Heinlein, Robert A - Time Enough for Love, page 62
The gun fitted into a left-side vest pocket Lazarus had retailored into a makeshift holster. Short of being frisked— most unlikely for so obviously respectable a citizen—it would not be noticed. A kilt was better both for concealment and for quick access—but it was the best he could manage with the clothes he had to wear, and this gun had had its front sight filed off by some practical-minded former owner.
He was now through with Kansas City save for saying good-bye to his first family—then grab the first Santa Fe rattler west. It distressed him that Gramp had gone to St. Louis, but that could not be helped, and this one time he would bull his way in, with a convincing cover story: The chess set as a present for Woodie was reason enough to show up in person, the bill of sale gave an excuse to speak to his father—No, sir, this is not exactly a present…but somebody might as well drive it until this war is over…and if by any chance I don’t come back—well, this makes things simpler—you understand me, sir?—your father-in-law being my best friend and sort of my next of kin since I don’t have any.
Yes, that would work and result in a chance to say goodbye to all the family, including Maureen. (Especially Maureen!) Without quite lying. Best way to lie.
Just one thing— If his father wanted to enlist him into his own outfit, then one lie must be used: Lazarus was dead set on joining the Navy. No offense intended, sir; I know you’re just back from Plattsburg, but the Navy needs men, too.
But he would not tell that lie unless forced to.
He left his car hack of the pawnship, crossed the street to a drugstore, and telephoned:
“Is this the Brian Smith residence?”
‘Yes, it is.”
“Mrs. Smith, this is Mr. Bronson. May I speak to Mr. Smith?”
“This isn’t Mama, Mr. Bronson; this is Nancy. Oh, isn’t it terrible!”
“Yes, it is, Miss Nancy.”
“You want to speak to Papa? But he’s not here, he’s gone to Fort Leavenworth. To report in—and we don’t know when we’ll see him again!”
“There, there—please don’t cry. Please!”
“I was not crying. I’m just a teensy bit upset. Do you want to speak to Mama? She’s here…but she’s lying down.”
Lazarus thought fast. Of course he wanted to speak to Maureen. But— Confound it, this was a complication. “Please don’t disturb her. Can you tell me when your grandfather will be back in town?” (Could he afford to wait? Oh, damn!)
“Why, Grandpa got back yesterday.”
“Oh. May I speak to him, Miss Nancy?”
“But he’s not here, either. He went downtown hours ago. He might be at his chess club. Do you want to leave a message for him?”
“No. Just tell him I called…and will call again later. And, Miss Nancy—don’t worry.”
“How can I help worrying?”
“I have second sight. Don’t tell anyone but it’s true; an old gypsy woman saw that I had it and proved it to me. Your father is coming home and will not be hurt in this war. I know.”
“Uh…I don’t know whether to believe that or not—but it does make me feel better.”
“It’s true.” He said good-bye gently, and hung up.
“Chess club—” Surely Gramp would not be loafing in a pool hail today? But since it was just across the street, he might as well see…before driving out to Benton and waiting in sight of the house for him to return.
Gramp was there, at the chess table but not even pretending to work a chess problem; he was simply glowering.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Johnson.”
Gramp looked up. “What’s good about it? Sit down, Ted.”
“Thank you, sir.” Lazarus slid into the other chair. “Not much good about it, I suppose.”
“Eh?” The old man looked at him as if just noticing his presence. “Ted, would you say that I was a man in good physical condition?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Able to shoulder a gun and march twenty miles a day?”
“I would think so.” (I’m sure you could, Gramp.)
“That’s what I told that young smart-alec at the recruiting station. He told me I was too old!” Ira Johnson looked ready to break into tears. “I asked him since when was forty-five too old?—and he told me to move aside, I was holding up the line. I offered to step outside and whip him and any two other men he picked. And they put me out, Ted, they put me out!” Gramp covered his face with his hands, then took them down and muttered, “I was wearing Army Blue before that snotty little shikepoke learned to pee standing up.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“My own fault. I fetched along my discharge…and forgot about its having my birth date on it. Look, Ted, if I dyed my hair and went back to St. Looie—or Joplin—that would work…wouldn’t it?”
“Probably.” (I know it didn’t, Gramp…but I think you did manage to talk your way into the Home Guard. But I can’t tell you that.)
“I’ll do it! But I’ll leave my discharge at home.”
“In the meantime may I drive you home? My Tin Lizzie is around in back.”
“Well…I suppose I’ve got to go home—eventually.”
“How about a little spin out Paseo to cool off first?”
“That’s a n’idee. If it won’t put you out?”
“Not at all.”
Lazarus drove around, keeping silent, until the old man’s fuming stopped. When Lazarus noted this, he headed back and turned east on thirty-first Street, and parked. “Mr. Johnson, may I say something?”
“Eh? Speak up.”
“If they won’t take you—even with your hair dyed—I hope you won’t feel too bad about it. Because this war is a terrible mistake.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said.” (How much to tell him? How much can I get him to believe? I can’t hold back altogether—this is Gramp…who taught me to shoot, and a thousand other things. But what will he believe?) “This, war won’t do the slightest good; it will just make things worse.”
Gramp stared at him, under knotted brows. “What are you, Ted? Pro-German?”
“No.”
“Pacifist, maybe? Come to think about it, you’ve never had one word to say about the war.”
“No, I’m not a pacifist. And I’m not pro-German. But if we win this war—”
“You mean ‘When we win this war!’”
“All right, ‘when we win this war,’ it will turn out that we’ve actually lost it. Lost everything we thought we were fighting for.”
Mr. Johnson abruptly changed tactics. “When are you enlisting?”
Lazarus hesitated. “I’ve got a couple of things I must do first.”
“I thought that might be your answer, Mr. Bronson. Good-bye!” Gramp fumbled with the door latch, cursed, and stepped over onto the running board, thence to the curb.
Lazarus said, “Gramp! I mean ‘Mr. Johnson.’ Let me finish running you home. Please!”
His grandfather paused just long enough to look back and say, “Not on your tintype…you pusillanimous piss-ant.” Then he marched steadily down the street to the car stop.
Lazarus waited and watched Mr. Johnson climb aboard; then he trailed the trolley car, unwilling to admit that there was nothing he could do to correct the shambles he had made of his relations with Gramp. He watched the old man get off at Benton Boulevard, considered overtaking him and trying to speak to him.
But what could he say? He understood how Gramp felt, and why—and he had already said too much and no further words could call it back or correct it. He drove aimlessly on down Thirty-first Street.
At Indiana Avenue he parked his car, bought a Star from a newsboy, went into a drugstore, sat down at the soda fountain, ordered a cherry phosphate to justify his presence, looked at the newspaper.
But was unable to read it— Instead he stared at it and brooded.
When the soda jerk wiped the marble counter in front of him and lingered, Lazarus ordered another phosphate. When this happened a second time,. Lazarus asked to use a telephone.
“Home or Bell?”
“Home.”
“Back of the cigar counter and you pay me.’~
“Brian? This is Mr. Bronson. May I speak to your mother?”
“I’ll go see,”
But it was his grandfather’s voice that came on the line: “Mr. Bronson, your sheer effrontery amazes me. What do you want?”
“Mr. Johnson, I want to speak to Mrs. Smith—”
“You can’t.”
“—because she has been very kind to me and I Want to thank her and say good-bye.”
“One moment—” He heard his grandfather say, “George, get out. Brian, take Woodie with you and close the door and see that it stays closed.” Mr. Johnson’s voice then came back closer: “Are you still there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then listen carefully and don’t interrupt; I’m going to say this just once.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My daughter will not speak to you, now or ever—” Lazarus said quickly, “Does she know that I asked to speak to her?”
“Shut up! Certainly she knows. She asked me to deliver that message. Or I would not have spoken to you myself. Now I too have a message for you—and don’t interrupt. My daughter is a respectable married woman whose husband has answered his country’s call. So don’t hang around her. Don’t come here or you’ll be met with a shotgun. Don’t telephone. Don’t go to her church. Maybe you think I can’t make this stick. Let me remind you that this is Kansas City. Two broken arms cost twenty-five dollars; for twice that they’ll kill you. But for a combined deal—break your arms first and then kill you—there’s a discount. I can afford sixty-two fifty if you make it necessary. Understand me?”
“Yes.”
“So twenty-three skidoo!”
“Hold it! Mr. Johnson, I do not believe that you would hire a man to kill another man—”
“You had better not risk it.”
“—because I think you would kill him yourself.”
There was a pause. Then the old man chuckled slightly. “You may be right.” He hung up on Lazarus.
Lazarus cranked his car and drove away. Presently he found that he was driving west on Linwood Boulevard, noticed it because he passed his family’s church. Where he had first seen Maureen— Where he would never see her again.
Not ever! Not even if he came back again and tried to avoid the mistakes he had made—there were no paradoxes. Those mistakes were unalterably part of the fabric of space-time, and all of the subtleties of Andy’s mathematics, all of the powers built into the Dora, could not erase them.
At Linwood Plaza, he parked short of Brooklyn Avenue and considered what to do next.
Drive to the station and catch the next Santa Fe train west. If either of those calls for help lasted through the centuries, then he would be picked up on Monday morning—and this war and all its troubles would again ‘be something that happened a long time ago—and “Ted Bronson” would be someone Gramp and Maureen had known briefly and would forget.
Too bad he had not had time to get those messages etched; nevertheless, one of them might last, If not—then make rendezvous for pickup in 1926. Or if none of them got through—always a possibility since he was attempting to use Delay Mail before it was properly set up—then wait for 1929-and carry out rendezvous as originally planned. No problem about that; the twins and Dora were ready to keep that one, no matter what.
Then why did he feel so bad?
This wasn’t his war.
Time enough and Gramp would know that the prediction he had blurted out was simple truth. In time Gramp would learn what French “gratitude” amounted to—when “Lafayette, we are here!’ was forgotten and the refrain was “Pas un sou a l’Amérique!” Or British “gratitude” for that matter. There was no gratitude between nations, never had been, never would be. “Pro-German”? Hell, no, Gramp! There is something rotten at the very heart of German culture, and this war is going to lead to another with German atrocities a thousand times more terrible than any they are accused of today. Gas chambers and a stink of burning flesh in planned viciousness— A stench that lasted through the centuries— But there was no way to tell Gramp and Maureen any of this. Nor should he try. The best thing about the future was that it was unknown. Cassandra’s one good quality was that she was never believed.
So why should it matter that two people who could not possibly know what he knew misunderstood why he thought this war was useless?
But the fact was that it did matter—it mattered terribly.
He felt the slight bulge against his left ribs. A defense for his gold—gold he did not give a damn about. But a “termination option” switch, too.
Snap out of it, you silly fool! You don’t want to be dead; you simply want the approval of Gramp and Maureen—of Maureen.
The recruiting station was under the main post office, far downtown. Late as it was, it was still open, with a queue outside. Lazarus paid an old Negro a dollar to sit in his car, warned him that there was a grip in the back, promised him another dollar when he got back—and did not mention ‘ the money vest and pistol, both now in the grip. But Lazarus did not worry about car or money—might be simpler if both were stolen. He joined the queue.
“Name?”
“Bronson, Theodore.”
“Previous military experience?”
“None.”
“Age? No, date of birth—and it had better be before April 5, 1899.”
“November 11, 1890.”
“You don’t look that old, but okay. Take this paper and through that door. You’ll find sacks or pillow cases. Take your clothes off, put ‘em in one, keep ‘em with you. Hand this to one of the docs and do what he tells you.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
“Get moving—next.”
A doctor in uniform was assisted by six more in civilian clothes. Lazarus read the Snellen Card correctly, but the doctor did not seem to be listening; this seemed to be a “warm body” examination. Lazarus saw only one man rejected, one who was (in ‘Lazarus’ horseback judgment) in the terminal stages of consumption.
Only one physician seemed at all anxious to find defects. He had Lazarus bend over and pull his buttock cheeks apart, felt for hernias and made him cough, then palpated his belly. “What’s this hard mass on the right side?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Have you had your appendix out? Yes, I see the scar. Feel the ridge, rather; the scar hardly shows. You had a good surgeon; I wish I could do one that neat. Probably just a mass of fecal matter there; take a dose of calomel and you’ll be rid of it by morning.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“Don’t mention it, Son. Next.”
“Hold up your right hands and repeat after me
“Hang onto these slips of paper. Be at the station before seven tomorrow morning, show your slip to a sergeant at the information desk; he’ll tell you where to board. If you lose your slip of paper, be there anyhow—or Uncle Sam will come looking for you. That’s all, men, you’re in the Army now! Out through that door.”
His car was, still there; the old Negro got out. “Eve’ything’s fine, Cap’m!”
“It surely is,” Lazarus agreed heartily while getting out a dollar bill. “But it’s ‘Private,’ not ‘Captain.’
“They took you? In that case, I cain’t hahdly take youah dollah.”
“Sure you can! I don’t need it; Uncle Sam is looking out for me for the ‘duration,’ and he’s going to pay me twenty-one dollars a month besides. So put this with the other one and buy gin and drink a toast to me—Private Ted Bronson.”
“Ah couldn’t rightly do that, Cap’m—Private Ted Bronson, suh. Ah’m White Ribbon—Ah took the plaidge befoah you was bohn. You jes’ keep youah money and hang the Kaisuh fo’ us.”
“I’ll try, Uncle. Let’s make this five dollars and you can give it to your church…and say a prayer for me.”
“Well…if you say so, Cap’m Private.”
Lazarus tooled south on McGee feeling happy. Never take little bites, enjoy life! “K-K-K- Katy! Beautiful Katy—”
He stopped at a drugstore, looked over the cigar counter, spotted a nearly empty box of White Owls, bought the remaining cigars, asked to keep the box. He then bought a roll of cotton and a spool of surgical tape—and, on impulse, the biggest, fanciest box of candy in the store.
His car was parked under an arc light; he let it stay there, got into the back seat, dug into his grip, got out vest and pistol, then started an un-tailoring job, indifferent to the chance of being seen. Five minutes with his pocketknife undid hours of tailoring; heavy coins clinked into the cigar box. He cushioned them with cotton, sealed the box and strengthened it by wrapping it with tape. The slashed vest, the pistol, and his ticket west went down a storm drain and the last of Lazarus’ worries went with them. He smiled as he stood up and brushed his knees. Son, you are getting old—why, you’ve been living cautiously!
He drove gaily out Linwood to Benton, ignoring the city’s seventeen-miles-per-hour speed limit. He was pleased to see lights burning on the lower floor of the Brian Smith residence; he would not have to wake anyone. He went up the walk burdened with the candy box, the case for chessmen, and the taped cigar box. The porch light came on as he reached the steps; Brian Junior opened the door and looked out. “Grandpaw! It’s Mr. Bronson!”
“Correction,” Lazarus said firmly. “Please tell your grandfather that Private Bronson is here.”
Gramp appeared at once, looked at Lazarus suspiciously. “What is ‘this? What did I hear you tell that boy?”
“I asked him to announce ‘Private Bronson.’ Me.” Lazarus managed to get all three packages under his left arm, reached into a pocket, got out the slip of paper he had been given at the recruiting station. “Look at it.”
Mr. Johnson read it. “I see. But why? Feeling the way you do.”
