But Magee was gone. He had faded away into the shadows. There was neither sight nor sound of him.
MacKinnon started in the suggested direction with a heavy heart. There was no possible reason to expect Magee to stay with him; the service Dave had done him with a lucky kick had been repaid with interest—yet he had lost the only friendly companionship he had found in a strange place. He felt lonely and depressed.
He continued along, keeping to the shadows, and watching carefully for shapes that might be patrolmen. He had gone a few hundred yards, and was beginning to worry about how far it might be to open countryside, when he was startled into gooseflesh by a hiss from a dark doorway.
He did his best to repress the panic that beset him, and was telling himself that policemen never hiss, when a shadow detached itself from the blackness and touched him on the arm.
“Dave,” it said softly.
MacKinnon felt a childlike sense of relief and wellbeing. “Fader!”
“I changed my mind, Dave. The gendarmes would have you in tow before morning. You don’t know the ropes… so I came back.”
Dave was both pleased and crestfallen. “Hell’s bells, Fader,” he protested, “you shouldn’t worry about me. I’ll get along.”
Magee shook him roughly by the arm. “Don’t be a chump. Green as you are, you’d start to holler about your civil rights, or something, and get clipped in the mouth again.
“Now see here,” he went on, “I’m going to take you to some friends of mine who will hide you until you’re smartened up to the tricks around here. But they’re on the wrong side of the law, see? You’ll have to be all three of the three sacred monkeys—see no evil, hear no evil, tell no evil. Think you can do it?”
“Yes, but—”
“No ‘buts’ about it. Come along!”
The entrance was in the rear of an old warehouse. Steps led down into a little sunken pit. From this open areaway—foul with accumulated refuse— a door let into the back wall of the building. Magee tapped lightly but systematically, waited and listened. Presently he whispered, “Pssst! It’s the Fader.”
The door opened quickly, and Magee was encircled by two great, fat arms. He was lifted off his feet, while the owner of those arms planted a resounding buss on his cheek. “Fader!” she exclaimed, “are you all right, lad? We’ve missed you.”
“Now that’s a proper welcome, Mother,” he answered, when he was back on his own feet, “but I want you to meet a friend of mine. Mother Johnston, this is David MacKinnon.”
“May I do you a service?” David acknowledged, with automatic formality, but Mother Johnston’s eyes tightened with instant suspicion.
“Is he stooled?” she snapped.
“No, Mother, he’s a new immigrant—but I vouch for him. He’s on the dodge, and I’ve brought him here to cool.”
She softened a little under his sweetly persuasive tones. “Well—”
Magee pinched her cheek. “That’s a good girl! When are you going to marry me?”
She slapped his hand away. “Even if I were forty years younger, I’d not marry such a scamp as you! Come along then,” she continued to MacKinnon, “as long as you’re a friend of the Fader—though it’s no credit to you!” She waddled quickly ahead of them, down a flight of stairs, while calling out for someone to open the door at its foot.
The room was poorly lighted and was furnished principally with a long table and some chairs, at which an odd dozen people were seated, drinking and talking. It reminded MacKinnon of prints he had seen of old English pubs in the days before the Collapse.
Magee was greeted with a babble of boisterous welcome. “Fader!”—“It’s the kid himself!”—“How d’ja do it this time, Fader? Crawl down the drains?” —“Set ‘em up, Mother—the Fader’s back!”
He accepted the ovation with a wave of his hand and a shout of inclusive greeting, then turned to MacKinnon. “Folks,” he said, his voice cutting through the confusion, “I want you to know Dave—the best pal that ever kicked a jailer at the right moment. If it hadn’t been for Dave, I wouldn’t be here.”
Dave found himself seated between two others at the table and a stein of beer thrust into his hand by a not uncomely young woman. He started to thank her, but she had hurried off to help Mother Johnston take care of the sudden influx of orders. Seated opposite him was a rather surly young man who had taken little part in the greeting to Magee. He looked MacKinnon over with a face expressionless except for a recurrent tic which caused his right eye to wink spasmodically every few seconds.
“What’s your line?” he demanded.
“Leave him alone, Alec,” Magee cut in swiftly, but in a friendly tone. “He’s just arrived inside; I told you that. But he’s all right,” he continued, raising his voice to include the others present, “he’s been here less than twenty-four hours, but he’s broken jail, beat up two customs busies, and sassed old Judge Fleishacker right to his face. How’s that for a busy day?”
Dave was the center of approving interest, but the party with the tic persisted. “That’s all very well, but I asked him a fair question: What’s his line? If it’s the same as mine, I won’t stand for it—it’s too crowded now.”
“That cheap racket you’re in is always crowded, but he’s not in it. Forget about his line.”
“Why don’t he answer for himself,” Alec countered suspiciously. He half stood up. “I don’t believe he’s stooled—”
It appeared that Magee was cleaning his nails with the point of a slender knife. “Put your nose back in your glass, Alec,” he remarked in a conversational tone, without looking up, “—or must I cut it off and put it there?”
The other fingered something nervously in his hand. Magee seemed not to notice it, but nevertheless told him, “If you think you can use a vibrator on me faster than I use steel, go ahead—it will be an interesting experiment.”
The man facing him stood uncertainly for a moment longer, his tic working incessantly. Mother Johnston came up behind him and pushed him down by the shoulders, saying, “Boys! Boys! Is that any way to behave?—and in front of a guest, too! Fader, put that toadsticker away—I’m ashamed of you.”
The knife was gone from his hands. “You’re right as always, Mother,” he grinned. “Ask Molly to fill up my glass again.”
An old chap sitting on MacKinnon’s right had followed these events with alcoholic uncertainty, but he seemed to have gathered something of the gist of it, for now he fixed Dave with serum-filled eye, and enquired, “Boy, are you stooled to the rogue?” His sweetly sour breath reached MacKinnon as the old man leaned toward him and emphasized his question with a trembling, joint-swollen finger.
Dave looked to Magee for advice and enlightenment. Magee answered for him. “No, he’s not—Mother Johnston knew that when she let him in. He’s here for sanctuary—as our customs provide!”
An uneasy stir ran around the room. Molly paused in her serving and listened openly. But the old man seemed satisfied. “True… true enough,” he agreed, and took another pull at his drink, “sanctuary may be given when needed, if—” His words were lost in a mumble.
The nervous tension slackened. Most of those present were subconsciously glad to follow the lead of the old man, and excuse the intrusion on the score of necessity. Magee turned back to Dave. “I thought that what you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you—or us—but the matter has been opened.”
“But what did he mean?”
“Gramps asked you if you had been stooled to the rogue-whether or not you were a member of the ancient and honorable fraternity of thieves, cutthroats, and pickpockets!”
Magee stared into Dave’s face with a look of sardonic amusement. Dave looked uncertainly from Magee to the others, saw them exchange glances, and wondered what answer was expected of him. Alec broke the pause. “Well,” he sneered, “what are you waiting for? Go ahead and put the question to him—or are the great Fader’s friends free to use this club without so much as a by-your-leave?”
“I thought I told you to quiet down, Alec,” the Fader replied evenly. “Besides—you’re skipping a requirement. All the comrades present must first decide whether or not to put the question at all.”
A quiet little man with a chronic worried look in his eyes answered him. “I don’t think that quite applies, Fader. If he had come himself, or fallen into our hands—in that case, yes. But you brought him here. I think I speak for all when I say he should answer the question. Unless someone objects, I will ask him myself.” He allowed an interval to pass. No one spoke up. “Very well then… Dave, you have seen too much and heard too much. Will you leave us now—or will you stay and take the oath of our guild? I must warn you that once stooled you are stooled for life—and there is but one punishment for betraying the rogue.”
He drew his thumb across his throat in an age-old deadly gesture. Gramps made an appropriate sound effect by sucking air wetly through his teeth, and chuckled.
Dave looked around. Magee’s face gave him no help. “What is it that I have to swear to?” he temporized.
The parley was brought to an abrupt ending by the sound of pounding outside. There was a shout, muffled by two closed doors and a stairway, of “Open up down there!” Magee got lightly to his feet and beckoned to Dave.
“That’s for us, kid,” he said. “Come along.”
He stepped over to a ponderous, old-fashioned radio-phonograph which stood against the wall, reached under it, fiddled for a moment, then swung out one side panel of it. Dave saw that the mechanism had been cunningly rearranged in such a fashion that a man could squeeze inside it. Magee urged him into it, slammed the panel closed, and left him.
His face was pressed up close to the slotted grill which was intended to cover the sound box. Molly had cleared off the two extra glasses from the table, and was dumping one drink so that it spread along the table top and erased the rings their glasses had made.
MacKinnon saw the Fader slide under the table, and reach up. Then he was gone. Apparently he had, in some fashion, attached himself to the underside of the table.
Mother Johnston made a great-to-do of opening up. The lower door she opened at once, with much noise. Then she clumped slowly up the steps, pausing, wheezing, and complaining aloud. He heard her unlock the outer door.
“A fine time to be waking honest people up!” she protested. “It’s hard enough to get the work done and make both ends meet, without dropping what I’m doing every five minutes, and—”
“Enough of that, old girl,” a man’s voice answered, “just get along downstairs. We have business with you.”
“What sort of business?” she demanded.
“It might be selling liquor without a license, but it’s not—this time.”
“I don’t—this is a private club. The members own the liquor; I simply serve it to them.”
“That’s as may be. It’s those members I want to talk to. Get out of the way now, and be spry about it.”
They came pushing into the room with Mother Johnston, still voluble, carried along in by the van. The speaker was a sergeant of police; he was accompanied by a patrolman. Following them were two other uniformed men, but they were soldiers. MacKinnon judged by the markings on their kilts that they were corporal and private—provided the insignia in New America were similar to those used by the United States Army.
The sergeant paid no attention to Mother Johnston. “All right, you men,” he called out, “line up!”
They did so, ungraciously but promptly. Molly and Mother Johnston watched them, and moved closer to each other. The police sergeant called out, “All right, corporal—take charge!”
The boy who washed up in the kitchen had been staring round-eyed. He dropped a glass. It bounced around on the hard floor, giving out bell-like sounds in the silence.
The man who had questioned Dave spoke up. “What’s all this?”
The sergeant answered with a pleased grin. “Conscription—that’s what it is. You are all enlisted in the army for the duration.”
“Press gang!” It was an involuntary gasp that came from no particular source.
The corporal stepped briskly forward. “Form a column of twos,” he directed. But the little man with the worried eyes was not done.
“I don’t understand this,” he objected. “We signed an armistice with the Free State three weeks ago.”
“That’s not your worry,” countered the sergeant, “nor mine. We are picking up every able-bodied man not in essential industry. Come along.”
“Then you can’t take me.”
“Why not?”
He held up the stump of a missing hand. The sergeant glanced from it to the corporal, who nodded grudgingly, and said, “Okay—but report to the office in the morning, and register.”
He started to march them out when Alec broke ranks and backed up to the wall, screaming, “You can’t do this to me! I won’t go!” His deadly little vibrator was exposed in his hand, and the right side of his face was drawn up in a spastic wink that left his teeth bare.
“Get him, Steeves,” ordered the corporal. The private stepped forward, but stopped when Alec brandished the vibrator at him. He had no desire to have a vibroblade between his ribs, and there was no doubt as to the uncontrolled dangerousness of his hysterical opponent.
The corporal, looking phlegmatic, almost bored, levelled a small tube at a spot on the wall over Alec’s head. Dave heard a soft pop!, and a thin tinkle. Alec stood motionless for a few seconds, his face even more strained, as if he were exerting the limit of his will against some unseen force, then slid quietly to the floor. The tonic spasm in his face relaxed, and his features smoothed into those of a tired and petulant, and very bewildered, little boy.
“Two of you birds carry him,” directed the corporal. “Let’s get going.”
The sergeant was the last to leave. He turned at the door and spoke to Mother Johnston. “Have you seen the Fader lately?”
“The Fader?” She seemed puzzled. “Why, he’s in jail.”
“Ah, yes… so he is.” He went out.
Magee refused the drink that Mother Johnston offered him.
Dave was surprised to see that he appeared worried for the first time. “I don’t understand it,” Magee muttered, half to himself, then addressed the one-handed man. “Ed—bring me up to date.”
“Not much news since they tagged you, Fader. The armistice was before that. I thought from the papers that things were going to be straightened out for once.”
“So did I. But the government must expect war if they are going in for general conscription.” He stood up. “I’ve got to have more data. Al!” The kitchen boy stuck his head into the room.
“What ‘cha want, Fader?”
“Go out and make palaver with five or six of the beggars. Look up their ‘king.’ You know where he makes his pitch?”
“Sure—over by the auditorium.”
“Find out what’s stirring, but don’t let them know I sent you.”
“Right, Fader. It’s in the bag.” The boy swaggered out.
“Molly.”
“Yes, Fader?”
“Will you go out, and do the same thing with some of the business girls? I want to know what they hear from their customers.” She nodded agreement. He went on, “Better look up that little redhead that has her beat up on Union Square. She can get secrets out of a dead man. Here—” He pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and handed her several. “You better take this grease… You might have to pay off a cop to get back out of the district.”
Magee was not disposed to talk, and insisted that Dave get some sleep.
He was easily persuaded, not having slept since he entered Coventry. That seemed like a lifetime past; he was exhausted. Mother Johnston fixed him a shakedown in a dark, stuffy room on the same underground level. It had none of the hygienic comforts to which he was accustomed—air-conditioning, restful music, hydraulic mattress, nor soundproofing—and he missed his usual relaxing soak and auto-massa
ge, but he was too tired to care. He slept in clothing and under covers for the first time in his life.
He woke up with a headache, a taste in his mouth like tired sin, and a sense of impending disaster. At first he could not remember where he was —he thought he was still in detention Outside. His surroundings were inexplicably sordid; he was about to ring for the attendant and complain, when his memory pieced in the events of the day before. Then he got up and discovered that his bones and muscles were painfully sore, and—which was worse—that he was, by his standards, filthy dirty. He itched.
He entered the common room, and found Magee sitting at the table. He greeted Dave. “Hi, kid. I was about to wake you. You’ve slept almost all day. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
“Okay—shortly. Where’s the ‘fresher?”
“Over there.”
It was not Dave’s idea of a refreshing chamber, but he managed to take a sketchy shower in spite of the slimy floor. Then he discovered that there was no air blast installed, and he was forced to dry himself unsatisfactorily with his handkerchief. He had no choice in clothes. He must put back on the ones he had taken off, or go naked. He recalled that he had seen no nudity anywhere in Coventry, even at sports—a difference in customs, no doubt.
He put his clothes back on, though his skin crawled at the touch of the once-used linen.
But Mother Johnston had thrown together an appetizing breakfast for him. He let coffee restore his courage as Magee talked. It was, according to Fader, a serious situation. New America and the Free State had compromised their differences and had formed an alliance. They quite seriously proposed to break out of Coventry and attack the United States.
MacKinnon looked up at this. “That’s ridiculous, isn’t it? They would be outnumbered enormously. Besides, how about the Barrier?”
“I don’t know—yet. But they have some reason to think that they can break through the Barrier… and there are rumors that whatever it is can be used as a weapon, too, so that a small army might be able to whip the whole United States.”
The Past Through Tomorrow Page 71