The two Kivelsons and Oscar Fujisawa were looking at one another; Joe
and Tom in consternation, and Oscar in derision of both of them. I was
feeling pretty good. Brother, I thought, Sherlock Holmes never did
better, himself.
That, all of a sudden, reminded me of Dr. John Watson, whom Bish
perceived to have been in Afghanistan. That was one thing Sherlock H.
Boyd hadn't deduced any answers for. Well, give me a little more time.
And more data.
"You got it all figured out, haven't you?" Joe was asking
sarcastically. The sarcasm was as hollow as an empty oil drum.
"The _Times_," Dad was saying, trying not to sound too proud, "has a
very sharp reportorial staff, Joe."
"It isn't Interstellar," Oscar told me, grinning. "It's Argentine
Exotic Organics. You know, everybody thought Joe, here, was getting
pretty high-toned, sending his daughter to school on Terra. School
wasn't the only thing she went for. We got a letter from her, the last
time the Cape Canaveral was in, saying that she'd contacted Argentine
Organics and that a man was coming out on the _Peenemünde_, posing as
a travel-book author. Well, he's here, now."
"You'd better keep an eye on him," I advised. "If Steve Ravick gets
to him, he won't be much use to you."
"You think Ravick would really harm Murell?" Dad asked.
He thought so, too. He was just trying to comfort himself by
pretending he didn't.
"What do you think, Ralph?" Oscar asked him. "If we get competitive
wax buying, again, seventy-five a pound will be the starting price.
I'm not spending the money till I get it, but I wouldn't be surprised
to see wax go to a sol a pound on the loading floor here. And you know
what that would mean."
"Thirty for Steve Ravick," Dad said. That puzzled Oscar, till I
explained that "thirty" is newsese for "the end." "I guess Walt's
right. Ravick would do anything to prevent that." He thought for a
moment. "Joe, you were using the wrong strategy. You should have let
Ravick get that thirty-five centisol price established for the
Co-operative, and then had Murell offer seventy-five or something like
that."
"You crazy?" Joe demanded. "Why, then the Co-op would have been stuck
with it."
"That's right. And as soon as Murell's price was announced, everybody
would drop out of the Co-operative and reclaim their wax, even the
captains who owe Ravick money. He'd have nobody left but a handful of
thugs and barflies."
"But that would smash the Co-operative," Joe Kivelson objected.
"Listen, Ralph; I've been in the Co-operative all my life, since
before Steve Ravick was heard of on this planet. I've worked hard for
the Co-operative, and--"
You didn't work hard enough, I thought. You let Steve Ravick take it
away from you. Dad told Joe pretty much the same thing:
"You don't have a Co-operative, Joe. Steve Ravick has a racket. The
only thing you can do with this organization is smash it, and then
rebuild it with Ravick and his gang left out."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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