“What else did Porky give you besides the diamonds?” Dan asked.
“All sorts of stuff. He gave us a double handful of watches just for a case of pork and beans. Pete has—” She looked down the hallway. She said, “Pete!” and led them to his room.
Pete Hernandez didn’t look as bad as Bill Cullen, but he looked bad enough, his scalp scabby as with mange, face erupting, and hands swollen. He pushed himself back on his pillows, startled, as they came in.
Rita said, “Pete, take off those watches.”
“Are you nuts?” Pete was wearing a gold watch pushed up absurdly on each skinny arm. Pete looked at their faces and said, “Why should I take off my watches?”
Dan leaned down and stripped them off and tossed them on a table. The flexible gold straps left black insignia. “They’re radioactive. That gold is a hot isotope of gold They’ve been poisoning you. Look.”
Pete looked down. “It’s just dirt. It’s the heat. I’ve been sweating.”
Randy asked the question, “Where’s the rest of Porky’s jewelry, Pete?”
Pete looked at Rita, his dulled black eyes uncertain and appealing. He said, “They just want to get our gold and stones, Rita.”
“Randy doesn’t lie, Pete, and I don’t think Doctor Gunn would steal anything from anybody.”
Pete curled his arm to reach under his pillow.
Dan said, “Oh, good Lord,” pitying him.
From under the pillow Pete brought out a plastic toilet kit.
“Open it,” Dan said.
Pete unzipped it. It was packed full, watch bands twisting and curling like golden snakes.
“Is that all?” Dan asked.
“No, those are just the watches,” Rita said. “Pete’s been amusing himself, admiring them and winding them every day. There’s more stuff in my room—a couple of necklaces and a ruby and diamond-brooch and—well, all sorts of junk.”
“Pete,” Dan said, “throw that kit in the corner, there. Rita, don’t touch anything you may have in your bedroom. There’s no point in your absorbing even another fraction of a roentgen. We’ve got to figure out a way to get the stuff out of here and get rid of it without damaging ourselves. We’ll be back.”
Rita followed them to the door, whimpering. She snatched at Dan’s sleeve. “What’s going to happen? Am I going to die? Is my hair going to fall out?”
“You haven’t absorbed nearly as much radiation as your brother,” Dan said. “I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen because radiation sickness is so tricky.”
“What about Pete? What’ll I do if Pete—”
“I’m afraid,” Dan said, “that Pete is slipping into leukemia.”
“Blood cancer?”
“Yes. I’m afraid you’d better prepare yourself.”
Rita’s hand fell from Dan’s arm. Randy watched her diminish, all allure, all bravado falling away, leaving her smaller and like a child. He said, quietly, “Rita, you’d better keep this, here. You’ll need it.”
He gave her the bottle of Scotch.
As he pressed the starter Dan said, “Why give her the whiskey.”
“I feel sorry for her.” That wasn’t the only reason. If he had owed her anything before, he did no longer. They were quits. They were square. “Is she going to be all right?” he asked.
“I think so, unless a malignancy develops from the burn on her finger. Improbable but possible. Yes, she should be all right so far as radiation goes. The dose she absorbed was localized. But after her brother dies she’ll be alone. Then she won’t be all right.”
“She’ll find a man,” Randy said. “She always has.”
Porky Logan’s house stood at the end of Augustine Road, in a grove that rose up a hillside at the back of the house. It was a two-story brick, the largest house in Pistolville, so it was said. Porky’s sister and niece had been caring for him, but he lived alone. His wife and two children had departed Pistolville ten years before.
They found Porky on the second floor; He was sitting up in bed, unshaven chin resting upon blotched bare chest. Between his knees was a beer case filled with jewelry. His hands were buried to the forearm in this treasure. Dan said, “Porky!”
Porky didn’t raise his head. Porky was dead.
Dan stepped to the bed, pushed Porky’s body back against the pillows, and pried an eyelid open.
Dan said, “Let’s get out of here. That’s a furnace he’s got in his lap.”
Randy tried not to breathe going down the steps. It was not only the smell of Porky’s room that hurried him.
Dan said, “We’ve got to keep people out of this house until we can get Porky and that hot stuff underground. How do we do it?”
“What about a sign? We could paint a sign.”
They found an unopened can of yellow paint and a brush in Porky’s garage. Dan used the brush on the front door. In block letters he wrote:
“DANGER! KEEP OUT! RADIATION!”
“You’d better put something else on there,” Randy said. “There are a lot of people around here who still don’t know what radiation means.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I’m positive of it. They’ve never seen it, or felt it. They hear about it, but I don’t think they believe it. They didn’t believe it could kill them before The Day—if they thought of it at all—and I don’t think they believe it now. You’d better add something they understand, like Poison.”
So under “RADIATION,” Dan printed, “POISON.” He said, “One other. Bill Cullen.”
Bigmouth Bill was as they had left him, except that he held a bottle of cheap rum in his misshapen hands, and had been hitting it. Randy hovered at the door, so he could listen but not be submerged in the odors.
Dan said, “Bill, we’ve found out what’s making you sick. You’re absorbing radiation from the jewelry Porky traded for the whiskey. Porky’s jewelry is hot. It’s radioactive. Where is it?”
Bill laughed wildly. He began to curse, methodically and without imagination, as Randy had heard troops curse in the MLR in Korea. The pace of his obscenities quickened, he choked, frothed, and pulled at the rum bottle. “Jewelry!” he yelled, his yellow eyeballs rolling. “Jewelry! Diamonds, emeralds, pearls, tinkly little bracelets, all hot, all radioactive. That’s rich!”
“Where is it, Bill?” Dan’s voice was sharper.
“Ask her. Ask the dough-faced bitch! She has ‘em, has the whole bootful.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been hiding the stuff, figuring that if she got her hands on it she’d swap it all for a bottle of vino. The jewels in one boot, the rum in the other. Believe it or not, this is the last of my stock.” He sucked at the bottle.
“Go on,” Dan said.
“I kept the boots, these boots here—” he gestured at a pair of hunting boots—“hid under the bed. It was safe, okay. You see, my woman she never cleaned anything, especially she never cleaned under the bed. Well, when she went out for a while I thought I’d take a look at the loot. You know, it was nice to hold it in your hands and dream about what you were going to do with it when things got back to normal. But she was watching through the window. She’s been trying to catch me and just a while ago she did. She walked in, grinning. I thought she was going to tell me the war was over or something. She walked in and reached under the bed and snatched the boot. All she said as she went through the door was, ‘I hope you croak, you sneaky bastard. I’m going back to Apalachicola’.”
Fascinated, Randy asked, “How does she expect to get to Apalachicola?”
“I keep—kept the Plymouth in the shed. It was nearly full with gas, what was in the drum I had to service the outboards. I hope she wrecks.”
Dan picked up his bag. His huge shoulders sagged. His face was unhappy behind the red beard. “Do you still have that ointment I gave you?”
“Yes.” Bill turned his head toward the table.
“Keep using it on your hands. It may give you relief.”
“It may, but this will.” Bill tilted the rum bottle and drank until he gagged.
Riding back on River Road, Randy said, “Will Cullen live?”
“I doubt it. I don’t have the drugs or antibiotics or blood transfusions for him.” He reached down and patted his bag. “Not much left in here, Randy. I have to make decisions, now. I have drugs only for those worth saving.”
“What about the woman?”
“I don’t think she’ll die of radiation sickness. I don’t think she’ll keep that hot gold and silver and platinum long enough. She’ll either swap for booze or, being stupid, try one of the main highways.”
“I think the highwaymen will get her if she’s headed for Apalachicola,” Randy said.
It was strange that the term highwaymen, had revived in its true and literal sense. These were not the romantic and reputedly chivalrous highwaymen of Britain’s post roads in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These new highwaymen were ruthless and evil men who lately had been choking the thin trickle of communications and trade between towns and villages. Mostly, according to word that filtered into Fort Repose, they operated on the main highways like the Turnpike and Routes 1, 441, 17, and 50. So they were called highwaymen.
They passed the empty McGovern place. It was already lushly overgrown. “You know,” Dan said, “in a few more months the jungle will take over.”
9
THEY buried Porky Logan Friday morning. It was a ticklish and exhausting procedure. Randy had to draw his gun to get it done.
First, it was necessary to obtain the cooperation of Bubba Offenhaus. That was difficult enough.
Bubba’s funeral parlor was locked and empty and he was no longer seen in town. Since he was Deputy Director of Civil Defense as well as undertaker, a public appearance exposed him to all sorts of requests and problems which frightened him and about which he could do nothing. So Bubba and Kitty Offenhaus could only be found in their big new house, a rare combination of modern and classic, constructed largely of tinted glass between antebellum Greek columns.
When Randy found Bubba sitting on his terrace he looked like a balloon out of which air had been let. His trousers sagged front and rear and folds of skin drooped around his mouth. Dan explained about Porky. Bubba was unimpressed. “Let them bury him in Pistolville,” he said. “Plant him in his own back yard.”
“It can’t be done that way,” Dan said. “Porky’s a menace and the jewelry is deadly. Bubba, what we’ve got to have is a lead-lined coffin. We’ll bury his loot with him.”
“You know very well I’ve only got one in stock,” Bubba said. “As a matter of fact it’s the only casket I’ve got left and probably the only casket in Timucuan County. It’s the de luxe model with hammered bronze handles and shield which can be suitably engraved, and reinforced bronze corners. Guaranteed for eternity and I’m damned if I’m going to give it up for Porky Logan.”
“Who are you saving it for,” Randy asked, “yourself?”
“I don’t see any point in you becoming insulting, Randy. That casket cost me eight hundred and forty—five dollars F.O.B. and it retails for fifteen hundred plus tax. Who’s going to pay for it? As a matter of fact, who’s going to reimburse me for all the other caskets, and everything else, that I’ve contributed since The Day?”
“I’m sure the government will,” Dan said, “one day.”
“Do you think the government’s going to restore Repose-in-Peace Park? Do you think it’ll pay for all those choice plots I’ve handed out, free? Like fun. I suppose you want to bury Porky in Repose-in-Peace?”
“That’s the general idea,” Dan said.
“And you expect me to use my hearse to cart the cadaver?”
“Somebody has to do it, Bubba, and you’re not only the man with the hearse but you’re in Civil Defense.”
Bubba groaned. The most stupid thing he had ever done was accept the Civil Defense job. At the time it had seemed quite an honor. His appointment was mentioned in the Orlando and Tampa papers, and he rated a whole page, with picture, in the Southeast Mortician. It was undoubtedly a bigger thing than holding office in the Lions or Chamber of Commerce. His status had increased, even with his wife.
Kitty was Old Southern Family, while he had been raised in South Chicago. She had never wholly forgiven him for this, or for his profession. Secretly, he had considered Civil Defense a boondoggle, like handouts to foreign countries and spending millions on moon rockets and such. He had never imagined there would be a war. It was true that after The Day he and Kitty had been able to get supplies in San Marco that he wouldn’t have been able to get if he hadn’t been in Civil Defense. For one thing, he had been able to get gasoline out of the county garage. But the tanks had long been dry, all other official supplies exhausted. He said, “I’ve only got one hearse that will run and only a couple of gallons of gas in it. I’m saving it for an emergency.”
“This is an emergency,” Dan said. “You’ll have to use it now.”
Bubba thought of another obstacle. “It’ll take eight men to tote that lead-lined casket with Porky in it even if he’s lost weight like I have.”
Randy spoke. “We’ll get them. Plenty of strong men hanging around Marines Park.”
In the park they mounted the bandstand. Randy shouted, “Hey, everybody! Come over here!” The traders drifted over, wondering.
Bubba made a little speech. Bubba was accustomed to speaking at service club luncheons and civic meetings, but this audience, although many of the faces were familiar, was not the same. It was neither attentive nor courteous. He spoke of community spirit and cooperation and togetherness. He reminded them that they had sent Porky Logan to the state legislature and he knew Porky must have been a friend to many there. Now he asked for volunteers to help bury Porky. No hands went up. A few of the traders snickered.
Bubba shrugged and looked at Dan Gunn. Dan said, “This is in your own interest. If we leave the dead unburied we’re inviting an epidemic. In addition, in this case we must get rid of radioactive material that can be dangerous to anyone who finds it.”
Somebody yelled, “Bubba’s the undertaker, ain’t he? Well, let him undertake it.”
Some of the men laughed. Randy saw that they were bored and would soon turn away. It was necessary that he act. He stepped in front of Dan, lifted the flap of his holster, and drew out the .45.
Holding it casually, so that it was a menace to no one in particular, and yet to each of them separately, he pulled back the hammer. His left forefinger jabbed at the faces of five men, big men. “You, Rusty, and you, Tom, and you there, you have just volunteered as pallbearers.”
They looked at him amazed. For a long time, no one had ordered them to do anything. For a long time, there had not even been a boss on a job. Nobody moved. Some of the traders carried handguns in hip pockets or holsters. Others had leaned shotguns or rifles against benches or the bandstand railing.
Randy watched for a movement. He was going to shoot the first man who reached for a weapon. This was the decision he had made. Regardless of the consequences he was going to do it. Having made the decision, and being certain he would carry it out, he felt easy about it. He realized they must know this.
He stepped down from the bandstand, his eyes holding his five volunteers. He said, “All right, let’s get going.”
The five men followed him and he holstered his pistol.
So they buried Porky Logan. With him they buried the contaminated loot in Porky’s carton and out of the Hernandez house. Also into the coffin went the fire tongs with which Dan Gunn had handled the jewelry. When the grave was filled and mounded somebody said, “Hadn’t there ought to be a prayer for the poor bastard?”
They all looked at Randy. Randy said, “God rest his soul.” He added, knowing that it would be passed along, “And God help anybody who digs him up to get the stuff. It’ll kill them like it killed Porky.”
He turned and walked slowly, head down, to the car, thinking. Authority had disintegra
ted in Fort Repose. The Mayor, Alexander Getty, who was also chairman of the town council, was barricaded in his house, besieged by imaginary and irrational fears that the Russians had invaded and were intent on his capture, torture, and the rape of his wife and daughter. The Chief of Police was dead. The two other policemen had abandoned unpaid public duty to scramble for their families. The fire and sanitation departments, equipment immobilized, no longer existed. Bubba Offenhaus was frightened, bewildered, and incapable of either decision or action. So Randy had shoved his gun into this vacuum. He had assumed leadership and he was not sure why. It was enough trouble keeping the colony on River Road alive and well. He felt a loneliness not unfamiliar. It was like leading a platoon out of the MLR to occupy some isolated outpost. Command, whether of a platoon or a town, was a lonely state.
When they returned to River Road at noon Randy’s boat shoes were stiff with caked clay of the graveyard. He was knocking them clear of clods, on the front steps, when he was attracted by movement in the foliage behind Florence Wechek’s house. Alice Cooksey and Florence were standing under a tall cabbage palm, steadying a ladder. At the top of the ladder, head and shoulders hidden by fronds, was Lib. He wondered why she must be up there. He wished she would stay on the ground. She took too many chances. She could get hurt. With medical supplies dwindling Dan had already been forced to use most of their reserve—they all had to be careful. Everyone had chores and if one was hurt it meant added burdens, including nursing, on the others. A simple fracture could be compound disaster.
Bill McGovern, Malachai, and Two-Tone Henry came around the corner of the house. Bill was wearing gray flannels raggedly cut off above the knees, tennis shoes, and nothing else. His right hand grasped a bouquet of wrenches. Grease smeared his bald head and fine white beard. He no longer looked like a Caesar, but like an unkempt Jove armed with thunderbolts. Before he could speak Randy demanded: “Bill, what’s your daughter doing up that palm?”