Damned If You Don't Part 1

d.a.m.ned If You Don't.

by Gordon Randall Garrett.

_You can and you can't; You will and you won't.

You'll be d.a.m.n'd if you do; You'll be d.a.m.n'd if you don't._

--LORENZO DOW; "Definition of Calvinism"

_We've all heard of the wonderful invention that the Big Corporation or the Utilities suppressed...? Usually, that Wonderful Invention won't work, actually. But there's another possibility, too...._

The workshop-laboratory was a mess.

Sam Bending looked it over silently; his jaw muscles were hard and tense, and his eyes were the same.

To repeat what Sam Bending thought when he saw the junk that had been made of thousands of dollars worth of equipment would not be inadmissible in a family magazine, because Bending was not particularly addicted to four-letter vulgarities. But he _was_ a religious man--in a lax sort of way--so repeating what ran through his mind that gray Monday in February of 1981 would be unfair to the memory of Samson Francis Bending.

Sam Bending folded his hands over his chest. It was not an att.i.tude of prayer; it was an attempt to keep those big, gorillalike hands from smas.h.i.+ng something. The fingers intertwined, and the hands tried to crush each other, which was a good way to keep them from actually crus.h.i.+ng anything else.

He stood there at the door for a full minute--just looking.

The lab--as has been said--was a mess. It would have looked better if someone had simply tossed a grenade in it and had done with it. At least the results would have been random and more evenly dispersed.

But whoever had gone about the wrecking of the lab had gone about it in a workmanlike way. Whoever had done the job was no amateur. The vandal had known his way about in a laboratory, that was obvious. Leads had been cut carefully; equipment had been shoved aside without care as to what happened to it, but with great care that the shover should not be damaged by the shoving; the invader had known exactly what he was after, and exactly how to get to it.

And he--whoever he was--had gotten his hands on what he wanted.

The Converter was gone.

Sam Bending took his time in regaining his temper. He had to. A man who stands six feet three, weighs three hundred pounds, and wears a forty-eight size jacket can't afford to lose his temper very often or he'll end up on the wrong end of a homicide charge. That three hundred pounds was composed of too much muscle and too little fat for Sam Bending to allow it to run amok.

At last, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let his tense nerves, muscles, and tendons sag--he pretended someone had struck him with a dose of curare. He let his breath out slowly and opened his eyes again.

The lab still looked the same, but it no longer irritated him. It was something to be accepted as done. It was something to investigate, and--if possible--avenge. But it was no longer something to worry about or lose his temper over.

_I should have expected it_, he thought wryly. _They'd have to do something about it, wouldn't they?_

But the funny thing was that he _hadn't_ expected it--not in modern, law-abiding America.

He reached over to the wall switch to turn on the lights, but before his hand touched it, he stopped the motion and grinned to himself. No point in turning on the switch when he knew perfectly well that there was no power behind it. Still--

His fingers touched the switch anyway. And nothing happened.

He shrugged and went over to the phone.

He let his eyes wander over the wreckage as his right index finger spun the dial. Actually, the room wasn't as much of a shambles as it had looked on first sight. The--burglar?--hadn't tried to get at anything but the Converter. He hadn't known exactly where it was, but he'd been able to follow the leads to its hiding place. That meant that he knew his beans about power lines, anyway.

It also meant that he hadn't been an ordinary burglar. There were plenty of other things around for a burglar to make money out of. Unless he knew what it was, he wouldn't have gone to the trouble of stealing the Converter.

On the other hand, if he had--

"Police Department," said a laconic voice from the speaker. At the same time, the blue-clad image of a police officer appeared on the screen. He looked polite, but he also looked as though he expected nothing more than a routine call.

Bending gave the cop's sleeve a quick glance and said: "Sergeant, my name is Samson Bending. Bending Consultants, 3991 Marden--you'll find it in the phone book. Someone broke into my place over the weekend, and I'd appreciate it if you'd send someone around."

The sergeant's face showed that he still thought it was routine.

"Anything missing, sir?"

"I'm not sure," said Bending carefully. "I'll have to make a check. I haven't touched anything. I thought I'd leave that for the detectives.

But you can see for yourself what's happened."

He stepped back from the screen and the Leinster cameras automatically adjusted for the greater distance to the background.

"Looks like you had a visitor, all right," said the police officer.

"What is that? A lab of some kind you've got there?"

"That's right," Bending said. "You can check it with the Register."

"Will do, Mr. Bending," agreed the sergeant. "We'll send the Technical Squad around in any case." He paused, and Sam could see that he'd pressed an alarm b.u.t.ton. There was more interest in his manner, too.

"Any signs that it might be kids?" he asked.

Sam shrugged. "Hard to tell. Might be. Might not." He knew good and well that it wasn't a JD gang that had invaded his lab. He grinned ingratiatingly. "I figure you guys can tell me more about that than I could tell you."

The sergeant nodded. "Sure. O.K., Mr. Bending; you just hold on. Don't touch anything; we'll have a copter out there as soon as we can. O.K.?"

"O.K.," Sam agreed. He cut off as the cop's image began to collapse.

Sam Bending didn't obey the cop's order to touch nothing. He couldn't afford to--not at this stage of the game. He looked over everything--the smashed oscilloscopes, the overturned computer, the ripped-out meters--everything. He lifted a couple of instruments that had been toppled to the floor, raising them carefully with a big screwdriver, used as a lever. When he was through, he was convinced that he knew exactly who the culprit was.

Oh, he didn't know the name of the man, or men, who had actually committed the crime. Those things were, for the moment, relatively unimportant. The police might find them, but that could wait. The thing that _was_ important was that Bending was certain within his own mind who had paid to have the lab robbed.

Not that he could make any accusations to the police, of course. That wouldn't do at all. But _he_ knew. He was quite certain.

He left the lab itself and went into the outer rooms, the three rooms that const.i.tuted the clients' waiting room, his own office, and the smaller office of Nita Walder, the girl who took care of his files and correspondence.

A quick look told him that nothing in the offices had been disturbed. He shrugged his huge shoulders and sat down on the long couch in the waiting room.

_Much good it may do them_, he thought pleasantly. _The Converter won't be worth the stuff it's made of if they try to open it._

He looked at the clock on the wall and frowned. It was off by five hours. Then he grinned and looked at his wrist watch. Of course the wall clock was Off. It had stopped when the power had been cut off. When the burglars had cut the leads to the Converter, everything in the lab had stopped.