“Yes,” Tim said.
The policeman smiled. “Gotcha!” He took the robed man by the arm. “You have the right to remain silent. If you give up—”
“I know all that crap,” the Warden said. “Look at him! He’s the man who invented the comet!”
“Nobody invents a comet, you idiot,” Tim said. “Officer, do you know where there’s a TV store? I want to see the comet pictures from space.”
“Down that way. Could we have your name and address—”
Tim took out a card and thrust it at the policeman. Then he scurried toward the intersection beyond.
Eileen had an excellent view through the storefront window. She sat with Joe Corrigan and sipped coffee; it was obvious that their architect wasn’t going to get through that traffic jam. They brought over big chrome chairs and the glass coffee table, making a picnic out of watching a lot of angry people.
The cause of it all was diagonally across from them. Twenty or thirty men and women in white robes — not all of them bedsheets — had chained themselves across Alameda from lamppost to telephone pole. They sang hymns. The quality of singing had been pretty good for awhile, but the police soon led away their white-bearded leader, and now they were discordant.
On either side of the human chain an infinite variety of cars were packed like sardines. Old Ford station wagons, for grocery shopping; chauffeured Mercedeses — stars or studio executives; campers, pickup trucks, new Japanese imports, Chevies and Plymouth Dusters, all packed together, and all immobile. A few drivers were still trying to get out, but most had given up. A horde of robed preachers moved through the matrix of cars. They stopped to speak with each driver, and they preached. Some of the drivers were screaming at them. A few listened. One or two even got out and knelt in prayer.
“Some show, eh?” Corrigan said. “Why the hell didn’t they pick some place else?”
“With NBC practically next door? If the comet goes past without smashing anything, they’ll take credit for saving the world. Haven’t we seen a few of those nuts on TV for years?”
Corrigan nodded. “Looks like they hit the big time with this one. Here come the TV cameras.”
The preachers redoubled their efforts when they saw the cameramen. The hymn stopped for a moment, then began again: “Nearer My God to Thee.” The preachers had to talk fast, and sometimes they broke off in midspeech to avoid the police. Blue uniforms chased white robes through the honking cars and screaming drivers.
“A day to remember,” Corrigan said.
“They may just have to pave the whole thing over.”
“Yep.” For a fact that traffic jam was going to be there a long time. Too many cars had been abandoned. He could see more civilians darting among the cars, flowered sports shirts and gray flannel suits among the white robes and blue uniforms. And coveralled drivers. Many were bent on murder. More had locked their cars and gone looking for a coffee shop. The supermarket next door was doing a land-office business in Coors beer. Even so, a fair number were clustered oh the sidewalks, praying.
Two policemen came into the store. Eileen and Corrigan greeted them. Both had regular beats in the neighborhood, and the younger, Eric Larsen, often joined Eileen for coffee at the local Orange Julius. He reminded Eileen of her younger brother.
“Got any bolt cutters?” Investigator Harris was all business. “Big heavy jobs.”
“Think so,” Corrigan said. He lifted a phone and pushed a button. He waited. Nothing happened. “Goddam warehouse crew’s out watching the show. I’ll get them.” He went back through the office.
“No keys?” Eileen asked.
“No.” Larsen smiled at her. “They chucked them before they came here.” Then he shook his head sadly. “If we don’t get those crazies out of here pretty soon, there’ll be a riot. No way to protect them.”
The other cop snorted. “You can tell Joe to take his time for all I care,” he said. “They’re stupid. Sometimes I think the stupid will inherit the Earth.”
“Sure.” Eric Larsen stood at the window watching the Wardens. Idly he whistled “Onward Christian Soldiers” through his teeth.
Eileen giggled. “What are you thinking about, Eric?”
“Huh?” He looked sheepish.
“The Professor’s writing a movie script,” Harris said.
Eric shrugged. “TV. Imagine James Garner marooned out there. He’s looking for a killer. One of the drivers is out to commit murder. He does it, pulls out a sheet and a chain, and we come take him away before Garner can find him…”
“Jesus,” Harris said.
“I thought it was pretty good,” Eileen said. “Who does he kill?”
“Uh, actually, you.”
“Oh.”
“I saw enough pretty girls killed last night to last me twenty years,” Harris muttered. For a moment Eric looked like he’d been rabbit-punched.
Joe Corrigan came back with four pairs of long-handled bolt cutters. The policemen thanked him. Harris scribbled his name and badge number on a receipt, and handed two pairs to Eric Larsen. They carried them out to distribute to the other policemen, and blue uniforms moved along the chain, cutting the white robes free, then chaining them again with handcuffs. They jostled the Wardens toward the sidewalk. Few of the robed ones fought, but a good many went limp.
Corrigan looked up in surprise. “What was… ?”
“Huh?” Eileen looked vaguely around the office.
“I don’t know.” He frowned, trying to remember, but it had been too vague. As if clouds had parted to reveal the sun for a few moments, then closed again. But there were no clouds. It was a bright, cloudless summer day.
It was a nice house, well laid out, with bedrooms sprawling out like an arm, away from the huge central living room. Alim Nassor had always wanted a fireplace. He could imagine parties here, brothers and sisters splashing in the swimming pool, roar of conversation, smell of pot thick enough to get you high all by itself, a van delivering a great cartwheel of a pizza… Someday he would own such a house. He was robbing this one.
Harold and Hannibal were scooping silverware into a sheet. Gay was searching for the safe, in his own peculiar fashion: Stand in the middle of a room, look slowly around… then look behind paintings, or pull up rug… move to another room, stand in the middle and look around, and open closets… until he found the safe sunk in concrete beneath the rug in a hall closet. He pulled the drill out of his case and said, “Plug this in.”
Alim did it. Even he followed orders when the need came. “If we don’t find nothing this time, no more safes,” he ordered.
Gay nodded. They’d opened four safes in four houses and found nothing. It looked like everyone in Bel Air had stashed their jewels in banks or taken them along.
Alim returned to the living room to look through the gauze curtains. It was a bright, cloudless summer day, and dead quiet, with nobody in sight. Half the families had fled to the hills, and the rest of the men were doing whatever they did to have houses like this, and anyone who stayed home must be inside watching TV to see if they’d made a mistake. It was people like this who were afraid of the comet. People like Alim, or Alim’s mother with her job scrubbing floors and her ruined knees, or even the storekeeper he’d shot — people with something real to be afraid of didn’t worry about no damn light in the sky.
So: The street was empty. No sweat, and the pickings were good. Fuck the jewels. There was silver, paintings, TV sets from tiny to tremendous, two or three or four to a house. Under the tarps in the truck bed they had a home computer and a big telescope — strange things, hard to fence — and a dozen typewriters. Generally they’d pick up some guns, too, but not this trip. The guns had gone with the running honkies.