"Don't the people around you undersell you sometimes?"
"Not often, They're in line because they need whatever's being given away, see? They can't afford to lose their places." He grinned at Thomas over the rim of his glass. "You want to come with me tomorrow? The prices should be damn high by then, and if we have two places to sell, we could make enough to buy a fancy dinner somewhere. I'll even dig up a couple of girls to impress. How's that sound?"
To his horror, Thomas felt his face grow hot and realized he was blushing. He covered it by lowering his head and busying himself with his soup. "Sounds good to me," he muttered. "Fine soup, this." Until today the only female humans he'd seen had been a handful of haggard old nuns who did the laundry at the monastery. The prospect of impressing a couple of girls filled him with a kind of excited terror.
"Good!" Spencer hopped up and Gladhand winced to see the young man toss off his brandy in one gulp. "I'll amble over to Evelyn's place then and get the scoop on where the lines will be. See you tomorrow, early."
Thomas nodded and Spencer was gone.
Gladhand sat back in his chair with a long sigh. "Stick by Spencer," he said after a thoughtful pause. "He acts crazy sometimes, but he won't ditch you and he knows this city better than… he knows it very well." He carefully pinched out his cigar with two fingers and put it in his shirt pocket. "Don't go outside by yourself, at least for a while. The police would probably take an interest in someone with a gunshot wound, and there's plenty worse than the police out there. Wait'll you know your way around a bit more." Thomas nodded. "Finish your brandy, now, I don't have all night to spend down here."
Thomas drained the last trickle. "That's nice," he breathed after he'd swallowed it.
"You like that, do you?"
"Yes sir. Hennessey, isn't it?"
Gladhand stared at him. "Yes," he said. "And how is it that you've acquired a taste for Hennessey?"
"The Merignac monastery had a very well-stocked cellar," Thomas explained.
"I see." Gladhand reached down to pick up his crutches. "Just shove your table over there when you finish," he said. "That couch you're sitting on will, I've been assured, turn into a bed if you pull this handle. Whether it does or not, there are blankets and a pillow here. And try to remember to put out the lantern before you turn in."
"Aye aye."
"See you tomorrow." Gladhand levered his body erect, picked up the bottle and clumped out of the room. Thomas listened until he could no longer hear the theater manager's progress, then set to work on the soup.
The bird creature kept pulling itself clear, leaving Thomas with the weary, finger-cramping job of reeling it in still another time. He couldn't remember why he had to catch it, but he knew it was desperately important and becoming more urgent with every passing second. He suspected that the creature's face was changing, but he couldn't be certain since by the time he pulled the thing near enough to look at, he had invariably forgotten what it looked like the time before. It was coming closer again, now, unwillingly, tugging harder than ever. Its face was obscured by the thrashing wings, but after a moment they became transparent and blurred away, and Thomas was able to see clearly.
It was a girl. Her face was as white as Jack cheese and huge, wide as a sail and rippling as if it were under running water. The eyes were empty black holes, and the mouth, which was slowly spreading open, was an infinitely wide window upon a cold universe of vacuum.
Thomas withdrew convulsively, opening his eyes by sheer rejection of sleep. He was trembling and afraid to move, but aware that he was lying on a couch and had been dreaming. After a while he remembered where he was, and the musty smells, the odor of old dust, ceased to bother him. He slept again.
When Spencer shook him awake, the first gray light of dawn was slanting in through ventilation grates set high in the walls.
"Here's some clothes," Spencer said quietly. "Everybody else is still asleep, so don't knock anything over."
Thomas nodded and began groggily to struggle into the jeans, flannel shirt and rope-soled shoes. "I smell coffee," he whispered.
"Yeah, here." Spencer handed him a steaming cup, which he sipped at until he could think clearly. "Not bad," he said.
"I put a little rum in it. Now come on, the police are going to dispense ration numbers today across from Pershing Square. Sequentially, so the early birds get the low numbers."
Thomas stood up and finished the warm coffee in one long gulp. "What's so great about low numbers?"
"Well, the city has only so much credit, see." Spencer fitted a cigarette into the corner of his mouth. "The low numbers are sure to be covered, but a shopkeeper would be real doubtful about accepting a ration ticket if the number was more than, say, 500." He snapped a match alight with his thumbnail, grinned proudly, and waved the flame under the cigarette. "Let's go," he said. "The L.A. Greeter comes out in 20 minutes, and this ration number business is going to be on the front page. In half an hour Pershing Square will look like hell's courtyard on Judgment Day."
The stately old Biltmore Hotel stood aloof over the milling crowds that choked Pershing Square. The mid-morning sun had begun to dry the grass, and many people were sitting, some under little tents made of the blankets they'd been wrapped in when they had arrived, early in the chilly morning.
The people in the first third of the line—on the east side of the square, weren't sitting though; they were on their feet and tense, ready to repel the frequent attacks of desperate latecomers. There had, hours earlier, been a few old and crippled people in the front section of the line, but they had long since been forced out.
"I don't like this," Spencer muttered to Thomas. "I'm afraid we might just have to duck out of here and go home."
"Why?" Thomas was astonished. "We're numbers 56 and 57, for God's sake! And we've had to fight people off to keep these places."
"Shh. That's just it. They're trying to take our places instead of buy them. I'm afraid if we offer to sell out we'll be killed in the… ensuing stampede." He lit a cigarette, puffed on it once, and flung it to the ground. "Look at that crowd back there. I know they're going to rush us again."
Thomas looked back nervously. Many of the people on the grass were standing now, and eyeing the front of the line. "Yeah," he agreed. "And a lot of them have sticks."
A high-pitched screech grated out of the loudspeakers mounted on the stucco walls of the Welfare Dispensation Building, followed by a voice made tinny by amplification: "Midmorning news. Although Mayor Pelias has not yet recovered from the stroke he suffered a little more than 48 hours ago, his physicians are optimistic about his chances of a full recovery. The search for the would-be assassins who planted bombs in his chambers is continuing around the clock, and police chief Tabasco is confident that the… malfeasants will be apprehended within 24 hours." The speakers clicked off with a snap that echoed across the square.
"The guy's name is Tabasco?" Thomas asked, incredulous.
"What?" Spencer turned to him impatiently. "Yes. Tabasco. A lot of times androids are named after different kinds of food and drink. From the old days, when they tried to breed 'em for food. Shut up, now, this is looking bad."
A large group of men was walking toward the front of the line in a leisurely fashion. They all carried sticks, and Thomas remembered the android he'd seen beaten yesterday. "Let's get out of here," he whispered to Spencer. The other people in line shifted uncertainly and began picking up rocks.
Spencer nodded tensely. "In a second," he said. "… now." He grabbed Thomas's arm and bolted out of the line, running toward the south side of the square. The men with sticks took that as a signal and charged; immediately the air was rent by yells and the defenders of the line sent a hail of rocks into the ranks of the attackers. Nearly everyone in the square began to run toward the fighting, hoping to improve their positions in the churning mob that could no longer be called a line.