Part 7 (1/2)
”This is Walter Boyd, returning you now to the regular entertainment program.”
A second later, the thing whistled at me. As the car started down and the doors closed I lifted the handphone. It was Bish Ware again.
”We're going down in the elevator to Second Level Down,” I said. ”I have Joe and Tom and Oscar Fujisawa and a few of the _Javelin_ crew with me. The place is crawling with cops now.”
”Go to Third Level Down and get up on the catwalk on the right,” Bish said. ”I'll be along to pick you up.”
”Roger. We'll be looking for you.”
The car stopped at Second Level Down. I punched a b.u.t.ton and sent it down another level. Joe Kivelson, who was dabbing at his cheek with a piece of handkerchief tissue, wanted to know what was up.
”We're getting a pickup,” I told him. ”Vehicle from the _Times_.”
I thought it would save arguments if I didn't mention who was bringing it.
6
ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR KIVELSON
Before we left the lighted elevator car, we took a quick nose count.
Besides the Kivelsons, there were five _Javelin_ men--Ramon Llewellyn, Abdullah Monnahan, Abe Clifford, Cesario Vieira, and a whitebeard named Piet Dumont. Al Devis had been with us when we crashed the door out of the meeting room, but he'd fallen by the way. We had a couple of flashlights, so, after sending the car down to Bottom Level, we picked our way up the zigzag iron stairs to the catwalk, under the seventy-foot ceiling, and sat down in the dark.
Joe Kivelson was fretting about what would happen to the rest of his men.
”Fine captain I am, running out and leaving them!”
”If they couldn't keep up, that's their tough luck,” Oscar Fujisawa told him. ”You brought out all you could. If you'd waited any longer, none of us would have gotten out.”
”They won't bother with them,” I added. ”You and Tom and Oscar, here, are the ones they want.”
Joe was still letting himself be argued into thinking he had done the right thing when we saw the lights of a lorry coming from uptown at ceiling level. A moment later, it backed to the catwalk, and Bish Ware stuck his head out from the pilot's seat.
”Where do you gentlemen wish to go?” he asked.
”To the _Javelin_,” Joe said instantly.
”Huh-uh,” Oscar disagreed. ”That's the first place they'll look.
That'll be all right for Ramon and the others, but if they catch you and Tom, they'll shoot you and call it self-defense, or take you in and beat both of you to a jelly. This'll blow over in fifteen or twenty hours, but I'm not going anywhere near my s.h.i.+p, now.”
”Drop us off on Second Level Down, about Eighth Street and a couple of blocks from the docks,” the mate, Llewellyn, said. ”We'll borrow some weapons from Patel the p.a.w.nbroker and then circulate around and see what's going on. But you and Joe and Oscar had better go underground for a while.”
”The _Times_,” I said. ”We have a whole pillar-building to ourselves; we could hide half the population.”
That was decided upon. We all piled into the lorry, and Bish took it to an inconspicuous place on the Second Level and let down. Ramon Llewellyn and the others got out. Then we went up to Main City Level.
We pa.s.sed within a few blocks of Hunters' Hall. There was a lot of noise, but no shooting.
Joe Kivelson didn't have anything to say, on the trip, but he kept looking at the pilot's seat in perplexity and apprehension. I think he expected Bish to try to ram the lorry through every building we pa.s.sed by or over.