Status Quo Part 5

"Look, Zusanette," Larry said reasonably. "I don't know how much money weighs, exactly, but let's say a pound would be, say, a thousand bills."

He took up a pencil and scribbled on a pad before him. "A pound of fifties would be $50,000. Then if you multiply that by 2,000 pounds to make a ton, you'd have $100,000,000. And you say there's tons and tons?"

"And that's just the fifties," Susan said triumphantly. "So you can see the two little packages I picked up aren't really important at all. It's just like I found them."

"I don't think there's quite a thousand bills in a pound," Steve said weakly.

Larry said, "How much other money is there?"

"Oh, piles. Whole rooms. Rooms after rooms. And hundred dollar bills, and twenties, and fives, and tens-"

Larry said, "Look, Zusanette, I don't think you're in any position to be telling us whoppers. This whole story doesn't make much sense, does it?"

Her mouth tightened. "I'm not going to say anything more until Daddy gets here, anyway," she said.

Which was when the phone rang.

"I have an idea that's for me," Steve said.

The screen lit up and LaVerne Polk said, "Call for Steve Hackett, Larry."

Larry pushed the phone around so Steve could look into it. LaVerne flicked off and was replaced by a stranger in uniform. Steve said, "Yeah?"

The cop said, "He's flown the coop, sir. Must have got out just minutes before we arrived. Couldn't have taken more than a suitcase. Few papers scattered around the room he used for an office."

Susan gasped, "You mean Daddy?"

Steve Hackett rubbed a hand over his flattened nose. "Holy Smokes," he said. He thanked the cop and flicked off.

Larry said, "Look Zusanette, everything's going to be all right. Nothing will happen to you. You say you managed to pick up two packets of all this money they have at headquarters. O.K. So you thought it wouldn't be missed and you've always wanted to spend money the way you see the stars do on TriD and in the movies."

She looked at him, taken back. "How did you know?"

Larry said dryly, "I've always wanted to myself. But I would like to know one more thing. The Movement. What was it going to do with all this money?"

That evidently puzzled her. "The Professor said they were going to spend it on chorus girls. I guess ... I guess he was joking or something. But Daddy and I'd just been up to New York and we saw those famous precision dancers at the New Roxy Theatre and all and then when we got back the Professor and Daddy were talking and I heard him say it."

Steve said, carefully, "Professor who?"

Susan said, "Just the Professor. That's all we ever call him." Her chin went to trembling still again.

Larry summed it up for the Boss later.

His chief scoffed his disbelief. "The child is full of dreams, Lawrence.

It comes from seeing an over-abundance of these TriD shows. I have a girl the same age. I don't know what is happening to the country. They have no sense of reality."

Larry Woolford said mildly, "Well, she might be full of nonsense, but she did have the fifties, and she's our only connection with whoever printed them whether it's a movement to overthrow the government, or what."

The Boss said tolerantly, "Movement, indeed. Obviously, her father produced them and she purloined a quant.i.ty before he was ready to attempt to pa.s.s them. Have you a run down on him yet?"

"Susan Self says her father, Ernest Self, is an inventor. Steve Hackett is working on locating him."

"He's an inventor indeed. Evidently, he has invented a perfect counterfeiting device. However, that is the Secret Service's headache, not ours. Do you wish to resume that vacation of yours, Lawrence?"

His operative twisted his face in a grimace. "Sure, I do, but I'm not happy about this, sir. What happens if there really is an organization, a Movement, like she said? That brings it back under our jurisdiction, anti-subversion."

The other shook his head tolerantly. "See here, Lawrence, when you begin scheming a social revolution you can't plan on an organization composed of a small number of persons who keep their existence secret. In spite of what a good many persons seem to believe, revolutions are not accomplished by handfuls of conspirators hiding in cellars and eventually overthrowing society by dramatically shooting the President, or King, or Czar, or whoever. Revolutions are precipitated by ma.s.ses of people. People who have ample cause to be against whatever the current government happens to be.

Usually, they are on the point of actual starvation. Have you ever read Machiavelli?"

Niccolo Machiavelli was currently _the thing_ to read. Larry said with a certain dignity, "I've gone through 'The Prince,' the 'Discourses' and currently I'm amusing myself with his 'History of Florence.' "

"Anybody who can amuse himself reading Machiavelli," the Boss said dryly, "has a macabre sense of humor. At any rate, what I was alluding to was where he stated that the Prince cannot rule indefinitely in the face of the active opposition of his people. Therefore, the people always get a government that lies within the limits of their tolerance. It may be on one edge or the other of their limits of tolerance-but it's always within their tolerance zone."

Larry frowned and said, "Well, what's your point, sir?"

The Boss said patiently, "I'm just observing that cultures aren't overthrown by little handfuls of secret conspirators. You might eliminate a few individuals in that manner, in other words change the personnel of the government, but you aren't going to alter a socio-economic system.

That can't be done until your people have been pushed outside their limits of tolerance. Very well then. A revolutionary organization must get out and propagandize. It has got to convince the people that they are being pushed beyond endurance. You have got to get the _ma.s.ses_ to moving. You have to give speeches, print newspapers, books, pamphlets, you have got to send your organizers out to intensify interest in your program."

Larry said, "I see what you mean. If this so-called Movement actually existed it couldn't expect to get anywhere as long as remained secret."

The Boss nodded. "That is correct. The _leaders_ of a revolutionary movement might be intellectuals, social scientists, scholars-in fact they usually are-take our own American Revolution with Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Was.h.i.+ngton. Or the French Revolution with Robespierre, Danton, Marat, Engels and Lenin. All were well educated intellectuals from the middle cla.s.s. But the revolution itself, once it starts, comes from below, from the ma.s.s of people pushed beyond tolerance."

It came to Lawrence Woolford that his superior had achieved to his prominent office not through any fluke. He knew what he was talking about.

The Boss wound it up. "If there was such an organization as this Movement, then this department would know about it. You don't keep a revolutionary movement secret. It doesn't make sense to even try. Even if it is forced underground, it makes as much noise as it can."

His trouble shooter cleared his throat. "I suppose you're right, sir." He added hesitantly. "We could always give Susan Self a few drops of Scop-Serum, sir."

The Boss scowled disapprovingly. "You know how the Supreme Court ruled on that, Lawrence. And particularly since the medics revealed its effect on reducing s.e.xual inhibitions. No, Mr. Hackett and Secret Service will have to get the truth out of the girl by some other means. At any rate, it is out of our hands."

Larry came to his feet. "Well, then, I'll resume my vacation, eh?"

His chief took up a report from his desk an frowned at it, his attention already pa.s.sing to other matters. He grunted, "Clear it with LaVerne, please. Tell her I said to take another week to make up for our intruding on you in this manner."

In the back of his head, Larry Woolford had misgivings. For one thing, where had the kid, who on the face of her performance was no great brain even as sixteen or seventeen old's go, picked up such ideas as the fact that people developed prejudices against words like revolution and propaganda?

However, he was clear of it now. Let Steve Hackett and his people take over. He, Lawrence Woolford, was due for a quick return to Astor, Florida and the ba.s.s fis.h.i.+ng on the St. John's River.

He stopped at LaVerne's desk and gave her his address to be, now that his vacation was resumed.

She said, smiling up at him. "Right. The boss already told me to get in touch with Secret Service and let them know we're pulling out. What happened to Susan Self?"

Larry looked at her. "How'd you know about Susan?"

Her tone was deprecating. "Remember? You had me cut some tapes on you and that hulking Steve Hackett grilling the poor kid."