Status Quo by Mack Reynolds (good e books to read TXT) 📗
- Author: Mack Reynolds
Book online «Status Quo by Mack Reynolds (good e books to read TXT) 📗». Author Mack Reynolds
It was a teenager, all right. A youngster up to her eyebrows in the attempt to project sophistication.
Steve said, “Do you know who she is?”
“No,” Fredrick said. “Hardly our usual clientele.”
“Oh?” Larry said. “She looks like money.”
Fredrick said, “The dress appears as though it is of Chez Marie, but she wears it as though it came from Klein's. Her perfume is Chanel, but she has used approximately three times the quantity one would expect.”
“That's our girl, all right,” Steve murmured. “Where can we keep an eye on her until she leaves?”
“Why not at the bar here, Messieurs?”
“Why not?” Larry said. “I could use a drink.”
Fredrick cleared his throat. “Ah, Messieurs, that fifty I turned over you. I suppose it turned out to be spurious?”
Steve grinned at him. “Afraid so, Fredrick. The department is holding it.”
[pg 014]Larry took out his wallet. “However, we have a certain leeway on expenses on this assignment and appreciate your co-operation.” He handed two twenties and a ten to the maître d'. Fredrick bowed low, the money disappearing into his clothes magically. “Merci bien, monsieur.”
At the bar, Steve scowled at his colleague. “Ha!” he said. “Why didn't I think of that first? He'll get down on his knees and bump his head each time he sees you in the joint from now on.”
Larry Woolford waggled a finger at the other. “This is a status conscious town, my boy. Prestige means everything. When I take over my Boss' job, maybe we can swing a transfer and I'll give you a position suitable to your attainments.” He pursed his lips judiciously. “Although, come to think of it, that might mean a demotion from the job you're holding now.”
“Vodka martini,” Steve told the bartender. “Polish vodka, of course.”
“Of course, sir.”
Larry said, “Same for me.”
The bartender left and Steve muttered, “I hate vodka.”
“Yeah,” Larry said, “But what're you going to do in a place like this, order some weird drink?”
Steve dug into his pocket for money. “We're not going to have to drink them. Here she comes.”
She walked with her head held high, hauteur in every step. Ignoring the peasants at the tables she passed.
“Holy smokes,” Steve grunted. “It's a wonder Fredrick let her in.”
She hesitated momentarily before the doorway of the prestige restaurant allowing the passers-by to realize she'd just emerged, and then turned to her right to promenade along the shopping street.
Fifty feet below La Calvados, Steve said, “Let's go, Woolford.”
One stepped to one elbow, the other to the other. Steve said quietly, “I wonder if we could ask you a few questions?”
Her eyebrows went up, “I beg your pardon!”
Steve sighed and displayed the badge pinned to his wallet, keeping it inconspicuous. “Secret Service, Miss,” he murmured.
“Oh, devil,” she said. She looked up at Larry Woolford, and then back at Steve.
Steve said, “Among other things, we're in charge of counterfeit money.”
She was about five foot four in her heels, had obviously been on a round of beauty shops and had obviously instructed them to glamorize her. It hadn't come off. She still looked as though she'd be more at home as cheerleader of the junior class in small town high school. She was honey blond, green-blue of eye, and had that complexion they seldom carry even into the twenties.
“I ... I don't know what you're talking about.” Her chin began to tremble.
Larry said gently, “Don't worry. We just want to ask you some questions.”
“Well ... like what?” She was [pg 015] going to be blinking back tears in a moment. At least Larry hoped she'd blink them back. He'd hate to have her start howling here in public.
Larry said, “We think you can be of assistance to the government, and we'd like your help.”
Steve rolled his eyes upward, but turned and waved for a street level cab.
In the cab, Larry said, “Suppose we go over to my office, Steve?”
“O.K. with me,” Steve muttered, “but by the looks of the young lady here, I think it's a false alarm from your angle. She's obviously an American. What's your name, Miss?”
“It's Zusanette. Well, really, Susan.”
“Susan what?”
“I ... I'm not sure I want to tell you. I ... I want a lawyer.”
“A lawyer!” Steve snorted. “You mean you want the juvenile authorities, don't you?”
“Oh, what a mean thing to say,” she sputtered.
In the corridor outside the Boss' suite of offices, Larry said to Steve, “You take Miss ... ah, Zusanette to my office, will you Steve. I'll be there in a minute.”
He opened the door to the anteroom and said, “LaVerne, we've got a girl in my office—”
“Why, Larry!”
He glowered at her. “A suspect. I want a complete tape of everything said. As soon as we're through, have copies made, at least three or four.”
“And, who, Mr. Woolford, was your girl Friday last year?”
“This is important, honey. I suppose you've supplied me with a secretary but I haven't even met her yet. Take care of it, will you?”
“Sure enough, Larry.”
He followed Steve and the girl to his office.
Once seated, the girl and Steve in the only two extra chairs the cubicle boasted and Larry behind his desk, he looked at her in what he hoped was reassurance. “Just tell us where you got the money, Zusanette.”
Steve reached out a hand suddenly and took her bag from her lap. She gasped and snatched at it, but he eluded her and she sat back, her chin trembling again.
Steve came up with a thick sheaf of bills, the top ones, at least, all fifties and tossed them to Larry's desk. He took out a school pass and read, “Susan Self, Elwood Avenue.” He looked up at Larry and said, “That's right off Eastern, near Paterson Park in the Baltimore section of town, isn't it?”
Larry said to her, “Zusanette, I think you'd better tell us where you got all this money.”
“I found it,” she said defiantly. “You can't do anything to me if I simply found it. Anybody can find money. Finders keepers—”
“But if it's counterfeit,” Steve interrupted dryly, “it might also be, finders weepers.”
“Where did you find it, Zusanette?” Larry said gently.
She tightened her lips, and the trembling of her chin disappeared. “I ... I can't tell you that. But it's [pg 016] not counterfeit. Daddy ... my father said it was as good as any money the government prints.”
“That it is,” Steve said sourly. “But it's still counterfeit, which makes it very illegal indeed to spend, Miss Self.”
She looked from one of them to the other, not clear about her position. She said to Larry, “You mean it's not real money?”
He kept his tone disarming, but shook his head, “I'm afraid not, Zusanette. Now, tell us, where did you find it?”
“I can't. I promised”
“I see. Then you don't know to whom it originally belonged?”
“It didn't belong to anybody.”
Steve Hackett made with a disbelieving whistle. He was taking the part of the tough, suspicious cop; Larry the part of the understanding, sympathetic officer, trying to give the suspect a break.
Susan Self turned quickly on Steve. “Well, it didn't. You don't even know.”
Larry said, “I think she's telling the truth, Steve. Give her a chance. She's playing fair.” He looked back at the girl, and frowned his puzzlement. “All money belongs to somebody doesn't it?”
She had them now. She said superiorly. “Not necessarily to somebody. It can belong to, like, an organization.”
Steve grunted skepticism. “I think we ought to arrest her,” he said.
Larry held up a hand, his face registering opposition. “I'll handle this,” he said sharply. “Zusanette is doing everything she can to co-operate.” He turned back to the girl. “Now, the question is, what organization did this money belong to?”
She looked triumphantly at Steve Hackett. “It belonged to the Movement.”
They both looked at her.
Steve said finally, “What movement?”
She pouted in thought. “That's the only name they call it.”
“Who's they?” Steve snapped nastily.
“I ... I don't know.”
Larry said, “Well, you already told us your father was a member, Zusanette.”
Her eyes went wide. “I did? I shouldn't have said that.” But she evidently took him at his word.
Larry said encouragingly, “Well, we might as well go on. Who else is a member of this Movement besides your father?”
She shifted in her chair uncomfortably. “I don't know any of their names.”
Steve looked down at the school pass in his hands. He said to Larry, “I'd better make a phone call.”
He left.
Larry said, “Don't worry about him, Zusanette. Now then, this movement. That's kind of a funny name, isn't it? What does it mean?”
She was evidently glad that the less than handsome Steve Hackett had left the room. Her words flowed more freely. “Well, Daddy says that they [pg 017] call it the Movement rather than a revolution....”
An ice cube manifested itself in the stomach of Lawrence Woolford.
“... Because people get conditioned, like, to words. Like revolution. Everybody is against the word because they all think of killing and everything, and, Daddy says, there doesn't have to be any shooting or killing or anything like that at all. It just means a fundamental change in society. And, Daddy says, take the word propaganda. Everybody's got to thinking that it automatically means lies, but it doesn't at all. It just means, like, the arguments you use to convince people that what you stand for is right and it might be lies or it might not. And, Daddy says, take the word socialism. So many people have the wrong idea of what it means that the socialists ought to scrap the word and start using something else to mean what they stand for.”
Larry said gently, “Your father is a socialist?”
“Oh, no.”
He nodded in understanding.
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