it against the law to bring that stuff across a state line?” Perrin asked impishly.
Watkins roared. “I didn’t see any state line. I’m going to get the directors down here. Every one of them. We’ll throw a real party.”
“You may not find them in a party mood,” Arnold said. “It’s three in the morning.”
“They’ll be in the mood for this one. I want you to join me. All of your boys, too. They can transmit over here.” He waved a hand at the distant end of the warehouse. “Plenty of room here for a big party.”
“Sorry,” Arnold said. “You’ll have to count us out. And I’d rather you didn’t hold your party here.”
Watkins looked at him, wide-eyed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. We still have work to do. I have to keep this test going, and I have to think about rebuilding a couple of hundred transmitters. Meyers? Where’s—oh. Make this the last run. Newark can tune on Miami, and we’ll take San Francisco.”
“Right!” Meyers said, and took a running leap into the transmitter.
CHAPTER 2
Leaning back comfortably in the booth, one foot up on the seat, Jan Darzek watched Ted Arnold devour a hamburger. He thought, as he had many times before, that Arnold looked more nearly like a janitor than a brilliant engineer. He was short, fat, and bald. He appeared older than his forty-five years. He also looked slightly stupid.
All of which proved nothing except that looks could be extremely misleading, and no one knew that better than private detective Jan Darzek.
“I had an odd dream last night,” Darzek said. “I was on the Moon, looking down at Earth.”
“You couldn’t,” Arnold said.
“Couldn’t what?”
“Look down at Earth. If you were on the Moon. The Earth would be like a large moon in the sky. You’d have to look up at it.”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought about that. It proves my subconscious isn’t scientifically inclined, I suppose. I looked down.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What did you do?” Arnold asked. “Just look?”
“That’s all.”
Arnold sighed around a bite of hamburger. “Seems like a long way to go, just to enjoy the view.” He sighed again, and carefully patted his perspiration-streaked bald head with a handkerchief. “Air conditioning feels good.”
“It’s an infernally hot night,” Darzek said. “Will you finish that sandwich so you can tell me why you’re making a cloak-and-dagger thriller out of this? It hurts my feelings to have my friends going out of their way to add to my daily quota of mystery.” His tone was angry, but merriment sparkled in his blue eyes, and the stern line of his lips did not quite suppress the smile that flickered there.
“What mystery?” Arnold asked.
“Why did Walker insist on our meeting in this—” he glanced quickly over his shoulder for a lurking waitress “—dump? Why did you come slinking in out of the night like a fugitive from justice?”
Arnold looked sadly at the bulging white of his shirt front, and adjusted the revolting blotch of purple that was his necktie. “Men with my build never slink,” he said.
“You slunk. I’ve tailed too many men myself not to know all the classic symptoms a man displays when he thinks he’s being followed. It’s a wonder you haven’t got a stiff neck, the way you walked up looking over your shoulder. You slunk into the doorway, and spent a full minute watching the passers-by on both sides of the street. Then you had to drag me away from a fairly comfortable chair to a plywood plank so we could have more privacy. And that in spite of the fact that we have this whole crummy joint to ourselves. Even the waitress doesn’t hang around. She’s carrying on a love affair with the cook.”
“Is she?” Arnold said, looking at the kitchen door with interest. “Meeting here wasn’t Walker’s idea. It was mine. I’ve noticed that the place is usually deserted this time of night.”
Darzek leaned forward, and spoke softly. “When does Universal Trans open for business?”
Arnold winced and half turned to look behind him. He whispered hoarsely, “How did you know that?”
“Elementary,” Darzek said, still keeping his voice low. “At the time this stock club of ours liquidated its holdings and invested it all in Universal Trans stock—at your recommendation, you might remember—I scraped together my life savings and bought a hundred shares for myself. Also at your recommendation. I may have mentioned it before.”
“You mentioned it at the time,” Arnold said, “and you’ve mentioned it at least three times a week since the stock started to go down.”
Darzek chuckled. “Have I? I’d forgotten. Anyway, a month ago the market value of Universal Trans stock was maybe a cent a share with no buyers, and a mysterious individual telephoned and offered five hundred for my hundred shares. Said he represented a nationwide syndicate of realtors who were trying to get control of Universal Trans to make something out of the various terminal sites the company has bought or leased around the country. I strung him along, and he’s telephoned three times since then. The last offer was two thousand—just what the stock cost me. Add the fact that Walker has called this meeting. He’s probably had an offer for the club’s stock. Add the fact that I happened to be walking along Eighth Avenue today, and I saw men at work in the Universal Trans terminal. They weren’t tearing the place down, so I kept on adding and came up with an answer. Universal Trans is opening for business.”
Arnold nodded slowly. “When did this character first offer to buy your stock?”
“A month ago.”
Arnold nodded again. “Universal Trans is opening next Monday. But a month ago no one knew that. I didn’t know it myself, and if I didn’t know it no one did. A month ago I wouldn’t have given you five hundred cents for your hundred shares.”
“Someone knew,” Darzek said. “Otherwise, why the pitch?”
“Beats me. We finally got the bottleneck opened up just five days ago, and right up to that moment it looked as if Universal Trans was finished.”
Darzek lit a cigarette, and blew a thoughtful smoke ring. “Queer,” he said.
“Universal Trans has had queerer things than that happen. What with the stockholders’ suits—I think the last count was thirty-one—and the patent disputes, and the congressional investigations, and the Interstate Commerce Commission inquiries, and the Armed Forces threatening to take over the whole works, it’s a wonder we still have a company. Then there are the governmental restrictions—all kinds of governments and all kinds of restrictions. And sabotage. Nothing I’ve been able to prove, but I’m satisfied that it’s sabotage. But the worst problems of all were the technical failures. Just when we thought things were ready to roll, bugs would develop. I hate to think how many times that happened. And all along the way I’ve had the impression that some outsiders
