More and more, I was coming to believe that Granite City wasn't a job
for an investigative adjuster like myself but a psychological adjuster.
Crime is a structural flaw in a community, yes. But when the whole
society is criminal, distorted, you can't isolate the flaw. The whole
village was meat for a sociologist; let him figure out why otherwise
decent citizens felt secure in conspiracy to defraud an honored
corporation.
I didn't feel that I was licked or that the trip had been a failure.
I had merely established to my intuitive satisfaction that the job was
not in my field.
I glanced at the old man. The proprietor of the store knew him and
evidently thought him harmless enough to feed.
"I think I can make it down the mountain before dark, Old Timer," I
called over to him. "You can come along if you like."
The acne-faced kid behind the counter stared at me. I looked over and
caught the bright little eyes of Haskel, the proprietor, too. Finally,
the old professor turned on his stool, his face pale and his eyes sad
and resigned.
"I doubt very much if either of us will be leaving, Mr. Madison," he
said. "Now."
* * * * *
I took my beer and the professor his coffee over to the single booth.
We looked at each other across the shiny table and our beverage
containers.
"I am Doctor Arnold Parnell of Duke University," the professor said. "I
left on my sabbatical five months ago. I have been here ever since."
I looked at his clothes. "You must not have been very well fixed for a
year's vacation, Professor."
"I," he said, "have enough traveler's checks with me to paper a
washroom. Nobody in this town will cash them for me."
"I can understand why you want to go somewhere where people are more
trusting in that case."
"They know the checks are good. It's _me_ they refuse to trust to leave
this place. They think they _can't_ let me go."
"I don't see any shackles on you," I remarked.
"Just because you can't see them," he growled, "doesn't mean they
aren't there. Marshal Thompson has the only telephone in the village.
He has politely refused to let me use it. I'm a suspicious and
undesirable character; he's under no obligation to give me telephone
privileges, he says. Haskel has the Post Office concession--the Telefax
outfit behind the money box over there. He takes my letters but I never
see him send them off. And I never get a reply."
"Unfriendly of them," I said conservatively. "But how can they stop you
from packing your dental floss and cutting out?"
"Haskel has the only motor vehicle in town--a half-ton pick-up, a
minuscule contrivance less than the size of a passenger car. He makes
about one trip a week down into the city for supplies and package mail.
He's been the only one in or out of Granite City for five months."
It seemed incredible--more than that, unlikely, to me. "How about the
granite itself? How do they ship it out?"
"It's an artificial demand product, like diamonds," Professor Parnell
said. "They stockpile it and once a year the executive offices for the
company back in Nashville runs in a portable monorail railroad up the
side of the mountain to take it out. That won't be for another four
months, as nearly as I can find out. I may not last that long."
"How are you living?" I asked. "If they won't take your checks--"
"I do odd jobs for people. They feed me, give me a little money
sometimes."
"I can see why you want to ride out with me," I said. "Haven't you ever
thought of just _walking_ out?"
"Fifty miles down a steep mountain road? I'm an old man, Mr. Madison,
and I've gotten even older since I came to Granite City."