All right. Meyerberg had looked like the guy who drove the cab by day, and now Labotski was the one who drove it by night. Shorter, thinner, sharp-faced, discontented-looking, the kind of man who has a transistor radio in the cab with him and plays nothing but rock ’n’ roll, full volume, hoping he’ll irritate the fares.
He said, “ASM goes along in part with Mrs. Selma Bodkin of Gentile Mothers for Peace, a lady with who I have met at occasions of picket lines and suchlike in the past. We of ASM also believe that mongrelization of the races is the big danger facing the world today, as well as the problem of favored job referral treatment for niggers and forcing them into unions where their smaller brain cavities makes it impossible for them to learn the required skills, and all throwing honest American-born white workingmen out on the streets, what with families to support. All these NAACP and CORE niggers and their sympathizers has got to be shot down, is what, to show them you can’t take the bread out of the mouths of the little children of honest hard-working American workingmen. I thank you.”
He sat down, but immediately popped up again to say, “But it’s just the niggers. Insofar as Jews and Catholics and Italians and Polish and the other minorities, these are all good honest hard-working American workingmen that deserve to be protected from the economic treatment they been getting. I thank you.”
I looked at Angela, struck by a sudden thought, and whispered, “Are you writing this down?”
Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, golly, I forgot all about it!” She scrabbled in her coat pocket for pen and pad.
I thought of telling her never mind, this League for New Blockheads was hardly anything to get excited about or keep notes on, but then I thought again of Eustaly and Lobo, and I remembered the FBI somewhere in the outer brightness, and I decided to let it go.
Meanwhile, Eustaly was introducing the next one, Mr. Lionel R. Stonewright of the Brotherhood of Christ Defense Fund, BOCDF. Lionel R. Stonewright, when he got to his feet, looked exactly like the movies’ idea of a banker: Louis Calhern.
“Mr. Chairman,” said Lionel R. Stonewright formally, “ladies and gentlemen. I do confess some astonishment at having been invited to attend a meeting which appears to be composed primarily, if not entirely, of trade unionists. As president of the Brotherhood of Christ Defense Fund, the oldest continuously existent organization in the United States devoted exclusively to the supplying of strike breakers to industry, I assure you I take some small consolation from the thought that men I have hired have surely given most or all of you a taste of the club or the whip at some time in the past, or will do so at some time in the future.”
Lobo growled, deep in his throat, but Stonewright ignored him, continuing, “Our chairman, Mr. Eustaly, suggested to me that it might be to my advantage, or to the advantage of the Brotherhood of Christ Defense Fund, were I to attend this meeting. How any such advantage could accrue from an alliance with Reds and subversives I cannot possibly imagine, nor do I see any reason why I should remain here another instant.”
Eustaly, when faced with adversity, only smiled the harder. Now he smiled the hardest I’d yet seen from him, and said, “As I have mentioned several times, dear Mr. Stonewright, we in this room represent a broad spectrum of belief. It is not in the furtherance of any specific one of these beliefs that we have thus assembled, but in the hope that together we may increase the efficiency of our communal method.”
“The Brotherhood of Christ Defense Fund,” Stonewright said icily, “doesn’t need any help.” He gave the rest of us a withering sneer. “Particularly,” he said, “from Wobblies.”
“Wobblies!!”
There was a general shouting and commotion once more, as Mrs. Baba, Mr. Zlott, Mrs. Bodkin, and both Whelps all leaped up, demanding to know how Mr. Stonewright could possibly call them Wobblies. I saw Eustaly turn and nod to Lobo, and then step back with a gentle look of understanding and of pity on his face.
Lobo came down off the platform like a gorilla dropping out of a tree. He stepped in front of each of the shouters in turn, placed his huge palm atop the shouter’s head, and pushed downward until he or she had stopped shouting and started sitting. In less than half a minute he was done; there was absolute silence, and only Mr. Stonewright was still on his feet. Lobo looked around, nodded his satisfaction, and returned to the platform.
Stonewright waited till Lobo was safely behind Eustaly again, and then said, “As is usual with leftists of the lower classes, nothing will keep you people in line but brute strength. I would not, let me assure you, consider contaminating my organization through association for even a minute with any one of you.”
Eustaly, smiling and smiling, said, “Such a decision is regrettable, Mr. Stone—”
“And final,” Stonewright snapped, cutting him off. “I would also like to warn you,” he added, “of my intention to inform the proper authorities concerning this subversive and no doubt Communist-inspired plot immediately upon leaving this hall.”
Eustaly’s smile turned pensive as he said, “I would hope you don’t mean that, Mr. Stonewright.”
“I assure you,” Stonewright told him, “that I mean every word of it.”
“Ahh,” said Eustaly. “Too bad.” Smiling sorrowfully and patiently, he sighed and said, “Lobo.”
“Close your eyes,” I whispered to Angela, and promptly closed mine. What was about to happen was, I knew, nothing for a pacifist to watch.
It is, however, impossible to close one’s ears. I heard someone — Stonewright, I suppose — say, “Ulp!” Then I heard feet running; they went right past me, and in fact something brushed my left arm. Then, from behind me, there was a very odd sound: thok.
Followed by: bakumple.
Then: chup-chup-chup.
Finally, after a brief but loud silence, Eustaly’s voice came from the front of the room, saying with fruity solemnity, “So unfortunate, that. I’d rather hoped we could avoid such things.”
I opened my eyes, and looked at Angela, and she was staring at something behind us. I whispered, “Didn’t you close your eyes?”
She swallowed, loudly, and looked at me, and whispered, “Gee whiz, noooo. You should have seen it, Gene!” She was really impressed.
Up front, Eustaly was saying, “Lobo, put him in the checkroom, we’ll take care of him later. Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the disturbance, but of course none of us wanted that man going to the authorities.” He smiled kindly on us. “He knew our names,” he pointed out, “and our organizations. He could have created a good deal of trouble for everyone in this room.”
About half of the audience was facing Eustaly, and the other half was all twisted around, studying something at the rear of the room. I looked at their faces, the ones who were turned this way, and I saw nothing in any of them but serious interest. An event had occurred which related to their specialty, and they took a natural interest in how the matter was handled. Not a one of them seemed surprised, horrified, shaken, or frightened by what had taken place.
Well, and why should they be? They weren’t the spies in their midst. I was.
I glanced at Angela, to see how she was taking it, but she was bent over her notepad, staring at her shorthand notes in a baffled and defeated way, and not at all with the rest of us. I turned all the way around and looked toward the rear of the room, but Lobo had already dragged the late Mr. Stonewright out of sight.