The governor nodded. "I was a hostage myself. That's one way to protect
them, isn't it? By giving the cons a hostage that's worth more to them."
He yawned and looked around for his car. "So the world keeps going
around," he said. "Everybody is somebody else's outgroup and maybe it's
a bad thing, but did you ever stop to realize that we don't have wars
any more? The categories stick tightly together. Who is to say that
that's a bad thing?"
He grinned. "Reminds me of a story, if you two will pay attention to
me long enough to listen. There was a meeting--this is an old, _old_
story--a neighborhood meeting of the leaders of the two biggest
women's groups on the block. There were eighteen Irish ladies from
the Church Auxiliary and three Jewish ladies from B'nai B'rith. The
first thing they did was have an election for a temporary chairwoman.
Twenty-one votes were cast. Mrs. Grossinger from B'nai B'rith got three
and Mrs. O'Flaherty from the Auxiliary got eighteen. So when Mrs.
Murphy came up to congratulate Mrs. O'Flaherty after the election, she
whispered: 'Good for you! But isn't it terrible, the way these Jews
stick together?'"
He stood up and waved a signal as his long official car came poking
hesitantly through the gate.
"Well," he declared professionally, "that's that. As we politicians
say, any questions?"
Sue-Ann hesitated. "Yes, I guess I do have a question," she said.
"What's a Jew?"
* * * * *
It was full dawn at last. The recall signal had come and the
helicopters were swooping home to Hap Arnold Field.
A bombardier named Novak, red-eyed and grumpy, was amusing himself
on the homeward flight by taking practice sights on the stream of
work-bound mechanics as they fluttered over Greaserville.
"Could pick 'em off like pigeons," he said sourly to his pilot, as he
dropped an imaginary bomb on a cluster of a dozen men. "For two cents,
I'd do it, too. The only good greaser is a dead greaser."
His pilot, just as weary, said loftily: "Leave them alone. The best way
to handle them is to leave them alone."
And the pilot was perfectly right; and that was the way the world went
round, spinning slowly and unstoppably toward the dawn.