The Common Man

by Clee Garson

would collapserather quickly under physical coercion. You might last a bit longer,Ross possibly longer still. But in the end we would concede."

  Crowley said, as though in amazement, "You know, eggheads aren't asstupid as some would reckon. O.K., folks, I got a laboratory all fixedup with your things. Let's go. Ah, Ross, old pal, I'm carrying heat, asLarry would say, so let's don't have any trouble, eh?"

  He had been as good as his word in regards to the laboratory. It wasobviously one of the rooms used by the staff when the place had been asanitarium. Now, each of the three had all the equipment and suppliesthey required.

  Crowley took a seat at the far end of the room, facing them. There hadbeen a guard outside the door when they entered and a call would bringhim in seconds. Even so, Crowley sat in such wise that his right handwas ready to plunge inside his coat to the gun that evidently washolstered there. He said, "O.K., folks, let's get about it."

  * * *

  It took them half an hour or so to sort out those materials each neededin his own contribution to the end product.

  Their captor looked at his watch impatiently. "Let's get a move on,here. I thought this was going to take a few minutes."

  Patricia said testily, "What's the hurry, Don?"

  He grinned at her. "Tonight's the big night. This evening, just beforeclosing, I walk into.... Well, you don't have to know the name. Like Isaid, it'll make the Brinks job look like peanuts. They lock up theplace and leave, see? O.K., about two o'clock in the morning, when thecity's dead, Larry and the boys drive up into an alley, behind. I goaround, one by one, and sock the four guards on the back of the head.Then I open up for Larry and they take their time and clear the placeout. From then on, we got all the dough we need to start pyramiding itup on the Stock Exchange and like that."

  Patricia had drawn on rubber gloves, pulled a lab apron around her. Shebegan reaching for test tubes, measuring devices. She murmured softly,"What keeps you from telling yourself you're nothing but a crook, Don?When we first met you--it seems a terribly long time ago, back there inFar Cry--you didn't seem to be such a bad egg."

  "We didn't know, then, he was a cracked egg," Ross muttered. He lookedto where Crowley slouched, his eyes narrow as though considering hischances of rushing the other. Crowley grinned and shook his head. "Don'ttry it, Buster."

  Crowley looked at Patricia. "You don't get it, sister. It's likesomebody or other said. The ends, uh, justify the means. That means...."

  "I know what it means," Patricia said impatiently.

  Dr. Braun, who rather hopelessly was also beginning to work at theequipment their captor had provided, said reasonably, "Don, the greaternumber of the thinkers of the world have rejected that maxim. If youwill, umah, analyze it, you will find that the end and the means areone."

  "Yeah, yeah, a lot of complicated egghead gas. What I'm saying, Pat, isthat what I'm eventually heading for is good for everybody. At leastit's good for all real hundred per cent Americans. Everybody's going togo to college and guaranteed to come out with what you three got, adoctor's degree. Everybody's going to get a guaranteed annual wage,like, whether or not they can do any work. It's not a guy's fault if hegets sick or unemployed or something. Everybody...."

  "Shades of all the social-reformers who ever lived," Ross muttered.

  "By Caesar," Braun said in despair, "I have an idea you'll get the voteof every halfwit in the country."

  Crowley came to his feet. "I don't like that kind of talk, Doc. MaybeI'm just a country boy, but I know what the common man wants and whatI'm going to do is give it to him."

  Patricia looked up from her work long enough to frown at him. "Whatspecial are you going to get out of this, Don?"

  That took him back for a moment and he scowled at her.

  "Come, come," she said. "You've already admitted to we three just whatyou think and are going to do. Now, how do you picture yourself, afterall this has been accomplished?"

  His face suddenly broke into its grin, a somewhat sly element in it now."You know, when I get this all worked out, the folks are going to bepretty thankful."

  "I'll bet," Ross muttered. He, too, was working at his element ofcompounding the serum.

  "Yeah, they will, Buster," Crowley said truculently. "And they're goingto want to show it. You ever seen one of those movies like 'Ben Hur'back in Roman days? Can you imagine everybody in the whole countrythinking you were the best guy ever lived? You know, like an Emperor."

  "Like Caligula," Dr. Braun said softly.

  "I don't know any of their names, but they really had it made. Snap yourfingers and there's a big banquet with the best floor show in the world.Snap your fingers and here comes the sexiest dames in Hollywood. Snapyour fingers and some big entertainment like a chariot race, orsomething. Once I put this over, the Common Man Party, that's the waypeople are going to feel about me and want to treat me."

  "And if they don't, you'll make them?" Ross said sarcastically.

  "You're too smart for your own britches, egghead," Crowley snarled. Helooked at his watch. "Let's get this rolling. I got to get on down tothe city and start this caper going."

  Ross handed a test tube to Dr. Braun and began stripping the gloves fromhis hands. "That's my contribution," he said.

  Patricia had already delivered hers. Dr. Braun combined them, thenheated the compound, adding a distillate of his own. He said, "When thiscools...."

  Crowley crossed the room to the door and said something to the guardthere. He returned in a moment with an anthropoid ape in a cage. He satit on the table and looked at them.

  "O.K.," he said to Braun, his voice dangerous. "Let's see you inject themonk with this new batch of serum."

  Braun raised his eyebrows.

  The other watched him narrowly, saying nothing further.

  Dr. Braun shrugged, located a hypodermic needle and prepared it. In amatter of moments, the animal was injected.

  Ross Wooley said sourly, "Don't you trust your fellow man, Don?"

  "No, I don't, and stop calling me Don. It's Dan. Daniel Crowley."

  The three of them looked at him in bewilderment.

  The ape was beginning to shimmer as though he was being seen through awindow wet with driving rain.

  "Don's my goody-goody brother. Used to live in the same house with me,but ever since we were kids and I got picked up on a juvenile delinquentrap for swiping a car, he's been snotty. Anyway, now he's moved out toFrisco."

  Patricia blurted, "But ... but you let us believe you were Donald...."

  He brushed it off with a flick of his hand. "You said you had some dealwhere I could make me some money. O.K., I was between jobs."

  The ape was invisible now. Crowley peered in at him. "Seems to work, allright."

  Dr. Braun sighed. "I am not a Borgia, Daniel Crowley."

  "You're not a what?"

  "Never mind. I wouldn't poison even you, if that is what you feared."

  Daniel Crowley took up the new container of serum and put a lid on it.He said, "I got to get going. The guy out in front will get you back toyour rooms. No tricks with him, Buster"--he was talking directly toRoss--"he's already beat a couple of homicide raps."

  * * * * *

  Back in their cell-rooms, they found that there was but one guard.Evidently, the all-out robbery attempt to be held this night involvedpractically all of Larry Morazzoni's forces. Beyond that, this guard didnot seem particularly interested in keeping them from talking back andforth to each other through the peepholes that centered their doors.

  After a couple of hours during which time they largely held silence,immersed in their own thoughts, Dr. Braun called out, "Patricia, Ross, Ishould tender my apologies. It was my less than brilliant idea to findthe average man and use him as a guinea pig."

  "No apology necessary," Patricia said impatiently. "We all went into itwith open eyes."

  "But you were correct, Pat," the doctor said unhappily. "Our common manturned out to be a Frankenstein monst
er."

  Ross growled, "That's the trouble. It turned out he wasn't our commonman but his brother, whose petty criminal record evidently goes back tojuvenile days."

  "Even that doesn't matter," Patricia said testily. "I've about come tothe conclusion that it wouldn't have made any difference _who_ we'd putin Don's ... I mean Daniel Crowley's position. Man is too near theanimal, as yet at least, to be trusted with such power. Any man."

  "Why, Pat," Dr. Braun said doggedly, "I don't quite believe you correct.For instance, do you feel the same about me? Would I have reacted likeour friend Dan?" He chuckled in deprecation.

  "That's my point," she said. "I think you would ... ultimately. Onceagain look at the Caesars, they held godlike power."

  "You're thinking of such as Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Commodus...."

  "I'm also thinking of such as Claudius, the scholar who was practicallyforced to take the Imperial mantle. And Marcus Aurelius, the philosopherwho although bound up in learning himself allowed his family free reinin their vices and finally turned the Empire over to his son Commodus,one of the most vicious men of all time. But take Caligula and Nero ifyou will. Both of them stepped into power comparatively clean and withthe best of prospects. Well approved, well loved. What happened to themwhen given power without restraint?"

  Ross grumbled, "I admit I missed the boat, but not for the reasons Patpresents. In a sane society, our serum would be a valuable contribution.But in a dog eat dog world, where it's each man for himself, then itbecomes a criminal tool."

  Patricia said sarcastically, "And can you point out a sane society?"

  Ross grunted. "No," he said. After a moment he added, "You know, in away Crowley was right. We three eggheads didn't do so well up againstwhat he called his common sense. I tried to slug him, with negativeresults. Dr. Braun, you tried sweet reason on him. Forgive me if Ilaugh. Pat, you tried your womanly wiles, but he saw through that, too."

  "The chickens have not all come home to roost," Patricia saidmysteriously. "What time is it?"

  Ross told her.

  She called to the guard, "See here, you."

  "Shut up. You ain't supposed to be talking at all. Go to sleep."

  "I want to speak to Mr. Morazzoni. It's very important and you are goingto be dreadfully sorry if you don't bring him."

  "Larry can't be bothered. He's getting ready to go on down to the city."

  "I know what he's doing, but if he doesn't listen to me, he's going tobe very unhappy and probably full of bullet holes."

  The guard came over to her door and stared at her for a long moment. Hechecked the lock on her door and then those of Dr. Braun and RossWooley. "We'll see who's going to be sorry," he grunted. He turned andleft.

  * * *

  When he returned it was with both Larry Morazzoni and Paul Teeter, DanCrowley's political adviser. Morazzoni growled, "What goes on? Yousquares looking for trouble?"

  Patricia said testily, "I suggest you let us out of here, Mr. Morazzoni.If you do, we pledge not to press kidnaping charges against you. Ibelieve you are aware of the penalty in this State."

  "You trying to be funny?"

  "Definitely not, Mr. Morazzoni," Patricia said icily. "Daniel Crowleybragged to us of your plans for tonight."

  The hoodlum muttered a contemptuous obscenity under his breath.

  Paul Teeter, the heavy-set southerner said jovially, "But what has thisto do with releasing you, Miss O'Gara? Admittedly Dan is a bitindiscreet but...." He let the sentence fade away.

  "Yes," Patricia said. "I realize that he is a nonprofessional in yourranks, and have little doubt that eventually you would have surmountedwhatever precautions he has taken to keep you in underling positions.That's beside the point. The point is that by this time Daniel Crowleyhas, ah, infiltrated the institution you expected to burglarize tonight.He is inside, and you are still outside. There are four guards alsoinside, whom he is expected to eliminate before you can join him."

  "He told you everything all right, the jerk," Larry said coldly. "But sowhat?"

  "So Dan Crowley had us make up a new amount of serum tonight and testedit on a chimpanzee in the lab. If you'll go and check, you'llundoubtedly find the chimp is again visible."

  The gunman looked at Paul Teeter blankly.

  The other's reactions were quicker. "The serum lasts for twelve hours,"Teeter barked.

  "This batch lasts for three hours," Patricia said definitely. "Yourfriend Crowley is suddenly going to become visible right before the eyesof those four guards--and long before he had expected to eliminatethem."

  Teeter barked, "Larry, check that monkey."

  Doc Braun spoke up for the first time since the appearance of the two.He said dryly, "You'll also notice that the animal is sound asleep. Itseems that I added a slow-acting but rather potent sleeping compound tothe serum."

  The gunman started from the room in a rush.

  Ross called after him, "If you'll look closely, you'll also note thechimp's skin has turned a brilliant red. There have been some basicchanges in the pigment."

  "Holy smokes," Paul Teeter protested, moping his face with ahandkerchief. "Didn't he take any precautions against you people atall?"

  Ross said, "He was too busy telling us how smart a country boy hehappened to be."

  Larry returned in moments, biting his lip in the first nervousmanifestation any of them had ever seen in him. He took Teeter to oneside.

  Patricia called to them impatiently. "You have no time and no one tocontact Crowley now. Don't be fools. Mend your bridges while you can.Let us out of here, and we'll prefer no charges."

  Larry was a man of quick decisions. He snapped to the blank-faced guardwho had assimilated only a fraction of all this, "Go on back to the boysand tell them to start packing to get out of here. Tell them the fix haschilled. It's all off. I'll be there in a few minutes."

  "O.K., chief." The other had the philosophical outlook of those who weremeant to take orders and knew it. He left.

  Larry and Teeter opened the cell doors.

  Teeter said, "How do we know we can trust you?"

  Ross looked at him.

  Larry said, "It's a deal. Give us an hour to get out of here. Then usethe phone if you want to call a taxi, or whatever. I ain't stupid, thisthing was too complicated to begin with."

  When Teeter and Morazzoni were gone, the three stood alone in thecorridor, looking at each other.

  The doctor pushed his glasses back onto his nose with a thumb andforefinger. "By Caesar," he said.

  Ross ran a hefty paw back through his red crew cut and twisted his faceinto a mock grimace. "Well," he said, "I have to revise my formerstatement. I used brute strength against Crowley, the doctor used sweetreason, and Pat her womanly wiles. And all failed. But as biochemists,each working without the knowledge of the others, we used science--andit paid off. I suppose the thing to do now is buy three jet tickets forCalifornia."

  Braun and Patricia looked at him blankly.

  Ross explained. "Didn't you hear what Crowley said? His brother, Donald,has moved out to San Francisco. He's our real Common Man, we'll have tostart the experiment all over again."

  Dr. Braun snorted.

  Patricia O'Gara, hands on hips, snapped, "Ross Wooley, our engagement isoff!"

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _Analog_ January 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.