He said, “I do some things they tell me.”
“Don’t do anything they tell you.”
“All of them?” Her hardness troubled him.
“Remember all that stuff they taught us in school, all that junk. There never was anything in all of it.” With her long, accurate fingers she looped a thread that dangled from his shirt: she broke the thread and put it into an ashtray on the mantel.
He placed his hands on her shoulders. Through the material of her blouse, his hands rested on her, and he felt that she was close to him, close to the surface.
“I wish we could go somewhere,” she said. “Not just around here. I want to see different places. Maybe someday we could see the Rockies. We could drive up high; we could even live up there. They have towns up there right in the mountains—”
“It’s hard to get a job there,” he said.
“We could open a store,” Rachael said. “There’s always things people want. We could open a bakery.”
“I’m not a baker,” he said.
“Then we could put out a newspaper.”
He kissed her again, and then he lifted her up, off the floor and against him. Then he set her down on the arm of the couch.
“Tell your brother Nat,” she said, “to give us one of his cars so we can drive. Tell him we need a new one we can sell when we get there.”
“You mean it?” he said.
Of course she did, “But not yet,” she said. “We better wait until after I have the baby. Then we can go. In a couple of years, when we have some money. When you’re finished being an apprentice.”
“You really want to get out of here?” After all, he thought, she had been born here; she had grown up here.
She said, “Maybe we could even go up into Canada. I was thinking about that. To one of those towns where they trap animals and there’s a lot of snow.”
“You wouldn’t like that,” he said. But, he thought maybe she would.
The Horch was parked in a sheet-metal garage down in the flat industrial section of the city. Grimmelman, in his black wool greatcoat, paratrooper’s boots, and army shirt, unlocked the padlock and shoved aside the doors.
The garage was clammy. The cement floor was wet with oil. To one side was a workbench. Joe Mantila put on the overhead light as Art Emmanual closed the doors behind them.
“Nobody’s been here,” Ferde said. “Nobody’s got to it.”
The Horch was dented from its encounters, but it was still impressive. It weighed almost six thousand pounds. This car had come up from Latin America; it had been built in 1937 by the Auto-Union, and this model, a five-passenger spoil convertible, had been the staff car of the Wehrmacht and S.S. Grimmelman had never told anyone how and where he had gotten hold of it or how much he had paid. The Horch was painted jet black, and with its remote-control system it was unique.
Art got in behind the wheel and started up the engine. In the closed garage, the noise deafened them; exhaust fumes billowed up in clouds, and the smell of gasoline was sickening.
“It’s missing a little,” Ferde Heinke said.
Lifting the hood, Art began tinkering with the fuel mixture. “How come you decided to roll out tonight?” he said to Grimmelman. He had never seen Grimmelman so agitated, in such a state of anxiety.
“The time has arrived,” Grimmelman said, pacing in a circle, his hands behind his back.
“Is that why you’re jumping around?”
Ferde Heinke said, “If we’re really going to do something tonight, we better get more to go; four isn’t enough. We ought to get the rest of the Organization.” The Organization faded off indistinctly, without particular edges; beyond the hard core were a number of members who came and went.
“This is more in the nature of a warm-up,” Grimmelman said, attaching the relay board of the remote control unit. With a screwdriver, he cinched up the lugs to the terminals. Perspiration streaked his cheeks; his face shone under the light. “A dry run so we’ll know we’re ready to roll at an instant’s notice.”
“Roll where?” Joe said.
“The situation is at a critical stage,” Grimmelman said. “I want the Horch filled with gas, ready for a long trip. If necessary we may have to move operations to a new area.” As he completed the wiring of the vital control unit, he added, “From now on I want the weapons kept here in the Horch.”
“Where are we going tonight?” Ferde Heinke asked.
“We’ll conduct practice maneuvers in the vicinity of Dodo’s. If possible we’ll engage a Bactrian vehicle.”
“Fine,” Joe Mantila said, hating the Bactrians with their cashmere sweaters and slacks and argyle socks, their country club dances, and especially their late-model Detroit stock cars.
“See if the coast is clear,” Grimmelman said, panting with eagerness.
Ferde stepped outside and surveyed the street.
“I’ll take the Plymouth,” Joe Mantila said, passing through the doorway and outside after Ferde. He carried with him the controls and a microphone and a roll of cable with a jack on the end. “Let’s see if I can back it out.”
Seated in the Plymouth, he punched buttons, controlling the Horch. The power-assisted wheel of the Horch revolved as the car shifted gear and began to back. The original eight-speed manual transmission had been removed and an automatic Borg−Warner transmission installed. The overhead cam engine, with its immense crankshaft supported by ten bearings, was original equipment; nothing else was its match. The engine thundered, and the Horch backed from the garage into the street. Its headlights flashed on; it shifted into a forward gear, and the foot throttle eased. From the grill beneath the Auto-Union insignia, Joe Mantila’s voice boomed, “Okay? Let’s go.”
“Great,” Grimmelman said, hurrying outside. Art closed the garage doors; the three of them hurried to the Plymouth to join Joe Mantila.
Joe drove the Plymouth, while Grimmelman worked the controls for the Horch. The ponderous Horch started out ahead of them, and they followed closely; it was necessary for them to be near enough to see what lay ahead. In the beginning their control car had lagged, and the Horch had been permitted to crash against parked cars and curbs; now they had learned to keep it always in sight. Its headlights swept the pavement, and, over its open top, they studied the street.
“Turn it right,” Ferde said.
The Horch turned cautiously, as Grimmelman slowed it almost to a halt. “More traffic,” Grimmelman murmured; his face was tense with the strain of operating the controls.
“That’s no lie,” Ferde Heinke said. “Hey, you want me to go take it manually until we’re at Dodo’s?”
“No,” Gnimmelman said. “It’s okay.”
The open Horch, with no one inside, sailed down Fillmore Street among the buses and taxis and stock cars. As usual, its empty driver’s seat was unnoticed.
“Am—” Grimmelman said, ”—you operate the assault weapon.”
Reaching around on the floor of the Plymouth—he was crowded in the back seat with Ferde Heinke and piles of equipment—he located the assault weapon: a spray gun filled with white enamel paint. But he did not feel in the mood. The spray gun was a dead weight, and he handed it to Ferde.
“You get them,” he said.
“What’s the matter?” Gnimmelman demanded. “I told you to do it.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t feel like it.”
Ahead of them was Dodo’s. At the curb, a sparkling new Detroit bomb was parked; its occupants were inside the drive-in, at the counter. “Bactrians,” Grimmelman said.
The car was a ‘56 Buick, dark green and white.
“Park the Horch,” Joe said excitedly.
Grimmelman caused the Horch to glide to the curb at the end of the block. There, with its motor idling, it parked and waited.