Time passed. . . .
More than a century.
Chapter Six
Four taxi drivers flatly refused to take Mundin to Belly Rave. The fifth was a devil-may-care youngster. "Just took this heah job waitin' for the draft call," he confided. "How can I lose? Anything goes wrong in this heah Belly Rave place, maybe Ah get beat up so bay-yud the ol' army won't take me." He laughed. "But seriously, I figger it cain't be as tough as they say."
Mundin did not contradict him and away they went.
There was no sizable city which did not have the equivalent of Belly Rave. The festering slums of Long Island were another New York problem; Boston had its Springfield; Chicago its Evanston; Los Angeles its Greenville. None was worse than Belle Reve Estates. Mundin noticed that the battered streetlights of Belly Rave didn't light; as they rolled past the first weed-grown yards and boarded-up houses he noticed ramshackle structures in the back. Occasionally they passed a burned-out area, but not often. The plots were generous enough in size to keep a normal fire from spreading from house to house. Unfortunately.
There was life in Belly Rave: a furtive, crepuscular life called into being by the unpoliceable wilderness of tall weeds, endless miles of crumbling battered driveway unmarked by street signs or house numbers. The taxi wasn't alone. Zooty little cars prowled along the crumbling concrete, occasionally pulling to the curb where a dim figure swung a phosphorescent handbag. They passed one block of houses that was a blaze of light and noise. The doorman trotted along beside the taxi urging: "Anything goes, mister. Spend the night for five bucks, all you can drink and smoke included. Why pay taxes, mister?"
Sometimes the Alcohol & Hemp Tax Unit's men raided such joints. Not often.
The driver asked the doorman, "We anywheah close to 37598 Willowdale Crescent?" He stopped the cab.
"What you need is a guide," the doorman said promptly. "Jimmy!" Somebody jelled out of the dark. Mundin heard a fumbling at the door of the cab.
"Step on it!" he yelled at the driver, snapping the door lock and running up the window. The driver stepped on it.
The ambush left behind, they cautiously approached bag-swingers for directions. In half an hour they were on the 37-thousand block of Willowdale Crescent, counting houses.
"This must be it," said the driver, no longer devil-may-care.
"I guess so. Wait here, will you?" Mundin said.
"Nossir! How do I know you ain't going to slip through a back door and stiff me? You pay me what's on the clock an' Ah'll wait."
The meter read a whopping eight dollars. Mundin handed over a ten and started up the crumbled walk.
Vroom! The taxi was on its way before he had taken half a dozen steps. Mundin cursed wearily and knocked on the door. He studied the boarded-up picture window while he waited. They were all broken, all boarded up. Inevitably in the years that had gone by since they were eased and puttied carefully into place, the rock had been flung, or the door had been slammed, or the drunk had lurched into the living room.
The man who came to the door was old and sick.
"Is this the Lavin place?" Mundin asked, blinking against a light haze of woodsmoke. "I'm Charles Mundin. She asked me to call in connection with a legal matter. I'm an attorney."
The old man started at the word. "Come in, Counselor," he said formally. "I'm a member of the bar myself——"
He broke off into a fit of coughing, leaning against the doorframe.
Mundin half-carried him into the living room and eased him into a sagging overstaffed chair. A Coleman lamp, blowing badly, cast a metallic blue-green glare into every corner of the room. A fire smoldered on the hearth, billowing against a closed register. A tinny radio was blaring, "—nately was kept from spreading, though the four houses involved in the arson attempt were totally destroyed. Elsewhere in Belly Rave, warfare broke out between the Wabbits and the Goddams, rival junior gangs. One eight-year-old was killed instantly by—"
Mundin clicked it off and opened the register. The smoke began to clear from the room and the fire to flicker. The old man was still folded up in the chair, his parchment face mercilessly picked out by the flaring light. Mundin fiddled aimlessly with the valve and accidentally got it to stop roaring. There was a green glass shade; he put it on and the room was suddenly no longer a corner of a surrealist hell but simply a shabby room.
"Thank you," the old man muttered. "Counselor, would you please see if there is a small, round tin in the bathroom cabinet?"
The bathtub was full of split kindling and the cabinet shelves loaded with the smaller household staples—salt, spices, and such. There was an unmarked tin, which Mundin pried open. Small, gummy-looking pills and an unmistakable odor: Yen pox. He sighed and brought the old man the opened tin.
The old man took it without comment and slowly swallowed five of the opium pills. When he spoke his voice was almost steady. "Thank you, Counselor. And let this be a lesson to you: Never get a belly-habit. It's weakening, humiliating. You said you had an appointment with Norma? She should have been here hours ago. Naturally—the neighborhood— I'm worried. I'm Harry Ryan. Member of the S.E.C. Bar, and other things. Of course——" he stared at the tin of yen pox— "I'm retired from practice."
Mundin coughed. "I believe Miss Lavin mentioned you. As I understand it, you would be attorney of record and I'd do the legwork in some sort of stockholder's suit, if we work it out." He hesitated and went on to tell the old man about the arrest of the boy.
"Yes," Ryan said matter-of-factly. "I told her it was a mistake to go to Mr. Dworcas. It is inconceivable that Green, Charlesworth would not get wind of it."
"Green, Charlesworth?" Willie Choate had once mentioned the name, in some connection or other. "Are they the investment house?"
"They are. They are the investment house, just as you say."
"But she told me her business was connected with G.M.L. Homes. How does Green, Charlesworth get into it?"
Ryan chewed another opium pill and swallowed it. "Mr. Mundin," he said, "you will find that Green, Charlesworth do not get into things. They already are in everything. Raw materials, belt-transport patents, real estate, insurance, plant financing—you name it, Mundin."
"Even ward politics in the 27th?"
"Even that. But don't let it disturb you too greatly, Mundin, It is probable that Green, Charlesworth are only casually interested in the Lavins at the present time. They no doubt wish to keep posted on what Don and Norma are up to, but I do not expect they will intervene."
"You think that?"
Ryan explained heavily, "I have to think that." The door knocker rattled and the old man heaved himself from the overstaffed chair, waving Mundin aside. "I'll get it," he said. "Ah—this was just a temporary indisposition. You needn't mention it to——" He jerked his chin at the door.
He came back into the living room with Norma and Don Lavin.
"Hello, Mundin," she said tonelessly, her voice leaden with depression. "I see you found us. Have you eaten?"
"Yes, thanks."
"Then excuse us while we have something. The Caddy broke down five times on the way out here. I'm beat."
She and her brother morosely opened a couple of self-heating cans of goulash. They spooned them down in silence.
"Now," she said to Mundin, "the background. I'll make it short." Her voice was satiric, hate-filled.
"Don and I were born of rich but honest parents in Coshocton, Ohio. Daddy—Don Senior—was rather elderly when we came along; he spent the first fifty years of his life working. He started out as a plastics man with a small factory—bus bodies, fire trucks, that kind of thing. He happened to have gone to school with a man named Beraie German, who happened to have specialized in electronics and electrical stuff. The two of them worked together, when they could find time, dreaming dreams and weaving visions. They were dedicated men. They invented, designed and constructed the first pilot model of the G.M.L. Home, otherwise known as the bubble-house."