"I was coming to that," said Higgy. "I know exactly what your situation is. And the situations of a lot of other men. There isn't enough work in a little town like this for everyone who lives here, so a great many of our residents have work outside of town. And I know a lot of you haven't too much money and that you need your pay cheques. We hope this thing clears up soon enough that you can go back and your jobs will still be there."
"But let me tell you this. Let me make a promise. If it doesn't clear up, there aren't any of you going to go hungry. There aren't any of you who are going to be turned out of your homes because you can't make your payments or can't manage to scrape the rent together. There won't nothing happen to you. A lot of people are going to be without jobs because of what has happened, but you'll be taken care of, every one of you. I am going to name a committee that will talk with the merchants and the bank and we'll arrange for a line of credit that will see you through. Anyone who needs a loan or credit can be sure of getting it." Higgy looked down at Daniel Willoughby, who was standing a step or two below him.
"Ain't that right, Dan?" he demanded.
"Yes," said the banker. "Yes. Sure, it's quite all right. We'll do everything we can." But he didn't like it. You could see he didn't. It hurt him to say it was all right. Daniel liked security, good security, for each dollar he put out.
"It's too early yet," said Higgy, "to know what has happened to us. By tonight maybe we'll know a whole lot more about it. The main thing is to keep calm and not start going off half- cocked.
"I can't pretend to know what is going to happen. If this barrier stays in place, there'll be some difficulties. But as it stands right now, it's not entirely bad. Up until an hour or so ago, we were just a little village that wasn't too well known. There wasn't, I suppose, much reason that we should have been well known. But now we're getting publicity over the entire world. We're in the newspapers and on the radio and TV. I'd like Joe Evans to come up here and tell you all about it." He looked around and spotted Joe in the crowd.
"You folks," he said, "make way, won't you, so Joe can come up here." The editor climbed the steps and turned around to face the crowd.
"There isn't much to tell so far," he said. "I've had calls from most of the wire services and from several newspapers. They all wanted to know what was going on. I told them what I could, but it wasn't much. One of the TV stations over in Elmore is sending a mobile camera unit. The phone was still ringing when I left the house and I suppose there are calls coming into the office, too.
"I think we can expect that the news media will pay a lot of attention to the situation here and there's no question in my mind that the state and federal governments will take a hand in it, and if I understand it rightly, more than likely the scientific community will have a considerable interest, as well."
The man who had the highway job spoke up again. "Joe, you think them science fellows can get it figured out?"
"I don't know," said Joe.
Hiram Martin had pushed his way through the crowd and was crossing the street. He had a purposeful look about hint and I wondered what he could be up to. Someone else was asking a question, but the sight of Hiram had distracted me and I lost the gist of it.
"Brad," said someone at my elbow.
I looked around.
Hiram was standing there. The trucker, I saw, had left.
"Yes," I said. "What is it?"
"If you got the time," said Hiram. "I'd like to talk with you."
"Go ahead," I said. "I have the time." He jerked his head toward the village hall.
"All right," I said.
I opened the door and got out.
"I'll wait for you," said Nancy.
Hiram moved off around the crowd, flanking it, heading for the side door of the hail. I followed close behind him.
But I didn't like it.
9
Hiram's office was a little cubbyhole just off the stall where the fire engine and ladder rig were housed. There was barely room in it for two chairs and a desk. On the wall above the desk hung a large and garish calendar with a naked woman on it.
And on the desk stood one of the dialless telephones.
Hiram gestured at it. "What is that?" he asked.
"It's a telephone," I said. "Since when did you get so important that you have two phones?"
"Take another look," he said.
"It's still a telephone," I said.
"A closer look," he told me.
"It's a crazy looking thing. It hasn't any dial."
"Anything else?"
"No, I guess not. It just doesn't have a dial."
"And," said Hiram, "it has no connection cord."
"I hadn't noticed that."
"That's funny," Hiram said.
"Why funny?" I demanded. "What the hell is going on? You didn't get me in here just to show me a phone."
"It's funny," Hiram said, "because it was in your office."
"It couldn't be. Ed Adler came in yesterday and took out my phone. For non-payment of my bill."
"Sit down, Brad," he said.
I sat down and he sat down facing me. His face was still pleasant enough, but there was that odd glitter in his eyes — the glitter that in the olden days I'd seen too often in his eyes when he'd cornered me and knew he had me cornered and was about to force me to fight him, in the course of which endeavour he would beat the living Jesus out of me.
"You never saw this phone?" he asked.
I shook my head. "When I left the office yesterday I had no telephone. Not this one or any other."
"That's strange," he said.
"As strange to me as to you," I told him. "I don't know what you're getting at. Suppose you try to tell me." I knew the lying in the long run would not get me anywhere, but for the moment it was buying me some time. I was pretty sure that right now he couldn't tie me to the telephone.
"All right," he said, "I'll tell you. Tom Preston was the man who saw it. He'd sent Ed to take out your phone, and later in the afternoon he was walking past your office and he happened to look in and saw the phone standing on your desk. It made him pretty sore. You can see how it might have made him sore."
"Yes," I said. "Knowing Tom, I presume he would be sore."
"He'd sent Ed out to get that phone and the first thing he thought of was that you'd talked Ed out of taking it. Or maybe Ed had just sort of failed to drop around and get it. He knew you and Ed were friends."
"I suppose, he was so sore that he broke in and took it."
"No," said Hiram, "he never did break in. He went down to the bank and talked Daniel Willoughby into giving him the key."
"Without considering," I said, "that I was renting the office."
"But you hadn't paid your rent for three solid months. If you ask me, I'd figure Daniel had the right."
"In my book," I told him, "Tom and Daniel broke into my place and robbed me."
"I told you. They didn't do any breaking. And Daniel had no part in it. Except giving Tom the extra key. Tom went back alone. Besides, you say you'd never seen this phone, that you never owned it."
"That's beside the point. No matter what was in my office, he had no right to take it. Whether it was mine or not. How do I know he didn't walk away with some other stuff?"
"You know damn well he didn't," Hiram told me. "You said you wanted to hear about this."
"So go ahead and tell me."