Mundin said frostily, "I happen to know a little about G.M.L., Miss Lavin. Wasn't there a man named Moffatt involved?"
"Involved he was, but not until later. Much later. For almost thirty years, Daddy and Mr. German worked like dogs, starved themselves, gave up everything for their dream. Mother said she scarcely saw Daddy from month's end to month's end. Mr. German died a bachelor. They had designed the bubble-house, they had built it, but they didn't have the capital to put it on the market."
"Oh, come now," objected Mundin. "They could have teased the rights——"
"And had them bottled up. Didn't I already say they were dedicated men? They had designed a home that was cheaper than the cheapest and better than the best. It was a breakthrough in housing, like nothing that had gone before except, perhaps, the synthetic revolution in textiles or the advent of the Model T Ford. Don't you see that even a millionaire could not have owned a better house than the G.M.L.? Daddy and Mr. Gorman wanted to give them to the people at only a reasonable profit; no manufacturer would dream of it until the top-price market had been filled. They weren't big businessmen, Mundin. They were dreamers. They were out of their field. Then Moffatt came along with his plan."
Ryan stirred himself. "Most ingenious, really," he said. "Adapted to the tax situation. By leasing manufacturing rights to large corporations, G.M.L. avoided capital outlay; the corporations gave their employees what could not be had elsewhere—and good-by to labor troubles. At first, G.M.L. leased the rights for money. Later, when they got bigger, the consideration was blocks of stock, equities in the firms."
The girl nodded soberly. "Within ten years, G.M.L. owned sizable shares of forty corporations, and Daddy and Mr. Gorman owned half of G.M.L. Then Daddy found out what was happening. He told Mr. Gorman, and I think it killed him—he was an old man by then, you see. Contract status. One word of back-talk and you get thrown out of your GM.L. house. Get thrown out of your G.M.L. house and you find yourself—" she hesitated, and her eyes roved around the sordid room "—here."
Mundin said wonderingly, "But if your father was one of the owners——"
"Only twenty-five per cent, Mundin. And Mr. German's twenty-five per cent went to distant cousins after the embolism. So there was Daddy at sixty-five. His vision was a reality; his bubble-homes housed a hundred million people. And they had become a weapon, and he was frozen out of the firm." Don Lavin said dreamily, "They gave the plant guards his picture. He was arrested as drunk and disorderly when he tried to go to the stockholders' meeting. He hanged himself in his cell." He stared absently at Mundin's shoe.
Mundin cleared his throat. "I—I'm sorry. Wasn't there anything to be done at all?"
Ryan said, with a touch of professional admiration, "Very little Mr. Mundin. Oh, he still had stock. They impounded it. A trumped-up creditors' committee got an order on his safe-deposit box against dissipation of assets when he died. They kept it impounded for twelve years. Then somebody got careless, or somebody quit or got fired and the new man didn't know what the impoundment was for—anyway, G.M.L. blinked. The order expired. Norma and Don Lavin are twenty-five per cent owners of G.M.L."
Mundin looked around the shabby room and didn't say a word.
"There's just one little thing," Norma said bitterly. "Don got the stock out of the box and put it away. Tell us where it is, Don."
The brother's dreamy eyes-Winked and widened. His face muscles worked wildly; he said, "K-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k" in a convulsion of stammering. The idiot stutter went on for long moments, until Don Lavin began raspingly to cry. Norma, stone-faced, patted him on the shoulder.
She said to the appalled lawyer, "When we began making trouble, as they said, Don was snatched. He was gone for three days and he doesn't remember them. We took him to a doctor; the doctor said it looked like at least fifty hours of conditioning."
Mundin said, out of shock and rage, "That's illegal! Private persons can't use conditioning techniques!"
Norma flared, "Of course not! You're our lawyer now, Mundin. Just straighten that out for us, will you? Get an injunction against G.M.L."
Mundin sat back. Habitual criminals—like his twerp—were conditioned in twenty-five hours of treatment over a week or more. Fifty hours in three days!
"Why didn't they just snatch the stock?" he asked.
"That would be illegal," explained Ryan—and hastily held up a hand. "No, seriously. A forced sale could be attacked, and perhaps set aside—by Don himself, or by his heirs or guardians. This way the stock is neutralized, and nothing pinned to G.M.L. They don't need the stock; they've got plenty of stock. They just don't want Don and Norma to have it."
Mundin felt ill. He said, "I see. Sorry I was so stupid. So now Don doesn't know where he put the stock and you want to find it."
Ryan looked at him with disgust. "No, Counselor," he said heavily. "Not quite as simple as that. I may not have practiced at the Big Bar for some time, but I imagine that even I could manage to get duplicate certificates. Unfortunately our position is somewhat worse than that. Donald, as the male heir, was the obvious person——" Norma snorted "—the obvious person, I say, to conduct a suit, so Norma signed an irrevocable proxy of interest to him. That was an error, as it turned out. Donald can't do the job. He can't bring suit; he can't tell us where the stock is; he can't even discuss it."
Mundin nodded sickly. "I see. You're stymied."
Norma made a contemptuous noise. "Great, Mundin," she said. "You've put it in a nutshell. Now that it is established that we're licked, we might as well lie down and die."
Mundin said stiffly, "I didn't say that, Miss Lavin. We'll do what we can." He hesitated. "For instance," he went on, "if it's only a matter of conditioning, no doubt we can have your brother undergo a deconditioning course somewhere else. After all——"
Norma raised an eyebrow. " 'Private persons can't use conditioning techniques,'" she quoted. "Didn't you say that just a moment ago?"
"Well, yes, but surely someone will—"
All at once Norma seemed to collapse. She said to Ryan, "You tell him. Tell him what he's up against."
Ryan said, "G.M.L.'s assets are not less than fourteen billion dollars, comprising cash in the bank, negotiable securities, plant and properties and equities, as of their last statement, in eight hundred and four corporations. I don't say that they can break the law with impunity, Counselor. But they can sure as hell keep us from breaking it"
Chapter Seven
Fourteen billion dollars. Mundin, trudging apprehensively through Belly Rave's dark streets, felt very small up against fourteen billion dollars. Still, he had accepted the case.
A mournful hooting from the shadows made him quicken his step, but no lurking thugs showed up. Mundin shivered uncomfortably and turned up his coat collar. It had begun to rain.
Luck was with Mundin. He was neither mugged nor lured into one of the clip joints. The footpads were stalking other streets, the roving gangs of armed adolescents plotted in their cellars instead of braving the ram, the cab Mundin spotted, ran after, and hailed was a legitimate cab and not a trap. He got out of Belly Rave without difficulty, and he never knew what he had missed.
The cab ride gave him time to think. But the thinking came to very little. The Lavins, he was convinced, had a legitimate claim. He had promised them he would work on it; he had tried to reassure them that things were cot as hopeless as they seemed. He felt uncomfortably sure that the girl had seen through his empty words.