"Oh, that wasn't Ed," the man told him. "Ed got killed in his
garage hours ago. Water undermined the sills and footing, he was in
there trying to straighten up and then the floor gave way and his
air-compressor storage tank rolled over him. That wasn't Ed. That must
of been some crazy kid that's been hanging around thinking about the
little sports car ever since he got it in, and he thought this was his
chance for a free ride. I guess that was his girl with him."
The quick, fierce gasoline flame was burning itself out; now the blaze
had passed to the clothes on display, the fixtures, the shelves. The
building was a long brick row, not battered by the worst of the current
but horribly soiled. The clothing store was the central one of seven
shops; there were apartments upstairs.
"Let's get the burning stuff out before it spreads," Groff said grimly.
He walked into the smoke and, holding his breath, came out with a
smoldering armful of suits off a rack. He dumped them in the gutter,
where they charred and stank.
"Axes," a man sighed. "Hardware store around the corner."
"I'll get 'em," shouted Mrs. Goudeket, trotting off. "Save the man's
stock. Don't let the fire spread."
The next half hour was a nightmare of chopping and prying at burning
wood, dashing out for smokefree air when you had got a little ahead of
the flames. Groff burned his left forearm when he brushed once against
the still-blistering frame of the car. Midway through the job somebody
covered the two charred figures from the car with a pair of topcoats
each and they carried them out and laid them on the curb. Later they
were gone; somebody, Groff never knew who, had taken them to the
temporary morgue in the M.E. church basement.
He woke once from his daze of chopping and prying to find Polly Chesbro
pulling on him. "They're stealing everything, Mickey," she said
insistently. "Can't you stop them?"
Groff looked around. The store was gutted, the fire only an evil
smoulder here and there. He coughed and walked out, sidling around the
twisted, blackened little car with the bashed-in tail. He breathed
fresh air outside; to his surprise it was late afternoon.
The pile of clothes from the store was dwindling before his eyes.
People were picking it over and grabbing; Mrs. Goudeket was screaming
at them: "Leave the man's stock alone! I'll--I'll--" She took an axe
and made a feeble pass at a man in mechanic's coveralls. He shoved
her hard and sent her sprawling. Polly Chesbro began to curse the man
fluently; he ignored her as if she were a buzzing fly. Groff went and
picked up the gasping old woman. "You hurt?" he asked.
She rubbed her behind and shook her head, glaring murderously.
"Loafers," she said. "Bums without brains to run a business themselves.
Look at them!"
Groff looked at them. From the wrong side of the tracks--river in this
town. Sick, neurotic faces, shrill neurotic voices as they squabbled
over tidbits like carrion crows. Feeble slum types, most of them,
but a few of the gorillas that every slum produces in defiance of
malnutrition. Men, women and gorillas, there were about a dozen of
them. This was his cue to deliver a ringing oration on the rights of
property and shame them away from the only chance most of them would
ever have at an eighty-five dollar suit or topcoat.
He took up Mrs. Goudeket's axe and walked purposefully toward the
carrion crows. "Break it up!" he yelled hoarsely. "If you can't do
anything useful you can go home and not make any more trouble."
The gorilla who had shoved Mrs. Goudeket looked at him appraisingly,
picked up the bundle of clothes he had neatly laid aside and walked off
with them in his arms. There was a nice charcoal-gray single-breasted
suit on top.
"Put those down!" Groff snarled. The man just kept walking. There was
a crackle of laughter from the others around the pile. Where were the
decent people, Groff wondered angrily. They were on the fringes and
they were waiting. Their world was balanced on a razor's edge, and they
dared not breathe. Let it tip one way and looting would tilt again to
law and order; let it tip the other and looting would tilt over into
murder.
Groff balanced the doubled-bitted axe in his right hand and hurled it
at the departing gorilla. It flew like an arrow; its flat top thudded
into the small of the man's back. He fell, howling, on the soft bundle
of clothes he embraced. Groff walked up to him and rolled him over with
his foot. The man cursed him and Groff drew back his foot for a kick at
his bullet head. The man stopped instantly, glaring. "Go home," Groff
told him.
The decent people on the fringes had come to life. They cried to the
carrion crows: "Go home. Leave the man's stock where it is. Get back
where you belong."
And it worked, because it was still daylight.
On the way back to the school, the GHQ of the town, Groff and Polly
Chesbro and Mrs. Goudeket saw again the ruin and the despair, and
something new: hatred. A couple railed at a man standing on his porch
that he had plenty of room, that they had to have a place to sleep,
they _knew_ he had plenty of room--but the man grinned hatred at them
and calmly shook his head.
"That," said Polly Chesbro in a low voice, "could be the paying off
of an ancient score. The couple in the mud could be Mr. and Mrs. Town
Banker, suddenly poor because they haven't a bed, and the man on the
porch could be the village bum, owes everybody in town, brink of
financial disaster, but suddenly rich because he has a bed. This is the
day of jubilee, Groff, the day of leveling."
They passed a house canted off its foundations; they saw a man calmly
building a rubbish fire against one corner of it and almost went on,
so natural did it seem. His eyes were bright when he looked up, and he
seemed only a little offended when they kicked his fire apart.
"It's the insurance," he explained. "Twelve thousand dollars, fire with
extended coverage. You know what it'll cost me to get this straightened
up? Rent a crane, a big gang of men with hydraulic jacks, a week's
work easing the house back on the footings, and then everything will
be sprung, the whole house'll have to be replastered. Five thousand
dollars, easy, and I haven't got it. So I figured, we're covered for
fire, make a clean start, the kids are grown now and we don't need a
place this size--" Of the adjoining houses he had not thought at all.
They walked him down to the school; he chattered volubly all the way,
quite unhinged. Polly efficiently vanished in search of a doctor with
a needleful of morphine, and eventually she led one of the army medics
toward them.
The arsonist snapped to and said crisply, "Sir, these civilians tried
to prevent me from carrying out my mission. If you ask me, they're
Krauts."
The medic led him away, protesting.
* * * * *
Artie Chesbro said worriedly, "Sharon, are you sure Akslund's coming
here? None of these dopes seem to know anything."
Sharon Froman said, "Positive. This is the only road in from the north.
He'll have to stop at the check point even if he is a congressman."
She paused, added, "The captain who told me was the detachment
communications officer. He got it right off the radio himself." She
gave Chesbro a smile of good fellowship. It never hurt to remind a man
how helpful you were being.
Chesbro sighed, "I'm getting tired of waiting here, all the same. These
tinhorn heroes are getting under my skin. The next idiot that wants to
know if I'll help out with the salvage squads or let them take this car
for emergency duty gets a tire-iron across the face."
Sharon said sympathetically, "You'd think they'd know enough to leave
you alone, wouldn't you?" There was a siren scream from down the road,
and they both sat up straight to look. But it was only an ambulance; it
slowed briefly at the roadblock, the troopers waved it by and it sped
away.
Sharon took out a cigarette and pressed the dashboard lighter; then
she remembered it didn't work and lit the cigarette with a match. It
wasn't much of a car they were in; but it was the best car Chesbro had
been able to rent for what money he had in his pocket. And naturally he
wouldn't have been able to do it by himself, she thought comfortably.
She was the one who had learned that Representative Akslund was coming
into the disaster area on an inspection tour; she was the one who had
located the car; and she was the one who had put the idea in Chesbro's
head of meeting the congressman and riding with him. Nicely done,
Sharon, she told herself; and the best part of all was that she had
succeeded in making him think it was his own idea.
"I wonder how Polly's making out," Chesbro said.
Sharon permitted herself a frown, her face turned away. She said
gaily, "Probably loving every minute of it, Arthur. It must be pretty
exciting for her. Anyway," she added blandly, "Mickey Groff's probably
taking good care of her."
"Mickey Groff?" He looked at her with surprise. "Polly?"