Outside the building, at the curb, Helio sat in the parked jitney with Manfred. Through the window Arnie could see them, far below. He got his gun from his desk drawer, strapped it on inside his coat, locked up the desk, and hurried out into the hall.
A moment later he emerged on the sidewalk and made for the jitney.
“Here we go,” he said to Manfred. Helio stepped from the jitney, and Arnie seated himself behind the tiller. He revved up the tiny turbine engine; it made a noise like a bumblebee in a bottle. “Sounds good,” he said heartily. “So long, Helio. If this goes off O.K., there’s a reward for you– remember that.”
“I expect no reward,” Helio said. “I am only doing my duty by you, Mister; I would do it for anyone.”
Releasing the parking brake, Arnie pulled out into downtown Lewistown late-afternoon traffic. They were on their way. Overhead, Jack Bohlen and Doreen were no doubt cruising in the ‘copter; Arnie did not bother to search for sign of them, taking it for granted that they were there. He waved goodbye to Helio, and then a huge tractor-bus filled in all the space behind the jitney; Helio was cut off from view.
“How about this, Manfred?” Arnie said, as he guided the jitney toward the perimeter of Lewistown and the desert beyond. “Isn’t this something? It makes almost fifty miles an hour, and that isn’t hay.”
The boy did not respond, but his body trembled with excitement.
“This is the nuts,” Arnie declared, in answer to his own query.
They had almost left Lewistown when Arnie became aware of a car which had pulled up beside them and was proceeding at the same speed as theirs. He saw, within the car, two figures, a man and a woman; at first he thought it was Jack and Doreen, and then he discovered that the woman was his ex-wife Anne Esterhazy and the man was Dr. Milton Glaub.
What the hell do they want? Arnie wondered. Can’t they see I’m busy, I can’t be bothered, whatever it is?
“Kott,” Dr. Glaub yelled, “pull over to the curb so we can talk to you! This is vital!”
“The hell,” Arnie said, increasing the speed of the jitney. He felt with his left hand for his gun. “I got nothing to say, and what are you two doing in cahoots?” He didn’t like the look of it one bit. Just like them to gang up, he said to himself. I should have expected it. Snapping on the portable communications rig, he put in a call to his steward, Eddy Goggins at Union Hall. “This is Arnie. My gyrocompass point is 8.45702, right at the edge of town. Get over here quick–I got a party that has to be took care of. Make it fast, they’re gaining on me.” They had, in fact, never fallen behind; it was easy for them to match the speed of the little jitney, and even to exceed it.
“Will do, Arnie,” Eddy Goggins said. “I’ll send some of the boys on the double; don’t worry.”
Now the car edged ahead and drew toward the curb. Arnie reluctantly slowed the jitney to a stop. The car placed itself in a position to block escape, and then Glaub jumped from it and scuttled up crablike to the jitney, waving his arms.
“This ends your career of bullying and domineering,” he shouted at Arnie.
Kee-rist, Arnie thought. At a time like this. “What do you want?” he said. “Make it snappy; I got business.”
“Leave Jack Bohlen alone,” Dr. Glaub panted. “I represent him, and he needs rest and quiet. You’ll have to deal with me.”
From the car Anne Esterhazy emerged; she approached the jitney and confronted Arnie. “As I understand the situation–” she began.
“You understand nothin’,” Arnie said, with venom. “Let me by, or I’ll take care of both of you.”
Overhead, a ‘copter with the Water Workers’ Union marking on it appeared and began to descend; it was Jack and Doreen, Arnie guessed. And behind it came a second ‘copter at tremendous speed; that no doubt was Eddy and the Goodmembers. Both ‘copters prepared to land close by.
Anne Esterhazy said, “Arnie, I know that something bad is going to happen to you if you don’t stop what you’re doing.”
“To me?” he said, amused and incredulous.
“I feel it. Please, Arnie. Whatever it is you’re up to–think twice. There’s so much good in the world; must you have your revenge?”
“Go back to New Israel and tend your goddamn store.” He fast-idled the motor of the jitney.
“That boy,” Anne said. “That’s Manfred Steiner, isn’t it? Let Milton take him back to Camp B-G; it’s better for evPryone, better for him and for you.”
One of the ‘copters had landed. From it hopped three or four WWU men; they came running up the street, and Dr. Glaub, seeing them, plucked dolefully at Anne’s sleeve.
“I see them.” She remained unruffled. “Please, Arnie. You and I have worked together so often, on so many worthwhile things . . . for my sake, for Sam’s sake–if you go ahead with this, I know you and I will never be together again in any way whatever. Can’t you feel that? Is this so important as all that, to lose so much?”
Arnie said nothing.
Puffing, Eddy Goggins appeared beside the jitney. The union men fanned out toward Anne Esterhazy and Dr. Glaub. Now the other ‘copter had landed, and from it stepped Jack Bohlen.
“Ask him,” Arnie said. “He’s coming of his own free will; he’s a grown man, he knows what he’s doing. Ask him if he isn’t voluntarily coming along on this pilgrimage.”
As Glaub and Anne Esterhazy turned toward Jack, Arnie Kott backed up the jitney; he shifted into forward and shot around the side of the parked car. A scuffle broke out, as Glaub tried to get back into the car; two Goodmembers grabbed him and they wrestled. Arnie steered the jitney straight ahead, and the car and the people fell behind.
“Here we go,” he said to Manfred.
Ahead, the street became a vague level strip passing from the city out onto the desert, in the direction of the hills far beyond. The jitney bumped along at near top speed, and Arnie smiled. Beside him the boy’s face shone with excitement.
Nobody can stop me, Arnie said to himself.
The sounds of the squabble faded from his ears; he heard now only the buzz of the tiny turbine of the jitney. He settled back.
Dirty Knobby, get ready, he said to himself. And then he thought of Jack Bohlen’s magic charm, the water witch which Helio said the man had on him, and Arnie frowned. But the frown was momentary. He did not slow down.
Beside him Manfred crowed excitedly, “Gubble gubble!”
“What’s that mean, gubble gubble?” Arnie asked.
There was no answer, as the two of them bounced along in the UN post office jitney toward the F.D.R. Mountains directly ahead.
Maybe I’ll find out what it means when we get there, Arnie said to himself. I’d like to know. For some reason the sounds which the boy made, the unintelligible words, made him nervous, more so than anything else. He wished suddenly that Helio was along.
“Gubble gubble!” Manfred cried as they sped along.
15
The black, lopsided projection of sandstone and volcanic glass which was Dirty Knobby poked up huge and gaunt ahead of them in the glow of early morning. They had spent the night on the desert, in a tent, the ‘copter parked close by. Jack Bohlen and Doreen Anderton had exchanged no words with them; at dawn the ‘copter had taken off to circle overhead. Arnie and the boy Manfred Steiner had eaten a good breakfast and then packed up and resumed their trip.
Now the trip, the pilgrimage to the sacred rock of the Bleekmen, was over.
Seeing Dirty Knobby close up like this, Arnie thought, There’s the place that’ll cure us all of whatever ails us. Letting Manfred take the tiller of the jitney, he consulted the map which Heliogabalus had drawn. It showed the path up into the range to the rock. There was, Helio had told him, a hollowed-out chamber on the north side of the rock, where a Bleekrnan priest could generally be found. Unless, Arnie said to himself, he’s off somewhere sleeping off a binge. He knew the Bleekmen priests; they were old winos, for the most part. Even the Bleekmen had contempt for them.
At the base of the first hill, in the shadows, he parked the jitney and shut off its engine. “From here we climb on foot,” he said to Manfred. “We’ll carry as much gear as we can, food and water naturally, and the communications rig, and I guess if we need to cook we can come back for the stove. It’s only supposed to be a few more miles.”