“They’ve actually sent people to prison for this?”
“Dozens of them, for terms up to five years. It’s not worth taking the chance, Gregory.”
“No, indeed,” he agreed. “I’ll catch the next plane out of here.”
“It might not be that easy,” Lola cautioned. “They watch the airports — they have electronic surveillance systems of all sorts. Your photograph is already stored in the memory bank.”
He turned to Browder. “Any suggestions?”
“Drive your rented car out of the state. To Las Vegas, maybe. Then get a plane from there.”
“They don’t watch the highways?”
“Only for people moving out of the state — furniture vans, things like that. You’d be safe, especially if Lola traveled with you.”
“Then that’s it,” Gregory decided.
An hour later they were headed out of Los Angeles in the little electric car.
“I know so little about you,” she said, once the car had cleared the city limits.
“There’s not much to know. I’m just a man who cried earthquake and got arrested for it.”
“I mean — well, are you. married?”
“I was once.” He gazed out at the passing landscape of cactus, thinking how little it had changed in the past hundred years. Civilization had not yet reached the back roads of eastern California. “But that was a long time ago.”
“You don’t like to talk about it.”
“Does anyone like to talk about failures?” He was silent for a time, then said, “You’re taking a chance traveling with me. If we’re caught you could end up in prison, too.”
“You’d never find your way alone on these back roads. Either you’d get lost or one of the copter patrol would spot you.”
“Copter patrol?”
She pointed to the sky. “There’s one now. They watch mainly for trucks and vans heading out of the state, but they could make trouble if they spotted you.”
The copter, painted gold, dipped low, catching the sun, as it came in for a closer look. Apparently it saw nothing amiss, for it headed away again at once. “How far to the state line?” he asked.
“Less than an hour.” Like all Californians, she gave distances in time rather than miles.
“You’re sure there’ll be no roadblocks?”
“Not on these back roads. And once you’re across it’ll be difficult for them to put their hands on you. Most states won’t grant extradition for crimes committed under the California Enabling Act.”
Some 45 minutes later, as they topped a rise of desert land, he saw the first billboard. “Settle here!” it proclaimed. “Free from earthquake danger!”
“That’s it,” Lola said, giving a little sigh. “We’re across the line — in Nevada now.”
“Will you be going back to California after you drop me in Vegas?”
She turned in her seat, looking at him, “You know something? I’m scared of those damned earthquakes, too. I was always afraid to admit it till now, but since I’m safely out of that place I don’t think I’ll be hurrying back.”
“Come east with me,” he j said.
“I’ve never been east.”
“All the more reason for you to go.”
“Could you get me a job at the home office?”
He considered that for a moment. “There’s too much of my past scattered around Chicago. Besides, they might just come looking for me for jumping bail. Maybe the company doesn’t think I’m worth five thousand.”
“Where, then?”
“Farther east — New York.”
“With all those people?”
“It’s not so bad. A lot of it is California propaganda.”
They passed more billboards and presently the gleaming towers of Las Vegas came into view, like some mythic kingdom in the desert. “All right,” she said finally. “I’ll go east with you.”
He took one hand off the steering wheel and touched her, lightly. “I’m glad.”
They turned in the rented car at the Vegas airport, even though he knew it would indicate the direction of his flight. He was not a criminal, and had not yet learned to act like one. He was merely a man in flight, with no reason for covering his tracks.
On the plane east they held hands like teenagers of some era of long ago, and he told her what he remembered of the crowded streets of Manhattan. “There are people, sure, and sometimes it’s difficult to stay on the sidewalk, but it’s all worth it. The last time I was there, New York really got to me. The smallest event brings out thousands of people. It’s a people’s town — people everywhere!”
“And they all drive cars.”
“Little electrics, smaller than in California. Traffic is still bad, though, I’ll admit that. With so many people in the New York area there are times when nothing moves.”
It was night when they landed at Kennedy International Airport, and close to midnight by the time they took the express subway into Manhattan. Lola was hungry, so they had something to eat in the hotel coffee shop before going up to their rooms.
“Tomorrow we’ll look for an apartment, and jobs,” he said.
“It’s good to be here with you.”
“Even with all the people?”
“Even with all the people. That other, in California — it seems like a nightmare now.”
“It does, in a way,” he agreed. “We’ve gone back a long way in this country when words can be so dangerous they have to be banned. And it’s no longer the obscenities that frighten people, but a simple word like earthquake. I feel like standing up and shouting it here. Earthquake! Earthquake!”
She took his hand. “You know, I think I could learn to love you.”
He was touched by her gentleness. “I guess I already do love you.”
Later, after they’d finished eating, they left the coffee shop and headed across the lobby to the elevators. Gregory saw the two men first, waiting for them, and he was reminded of Vitroll and the others in California.
“Lola, those men!”
“What?”
But then it was too late to run. “Sorry, sir, I’ll have to ask you and the lady to accompany us.”
“Not her,” Gregory said. “I’m the one you want.”
“It’s both of you we want.”
Lola tried to move away, but the second man seized her arm. “Will you take us back to California?” she asked, and her voice was close to a sob.
The first man frowned. “We don’t know anything about California. Here’s my identification. George Bates of the Population Control Board, New York City Police.”
“New York? But we—”
“You were overheard using a certain word that is not in keeping with the laws of this city. A word that could be harmful, or lead to harmful acts.”
“What word?” Gregory demanded, feeling his heart sink.
The man named Bates consulted a notebook. “I believe the word was... love.”
Criminalimerick
Christie Capsule
by D. R. Bensen{© 1972 by D. R. Bensen.}
The heiress has vanished away;
A white-haired old dame comes to stay.
Suspects are pumped,
But everyone’s stumped
Till Poirot pulls her wig off — hooray!
A Certain Gift
by Charles Blessing{© 1972 by Charles Blessing.}
This is the 368th “first story” to be published by Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine... a moving little tale about a runaway boy...