The Common Man Part 6

"That is beside the point," Braun said ruefully. "I say that he is reacting as would be expected. As the average man in the street would react given the opportunity to seize almost unlimited power, and with small chance of reprisal."

Patricia shrugged as though in disagreement.

Braun looked at Ross Wooley. "Close the door, Ross. Lord knows when we'll have another chance to confer. Obviously, something must be done."

Ross came quickly to his feet, crossed to the door, looked up and down the hallway which was empty and then closed the door behind him. He came back to the others and drew his chair in closer so that they could communicate in low voices.

Braun said, "One thing is definite. We must not allow him to secure further serum. For all we know, he might be planning to inject some of those gangsters he's affiliated himself with."

Patricia shook her head thoughtfully. "I still think you underestimate Don. He must realize he can't trust them. At this stage, he has had to confide in at least two or three, fully to utilize his invisibility. But in the long run it isn't to his advantage to have _anybody_ know about it. If the authorities, such as the F.B.I., began looking for an invisible man, sooner or later they would penetrate the field of invisibility."

"You mean you think Crowley will use these men for a time and then ...

destroy them?"

"He'll have to, or sooner or later the secret will be out."

Braun said in soft logic, "If he can't allow anyone to know about it, then we, too, must be destroyed."

Ross growled, "Then we've got to finish him first."

Patricia said, "Now, I don't know. Don is showing considerably more sense than you two evidently give him credit for. I think in many ways what he's done is quite admirable. He's seen his chance--and has grasped it. Why, I wouldn't be surprised that Don will be the most powerful man in the country within months."

The two men were staring at her. Ross sputtered, "Have you gone completely around the bend? Are you defending this ... this...."

A voice chuckled, "Mind your language, Buster. Just take it easy or you'll wind up with some missing teeth."

Ross jumped to his feet as though couched with an electric prod. Dr.

Braun stiffened in his chair and his eyes darted about the room.

Patricia alone seemed collected. "Don Crowley!" she exclaimed. "You should be ashamed of yourself, listening in on private conversations."

"Yeah," the voice said. "However, it's handy to know what the other side is dreaming up in the way of a bad time for you. Sit down, Buster. I've got a few things to say."

Muttering, Ross resumed his place. The doctor sighed deeply and sank back onto the sofa he had been occupying. The three could see an indentation magically appear in the upholstery of an easy-chair across from them.

Crowley's voice said confidently, "You know, from the first, I've kept telling you eggheads that I'm not stupid, but none of you've bothered to listen. You think just because you spent six or eight years of your life in some college that you're automatically smarter than other people. But I got a theory, like, that it doesn't make any difference if you spent your whole life going to college, you still wouldn't wind up smart if you didn't start that way."

Ross began to mutter something, but Crowley snapped, "Shut up for a minute, I'm talking." He resumed his condescending tone. "Just for example, take a couple of guys who got to the top. Edison in science and Khrushchev in politics. For all practical purposes, neither of them went to school at all. Khrushchev didn't even learn to read until he was twenty-eight years old.

"Then take Dr. Braun here. He's spent half his life in school, and where's it got him? He'd make more dough if he owned the local garage and dealer franchise for one of the automobile companies in some jerkwater town. And look at Ross. He'd probably make more money playing pro football than he does messing around with all those test tubes and Bunsen burners and everything. What good has all the school done either?"

Dr. Braun said gently, "Could we get to the point?"

"Take it easy, Doc. I'm in charge here. You just sit and listen. The point is, you three with your smart-Aleck egghead education started off thinking Mr. Common Man, like you call me, is stupid. Well, it just so happens I'm not. Take Pat there. She's smarter than you two, but she had the same idea. That this here country boy isn't as smart as she is.

She's going to fox him, see? As soon as she saw the way the cards were falling, she started b.u.t.tering up to me. She even figured out that I was probably right in this room listening to you planning how to trip me up.

So she pretended to take sides against you."

"Why, Don!" Patricia protested.

"Come off it, kid. You probably hate my guts worse than the others. You were the one who thought this _particular_ average man was a slob. That all common people were slobs."

Patricia's face went expressionless, but Ross, knowing her well, could sense her dismay. Crowley was right. She had been trying to play a careful game but their supposedly average man had seen through her.

Crowley's voice went thoughtful. "I been doing a lot of thinking this week. A lot of it. And you want to know something? You know what I decided? I decided that everybody talks a lot about the Common Man but actually he's never had a chance to, like, express himself. He's never been able to put over the things he's always wanted."

"Haven't you ever heard of democracy?" Ross said sourly. "Who do you think elects our officials?"

"Shut up, I told you. I'm talking now. Sure, every four years the lousy politicians come around and they stick c.o.o.nskin caps on their heads or Indian bonnets and start saying ain't when they make their speeches.

Showing they're just folks, see? They go out into the country, and stick a straw in their mouth and talk about crops to the farmers, all that sort of thing. But they aren't _really_ common folks. Most of them are lawyers or bankers or something. They run those political parties and make all the decisions themselves. The Common Man never really has anything to say about it."

Braun said reasonably, "You have your choice. If you think one candidate is opposed to your interests you can elect the other."

Crowley grunted his contempt. "But they're both the same. No, there hasn't been no common man in Was.h.i.+ngton since Lincoln, and maybe he wasn't. Well, I'll tell you something. The kind of talk I hear down in the corner saloon from just plain people makes a lot more sense to me than all this stuff the politicians pull."

Dr. Braun cleared his throat and stared at the seemingly empty chair from whence came the other's belligerent voice. "Are you thinking of entering politics, Don?"

"Maybe I am."

"Good heavens," Patricia e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"Oh, I'm not smart enough, eh? Well, listen baby, the eggheads don't seem to be so great in there. Maybe it's time the Common Man took over."

Dr. Braun said reasonably, "But see here, Crowley, the ability to achieve invisibility doesn't give you any advantages in swinging elections or...." He broke off in mid-sentence and did a mental double take.

Crowley laughed in contempt. "The biggest thing you need to win elections, Doc, is plenty of dough. And I'll have that. But I'll also have the way to do more muck-raking than anybody in history. _I'll_ sit in on every important private get-together those crook politicians have.

I'll get the details of every scheme they cook up. I'll get into any safe or safe deposit box. I'll have the common people, you sneer so much about, screaming for their blood."

Ross rumbled, "What do you expect to accomplish in office, Crowley?"

The voice became expansive. "Lots of things. Take this Cold War. If you drop into any neighborhood bar, you'll hear what the common man thinks about it."

The three of them stared at the seemingly empty chair.

"Drop the bomb first!" Crowley snapped. "Finish those reds off before they start it. In fact, I'm not even sure they've got the bomb. They're not smart enough to...."

"There was sputnik, you know," Ross interrupted sourly.

"Yeah, but built by those captured German scientists. We're way ahead of those Russkies in everything. Hit 'em now. Finish 'em off. The eggheads in Was.h.i.+ngton are scared of their own shadows. Another thing I'd end is getting suckered in by those French and English politicians. What does America need with those countries? They always start up these wars and get us to bail them out. And I say stop all this foreign aid and keep the money in our own country.

"And we can do a lot of cleaning up right here, too. We got to kick all the commies out of the government. Make all the commies and socialists and these egghead liberals, illegal. In fact, I'm in favor of shooting them. When you got an enemy, finish him off. And take the Jews. I'm not anti-Semitic, like, understand. Some of my best friends are Jews. But you got to realize that wherever they go they cause trouble. They stick together and take over the best businesses and all. O.K., you know what I say? I say kick them out of the country. And they all came over here poor and made their money here. So let them leave the way they came.

We'll, like, confiscate all their property except like personal things."

Patricia had closed her eyes in pain long before this. She said, softly, "I imagine somewhere along in here we'll get to the Negroes."

"I'm not against them. Just so they stay in their place. But this integration stuff is bunk. You got to face facts. Negroes aren't as smart as white people, neither are c.h.i.n.ks or Mexicans or Puerto Ricans.

So, O.K., give them their own schools, up to high school is all they need, and let them have jobs like waiters and janitors and like that.