Door Into Summer Page 5

  Sincerely yours,

  Miles Gentry

  Chairman of the Board and General Manager by B. S. Darkin, Sec'y-Treasurer

  I read it twice before I recalled that I had never had any contract with the corporation under which to invoke paragraph three or any other paragraph.

  Later that day a bonded messenger delivered a package to the motel where I kept my clean underwear. It contained my hat, my desk pen, my other slide rule, a lot of books and personal correspondence, and a number of documents. But it did not contain my notes and drawings for Flexible Frank.

  Some of the documents were very interesting. My "contract," for example-sure enough, paragraph three let them fire me without notice subject to three months' salary. But paragraph seven was even more interesting. It was the latest form of the yellow-dog clause, one in which the employee agrees to refrain from engaging in a competing occupation for five years by letting his former employers pay him cash to option his services on a first-refusal basis; i.e., I could go back to work any time I wanted to just by going, hat in hand, and asking Miles and Belle for a job-maybe that was why they sent the hat back.

  But for five long years I could not work on household appliances without asking them first. I would rather have cut my throat.

  There were copies of assignments of all patents, duly registered, from me to Hired Girl, Inc., for Hired Girl and Window Willie and a couple of minor things. (Flexible Frank, of course, had never been patented-well, I didn't think he had been patented; I found out the truth later.)

  But I had never assigned any patents, I hadn't even formally licensed their use to Hired Girl, Inc.; the corporation was my own creature and there hadn't seemed to be any hurry about it.

  The last three items were my stock-shares certificate (those I had not given to Belle), a certified check, and a letter explaining each item of the check-accumulated "salary" less thawing-account disbursements, three months' extra salary in lieu of notice, option money to invoke "paragraph seven"... and a thousand dollar bonus to express "appreciation of services rendered." That last was real sweet of them.

  While I reread that amazing collection I had time to realize that I had probably not been too bright to sign everything that Belle put in front of me. There was no possible doubt that the signatures were mine.

  I steadied down enough the next day to talk it over with a lawyer, a very smart and money-hungry lawyer, one who didn't mind kicking and clapper-clawing and biting in the clinches. At first he was anxious to take it on a contingent-fee basis. But after he finished looking over my exhibits and listening to the details he sat back and laced his fingers over his belly and looked sour. "Dan, I'm going to give you some advice and it's not going to cost you anything."

  "Well?"

  "Do nothing. You haven't got a prayer."

  "But you said-"

  "I know what I said. They rooked you. But how can you prove it? They were too smart to steal your stock or cut you off without a penny. They gave you exactly the deal you could have reasonably expected if everything had been kosher and you had quit, or had been fired over-as they express it-a difference of policy opinion. They gave you everything you had coming to you... and a measly thousand to boot, just to show there are no hard feelings."

  "But I didn't have a contract! And I never assigned those patents!"

  "These papers say you did. You admit that's your signature. Can you prove what you say by anyone else?"

  I thought about it. I certainly could not. Not even Jake Schmidt knew anything that went on in the front office. The only witnesses I had were... Miles and Belle.

  "Now about that stock assignment," he went on, "that's the one chance to break the log jam. If you..."

  "But that is the only transaction in the whole stack that really is legitimate. I signed over that stock to her."

  "Yes, but why? You say that you gave it to her as an engagement present in expectation of marriage. Never mind how she voted it; that's beside the point. If you can prove that it was given as a betrothal gift in full expectation of marriage, and that she knew it when she accepted it, you can force her either to marry you or to disgorge. McNulty vs. Rhodes. Then you're in control again and kick them out. Can you prove it?"

  "Damn it, I don't want to marry her now. I wouldn't have her."

  "That's your problem. But one thing at a time. Have you any witnesses or any evidence, letters or anything, which would tend to show that she accepted it, understanding that you were giving it to her as your future wife?"

  I thought. Sure, I had witnesses... the same old two. Miles and Belle.

  "You see? With nothing but your word against both of theirs, plus a pile of written evidence, you not only won't get anywhere, but you might wind up committed to a Napoleon factory with a diagnosis of paranoia. My advice to you is to get a job in some other line... or at the very most go ahead and buck their yellowdog contract by setting up a competitive business-I'd like to see that phraseology tested, as long as I didn't have to fight it myself. But don't charge them with conspiracy. They'll win, then they'll sue you and clean you out of what they let you keep." He stood up.

  I took only part of his advice. There was a bar on the ground floor of the same building; I went in and had a couple or nine drinks.

  I had plenty of time to recall all this while I was driving out to see Miles. Once we had started making money, he had moved Ricky and himself to a nice little rental in San Fernando Valley to get out of the murderous Mojave heat and had started commuting via the Air Force Slot. Ricky wasn't there now, I was happy to recall; she was up at Big Bear Lake at Girl Scout camp-I didn't want to chance Ricky's being witness to a row between me and her stepdaddy.

  I was bumper to bumper in Sepulveda Tunnel when it occurred to me that it would be smart to get the certificate for my Hired Girl stock off my person before going to see Miles. I did not expect any rough stuff (unless I started it), but it just seemed a good idea... like a cat who has had his tail caught in the screen door once, I was permanently suspicious.

  Leave it in the car? Suppose I was hauled in for assault and battery; it wouldn't be smart to have it in the car when the car was towed in and impounded.

  I could mall it to myself, but I had been getting my mail lately from general delivery at the G.P.O., while shifting from hotel to hotel as often as they found out I was keeping a cat.

  I had better mail it to someone I could trust.

  But that was a mighty short list.

  Then I remembered someone I could trust.

  Ricky.

  I may seem a glutton for punishment to decide to trust one female just after I had been clipped by another. But the cases are not parallel. I had known Ricky half her life and if there ever was a human being honest as a Jo block, Ricky was she... and Pete thought so too. Besides, Ricky didn't have physical specifications capable of warping a man's judgment. Her femininity was only in her face; it hadn't affected her figure yet.

  When I managed to escape from the log jam in Sepulveda Tunnel I got off the throughway and found a drugstore; there I bought stamps and a big and a little envelope and some note paper. I wrote to her:

  Dear Rikki-tikki-tavi,

  I hope to see you soon but until I do, 1 want you to keep this inside envelope for me. It's a secret, just between you and me.

  I stopped and thought. Doggone it, if anything happened to me oh, even a car crash, or anything that can stop breathing, while Ricky had this, eventually it would wind up with Miles and Belle. Unless I rigged things to prevent it. I realized as I thought about it that I had subconsciously reached a decision about the cold-sleep deal; I wasn't going to take it. Sobering up and the lecture the doc had read me had stiffened my spine; I wasn't going to run away, I was going to stay and fight-and this stock certificate was my best weapon. It gave me the right to examine the books; it entitled me to poke my nose into any and all affairs of the company. If they tried again simply to keep me out with a hired guard I could go back next time with a lawyer and
a deputy sheriff and a court order.

  I could drag them into court with it too. Maybe I couldn't win but I could make a stink and perhaps cause the Mannix people to shy off from buying them out.

  Maybe I shouldn't send it to Ricky at all.

  No, if anything happened to me I wanted her to have it. Ricky and Pete were all the "family" I had. I Went on writing:

  If by any chance 1 don't see you for a year, you'll know something has happened to me. If that happens, take care of Pete, if you can find him-and without telling anybody take the inside envelope to a branch of the Bank of America, give it to the trust officer and tell him to open it.

  Uncle Danny

  Then I took another sheet and wrote:

  "3 December, 1970, Los Angeles, California

  For one dollar in hand received and other valuable considerations I assign"-here I listed legal descriptions and serial numbers of my Hired Girl, Inc., stock shares-"to the Bank of America in trust for Frederica Virginia Gentry and to be reassigned to her on her twenty-first birthday," and signed it.

  The intent was clear and it was the best I could do on a drugstore counter with a juke box blaring in my ear. It should make sure that Ricky got the stock if anything happened to me, while making darn sure that Miles and Belle could not grab it away from her.

  But if all went well, I would just ask Ricky to give the envelope back to me when I got around to it. By not using the assignment form printed on the back of the certificate, I avoided all the red tape of having a minor assign it back to me; I could just tear up the separate sheet of paper.

  I sealed the stock certificate with the note assigning it into the smaller envelope, placed it and the letter to Ricky in the larger envelope, addressed it to Ricky at the Girl Scout camp, stamped it, and dropped it in the box outside the drugstore. I noted that it would be picked up in about forty minutes and climbed back into my car feeling positively lighthearted... not because I had safeguarded the stock but because I had solved my greater problems.

  Well, not "solved" them, perhaps, but had decided to face them, not run off and crawl in a hole to play Rip van Winkle.

  nor try to blot them out again with ethanol in various flavors. Sure, I wanted to see the year 2000, but just by sitting tight I Would see it... when I was sixty, and still young enough, probably, to whistle at the girls. No hurry. Jumping to the next century in one long nap wouldn't be satisfactory to a normal man anyhow-about like seeing the end of a movie without having seen what goes before. The thing to do with the next thirty years was to enjoy them while they unfolded; then when I came to the year 2000 I would understand it.

  In the meantime I was going to have one lulu of a fight with Miles and Belle. Maybe I wouldn't win, but I would sure let them know they had been in a scrap-like the times Pete had come home bleeding in six directions but insisting loudly, "You ought to see the other cat!"

  I didn't expect much Out of this interview tonight. All it would amount to was a formal declaration of war. I planned to ruin Miles's sleep... and he could phone Belle and ruin hers.

  CHAPTER 3

  By the time I got to Miles's house I was whistling. I had quit worrying about that precious pair and had worked out in my head, in the last fifteen miles, two brand-new gadgets, either one of which could make me rich. One was a drafting machine, to be operated like an electric typewriter. I guessed that there must be easily fifty thousand engineers in the U.S. alone bending over drafting boards every day and hating it, because it gets you in your kidneys and ruins your eyes. Not that they didn't want to design-they did want to-but physically it was much too hard work.

  This gismo would let them Sit down in a big easy chair and tap keys and have the picture unfold on an easel above the keyboard. Depress three keys simultaneously and have a horizontal line appear just where you want it; depress another key and you fillet it in with a vertical line; depress two keys and then two more in succession and draw a line at an exact slant.

  Cripes, for a small additional cost as an accessory, I could add a second easel, let an architect design in isometric (the only easy way to design), and have the second picture come out in perfect perspective rendering without his even looking at it. Why, I could even set the thing to pull floor plans and elevations right out of the isometric.

  The beauty of it was that it could be made almost entirely with standard parts, most of them available at radio shops and camera stores. All but the control board, that is, and I was sure I could bread-board a rig for that by buying an electric typewriter, tearing its guts out, and hooking the keys to operate these other circuits. A month to make a primitive model, six weeks more to chase bugs.

  But that one I just tucked away in the back of my mind, certain that I could do it and that it would have a market. The thing that really delighted me was that I had figured out a way to outflex poor old Flexible Frank. I knew more about Frank than anyone else could learn, even if they studied him a year. What they could not know, what even my notes did not show, was that there was at least one workable alternative for every choice I had madeÄand that my choices had been constrained by thinking of him as a household servant. To start with, I could throw away the restriction that he had to live in a powered wheel chair. From there on I could do anything, except that I would need the Thorsen memory tubesÄand Miles could not keep me from using those; they were on the market for anyone who wanted to design a cybernetic sequence.

  The drafting machine could wait; I'd get busy on the unlimited all purpose automaton, capable of being programmed for anything a man could do, just as long as it did not require true human judgment.

  No, I'd rig a drafting machine first, then use it to design Protean Pete. "How about that, Pete? We're going to name the world's first real robot after you."

  "Mrrrarr?"

  "Don't be so suspicious; it's an honor." After breaking in on Frank, I could design Pete right at my drafting machine, really refine it, and quickly. I'd make it a killer, a triple-threat demon that would displace Frank before they ever got him into production. With any luck I'd run them broke and have them begging me to come back. Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, would they?

  There were lights on in Miles's house and his car was at the curb. I parked in front of Miles's car, said to Pete, "You'd better stay here, fellow, and protect the car. Holler `halt' three times fast, then shoot to kill."

  "Nooo!"

  "If you go inside you'll have to stay in the bag."

  "Bleerrrt?"

  "Don't argue. If you want to come in, get in your bag."

  Pete jumped into the bag.

  Miles let me in. Neither of us offered to shake hands. He led me into his living room and gestured at a chair.

  Belle was there. I had not expected her, but I suppose it was not surprising. I looked at her and grinned. "Fancy meeting you here! Don't tell me you came all the way from Mojave just to talk to little old me?" Oh, I'm a gallus-snapper when I get started; you should see me wear women's hats at parties.

  Belle frowned. "Don't be funny, Dan. Say what you have to say, if anything, and get out."

  "Don't hurry me. I think this is cozy... my former partner my former fiance. All we lack is my former business."

  Miles said placatingly, "Now, Dan, don't take that attitude. We did it for your own good... and you can come back to work any tune you want to. I'd be glad to have you back."

  "For my own good, eh? That sounds like what they told the horse thief when they hanged him. As for coming back-how about it, Belle? Can I come back?"

  She bit her lip. "If Miles says so, of course."

  "It seems like only yesterday that it used to be: `If Dan says so, of course.' But everything changes; that's life. And I'm not coming back, kids; you can stop fretting. I just came here tonight to find out some things."

  Miles glanced at Belle. She answered, "Such as?"

  "Well, first, which one of you cooked up the swindle? Or did you plan it together?"

  Miles said slowly, "That's an ug
ly word, Dan. I don't like it."

  "Oh, come, come, let's not be mealymouthed. If the word is ugly, the deed is ten times as ugly. I mean faking a yellow-dog contract, faking patent assignments-that one is a federal offense, Miles; I think they pipe sunlight to you on alternate Wednesdays. I'm not sure, but no doubt the FBI can tell me. Tomorrow," I added, seeing him flinch.

  "Dan, you're not going to be silly enough to try to make trouble about this?"

  "Trouble? I'm going to hit you in all directions, civil and criminal, on all counts. You'll be too busy to scratch... unless you agree to do one thing. But I didn't mention your third peccadillo; theft of my notes and drawings of Flexible Frank... and the working model, too, although you may be able to make me pay for the materials for that, since I did bill them to the company."

  "Theft, nonsense!" snapped Belle. "You were working for the company."

  "Was I? I did most of it at night. And I never was an employee, Belle, as you both know. I simply drew living expenses against profits earned by my shares. What is the Mannix outfit going to say when I file a criminal complaint, charging that the things they were interested in buying Hired Girl, Willie, and Frank never did belong to the company but were stolen from me?"

  "Nonsense," Belle repeated grimly. "You were working for the company. You had a contract."

  I leaned back and laughed. "Look, kids, you don't have to lie now; save it for the witness stand. There ain't nobody here but just us chickens. What I really want to know is this: who thought it up? I know how it was done. Belle, you used to bring in papers for me to sign. If more than one copy had to be signed, you would paper-clip the other copies to the first-for my convenience, of course; you were always the perfect secretary-and all I would see of the copies underneath would be the place to sign my name. Now I know that you slipped some jokers into some of those neat piles. So I know that you were the one who conducted the mechanics of the swindle; Miles could not have done it. Shucks, Miles can't even type very well. But who worded those documents you horsed me into signing? You? I don't think so... unless you've had legal training you never mentioned. How about it, Miles? Could a mere stenographer phrase that wonderful clause seven so perfectly? Or did it take a lawyer? You, I mean."