Short Fiction by Mack Reynolds (ready to read books .TXT) 📕

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. “Oh, a Communist, eh?”

Susan Self was indignant. “Daddy thinks the Communists are strictly awful, really weird.”

Steve Hackett came back into the office. He said to Larry, “I sent a couple of the boys out to pick him up.”

Susan was on her feet, a hand to mouth. “You mean my father! You’re going to arrest him!”

Larry said soothingly, “Sit down, Zusanette. There’s a lot of things about this that I’m sure your father can explain.” He said to Steve, “She tells me that the money belonged to a movement. A revolutionary movement which doesn’t use the term revolutionary because people react unfavorably to that word. It’s not Commie.”

Susan said indignantly, “It’s American, not anything foreign!”

Steve growled, “Let’s get back to the money. What’s this movement doing with a lot of counterfeit bills and where did you find them?”

She evidently figured she’d gone too far now to take a stand. “It’s not Daddy’s fault,” she said. “He took me to headquarters twice.”

“Where’s headquarters?” Larry said trying to keep his voice soothing.

“Well⁠ ⁠… I don’t know. Daddy was awfully silly about it. He tied his handkerchief around my eyes near the end. But the others complained about me anyway, and Daddy got awfully mad and said something about the young people of the country participating in their emancipation and all, but the others got mad too, and said there wasn’t any kind of help I could do around headquarters anyway, and I’d be better off in school. Everybody got awfully mad, but after the second time Daddy promised not to take me to headquarters any more.”

“But where did you find the money, Zusannette?” Larry said.

“At headquarters. There’s tons and tons of it there.”

Larry cleared his throat and said, “When you say tons and tons, you mean a great deal of it, eh?”

She was proudly definite. “I mean tons and tons. A ton is two thousand pounds.”

“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. OK. So you thought it wouldn’t be missed and you’ve always wanted to spend money the way you see the stars do on Tri-D 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 overabundance of these Tri-D 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 quantity before he was ready to attempt to pass 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,