Tomorrow! (22 page)

Then he faced Lieutenant Lacey, who had his feet on his desk and was grinning.

“Evening, Hank.”

Henry Conner had not sworn much in years. He now turned the lieutenant’s office blue.

“Just
what
,”
he finally managed to ask, “is the idea of picking me up and hauling me into the hoosegow?”

“Don’t get riled, Henry. You’ll be home in time for a good night’s sleep.”

“
You
won’t sleep, by God, Lacey, unless you can explain
what
in the name of jumped-up

. . . !” The square, homely face was brick-red and the gray hair frizzed in sweat. Righteous wrath exploded in Henry’s every syllable.

“Things,” Lacey answered, his Irish grin undisturbed, “were really in a mess here, Henry, a few minutes ago. A call came in from a right upset person, known to us, a Mrs. Agnes Heer, of twenty-six twenty-eight Pine Street—”

“What the hell has that busybody of an Aggie Fleer got to do with
me being grabbed by
cops?”

“—saying that a dead body had fallen out of the rear end of a car. She got the car’s number. We radioed. They picked you up.”

Henry said,
“Oh.”
He sat down. “A dead body, eh? Fell out of my car, eh?” His voice rose,
“Did that old cheese-butt examine the body?”

“Not closely. She said it was lying in the gutter, hideously disfigured, face bloody, an arm sawed off—”

“She
did,
eh?” Henry’s voice was tense.

“She did. And naturally we sent out a red flash for the car with the number she gave us.

We told her not to touch the body,” Lacey said earnestly. “What the hell
was
it, Henry? When Jones and Billings came in here and said they’d picked you up, I knew—”

“It was Minnie,” Henry answered in a peculiar tone.

“Minnie?”
Lacey shook his head. “Anyone we know?”

Henry took a deep breath. He stood up. “Look, Lacey,” he explained with control.

“Minnie is a dummy, one of six the department-store people contributed to Civil Defense.

Minnie was made up months since, over at Jenkins hospital by some imaginative young interns, to look like an atom-bomb casualty.”

“I thought
it was something of the sort!”

“Thanks,” Henry said. “And
good night!
And the next time you want me for murder, don’t send a couple of prowl cops after me. They might get hurt.”

“Just a sec. “

Henry kept on going.

He had ample appreciation of the humorousness of his predicament. But he was anxious to finish his evening’s duties. The dummy that had led to his arrest was realistic. But they’d used realistic dummies in Civil Defense drills all over the country for years. The tizzie which the mere sight of it had started in Aggie Fleer was evidence of how the general public would react. There ought, he thought, to be more such “wounded” dummies for the public to see. Nowadays Americans whisked out of sight, in ambulances, every injury, every accident case. They hastily wiped up blood when it was spilled. Only doctors and nurses knew, any more, what wounds were. God alone could guess how half a million Aggie Fleers would act if real bombs started bursting over American streets. Take one look at the casualties and blow their tops, he felt sure.

He’d have to emphasize the point in future CD meetings.
Do
something about it.

Lacey called, “Just a sec.”

Henry spoke his thoughts. “Never did realize how much
education
folks need. Matter of fact, I hide those dummies
myself.
Wonder if I should? Maybe there ought to be a permanent display in a downtown department-store window, so people wouldn’t faint if the real thing ever came along.
Fat chance
of getting a display!” He started through the door.

“I’ve got more to say.” Henry stopped and looked back gloweringly. Lacey said, “I told you, your ‘Minnie’ fell out of your car—”

“Damn it, I was on the way to a rescue drill. I keep Minnie, and two others, in my garage.”

“Yeah. Well, when Billings radioed in they had you, without knowing at the moment who you were, I got
another
call.”

Henry groaned. “What’d Minnie do? Grave-walk?”

“Some kids found her. And about fifteen minutes ago, Albert Higgley answered his doorbell and saw something in his barberry bushes. He switched on his porch light and took a good look and fell down six steps. They think his collarbone’s broken.”

“Too bad,” Henry said. “You don’t feel any—liability in the matter? A judge might think differently.”

“I said, by cracking godalmighty, it’s
Civil Defense business!
Some of us
still
stick to duty. If a couple of boys played a prank with poor old Minnie, get the boys.”

“We did. One was
your
boy. Ted.”

He considered. He chuckled slightly. “Ted, eh?”

“They’re bringing him here.”

“Ted never did care much for Albert Higgley,” Henry mused. “The old squirt owns a vacant lot near our place, has grape arbors on it. Nobody picks the grapes, unless kids like Ted do. One year-oh-maybe seven . . . eight years back—my hoy Ted and a couple of other nippers were having grapes. Old Higgley ambushed ‘em. Swung with a heavy cane, no warning, just whammed out of the bushes. Broke Ted’s nose first crack. He wasn’t more’n eight-nine, maybe. .

. .”

Lacey rubbed his chin. “I see. You didn’t charge him?”

“Heck, no! Everybody has one or two mean neighbors.”

“He’s charging
you.
His
wife
is anyhow. Lewd and obscene exhibition—”

“
What?”

Lacey nodded. “That store dummy was pretty realistic, wasn’t it?”

“Was,” Henry said. “And is. The interns went to some trouble to make it more so. Hair, and like that. Point is, if you’re going to have personnel trained to stand the shock of human beings burned and hurt, you gotta train them with something that looks human.”

“I suppose you do.” Lacey gazed at the ceiling.
“Point
is, there’s a city ordinance about lewd exhibition. That dummy was female—and naked—”

“Dam’
right!
So would
bomb casualties
be! Clothes burned off ‘em, and naked as the day they were born,
and
bumed—like Minnie.”

“Guess I can let you go, Hank. I’ll talk to your kid—scare him good—and let him go, too. But I think you may have to answer in court, someday soon—if Higgley’s collarbone is really broken—for this ‘lewd’ business.”

In alternations of rage and laughter, Henry told Beth. When he finished, like most excited persons, he went back to the beginning. ‘‘There I was, tooling along to CD headquarters to drill the rescue gang!
Wham!
There they came, sirens yowling. ‘Pull over!’ they hollered, and so help me God, when I got out, they had drawn their guns!”

He slapped his thigh and chortled.

His wife smiled, but not with his hilarity.

“It’s funny,” she said quietly, “but I don’t recall ever seeing Minnie.”

He shot her a quick glance, his smile gone. “Minnie’s an ugly sight,” he replied. “Kept her in that locked closet, with the others. Didn’t see any call to show you our chamber of horrors.”

“Why, Henry?”

“Well. . . .”

“Isn’t that what they’re
for
?”

“Sure. I suppose, though—that is, I always figured, why upset Beth. She can stand what she
has
to. A lot of people passed out or puked the first time we used those things—and not all women, by any means.”

“I think I ought to look.”

Henry’s amusement, as well as his indignation, were gone, now. “Hell, Mom!” he protested.

She beckoned with her head.

They went to the garage. Henry switched on the light. He unlocked a closet. Inside, standing, leaning against the walls, were two figures of human beings-a man and a child—

horribly mutilated. Beth Conner touched the back of her hand to her mouth. She said, almost in a whisper, “All right, Hank. Shut the door.”

He followed her, around the Oldsmobile and into the yard, wondering what she was thinking. She whispered something finally, and he thought she said, “The beasts!” He guessed, presently, she had said that, referring to the Reds, maybe, or maybe to scientists, or maybe just to humanity at large. But when she faced him she was calm and she took his arm by its crook.

“Hank,” she murmured, “don’t you
ever
quit Civil Defense!”

Lenore said, “I won’t!”

Netta ate another pecan. The Applebys had sent them from Florida—too late for Thanksgiving but too early for Christmas. The Applebys had never before sent a gift to the Baileys. The Applebys lived on Crystal Lake and went to Miami every year. Word, Netta thought, must be seeping around, the way it always does, ahead of the fact. The pecans were therefore a delicious token of a bounteous Hood to come.

“I think you will,” Netta said, “simply because I know you haven’t lost your mind.”

“Nevertheless, I will not marry Kit.”

“Why?”

“How’d you
like
to?”

“I’ve had worse,” Netta said, and then catching herself, she added, “all my life.”

Lenore’s eyes were savage.
“You’ve
had worse all your life! Poor
Dad
!”

“It’s so plain it hurts,” Netta said. “You refuse Kit. Okay. Your father’s in jail-five to ten years. Kill him sure.”

“Maybe it would—what’s
left
of Dad!”

“The house goes. Both cars. All the furniture. Probably even our clothes, forced sales and repossession. Then we have nothing.”

“But self-respect.”

Netta said quietly, “You’ve never been poor. Flat. Stony. Broke. Without a friend or a dime—unless you hustle a friend and he gives you a dime. Maybe even a few dollars.”

Lenore thought that over. “I doubt it. People would tide you and me over—”

“Who?”

Lenore looked through a window. “The Conners.”

“The Conners—the Conners!—the
Conners
! I’ve heard it all my life. I’m sick to death of it. Who are the Conners? An accountant, that’s who! And a crazy young kid who thinks he’ll be an architect in maybe ten years when you’ve got bags under your eyes and a bridge.”

Lenore took a pecan. She looked at it, halved it, threw the paper-thin middle husk onto the hearth and shook her head. She felt frightened, cold, sick. She was trapped and she knew it as well as her mother. If it were just disgrace, as such, and poverty, that would be thinkable. But she couldn’t face the image of her father in prison, marching in a line to eat, going out on the roads in stripes, cold and miserable and rejected. She knew he was weak. But she knew, also, that he was kind. Kind and rather gentle and, in his way, loving. Which her mother was not, unless, in some twisted way, she too cared for Beau.

Lenore was intelligent. She was realistic. Her bent toward science had showed it and her studies of science had developed the quality. She had been brought up to like and enjoy “nice”

things and to want and to know how to use far more of them than her father could ever supply.

At this moment, however, she realized how very little “nice things” meant in relation to the whole of human life. Her very realism had showed her, long ago, that life was closing in on her. The sweetheart of her childhood had not turned into the dream prince of maturity. He was far away now, doing some sort of menial chore for the Air Force. Desk work. He’d grow up at a desk, drawing buildings that probably would never be constructed, because Chuck didn’t seem to have even as much drive as his father. All Chuck’s drive was in his head, his imagination. It never came out, never produced.

Long ago she’d begun saying to herself, Wise up, Lenore. He isn’t for you. Find yourself another boy.

Well. Her mother had found one. If it wasn’t to be Chuck, did it matter so greatly who it was?

Lenore could anticipate the turnings of her mother’s mind. She anticipated now, as her mother began, “After all, Lenore, in time. . . .”

“I know. Divorce. With alimony. Abundant alimony.”

Netta got ahead of her then. “Why not? People like the Sloans expect it.” Netta was aware that Minerva had no such idea in mind, but she went on confidently, ‘‘I’m sure his mother feels that even an unsuccessful marriage would be good for him. Start him on the way. And, Lenore, have you thought? Suppose you were married a few years? Suppose you came—out—

well the way you would. Comfortably off? Even wealthy?
Then
you might be in a position to give Charles Conner financial aid till he got on his feet in architecture. You could get married and be happy, with a settlement from the Sloan family in your bank account! I mean, if it’s
really
love you feel for Charles, what could you do that would help
more?
Have you thought of
that?”

Lenore ate another nut, tossed a hull, twisted her dark hair. “Thought of whoring for the man I love? No. I haven’t. I suppose it’s been done, though. By plenty of women.”

“Then you’ll. . . ?”

“I haven’t said,” Lenore answered. “I painted myself into this corner with my own little hand. If Dad isn’t to go to the pen right off, I suppose I’ve got to get engaged, at least, or have an

‘understanding’ with the ape. You’ve got me in a spot where either I do that, or Dad’s jailed.”

“I always knew my daughter. . . .” Netta began rapturously, and rapturously she rose from her chair to bestow an embrace.

Lenore sat perfectly still. “Sit down, Netta,” she said icily. “Let’s have no manure in this.”

“Minerva will want to know!” Mrs. Bailey breathed, discomfited only momentarily.

“You call her and the deal’s off. I’ll tell Kit in my own time and my own way, and the terms won’t be—practicing matrimony from the moment he slips on the diamond either! Sit still, Mother! I swear to God, if you put the needle in anywhere, one more time, I’ll take a job in New York and be damned to you and Dad both!”

Mrs. Bailey was slightly disappointed, but not very. She had always been a main-chance gambler.

X-Day

Charles had come home for Christmas. His mother had answered the phone when he called from Texas with the good news. Something wonderful, she had thought, almost always happens around Christmastime.