Pick a Crime by Richard Rein Smith (read novel full .TXT) 📖

ever did prevent you from committing a crime, they'd get a nice reward and they'd be famous."

"Lay off," Joe said. "I got a headache. That girl—"

Hendricks leaned even closer and glared. "You listen, Joe. This is interesting. You see, it doesn't stop with Mr. and Mrs. Jones. There's thousands of people like them. Years ago, they got their kicks from reading about guys like you, but these days things are dull because it's rare when anyone commits a crime. So every time you walk down the street, there'll be at least a dozen of 'em following you, and no matter where you go, you can bet there'll be some of 'em sitting next to you, standing next to you.

"During the day, they'll take your picture with their spy cameras that look like buttons on their coats. At night, they'll peep at you through your keyhole. Your neighbors across the street will watch you through binoculars and—"

"Lay off!"

Joe squirmed in the chair. He'd been lectured by Hendricks before and it was always an unpleasant experience. The huge man was like a talking machine once he got started, a machine that couldn't be stopped.

"And the kids are the worst," Hendricks continued. "They have Junior CPA clubs. They keep records of hoodlums like you in little cardboard boxes. They'll stare at you on the street and stare at you through restaurant windows while you're eating meals. They'll follow you in public rest rooms and watch you out of the corners of their eyes while they wash their little hands, and almost every day when you look back, you'll see a dozen freckle-faced little boys following you half a block behind, giggling and gaping at you. They'll follow you until the day you die, because you're a freak!"

Joe couldn't stand the breath in his face any longer. He rose and paced the floor.

"And it doesn't end there, Joe. It goes on and on. You'll be the object of every do-gooder and parlor psychologist. Strangers will stop you on the street and say, 'I'd like to help you, friend.' Then they'll ask you queer questions like, 'Did your father reject you when you were a child?' 'Do you like girls?' 'How does it feel to be a DCT First Class?' And then there'll be the strangers who hate DCTs. They'll stop you on the street and insult you, call you names, spit on you and—"

"Okay, goddam it! Stop it!"

Hendricks stopped, wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief and lit a cigarette.

"I'm doing you a favor, Joe. I'm trying to explain something you're too dumb to realize by yourself. We've taught everyone to hate crime and criminals ... to hate them as nothing has ever been hated before. Today a criminal is a freak, an alien. Your life will be a living hell if you don't leave New York. You should go to some small town where there aren't many people, or be a hermit, or go to Iceland or—"

Joe eyed the huge man suspiciously. "Favor, did you say? The day you do me a favor—"

Hendricks shrugged his shoulders negligently. "Not entirely a favor. I want to get rid of you. Usually I come up here and sit around and read books. But guys like you are a nuisance and take up my time."

"I couldn't leave if I wanted to," Joe said. "I'm flat broke. Thanks to your CPA system, a DCT can't get a decent job."

Hendricks reached into a pocket, withdrew several bills and extended them. "I'll loan you some money. You can sign an IOU and pay me back a little at a time."

Joe waved the money away. "Listen, why don't you do me a favor? Why don't you frame me? If I'm such a nuisance, pin a crime on me—any crime."

"Can't do it. Convicting a man of a crime he didn't commit is a violation of Civil Rights and a crime in itself."

"Umm."

"Why don't you take the free psycho treatment? A man doesn't have to be a DCT. With the free treatment, psychologists can remove all your criminal tendencies and—"

"Go to those head-shrinkers?"

Hendricks shrugged again. "Have it your way."

Joe laughed. "If your damned CPA is so all-powerful, why can't you make me go?"

"Violation of Civil Rights."

"Damn it, there must be some way you can help me! We both want the same thing. We both want to see me convicted of a crime."

"How can I help you without committing a crime myself?" Hendricks walked to his desk, opened a drawer and removed a small black book. "See this? It contains names and addresses of all the people in New York who aren't properly protected. Every week we find people who aren't protected properly—blind spots in our protection devices. As soon as we find them, we take steps to install anti-robbery devices, but this is a big city and sometimes it takes days to get the work done.

"In the meantime, any one of these people could be robbed. But what can I do? I can't hold this book in front of your nose and say, 'Here, Joe, pick a name and go out and rob him.'" He laughed nervously. "If I did that, I'd be committing a crime myself!"

He placed the book on the desk top, took a handkerchief from a pocket again and wiped sweat from his face. "Excuse me a minute. I'm dying of thirst. There's a water cooler in the next room."

Joe stared at the door to the adjoining office as it closed behind the big man. Hendricks was—unbelievably—offering him a victim, offering him a crime!

Almost running to the desk, Joe opened the book, selected a name and address and memorized it: John Gralewski, Apt. 204, 2141 Orange St.

When Hendricks came back, Joe said, "Thanks."

"Huh? Thanks for what? I didn't do anything."

When Joe reached the street, he hurried toward the nearest subway. As a child, he had been frightened of the dark. As a man, he wasn't afraid of the dark itself, but the darkened city always made him feel ill at ease. The uneasiness was, more than anything else, caused by his own imagination. He hated the CPA and at night he couldn't shrug the feeling that the CPA lurked in every shadow, watching him, waiting for him to make a mistake.

Imagination or not, the CPA was almost everywhere a person went. Twenty-four hours a day, millions of microphones hidden in taverns, alleys, restaurants, subways and every other place imaginable waited for someone to say the wrong thing. Everything the microphones picked up was routed to the CPA Brain, a monster electronic calculator.

If the words "Let's see a movie" were received in the Brain, they were discarded. But if the words "Let's roll this guy" were received, the message was traced and a police helicopter would be at the scene in two minutes. And scattered all over the city were not only hidden microphones, but hidden television cameras that relayed visual messages to the Brain, and hidden machines that could detect a knife or a gun in someone's pocket at forty yards.

Every place of business from the largest bank to the smallest grocery store was absolutely impenetrable. No one had even tried to rob a place of business for years.

Arson was next to impossible because of the heat-detectors—devices placed in every building that could detect, radarlike, any intensity of heat above that caused by a cigarette lighter. Chemical research had made poisoning someone an impossibility. There were no drugs containing poison, and while an ant-poison might kill ants, no concentrated amount of it would kill a human.

The FBI had always been a powerful organization, but under the supervision of the CPA, it was a scientific colossus and to think of kidnapping someone or to contemplate the use of narcotics was pointless. A counterfeiter's career was always short-lived: every place of business and millions of individuals had small counterfeit-detectors that could spot a fake and report it directly to the Brain.

And the percentage of crimes had dwindled even more with the appearance of the robot police officers. Many a criminal in the past had gambled that he could outshoot a pursuing policeman. But the robots were different: they weren't flesh and blood. Bullets bounced off them and their aim was infallible.

It was like a fantastic dream come true. Only the dream wasn't fantastic any more. With the huge atomic power plants scattered across the country and supplying endless electrical power at ridiculously low prices, no endeavor that required power was fantastic. The power required to operate the CPA devices cost each taxpayer an average of four dollars a year, and the invention, development and manufacture of the devices had cost even less.

And the CPA had attacked crime through society itself, striking at the individual. In every city there were neon signs that blinked subliminally with the statement, CRIME IS FILTH. Listening to a radio or watching television, if a person heard station identification, he invariably heard or saw just below perception the words CRIME IS FILTH. If he went for a walk or a ride, he saw the endless subliminal posters declaring CRIME IS FILTH, and if he read a magazine or newspaper he always found, in those little dead spaces where an editor couldn't fit anything else, the below-perception words CRIME IS FILTH.

It was monotonous and, after a while, a person looked at the words and heard them without thinking about them. And they were imprinted on his subconscious over and over, year after year, until he knew that crime was the same as filth and that criminals were filthy things.

Except men like Joe Harper. No system is perfect. Along with thousands of other DCTs, Joe refused to believe it, and when he reached apartment 204 at 2141 Orange Street, he felt as if he'd inherited a gold mine.

The hall was dimly lit, but when he stood before the door numbered 204, he could see that the wall on either side of it was new. That is, instead of being covered with dust, dirt and stains as the other walls were, it was clean. The building was an old one, the hall was wide, and the owner had obviously constructed a wall across the hall, creating another room. If the owner had reported the new room as required by law, it would have been wired with CPA burglarproof devices, but evidently he didn't want to pay for installation.

When Joe entered the cubbyhole, he had to stand to one side in order to close the door behind him. The place was barely large enough for the bed, chair and bureau; it was a place where a man could fall down at night and sleep, but where no normal man could live day after day.

Fearing that someone might detect him before he actually committed the crime, Joe hurried to the bureau and searched it.

He broke out in a sweat when he found nothing but underwear and old magazines. If he stole underwear and magazines, it would still be a crime, but the newspapers would splash satirical headlines. Instead of being respected as a successful criminal, he would be ridiculed.

He stopped sweating when he found a watch under a pile of underwear. The crystal was broken, one hand was missing and it wouldn't run, but—perfection itself—engraved on the back was the inscription, To John with Love. His trial would be a clean-cut one: it would be easy for the CPA to prove ownership and that a crime had been committed.

Chuckling with joy, he opened the window and shouted, "Thief! Police! Help!"

He waited a few seconds and then ran. When he reached the street, a police helicopter landed next to him. Strong metal arms seized him; cameras clicked and recorded the damning evidence.

When Joe was securely handcuffed to a seat inside the helicopter, the metal police officers rang doorbells. There was a reward for anyone who reported a crime, but no one admitted shouting the warning.

He was having a nightmare when he heard the voice, "Hey. Wake up. Hey!"

He opened his eyes, saw Hendricks' ugly face and thought for a minute he was still having the nightmare.

"I just saw your doctor," Hendricks said. "He says your treatment is over. You can go home now. I thought I'd give you a lift."

As Joe dressed, he searched his mind and tried to find some difference.

During the treatment, he had been unconscious or drugged, unable to think. Now he could think clearly, but he could find no difference in himself.

He felt more relaxed than he'd ever felt before, but that could be an after-effect of all the sedatives he'd been given. And, he noticed when he looked in the mirror, he was paler. The treatment had taken months and he had, between operations, been locked in his room.

Hendricks was standing by the window. Joe stared at the