Watson stopped and looked into the display case that held some of the Captain Conquer toys his father had made from clothespins and cardboard and paper clips and string when Mr. Congruent was a kid. The cellophane tape was yellow and cracked, like a snake’s shed skin, and the cardboard was discolored in spots. Mr. Congruent had never outgrown his interest. He was still a fan.
Watson shook his head. If Mom were there, she would never have let Dad indulge himself that way. Maybe Watson shouldn’t either? No. As strange as this Captain Conquer stuff was, working with it made his father happy. And he wasn’t really hurting anybody.
The dying dinosaur noise began again. It competed with the jackhammer noise from outside. If Watson was inclined to get headaches, this two-part musical invention for motivator and jackhammer would certainly give him one. Watson stood behind the counter with one hand on the cash register.
Suddenly, both noises stopped at once. In the silence, Watson heard somebody knocking energetically on the door, but not the door to the shop.
The Captain Conquer PX was located in the house where Watson and his father lived. There were two doors at the front of the house—one for their living quarters and one for the store. Big signs pointed out the store. Most people were not confused. The fact that the wrong door was being knocked on tipped Watson off as to who was doing the knocking.
Watson walked to the door of the shop and looked out. There, knocking with increasing anger on the door to their private living quarters, was a short man puffing on the stub of a cigar. He wore a coat and pants of conflicting plaids, and a bow tie that looked like an Amazonian butterfly. He stopped knocking for a moment to push his black-rimmed glasses up on his nose.
“In here, Mr. Algae,” Watson called.
Alvin Algae looked at Watson in surprise, then strutted to the shop door, waggling his finger at him. “I don’t know how you expect to do any business if you keep your front door locked.”
“That’s the door to our private living quarters. This is the door to the store.” Watson attempted to speak patiently, though he had told Alvin Algae, Webb Washington’s agent, which door was which many times.
Alvin Algae bustled past Watson as the street noise started again. It was soon joined by the sound of Mr. Congruent’s experiment in the back room. Alvin Algae stood in the middle of the shop tapping his foot, looking around as if he’d just bought the place and was thinking of turning it into a parking lot. “Can’t you stop that noise?” Alvin Algae shouted.
“I’m not making it,” Watson shouted back, trying to be troublesome without being impolite.
Alvin Algae walked nervously around the room, picking up things, then putting them down without looking at them. He stopped under the Chocolatron sign and said, “Did you get any signatures?”
“A few.”
“Let me see.” He held out his hand and waited.
Watson picked up the petition and walked across the floor to hand it to Alvin Algae. Algae took it and glared at it as if it were an enemy. “Only fifteen,” he said angrily.
“Some people don’t want to sign because nobody knows where Webb Washington is and they can’t imagine anybody else playing Captain Conquer.”
“I’ll find him when the time comes. I told you that.”
“A lot of people think that if you could find him, you’d have done it by now.”
“Excuses!” Alvin Algae cried. The jackhammer stopped, leaving the odd cry of Mr. Congruent’s experiment hanging in the air like a torn scarf. “Excuses,” Alvin Algae said a little more quietly. “I want to talk to your father.”
“Sure,” said Watson, and then called out, “Hey, Dad. Somebody wants to see you.”
“Heck of a way to treat your father,” Alvin Algae said.
“We understand each other.”
Soon the noise coming from the back room stopped, and seconds later Mr. Congruent pushed the dull green curtain aside and entered the shop.
Watson’s father was a small man with a small protruding tummy that made him look as if he’d swallowed a basketball. He had short sandy hair that stuck out every which way from the top of his head. But his face was pleasant, and usually wore a smile. He put out his hand to Alvin Algae and said, “Nice to see you again, Alvin.”
“I wish that I could say the same, Sherlock. Your son tells me that you’ve collected only fifteen signatures since I was here last.”
“Then I’m sure it’s true. Watson wouldn’t lie.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t, but that’s not the point. The point is that more signatures will be needed to convince Harve Fishbein to make the movie.”
“It’s difficult to get signatures when nobody knows where either Fishbein or Webb Washington is. Perhaps the man with forty pounds of brains in his nose could be of help. If you’d like to come with me to the retirement party that Channel Fourteen is throwing for him on Monday, you can ask him. When he’s no longer working for the TV station he should have plenty of time.”
“Ha,” said Alvin Algae. “Forty pounds of brains, indeed. Money will get you through times of no brains better than brains will get you through times of no money.”
“You ought to know,” Sherlock Congruent said. “You’re the one with the money. Would you like to stay to see today’s Captain Conquer episode? It’ll be on in a few minutes and we have a TV set right in the back room.”
Alvin Algae curled his lip and said, “I never watch that stuff. It’s enough that I had to keep track of Webb Washington’s business without having to watch him act.” He carefully creased the petition and put it into his pocket. He shook his fist at Sherlock Congruent and said, “Captain Conquer will return, with or without your help.”
When Alvin Algae was gone, Mr. Congruent said, “Somehow, you know, I think he’s right.”
“What makes you think so?” said Watson.
“I’ve had some interest shown in my motivator. But I don’t want to talk about that now. Today’s Captain Conquer episode is about to begin.”
CHAPTER TWO
A RING AS BIG AS A WALNUT
Watson hung a sign on the shop’s door that said BACK AT 4:30, then ducked around the green curtain after his father. The back room was dim but for the gooseneck lamp that reached over the workbench, and it was crowded with the same stuff that was displayed in the PX, but not stored as neatly.
Watson followed his father along the narrow path of blue carpeting between the jumbled piles of posters and T-shirts to the back of the room, where Mr. Congruent’s workshop was located.
The workshop was even messier than the rest of the room. Revealed on the workbench by the light coming from the gooseneck lamp, standing among bits of wire, circuit boards and tools, was an oscilloscope that showed a strange curve that shuddered and re-formed time and time again on the round green screen. Big circuit diagrams smudged with clouds of fingerprints covered the walls.
Near the oscilloscope, a finely machined piece of equipment stood on the bench. It looked something like an electric fan, but the round part where the blades might have been was completely encased in metal. A plate had been unscrewed from its side, and alligator clips clamped wires to blocky shapes inside. The wires led from the electric-fan-like thing to the oscilloscope.
Watson watched the oscilloscope for a few seconds.
“How’s the motivator coming?”
Mr. Congruent carefully inserted a long thin