He stopped. “Eh?”
I said, “I’ve just come from City Hall. No time to explain—slide in here and we’ll have a direct conference.”
He answered, “City Hall? What are you talking about?”
I said, “Change in plans. Don’t waste time. Get in!”
He backed away. I jumped out of the car and grabbed at his hunched shoulders.
Nothing happened—nothing, save that my hand struck bony human flesh, and the man began to yell.
I jumped back into the car and got out of there fast. When I was blocks away I slowed and thought it over. Could it be that I was wrong, that my nerves were so overwrought that I saw signs of titans where there were none?
No! For the moment I had the Old Man’s indomitable will to face facts, to see them as they were. The toll gate, the sun suits, the swimming pool, the cop at the vendo-printer . . . those facts I knew—and this last fact simply meant that I had hit the double-zero, rolled boxcars, picked the one man in ten, or whatever the odds were, who was not yet recruited. I speeded up, looking for a new victim.
He was a middle-aged man watering his lawn, a figure so bucolic and out-of-this-century that I was half a mind to pass him by. But I had no time left—and he wore a heavy sweater which bulged suspiciously. Had I seen his wife on the veranda I would have gone past, for she was dressed in bra and skirt and so could not have been possessed.
He looked up inquiringly as I stopped. “I’ve just come from City Hall,” I repeated. “You and I need a direct conference right away. Get in.”
He said quietly, “Come in the house for it. That car is too public.”
I wanted to refuse but he had already turned and was heading for the house. As I came up by him he whispered, “Careful. The woman is not of us.”
“Your wife?”
“Yes.”
We stopped on the porch and he said, “My dear, this is Mr. O’Keefe. We have some business to discuss. We’ll be in the study.”
She smiled and answered, “Certainly, my love. Good evening, Mr. O’Keefe. Sultry, isn’t it?”
I agreed that it was and she went back to her knitting. We went on inside and the man ushered me into his study. Since we were both keeping the masquerade I went in first, as befitted a visitor being escorted. I did not like turning my back on him.
For that reason I was half expecting it. He hit me near the base of the neck. But I rolled with it and went down almost unhurt. I continued to roll and fetched up on my back.
In training school they used to slap us with sandbags for trying to get up, once down. I recall my savate instructor saying in a flat Belgian accent, “Brave men get up again—and die. Be a coward—fight from the floor.”
So I was on my back and threatening him with my heels as soon as I hit. He danced back out of range. Apparently he did not have a gun and I could get at mine. But there was an open fireplace in the room, a real one, complete with poker, shovel, and tongs. He circled toward it.
There was a small table just out of my reach. I half rolled, half lunged, grabbed a leg and threw it. It caught him in the face as he was grabbing the poker. Then I was on him.
His master was dying in my fingers and he himself was convulsing under its last, terrible command when I became aware of nerve-shattering screams. His wife was standing in the doorway. I bounced up and let her have one, right about her double chin. She went down in mid scream and I returned to her husband.
A limp man is amazingly hard to lift; it took me longer to get him up and across my shoulders than it had to silence him. He was heavy. Fortunately I am a big husky, all hands and feet; I managed a lumbering dog trot toward the car. I doubt if the noise of our fight disturbed anyone but my victim’s wife, but her screams must have aroused half that end of town. There were people popping out of doors on both sides of the street. So far, none of them was near, but I was glad to see that I had left the car door open. I hurried toward it.