But there was no hurry. Mundin studied the gaudy posters and the shuffling, gossiping men and women. It was the first time he had got really close to the raw material that Stadium shows were made of, and he felt a little like an intruder. He had seen the shows themselves, of course. Plenty of them, in his time. He had gone religiously to the Kiddies' Days back in Texas. As an adolescent, he had been a rootin', tootin' red-hot fan, as able as any to spout the logbook records on hours in combat, percentage kills, survival quotients and so on. Naturally, his enthusiasm had quieted down when the Scholarship people approved his application and he started law school, and he had never quite picked it up again. It didn't seem to go too well with membership at the bar—nothing against the games, of course; but an attorney was expected to go in for more cerebral forms of amusement.
Like dodging creditors, he told himself bitterly.
Somebody called from the shuffling mob, "Mr. Mundin! Hey, Mr. Mundin!"
He started, half ready to run.
But it was only whats-is-name—Norvell Bligh, that was it. The client Dworcas had sent. But so shabby!
Then Mundin remembered: Bligh had quit on his contract—
A contract with General Recreations, ironically enough—and then to find him here!
The little man panted up to Mundin and wrung his hands. There was moisture in his eyes. "Mr. Mundin, my God it's good to see a friendly face! Were you—were you looking for me, maybe?"
"No, Mr. Bligh."
Bligh's face fell. Almost inaudibly he said, "Oh. I—uh— thought perhaps you might have a message for me—as my attorney, you know—maybe the company. . . . But they wouldn't, of course."
"No, they wouldn't," Mundin said gently. He looked around; he couldn't stand the little man's misery, nor could he wound him by walking away cold. He said, "Is there any place we can have a drink around here?"
"Is there!" Mundin thought he was going to cry. "My God, Mr. Mundin, the things I've seen in the week I've been here—"
He looked around to get his bearings and led off, Mundin following. It was only half a block to the nearest blind pig. Bligh knocked on an unlit door. "Shep sent me," he told a bitter-faced woman through a peephole.
Inside, the place reeked of alcohol. They sat at plank tables in the wretched living room, and through the careless curtains Mundin saw the gleam of copper tubing and shiny pots. They were the only customers at that hour.
The woman asked tonelessly, "Raisin-jack? Ration-jack? Majun? Reefers? Gin?"
"Gin, please," Mundin said hastily.
It came in a quart bottle. Mundin gasped when she said, "Fifty cents."
"Competition," Bligh explained when she had gone. "If it was just me she would've sold it for twenty-five, but of course she could tell you were just slumming."
"Not exactly," Mundin said. "Health!"
They drank. At first Mundin thought that somebody had smashed him on the back of the head with a padded mallet. Then he realized it was the gin.
Hoarsely, he asked Bligh, "How have you been getting along?"
Bligh shook his head, tears hanging in his eyes. "Don't ask me," he said bitterly. "It's been hell, one day of hell after another, and no end to it. How have I been doing? It couldn't be worse, Mr. Mundin. I wish to heaven I—" he stopped himself, on the verge of breakdown. He sat up straighten "Sorry," he said. "Been drinking all afternoon. Not used to it."
"That's all right," said Mundin.
Bligh said, "Sure." He eyed Mundin with a curiously familiar expression; Mundin, trying to place it, heard the words come tumbling out as Bligh abruptly clutched his sleeve and said, "Look, Mr. Mundin, you can help me. Please! You must have something. A big lawyer like you—working for the County Committee and everything—you've got to have something! I don't expect a contract and a G.M.L. I had them; I was a fool; I threw them away. But there must be some kind of a job, any kind, enough so I can get out of Belly Rave before I split right down the middle and—"
Mundin, holding back the recollection of himself and silly Willie Choate, said sharply, "No! I can't, Bligh. I don't have a job to give."
"Nothing?" Norvell cried. "Nothing I can do for you here, Mr. Mundin? Ask me. I know the ropes; ask me!"
It was a new thought. Mundin said uncertainly, "Why— why, as a matter of fact, there just might be something, at that I've been trying to locate—ah—a friend here in Belly Rave. A girl named Norma Lavin. If you think you could help me find her—"
Bligh looked at him expressionlessly. "You want me to find you a girl?"
"A client, Bligh."
Bligh shrugged. "Sure, Mr. Mundin." Eagerly. "I can do it, I bet. I've got friends—contacts—you just leave it to me. You want to come along? I can get to work on it right now. I've learned a lot in a week; I can show you the ropes."
Mundin hesitated. Why not? His job was to stay out of sight. Until the stockholders' meeting, at least . . .
"Certainly," he told Bligh. "Lead the way."
Mundin thought at first that the little man had taken leave of his senses.
Bligh led him through the growing dusk to a vacant lot—the burned-out site of one of Belle Reve's finest 40-by-60-foot estates. And then the little man cupped his hands to his mouth and hooted mournfully into the twilight: "Wa-wa-wa-wa-wab-bit twacks!"
Mundin, stupefied, began: "What—?"
Bligh put his finger to his lips. "Wait."
They waited. Two minutes; five. Then a small figure oozed from the dusk.
It asked suspiciously, "Who wants a wabbit?"
Bligh proudly introduced Mundin. "This gentleman is looking for a young lady—"
"Cack, buster! Us Wabbits don't—"
"No, no! A particular young lady. She has disappeared."
Mundin added, "Norma Lavin is her name. Disappeared a week ago. Lived at 37598 Willowdale Crescent. Drove an old Caddy."
"Um. Gee-Gee territory, that is," the shrill young voice informed them. "We got a Grenadier POW, though. What's in it for the Wabbits?"
Bligh whispered to Mundin, "Ten dollars."
Mundin said promptly, "Ten dollars."
"For a starter?"
"Sure."
"Come on." The Wabbit led them a desperate pace through a mile of Belly Rave. Once a thick-set brute lunged at them from a doorway, mumbling. The child snarled, "Lay off. Wabbits!" The man slunk back; there had been a flash of jagged bottle glass from the fist of the Wabbit.
They moved on. Then, a mounting chorus down a street rhythmic and menacing: "Gah-damn! Gah-damn! Gah-damn. . . "
"In here!" the Wabbitt said shrilly, darting into a darkened house. A startled old man and woman, huddled before the cold fireplace, looked once and then didn't look at the intruders again, having seen the busted-bottle insigne. The Wabbit said meagerly to Mundin, "Patrol. This is Goddam territory."
They watched through cracks in the warped boards that covered the splintered picture window. The Goddams, still chanting, came swinging past, perhaps fifty of them, expertly twirling improvised maces. Some carried torches; one gangling boy in front bore a tall pole decorated with—with——
Mundin covered his eyes with a cry.
He was ignored. The Wabbit, frowning, muttered, "That's no patrol. War party, heading west?"
Mundin said tightly, "My God, kid, he was carrying——"
The kid moved fast. The jagged bottle-edge was at Mundin's throat, which closed tight as a submarine hatch. "No noise, friend," the Wabbit murmured. "There'll be a rear guard."
There was.
You could barely see them. They were black-clad; their faces and hands were darkened.