"Where you left them. There in that bedroom," Ross said. "We'll wait for
you." He went back and rejoined his associates. The door to the bedroom
opened, there was a shimmering, more obvious now, and then the door
closed behind it.
"He rejoined us just in time," Dr. Braun murmured. "Another ten minutes
and he would have ... umah ... _materialized_ down on the street."
Ross hadn't finished the discussion. He said, his face in all but pout,
"What you don't realize, Pat, is the world has gone beyond the point
where scientific discoveries can be suppressed. If we try to keep the
lid on this today, the Russians or Chinese, or somebody, will hit on it
tomorrow."
Patricia said impatiently, "Good heavens, let's don't bring the Cold War
into it."
Ross opened his mouth to snap something back at her, closed it again and
shrugged his bulky shoulders angrily.
In a matter of less than ten minutes the bedroom door reopened and this
time a grinning Crowley emerged, fully dressed. He said, "Man, that was
a devil of an experience!"
They saw him to a chair and had him talk it all through. He was candid
enough, bubbling over with it all.
In the some eleven and a half hours he'd been on his own, he had covered
quite an area of Manhattan.
Evidently the first hour had been spent in becoming used to the
startling situation. He couldn't even see himself, which, to his
surprise affected walking and even use of his hands. You had to get used
to it. Then there was the fact that he was nude and _felt_ nude and
hence uncomfortable walking about in mixed pedestrian traffic. But that
phase passed. Early in the game he found that there was small percentage
in getting into crowds. It led to all sorts of complications, including
the starting of minor rows, one person thinking another was pushing when
it was simply a matter of Crowley trying to get out from underfoot.
Then he went through a period of the wonder of it all. Being able to
walk _anywhere_ and observe people who had no suspicion that they were
being observed. It was during that phase that he had sought out the
hotel in which he had read the chesty French movie actress Brigette
Loren was in residence. Evidently, he'd hit the nail right on the head.
Brigette was at her toilette when he arrived on scene. In telling about
this, Crowley leered amusedly at Patricia from the side of his eyes. She
ignored him.
Then he'd gone through a period when the full realization of his
immunity had hit him.
At this point he turned to Braun, "Hey, Doc, you ever eaten any caviar?
You know, that Russian stuff. Supposed to be the most expensive food in
the world."
The doctor cleared his throat. "Small amounts in hors d'oeuvres at
cocktail parties."
"Well, maybe I'm just a country boy but the stuff tastes like fish eggs
to me. Anyway, to get back to the story...."
He'd gone into Tiffany's and into some of the other swank shops. And
then into a bank or two, and stared at the treasures of Manhattan.
At this point he looked at Ross. "You know, just being invisible don't
mean all that. How you going to pick up a wad of thousand dollar bills
and just walk out the front door with them? Everybody'd see the dough
just kind of floating through the air."
"I came to the same conclusion myself, when I experimented," Ross said
wryly.
He had ridden on the subways ... free. He had eaten various food in
various swank restaurants. He had even had drinks in name bars, sampling
everything from Metaxa to vintage champagne. He was of the opinion that
even though he remained invisible for the rest of his years, he'd still
stick to bourbon and beer.
[Illustration]
He had gone down to Wall Street and into the offices of the top
brokerage firms and into the sanctum sanctorums of the wealthiest of
mucky-mucks but had been too impatient to stick around long enough to
possibly hear something that might be profitable. He admitted,
grudgingly, that he wouldn't have known what to listen for anyway.
Frustrated there, he had gone back uptown and finally located the
hangout of one of the more renown sports promoters who was rumored to
have gangster connections and was currently under bail due to a boxing
scandal. He had stayed about that worthy's office for an hour, gleaning
nothing more than several dirty jokes he'd never heard before.
All this activity had wearied him so he went to the Waldorf, located an
empty suite in the tower and climbed into bed for a nap after coolly
phoning room service to give him a call in two hours. That had almost
led to disaster. Evidently, someone on room service had found the suite
to be supposedly empty and had sent a boy up to investigate. However,
when he had heard the door open, Crowley had merely rolled out of the
bed and left, leaving a startled bellhop behind staring at rumpled
bedclothes which had seemed to stir of their own accord.
* * *
The rest of the day was little different from the first hours. He had
gone about gawking in places he couldn't have had he been visible. Into
the dressing room of the Roxie, into the bars of swank private clubs,
into the offices of the F.B.I. He would have liked to have walked in on
a poker game with some real high rollers playing, such as Nick the
Greek, but he didn't have the time nor know-how to go about finding one.
Crowley wound it all up with a gesture of both hands, palms upward. "I
gotta admit, it was fun, but what the devil good is it?"
They looked at him questioningly.
Crowley said, "I mean, how's it practical? How can you make a buck out
of it, if you turn it over to the public, like? Everybody'd go around
robbing everybody else and you'd all wind up equal."
Dr. Braun chuckled in deprecation. "There would be various profitable
uses, Don. One priceless one would be scientific observation of wild
life. For that matter there would be valid usage in everyday life. There
are often personal reasons for not wishing to be observed. Celebrities,
for instance, wishing to avoid crowds."
"Yeah," Crowley laughed, "or a businessman out with his secretary."
Dr. Braun frowned. "Of course, there are many other aspects. It would
mean the end of such things as the Iron Curtain. And also the end of
such things as American immigration control. There are many, many
ramifications, Don, some of which frighten us. The world would be never
quite the same."
Crowley leaned forward confidentially. "Well, I'll tell you. I was
thinking it all out. What we got to do is turn it over to the Army and
soak them plenty for it."
The others ignored his cutting himself a piece of the cake.
Ross Wooley merely grunted bitterly.
Patricia said impatiently, "We've thought most of these things through,
Don. However, Dr. Braun happens to be quite a follower of Lord Russell."
Crowley looked at her blankly.
"He's a pacifist," she explained.
Braun pushed his glasses back more firmly on his nose and said, gently,
"The military already have enough gadgets to destroy quite literally
everything and I trust one set of them no more than the other. If
_both_ sides had our discovery, then, very well, each would go about
attempting to find some manner of penetrating the invisibility, or
taking various measures to protect their top secrets. But to give it to
just one would be such an advantage that the other would have to embark
immediately upon a desperate attack before the advantage could be fully
realized. If we turn this over to the Pentagon, for exclusive use, the
Soviets would have to begin a preventative war as soon as they learned
of its existence."
"You a red?" Crowley said, scowling.
The doctor shrugged hopelessly. "No," he said.
Crowley turned to the other two. "If you think it's the patriotic thing
to do, why don't one of you sell it to the government?"
Patricia said testily, "You don't understand, Don. Even if we were so
thoroughly in disagreement that we would act unilaterally, we couldn't.
You see, this is a three-way discovery. No one of us knows the complete
process."
His face twisted. "Look, maybe some of this egghead stuff doesn't get
through to me but I'm not stupid, see? You got the stuff, haven't you?
You gave me that shot this morning."
Braun took over, saying reasonably, "Don, this discovery was hit upon by
accident. The three of us are employed in the laboratories of a medical
research organization. I am the department head. Patricia and Ross were
doing some routine work on a minor problem when they separately stumbled
upon some rather startling effects, practically at the same time. Each,
separately, brought their discoveries to me, and, working you might say
intuitively, I added some conclusions of my own, and ... well, I repeat,
the discovery was stumbled upon."
Crowley assimilated that. "None of you knows how to do it, make those
injections like, by himself?"
"That is correct. Each knows just one phase of the process. Each must
combine with the other two."
Patricia said impatiently, "And thus far we wish to keep it that way.
Rossie believes the discovery should be simultaneously revealed on a
world-wide basis, and let man adapt to it as best he can. I think it
should be suppressed until man has grown up a little--if he ever does.
The doctor vacillates between the two positions. What he would truly
like to see, is the method kept only for the use of qualified
scientists, but even our good doctor realizes what a dream that is."
Crowley took them all in, one at a time. "Well, what the devil are you
going to do?"
"That's a good question," Ross said unhappily.
"This experiment was a farce," Patricia said irritably. "After all our
trouble locating Don, our _Common Man_, we have found out nothing that
we didn't know before. His reactions were evidently largely similar to
our own and...." She broke it off and frowned thoughtfully. The other
three looked at her questioningly.
Patricia said, "You know, we simply haven't seen this thing through as
yet."
"What do you mean, Pat?" Ross growled.
She turned to him. "We haven't given Don the chance to prove which one
of us is right. One day is insufficient. Half the things he wished to
do, such as sneaking around picking up stock tips in Wall Street and
inside information on sporting events...."
"Hey, take it easy," Crowley protested. "I was just, like, curious."
Ross said heatedly, "That's not fair. I'll admit, I, too, thought of
exactly the same possibilities. But _thinking_ about them and going
through with them are different things. Haven't you ever thought about
what you'd do if given the chance to be world-wide supreme dictator?
But, truly, if the job was offered, would you take it?"
"Good heavens," Patricia said disgustedly, "remind me to break off our
engagement if I haven't already done it. I hate overpowering men. All
I'm saying is that we'll have to give Don at least a week. One day isn't
enough."
Dr. Braun cocked his head to one side and said uncomfortably, "I'm not
sure but that in a week's time our friend Don might be able.... See
here, Don, do you mind going on down to the hotel's bar while we three
talk this through?"
Crowley obviously took umbrage at that, but there was nothing to be
done. Frowning peevishly, he left.
The doctor looked from one to the other of his associates. "By Caesar,
do you realize the damage friend Don could accomplish in a week's time?"
Patricia laughed at him. "That's what I keep telling the two of you. Do
you realize the damage _any_ person could do with invisibility? Not to
speak of giving it to every Tom, Dick and Harry in the world."
Ross said, "We've started this, lets go through with it. I back Pat's
suggestion, that we give Don sufficient serum to give him twelve hours
of invisibility a day for a full week. However, we will ration it out to
him day by day, so that if things get out of hand we can cut his
supply."
"That's an idea," Patricia said. "And I suspect that within half the
period we'll all be convinced that the process will have to be
suppressed."
Ross leaned forward. "Good. I suggest we three keep this suite and get
Don a room elsewhere, so he won't be inhibited by our continual
presence. Once a day we'll give him enough serum for one shot and he can
take it any time he wishes to." He ran his beefy hand back through his
red crew cut in a gesture of satisfaction. "If he seems to get out of
hand, we'll call it all off."
Dr. Braun cleared his throat unhappily. "I have premonitions of
disaster, but I suppose if we've come this far we should see the
experiment through."
Patricia said ungraciously, "At least the lout will be limited in his
accomplishments by his lack of imagination. Imagine going into that
French girl's dressing room."
"Yeah," Ross said ludicrously trying to make his big open face look
dreamy.
"You wretch," Patricia laughed. "The wedding is off!"
* * * * *
But Crowley was no lout. He was full of the folk wisdom of his people.
_God helps those who help themselves._
_It's each man for himself and the devil take the hindmost._
Not to speak of.
_Never give a sucker an even break._
_If I didn't do it, somebody else would._
Had he been somewhat more of a student he might also have run into that
nugget of the ancient Greek. _Morals are the invention of the weak to
protect themselves from the strong._
Once convinced that the three eggheads were incapable of realizing the
potentialities of their discovery, he had little difficulty in arguing
himself into the stand that he should. It helped considerably to realize
that in all the world only four persons, including himself, were aware
of the existence of the invisibility serum.
He spent the first day in what Marx called in "Das Kapital" the
"original accumulation of capital," although it would seem unlikely that
even in the wildest accusations of the most confirmed Marxist, no great
fortune was ever before begun in such wise.
It was not necessary, he found, to walk into a large bank and simply
seemingly levitate the money out the front door. In fact, that would
have meant disaster. However, large sums of money are to be found
elsewhere on Manhattan and for eleven hours Crowley used his native
ingenuity and American know-how, most of which had been gleaned from
watching TV crime shows. By the end of the day he had managed to
accumulate in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars and was
reasonably sure that the news would not get back to his sponsors. The
fact was, he had cleaned out the treasuries of several numbers rackets
and those of two bookies.
It was important, he well realized, that he be well under way before the
three eggheads decided to lower the boom.
The second day he spent making his preliminary contacts, an operation
that was helped by his activities of the day before. He was beginning
already to get the feel of the underworld element with which he had
decided he was going to have to work, at least in the early stages of
his operations.
Any leader, be he military, political or financial, knows that true
greatness lies in the ability to choose assistants. Be you a Napoleon
with his marshals, a Roosevelt with his brain trust, a J. P. Morgan with
his partners, the truism applies. No great leader has ever stood alone.
But Crowley also knew instinctively that he was going to have to keep
the number of his immediate associates small. They were going to have to
know his secret, and no man is so naive as not to realize that while one
person can keep a secret, it becomes twice as hard for two and from that
point on the likelihood fades in a geometric progression.
On the fifth day he knocked on the door of the suite occupied by Dr.
Braun and his younger associates and pushed his way in without waiting
for response.
The three were sitting around awaiting his appearance and to issue him
his usual day's supply of serum. They greeted him variously, Patricia
with her usual brisk, almost condescending smile; Dr. Braun with a
gentle nod and a speaking of his first name; Ross Wooley sourly. Ross
obviously had some misgivings, the exact nature of which he couldn't
quite put his finger upon.