Status Quo Read online

we could take in the Brahms concert, then--"

  "Do you like Brahms? I go for popular music myself. Preferably the sort ofthing they wrote back in the 1930s. Something you can dance to, somethingyou know the words to. Corny, they used to call it. Remember 'Sunny Sideof the Street,' and 'Just the Way You Look Tonight'."

  Larry winced again. He said, "Look, I admit, I don't go for concertseither but it doesn't hurt you to--"

  "I know," she said sweetly. "It doesn't hurt for a bright young bureaucratto be seen at concerts."

  "How about Dixieland?" he said. "It's all the thing now."

  "I like corn. Besides, my wardrobe is all out of style. Paris, London, andRome just got in a huddle a couple of weeks ago and antiquated everythingI own. You wouldn't want to be seen with a girl a few weeks out of date,would you?"

  "Oh, now, LaVerne, get off my back." He thought about it. "Look, you musthave _something_ you could wear."

  "Get out of here, you vacant minded conformist! I _like_ Mort Lenny, hemakes me laugh; I _hate_ vodka martinis, they give me sour stomach; Idon't _like_ the current women's styles, nor the men's either." LaVernespun back to her auto-typer and began to dictate into it.

  Larry glared down at her. "All right. O.K. What _do_ you like?"

  She snapped back irrationally, "I like what _I_ like."

  He laughed at her in ridicule.

  This time she glared at him. "That makes more sense than you're capable ofassimilating, Mr. Walking Status Symbol. My likes and dislikes aren'tdictated by someone else. If I like corny music, I'll listen to it and thedevil with Brahms or Dixieland or anything else that somebody else tellsme is all the thing!"

  He turned on his heel angrily. "O.K., O.K., it takes all sorts to make aworld, weirds and all."

  "One more label to hang on people," she snarled after him. "Everything'slabels. Be sure and never come to any judgments of your own!"

  What a woman! He wondered why he'd ever bothered to ask her for a date.There were so many women in this town you waded through them, and here hewas exposing himself to be seen in public with a girl everybody in thedepartment knew was as weird as they came. It didn't do your standing anygood to be seen around with the type. He wondered all over again why theBoss tolerated her as his receptionist-secretary.

  He got his car from the parking lot and drove home at a high level.Ordinarily, the distance being what it was, he drove in the lower andslower traffic levels but now his frustration demanded some expression.

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  Back at his suburban auto-bungalow, he threw all except the high priorityswitch and went on down into his small second cellar den. He didn't reallyfeel like a night on the town anyway. A few vodka martinis under his beltand he'd sleep late and he wanted to get up in time for an early start forFlorida. Besides, in that respect he agreed with the irritating wench.Vermouth was never meant to mix with Polish vodka. He wished that Sidecarswould come back.

  In his den, he shucked off his jacket, kicked off his shoes and shuffledinto Moroccan slippers. He went over to his current reading rack andscowled at the paperbacks there. His culture status books were upstairswhere they could be seen. He pulled out a western, tossed it over to thecocktail table that sat next to his chair, and then went over to the bar.

  Up above in his living room, he had one of the new autobars. You coulddial any one of more than thirty drinks. Autobars were all the rage. TheBoss had one that gave a selection of a hundred. But what difference didit make when nobody but eccentric old-timers or flighty blondes drankanything except vodka martinis? He didn't like autobars anyway. A wellmixed drink is a personal thing, a work of competence, instinct and art,not something measured to the drop, iced to the degree, shaken or stirredto a mathematical formula.

  Out of the tiny refrigerator he brought a four-ounce cube of frozenpineapple juice, touched the edge with his thumbnail and let the ultrathin plastic peel away. He tossed the cube into his mixer, took up abottle of light rum and poured in about two ounces. He brought an egg fromthe refrigerator and added that. An ounce of whole milk followed and ateaspoon of powdered sugar. He flicked the switch and let theconglomeration froth together.

  He poured it into a king-size highball glass and took it over to hischair. Vodka martinis be damned, he liked a slightly sweet long drink.

  He sat down in the chair, picked up the book and scowled at the cover. Heought to be reading that Florentine history of Machiavelli's, especiallyif the Boss had got to the point where he was quoting from the guy. Butthe heck with it, he was on vacation. He didn't think much of the Italiandiplomat of the Renaissance anyway; how could you be that far back withoutbeing dated?

  He couldn't get beyond the first page or two.

  And when you can't concentrate on a Western, you just can't concentrate.

  He finished his drink, went over to his phone and dialed _Department ofRecords_ and then _Information_. When the bright young thing answered, hesaid, "I'd like the brief on an Ernest Self who lives on Elwood Avenue,Baltimore section of Greater Washington. I don't know his code number."

  She did things with switches and buttons for a moment and then brought asheet from a delivery chute. "Do you want me to read it to you, sir?"

  "No, I'll scan it," Larry said.

  Her face faded to be replaced by the brief on Ernest Self.

  It was astonishingly short. _Records_ seemed to have slipped up on thisoccasion. A rare occurrence. He considered requesting the full dossier,then changed his mind. Instead he dialed the number of the _Sun-Post_ andasked for its science columnist.

  Sam Sokolski's puffy face eventually faded in.

  Larry said to him sourly, "You drink too much. You can begin to see theveins breaking in your nose."

  Sam looked at him patiently.

  Larry said, "How'd you like to come over and toss back a few tonight?"

  "I'm working. I thought you were on vacation."

  Larry sighed. "I am," he said. "O.K., so you can't take a night off andlift a few with an old buddy."

  "That's right. Anything else, Larry?"

  "Yes. Look, have you ever heard of an inventor named Ernest Self?"

  "Sure I've heard of him. Covered a hassle he got into some years ago. Anice guy."

  "I'll bet," Larry said. "What does he invent, something to do withprinting presses, or something?"

  "Printing presses? Don't you remember the story about him?"

  "Brief me," Larry said.

  "Well--briefly does it--it got out a couple of years ago that some of ourrocketeers had bought a solid fuel formula from an Italian research outfitfor the star probe project. Paid them a big hunk of Uncle's change for it.So Self sued."

  Larry said, "You're being _too_ brief. What d'ya mean, he sued? Why?"

  "Because he claimed he'd submitted the same formula to the same agency afull eighteen months earlier and they'd turned him down."

  "Had he?"

  "Probably."

  Larry didn't get it. "Then why'd they turn him down?"

  Sam said, "Oh, the government boys had a good alibi. Crackpots turn up allover the place and you have to brush them off. Every cellar scientist whocomes along and says he's got a new super-fuel developed from old coffeegrounds can't be given the welcome mat. Something was wrong with his mathor something and they didn't pay much attention to him. Wouldn't even lethim demonstrate it. But it was the same formula, all right."

  Larry Woolford was scowling. "Something wrong with his math? What kind ofa degree does he have?"

  Sam grinned in memory. "I got a good quote on that. He doesn't have anydegree. He said he'd learned to read by the time he'd reached high schooland since then he figured spending time in classrooms was a matter ofinterfering with his education."

  "No wonder they turned him down. No degree at all. You can't get anywherein science like that."

  Sam said, "The courts rejected his suit but he got a certain amount ofsupport here and there. Peter Voss, over at the university, claims
he'sone of the great intuitive scientists, whatever that is, of ourgeneration."

  "Who said that?"

  "Professor Voss. Not that it makes any difference what he says. Anothercrackpot."

  After Sam's less than handsome face was gone from the phone, Larry walkedover to the bar with his empty glass and stared at the mixer for severalminutes. He began to make himself another flip, but cut it short in themiddle, put down the ingredients and went back to the phone to dial_Records_ again.

  He went through first the brief and then the full dossier on