"You were all set to make a million dollars out of television," she
said. "Remember? Only you wouldn't wait for the F.C.C. to grant the
license. 'We'll start building,' you said, 'and then they won't
have the guts to turn us down.' Only they did. You never got that
construction permit. What was it my father put up? Fifteen thousand
dollars? And you lost it all, remember?"
"Honey! These people don't want to hear--"
"Then there was the drive-in theater. You only got five thousand out
of my father for that. But that went down the drain, too, like all your
other million-dollar ideas. What was it that time? You figured you
could buck the motion-picture projectionists' union? And then--"
Mickey Groff cleared his throat and said, "Excuse me, Polly. You're
embarrassing everybody."
Polly laughed gently. "I'm sorry. But really, I hate to see my husband
go off like this again."
Groff said to Chesbro, "Like I say, I don't want to butt in; but
remember what McCue said about the curfew, Chesbro. I happen to have
been around when the national guardsmen got their orders; I wouldn't go
out there if I were you."
Mrs. Goudeket said heavily, "That's right, Mr. Chesbro. I was down by
the motor-pool place, and they've got guns and--"
"Now you just listen to me!" It was Sharon Froman, her eyes flashing,
her face a Valkyrie face. "Arthur Chesbro knows what he's doing, and it
isn't up to any of us to try to stop him! You make me sick, all of you.
I spent the whole day with Arthur and Congressman Akslund and, believe
me, the congressman knows Arthur understands how to do things. And if
Arthur's all right with the congressman, I don't see why he shouldn't
be all right with a wet-behind-the-ears kid--" Dick McCue's jaw dropped
open--"or a fat old biddy--" Mrs. Goudeket began to sputter--"or a
mental case--" Polly Chesbro only nodded judiciously, but Mickey Groff
sat up straight and cut in.
"Just a minute, Miss Froman!" he started; but he couldn't make himself
heard. They were all talking at once--
To Sharon Froman. Nobody paying any attention to Artie Chesbro at all.
By the time anyone got around to paying attention to Artie, he wasn't
there.
* * * * *
He closed the door quietly behind him and walked out the main door,
nodding pleasantly to the guardsman, across the street to the car pool.
It was all going so well, he thought dreamily, so very well. He even
managed a little wry chuckle of amusement about the silly spectacle his
wife had made of herself. That silly old business of the television
station! That ridiculous story about the drive-in theater! But he could
afford good-humoredly to overlook her raking up those long dead scores,
because everything was going very well indeed.
Curfew? Not a problem, he thought with satisfaction, not as long as he
had been wise and clever enough to pick up Mrs. Goudeket's trip ticket.
The car was his now--he'd just have to say Mrs. Goudeket had sent him.
He wouldn't be on foot for any length of time, and no one would bother
him in the car, with a regulation trip ticket. The whole world was well
within his grasp, he realized with satisfaction and joy.
And it was due at least in part to Sharon Froman. He nodded to
himself in the darkness, picking his way carefully down the slippery
street. She had written the official announcement of the plan for a
Tri-State Emergency Allocations Supervisory Board that he and the
congressman--with Sharon Froman--had cooked up.
Artie Chesbro chuckled out loud. Why, it was even Sharon who had
been so resourceful about the matter of the benzedrine. He had been
pretty near passed out with fatigue early in the day, even before the
congressman had arrived; and she had produced, out of what she gaily
called her "kit of writing tools," the little bottle of ten-grain
tablets that had waked him up, sharpened his brain, made it possible
for him to work on through the endlessly exhausting day.
A fine girl. A great acquisition. They would go far together, thought
Artie Chesbro, stumbling dreamily down the misty street, filled with
the sense of power, alive with the joy of achievement--coked to the
eyebrows.