But that was impossible. Yesterday was the fifteenth of June. It was not a date one would forget, it was quarterly tax-return day.
He went back into the hall and picked up the telephone; he dialed for Weather Information, and got a well-modulated chant: “-arid cooler, some showers. Barometric pressure thirty point zero four, rising … United States Weather Bureau forecast for June 15. Warm and sunny, with high around-”
He hung the phone up. June 15.
“Holy Heaven!” Burckhardt said prayerfully. Things were very odd indeed. He heard the ring of his wife’s alarm and bounded up the stairs.
Mary Burckhardt was sitting upright in bed with the terrified, uncomprehending stare of someone just waking out of a nightmare.
“Oh!” she gasped, as her husband came in the room. “Darling, I just had the most terrible dream! It was like an exposion and
“Again?” Burckhardt asked, not very sympathetically. “Mary, something’s funny! I knew there was something wrong all day yesterday and
He went on to tell her about the copper box that was the cellar, and the odd mock-up someone had made of his boat. Mary looked astonished, then alarmed, then placatory and uneasy.
She said, “Dear, are you sure? Because I was cleaning that old trunk out just last week and I didn’t notice anything.”
“Positive!” said Guy Burckhardt. “I dragged it over to the wall to step on it to put a new fuse in after we blew the lights out and
“After we what?” Mary was looking more than merely alarmed.
“After we blew the lights out. You know, when the switch at the head of the stairs stuck. I went down to the cellar and
Mary sat up in bed. “Guy, the switch didn’t stick. I turned out the lights myself last night.”
Burckhardt glared at his wife. “Now I know you didn’t! Come here and take a look!”
He stalked out to the landing and dramatically pointed to the bad switch, the one that he had unscrewed and left hanging the night before … .
Only it wasn’t. It was as it had always been. Unbelieving, Burckhardt pressed it and. the lights sprang up in both halls.
Mary, looking pale and worried, left him to go down to the kitchen and start breakfast. Burckhardt stood staring at the switch for a long time. His mental processes were gone beyond the point of disbelief and shock; they simply were not functioning.
He shaved and dressed and ate his breakfast in a state of numb introspection. Mary didn’t disturb him; she was apprehensive and soothing. She kissed him good-bye as he hurried out to the bug’ without another word.
Miss Mitkin, at the reception desk, greeted him, with a yawn. “Morning,” she said drowsily. “Mr. Barth won’t be in today.”
Burckhardt started to say something, but checked himself. She would not know that Barth hadn’t been in yesterday, either, because she was tearing a June 14 pad off her calendar to make way for the “new” June 15 sheet.
He staggered to his own desk and stared unseeingly at the morning’s mail. It had not even been opened yet, but he knew that the Factory Distributors envelope contained an order for twenty thousand feet of the new acoustic tile, and the one from Finebeck & Sons was a complaint.
After a long while, he forced himself to open them. They were.
By lunchtime, driven by a desperate sense of urgency, Burckhardt made Miss Mitkin take her lunch hour first-the June-15-that-was-yesterday, he had gone first. She went, looking vaguely worried about his strained insistence, but it made no difference to Burckhardt’s mood. The phone rang and Burckhardt picked it up abstractedly. “Contro Chemicals Downtown, Burckhardt speaking.”
The voice said, “This is Swanson,” and stopped.
Burckhardt waited expectantly, but that was all. He said, “Hello?”
Again the pause. Then Swanson asked in sad resignation, “Still nothing, eh?”
“Nothing what? Swanson, is there something you want? You came up to me yesterday and went through this routine. You-”
The voice crackled: “Burckhardt! Oh,- my good heavens, you remember! Stay right there-I’ll be down in half an hour!”
“What’s this all about?”
“Never mind,” the little man said exultantly. “Tell you about it when I see you. Don’t say any more over the phone-somebody may be listening. Just wait there. Say, hold on a minute. Will you be alone in the office?”
“Well, no. Miss Mitkin will probably-”
“Hell. Look, Burckhardt, where do you eat lunch? Is it good and noisy?”
“Why, I suppose so. The Crystal Cafe. It’s just about a block-”
“I know where it is. Meet you in half an hour!” And the receiver clicked.
The Crystal Cafe was no longer painted red, but the temperature was still up. And they had added piped-in music interspersed with commercials. The advertisements were for Frosty-Flip, Marlin Cigarette-“They’re sanitized,” the announcer purred-and something called ChocoBite candy bars that Burckhardt couldn’t remember ever having heard of before. But he heard more about them quickly enough.
While he was waiting for Swanson to show up, a girl in the cellophane skirt of a nightclub cigarette vendor came through the restaurant with a tray of tiny scarlet-wrapped candies.
“ChocoBites are tangy,” she was murmuring as she came close to his table. “ChocoBites are tangier than tangy!”
Burckhardt, intent on watching for the strange little man who had phoned him, paid little attention. But as she scattered a handful of the confections over the table next to his, smiling at the occupants, he caught a glimpse of her and turned to stare.
“Why, Miss Horn!” he said.
The girl dropped her tray of candies.
Burckhardt rose, concerned over the girl. “Is something wrong?”
But she fled.
The manager of the restaurant was staring suspiciously at Burckhardt, who sank back in his seat and tried to look inconspicuous. He hadn’t insulted the girl! Maybe she was just a very strictly reared young lady, he thought-in spite of long bare legs under the cellophane skirt-and when he addressed her, she thought he was a masher.
Ridiculous idea. Burckhardt scowled uneasily and picked up his menu.
“Burckhardt!” It was a shrill whisper.
Burckhardt looked up over the top of his menu, startled. In the seat across from him, the little man named Swanson was sitting, tensely poised.
“Burckhardt!” the little man whispered again. “Let’s get out of here! They’re on to you now. If you want to stay alive, come on!”
There was no arguing with the man. Burckhardt gave the hovering manager a sick, apologetic smile and followed Swanson out. The little man seemed to know where he was going. In the street, he clutched Burckhardt by the elbow and hurried him off down the block.
“Did you see her?” he demanded. “That Horn woman, in the phone booth? She’ll have them here in five minutes, believe me, so hurry it up!”
Although the street was full of people and cars, nobody was paying any attention to Burckhardt and Swanson. The air had a nip in it more like October than June, Burckhardt thought, in spite of the weather bureau. And he felt like a fool, following this mad little man down the street, running away from some “them” toward-toward what? The little man might be crazy, but he was afraid. And the fear was infectious.
“In here!” panted the little man.
It was another restaurant-more of a bar, really, and a sort of second-rate place that Burckhardt had never patronized.
“Right straight through,” Swanson whispered; and Burckhardt, like a biddable boy, sidestepped through the mass of tables to the far end of the restaurant.
It was L-shaped, with a front on two streets at right angles to each other. They came out on the side street, Swanson staring coldly back
at the question-looking cashier, and crossed to the opposite sidewalk. They were under the marquee of a movie theater. Swanson’s expression began to relax.
“Lost them!” he crowed softly. “We’re almost there.”
He stepped up to the window and bought two tickets. Burckhardt trailed him into the theater. It was a weekday matinee and the place was almost empty. From the screen came sounds of gunfire and horses’ hooves. A solitary usher, leaning against a bright brass rail, looked briefly at them and went back to staring boredly at the picture as Swanson led Burckhardt down a flight of carpeted marble steps.
They were in the lounge and it was empty. There was a door for men and one for ladies; and there was a third door, marked “MANAGER” in gold letters. Swanson listened at the door, and gently opened it and peered inside.
“Okay,” he said, gesturing.
Burckhardt followed him through an empty office, to another door-a closet, probably, because it was unmarked.
But it was no closet. Swanson opened it warily, looked inside, then motioned Burckhardt to follow.
It was a tunnel, metal-walled, brightly lit. Empty, it stretched vacantly away in both directions from them.
Burckhardt looked wonderingly around. One thing he knew and knew full well: