The Common Man | Page 9

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 produced a thin black automatic and was now lazily pointing it, not so much at Ross Wooley as at Dr. Braun and Patricia. He said evenly, softly, "Easy, friend."
Ross released his grip, "Put that thing away," he blurted.
"Sure, sure," Larry said, his voice all but disinterested. The gun disappeared.
Crowley, only slightly ruffled, said now, "Take it easy, Ross. Nothing's going to happen to you. I'm going to need you folks and I'm going to treat you right."
"Where are we going?" Ross growled.
"I had the boys rent me a big estate like up in the Catskills. Big place, nice and quiet. In fact, the last tenants used it for one of these rest sanitariums. You know, rich people with DTs or trying to get a monkey off their back."
"The boys?" Patricia said softly.
He looked at her and grinned again. Crowley was obviously enjoying himself. "I got a few people working for me," he explained.
Dr. Braun blurted, "You fool! You mean you've revealed the existence of the process Pat, Ross and I worked out to a group of ignoramuses?"
Crowley said angrily, "Now look, Doc, let's don't get on that bit. Maybe I'm just a country boy but I'm as smart as the next man. Just because some of you eggheads spend half your life in college don't mean you've got any monopoly on good common sense. I went to the school of hard knocks, understand,