First walked Ferde Heinke in his fairy suit, in his baggy pants and sweater, he wore his glasses and carried a binder full of school and library books and, of course, a number of recent copies of his science fiction magazine, Phantasmagoria. After Ferde came Joe Mantila, and then came Art Emmanual.
Grimmelman’s loft had once been a union meeting hall. It was a single large barren room with a stove at one end, a small bathroom led to the rear, where the stairs arose. This was in the Hayes Hole section of San Francisco, the slum district of liquor stores and old unpainted rooming houses. Beneath Grimmelman’s loft was a series of crib rooms, now used as storerooms for Rodriguez’s Mexican and American Foods, the grocery store on the ground level. Across the street was a tiny Catholic church.
As the three of them trudged along, Joe Mantila said, “Let’s go get a Coke.”
“No,” Ferde said, “this is important.”
Art Emmanual agreed. “We have to tell him.”
They trailed single file along the path of lettuce leaves and torn orange crates by the side of the grocery store. Here and there a chicken stalked, pecking among the weeds. In a rear house an elderly Mexican woman sat on a porch rocking. A gang of Negro and Mexican children scampered after a beer can, kicking it and shouting shrilly as it bounced into the Street.
As the three of them reached the stairs, Ferde Heinke stopped. “Of course,” he said, “he’s probably already heard about it.”
“Get going,” Art Emmanual said. But he too felt tense. Above them in the loft, Grimmelman was certainly peering; Art could feel the pressure of Grimmelmans eyes, bright little eyes . . . Grimmelman, the hairy owl in his black wool overcoat, wearing paratrooper’s boots, his cheap cotton undershirt showing.
“Okay,” Ferde said, starting up the stairs.
At the top was the metal door which Grimmelman had prepared against invaders; it began to open, and, by the time they had reached it there was Grimmelman gazing down, grinning and dancing, rubbing his hands together, retreating to admit the callers.
In the light of day he had a ruffled look, a disorder, about him. Expecting no one, he had removed his boots; he waited in his stocking feet. He, in his mid-twenties, born in Poland across the border from Germany, had a round Slavic face; his face was marred with a beard that covered his jowls and neck, a smear like singed pinfeathers. His hair was thinning, and in a few years he would be bald. Art, following Ferde, caught the old-cloth smell of Grimmelman, the familiar staleness of the man’s seclusion. Grimmelman dwelt here, laboring on his maps, his revolutionary schemes, the phrasing of his vast theories; in summer, his money gone, he emerged to work day and night in the canneries, a marathon ordeal that brought in enough for the balance of the year.
The long room was littered with books and papers. At the side was a sagging sofa on which at night Grimmelman, in his overcoat, slept. Weapons were mounted on the walls, army pistols and grenades, a pair of swords, and, held by Scotch tape, prints of World War I battleships. Grimmelman’s worktables sagged with material. Nobody really knew what he was preparing; its scope shaded into infinity.
“Something’s happened,” Joe said, settling down on the sofa. Grimmelman glanced at him, grinned, turned inquiringly to Art.
Art said, “It was in the Chronicle. You know Jim Briskin, this disc jock that runs ‘Club 17’ in the afternoons? He got fired.”
“He got suspended,” Ferde said. “For a month.”
Grimmelman’s eyes sparkled. “Oh?” He strode to the metal door and bolted it. “Tell me why.”
“He read this commercial wrong,” Art said. “This used car commercial, you know?”
Excitedly Grimmelman strode to the giant wall map of San Francisco. On the map, in his cramped hand, he had noted all the significant elements that made up the town. For an interval he studied the map, inspecting the notations at Van New Avenue and the used car lots. “Exactly which used car lot was it?”
“Looney Luke’s,” Art said. “Where Nat used to work.”
Grimmelman stuck a pin into the map. “When did this happen?”
“Night before last,” Ferde said.
Grimmelman’s agitation increased. “Did any of you hear it?”
“No,” Art said. “It was later on during the classic music. Not on ‘Club 17.’ ”
At the map Grimmelman said, “This is an important event.” He took his fountain pen and jotted a further entry in the notebook open beside the map. From a card file he selected several references, and then he opened a heavy case. “A number of possibilities may now occur.”
“Like what?” Art said, experiencing, as always, the radiant energy of Grimmelman’s intrigue. What a drab world it was without Grimmelman; his sensitivity to covert forces of mystical power and tenacity colored to a fever glow the most ordinary happenings. And this event, the vanishing of the familiar voice of Jim Briskin, already interesting, became in Grimmelman’s hands a prize of much promise. Facing his map, Grimmelman was discovering overtones invisible to the unpracticed eye.
“First,” Grimmelman declared, “it may be that he was instructed to read it wrong. We must not dismiss that.”
“That’s dumb,” Joe Mantila said.
Grimmelman favored him with a glance. “It’s not probable. But it is possible. In what way did he read the commercial wrong?”
“He said he was sick and tired of it,” Art said. “He said the hell with it. And he didn’t finish; he broke off in the middle.”
“I see,” Grimmelman said.
“And,” Ferde Heinke said, “that’s the last he was on. He wasn’t on yesterday or today, and then there was this mention in the Chronicle.” Unzipping his binder, he showed Grimmelman the item.
“May I keep this?” Grimmelman said. He added the item to a scrapbook, gluing it in and rubbing it flat with his fist.
“It’s sure too bad,” Art said. “Now there’s some joker running ‘Club 17,’ and he’s no good at all. He only plays the records; he don’t say nothing at all.”
“You think this is the time?” Joe Mantila said abruptly. Grimmelman said, “It could be.”
“The time,” Art repeated.
In the environment built up around Grimmelman nothing superseded the idea of the time. Art felt the wave of anticipation; a host of emotions swam up inside him. The others, too, were affected; the Organization, as a group, lived for the time. Their sorties were arranged in an almost occult pattern of correct moments, conjunctions of astrological bodies. A peasant cunning mixed with peasant superstition welded Grimmelman to the stars. His plans were cosmic and cosmically determined. Always, in everything, Grimmelman consulted for signs to demonstrate that at long last the moment had arrived, the instant in which successful action was finally and absolutely possible.
“Time for the Organization to act,” Ferde said, hypnotized by the idea. All of them envisioned at once the ritual of action: the bringing out of the massive car from its hiding place, the thorough working over of the engine and electronic controls so that no hitch could occur. And the checking of the weapons. But Grimmelman was hesitating. “The Horch hasn’t been out m months.” He studied his charts. “Three months.”
“Sure,” Joe said, “It’s time! Three months, that’s a long time.”
“Let’s get going,” Art said, sharing his restlessness. Grimmelman said, “Hasty action is wasted.”
“You and your charts,” Joe Mantila said disgustedly.
“Saturday night,” Art said, “The Bactrians are having a dance at Bratton’s place.” The Bactrians were a club of welltodo youths from Nob Hill. Bill Bratton was their president; his father was a wealthy Montgomery Street attorney. “Afterward some of them’ll probably stop at Dodo’s.”