“But why not?”
“I have to do it myself.”
“Oh? Very laudable.” Beaumarchais stroked the ends of his carefully waxed mustache. “But not very practical. You need experience to strike out on your own. And I would be happy to help you get such experience.”
“My shrink would never approve.”
“You mean your analyst? What has he to do with it?”
“He thinks it would be unhealthy for me to make it with a chick provided by a father figure.”
“A father figure!” Professor Beaumarchais was indignant. “I have been accused of many things in a long and dissolute life, but never that! “
“I’m sorry, Professor. But you are older than I am, and So —“
“Only a few years. And besides, sex is a matter of how old you feel, not of chronological age.”
“Just a few minutes ago, you were envying me my chronological youth,” Archie pointed out.
“Don’t be impertinent, young man! Whatever my shortcomings, my years entitle me to a certain amount of respect from one as young as yourself! ”
“And to a certain lack of consistency,” Archie observed.
“That is absolutely true." Professor Beaumarchais smiled sweetly with appreciation at Archie's perception. “But let us get back to your problem. I am not your father. Regardless of my age, I admit to having justly been accused of immaturity. Therefore, your analyst’s objections needn’t apply to me. Look on me as a contemporary. Believe me, where sex is concerned, I give my all to justify such a picture. And so, allow me to call some young ladies for the pleasure of us both.”
Archie demurred, but the discussion continued. The question was analyzed from a variety of viewpoints. The discussion ranged over definitions of existential age, the Descartean view of the reality of the situation, Freudian conviction and Jungian counter-convictions, Pavlovian interpretations of the possible results on Archie’s nervous system, Einsteinian abstractions as they might apply to the meeting of groins under the Beaumarchais aegis, extrapolations of the Kinsey figures as they might apply to the situation, the bio-chemical implications, and a consideration of the emancipating factor provided by the work of Dr. Ehrlich. Finally, by resorting to Darwin and inverting Nietzsche, Professor Beaumarchais convinced Archie his view was the correct one. A third glass of cognac didn’t hurt; indeed, it may have clinched the argument. Professor Beaumarchais called the girls.
They continued chatting idly while they waited for them to arrive. “You still haven’t told me what brings you to New York, Professor,” Archie remarked casually at one point.
“I’m really only passing through on my way to Washington."
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” The professor mimicked him.
“So it’s top secret, hush-hush.” Archie shrugged.
“I suppose that is the way your government and mine regard it.”
“Then you’ve really come up with the answer,” Archie guessed.
“The answer to what?” The professor’s voice remained calm, but his eyes narrowed slightly.
“Why, to old W. J. Bryan, of course.”
“Who?” Professor Beaumarchais was genuinely confused.
“William Jennings Bryan. The cat who said ‘Thou shalt not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold,’ or grunts to that effect.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The professor’s puzzlement was less convincing now.
“I’m talking about how Zn65.37 in combination with 017.000 or 018.000 just might be made to add up to Aul97.0,” Archie told him.
“How did you—-?” The professor was visibly shaken now.
“Relax. I haven’t been reading your private mail. I retain things. And sometimes I put them together. Some five years ago you published a paper in Paris which was denounced as frivolous by the scientific establishment. The paper was on medieval alchemy. It pointed out that if they’d been hip to heavy oxygen back in those days, they might really have succeeded in transmuting base metals into gold. The real problem, you suggested, was in determining two factors. The first was the base metal most suitable. The second was the amount of nuclear bombardment needed. You were put down on the grounds that the process would be more expensive than any amount of gold which might be produced could justify. That was the end of it — publicly.”
“That was the end of it. Period,” Professor Beaumarchais told him.
“Sorry. It won’t wash. Two years ago Von Kleister in Brussels came up with a forty-five page analysis of the qualities of zinc. It went further than any research on zinc has ever gone before. You wouldn’t have been likely to miss such a paper. And you’re too hip to have missed its implications. Then, a month or two ago, Haliburton published some findings on the results of splitting the atoms of base metals. You wouldn’t have missed that, either. Add the fact that Haliburton, according to the papers, arrived at Princeton for a seminar last week. And here you are in New York. I’d bet my collection of Woody Guthrie seventy-eights that Von Kleister is on his way to Washington right now. You've put it together, haven’t you, Professor? You’ve developed a formula for turning zinc into gold cheaply enough to make it practical ”
“Good Lord!” Professor Beaumarchais looked crushed. “Do you suppose anyone else has connected up the facts as you have? The Russians --”
“Are nobody’s fools.” Archie finished the sentence for him. “And neither are the Chinese. I just don’t understand why there aren’t fifty secret service men guarding you right now.”
“We didn't want to attract any attention,” Beaumarchais admitted. “I was to slip into the country without fanfare. You understand the implications, Archie? No country in the world is on the gold standard today. Indeed, the chief value of gold in the world today lies in the fact that the United States will redeem its currency abroad by paying in gold brick to the central banks of any foreign country. But if my process were to fall into the wrong hands, manufactured gold might flood the markets of the world. It would deflate the U. S. dollar, which is the basis for every form of European currency. Even the German mark relies on it for stability. And it is the gold behind it which makes it so. That’s why the government of France sent me here. Despite all of De Gaulle’s differences with your government, he knows that the financial structure of France-—indeed of all of Western Europe—would crumple if the gold value of the American dollar were to be undermined.”
“And you seriously believe that the Communists aren't hip to what you’ve been working on?”
“We thought not. I still think not. Not many minds in the world today would be capable of piecing it together as you have, Archie. In the Communist worl -—well, perhaps Klavinov, or I suppose Ko Shi Wahn.”
“Are you carrying your research with you?"
“It’s in the safe in the bedroom.”
“Don’t you think—” Archie was interrupted by the ringing of the intercom from the lobby. It was the doorman to announce that the two young ladies had arrived. Archie dropped the subject as Professor Beaumarchais went to the door to greet them.
A moment later he reappeared to introduce a blonde and a redhead to Archie. The blonde’s name was Helen. The redhead called herself Dixie. Last names weren’t mentioned.
They had a drink and talked about current events. Both girls seemed sedate, ladylike, and not unintelligent. Then Professor Beaumarchais rose and escorted Dixie into one of the bedrooms. A moment later, the blonde suggested that she and Archie go into the other one.
Helen took off her clothes. Archie stumblingly followed her example. She held out her arms to him. “Ooh! Hurry up, lover! " Archie sprawled over her, and —
BANG!
CHAPTER TWO
“SWEETIE, what do you think you’re doing?”