“Half the industry. Bob Tony. Half the fucking movie industry, wiped out in two minutes. Christ, you’re practically the oldest filmmaker left in California.”
“How’s Suzi?” Allison asked. “And Ken?”
“Okay. Scared shitless, but okay. The flooding, the slides, you should see it on TV. Suzi nearly went out of her tree when you called, she was sure I’d get washed away before I ever got near the airport. Ken was pissed off ’cause I made him stay home. He wanted to see the sights.” Ken was the Loefflers’ thirteen-year-old; Allison was fond of the boy, who reminded him of himself.
“Is that what all these people are doing — sightseeing?” Allison wondered.
Ted laughed, showing big yellow teeth. “Looking for an open gas station so they can gas up and go looking for a quart of milk. Absolute chaos. Thank God they got the power right back on. We got three freezers full of stuff, another day and it would’ve been garbage.”
“Listen, Ted. We have to suspend The Longrangers. For the duration.”
“This is not a shock.” They were passing the Hollywood Bowl, and it was raining harder than ever.
“No. And it’s going to be a long duration. Maybe years.”
Ted’s long, homely face twisted. “Looks that way, kemo sabe.”
“You know, Ted, this is no standard California disaster. This is it, the big one. By the time the government gets a grip on things again, a lot of people will be dead. Any looting here?”
“Sure. Watts, Compton, all the black areas.”
“What happens when they get hungry again? And other people get hungry? Blacks aren’t the only people with a little enterprise. And no food in a city of eight million people?”
“I’ve got a gun.”
“Every son-of-a-bitch in L.A. has a gun except me, and I’m working on it.”
“Okay, okay. You got a plan, so tell.”
“I think we can hole up at the ranch and ride this out. We’ve got some resources now, and I’ll be getting more. The neighbours are scattered and pretty self-sufficient, too, and shouldn’t be a problem. Monterey and Carmel are wrecked all to shit, but the army’s already patrolling. Remember Ernie Miles from Fort Polk? He’s the CO at Fort Ord now, and he really moved fast yesterday. Declared martial law from Monterey to Salinas, got his troops out there, and kept things calm. He’s a good guy to know. He had his MPs on duty at the airport, and they didn’t want to let me charter the plane. But I got him on the phone and he personally authorized the flight.”
“I love him, I love him. Well, look, let me talk to Suzi, okay? It sounds like a basically good idea. Not as good as making sixty million dollars, but good.”
Allison turned on the car radio. It already felt like luxury to hear a news broadcast; all of central and northern California had been blacked out since the waves, but Los Angeles still had power. For now.
The waves were already old news; now the stories were about floods in the hills, fires in Long Beach and Watts, the countless injured people overcrowding the hospitals. Most of the news from the east was about governmental determination to cope with the disaster. Tsunamis had also hit several places along the east coast: a hundred people were reported missing on the south shore of Long Island, parts of New York City had been flooded, and Boston’s waterfront was wrecked.
Allison felt a sombre satisfaction at the economic news. Several major banks had suspended operation for at least a week. Gold and silver prices were shooting up, with gold at close to a thousand dollars an ounce — up three hundred dollars in a day. With almost a thousand ounces of gold carefully hidden in his house, Allison had become suddenly richer. The New York stock market hadn’t opened today; a full-scale panic had erupted in the stock markets of Tokyo, Hong Kong and London.
Ted turned south on La Cienaga. Most of the art galleries and boutiques were closed, early victims of the depression, but the street still had some class. In the seven-hundred block stood a four-story block of marble and black glass; Ted pressed a button on the dash, activating an automatic gate, and drove into the building’s underground garage.
“We’re in luck,” he muttered. “Last time the gate wouldn’t open. The flares burned it out.” He parked in his usual slot, next to the company sedan, a new Nissan. Not many other cars were there; fluorescent lights flickered on bare, oil-stained concrete.
“Thanks, Ted. You go on home, look after Suzi. I’m going to make some phone calls. Then I’ll take the Nissan home.”
“What about dinner? You want to come over for dinner?”
“No, no — Suzi’s got enough trouble without me. I’ll eat at home. But I’d like you both, and Ken — all of you — to come over tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock. Okay?”
“Sure, Bob Tony.”
Allison gripped Ted’s hand. “Thanks. See you then.”
The Pontiac growled back through the electronic gate while Allison took the elevator to the third floor.
He took pride in running a multimillion-dollar production company from a six-room office suite. The decor was lived-in elegant, with some lovely Ben Shahn originals hanging above battered Edwardian armchairs. Allison let himself in and walked to his office without bothering to turn on the lights. The office was eclectically furnished: an antique roll-top desk, three wingback chairs, a whole wall of VTR equipment including a large TV projection screen, and a word processor. Rain slithered down the big windows overlooking the street.
The submarine gloom appealed to him. He sat at the roll-top and scrawled a few notes to himself; then he picked up the phone. First the logistics calclass="underline" for transport, fuel, food and weapons. His contact was hard to reach, and harder to bargain with. When negotiations ended, Allison had promised a half-million dollars in gold for two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of supplies and equipment. For the first time, he felt grateful for gas rationing; without it, black marketeers like his contact would still be dealing in nonessentials like cocaine.
Next he reviewed the mental list he’d made the day before, on the drive back from Carmel to the ranch. The Loefflers were at the top of it, thanks to Ted’s organizational ability; Allison expected them to agree. Two more couples remained to be contacted. From what he’d seen so far of conditions in L.A., they were likely to accept his offer as well. He began to punch the number of the first couple.
An hour later, as the rain began to slacken, Allison made one final call. A child’s voice answered:
“Hello, this is Sarah Allison speaking.”
“Hi, love. It’s Dad. How are you?”
“Daddy! Hi, Daddy! Mommy, it’s Daddy. We didn’t have any lights yesterday,” she told him proudly. “So we had cold hot dogs for dinner.”
“Sounds yummy. Listen, love, can I talk to your mom for a second?”
“Okay. Here’s Mommy.”
Astrid sounded cool but tense. “Where are you?”
“Up at the ranch. I’ve been trying to get through to you guys since yesterday. How are things?”
“As well as we might expect. The power just came on a few hours ago. It’s been freezing cold.”
“Same with us.”
“It must be tough to live in a palace with no lights.”
He would not let himself be baited. “Have you got enough food? Enough money?”
“We have a freezer half full of soggy meat. If the power stays on long enough for me to cook it, we’ll be all right. I don’t know about money. Most of the markets in Santa Monica are locked up tight. The open ones are charging three times what they were last week. And the Honda needs a brake job, so I can’t even get out of here except on foot.”
“Jesus. Okay, listen. I’ll call Ted Loeffler and ask him to get out to you with some money and the office car, the Nissan. You’re welcome to it for as long as you need it.”