And Then the Town Took Off, Richard Wilson [story reading txt] 📗

think they'd want a chunk of their real estate exported to Europe."

"Are we going to Europe?"

"Bound to if we don't change course."

"Why?"

"My very next words were going to be 'Don't ask me why.' I ask you. You're closer to the horse's mouth than I am."

"If you mean Father," Alis said, "I told you I don't enjoy his confidence."

"Haven't you even got an inkling of what he's up to?"

"I'm sure he's not the Master Mind, if that's what you mean."

"Then who is? Rubach? Civek? The chief of police? Or the bubble gum king, whoever he is?"

"Cheeky McFerson?" She laughed. "I went to grade school with him and if he's got a mind I never noticed it."

"McFerson? He's just a kid, isn't he?"

"His father died a couple of years ago and Cheeky's the president on paper, but the business office runs things. We call him Cheeky because he always had a wad of company gum in his cheek. Supposed to be an advertisement. But he never gave me any and I always chewed Wrigley's for spite."

"Oh." Don chewed the inside of his own cheek and watched the coastline. "That's Connecticut now," he said. "We're certainly not slowing down for customs."

A speck, trailing vapor through the cold upper air, headed toward them from the general direction of New England. As it came closer Don saw that it was a B-58 Hustler bomber. He recognized it by the mysterious pod it carried under its body, three-quarters as long as the fuselage.

"It's not going to shoot us down, is it?" Alis asked.

"Hardly. I'm glad to see it. It's about time somebody took an interest in us besides Bobby Thebold and his leftover Lightnings."

The B-58 rapidly closed the last few miles between them, banked and circled Superior.

"Attention people of Superior," a voice from the plane said. The magnified words reached them distinctly through the cold air. "Inasmuch as you are now leaving the continental United States, this aircraft has been assigned to accompany you. From this point on you are under the protection of the United States Air Force."

"That's better," Don said. "It's not much, but at least somebody's doing something."

The B-58 streaked off and took up a course in a vast circle around them.

"I'm not so sure I like having it around," Alis said. "I mean suppose they find out that Superior's controlled by—I don't know—let's say a foreign power, or an alien race. Once we're out over the Atlantic where nobody else could get hurt, wouldn't they maybe consider it a small sacrifice to wipe out Superior to get rid of the—the alien?"

Don looked at her closely. "What's this about an alien? What do you know?"

"I don't know anything. It's just a feeling I have, that this is bigger than Father and Mayor Civek and all the self-important VIP's in Superior put together." She squeezed his arm as if to draw comfort from him. "Maybe it's seeing the ocean and realizing the vastness of it, but for the first time I'm beginning to feel a little scared."

"I won't say there's nothing to be afraid of," Don said. He pulled her hand through his arm. "It isn't as though this were a precedented situation. But whatever's going on, remember there are some pretty good people on our side, too."

"I know," she said. "And you're one of them."

He wondered what she meant by that. Nothing, probably, except "Thank you for the reassurance." He decided that was it; the mechanical eavesdropper he wore under his collar was making him too self-conscious. He tried to think of something appropriate to say to her that he wouldn't mind having overheard in the Pentagon.

Nothing occurred to him, so he drew Alis closer and gave her a quick, quiet kiss.

The crowd of people looking over the edge had grown. Judging by their number, few people were in school or at their jobs today. Yesterday they had seemed only mildly interested in what their town was up to but today, with the North American continent about to be left behind, they were paying more attention. Yet Don could see no signs of alarm on their faces. At most there was a reflection of wonder, but not much more than there might be among a group of Europeans seeing New York Harbor from shipboard for the first time. An apathetic bunch, he decided, who would be resigned to their situation so long as the usual pattern of their lives was not interfered with unduly. What they lacked, of course, was leadership.

"It's big, isn't it?" Alis said. She was looking at the Atlantic, which was virtually the only thing left to see except the bright blue sky, a strip of the New England coast, and the circling bomber.

"It's going to get bigger," Don said. "Shall we go across town and take a last look at the States?" He also wanted to see what, if anything, was going on in town.

"Not the last, I hope. I'd prefer a round trip."

An enterprising cab driver opened his door for them. "Special excursion rate to the west end," he said. "One buck."

"You're on," Don said. "How's business?"

"Not what you'd call booming. No trains to meet. No buses. Hi, Alis. This isn't one of your father's brainstorms come to life, is it?"

"Hi, Chuck," she said. "I seriously doubt it, though I'm sure you'd never get him to admit it. How are your wife and the boy?"

"Fine. That boy, he's got some imagination. He's digging a hole in the back yard. Last week he told us he was getting close to China. This week it's Australia. He said at supper last night that they must have heard about this hole and started digging from the other end. They've connected up, according to him, and he had quite a conversation with a kangaroo."

"A kangaroo?" Don sat up straight.

"Yeah. You know how kids are. I guess he's studying Australia in geography."

"What did the kangaroo tell your son?"

The cab driver laughed defensively. "There's nothing wrong with the boy. He's just got an active mind."

"Of course. When I was a kid I used to talk to bears. But what did he say the kangaroo talked about?"

"Oh, just crazy stuff—like the kangaroos didn't like it Down Under any more and were coming up here because it was safer."

Later that morning, at about the time Don Cort estimated that Superior had passed the twelve-mile limit—east from the coast, not up—the Superior State Bank was held up.

A man clearly recognized as Joe Negus, a small-time gambler, and one other man had driven up to the bank in Negus' flashy Buick convertible. They walked up to the head teller, threatened him with pistols and demanded all the money in all the tills. They stuffed the bills in a sack, got into their car and drove off. They took nothing from the customers and made no attempt to take anything from the vault.

The fact that they ignored the vault made Don feel better. He thought when he first heard about the robbery that the men might have been after the brief case he'd stored there, which would have meant that he was under suspicion. But apparently the job was a genuine heist, not a cover-up for something else.

Police Chief Vincent Grande reached the scene half an hour after the criminals left it. His car had frozen up and wouldn't start. He arrived by taxi, red-faced, fingering the butt of his holstered service automatic.

Negus and his confederate, identified as a poolroom lounger named Hank Stacy, had gotten away with a hundred thousand dollars.

"I didn't know there was that much money in town," was Grande's comment on that. While he was asking other questions the telephone rang and someone told the bank president he'd seen Negus and Stacy go into the poolroom. In fact, the robbers' convertible was parked blatantly in front of the place.

Grande, looking as if he'd rather be dog catcher, got back into the taxi.

Joe Negus and Hank Stacy were sitting on opposite sides of a pool table when the police chief got there, dividing the money in three piles. A third man stood by, watching closely. He was Jerry Lynch, a lawyer. He greeted Grande.

"Morning, Vince," he said easily. "Come to shoot a little pool?"

"I'll shoot some bank robbers if they don't hand over that money," Grande said. He had his gun out and looked almost purposeful.

Negus and Stacy made no attempt to go for their guns, Stacy seemed nervous but Negus went on counting the money without looking up.

"Is it your money, Vince?" Jerry Lynch asked.

"You know damn well whose money it is. Now let's have it."

"I'm afraid I couldn't do that," the lawyer said. "In the first place I wouldn't want to, thirty-three and a third per cent of it being mine, and in the second place you have no authority."

"I'm the chief of police," Grande said doggedly. "I don't want to spill any blood—"

"Don't flash your badge at me, Vince," Lynch said. Negus had finished counting the money and the lawyer took one of the piles and put it in various pockets. "I said you had no authority. Bank robbery is a federal offense. Not that I admit there's been a robbery. But if you suspect a crime it's your duty to go to the proper authorities. The FBI would be indicated, if you know where they can be reached."

"Yeah," Joe Negus said. "Go take a flying jump for yourself, Chief."

"Listen, you cheap crook—"

"Hardly cheap, Vince," Lynch said. "And not even a crook, in my professional opinion. Mr. Negus pleads extra-territoriality."

That was the start of Superior's crime wave.

Somebody broke the plate-glass window of George Tocher's dry-goods store and got away with blankets, half a dozen overcoats and several sets of woolen underwear.

A fuel-oil truck disappeared from the street outside of Dabney Brothers' and was found abandoned in the morning. About nine hundred gallons had been drained out—as if someone had filled his cellar tank and a couple of his neighbors'.

The back door of the supermarket was forced and somebody made off with a variety of groceries. The missing goods would have just about filled one car.

Each of these crimes was understandable—Superior's growing food and fuel shortage and icy temperatures had led a few people to desperation.

But there were other incidents. Somebody smashed the window at Kimbrough's Jewelry Store and snatched a display of medium-priced watches.

Half a dozen young vandals sneaked into the Catholic Church and began toppling statues of the saints. When they were surprised by Father Brian they fled, bombarding him with prayer books. One of the books shattered a stained-glass window depicting Christ dispensing loaves and fishes.

Somebody started a fire in the movie-house balcony and nearly caused a panic.

Vincent Grande rushed from place to place, investigating, but rarely learned enough to make an arrest. The situation was becoming unpleasant. Superior had always been a friendly place to live, where everyone knew everyone else, at least to say hello to, but now there was suspicion and fear, not to mention increasing cold and threatened famine.

Everyone was cheered up, therefore, when Mayor Hector Civek announced a mass meeting in Town Square. Bonfires were lit and the reviewing stand that was used for the annual Founders' Day parade was hauled out as a speaker's platform.

Civek was late. The crowd, bundled up against the cold, was stamping their feet and beginning to shout a bit when he arrived. There was a medium-sized cheer as the mayor climbed to the platform.

"Fellow citizens," he began, then stopped to search through his overcoat pockets.

"Well," he went on, "I guess I put the speech in an inside pocket and it's too cold to look for it. I know what it says, anyway."

This brought a few laughs. Don Cort stood near the edge of the crowd and watched the people around him. They mostly had a no-nonsense look about them, as if they were not going to be satisfied with more oratory.

Civek said, "I'm not going to keep you standing in the cold and tell you what you already know—how our food supplies are dwindling, how we're using up our stocks of coal and fuel oil with no immediate hope of replacement—you know all that."

"We sure do, Hector," somebody called out.

"Yes; so, as I say, I'm not going to talk about what the problem is. We don't need words—we need action."

He paused as if he expected a cheer, or applause, but the crowd merely waited for him to go on.

"If Superior had been hit by a flood or a tornado," Civek said, "we could look to the Red Cross and the State or Federal Government for help. But we've been the victims of a far greater misfortune, torn from the bosom of Mother Earth and flung—"

"Oh, come on, Hector," an old woman said. "We're getting