a few admitted scholars and even a few potential leaders. Their sabotage of your Department of Records was an amusing farce, but, frankly, I have been unable to discover the purpose of their interest in rockets. For a time I contemplated the possibility that they had a scheme to develop a nuclear bomb, and to explode it over Greater Washington in the belief that in the resulting confusion they might seize power. But, on the face of it their membership is incapable of such an effort.”

“Their interest in rockets?” Larry said softly.

“Yes, as you’ve undoubtedly discovered, half the rocket technicians of your country seem to have joined with them. We got the tip through”⁠—the Russian cleared his throat⁠—“several of our converts who happen to be connected with your space efforts groups.”

“Is that so?” Larry said. “I wondered what you thought about their interest in money.”

It was the other’s turn to look blank. “Money?” he said.

“That’s right. Large quantities of money.”

The Russian said, frowning, “I suppose most citizens in your capitalist countries are interested largely in money. One of your basic failings.”

Driving back to the office, Larry Woolford let it pile up on him.

Ernest Self had been a specialist in solid fuel for rockets. When Larry had questioned Professor Voss that worthy had particularly stressed his indignation at how Professor Goddard, the rocket pioneer, had been treated by his contemporaries. Franklin Nostrand had been employed as a technician on rocket research at Madison Air Laboratories. It was too darn much for coincidence.

And now something else that had been nagging away at the back of his mind suddenly came clear.

Susan Self had said that she and her father had seen the precision dancers at the New Roxy Theater in New York and later the Professor had said they were going to spend the money on chorus girls. Susan had got it wrong. The Rockettes⁠—the precision chorus girls. The Professor had said they were going to spend the money on rockets, and Susan had misunderstood.

But billions of dollars expended on rockets? How? But, above all, to what end?

If he’d only been able to hold onto Susan, or her father; or to Voss or Nostrand, for that matter. Someone to work on. But each had slipped through his fingers.

Which brought something else up from his subconscious. Something which had been tugging at him.

At the office, Irene Day was packing her things as he entered. Packing as though she was leaving for good.

“What goes on?” Larry growled. “I’m going to be needing you. Things are coming to a head.”

She said, a bit snippishly, Larry thought, “Miss Polk, in the Boss’ office, said for you to see her as soon as you came in, Mr. Woolford.”

“Oh?”

He made his way to LaVerne’s office, his attention actually on the ideas churning in his mind.

She looked up when he entered.

Larry said, “The Boss wanted to see me?”

LaVerne ducked her head, as though embarrassed. “Not exactly, Larry.”

He gestured with his thumb in the direction of his own cubicle office. “Irene just said you wanted me.”

LaVerne looked up into his face. “The Boss and Mr. Foster, too, are boiling about your authorizing that Distelmayer man to bill this department for information he gave you. The Boss hit the roof. Something about the Senate Appropriations Committee getting down on him if it came out that we bought information from professional espionage agents.”

Larry said, “It was information we needed, and Foster gave me the go ahead on locating Frol Eivazov. Maybe I’d better see the Boss.”

LaVerne said, “I don’t think he wants to see you, Larry. They’re up to their ears in this Movement thing. It’s in the papers now and nobody knows what to do next. The President is going to make a speech on Tri-D, and the Boss has to supply the information. His orders are for you to resume your vacation. To take a month off and then see him when you get back.”

Larry sank down into a chair. “I see,” he said. “And at that time he’ll probably transfer me to janitor service.”

“Larry,” LaVerne said, almost impatiently, “why in the world didn’t you take that job Walt Foster has now when the Boss offered it to you?”

“Because I’m stupid, I suppose,” Larry said bitterly. “I thought I could do more working alone than at an administrative post tangled in red tape and bureaucratic routine.”

She said, “Sorry, Larry.” She sounded as though she meant it.

Larry stood up. “Well, tonight I’m going to hang one on, and tomorrow it’s back to Florida.” He said in a rush, “Look LaVerne, how about that date we’ve been talking about for six months or more?”

She looked up at him. “I can’t stand vodka martinis.”

“Neither can I,” he said glumly.

“And I don’t get a kick out of prancing around, a stuffed shirt among fellow stuffed shirts, at some goings-on that supposedly improves my culture status.”

Larry said “At the house I have every known brand of drinkable, and a stack of⁠ ⁠… what did you call it?⁠ ⁠… corny music. We can mix our own drinks and dance all by ourselves.”

She tucked her head to one side and looked at him suspiciously. “Are your intentions honorable?”

“We can even discuss that later,” he said sourly.

She laughed. “It’s a date, Larry.”

He picked her up after work, and they drove to his Brandywine auto-bungalow, largely quiet the whole way.

At one point she touched his hand with hers and said, “It’ll work out, Larry.”

“Yeah,” he said sourly. “I’ve put ten years into ingratiating myself with the Boss. Now, overnight, he’s got a new boy. I suppose there’s some moral involved.”

When they pulled up before his auto-bungalow, LaVerne whistled appreciatively. “Quite a neighborhood you’re in.”

He grunted. “A good address. What our friend Professor Voss would call one more status symbol, one more social-label. For it I pay about fifty percent more rent than my budget can afford.”

He ushered her inside and took her jacket. “Look,” he said, indicating his living room with a sweep of hand. “See that volume of Klee reproductions there next to my reading chair? That proves I’m not a weird. Indicates my culture status. Actually, my appreciation of modern art doesn’t go any further than the Impressionists. But don’t tell anybody. See those books up on my shelves. Same thing. You’ll find everything there that ought to be on the shelves of any ambitious young career man.”

She looked at him from the side of her eyes. “You’re really soured, Larry.”

“Come along,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

He took her down the tiny elevator to his den.

“How hypocritical can you get?” he asked her. “This is where I really live. But I seldom bring anyone here. Wouldn’t want to get a reputation as a weird. Sit down, LaVerne, I’ll make a drink. How about a Sidecar?”

She sank onto the couch, kicked her shoes off and slipped her feet under her. “I’d love one,” she said.

His back to her, he brought brandy and cointreau from his liquor cabinet, lemon and ice from the tiny refrigerator.

“What?” LaVerne said mockingly. “No auto-bar?”

“Upstairs with the rest of the status symbols,” Larry grunted.

He put her drink before her and turned and went to the record player.

“In the way of corny music, how do you like that old-timer, Nat Cole?”

“King Cole? Love him,” LaVerne said.

The strains of “For All We Know” penetrated the room.

Larry sat down across from her, finished half his drink in one swallow.

“I’m beginning to wonder whether or not this Movement doesn’t have something,” he said.

She didn’t answer that. They sat in silence for a while, appreciating the drink. Nat Cole was singing “The Very Thought of You” now. Larry got up and made two more cocktails. This time he sat next to her. He leaned his head back on the couch and closed his eyes.

Finally he said softly, “When Steve Hackett and I were questioning Susan, there was only one other person who knew that we’d picked her up. There was only one person other than Steve and me who could have warned Ernest Self to make a getaway. Later on, there was only one person who could have warned Frank Nostrand so that he and the Professor could find a new hideout.”

She said sleepily, “How long have you known about that, darling?”

“A while,” Larry said, his own voice quiet. “I figured it out when I also decided how Susan Self was spirited out of the Greater Washington Hilton, before we had the time to question her further. Somebody who had access to tapes made of me while I was making phone calls cut out a section and dubbed in a voice so that Betsy Hughes, the Secret Service matron who was watching Susan, was fooled into believing it was I ordering the girl to be turned over to the two Movement members who came to get her.”

LaVerne stirred comfortably and let her head sink onto his shoulder. “You’re so warm and⁠ ⁠… comfortable,” she said.

Larry said softly, “What does the Movement expect to do with all that counterfeit money, LaVerne?”

She stirred against his shoulder, as though bothered by the need to talk. “Give it all away,” she said. “Distribute it all over the country and destroy the nation’s social currency.”

It took him a long moment to assimilate that.

“What have the rockets to do with it?”

She stirred once again, as though wishing he’d be silent. “That’s how it will be distributed. About twenty rockets, strategically placed, each with a warhead of a couple of tons of money. Fired to an altitude of a couple of hundred miles and then the money is spewed out. In falling, it will be distributed over cities and countryside, everywhere. Billions upon billions of dollars worth.”

Larry said, so softly as hardly to be heard, “What will that accomplish?”

“Money is the greatest social-label of them all. The Professor believes that through this step the Movement will have accomplished its purpose. That people will be forced to utilize their judgment, rather than depend upon social-labels.”

Larry didn’t follow that, but he had no time to go further now. He said, still evenly soft, “And when is the Movement going to do this?”

La Verne moved comfortably. “The trucks go out to distribute the money tonight. The rockets are waiting. The firing will take place in a few days.”

“And where is the Professor now?”

“Where the money and the trucks are hidden, darling. What difference does it make?” LaVerne said sleepily.

“And where is that?”

“At the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation. It’s owned by one of the Movement’s members.”

He said. “There’s a password. What is it?”

“Judgment.”

Larry Woolford bounced to his feet. He looked down at her, then over at the phone. In three quick steps he was over to it. He grasped its wires and yanked them from the wall, silencing it. He slipped into the tiny elevator, locking the door to the den behind him.

As the door slid closed, her voice wailed, still sleepily husky, “Larry, darling, where are you⁠—”

He ran down the walk of the house, vaulted into the car and snapped on its key. He slammed down the lift lever, kicked the thrust pedal and was thrown back against the seat by the acceleration.

Even while he was climbing, he flicked on the radiophone, called Personal Service for the location of the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation.

Fifteen minutes later, he parked a block away from his destination, noting with satisfaction that it was still an hour or more to go until dark. His intuition, working doubletime now, told him that they’d probably wait until nightfall to start their money-laden trucks to rolling.

He hesitated momentarily before turning on the phone and dialing the Boss’ home address.

When the other’s face faded in, it failed to display pleasure when the caller’s identity was established. His superior growled, “Confound it, Woolford, you know my privacy is to be respected. This phone is to be used only in extreme emergency.”

“Yes, sir,” Larry said briskly. “It’s the Movement⁠—”

The other’s face darkened still further. “You’re not on that assignment any longer, Woolford. Walter Foster has taken over and I’m sympathetic to his complaints that you’ve proven more a hindrance than anything else.”

Larry ignored his words, “Sir, I’ve tracked them down. Professor Voss is at the Greater Washington Trucking Corporation garages here in the Alexandria section of town. Any moment now, they’re going to start distribution of all that counterfeit money on some scatterbrain plan to disrupt the country’s exchange system.”

Suddenly alert, the department chief snapped, “Where are you, Woolford?”

“Outside the garages, sir. But I’m going in now.”

“You stay where you are,” the other snapped. “I’ll have every department man and every Secret Service man in town over there within twenty minutes. You hang on. Those people are lunatics, and probably desperate.”

Inwardly, Larry Woolford grinned. He wasn’t going to lose this opportunity to finish up the job with him on top. He said flatly, “Sir, we can’t chance it. They might escape. I’m going in!” He flicked off the set, dialed again and raised Sam Sokolski.

“Sam,” he said, his voice clipped. “I’ve cornered the Movement’s leader and am going in for the finish. Maybe some of you journalist boys better get on over here.” He gave the other the address and flicked off before there were any questions.

From the dash compartment he brought a heavy automatic, and checked the clip. He put it in his hip pocket and left the car and walked toward the garages. Time was running out now.

He strode into the only open door, without shift of pace. Two men were posted nearby, neither of them truckmen by appearance. They looked at him in surprise.

Larry clipped out, “The password is Judgment. I’ve got to see Professor Voss immediately.”