“Depends on the quality. What’s happening?”
“Bootleg theaters,” Brocks said. “They’ve opened all over the country. They show Vox- View products, and they’re using the Magna enlarger system Sonatone’s got patented. The admission price is low — lower than the rate of owning a Vox-View in your own home. There’s Audience Appeal. There’s the thrill of something a bit illegal. People are having their Vox-Views taken out right and left. I know why. They can go to a bootleg theater instead.”
“It’s illegal,” Gallegher said thoughtfully.
“So were speakeasies, in the Prohibition Era. A matter of protection, that’s all. I can’t get any action through the courts. I’ve tried. I’m running in the red. Eventually I’ll be broke. I can’t lower my home rental fees on Vox-Views. They’re nominal already. I make my profits through quantity. Now, no profits. As for these bootleg theaters, it’s pretty obvious who’s backing them.”
“Sonatone?”
“Sure. Silent partners. They get the take at the box office. What they want is to squeeze me out of business, so they’ll have a monopoly. After that, they’ll give the public junk and pay their artists starvation salaries. With me it’s different. I pay my staff what they’re worth — plenty.”
“And you offered me a lousy ten thousand,” Gallegher remarked. “Uh-huh!”
“That was only the first installment,” Brock said hastily. “You can name your own fee. Within reason,” he added.
“I shall. An astronomical sum. Did I say I’d accept the commission a week ago?”
“You did.”
“Then I must have had some idea how to solve the problem,” Gallegher pondered. “Let’s see. I didn’t mention anything in particular, did I?”
“You kept talking about marble slabs and…uh…your sweetie.”
“Then I was singing,” Gallegher explained largely. ‘“St. James Infirmary.’ Singing calms my nerves, and God knows they need it sometimes. Music and liquor. I often wonder what the vintners buy—”
“What?”
“One half so precious as the stuff they sell. Let it go. I am quoting Omar. It means nothing. Are your technicians any good?”
“The best. And the best paid.”
“They can’t find a magnifying process that won’t infringe on the Sonatone Magna patents?”
“In a nutshell, that’s it.”
“I suppose I’ll have to do some research,” Gallegher said sadly. “I hate it like poison. Still, the sum of the parts equals the whole. Does that make sense to you? It doesn’t to me. I have trouble with words. After I say thing, I start wondering what I’ve said. Better than watching a play,” he finished wildly. “I’ve got a headache. Too much talk and not enough liquor. Where were we?”
“Approaching the madhouse,” Brock suggested. “If you weren’t my last resort, I’d—”
“No use,” the robot said squeakily. “You might as well tear up your contract, Brock.
I won’t sign it. Fame means nothing to me — nothing.”
“If you don’t shut up,” Gallegher warned, “I’m going to scream in your ears.”
“All right!” Joe shrilled. “Beat me! Go on, beat me! The meaner you are, the faster I’ll have my nervous system disrupted, and then I’ll be dead. I don’t care. I’ve got no instinct of self-preservation. Beat me. See if I care.”
“He’s right, you know,” the scientist said after a pause. “And it’s the only logical way to respond to blackmail or threats. The sooner it’s over, the better. There aren’t any gradations with Joe. Anything really painful to him will destroy him. And he doesn’t give a damn.”
“Neither do I,” Brock grunted. “What I want to find out—”
“Yeah, I know. Well, I’ll wander around and see what occurs to me. Can I get into your studies?”
“Here’s a pass.” Brock scribbled something on the back of a card. “Will you get to work on it right away?”
“Sure,” Gallegher lied. “Now you run along and take it easy. Try and cool off. Everything’s under control. I’ll either find a solution to your problem pretty soon or else—”
“Or else what?”
“Or else I won’t,” the scientist finished blandly, and fingered the buttons on a control panel near the couch. “I’m tired of martinis. Why didn’t I make that robot a mechanical bartender, while I was at it? Even the effort of selecting and pushing buttons is depressing at times. Yeah, I’ll get to work on the business, Brock. Forget it.” The magnate hesitated. “Well, you’re my only hope. I needn’t bother to mention that if there’s anything I can do to help you—”
“A blonde,” Gallegher murmured. “That gorgeous, gorgeous star of yours, Silver O’Keefe. Send her over. Otherwise I want nothing.”
“Good-by, Brock,” the robot said squeakily. “Sorry we couldn’t get together on the contract, but at least you’ve had the ineluctable delight of hearing my beautiful voice, not to mention the pleasure of seeing me. Don’t tell too many people how lovely I am. I really don’t want to be bothered with mobs. They’re noisy.”
“You don’t know what dogmatism means till you’ve talked to Joe,” Gallegher said. “Oh, well. See you later. Don’t forget the blonde.”
Brock’s lips quivered. He searched for words, gave it up as a vain task, and turned to the door.
“Good-by, you ugly man,” Joe said. Gallegher winced as the door slammed, though it was harder on the robot’s supersensitive ears than on his own. “Why do you go on like that?” he inquired. “You nearly gave the guy apoplexy.”
“Surely he didn’t think he was beautiful,” Joe remarked.
“Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder.”
“How stupid you are. You’re ugly, too.”
“And you’re a collection of rattletrap gears, pistons and cogs. You’ve got worms,” said Gallegher, referring of course, to certain mechanisms in the robot’s body.
“I’m lovely.” Joe stared raptly into the mirror.
“Maybe to you. Why did I make you transparent, I wonder?”
“So others could admire me. I have X-ray vision, of course.”
“And wheels in your head. Why did I put your radio-atomic brain in your stomach? Protection?”
Joe didn’t answer. He was humming in a maddeningly squeaky voice, shrill and nerve racking. Gallegher stood it for a while, fortifying himself with a gin rickey from the siphon.
“Get it up!” he yelped at last. “You sound like an old-fashioned subway train going round a curve.”
“You’re merely jealous,” Joe scoffed, but obediently raised his tone to a supersonic pitch. There was silence for a half-minute. Then all the dogs in the neighborhood began to howl.
Wearily Gallegher dragged his lanky frame up from the couch. He might as well get out. Obviously there was no peace to be had in the laboratory. Not with that animated junk pile inflating his ego all over the place. Joe began to laugh in an off-key cackle. Gallegher winced.
“What now?”
“You’ll find out.”
Logic of causation and effect, influenced by probabilities, X-ray vision and other enigmatic senses the robot no doubt possessed. Gallegher cursed softly, found a shapeless black hat, and made for the door. He opened it to admit a short, fat man who bounced painfully off the scientist’s stomach.
“Whoof! Uh. What a corny sense of humor that jackass has. Hello, Mr. Kennicott. Glad to see you. Sorry I can’t offer you a drink.” Mr. Kennicott’s swarthy face twisted malignantly. “Don’ wanna no drink. Wanna my money. You gimme. Howzabout it?” Gallegher looked thoughtfully at nothing. “Well, the fact is, I was just going to collect a check.”