"All righty, no funny stuff, you hear?" said a nervous voice in the wagon. "Out you go!"
A moment later, Doctor Fred Garth, wearing a badly torn Blue Team shirt, unshaven, his eyes wide, emerged into the daylight, manacled and sneering.
Before Paul could believe in the senseless scene, his old tent- and teammate, his buddy, the man next in line for Pittsburgh, was inside.
Paul hurried around to the front, and back into the office where he'd filled out the papers and turned in his credentials.
The sergeant looked up at him superciliously. "Yes?"
"Doctor Garth - what's he doing here?" said Paul.
"Garth? We got no Garth here."
"I saw them bring him in the back door."
"Naah." The sergeant went back to his reading.
"Look - he's one of my best friends."
"Should of stuck with your dog and your mother," said the sergeant without looking up. "Beat it."
Bewildered, Paul wandered back to the street, left his old car parked in front of the station house, and walked up the hill to the main street of Homestead, to the saloon at the foot of the bridge.
The town hall clock struck four. It might have struck midnight or seven or one, for all the difference it made to Paul. He didn't have to be anywhere at any time any more - ever, he supposed. He made up his own reasons for going somewhere, or he went without reasons. Nobody had anything for him to do anywhere. The economy was no longer interested. His card was of interest now only to the police machines, who regarded him, the instant his card was introduced, with instinctive distrust.
The hydrant was going as usual, and Paul joined the crowd. He found himself soothed by the cool spray from the water. He waited with eagerness for the small boy to finish fashioning his paper boat, and enjoyed the craft's jolting progress toward certain destruction in the dark, gurgling unknown of the storm sewer.
"Interesting, Doc?"
Paul turned to find Alfy, the television shark, at his elbow. "Well! Thought you were at the Meadows."
"Thought you were. How's the lip?"
"Healing. Tender."
"If it's any consolation, Doc, the bartender's still sneezing."
"Good, wonderful. Did you get fired?"
"Didn't you know? Everybody got sacked, the whole service staff, after that tree business." He laughed. "They're doing their own cooking, making their own beds, raking the horseshoe pits, and all, all by theirselves."
"Everybody?"
"Everybody below works manager."
"They're cleaning their own latrines, too?"
"The dumb bunnies, Doc, with I.Q.'s under 140."
"What a thing. Still play games, do they?"
"Yep. Last I heard, Blue was way out ahead."
"You don't mean it!"
"Yeah, they were so ashamed of you, they just about killed theirselves to win."
"And Green?"
"Cellar."
"In spite of Shepherd?"
"You mean Jim Thorpe? Yeah, he entered everything, and tried to make every point."
"So -"
"So nobody made any points. Last I heard, his team was trying to convince him he had virus pneumonia and ought to spend a couple of days in the infirmary. He's got something, that's for sure." Alfy looked at his watch. "Say, there's some chamber music on channel seven. Care to play?"
"Not with you."
"Just for the hell of it. No money. I'm just getting checked out on chamber music. A whole new field. C'mon, Doc, we'll learn together. You watch the cello and bass, and I'll watch the viola and violin. O.K.? Then we'll compare notes and pool our knowledge."
"I'll buy you a beer. How's that?"
"That's good; that's very good."
In the bar's damp twilight, Paul saw a teen-ager looking at him hopefully from a booth. Before him, on the table top, were three rows of matches: three in the first row, five in the second, seven in the third.
"Hello," said the young man uneasily, hopefully. "Very interesting game here. The object of the game is to make the other guy take the last match. You can take as many or as few as you want from any given row at each turn."
"Well -" said Paul.
"Go ahead," said Alfy.
"For two dollars?" said the youngster nervously.
"All right, for two." Paul took a match from the longest row.
The youngster frowned and looked worried, and countered. Three moves later, Paul left him looking disconsolately at the last match. "Goddammit, Alfy," he said miserably, "look at that. I lost."
"This is your first day!" said Alfy sharply. "Don't get discouraged. All right, so you lost. So you're just starting out." Alfy clapped the boy on the shoulder. "Doc, this is my kid brother, Joe. He's just starting out. The Army and the Reeks and Wrecks are hot for his body, but I'm trying to set him up in business for hisself instead. We'll see how this match business works out, and if it doesn't, we'll think of something else."
"I used to play it in college," said Paul apologetically. "I've had a lot of experience."
"College!" said Joe, awed, and he smiled and seemed to feel better. "Jesus, no wonder." He sighed and sat back, depressed again. "But I don't know, Alfy - I'm about ready to throw in the towel. Let's face it, I haven't got the brains." He lined up the matches again, and picked at them, playing a game with himself. "I work at it, and I just don't seem to get any better at it."
"Sure you work!" said Alfy. "Everybody works at something. Getting out of bed's work! Getting food off your plate and into your mouth's work! But there's two kinds of work, kid, work and hard work. If you want to stand out, have something to sell, you got to do hard work. Pick out something impossible and do it, or be a bum the rest of your life. Sure, everybody worked in George Washington's time, but George Washington worked hard. Everybody worked in Shakespeare's time, but Shakespeare worked hard. I'm who I am because I work hard."
"O.K., O.K., O.K.," said Joe. "Me, Alfy, I haven't got the brains, the eye, the push. Maybe I better go down to the Army."
"You can change your name before you do, kid, and don't bother me again," said Alfy tensely. "Anybody by the name of Tucci stands on his own two feet. It's always been that way, and that's the way it's always going to be."
"O.K.," said Joe, coloring. "Awri. So I give it a try for a couple more days."
"O.K.!" said Alfy. "See that you do."
As Alfy hurried to the television set, Paul stayed at his side. "Listen, do you happen to know who Fred Garth is?"
"Garth?" He laughed. "I didn't at first, but I sure as hell do now. He's the one that ringbarked the oak."
"No!"
"Yep. And they never even thought of questioning him. He was on the committee that was supposed to do the questioning."
"How'd they catch him?"
"Gave hisself away. When the tree surgeon got there to patch up the tree, Garth tossed his tools in the drink."
"Alfy!" said the bartender. "You missed the first number."
Alfy pulled up a bar stool.
Paul sat down next to him and engaged the bartender in conversation. Their talk was disjointed, as Alfy kept the man busy twisting the television set's volume knob.
"Ever see Finnerty around?" said Paul.
"The piano player?"
"Yeah."
"What if I have?"
"I'd just like to see him, is all. A friend of mine."
"Lot's of people'd like to see Finnerty these days."
"Uh-huh. Where's he keep himself?"
The bartender looked at him appraisingly. "Nobody sees Finnerty these days."
"Oh? He's not living with Lasher any more?"
"Full of questions today, aren't you? Nobody sees Lasher these days."
"I see." Paul didn't. "They leave town?"
"Who knows? Come on, I haven't got all day. What'll it be?"
"Bourbon and water."