They moved on. Then, a mounting chorus down a street rhythmic and menacing: “Gah-damn! Gah-damn! Gah-damn. . . ”
“In here!” the Wabbitt said shrilly, darting into a darkened house. A startled old man and woman, huddled before the cold fireplace, looked once and then didn’t look at the intruders again, having seen the busted-bottle insigne. The Wabbit said meagerly to Mundin, “Patrol. This is Goddam territory.”
They watched through cracks in the warped boards that covered the splintered picture window. The Goddams, still chanting, came swinging past, perhaps fifty of them, expertly twirling improvised maces. Some carried torches; one gangling boy in front bore a tall pole decorated with—with——
Mundin covered his eyes with a cry.
He was ignored. The Wabbit, frowning, muttered, “That’s no patrol. War party, heading west?*~——’
Mundin said tightly, “My God, kid, he was carrying——”
The kid moved fast. The jagged bottle-edge was at Mundin’s throat, which closed tight as a submarine hatch. “No noise, friend,” the Wabbit murmured. “There’ll be a rear guard.”
There was.
You could barely see them. They were black-clad; their faces and hands were darkened.
“All right,” the Wabbit said at last, and they slipped out. The old man and woman, still ignoring them, were munching rations and bickering feebly about who should chop up the chair to start a fire.
They dived into a house like any other house, except that it was full of pale, snake-eyed kids from eight to perhaps thirteen.
“Who’re these?” a girl asked their Wabbit.
“Hello, Lana,” Norvie Bligh said tentatively. She shriveled him with a glance and turned again to their guide.
“Customers,” he said shrilly. “Missing persons. Ten bucks. And something Important: War party of Goddams heading west on Livonia Boulevard, the 453-hundred block, at 7:50. Fifty of them with those hatchets of theirs. Advance guard and rear guard.”
“Good,” she said calmly. “Not our pigeon; looks like a cribhouse raid. Who’s the missing person?”
Mundin told her.
As the Wabbit guide had said before her, she said, “Urn. Goering Grenadier territory. Well, we have one in the attic. Want us to ask him, mister—for fifty bucks?”
Mundin paid.
The Goering Grenadier in the attic was an eight-year-old scooped up in a raid on the headquarters of the Grenadiers itself. At first he would only swear and spit at them. Then Lana took over the interrogation. Charles left abruptly.
The Grenadier was still crying when Lana joined him downstairs and said, “He talked.”
“Where?”
“Fifty bucks more.”
Mundin swore and searched his pockets. He had thirty-seven dollars and eighty-five cents. Lana shrugged and accepted twenty-five with good grace. She said:
“Seems there’s a Mr. Martinson. He has jobs for the Gee-Gees now and then. He told the Grosse Hermann, that’s their boss, that he wanted this Lavin dame picked up and doped. They were supposed to deliver her to some place on Long Island. The kid didn’t go along; he doesn’t remember just where. Says if he heard it he’d——”
Mundin was tearing upstairs. To the weeping child he barked: “Room 2003, Administration Building, Morristown, Long Island!”
“That’s it, mister,” said the kid, sniffling. “I told her I’d remember if——”
Mundin went back into the living room and leaned against a wall, brooding. So Norma was being kept on tap for the stockholders’ meeting. Why? More conditioning? A forced transfer of her stock? No—not her stock, she didn’t have any. Don Lavin’s stock. She was the legatee; her brother had the stock——
So they would knock off her brother, and they would have the owner.
As simple as that.
Mundin said to Lana, “Listen. You saw that I have no more dough, not right now. But I need help. This thing is big— bigger than you might think. There are—well, thousands involved.” What a fool he would have been to tell the truth and say billions! “It’s big and it’s complicated. First, can you throw a guard around 37598 Willowdale? I think your friends the Grenadiers are overdue! to kill a young man named Don Lavin.” He didn’t wait for an answer but went right on: “Second, can you get me to the Administration Building in Morristown? I swear you’ll be taken care of if this thing breaks right.”