Perhaps it was a trap. But Raeder knew that he had to depend upon the generosity and good-heartedness of the people. He was their representative, a projection of themselves, an average guy in trouble. Without them, he was lost. With them, nothing could harm him.
Trust in the people, Mike Terry had told him. They’ll never let you down.
He followed the woman into her parlor. She told him to sit down and left the room, returning almost immediately with a plate of stew. She stood watching him while he ate, as one would watch an ape in the zoo eat peanuts.
Two children came out of the kitchen and stared at him. Three overalled men came out of the bedroom and focused a television camera on him. There was a big television set in the parlor. As he gulped his food, Raeder watched the image of Mike Terry and listened to the man’s strong, sincere, worried voice.
“There he is, folks,” Terry was saying. “There’s Jim Raeder now, eating his first square meal in two days. Our camera crews have really been working to cover this for you! Thanks, boys… Folks, Jim Raeder has been given a brief sanctuary by Mrs. Velma O’Dell, of three forty-three Sixty-Third Street. Thank you, Good Samaritan O’Dell! It’s really wonderful how people from all walks of life have taken Jim Raeder to their hearts!”
“You better hurry,” Mrs. O’Dell said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Raeder said.
“I don’t want no gunplay in my apartment.”
“I’m almost finished, ma’am.”
One of the children asked, “Aren’t they going to kill him?”
“Shut up,” said Mrs. O’Dell.
“Yes, Jim,” chanted Mike Terry. “You’d better hurry. Your killers aren’t far behind. They aren’t stupid men, Jim. Vicious, warped, insane-yes! But not stupid. They’re following a trail of blood-blood from your torn hand, Jim!”
Raeder hadn’t realized until now that he’d cut his hand on the windowsill.
“Here, I’ll bandage that,” Mrs. O’Dell said. Raeder stood up and let her bandage his hand. Then she gave him a brown jacket and a gray slouch hat.
“My husband’s stuff,” she said.
“He has a disguise, folks!” Mike Terry cried delightedly. “This is something new! A disguise! With seven hours to go until he’s safe!”
“Now get out of here,” Mrs. O’Dell said.
“I’m going, ma’am,” Raeder said. “Thanks.”
“I think you’re stupid,” she said. “I think you’re stupid to be involved in this.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“It just isn’t worth it.”
Raeder thanked her and left. He walked to Broadway, caught a subway to 59th Street, then an uptown local to 86th. There he bought a newspaper and changed for the Manhasset through-express.
He glanced at his watch. He had six and a half hours to go.
THE subway roared under Manhattan. Raeder dozed, his bandaged hand concealed under the newspaper, the hat pulled over his face. Had he been recognized yet? Had he shaken the Thompson gang? Or was someone telephoning them now?
Dreamily he wondered if he had escaped death, or was he still a cleverly animated corpse, moving around because of death’s inefficiency? (My dear, death is so laggard these days! Jim Raeder walked about for hours after he died and actually answered people’s questions before he could be decently buried!)
Raeder’s eyes snapped open. He had dreamed something… unpleasant. He couldn’t remember what.
He closed his eyes again and remembered, with mild astonishment, a time when he had been in no trouble.
That was two years ago. He had been a big, pleasant young man working as a truck driver’s helper. He had no talents. He was too modest to have dreams.
The tight-faced little truck driver had the dreams for him. “Why not try for a television show, Jim? I would if I had your looks. They like nice, average guys with nothing much on the ball. As contestants. Everybody likes guys like that. Why not look into it?”
So he had looked into it. The owner of the local television store had explained it further.
“You see, Jim, the public is sick of highly trained athletes with their trick reflexes and their professional courage. Who can feel for guys like that? Who can identify? People want to watch exciting things, sure, but not when some joker is making it his business for fifty thousand a year. That’s why organized sports are in a slump. That’s why the thrill shows are booming.”
“I see,” said Raeder.
“Six years ago, Jim, Congress passed the Voluntary Suicide Act. Those old senators talked a lot about free will and self-determinism at the time. But that’s all crap. You know what the Act really means? It means the amateurs can risk their lives for the big loot, not just professionals. In the old days you had to be a professional boxer or footballer or hockey player if you wanted your brains beaten out legally for money. But now that opportunity is open to ordinary people like you, Jim.”
“I see,” Raeder said again.
“It’s a marvelous opportunity. Take you. You’re no better than anyone, Jim. Anything you can do, anyone can do. You’re average. I think the thrill shows would go for you.”
Raeder permitted himself to dream. Television shows looked like a sure road to riches for a pleasant young fellow with no particular talent or training. He wrote a letter to a show called Hazard and enclosed a photograph of himself.
Hazard was interested in him. The JBC network investigated, and found that he was average enough to satisfy the wariest viewer. His parentage and affiliations were checked. At last he was summoned to New York and interviewed by Mr. Moulain.
Moulain was dark and intense, and chewed gum as he talked. “You’ll do,” he snapped. “But not for Hazard. You’ll appear on Spills. It’s a half-hour daytime show on Channel Three.”
“Gee,” said Raeder.
“Don’t thank me. There’s a thousand dollars if you win or place second, and a consolation prize of a hundred dollars if you lose. But that’s not important.”
“No, sir.”
“Spills is a little show. The JBC network uses it as a testing ground. First and second-place winners on Spills move on to Emergency. The prizes are much bigger on Emergency.”
“I know they are, sir.”
“And if you do well on Emergency, there are the first-class thrill shows, like Hazard and Underwater Perils, with their nationwide coverage and enormous prizes. And then comes the really big time. How far you go is up to you.”
“I’ll do my best, sir,” Raeder said.
Moulain stopped chewing gum for a moment and said, almost reverently, “You can do it, Jim. Just remember. You’re the people, and the people can do anything.”
The way he said it made Raeder feel momentarily sorry for Mr. Moulain, who was dark and frizzy-haired and pop-eyed, and was obviously not the people.
They shook hands. Then Raeder signed a paper absolving the JBC of all responsibility should he lose his life, limbs, or reason during the contest. And he signed another paper exercising his rights under the Voluntary Suicide Act. The law required this, and it was a mere formality.
In three weeks, he appeared on Spills.
The program followed the classic form of the automobile race. Untrained drivers climbed into powerful American and European competition cars and raced over a murderous twenty-mile course. Raeder was shaking with fear as he slid his big Maserati into the wrong gear and took off.
The race was a screaming, tire-burning nightmare. Raeder stayed back, letting the early leaders smash themselves up on the counterbanked hairpin turns. He crept into third place when a Jaguar in front of him swerved against an Alfa-Romeo and the two cars roared into a plowed field. Raeder gunned for second place on the last three miles, but couldn’t find passing room. An S-curve almost took him, but he fought the car back on the road, still holding third. Then the lead driver broke a crankshaft in the final fifty yards, and Jim ended in second place.