Mack Reynolds - Day After Tomorrow

The Professor returned with an old-fashioned coffeepot, two cups, and sugar and cream on a tray. He put them on a side table and said to Larry, “You’ll join me? How do you take it?”

Larry still had the slightest of hangovers from his solitary drinking of the night before. “Thanks. Make it black,” he said.

The Professor poured, served, then did up a cup for himself. He returned to his chair and said, “Now, where were we? Something about a revolutionary group. What has that to do with counterfeiting?”

Larry sipped the strong brew. “It seems that there might be some connection.”

The Professor shook his head. “It’s hard to imagine Ernest Self being connected with a criminal pursuit. It simply is not in his character.”

Larry said carefully, sipping at the still overly hot coffee, “Susan seemed to be of the opinion that you knew about a large amount of counterfeit currency that this Movement had on hand and that you were in favor of spending it on chorus girls.”

The Professor gaped at him.

Larry chuckled uncomfortably.

Professor Peter Voss said finally, his voice very even, “My dear sir, I am afraid that evidently I can be of little assistance to you.”

“Admittedly, it doesn’t seem to make much sense.”

“Susan—you mean that little sixteen-year-old?—said I was in favor of spending counterfeit money on chorus girls?”

Larry said, “She used the term The Professor .” He wasn’t at all happy about the way this was going.

“And why did you assume that the title must necessarily allude to me? Even if any of the rest of the fantastic story was true?”

Larry said, “In my profession, Professor Voss, we track down every possible clue. Thus far, you are the only professor of whom we know who was connected with Ernest Self.”

Voss said stiffly, “I can only say, sir, that in my estimation, Mr. Self is a man of the highest integrity. And, in addition, that I have never spent a penny on a chorus girl in my life and have no intention of beginning, counterfeit or otherwise.”

Larry Woolford decided that he wasn’t doing too well and that he’d need more ammunition if he was going to return to this particular attack. He was surprised that the old boy hadn’t already ordered him from the house. In which case, he would have to go, of course; he was here by invitation.

He finished the coffee, preparatory to coming to his feet. He said, “Then you think it is out of the question, Ernest Self belonging to a revolutionary organization?”

The Professor protested. “I didn’t say that at all. Mr. Self is a man of ideals. I can well see him belonging to such an organization.”

Larry Woolford decided that he’d better hang on for a few more words. “You don’t seem to think, yourself, that a subversive organization is undesirable in this country.”

The Professor’s voice was reasonable. “Isn’t that according to what it means to subvert?”

“You know what I mean,” Woolford said in irritation. “I don’t usually think of revolutionists, even when they call themselves simply members of a Movement, as exactly idealists.”

“Then you are wrong,” the Professor said definitely, pouring himself another cup of coffee. “History bears out that almost invariably revolutionists are men of idealism. The fact that they might be either right or wrong in their revolutionary program is beside the point. I cite in our own revolution such men as Jefferson. Robespierre we might abhor for the Reign of Terror, but he was an idealist. Even Lenin.”

Larry Woolford began to say, “Are you sure than you aren’t interested in this Move —”

Then the knockout drops hit him.

He came out of the fog feeling nausea and with his head splitting. He groaned and opened one eye experimentally.

Steve Hackett’s voice said, “The cloddy is snapping out of it.” He sounded far away.

Larry groaned again, opened the other eye and attempted to focus.

“What happened?” he muttered.

“Oh, great. What happened, he says. Now that’s an original question,” Steve said in disgust.

Larry Woolford struggled up into a sitting position. He’d been stretched out on a couch in the Professor’s combined living room and study.

Steve Hackett, his hands on his hips, was looking down at him sarcastically. There were three or four others, one of whom Larry vaguely remembered as being a Secret Service colleague of Steve’s, going about and in and out of the room.

Larry said, his fingers pressing into his forehead. “My head’s killing me. Damn it, what’s going on?”

Steve said sarcastically, “You’ve been slipped a mickey, my cloak and dagger friend, and the bird has flown. And evidently, what a bird.”

“You mean the Professor? He’s a bird all right.”

“Leave us depart the field of humor,” Hackett said, his ugly face scowling. “Listen, I thought you people had pulled out of this case.”

Larry sat up and swung his two feet around to the floor. “So did I,” he said, or rather moaned. “But there were two or three things that bothered me and I thought I’d tidy them up before leaving.”

“You tidied them up, all right,” Steve grumbled. “This Professor Voss was practically the only lead I’ve been able to discover. An old friend of Self’s. And you allowed him to get away before we even got here.”

One of Hackett’s men came up and said, “Not a sign of him, Steve. He evidently burned a few papers, packed a suitcase, and took off. His things look suspiciously like he was ready to go into hiding at a moment’s notice.”

Steve growled at him, “Give the place the works. Let’s hope he’s left some clues around that’ll give us a line.”

The other went off and Steve Hackett sat down on one of the leather chairs and glowered at Larry Woolford. “Listen,” he said, “what did you people want with Susan Self?”

Larry shook his head for clarity and took the other in. He said, “Susan? What are you talking about? You don’t have any aspirin, do you?”

“No. What do you mean, what am I talking about? You called Betsy Hughes and then sent a couple of men over to pick the Self kid up.”

“Who’s Betsy Hughes?” Larry Woolford complained. “I’ve never heard of her.”

Steve shook his head. “I don’t know what kind of knockout drops the old boy gave you, but they sure as hell worked. Betsy’s the operative we put on to mind Susan Self in the Greater Washington Hilton. About an hour ago you got her on the phone, said your department wanted to question Susan, and that you were sending two men over to pick her up. The two men turned up with an order from you, and took the girl. Now do you remember?”

Larry gawked at him. Finally he said, “Listen, Steve, what time is it?”

Steve looked at his watch. “It’s almost two o’clock.”

Larry said, “I came into this house in the morning. I talked to the Professor for about half an hour and then was silly enough to let him give me some loaded coffee. He was such a weird old buzzard that it never occurred to me that he might be dangerous. At any rate, I’ve been unconscious for several hours. I couldn’t have called this Betsy Hughes operative of yours, and I sure as hell didn’t write any order to turn Susan over to two men from our department.”

It was Steve Hackett’s turn to stare. “Do you mean to tell me that you people don’t have Susan Self?”

Larry shook his head, which he found to be a mistake since the motion increased his splitting headache. He said, “Not so far as I know. The Boss told me yesterday that we were pulling out, that it was all in your hands. What in the devil would we want with Susan?”