Short Fiction, Mack Reynolds [best book reader txt] 📗

“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 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?”

“OK 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 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 cooperate.” 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 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