many questions various people will undoubtedly want to ask you.”
“But you said…”
“No I didn’t.”
“But I laid for you and all.” Her voice was broken.
He said disgustedly, “What would Steve Hackett say when he came back, if I let you go?”
She blinked and said, “I could put out for him, too.”
He shook his head and muttered, “What a way to solve all problems.” And then louder. “I doubt it. Steve’s married. He undoubtedly gets all he wants.”
She said, “Some men cheat on their wives. I could let him do me and go on home. And then you two could pretend that you’d never caught me.”
He sighed. “Zusanette, our conversation down at my office was taped. There’s no way of pretending we never caught you.” His voice became something more curt. “You’re involved in one of the biggest counterfeiting romps in history. You don’t buy yourself out of that with a couple of rolls in the hay.”
“You don’t?”
“No, you don’t. Now get your clothes on and remake the bed and come on back into the other room. We’ll order something to eat and drink. Do you drink? God knows, you kids seem to do everything else these days.”
She said lowly, getting into her skirt, “Daddy lets me drink wine with our meals.”
VII
Larry Woolford summed it up for the Boss later after Steve had returned and taken over.
His chief scowled his disbelief, and said, “The child is full of dreams, Lawrence. It comes from seeing an over-abundance of these Tri-Di 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 as 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, sir, but I’m not happy about this. 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 little groups of conspirators hiding in cellars and eventually overthrowing society by dramatically shooting the President, or King, or Czar, or whoever. Revolutions are precipitated by masses of people. People who have ample cause to be dissatisfied, possibly having been pushed to the brink of starvation, though other things can sometimes be the cause of revolt. Have you ever read Machiavelli?”
Niccolo Machiavelli was currently
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 wryly, “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 toleration—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
Larry said, “I see what you mean. If this so-called Movement actually existed it couldn’t expect to get anywhere as long as it 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, Paine. Or the French Revolution with Robespierre, Danton, Marat. For that matter take Marx, Engels, Lenin. All were well educated intellectuals from the middle class. But the revolution itself, once it starts, comes from below, from the masses of people pushed beyond tolerance.”
It came to Lawrence Woolford that his superior had achieved 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 troubleshooter 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 sexual inhibitions. It’s one of the most effective aphrodisiacs ever come upon. 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 and frowned at it, his attention already passing 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 teenagers 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 bass fishing there which was, in his book, the best in the world. A ten-pound large-mouthed bass, practically unknown elsewhere, was an ordinary thing on the St. Johns. In his time, Larry had landed bass that went as high as fourteen pounds and they were by no means record breakers. 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, the warm smile that was LaVerne Polk when she wasn’t in one of her needling moods, “Right. The Boss told me to get in touch with Secret Service and let them know that we’re pulling out. What happened to Susan Self?”
Larry looked at her quizzically. “How do you know about Susan Self?”
Her tone was deprecating. “Don’t you remember? You had me cut some tapes on you and that hulking Steve Hackett grilling the poor kid.”
Larry snorted. “Poor kid, yet. With her tastes for living it up, and that father she has, she’ll probably spend the rest of her life getting in Steve’s hair as a counterfeit pusher.”
LaVerne didn’t like it. She said, “What are they going to do with her? She’s just a child.”
The agent shrugged. “I feel sorry for her, too, LaVerne. Steve’s got her over in one of our suites at the
