“Bottles?” the doctor demanded sharply.
“Yeah. Bottles. Or did I dream that one?”
The doctor looked professionally concerned. “If it happened,” he said gravely, “you should remember. Perhaps a further series——”
“The hell with that!” yelled Don Lavin, and it took three of them to push him down on the bed again.
“Stow it, Don,” Norma ordered. “Doctor, what do you think?”
Dr. Niessen shrugged. “You tell me that the main block is gone. Are there any others? I don’t know. Fifty hours is a lot of time, and I haven’t got their working charts, I can’t see what they planted down deep.”
“That’s not very satisfactory, Doctor,” Norma said.
“Shall I put him through a new series of tests?” They subdued Don again, and the doctor went on, unruffled, “I thought not. If there’s any trouble, bring him back; that’s all I can say.”
Norma snapped, “And you’ll put up another wing, I suppose.”
The doctor looked at her gravely. “I might,” he said. “I don’t suppose I mentioned to you that the whig I contemplate building with your kind donation is a free ward.”
She had nothing to say.
“Very well. Mr. Kozloff, I think you’ve recovered from your—ah—tumor. One of the staff physicians will check you for traveling. Come back if there’s anything new; in these spongioblastomas there is always a possibility that some malignant tissue was overlooked. And if you can possibly arrange it, Mr. Kozloff, don’t bring your sister.”
Bligh closed the door for him. Don looked fondly at Norma. “You and your big mouth haven’t changed, have they?”
Mundin went into the corridor for a smoke and refuge from the touching scene of reconciliation which followed. But he could hear it even out there. …
The manager of Brinks-Fargo looked skeptical. “Naturally we’re for hire,” he said. “Now, have I got this straight? Armored copter to Coshocton First National, guarded pickup of securities from there and immediate hop to Monmouth, you four riding all the way, right?”
“Right,” said Mundin.
“Twelve thousand five hundred dollars,” the manager said after some scribbling. “Our biggest and best, with six guards.”
It was paid.
Hie pickup went off smooth as silk. A conditioned clerk handed over the little box in which were certificates of Don Lavin’s fantastic claim to twenty-five per cent of G.M.L., and Mundin examined them wonderingly as the armored whirly-
bird bumped off the streets of Coshocton. Three and one-half billion dollars at par, he kept saying to himself. They didn’t talk much, all the way back to Monmouth,
Hubble demanded: “Did it work, Don?”
Coett said, “If that sawbones didn’t deliver after the way we strung along——”
Nelson said, “How much did it cost?”
“I’m all right, thanks,” said Don Lavin politely.
“And,” Mundin added casually, “we came back by way of Coshocton. No need to horse around with duplicate certificates, gentlemen.”
They examined the originals with awe, gloating. “We’re in,” Coett exulted. “As of the next stockholders’ meeting. Three months—plenty of time to shake up the firm and pick up what we need for a majority. My God, a majority! The hell with the proxies and the voting trusts!”
There was a long hassle about pooled stock and irrevocable joint agreements; and suddenly Mundin, looking at the three titans of finance, saw predacious jungle animals. He bunked, and the illusion was gone; but he couldn’t help thinking of G.M.L., rapacious as it was, as some huge and helpless vegetarian beast, harried by sharp-toothed little carnivores. Even Norma felt something; because she burst out:
“Daddy never meant——” She choked herself off, and looked wildly at the conspirators for a moment. Then she said wearily, “Ah, the hell with it. Excuse me. I don’t vote, anyhow.” And she was gone out of the room.
“Now,” said Coett, hardly noticing her departure, “it is possible that while we are throwing G.M.L. into bankruptcy, Green, Charlesworth may take an interest. I don’t suppose it will happen. But if they shoidd show up, Charles, don’t attempt to handle it yourself. Buck it to us. Understand?”
“Understand,” said Mundin. Green, Charlesworth. Insurance and bankers’ bankers; odd how their name kept coming up. “Is that all we have to worry about now—Green, Charles-worth?”