V
Max Wyman shoved his way through such a roar of voices and such a crushof bodies as he had never known before. Scratch Sheet Square was brightas day--brighter. Atomic lamps, mounted on hundred-story buildings hosedand squirted the happy mob with blue-white glare. The Scratch Sheet'smoving sign was saying in fiery letters seventy-five feet tall: "_11:58PM EST ... December 31st ... Cops say two million jam NYC streets togreet New Year ... 11:59 PM EST ... December 31st ... Falcaro jokes onTV 'Never thought we'd make it' ... 12:00 midnight January 1st ... HappyNew Year ..._"
The roar of voices had become insane. Max Wyman held his head, hatingit, hating them all, trying to shut them out. Half a dozen young menagainst whom he was jammed were tearing the clothes off a girl. Theywere laughing and she was too, making only a pretense of defendingherself. It was one of New York's mild winter nights. Wyman looked atthe white skin not knowing that his eyes gloated. He yelled curses ather, and the young men. But nobody heard his whiskey-hoarsened youngvoice.
Somebody thrust a bottle at him and made mouths, trying to yell: "HappyNew Year!" He grabbed feverishly at the bottle and held it to his mouth,letting the liquor gurgle once, twice, three times. Then the bottle wassnatched away, not by the man who had passed it to him. A hilarious fatwoman plastered herself against Wyman and kissed him clingingly on themouth, to his horror and disgust. She was torn away from him by alaughing, white-haired man and turned willingly to kissing him instead.
Two strapping girls jockeyed Wyman between them and began to tear _his_clothes off, laughing at their switcheroo on the year's big gag. Heclawed out at them hysterically and they stopped, the laughter dying ontheir lips as they saw his look of terrified rage. A sudden current inthe crowd parted Wyman from them; another bottle bobbed on the sea ofhumanity. He clutched at it and this time did not drink. He stuffed ithurriedly under the waistband of his shorts and kept a hand on it as theeddy of humanity bore him on to the fringes of the roaring mob.
"_Syndic leaders hail New Year ... Taylor praises Century of Freedom ...12:05 AM EST January 1st ..._"
Wyman was mashed up against a girl who first smiled at his young faceinvitingly ... and then looked again. "Get away from me!" she shrieked,pounding on his chest with her small fists. You could hear individualvoices now, but the crowd was still dense. She kept screaming at him andhitting him until suddenly Scratch Sheet Square Upramp loomed and thecrowd fizzed onto it like uncorked champagne, Wyman and the screaminggirl carried along the moving plates underfoot. The crowd boiled ontothe northbound strip, relieving the crush; the girl vanished,whimpering, into the mob.
Wyman, rubbing his ear mechanically, shuffled with downcast eyes to theEastbound ramp and collapsed onto a bench gliding by at five miles perhour. He looked stupidly at the ten-mile and fifteen-mile strips, butdid not dare step onto them. He had been drinking steadily for a month.He would fall and the bottle would break.
He lurched off the five-mile strip at Riverside Downramp. Nobody got offwith him. Riverside was a tangle of freightways over, under and on thesurface. He worked there.
Wyman picked his way past throbbing conveyors roofed against pilferage,under gurgling fuel and water and waste pipes, around vast metalwarehouses and storage tanks. It was not dark or idle in Riverside.Twenty-four hours was little enough time to bring Manhattan its dailyneeds and carry off its daily waste and manufactures. Under daylightatomics the transport engineers in their glass perches read the dialsand turned the switches. Breakdown crews scurried out from emergencystations as bells clanged to replace a sagging plate, remag a failingehrenhafter, unplug a jam of nylon bales at a too-sharp corner.
He found Breakdown Station 26, hitched his jacket over the bottle andswayed in, drunk enough to think he could pretend he was sober. "Hi," hesaid hoarsely to the shift foreman. "Got jammed up in the celebration."
"We heard it clear over here," the foreman said, looking at him closely."Are you all right, Max?"
The question enraged him. "'Smatter?" he yelled. "Had a couple, sure.Think 'm drunk? Tha' wha' ya think?"
"Gee," the foreman said wearily. "Look, Max, I can't send you outtonight. You might get killed. I'm trying to be reasonable and I wishyou'd do as much for me. What's biting you, boy? Nobody has anythingagainst a few drinks and a few laughs. I went on a bender last monthmyself. But you get so Goddammed _mean_ I can't stand you and neithercan anybody else."
Wyman spewed obscenity at him and tried to swing on him. He wassurprised and filled with self-pity when somebody caught his arm andsomebody else caught his other arm. It was Dooley and Weintraub, hisshift-mates, looking unhappy and concerned.
"Lousy rats!" Wyman choked out. "Leas' a man's buddies c'd do is back'mup...." He began to cry, hating them, and then fell asleep on his feet.Dooley and Weintraub eased him down onto the floor.
The foreman mopped his head and appealed to Dooley: "He always likethis?" He had been transferred to Station 26 only two weeks before.
Dooley shrugged. "You might say so. He showed up about three months ago.Said he used to be a breakdown man in Buffalo, on the yards. He knew thework all right. But I never saw such a mean kid. Never a good word foranybody. Never any fun. Booze, booze, booze. This time he really letgo."
Weintraub said unexpectedly: "I think he's what they used to call analcoholic."
"What the hell's that?" the foreman demanded.
"I read about it. It's something they used to have before the Syndic. Iread about it. Things were a lot different then. People picking on youall the time, everybody mad all the time. The girls were scared to giveit away and the boys were scared to take it--but they did anyway and itwas kind of like fighting with yourself _inside_ yourself. The fightingwore some people out so much they just couldn't take it any more.Instead of going on benders for a change of pace like sensible people,they boozed _all_ the time--and they had a fight inside themselvesabout _that_ so they boozed harder." He looked defensive at theirskeptical faces. "I _read_ it," he insisted.
"Well," the foreman said inconclusively, "I heard things used to bepretty bad. Did these alcoholers get over it?"
"I don't know," Weintraub admitted. "I didn't read that far."
"Hm. I think I'd better can him." The foreman was studying their facescovertly, hoping to read a reaction. He did. Both the men lookedrelieved. "Yeh. I think I'd better can him. He can go to the Syndic forrelief if he has to. He doesn't do us much good here. Put some soup onand get it down him when he wakes up." The foreman, an average kindlyman, hoped the soup would help.
But at about three-thirty, after two trouble calls in succession, theynoticed that Wyman had left leaving no word.
* * * * *
The fat little man struggled out of the New Year's eve throng; he hadbeen caught by accident. Commander Grinnel did not go in forcelebrations. When he realized that January fifteenth was now fifteendays away, he doubted that he would ever celebrate again. It was atwo-man job he had to do on the fifteenth, and so far he had not foundthe other man.
He rode the slidewalk to Columbus Square. He had been supplied with aminimum list of contacts. One had moved, and in the crazilyundisciplined Syndic Territory it was impossible to trace anybody.Another had died--of too much morphine. Another had beaten her husbandalmost to death with a chair leg and was in custody awaiting trial. TheCommander wondered briefly and querulously: why do we always have suchunstable people here? Or does that louse Emory deliberately saddle mewith them when I'm on a mission? Wouldn't put it past him.
The final contact on the list was a woman. She'd be worthless for thebusiness of January fifteenth; that called for some physical strength,some technical knowledge, and a residual usefulness to the Government.Professor Speiser had done some good work here on industrial sabotage,but taken away from the scene of possible operations, she'd just be amillstone. He had his record to think of.
Sabotage--
If a giggling threesome hadn't been looking his way from a bench acrossthe slidewalk, he would have groun
d his teeth. In recent weeks, he haddone what he estimated as an easy three million dollars worth of damageto Mob Territory industry. And the stupid fools hadn't _noticed_ it!Repair crews had rebuilt the fallen walls, mechanics had tut-tutted overthe wrecked engines and replaced them, troubleshooters had troubleshotthe scores of severed communications lines and fuel mains.
He had hung around.
"Sam, you see this? Melted through, like with a little thermite bomb.How in the hell did a thing like that happen?"
"I don't know. I wasn't here. Let's get it fixed kid."
"Okay ... you think we ought to report this to somebody?"
"If you want to. I'll mention it to Larry. But I don't see what he cando about it. Must've been some kids. You gotta put it down as fair wearand tear. But boys will be boys."
Remembering, he did grind his teeth. But they were at Columbus Square.
* * * * *
Professor Speiser lived in one of the old plastic brick faculty houses.Her horsy face, under a curling net, looked out of the annunciatorplate. "Yes? What is it?"
"Professor Speiser, I believe you know my daughter, Miss _Freeman_. Sheasked me to look you up while I was in New York. Have I come much toolate?"
"Oh, dear. Why, no. I suppose not. Come in, Mr.--Mr. Freeman."
In her parlor, she faced him apprehensively. When she spoke she rolledout her sentences like the lecturer she was. "Mr. Freeman--as I supposeyou'd prefer me to call you--you asked a moment ago whether you'd cometoo late. I realize that the question was window-dressing, but my answeris quite serious. You have come too late. I have decided to dissociatemyself from--let us say, from your daughter, Miss Freeman."
The Commander asked only: "Is that irrevocable?"
"Quite. It wouldn't be fair of me to ask you to leave without anexplanation. I am perfectly willing to give one. I realize now that myfriendship with Miss Freeman and the work I did for her stemmed from,let us say a certain vacancy in my life."
He looked at a picture on her desk of a bald, pleasant-faced fellow witha pipe.
She followed his eyes and said with a sort of shy pride: "That is Dr.Mordecai, of the University's Faculty of Dentistry. Like myself, along-time celibate. We plan to marry."
The Commander said: "Do you feel that Dr. Mordecai might like to meet mydaughter?"
"No. I do not. We expect to have very little time for outsideactivities, between our professional careers and our personal lives.Please don't misunderstand, Mr. Freeman. I am still your daughter'sfriend. I always shall be. But somehow I no longer find in myself anurgency to express the friendship. It seems like a beautiful dream--anda quite futile one. I have come to realize that one can live a full lifewithout Miss Freeman. Now, it's getting quite late--"
He smiled ruefully and rose. "May I wish you every happiness, ProfessorSpeiser?" he said, extending his hand.
She beamed with relief. "I was so afraid you'd--"
Her face went limp and she stood swaying drunkenly as the needle in thering popped her skin.
The Commander, his face as dead as hers, disconnected his hand andsheathed the needle carefully again. He drew one of his guns, shot herthrough the heart and walked out of the apartment.
Old fool! She should have known better.
* * * * *
Max Wyman stumbled through the tangle of Riveredge, his head a pot ofmolten lead and his legs twitching under him as he fled from his shame.
Dimly, as if with new eyes, he saw that he was not alone. Riveredge wastechnically uninhabited. Then what voices called guardedly to him fromthe shadows: "Buddy--buddy--wait up a minute, buddy--did you score? Didyou score?"
He lurched on and the voices became bolder. The snaking conveyors andramps sliced out sectors of space. Storage tanks merged with inflowmains to form sheltered spots where they met. No spot was without itswhining, appealing voice. He stood at last, quivering, leaning against agigantic I-beam that supported a heavy-casting freightway. A scrap sheetof corrugated iron rested against the bay of the I-beam, and the sheetquivered and fell outward. An old man's voice said: "You're beat, son.Come on in."
He staggered a step forward and collapsed on a pallet of rags assomebody carefully leaned the sheet back into place again.
The Syndic Page 5
