“How long have you been here?” the girl asked.
“Just a couple of minutes,” he said.
“I was here this morning. I saw it on my way to work.”
Then he realized, she had seen it before the box was erected. “What did they do to it?” he asked, earnestly eager to find out. “Could you tell?”
The girl said: “Don’t be scared.”
“I’m not scared.” He was puzzled.
“You are. But it’s all right.” She laughed. “Now they’ll have to take it down. They can’t repair it.”
“You’re glad,” he said, awed.
The girl’s eyes filled with light, a rocking amusement. “We should celebrate. Have ourselves a ball.” Then her eyes faded. “If he can get away with it, whoever he was, whoever did it. Let’s get out of here—okay? Come on.”
She led him across the grass to the sidewalk and the lane beyond. Hands in her pockets, she walked rapidly along, and he followed. The night air was chilly and sharp, and, gradually, it cleared from his mind the mystical dream-like presence of the Park.
“I’m glad to get out of there,” he murmured finally.
With an uneasy toss of her head the girl said: “It’s easy to go in there, hard to get out.”
“You felt it?”
“Of course. It wasn’t so bad this morning, when I walked by. The sun was shining; it was daylight. But tonight—” She shivered. “I was there an hour before you came and woke me up. Just standing, looking at it. In a trance.”
“What got me,” he said, “were those drops. They looked like blood.”
“Just paint,” she answered matter-of-factly. Reaching into her coat she brought out a folded newspaper. “Want to read? A common fast-drying enamel, used by a lot of offices. Nothing mysterious about it.”
“They haven’t caught anybody,” he said, still feeling some of the unnatural detachment. But it was departing.
“Surprising how easily a person can do this and get away. Why not? Nobody guards the Park; nobody actually saw him.”
“What’s your theory?”
“Well,” she said, kicking a bit of rock ahead of her. “Somebody was bitter about losing his lease. Or somebody was expressing a subconscious resentment of Morec. Fighting back against the burden the system imposes.”
“Exactly what was done to the statue?”
“The paper didn’t print the details. It’s probably safer to play a thing like this down. You’ve seen the statue; you’re familiar with the Buetello conception of Streiter. The traditional militant stance: one hand extended, one leg forward as if he were going into battle. Head up nobly. Deeply thoughtful expression.”
“Looking into the future,” Allen murmured.
“That’s right.” The girl slowed down, spun on her heel and peered at the dark pavement. “The criminal, or japer, or whatever he is, painted the statue red. You know that; you saw the drops. He sloshed it with stripes, painted the hair red, too. And—” She smiled brightly. “Well, frankly, he severed the head, somehow. With a power cutting tool, evidently. Removed the head and placed it in the outstretched hand.”
“I see,” Allen said, listening intently.
“Then,” the girl continued, in a quiet monotone, “the individual applied a high-temperature pack to the forward leg—the right leg. The statue is a poured thermoplastic. When the leg became flexible, the culprit reshaped its position. Major Streiter now appears to be holding his head in his hand, ready to kick it far into the park. Quite original, and quite embarrassing.”
After an interval Allen said: “Under the circumstances you can’t blame them for nailing a box around it.”
“They had to. But a number of people saw it before they put the box up. The first thing they did was get the Cohorts of Major Streiter over; they must have thought something else was going to happen. When I went by, there were all those sullen-looking young men in their brown uniforms, a ring of them around the statue. But you could see anyhow. Then, sometime during the day, they put up the box.” She added: “You see, people laughed. Even the Cohorts. They couldn’t help it. They snickered, and then it got away from them. I was so sorry for those young men . . . they hated to laugh so.”
Now the two of them had reached a lighted intersection. The girl halted. On her face was an expression of concern. She gazed up at him intently, studying him, her eyes large.
“You’re in a terrible state,” she said. “And it’s my fault.”
“No,” he answered. “My own fault.”
Her hand pressed against his arm. “What’s wrong?”
With irony he said: “Job worries.”
“Oh.” She nodded. But she still held onto his arm with her tight fingers. “Well, do you have a wife?”
“A very sweet one.”
“Does she help you?”
“She worries even more than I. Right now she’s home taking pills. She has a fabulous collection.”
The girl said: “Do you want help?”
“I do,” he answered, and was not surprised at his own candor. “Very much.”
“That’s what I thought.” The girl began to walk on, and he went along. She seemed to be weighing various possibilities. “These days,” she said, “it’s hard to get help. You’re not supposed to want help. I can give you an address. If I do, will you use it?”
“That’s impossible to say.”
“Will you try to use it?”
“I’ve never asked for help in my life,” Allen said. “I can’t say what I’d do.”
“Here it is,” the girl said. She handed him a slip of folded paper. “Put it away in your wallet. Don’t look at it—just put it away until you want to use it. Then get it out.”
He put it away, and she watched fixedly.
“All right,” she said, satisfied. “Good night.”
“You’re leaving?” He wasn’t surprised; it seemed perfectly natural.
“I’ll see you again. I’ve seen you before.” She dwindled in the darkness of the side lane. “Good night, Mr. Purcell. Take care of yourself.”
Sometime later, after the girl was completely gone, he realized that she had been standing there in the Park waiting for him. Waiting, because she knew he would show up.
CHAPTER 6
The next day Allen had still not given Mrs. Frost an answer. The directorship of T-M was empty, with Mavis out and nobody in. The huge trust rolled along on momentum; and, he supposed, minor bureaucrats along the line continued to stamp forms and fill out papers. The monster lived, but not as it should.
Wondering how long he had to decide he phoned the Committee building and asked for Mrs. Frost.
“Yes sir,” a recorded voice answered. “Secretary Frost is in conference. You may state a thirty-second message which will be transcribed for her attention. Thank you. Zeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
“Mrs. Frost,” Allen said, “there are a number of considerations involved, as I mentioned to you yesterday. Heading an Agency gives me a certain independence. You pointed out that my only customer is Telemedia, so that for all practical purposes I’m working for Telemedia. You also pointed out that as Director of Telemedia I would have more, not less, independence.”
He paused, wondering how to go on.
“On the other hand,” he said, and then the thirty seconds was up. He waited as the mechanism at the other end repeated its rigamarole, and then continued. “My Agency, after all, was built up by my own hands. I’m free to alter it. I have complete control. T-M, on the other hand, is impersonal. Nobody can really dictate to it. T-M is like a glacier.”
That sounded terrible to him, but once on the tape it couldn’t be unspoken. He finished up:
“Mrs. Frost, I’m afraid I’ll have to have time to think it over. I’m sorry, because I realize this puts you in an unpleasant position. But I’m afraid the delay unavoidable is. I’ll try to have my answer within a week, and please don’t think I’m stalling. I’m sincerely floundering. This is Allen Purcell.”
Ringing off, he sat back and brooded.
Here, in his office, the statue of Major Streiter seemed distant and unconvincing. He had one problem only: the job problem. Either he stayed with his Agency or he went upstairs to T-M. Put that way his dilemma sounded simple. He got out a coin and rolled it across the surface of his desk. If necessary he could leave the decision to chance.
The door opened and Doris, his secretary, entered. “Good morning,” she said brightly. “Fred Luddy wants a letter of recommendation from you. We made out his check. Two weeks, plus what was owed.” She seated herself across from him, pad and pencil ready. “Do you want to dictate a letter?”
“That’s hard to say.” He wanted to, because he liked Luddy and he hoped to see him get a halfway decent job. But at the same time he felt silly writing a letter of recommendation for a man he had fired as disloyal and dishonest, Morecly speaking. “Maybe I’ll have to think about that, too.”