Jake nodded in Blaustein’s direction, then said, “What the hell is this room?”
Henry noticed that two walls were covered with long rows of Stars of David. Next to each star was a nameplate.
“What is this place, Blaustein?” Henry asked.
Blaustein looked at each of them in turn. “This is where they keep score,” he said.
For a second they were all silent.
“You mean these plaques were all people here in the last six months?” Henry asked.
Blaustein nodded.
“Your wife?”
Blaustein shuffled over to the wall and, stooping, pointed a sad finger at a plaque near the floor. “She lasted three weeks,” Blaustein said. “She was always a fanatic about the Sabbath. We were given a chance to work on the farm. She refused to work on Saturday because it was the Sabbath. She said she’d work on Sunday. They wouldn’t allow it.”
“Didn’t anyone ever come looking for you?” Henry asked.
“Of course. My son came. Within a week he found us. They took him also. That’s what killed my wife. She yelled at Mr. Whittaker they could do anything they wanted to her, but to let the boy go. He laughed at her. He called her a Jewish mother. ‘I’m proud to be a Jewish mother,’ she yelled at him and spit in his face. Finished.”
“Jesus,” Jake said. “What happened to your son?”
“He works with me on the farm. Including Saturdays. Twice a week I clean this place, and he cleans the lockers.”
“Lockers?” Jake asked.
“Just hope you never find out,” Henry said.
“You were already in the lockers?” Blaustein asked. “What did you do? I thought you just came here.”
“What kind of farm is it?” Henry asked.
“Very profitable.”
“Tell me.”
“You’ll see soon enough,” Blaustein said.
“Blaustein, how long have you been here?” Henry asked.
“Six months. From the beginning. I was here the first week.”
“What will happen to you?”
“Nothing,” Blaustein said. “I’m a trusty.”
“Is your son a trusty?”
“Not yet. I’m hoping.”
“Why would you want your son to be a trusty?” Henry asked.
“It’s the only way to escape being taken for a ride like my wife,” Blaustein said.
It’s frightening to see a pale face blanch,
Henry thought. “What’s the matter, Blaustein?”
“I said too much. Only trusties are supposed to know.”
“What does going for a ride mean?” Henry asked.
“I’m not saying anything.”
“Yes, you are,” Henry said. He moved very close to Blaustein.
“What are you going to do to him?” Jake asked.
“Keep out of it!” Henry said, his eyes inches from Blaustein’s eyes.
Bluffing is the heart of business. God, help me bluff,
Henry thought.
In a whisper Blaustein said, “It’s a very American expression, taking somebody for a ride.”
Henry stepped back. “A car ride?”
Blaustein nodded.
“Where?”
Blaustein shook his head. “Must he hear, too?” Blaustein pointed at Jake.
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t have to be your car,” Blaustein said. “Just some car that brought guests here. They tie your hands. There can be one, two, three guests in the car, all hands tied. One of the Cliffhaven people drives. Up that way.” His pointing was meaningless.
“What way?” Henry asked.
“Where the cliff is. There’s a road. It starts just behind the dining room. It ends at the cliff. The gully is eight hundred feet down. The driver leaves the car in gear and just gets out. The car goes over the edge with the guests, all the way down. Sometimes we hear the sound. To those of us who know what it is, the crash of a car in the bottom of the gully is like the sound of a firing squad. They told me my wife had a heart attack in the lockers. Maybe she was still alive. They didn’t take her to the hospital. They took her for a ride. All the names here are of people in the bottom of the gully. Sometimes…” Blaustein looked at Henry and then at Jake. “Sometimes, if you go real close, you can hear screaming from the gully long afterwards.”
“The ones who don’t die on impact?”
Blaustein nodded. “Maybe you two can become trusties. You won’t have to go for a ride.”
Henry looked at Blaustein’s face. He wasn’t as old as he had at first thought, just so defeated-looking.
“Were you always a coward?” Henry asked. “Or did they make you one?”
Blaustein let a fragment of a smile flicker onto his face. “Mr. Brown, listen. Before Cliffhaven, I was an accountant. I add up the past. I don’t have a handle on the future.”
“Well,” Henry said, “you’ve got a handle on yourself, which is better than most people have. We’re not going to stick around, Blaustein. And I can’t afford to have you squeal on us. Will you come along with us peacefully?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You do not have a choice,” Henry said.
“Then,” Blaustein said, “you are the same as Cliffhaven.”
“You’ll come with us?”
“What about my son?” Blaustein said.
“There’s no way we can get him now,” Henry said. “But if my plan works, we’ll be able to set everyone free. We’ve got to get into the nearby woods. Will you come?”
“They’ll kill me or you’ll kill me, what’s the difference?”
Jake said, “When will that creep come back for me?”
“Not for two, three hours,” Blaustein said.
“Good,” Henry said. “Let’s go. The spot we want to head for is the wooded area about seventy or eighty yards from the back of the building. Let’s lower the ladder. We don’t want them on the roof looking for us.”
Jake and Henry carefully took the ladder down and laid it on the floor.
“Now,” Henry said, “I’ll go first. Stick close to the building, there’s less chance of being noticed. Blaustein, you go second. Jake, you follow, make sure Blaustein keeps up. When you get to the back, crawl to the woods.”
“Crawl?” Blaustein asked.
Henry got down on the floor and demonstrated.
From the floor Henry said, “You ever in the army, Blaustein?”
“No.”
“Jake?”
“No, but I’ve seen movies on TV.”
“Watch me. Think you can do it?”
“Sure,” Jake said. “Mr. Blaustein, I’ll be right behind you.”
“Okay,” Henry said, getting up. “Let’s go. Jake, shut the door behind you. Quietly.”
“Will do.”
Henry went out the door and around the building, his eyes taking in all directions. Nobody. Where were they searching for him? Down below? Had they given up? Did they think he had escaped to the road?
At the back of the building, he lowered himself to the ground and started off.
Left elbow, pull forward.
Right elbow, pull forward.
Left elbow, right elbow, like an automaton. Keep your mind on the movements you make, not on your destination.
Left elbow, pull, right elbow, pull.
It seemed a much longer distance than it had when he crawled to the building. He could feel the heat of the sun on his back. His knuckles were beginning to bleed again. Had Blaustein started out? He didn’t hear anything.
Almost there. Keep going.
At the edge of the woods Henry stood up, moving rapidly into concealment, turned to watch. Blaustein was no more than a quarter of the way, Jake just behind him. Why was he crawling so slowly? Then he saw Jake moving around Blaustein, passing him, and crawling like a large lizard toward the woods, leaving Blaustein behind.
Could anyone see them? Were they safe from view?
Jake reached the woods. Henry grabbed his shirt. “Why the hell did you do that? I said to stay behind him.”
“He was going too slow.”
“That was an order. If this thing is to work, you’ve got to obey orders.”
“Okay, okay.”
They both saw Blaustein stand in the middle of the clearing, look around uncertainly.
“He’s going to run away,” Jake said. “I’ll get him.”
“No, you don’t,” Henry said.
Blaustein was running toward them. Breathless, he arrived in the woods. “I couldn’t crawl any more,” he said, “I’m sorry.”
“I just hope you weren’t spotted,” Henry said.
He peered out, watched, listened. Nothing. Thank heaven, nothing.
He turned to the two of them. “Now both of you listen carefully. There are small patches of clearing scattered through these woods. What I want us to do is to move as much brush as possible, and any dead wood that we can carry, anything, into the clearings that are close to the perimeter. We’ll stack the brush close to the woods, not in the center. Pile it up for a bonfire. I want at least one big stack close to the woods in every clearing.”
“What are you going to do?” Blaustein said.
“We’re going to set fire to those stacks as near simultaneously as the three of us can manage. These woods go clear around Cliffhaven, except for the road, which will act as a firebreak unless the fire jumps across.”
“Hot damn,” Jake said. “This stuff is dry as hell.”
“That’s right. With these woods on fire, there’ll have to be a massive fire-fighting effort. They’ll have to bring in the pros.”
“Won’t the buildings catch?” Blaustein asked.
“I hope not. There’s enough space between the woods and the buildings.”
“Burning debris could get airborne and land on a building,” Jake said.
“I hope not,” Henry said. “There are a lot of people in Cliffhaven. Including my wife.”
“
What happens to us when the woods start burning?” Blaustein asked.
“We’ll have nowhere to go except into the compound,” Henry said.
“They’ll catch us,” Blaustein said, envisioning a scene of terror. “They’ll kill us for it! This isn’t a plan, it’s suicide!”
PART 3
16
Stanley’s friend Kathy lived off campus in Santa Cruz, in an apartment shared by four girls. They each had a bedroom with a doorknob that locked and a common living room and kitchen. The rules were you could feed yourself and one fellow in the kitchen and a fellow could visit you in your room, but if he stayed the night he had to vamoose before breakfast because the girls just didn’t want to go through the hassle of being seen in disrepair by someone else’s boy friend early in the morning.
“Can I speak to Kathy, please?”
Stanley heard the girl’s voice yell, “Kathy Brown, telephone!”
When Kathy got on, Stanley said, “Can I come over now?”
“I’ve got my period.”
“Jeez, Kathy, that wasn’t on my mind.”
“It wasn’t on mine either, you boob. I’m just telling you because you were worried, worrier.”
He had forgotten.
He felt the ping in his conscience. It was just two weeks ago when Kathy had said she wasn’t wearing her saucer, as she called it, and he’d said he’d be careful but wasn’t. Kathy’d cried, saying it was a perfect time for conception. He worried. And then forgot.
“I’m sorry,” Stanley said. “I mean, I’m glad.”
She had a nice laugh, Kathy did.
“So I can come over?” he asked.
“Sure. The living room’s a mess from last night’s party. Everybody’s been in class all day. Never mind, we can talk in my room.”
*
Kathy answered the doorbell. The living room served not only as headquarters for the four girls, but also as a drop-in place for at least two dozen friends. It still had last night’s paper plates with scraps of pizza ends, beer bottles, and crumpled napkins all around. There was a couch, but the real furniture of the room was three huge boldly colored cushions on the floor. On the walls were relics of an earlier period, posters of Hendrix and The Who, and, thumbtacked to the wall by the previous occupants of the apartment, a pair of bikini panties around which legends continued to grow.
As Kathy led him through the debris, he noticed the nothing dress she was wearing, a gauzy one-piece sack, colored like madras except you could see through it, vaguely, like the outline of her pants.
“You bought another one of those,” Stanley said.
“I’ve had this,” Kathy said. “Just haven’t worn it lately. When I do, people look at my boobs, not my face.”
“Nice face.”
“Thanks, I’m waiting.”
“For what?”
“For you to say nice boobs. What’s the matter?”
“What do you mean what’s the matter?”
“You’re still worried.”
“Yeah,” Stanley said.
“You look worried. You’re worried half the time.”
She closed the bedroom door, got up on the bed, crossed her legs.
“Sit,” she said, pointing to a spot on the bed. “Tell me.”
He still wasn’t used to sitting cross-legged the way she did. It amused her to see him struggling with what came so easily to her.
“Okay,” he said. “You know the plan for the weekend. We fly down Friday morning and you’re supposed to show them around. Only we don’t know where to meet them. He was waiting to have a standby room confirmed or get a different hotel. He said he’d call from Santa Barbara. He never called.”