“There’s three women and a man on that list. They cover English, French, Spanish, and German. Two of them are working in the East, and I’m waiting for answers to telegrams I sent them. One lives in Pomona and one works for the Arizona School for the Deaf. That’s the best I could do.”
We thought that over. “Get on the phone. Talk to every state in the union if you have to, or overseas.”
Johnson kicked the desk. “And what are you going to do with them — if I’m that lucky?”
“You’ll find out. Get them on planes and fly them here, and we’ll talk turkey when they get here. I want a projection room, not yours, and a good bonded court reporter.”
He asked the world to appreciate what a life he led.
“Get in touch with us at the Commodore.” To Marrs: “Keep the reporters away for awhile. We’ll have something for them later.” Then we left.
Johnson never did find anyone who could lipread Greek. None, at least, who could speak English. The expert on Russian he dug out of Ambridge, in Pennsylvania, the Flemish and Holland Dutch expert came from Leyden, in the Netherlands, and at the last minute he stumbled on a Korean who worked in Seattle as an inspector for the Chinese government. Five women and two men. We signed them to an ironclad contract drawn by Samuels, who now handled all our legal work. I made a little speech before they signed.
“These contracts, as far as we’ve been able to make sure, are going to control your personal and business lives for the another year if we so desire. Let’s get this straight. You are to live in a place of your own, which we will provide. You will be supplied with all necessities by our buyers. Any attempt at unauthorized communication will result in abrogation of the contract. Is that clear?
“Good. Your work will not be difficult, but it will be tremendously important. You will, very likely, be finished in three months, but you will be ready to go any place at any time — at our discretion and, naturally, at our expense. Mr. Sorenson, as you are taking this down, you realize that this goes for you, too.” He nodded.
“Your references, your abilities, and your past work have been thoroughly checked, and you will continue under constant observation. You will be required to verify and notarize every page, perhaps every line, of your transcripts, which Mr. Sorenson here will supply. Any questions?”
No questions. Each was getting a fabulous salary, and each wanted to appear eager to earn it. They all signed.
The resourceful Johnson bought for us a small rooming house, and we paid an exorbitant fee to a detective agency to do the cooking and cleaning and chauffeuring required. We requested that the lip-readers refrain from discussing their work among themselves, especially in front of the house employees, and they followed the instructions very well.
One day, about a month later, we called a conference in the projection room of Johnson’s laboratory. We had a single reel of film.
“What’s that for?”
“That’s the reason for all the cloak-and-dagger secrecy. Never mind calling your projection man. This I’m going to run through myself. See what you think of it.”
They were all disgusted. “I’m getting tired of all this kid stuff,” said Kessler.
As I started for the projection booth I heard Mike say, “You’re no more tired of it than I am.”
From the booth I could see what was showing on the downstairs screen, but nothing else. I ran through the reel, rewound, and went back down.
I said, “One more thing, before we go any further, read this. It’s a certified and notarized transcript of what has been read from the lips of the characters you just saw. They weren’t, incidentally, ‘characters,’ in that sense of the word.” I handed the crackling sheets around, a copy for each. “Those ‘characters’ are real people. You’ve just seen a newsreel. This transcript will tell you what they were talking about. Read it. In the trunk of the car, Mike and I have something to show you. We’ll be back by the time you’ve read it.”
Mike helped me carry the machine from the car. We came to the door just in time to see Kessler throw the transcript as far as he could. He bounced to his feet as the sheets fluttered down.
He was furious. “What’s going on here?” We paid no attention to him, nor to the excited demands of the others until the machine had been plugged into the nearest outlet.
Mike looked at me. “Any ideas?”
I shook my head and told Johnson to shut up for a minute. Mike lifted the lid and hesitated momentarily before touching the dials. I pushed Johnson into his chair and turned off the lights myself. The room went black. Johnson, looking over my shoulder, gasped. I heard Bernstein swear softly, amazed.
I turned to see what Mike had shown them.
It was impressive, all right. He had started just over the roof of the laboratory and continued straight up in the air. Up, up, up, until the city of Los Angeles was a tiny dot on a great ball. On the horizon were the Rockies. Johnson squeezed my arm until it hurt.
“What’s that? What’s that? Stop it!” He was yelling. Mike turned off the machine.
You can guess what happened next. No one believed their eyes, nor Mike’s patient explanation. Twice he had to turn on the machine again, once going far back into Kessler’s past. Then the reaction set in.
Marss smoked one cigarette after another, Bernstein turned a gold pencil over in his nervous fingers. Johnson paced like a caged tiger, and burly Kessler stared at the machine, saying nothing at all. Johnson was muttering as he paced. Then he stopped and shook his fist under Mike’s nose.
“Man! Do you know what you’ve got there? Why waste time playing around here? Can’t you see you’ve got the world by the tail on a downhill pull? If I’d ever known this—”
Mike appealed to me. “Ed, talk to this wild man.”
I did. I can’t remember exactly what I said, and it isn’t important. But I did tell him how we’d started, how we’d plotted our course, and what we were going to do. I ended by telling him the idea behind the reel of film I’d run off a few minutes earlier.
He recoiled as though I were a snake. “You can’t get away with that! You’d be hung — if you weren’t lynched first!”
“Don’t you think we know that? Don’t you think we’re willing to take that chance?”
He tore his thinning hair. Marrs broke in. “Let me talk to him.” He came over and faced us squarely.
“Is this on the level? You going to make a picture like that and stick your neck out? You’re going to turn that… that thing over to the people of the world?”
I nodded. “Just that.”
“And toss over everything you’ve got?” He was dead serious, and so was I. He turned to the others. “He means it!”
Bernstein said, “Can’t be done!”
Words flew. I tried to convince them that we had followed the only possible path. “What kind of a world do you want to live in? Or don’t you want to live?”
Johnson grunted. “How long do you think we’d live if we ever made picture like that? You’re crazy! I’m not. I’m not going to put my head in a noose.”
“Why do you think we’ve been so insistent about credit and responsibility for direction and production? You’ll be doing only what we hired you for. Not that we want to twist your arm, but you’ve made a fortune, all of you, working for us. Now, when the going gets heavy, you want to back out!”
Marss gave in. “Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re wrong. Maybe you’re crazy, maybe I am. I always used to say I’d try anything once. Bernie, you?”
Bernstein was quietly cynical. “You saw what happened in the last war. This might help. I don’t know if it will. I don’t know — but I’d hate to think I didn’t try. Count me in!”