«Not for information? Not for Omega?»
Leila clutched her husband’s hand; Bernie responded by looking at her, silently commanding her to calm herself. He turned back to Tanner. «I can’t imagine any information you might have that I could want. I don’t know any Omega. I don’t know what it is.»
«Joe knows! Dick knows! They both came to Ali and me! They threatened us.»
«Then I’m no part of them. We’re no part.»
«Oh, God, Bernie, something happened…» Leila couldn’t help herself. Bernie reached over and took her in his arms.
«Whatever it is, it hasn’t anything to do with us… Perhaps you’d better tell us what it’s all about. Maybe we can help.»
Tanner watched them, holding each other gently. He wanted to believe them. He wanted friends; he desperately needed allies. And Fassett had said it; not all were Omega. «You really don’t know, do you? You don’t know what Omega is. Or what ‘Chasm of Leather’ means.»
«No,» said Leila simply.
Tanner believed them. He had to believe them, for it meant he wasn’t alone any more. And so he told them.
Everything.
When he had finished the two writers stood staring at him, saying nothing. It had begun to drizzle lightly but none of them felt the rain. Finally, Bernie spoke.
«And you thought I was talking about … we had something to do with this?» Bernie narrowed his eyes in disbelief. «My God! It’s insane!»
«No it’s not. It’s real. I’ve seen it.»
«You say Ali doesn’t know?» asked Leila.
«I was told not to tell her, that’s what they told me!»
«Who? Someone you can’t even reach on the phone? A man Washington doesn’t acknowledge? Someone who pumped you full of lies about us?»
«A man was killed! My family could have been killed last Wednesday! The Cardones and the Tremaynes were gassed last night!»
Osterman looked at his wife and then back at Tanner.
«If they really were gassed,» he said softly.
«You’ve got to tell Alice.» Leila was emphatic. «You can’t keep it from her any longer.»
«I know. I will.»
«And then we’ve got to get out of here,» said Osterman.
«Where to?»
«Washington. There are one or two Senators, a couple of Congressmen. They’re friends of ours.»
«Bernie’s right. We’ve got friends in Washington.»
The drizzle was beginning to turn into hard rain. «Let’s go inside,» said Leila, touching Tanner’s shoulder gently.
«Wait! We can’t talk in there. We can’t say anything inside the house. It’s wired.»
Bernie and Leila Osterman reacted as though they’d been slapped. «Everywhere?» asked Bernie.
«I’m not sure… I’m not sure of anything anymore.»
«Then we don’t talk inside the house; or if we do we put on a radio loud and whisper.»
Tanner looked at his friends. Thank God! Thank God! It was the beginning of his journey back to sanity.
24
In less than an hour the July storm was upon them. The radio reports projected gale force winds; medium-craft warnings were up from Hatteras to Rhode Island, and the Village of Saddle Valley was neither so isolated nor inviolate as to escape the inundation.
Ali awoke with the first thunder and John told her—whispered to her—through the sound of the loud radios, that they were to be prepared to leave with Bernie and Leila. He held her close to him and begged her not to ask questions, to trust him.
The children were brought into the living room; a television set moved in front of the fireplace. Ali packed two suitcases and placed them beside the garage entrance. Leila boiled eggs and wrapped celery and carrot sticks.
Bernie had said they might not stop driving for an hour or two.
Tanner watched the preparations and his mind went back a quarter of a century.
Evacuation!
The phone rang at two-thirty. It was a suppressed, hysterical Tremayne who—falsely, thought Tanner—recounted the events of the Lassiter depot and made it clear that he and Ginny were too shaken to come over for dinner. The Saturday evening dinner of an Osterman weekend.
«You’ve got to tell me what’s going on!» Alice Tanner spoke to her husband in the pantry. There was a transistor radio at full volume and she tried to turn it down. He held her hand, preventing her, and pulled her to him.
«Trust me. Please trust me,» he whispered. «I’ll explain in the car.»
«In the car?» Ali’s eyes widened in fright as she brought her hand to her mouth. «Oh, my God! What you’re saying is … you can’t talk.»
«Trust me.» Tanner walked into the kitchen and spoke, gestured really, to Bernie. «Let’s load.» They went for the suitcases.
When Tanner and Osterman returned from the garage, Leila was at the kitchen window looking out on the back yard. «It’s becoming a regular gale out there.»
The phone rang, and Tanner answered it.
Cardone was an angry man. He swore and swore again that he’d rip apart and rip apart once more the son of a bitch who’d gassed them. He was also confused, completely bewildered. His watch was worth eight hundred dollars and it wasn’t taken. He’d had a couple of hundred in his wallet and it was left intact.
«The police said Dick had some papers stolen. Something about Zurich, Switzerland.»
There was a sharp intake of breath from Cardone and then silence. When Joe spoke he could hardly be heard. «That’s got nothing to do with me!» And then he rapidly told Tanner without much conviction that a call from Philadelphia had warned him that his father might be extremely ill. He and Betty would stay around home. Perhaps they’d see them all on Sunday. Tanner hung up the phone.
«Hey!» Leila was watching something out on the lawn. «Look at those umbrellas. They’re practically blowing away.»
Tanner looked out the window above the sink. The two large table umbrellas were bending under the force of the wind. The cloth of each was straining against the thin metal ribs. Soon they’d rip or invert themselves. Tanner knew it would appear strange if he didn’t take care of them. It wouldn’t be normal.
«I’ll go get them down. Take two minutes.»
«Want some help?»
«No sense both of us getting wet.»
«Your raincoat’s in the hall closet.»
The wind was strong, the rain came down in torrents. He shielded his face with his hands and fought his way to the farthest table. He reached up under the flapping cloth and felt his fingers on the metal hasp. He started to push it in.
There was a shattering sound on the top of the wrought iron table. Pieces of metal flew up, searing his arm. Another report. Fragments of cement at his feet bounced off the base of the table. And then another shot, now on his other side.
Tanner flung himself under the metal table, crouching to the far side, away from the direction of the bullets.
Shots came in rapid succession, all around him, kicking up particles of metal and stone.
He started to crawl backwards onto the grass but the small eruptions of wet dirt paralyzed him. He grabbed for a chair and held it, clutched it in front of him as though it were the last threads of a disintegrating rope and he were high above a chasm. He froze in panic, awaiting his death.
«Let go! Goddamn it! Let go!»
Osterman was pulling at him, slapping him in the face and wrenching his arms from the chair. They scrambled back toward the house; bullets thumped into the wooden shingles.
«Stay away! Stay away from the door!» Bernie screamed. But he wasn’t in time, or his wife would not heed the command. Leila opened the door and Bernie Osterman threw Tanner inside, jumping on top of him as he did so. Leila crouched below the window and slammed the door shut.