[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine August 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
He was a sort of taxi-driver, delivering
a commuter to the city. The tank traps and
armored cars were the hazards of the trade!
I stood in the shadows and looked across at the rundown lot with
the windblown trash packed against the wire mesh barrier fence and
the yellow glare panel that said HAUG ESCORT. There was a row of
city-scarred hacks parked on the cracked ramp. They hadn't suffered
the indignity of a wash-job for a long time. And the two-story frame
building behind them--that had once been somebody's country house--now
showed no paint except the foot-high yellow letters over the office
door.
Inside the office a short broad man with small eyes and yesterday's
beard gnawed a cigar and looked at me.
"Portal-to-portal escort cost you two thousand C's," he said.
"Guaranteed."
"Guaranteed how?" I asked.
He waved the cigar. "Guaranteed you get into the city and back out
again in one piece." He studied his cigar. "If somebody don't plug you
first," he added.
"How about a one-way trip?"
"My boy got to come back out, ain't he?"
I had spent my last brass ten-dollar piece on a cup of coffee eight
hours before, but I had to get into the city. This was the only idea I
had left.
"You've got me wrong," I said. "I'm not a customer. I want a job."
"Yeah?" He looked at me again, with a different expression, like a guy
whose new-found girl friend has just mentioned a price.
"You know Gra'nyauk?"
"Sure," I said. "I grew up here."
He asked me a few more questions, then thumbed a button centered in a
ring of grime on the wall behind him. A chair scraped beyond the door;
it opened and a tall bony fellow with thick wrists and an adams apple
set among heavy neck tendons came in.
The man behind the desk pointed at me with his chin.
"Throw him out, Lefty."
Lefty gave me a resentful look, came around the desk and reached for my
collar. I leaned to the right and threw a hard left jab to the chin. He
rocked back and sat down.
"I get the idea," I said. "I can make it out under my own power." I
turned to the door.
"Stick around, mister. Lefty's just kind of a like a test for
separating the men from the boys."
"You mean I'm hired?"