The Common Man | Page 9

great leader has ever stood alone.
But Crowley also knew instinctively that he was going to have to keep
the number of his immediate associates small. They were going to have
to know his secret, and no man is so naïve as not to realize that while
one person can keep a secret, it becomes twice as hard for two and from
that point on the likelihood fades in a geometric progression.
On the fifth day he knocked on the door of the suite occupied by Dr.
Braun and his younger associates and pushed his way in without
waiting for response.
The three were sitting around awaiting his appearance and to issue him
his usual day's supply of serum. They greeted him variously, Patricia
with her usual brisk, almost condescending smile; Dr. Braun with a
gentle nod and a speaking of his first name; Ross Wooley sourly. Ross
obviously had some misgivings, the exact nature of which he couldn't
quite put his finger upon.
Crowley grinned and said, "Hello, everybody."

"Sit down, Don," Braun said gently. "We have been discussing your
experiment."
While the newcomer was finding his seat, Patricia said testily,
"Actually, we are not quite happy about your reports, Don. We feel
an ... if you'll pardon us ... an evasive quality about them. As though
you aren't completely frank."
"In short," Ross snapped, "have you been pulling things you haven't
told us about?"
Crowley grinned at them. "Now you folks are downright suspicious."
Dr. Braun indicated some notes on the coffee table before him. "It
seems hardly possible that your activities would be confined largely to
going to the cinema, to the swankier night clubs and eating in the more
famed restaurants."
Crowley's grin turned into a half embarrassed smirk. Patricia thought of
a small boy who had been caught in a mischief but was still somewhat
proud of himself. He said, "Well, I gotta admit that there's been a few
things. Come on over to my place and I'll show you." He looked at
Braun. "Hey, Doc, about how much is one of them Rembrandt
paintings worth?"
Braun rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, "Great Caesar," he murmured.
He came to his feet and looked around at the rest of them. "Let us go
over there and learn the worst," he said.
At the curb, before the hotel, Ross Wooley looked up and down the
street for a cab.
Crowley said, his voice registering self-deprecation, "Over here."
Over here was a several toned, fantastically huge hover-limousine, a
nattily dressed, sharp-looking, expressionless-faced young man behind
the wheel.

The three looked at Crowley.
He opened the door. "Climb in folks. Nothing too good for you
scientists, eh?"
Inside, sitting next to a window with Patricia beside him and Dr. Braun
at the far window, and with Ross in a jump seat, Crowley said
expansively, "This is Larry. Larry, this is Doc Braun and his friends I
was telling you about, Ross Wooley and Pat O'Gara. They're like
scientists."
Larry said, "Hi," without inflection, and tooled the heavy car out into
the traffic.
[Illustration]
Ross spun on Crowley. "Don, where'd you get this car?"
Crowley laughed. "You'll see. Take it easy. You'll see a lot of things."
* * *
They were too caught up in their own thoughts and in the barrage of
demands they were leveling at Crowley to notice direction. It wasn't
until they were already on the George Washington Bridge that Patricia
blurted, "Don, this isn't the way to your hotel!"
Crowley said tolerantly, "Take it easy, Pat. We're taking a short detour.
Something I have to show you in Jersey."
"I don't like this," Ross snapped. The redhead shifted his heavy
shoulders in a reflexive protest against the confining tweed coat he
wore.
"Relax," Crowley told him reasonably. "I've been thinking things out
quite a bit and I've got a lot to discuss with you folks."
They were across the bridge now and Larry headed into the maze
which finally unraveled itself to the point that it was obvious they were

heading north. Larry hit the lift lever and they rose ten feet from the
surface.
Dr. Braun said evenly, "You had no intention of taking us to your room.
You used that as a ruse to get us out of our hotel and, further, across the
bridge until we are now in a position where it's quite impossible for us
to summon police assistance."
Crowley grinned. "That's right, Doc. Didn't I tell you these three were
real eggheads, Larry? Look how quick he figured that out."
Larry grunted in what might have been amusement.
Ross, growling low in his throat, turned suddenly in his jump seat and
grabbed Crowley by the coat front. "What's going on here?"
Crowley snapped, "Larry!"
From seemingly nowhere, the chauffeur had