Jakov made a final remark in Russian and turned away in disgust. Rick Delanty shook his head in sympathy. What had got into her?
They were quiet and formally polite until she went into the Soyuz. Baker and Delanty exchanged looks. They didn’t need to say more. Johnny Baker went to the corner where Jakov had busied himself. “Need to get something straight,” Johnny said.
“Yes?”
“You’re not going to get her in trouble, are you? I mean, there’s no need to report everything that gets said up here.”
“Of course not,” Jakov agreed. He shrugged. “We are all men of the world. We know that every twenty-eight days women become irrational. What married man does not know?”
“Yeah, that must be it,” Johnny Baker said, and exchanged another glance with Delanty.
“And of course the State has been her parent,” Jakov said. “Her father and mother died when she was young. It is not surprising that she would like to see our country more advanced than it is.”
’’Sure.’’ Sure, Rick Delanty thought. Bullshit. If she had problems with her period she’d have told the Russian groundcontrol people and somebody else would have been sent up. Wouldn’t she? I’d have told them about space sickness if I’d known I was going to get it. I’m sure I would have…
Whatever her problem, it would be wise to treat Leonilla Malik diffidently during the next day or so. Hell. And Hamner-Brown was so close!
Barry Price laid down the telephone and looked up with excitement. Dolores had just come in with coffee. “Guess what happens next Tuesday!” he shouted in glee.
“A comet hits the Earth.”
“Huh? NO, no, this is serious. We go on line! I’ve got all the permissions, the last court suit was dismissed — San Joaquin Nuclear Plant becomes a fully operational facility.”
She didn’t look as happy as he’d thought she would. “I suppose there’ll be some kind of ceremony?” she asked.
“No, we keep a low profile — why?”
“Because I won’t be here. Not unless you absolutely need me.”
He frowned. “I always absolutely need you—”
“Better get used to it,” she said. She patted her stomach. There was no sign of a bulge, but he knew. “Anyway, I’m going to see Dr. Stone in Los Angeles. Thought I’d stay over and visit Mother, and come back Tuesday night.”
“Sure. Dee?”
“Yes?”
“You want to keep this baby, don’t you?”
“Yes. I’m going to.”
“Then marry me.”
“No, thanks. We’ve both tried that before.”
“Not with each other,” he said. He tried to sound convincing, but secretly was relieved. And yet… “Is it fair to the kid? Not having a father…”
She giggled. “Not being parthenogenetic, I’m relatively certain he has one. And I’ve a good idea who he is.”
“Oh, dammit, you know what I mean.”
“Sure.” She put his coffee down on the desk and opened his calendar. “You have lunch with the Lieutenant Governor. Don’t forget.”
“That moron. If there was anything that would get me out of my euphoric mood, you’ve just said it. But I’ll be nice. You can’t believe how nice I’ll be.”
“Good.” She turned to leave.
“Hey,” he called, stopping her. “Look, let’s talk about it. When you get back from Los Angeles. I mean, it’s my kid too…”
“Sure.” Then she was gone.
“Hey, baby, that Hammer’s gonna waste this town.”
“Bull-fucking-shit,” Alim Nassor said, and he smiled. “We’re gonna do the wasting.” He’d heard all the talk about what the comet was going to do. The preachers in their storefronts were getting big crowds, pulling in lots of bread. End of the world coming, make your peace with Sweet Jesus, and give money…
More power to them. One thing that comet was doing — it was sucking the honkies right out of their houses. Alim’s cruises through Brentwood and Bel Air turned up lots of houses with milk bottles and old newspapers on the porches. He went through in an old pickup truck, lawn mowers and garden tools piled in back. Who’d look twice at black gardeners? So when they stopped to collect the papers and milk cartons nobody noticed. And now he had the addresses, and they’d cleaned up so nobody else would come try a ripoff…
They’d go through Bel Air and Brentwood like a mowing machine. Alim Nassor had set it up with half a dozen burglary outfits, with men who weren’t so good at taking orders, but knew a good thing when they saw it. A Hammer of God didn’t come twice in a man’s lifetime.
Some of these places had to be setups. Pigs on stakeout. There were ways to take care of that little problem, too. It only took planning. They even mowed some yards. Did good work and that way they could watch the whole block, see people piling stuff into trailers and taking off. Bel Air was half deserted. It was going to be easy pickings tonight! And afterward… maybe the political game could be played again. A lot of brothers would have bread, for awhile.
Still… there were so many honkies moving out. Rich honkies, people who knew things. Down at City Hall everybody was nervous, too. Maybe that thing could really hit?
Alim had gone through the newspapers and magazines. He could read pretty well. A little slow, but he could puzzle it out, and some of the drawings made it all clear. You didn’t want to be on low ground. Waves a thousand feet high! The cat who drew them had some imagination. He showed the L.A. City Hall part underwater, the tower rising out of the flood, and the County Administration and the Courthouse with their roofs just sticking up. All them pigs dead, wouldn’t that be something? But he sure didn’t want to be here when that happened.
Maybe it wouldn’t, and all the honkies would come home. “Won’t they be surprised,” Alim murmured.
“Huh?”
“The honkies. Won’t they be surprised when they get home?”
“Yeah. Why just these places? If we hit just the richest houses in a lot bigger territory, we—”
“Shut up.”
“Sure.”
“I want us close to each other. If one of these places turns out to be full of pigs, we can call for help on the CB.”
“Okay, sure.”
Hammer of God. What if it was real? Where could they go? Not south, that was for sure. Politicians could talk about black-brown unity, but that was jive. Chicanos didn’t like blacks, blacks hated chicanos. There were clubs where you had to kill a black to join down there in chicano turf, and they were tough mothers, and the further south you went the more there were.
“We take guns tonight,” he said. “We take all the guns.”
Harold flinched, and the truck swerved a little. “You think we’ll get trouble?”
“I just want to be ready,” Alim said. And if that fucking comet… Better to have guns and bullets, tonight and tomorrow. And take some food. He’d stash it himself, so as not to upset the brothers.
At least they’d be high up, if it came.
Patrolman Eric Larsen had come to Los Angeles from Topeka with a university degree in English and an urgent impulse to write for television and the movies. The need to support himself and a chance opportunity led him to the Burbank Police Department. He told himself it would be valuable experience. Look what Joseph Wambaugh had managed from a police career! And Eric could write; at least, he had a degree that said he could.
Three years later he still hadn’t sold a script, but he had confidence, strange tales to tell and a considerably better understanding of both human nature and the entertainment industry. He’d also done a lot of growing up. He’d lived with a woman, been engaged twice and got over his inability to have casual friendships with girls, even though he hadn’t lost a strong tendency to idealize women. It hurt Eric to see young runaways exploited by the street people. He kept thinking of what they might have become.