The room was large and luxurious, albeit somewhat spartan in its furnishings. The armchairs were carved out of marble and there were no cushions on them. The couch on which Penny found herself was fashioned of jade. It also had no padding, although a pillow had been placed under her head. The scatter rugs strewn over the expanse of floor were animal hides with claws and fangs protruding from them perilously. There was the complete skeleton of a small dinosaur in one corner of the room. On one wall a collection of Neanderthal arrowheads and clubs had been arranged. On another wall, hewn of rough granite blocks, there were primitive caveman carvings and drawings, The makings for a fire were arranged in a crude fireplace.
Yet other facets of the room seemed to contradict this primitive scheme. The lighting was ultra-modern, indirect and fluorescent. An extra-large color TV screen took up half of one wall. Maps of the world showing concentrations of natural resources hung framed on the other walls. A ticker-tape machine like the ones in the stock market stood in the corner opposite the dinosaur. A telephone switchboard was partially visible behind a sabre-toothed tiger-skin drapery. And the room was comfortably air-conditioned.
“She’s coming to.” The voice was authoritative, and the group around Penny parted to allow a tall man to stand before her. He had a craggy, Gary Cooper-ish face and the leather skin of an outdoorsman. His eyes were steel blue, his hair gray-blond. And he was wearing pioneer-style buckskins. Penny missed the Davy Crockett cap she was sure he must wear when he went outside.
“Where am I?” she asked weakly. “Who are you?”
“You are in my headquarters. And I am John Fuller Gall.”
“Who is John Gall?” Penny said confusedly. Her words had a familiar ring in her ears. Somehow she had the feeling she’s heard that question raised before—and perhaps more than once; perhaps many times.
“I am the head of GRABB,” John Fuller Gall explained.
“What is GRABB?”
“An organization dedicated to the salvation of the individual,” john Fuller Gall told her, the light of the zealot shining suddenly and brightly from his eyes. “An organization dedicated to the high moral principle of each man taking what he can get and fighting to hold onto it. An organization dedicated to the survival of the fittest and the extinction of the fit-less. An organization which lives by its slogan.”
“What is your slogan?” Penny was beginning to feel stronger, and with her regained strength came curiosity.
“ ‘I’m all right, Jack; screw you all! ”’ The others present chanted the words along with John Fuller Gall. They subsided as he continued to speak. “GRABB believes that individual enterprise should be rewarded. That the laissez faire of Jesse James should be returned to the American business community. That the competitive instincts exemplified by Aaron Burr should once again be encouraged. That, like Benedict Arnold, a man is justified in doing anything if it lands him on the winning side: the side of profit, that is. And GRABB believes in fighting for its ideals with all the weapons at its command. The tools of our struggle are the dumdum bullet, the karate chop, the crotch-kick, the poison gas pellet and germs in the water system.”
“But that would poison the drinking water, wouldn’t it?” Penny protested.
“The Reds have already done that. They’ve fluoridated the water. Do you realize that every time you take a drink your vital life juices are being poisoned, weakened, sapped?”
“No, I never realized that,” Penny admitted.
“But, young lady, we are not merely an activist organization. No, indeed. We have our ideals, too. In our own way, we are quite devout. Each of us, in his own way, reveres the omnipotent power of the Almighty Dollar.”
“Amen!” chorused the others. “The Almighty Dollar watches over us. Amen!”
“But what does GRABB stand for?” Penny wanted to know.
“Tell her, fellow individualists.”
“Go Right And Beat Betterment,” the individualists chanted.
“That’s all very well,” Penny said, “but why did you bring me here?”
“It was a necessary compromise. According to our beliefs, we should have left you lying in the gutter. You were the weak and the Rolls Royce was the strong. Survival of the fittest. You see? Helping you was an act of philanthropy, and that is quite contrary to GRABB’s aims.”
“Then why did you help me?
“Necessity. We couldn’t be sure that the exercise of our superior strength went unnoticed. If our license number had been taken down by some meddler, it would have proved embarrassing. The idiots probably would have called it hit-and-run. The nature of GRABB is such that we can’t afford publicity. We don’t want attention. We prefer to go about the business of attaining our ends unnoticed.”
“It sounds like the John Birch Society,” Penny observed.
“Those leftists!” John Fuller Gall sneered contemptuously. ‘
“I thought they were right-wing,” Penny said. “Like Barry Goldwater.”
“Barry Goldwater! Ha! He’s a Communist dupe. Just like J. Edgar Hoover.”
“You don’t seriously mean that the FBI is a tool of the Reds?”
“Don’t I? Young lady, consider two statistics. Take the admitted membership of the Communist Party in the United States today. Then take the number of FBI agents Hoover says have infiltrated Commie cells. Do you know what you’ll find when you put those two figures together?”
“No, I don’t,” Penny admitted.
“You’ll find that one out of every four Commies in the United States today is a member of the FBI, that’s what! One out of four! Just you stop and consider what that tells you about J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI. Think about it!”
“I will,” Penny promised. “But not right now. Right now, I think I’d better be going.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” John Fuller Gall told her firmly.
“You mean I’m a prisoner?” Penny’s eyes opened very wide.
“Let us say, rather, that you are my guest. Although,” Gall added, musing to himself, “the whole concept of hospitality is anathema to GRABB. But never mind. You are our guest. You see, our work depends on maintaining secrecy. You are the first person who is not a member of our inner circle to gain admittance to this headquarters. We can’t possibly let you go until we are sure of your allegiance. However, I suggest that you resign yourself to the circumstances. To steal a leaf from the Existentialists, What is is. Why rail against it? Rather relax and allow me to introduce my disciples. Ladies first.” He motioned to the only other female present. “Our chief spokelady.” He put his arm around her fondly. “This is Little Elfin’ Aynie.”
“Women are vessels to be filled at man’s whim,” Little Efiin’ Aynie said. “If you agree, I’m pleased to meet you. What did you say your name was, anyway?”
“Penny Candie,” Penny told her. “I’m glad to know you too. That’s an awfully pretty dress you have on.”
“I know. I’ve been wearing it for twenty seven years. I don’t believe in an ostentatious wardrobe. Every so often I dye it, though.”
“And this is my faithful servant, Pungent,” Gall continued. “He’s a Sikh eunuch.”
“Why wouldn’t he be?” Penny observed to herself. “How do you do?” she added to the giant brown-skinned man with the mammoth bare chest, the silk pantaloons and the white turban.
“I don’t,” he said taciturnly.
“And here,” Gall went on, “is Daddy Whorebucks, a true entrepreneur of the old school. He’s a multi-millionaire already, but still quite active in business.”
“Hello.” Penny greeted Daddy Whorebucks.
“A little skinny for my taste,” Daddy Whorebucks observed, sizing Penny up. “But that’s the fashion today. I know a Frisco brothel that might be interested in her.”