He had never forgotten it, but he admitted that sometimes he had allowed it to slip out of his mind for a while. This latest while seemed to have lasted quite a few years. Only C.S.B. had brought it back in his recollection.
Because that was the question, the President thought, sipping his tinted soda water. What was the use of C.S.B.? What was the use of any kind of shelters, be they deep as damn-all, if all you had to come out of them to was a burned-out Sahara?
IV
Now that the simulated raid was over everybody was resuming their interrupted errands at once. Denzer was crammed in any-which-way with Maggie Frome wedged under an arm and that kook from the Institute-Venezuela?-gabbling in his ear about computer studies and myelin sheaths.
The elevator jollied them all along. “Don’t forget tomorrow, folks. Be a lot of grandmother’s buried tomorrow, eh?” It could not wink, but it giggled and, well, nudged them. Or at least it shook them. It was overloaded with the crowds from the shelter floors, and its compensators flagged, dropping it an inch below the sill of the lobby door, then lifting it. “Sorry, folks,” it apologized. “Good night, all!”
Denzer grabbed Maggie’s arm. The laboratory man called after him, but he only nodded and tugged the girl away through the crowds, which were mumbling to each other: “Foxy Framish . . . slip ‘em a couple thousand nookyoular ... caught off first... oh, hell.” The “oh, hells” became general as they reached the main lobby outside of the elevator bays.
Civilian Air Wardens formed chains across the exits. Like fish weirs they chuted the exiting civilians into lines and passed each line through a checkpoint.
“Denzer,” groaned Maggie, “I’m cooked. I never wear my dosimeter badge with this old green dress.”
The wardens were checking every person for his compulsory air-raid equipment. Denzer swore handily, then brightened. They did have their press cards; this was official business. Aztec Wine of Coca was a powerful name in industry, and didn’t they have a right to take care of its affairs even if they overlooked a few formalities that nobody really took very seriously anyway? He said confidently: “Bet I get us out of it, Maggie. Watch this.” And he led her forcefully to the nearest warden. “You, there. Important morale business; here’s my card. I’m Denzer of Nature’s Way. This’s my assistant, Frome. I-“
Briskly the warden nodded. “Yes, sir, Mr. Denzer. Just come this way.” He led them through the purse-seine of wardens, out of the building, into-why, Denzer saw, outraged, into a police cab.
“You fixed us fine, Denzer,” gloomed Maggie at his side as they got in. He didn’t have the spirit to listen to her.
The roundup had bagged nearly fifty hardened criminals, like Denzer and Maggie, caught flagrantly naked of dosimeters and next-of-kin tags. They were a surly lot. Even the C.S.B. adherents among them belligerently protested their treatment; the sneak-punchers were incandescent about the whole thing. Office girls, executives, errand boys, even one hangdog A.R.P. guard himself; they were a motley assortment. The research man, Valendora, was among them, and so was the girl from the Institute’s reception room. Valendora saw Denzer and slipped through the crowd toward him, holding a manila envelope as though it contained diphtheria vaccine and he was the first man to arrive at the scene of an epidemic. “Mr. Denzer,” he said darkly, “I ask you to assist me. Eleven months of my tune and twenty-two computer hours! And this is the only copy. Statist. Analysis Trans. expects this by tomorrow at the latest, and-“
Denzer hardly heard. Statist. Analysis Trans. was not the only periodical expecting something from one of the fish in this net. With an inner ear Denzer was listening to what his Front Office would say. He was, he saw clearly, about to miss a deadline. Seven million paid-up subscribers would be complaining to the Front Office when their copies were late, and Denzer knew all too well who Front Office would complain to about that. He whimpered faintly and reached for an amphetamine tablet, but an A.R.P. cop caught his arm. “Watch it, Mac,” said the cop, not unkindly. “No getting rid of evidence there. You got to turn all that stuff in.”
Denzer had never been arrested before. He was in a semi-daze while they were waiting to be booked. Ahead of him in line a minor squabble arose-Valendora seemed to be clashing with a plump young fellow in a collegiate crew-cut-but Denzer was paying little attention as he numbly emptied his pockets and put all his possessions on the desk to be locked away for him.
It was not until Maggie Frome repeated his name for the fifth time that he realized she was talking to him. She indicated a lanky, homely woman talking into an autonoter, seemingly on terms of amiable mutual contempt with the police.
“Denzer,” Maggie hissed urgently, “that girl over there. The reporter. Name’s Sue-Mary Gribb, and I know her. Used to work with her on the Herald.”
“That’s nice. Say, Maggie,” he moaned, “what the devil are we going to do about the Aztec Wine of Coca piece? The Front Office’ll have our heads.”
“What I’m trying to tell you, Denzer! Give her the lab report. She’ll take it in for us!”
The sun rose in pink glory for Arturo Denzer.
Half blinded by the radiance of sudden, unexpected hope, he staggered back to the desk. Valendora and the plump youth were still at it, but he pushed past them, picked up the Nature’s Way National Impartial Research Foundation envelope and clawed his way back to Maggie. “Pencil!” he snapped. She produced one and Denzer scribbled a note to Joe, in Production:
Joe, we’re in a jam. Fix this up for us somehow. Run it pp 34-35, push it through soonest, I’ve already got all okays so just jam it in. God bless you. If Front Office asks where I am I’m dead.
He thought of adding, “Will explain later,” but he wasn’t so very sure he could. He thought of kissing Sue-Mary Gribb; but she was another Female Integrationist, wearing slacks, carrying a corncob pipe; he only shook her hand briskly and watched her leave.
It was not until she was out the door that he realized why she had been there in the first place.
She was a reporter, gathering names. It was customary to run a list of A.R.P. violators in the newspapers. It was inevitable that someone who worked for Natures Way would see his and Maggie’s names on that list; and it was beyond hope that that someone would fail to show it to the Front Office.
With the help of Sue-Mary Gribb he might have made his deadline, but his troubles were not over. Front Office was solid C.S.B.
“Maggie,” he said faintly, “when you left the Herald, did you part friends? I mean, do you think they might give us a job?”