Aside from the hum in front of me and a clocklike ticking behind me somewhere, the place was deathly still. Not even traffic noises could be heard. Time passed.
Bang! from downstairs suddenly, the street door opening. Heavy feet started up the stairs.
Laszlo! I thought. I began to tremble. I tried to brace myself against the trembling, but it wouldn’t stop.
The feet came closer, moving slowly and deliberately, and still closer. They were on the landing one floor down. They came slowly up the stairs. They were on this floor. The door flew open. I screamed!
16
THIS IS how Mike told me it happened, but I suppose it’s close enough for jazz:
Michael awoke at half-past seven, after less than four hours’ sleep, in the grumpiest mood imaginable. Swearing muddily, he turned off the three alarm clocks that’d been trying to rouse him since seven and clumped out to the living room to answer the vidiphone.
He stabbed fiercely at the Accept button, cutting the poor phone’s whistle off in midtweet. Colors swirled briefly on the screen, and then a pretty face appeared.
“Seven-thirty, Mister Cowland,” she said sweetly, “rise and shine.”
“Rise and Shine?” Mike was offended.
“This is the Midtown Wake-up Service,” she said primly, “and you placed a call for seven-thirty.”
“I did?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I must’ve been crazy.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I can’t tell you about that. Here’s your card.” She held it up to the screen.
Mike read the card in total disbelief until he came to the space marked Special Instructions, where the words, “Find Anderson,” were printed in big block letters.
“Oh,” he said. “Why didn’t you say that?”
“You mean, ‘Find Anderson’?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it seemed rather silly…”
“Rise and Shine isn’t silly?”
“Please, sir, I have other calls to make.” She hung up.
Michael was now awake. Not particularly happy about it, but awake.
He burst into Sean’s room, interrupting something, yelled, “Find Anderson!” and dashed off to the kitchen to brew a pot of maté.
Sean stumbled into the living room, looking bewildered. Behind him, still in bed, Sativa yelled, “What’s happening?”
“Hey, man,” Sean complained, “find Anderson?”
“Right.” Michael scurried off to shave.
By eight-twenty they were strolling down Avenue A toward Laszlo’s midden. “Man, this is Stupid,” Sean was saying for the severalth time. “Laszlo, he ain’t even Up yet.”
“Cool it! Duck.”
They ducked into a doorway. Sean started to say something, but Mike pressed his hand over Sean’s mouth. Sean bit Michael’s hand (there’d been no time for breakfast). Then Laszlo walked by, looking as displeased with the time of day as everybody else, and Sean let go.
“Oh,” he whispered.
“We’ll discuss this later,” Mike snarled, rubbing his abused paw. “C’mon.”
Laszlo was ridiculously easy to follow that morning. In fact, Mike told me, he and Sean could probably’ve walked right beside him without being noticed. He seemed to be two-thirds asleep, which made Mike feel considerably better.
The chase paused for fifteen minutes at a dingy diner where Laszlo presumably took on some breakfast, then went on in a relatively straight line to a century-old loft building at 239 Canal Street. Laszlo went inside, Sean and Michael waited outside. It was nine o’clock.
At nine-fifteen Sean became impatient. “C’mon,” he urged, “let’s go in.”
“Cool it. They may have a whole army in there.”
“So what? We gotta help Chester, man. C’mon.”
“We won’t be much help if the Commies catch us, too. Listen to me, Sean. We wait another fifteen minutes, see? Watch who goes in or comes out. Right? Right. And if nothing happens before then, okay, we’ll go over and take a look. But we’ve got to be Careful, you understand? These Reds are tough.”
So at nine-thirty they ducked and dodged across the street and, very cautiously, into the building. They stood in the lobby for a moment, catching their breath and listening. From above somewhere they could hear, faint but unmistakable, the sound of small arms fire.
“Oh wow!” said Mike.
“Too late?” Sean asked.
Then they heard the elevator painfully descending. They dashed to the door and out, just in time to see a large green turbo-truck pull up to the curb and park.
Sean said, “Wow!” and Mike agreed. There was nobody driving the truck.
Then the elevator reached the ground floor.
“C’mon! We’ve got to hide.” Mike grabbed Sean by the arm and dragged him away.
In front of the building next door there were half a dozen empty plywood barrels, about five feet tall, all dirty and battered, one or two with small holes punched through them. Mike scrambled into one of these, Sean into another.
They regretted it at once. Somewhere along the line, the barrels had harbored fish, and the memory was still fresh and vigorous. But it was too late to find a less fragrant hiding place.
The front door of the loft building creaked open. Mike, holding his nose, crouched down and watched through a conveniently placed hole.
First a long, segmented stalk, cobalt blue, with a bulbous swelling at the end that Mike thought might be some kind of camera, snaked out and turned slowly to the left and right as though surveying the sidewalk. Then another stalk joined it and did the same. Then the side door of the truck slid open and a ramp extended itself to the sidewalk. The two stalks retracted themselves.
Then Michael gasped, inhaling an unhealthy lungful of essence of fish, as six huge blue lobsters emerged from the building. Two of them stood guard while the others formed a bucket brigade from the door to the truck. Fifty-gallon oil drums passed from claw to claw while Michael goggled.
After the oil drums came four large crates. Then the lobsters themselves, plus five more from inside the building, went into the truck.
The, ramp stayed down and the door remained open, otherwise Mike would’ve run for the nearest phone booth to get help. Instead, he remained in his fishy hideaway until ten o’clock. The hot July sun beat down on him, the stench of ancient fish conspired to turn his stomach inside out, and the cramped position he was forced to maintain began to hurt his legs. He was an increasingly unhappy Theodore Bear.
At ten o’clock, Laszlo came out of the building, looked around nervously, and went back inside. Michael forgot his discomfort.
A few minutes later, Laszlo reappeared, scouted the sidewalk again, and said, “It’s cool, man.”
Out came yet another lobster, this one wearing a fetching little silver jacket.
“Youthful Laszlo,” it said, “you shall ride in the driver’s seat.” It started up the ramp.
“But, man, like, I can’t drive!”
“No matter. Get in.”
Walking as though he were hypnotized, Laszlo got into the cab. He didn’t look at all pleased, which comforted Michael slightly.
The ramp slid back into the truck and the door slid shut. The turbos started with a loud whine. Laszlo looked scared. Then the truck pulled smoothly away from the curb and drove off.
Mike and Sean exploded from the barrels, saying “Phew!” and, “Did you see That?” interchangeably.
“Lobsters,” Mike said, unbelieving.
“That’s good. I was scared it was me.”
They dashed for the door, trailing clouds of glory as they went.
17
“GROOVY!” I screamed when they burst in, and then went on more quietly: “You sure as hell took your own sweet bloody time about it, mister. What kept you?”
“Later.” Michael Superspy was casing the joint, standing in the doorway looking very hot and paranoid.
Sean didn’t bother. He plunged in like the puppy he was, yelping, “You okay, baby?” without waiting for an answer. “I did a Things at The Mess last night an’ they really Dug it, man. What’re these things?”