“An orderly liquidation,” nodded Nelson. “We’ll take our licking. Of course. Under the circumstances——”
Norma cut in, “Do you want to fold?”
Coett rubbed his face. “Is there any question?” he asked.
“You mean you do. All right. Who else?”
Nelson said stiffly, “Norma, are you out of your mind?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe I am. You tell me. I’ll tell you what I’m thinking, and you let me know if it’s crazy. I’m thinking that Green, Charlesworth are a couple of old imbeciles. I don’t know if they’ve lived a hundred years or a thousand. I don’t care. I suppose there’s no reason a man can’t live a long time, if he’s got plenty of money to spend on medicine; and I suppose that a man who pays the doctors to keep him going, no matter what, has plenty of chances to line up money. … I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. They’re human. I saw them, and, believe me, they’re human—old; feeble; half insane. At least half. What have they got?”
Ryan, nodding his head to an inner music, chirped, “Money.” He smiled.
“Money. So they’ve got it. As Mundin pointed out, so have we. Maybe they’ll lick us, but by God they can’t bluff us. I’m speaking just for me—I won’t deny they can do anything they like to me, but they’ll have to do it before I give up. Hear?”
Mundin said quickly, “Me too!”
Coett said reasonably, “Good-by.”
He stood up, bowed, and headed for the door. Norma, suddenly shaking, said, “Damn you!” She pushed blindly past him.
Coett paused and shook his head. “Crazy,” he said.
And in a moment she was back, holding a small celadon vase with blue shoulder-band and medallions. A couple of roses and small ferns were dangling limply from its neck.
Norma dumped the flowers and yelled to the vase, “I don’t give a damn what you do, Green, Charlesworth! The bubble-house is going to be used the way my father planned it! If you people get in the way you’re going out the window—and so are any of my yellow-bellied colleagues who don’t back me up!”
The vase hummed and shattered in her hands. A flying chip of glass plowed a shallow, bloody furrow in her cheek. Among
the shards on the carpet were tiny lumps of metal and crystal that glowed white-hot, fused and were gone. Mundin stamped out the dozen tiny fires on the rug, conscious of screams in the offices outside.
There was pandemonium for ten minutes. The damnedest things were exploding—a pen in Coett’s jacket, the stockroom air-conditioner switch, a polarimeter in the lab, the ‘in’ basket on Ryan’s desk. But, except for hysteria among the women, there was no damage. The small fires were easily extinguished.
Coett, dabbing at the scorched mess that was left of his jacket, bellowed at Norma, “You and your screwball schemes. Upset the contract-rental plan, will you? We’re slave-drivers, are we? You cheap——”
He was hardly making sense. Mundin and Don started for him at the same time. Mundin was closer; he won the honor of knocking him down.
Nelson picked Coett up and dusted off the carbon from the charred rug. “Blood-pressure, Harry,” he advised the older man. “Don’t worry. We’ll get these skunks.”
Hubble was gnawing his nails. He said slowly, “You know, I was brought up to be a sensible, dollar-fearing young man, and Green, Charlesworth have more dollars than anybody else around. . . . You know—for God’s sake, don’t laugh at me. But I’m sticking, as long as my nerve holds out.”
Norma flung her arms around him and kissed him. Charles said, “Hey, cut that——” and then stopped, as he realized he had no right to the sense of outrage which had suddenly overwhelmed him. The other two financiers looked scandalized.
“Traitor,” Nelson said incredulously. “Well, all right. Get the hell out of this office—all of you lunatics. If I’d ever dreamed——”
“Suppose,” Ryan told them gently, “you get out. Think it over. If you leave, you’re hi the clear—on paper at least. But we hold the lease; and you will kindly blow before we call the cops.”
“Blood-pressure, Harry!” Nelson said sharply to Coett.