"In celebration, you know what we're going to do? We're going to give
you the rest of the day off!"
She was enthralled. I waited until five minutes after she'd left, then
walked briskly to the down-shaft.
I had to assume there were detectives posted at the main floor
entrance. And on the roof. And even perhaps in the freight entrance. I
got off on the second floor.
I walked down the corridor, studying the signs on doorways. There was a
market research firm, Mechlen Drew Inc., that occupied a large suite,
with several labeled doors. I opened one that said 'Employes' and found
myself in a room with a medium-sized computer and several preoccupied
mathematicians.
I went directly and purposefully to the window, opened it, and
calculated the distance to ground level. Twelve feet maybe. The
employes looked at me with faint interest. Someone from the building
maintenance department, probably.
For a minute or two I watched the pedestrians glide by on the conveyer
belt. I saw no evidence of the police.
"I think I'll have to examine this from the outside," I said to the
employes. "Will one of you close the window after me?"
I got out on the sill, eased my body down, hung by my fingertips for a
moment, then let go. I could see a puzzled expression at the window as
I glided away and became lost in pedestrian cross-traffic.
In a mood of self-congratulation, I headed for the Art Institute. The
mood vanished as I passed the first newsstand. Boldly on its display
screen was a front page story about the fugitive Sponsor family. There
were pictures, of course. They didn't have a very good one of Celia.
College graduation shot. She had nothing to worry about. The photo of
Freddie was better, but the city is full of skinny seven-year-olds with
sensitive features. No great risk of recognition there.
But the one of me! A perfect likeness. Repeated on an endless number
of newsstands between the Board of Trade Building and the museum. The
large, oval-shaped bald head, shorn of all but a trace of sideburns.
The straight, prominent nose with flaring nostrils. The large, sensual
lips. The hard-clamped jaw.
Thanking Zeus for Chicago's anonymous millions, I entered the quietly
thronged Art Institute.
* * * * *
Celia and Freddie were looking at paintings of the Prismatic school,
without much enthusiasm, when I found them. Their greeting made me feel
like a hero.
"Daddy!" said Freddie, hitting my leg joyfully as Celia embraced me
with a passionate kiss.
"It's one-thirty," said Celia softly, achingly. "We were so worried."
"Let's go eat," I suggested, suddenly aware of hunger pangs.
"We already have, but it'll be much nicer this time."
We went to the tea room. Alongside was the sunken garden, with its
dwarf trees and moist green grass and bubbling waterfall. Three or four
pieces of ancient sculpture--smooth white marble of the Greeks--stood
in the garden on pedestals. Somehow these had survived the destruction.
"Nothing else remained of the whole collection," said Celia sadly.
"Renoirs, Rembrandts, Raphaels--all, all gone."
"I'm tired, mommy. Why can't we go home now?"
"After a while, dear. Poor kid! He's weary of looking at pictures, and
so am I."
"Freddie," I asked, "why didn't you like to play games with the other
children at school?" Celia glanced at me disapprovingly.
"Oh, I like to play games. But ... it just seems that when everyone's
trying so hard to win ... it spoils the fun. You know."
"Leave him alone, Bart."
I finished my ersatz soup and my synthetic sandwich, and drank down a
cup of chemical coffee, and felt much better.
Freddie napped on one of the garden benches, and that was a good thing
for him and for us. We had to talk, weigh alternatives, make plans.
"The real crisis," I said, "is at five o'clock when this place closes.
Then we have to get into our ship and fly somewhere. Wherever we go
there'll be police looking for a green Cad Super with Iowa license
plates."
"We have one advantage at that time," said Celia. "Rush hour. If you
can stay in the thick of traffic ... and not hedge-hop."
"Don't worry!"
"The real crisis, I think, is when we board the Venus ship," said
Celia. "The police will be watching all departures, checking
identities, just as a matter of routine."
"That's true, but we don't go aboard as a threesome. You and Freddie
earlier. And I at the last minute, with false identity papers."
Celia shook her head as if warding off an unpleasant thought. "Aren't
you afraid that when Spacker wakes up he'll tell them about the Venus
ship?"
"According to my information, the sleep bomb knocks you out for ten or
eleven hours. A doctor can bring you out of it a little sooner, but you
still don't regain your full senses right away."
"Even allowing ten hours, Bart. One and ten is eleven. Our ship leaves
at twelve o'clock. That means we face one hour of supreme risk."
She was right, of course. And there was one more source of anxiety that
I thought it best not to mention. Claire. What would Claire say if she
found out about the sleep bomb? If she went back to the office for
any reason this afternoon? Or if the police found out in some manner?
Surely they would go looking for the detectives. Surely they would
question Claire. What would she tell them?
* * * * *
Five o'clock. Exit separately through the rear door to the parking lot.
First Celia, walking briskly, with keys to the car in her gloved hand.
Unaware how I stare at her handsome figure, voluptuous movements of hip
and thigh. How akin the awareness of danger and awareness of sex!
She opens the car door, turns the ignition key, idles the engine.
Next, Freddie, as well coached as possible. Unhurried, lackadaisical.
Taking a slow, wandering path, oblivious of the peril, curious about
the other cars, taking his time.
He reaches our car and Celia scoops him up, and I see him clamber over
the front seat and bury himself in the back.
Then I, striding heavily, hastily. Briefcase in hand. Looking neither
right nor left. Lowering chin almost onto chest. Waiting for a voice
behind me. Expecting a shout: 'Wait! Stop!'
I reach our car, jump in, slam the door, open the throttle. We ascend.
Circle into the lowest, slowest, most congested local traffic lane,
westward bound over Chicago.
* * * * *
I didn't much like Celia's suggestion. But I couldn't think of a better
one. And we had to spend the next five or six hours somewhere.
"So why not the Mendelsohns?" said Celia. "It's a little early for
their party, but I'm sure we'll be welcome."
"All right. But we've got to keep quiet about our ... troubles. I don't
want that shlub to have the last laugh on me."
It was an evening in early fall, and the sun was setting, but not fast
enough for my comfort. I craved the protection of darkness. We already
had passed two police cars headed eastward, and each time I cringed
helplessly, and Celia and Freddie ducked down out of sight. Possibly
the red sunset tones were falsifying the green of our car. Otherwise, I
can't see how they overlooked us.
Traffic was starting to thin out as we arrived over the Mendota
district of Chicago. This was kind of a marginal area--no longer
desirable, not yet slum--where respectable poor people maintained some
semblance of pride in their old dilapidated solar-heated homes. It was
an area so thick with grime and industrial soot, that I had a hard
time making out the roof markers from two-hundred feet. The glass and
concrete dwellings were universally alike in pattern, a hollow square
with patio in the center. Yet despite the general poverty below, I
failed to see a single house that didn't have a rattletrap aircar of
some kind parked in the rear. All except the Mendelsohn house. The
Mendelsohns never owned a car. They had turned their backyard into a
vegetable garden.
"Think they'll mind if I land there?"
"Not when they're leaving tomorrow."