DUE PROCESS

by Algis Budrys

  “He made a hundred thousand.”

  “Hm-m-m… no, he didn’t make it. That’s going to be his trouble. He didn’t earn it. He’s the incompetent type that couldn’t earn it in any way—not even a crooked way.

  “And, of course, he and his money will be soon parted. Employers who pay large sums to have violent things done—say of the order of destroying a major transportation system—are of precisely the mental type to see that the incompetent employee does not enjoy his money. I’m afraid I don’t have quite the right kind of psychology to give our little Mr. Keller what he did verily earn.

  “Which reminds me… we’re in the wholesale liquor business. When I found out Keller’s bosses knew about his little extracurricular scheme, I got so mad I bought ‘em out. A management like that ought to be shot—permitting a thirty thousand gross profit to make ‘em blow the gaff on millions more! People like that—” Hertzog shook his head. “No sense of responsibility.”

  “So that’s how Keller’s an ITI employee,” Bannister said, opening a bottle. “Through the liquor house. I was wondering, when you gave him the intercom.”

  Hertzog smiled gently, ruminatively. “Technically, that’s the answer. Privately… well, I expect to hear, via that intercom, just precisely how Keller and his unearned increment are separated. I think he’ll make a horrid noise about it.”