“Nowhere,” Jones said, answering his question with his usual sullen indifference. He had been tired of the question for twelve months.
“Sure, you’re going somewhere,” Hyndshaw opined.
And then the event happened. Words, actions, taking place at the perimeter of the moving wave, had become eternally fixed. One year ago, the exhausted boy had uttered a brusque, thoughtless remark. He had had the interval to reap the provocative harvest from that remark.
“Don’t tell me where I’m going,” he shot back. “I can see; I can see where you’re going, too.”
“Where’m I going?” Hyndshaw retorted testily; he was on his way to a nearby house of ill repute, and the area was still under military jurisdiction.
Jones told him.
“How do you know?” Hyndshaw demanded hoarsely, breaking into Jones’ detailed account of the man’s forthcoming activity “You goddamn foul-mouthed kid—“ White and frightened, he shouted: “What are you, a goddamn mind reader?”
“No,” Jones answered “But I’m going along. I’ll be with you.”
That sobered Hyndshaw even more. For a time he didn’t talk; unnerved, he clenched the wheel and glared ahead at the pitted, dilapidated road. Here and there, on each side, were the abandoned shells of houses. This region, around St. Louis, had been forcibly evacuated after a successful shower of Soviet bacterial pellets. The inhabitants were still in forced labor camps, rebuilding more vitally needed areas; industrial and agricultural production came first.
Hyndshaw was frightened, but at the same time his natural greed and interest grew. He was a born opportunist. God knew what he had stumbled on. He decided to proceed cautiously.
“You know what I’ve got back there?” he said, indicating the piles of slender cartons. “Give you three guesses.”
The concept guess was alien to Jones. “Magnetic belts,” he answered. “Fifty dollars retail, forty dollars in lots of ten or more. Guaranteed to ward off toxic radioactivity and bacterial poisons or your money back.”
Licking his lips nervously, Hyndshaw asked: “Did I already talk to you? Maybe up around the Chicago area?”
“You’re going to try to sell me one. When we stop for water.”
Hyndshaw hadn’t intended to stop for water; he was late as it was. “Water?” he muttered. “Why water? Who’s thirsty?”
“The radiator’s leaking.”
“How do you know?”
“In fifteen minutes—“ Jones reflected; he had forgotten the exact interval. “In around half an hour your temperature gauge is going to flash, and you’re going to have to stop. You’ll find water at an abandoned well.”
“You know all that?”
“Of course I know all that.” Irritably, Jones tore a loose strip of cloth from the upholstery. “Would I be saying it if I didn’t?”
Hyndshaw said nothing. He sat driving silently until, after twenty or so minutes, the temperature gauge flashed, and he brought the Buick quickly to the side of the road.
The only sound was the unhappy wheezing of the empty radiator. A few wisps of oil smoke curled upward from the vents of the hood.
“Well,” Hyndshaw muttered shakily, fumbling for the door handle. “I guess we better start looking. Which way you say that well is?”
Because he didn’t have to guess, Jones found the well instantly. It was half-buried under a heap of stone, brick, and slats that had been a barn. Together, the two of them lowered a rusty bucket. Ten minutes later Hyndshaw was opening bottles of warm beer and showing off one of his magnetic belts.
As he babbled his pitch, his mind raced furiously. Here was something. He had heard of mutants, even seen them. Hideous freaks, most of them; deformed monstrosities systematically destroyed by the authorities. But this was something else; this was no oddity. Anybody who could eliminate surprises, who could cut through guesswork…
That was why Hyndshaw made a good salesman. He was a good guesser. But he could guess wrong; he could misevaluate a situation. Not so with the youth beside him. They both knew it. Hyndshaw was fascinated and impressed. Jones was contemptuous.
“How much money have you got?” Hyndshaw demanded suddenly, interrupting his own pitch. Cunningly, he conjectured: “You haven’t got fifty bucks to your name. You couldn’t afford one of these belts.”
“I’ve got fifty bucks,” Jones said, “but not for a cheap piece of fakery.”
Hyndshaw spluttered; in years of preying on ignorant rural populations, made even more fearful and superstitious by the war, he had come to believe his own lies. “What do you mean?” he began, and then shut up, as Jones told him.
“I see,” Hyndshaw said, when the short, bitter tirade was done. “You’re quite a kid… you’re not afraid to say what you think.”
“Why should I be?”
Tightly, Hyndshaw said: “Maybe somebody might kick your smart teeth down your throat, one of these days. Your wise-guy talk might not sit right with somebody… they might resent a punk kid.”
“Not you,” Jones told Him. “You’re not going to lay a hand on me.”
“What, then?”
“You’re going to propose we go into business together. Your stock of belts and experience—my ability. Fifty-fifty.”
“Belts? You’re coming in with me on the belt business?”
“No,” Jones answered. “That’s your idea. I’m not interested in belts. We’re going into bone-throwing.”
Hyndshaw was baffled. “What’s that?”
“Gambling. Dice. Craps.”
“I don’t know anything about gambling.” Hyndshaw was deeply suspicious. “You’re sure this is on the level? You’re sure this isn’t a goddamn come-on?”
Jones didn’t bother to answer; he continued what he had been saying. “We’ll operate a concession at this cat house for maybe a month or so. You’ll get most of the take; I’m not interested. Then we’ll split up. You’ll try to stop me and I’ll turn the whole place in to the military police. The girls will be sent to labor camps, you’ll go to prison.”
Horrified, Hyndshaw gasped: “God, I don’t want anything to do with you.” He grabbed up a beer bottle and smashed it against a nearby rock; the jabbed teeth of glass oozed damp foam as he clutched the weapon convulsively. Repelled by the boy, he was nearing a point of hysteria. “You’re crazy!” he shouted, half-lifting the bottle in an innate gesture of defense.
“Crazy?” Jones was puzzled. “Why?”
Jerkily, Hyndshaw gestured. Cold sweat leaked off his face, into his open collar “You’re telling me this? You sit there telling me what you’re going to do to me?”
“It’s the truth.”
Tossing the bottle away, Hyndshaw savagely yanked the boy to his feet. “Don’t you know anything but the truth?” he snarled, in despair.
No, he didn’t. How could he? For Jones there was no guessing, no error, and no false knowledge. He knew; he had absolute certainty. “Take it or leave it,” he said, shrugging indifferently. He had already lost interest in the fat salesman’s fate; after all, it had happened a long time ago. “Do whatever you want.”
Gripping the boy futilely, Hyndshaw bellowed: “You know I’m stuck. You know I don’t have a choice. You can see it!”
“Nobody has a choice,” Jones said, suddenly stern and thoughtful. “Not me or you—nobody. We’re all chained up like cattle. Like slaves.”
Slowly, wretchedly, Hyndshaw let go of him. “Why?” he protested, raising his fat, empty hands.
“I don’t know. That’s something I can’t tell you—yet.” Jones calmly finished his beer and then tossed the bottle into the dry weeds at the edge of the road. In the last year the weeds had grown six feet high. “Let’s go—I’m interested in getting into this cat house. It’ll be the first time for me.”
Into the hygenic police cell stepped the dispatch carrier. He saluted the guards and handed over his papers.
“All right,” one of the guards said, nodding to Jones. “Come along.”
The wait was over; he was on his way. Exultant, Jones followed after the clanking, uniformed figure. The guard led him down a long yellow-lit corridor, to a series of magnetically-sealed locks. The locks rolled back, and beyond lay an ascending ramp lost in cold night shadow. A dark wind whipped along the ramp, plucking at Jones’ sleeves. Overhead chill stars shone here and there, set in a totally opaque sky.
He was outside the police building.
At the terminus of the ramp stretched a concrete driveway: A few yards off to one side a heavy car stood gleaming, moist and metallic. The guard led him to it, held the door open, and then slid in beside him. The driver snapped on the headlights and the car moved onto the road.
The ride took half an hour. When the lights of a small town glowed weakly ahead, the massive car pulled from the rutted, uneven road, onto the shoulder. Among the weeds and debris the door was opened, and Jones was motioned out. The guard climbed back in wordlessly, slammed the door, and off roared the car, leaving Jones standing alone.
He began walking toward the lights of the town. Presently a partly-demolished gas station rose into view. Next came a roadside tavern, a bar, a closed-down grocery store and a drugstore. And, finally, a gigantic, crumbling hotel.