Vee could hear what they were saying, but she continued to rock Sally in her arms, smoothing her forehead to calm her down, and singing to her.
Her voice was drowned by a tumult of shrieking and banging. Carl laid aside his uneaten food, and said, ‘Mike’s going to need some help. For God’s sake, look, there must be a thousand of them out there.’
The hammering grew louder and even more determined. One of the chromed steel bars that Tony had slid through the door-handles to keep the mobs from breaking in was actually bending now, and the door was half-torn off its hinges. The reinforced glass had held together, even though it had been crushed into a wired-together slush; but now the sheer weight of hysterical people outside of the supermarket was beginning to tell. One blood-smeared hand appeared through the opaque glass like the hand that had reached out of the lake for Excalibur, disembodied, groping blindly, unable to pull itself back because of all the furious people behind.
Sally sat up. She was pale, alarmed, with dark circles under her eyes. Vee stopped singing now, and looked across at Season with an expression that conveyed all the fright that a sister and a woman could feel. The noise of screeching people and shaking doors was so loud that when Vee said something. Season could only see her lips move, and indistinctly hear the word ‘… please.’
Mike Bull came across, walking with unusual speed and economy. He leaned over Season and said as quietly as he could, ‘I thought we could starve them away. But it doesn’t look like we’ve succeeded. We can’t hold them off for a whole lot longer.’
Season gave a wobbly smile. ‘You’ve done your best,’ she told him.
Vee said, ‘What are we going to do now? You saw what they did to Granger.’
Mike cleared his throat, looking from Vee to Season and then to Carl. ‘You’ve got that .38 of yours, don’t you, Carl? With one shell?’
Carl nodded, His face was lined, and as white as typing paper.
‘Well, then,’ said Mike, ‘I suggest you use it on…’ and he inclined his head towards Sally. ‘Back of the head, she won’t even know.’
Season felt as if it were totally impossible to breathe. The noise outside the supermarket was hideous, and yet inside her head was nothing but silence and coldness and disbelief. Back of the head, she won’t even know. Where that fine blonde hair is parted into plaits, where I’ve caressed her so often as she dreamed herself to sleep. And she won’t even see her father again.
Mike could sense what Season was thinking. But he muttered, ‘It’s the kindest way, you know. That mob’s out of their skulls. It’s going to be rape, torture, you name it.’ Carl cleared his throat, strangely formal. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘thanks for the hamburger helper, if nothing else.’
Mike tried to smile, but he couldn’t. All he could say was, ‘Good luck, people. I mean it,’ before he went off to warn the others.
Sally said, with as much childish dignity as she could, ‘Mommy? Mommy, I’m frightened.’
Season reached out and touched her cheek. ‘Yes, baby,’ she said. ‘We all are.’
They had seen the fires and the crowds from ten blocks away. Ed had ordered the convoy to draw up on the wide triangular piece of rough ground by La Brea Avenue, and now they were sitting in their wagons while gunfire popped and echoed through the night, and people rushed and ran and stumbled past them on their way to Highland. The word must have gotten around that the Hughes supermarket was on the brink of collapse, and that there was going to be plenty of food to be looted.
‘Do you think we’re too late?’ asked Karen, from the back. ‘My God, just look at them. They’re like crazy people.’
‘They’re hungry, that’s why,’ said Peter. ‘Hunger always makes people crazy. Whether it’s for food, or sex, or money.’
‘My wife and daughter are in there,’ said Ed, flatly.
‘We know,’ replied Shearson. ‘And don’t think for a moment that we’re going to leave them to the distinctly untender mercies of this mob. We’re going to think of something. Do something. Your wife and daughter must be saved.’
‘As well as a year’s supply of food,’ put in Della, sharply.
‘What’s wrong with wanting to rescue the food?’ Shearson protested, angrily. ‘Don’t you understand, you stupid woman? Didn’t you hear what that hobo character said? A year’s supply of canned food could buy you anything you could conceivably dream of. That’s edible gold in there. In fact, it’s better than gold. It’s even better than heroin. Only a limited number of addicts crave for heroin. But everybody craves for food. Give them what they want, and in a few hours, they’re begging you for more. Don’t you understand what power that food in that supermarket could give us?’
‘Christ, you make me heave,’ said Ed. ‘Della – there’s little enough law and order in this country as it is – why don’t you elect yourself judge and executioner and blow the senator’s fat head off?’
A running looter collided blindly with their wagon, but carried on his way, waving a long kitchen knife.
‘I couldn’t execute the senator,’ smiled Della. ‘The senator is running absolutely true to character, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s fine.’
‘Fine? What do you mean, fine? Didn’t you hear him?’
‘I heard him. And that’s why I’ve been protecting him so carefully all the way from Kansas, both from you and everything else. Senator Jones has even shared half of my food ration, haven’t you, senator?’
Ed stared at her. ‘You gave him half your food? But what the hell for?’
‘Because, my darling, it’s my mission to keep Senator Shearson Jones in one piece. Alive, well, and avaricious. That’s why I agreed to come west with you, instead of taking him to Washington, because you were quite right about the dangers of travelling east. Too many looters, too many marauding mobs. And my superiors would have been very irritated if I’d lost him. Or his clever young assistant.’
‘Will you explain this to me, in words that I can understand?’ asked Ed. He knew now that it was urgent for him to find out what was going on; although he couldn’t help himself from glancing anxiously down Franklin Avenue towards the lurid gasoline fires that now lit up the outline of the Hughes Supermarket ‘It’s very simple,’ said Della. She raised the muzzle of her rifle slightly. Not more than a half-inch, but enough for Ed to notice.
‘If it’s simple, then we should be able to follow it,’ put in Shearson. ‘I’d love to know why you consider my overweight carcass to be so extraordinarily valuable.’
‘Years ago,’ said Della slowly, as if she were speaking from a remembered script, ‘years ago – when this famine was being planned – it was decided by my superiors that as soon as the President had surrendered, a new President would immediately have to be installed in his place. But, he couldn’t be a Russian. To have a Russian President, all of a sudden, would be too much of a shock for the American people, and they would react violently. You are a violent people, as the frequent riots in your cities have shown us. Apart from that, a Russian President would find the nation too difficult to handle with any degree of success. Yours is a complex, unstable, hedonistic society. Very hard for a Russian to understand.’