Vida (39 page)

“Okay”‘ Randy said edgily, holding out his wristwatch. “How do we divvy up the tasks? Three with the clock, two to give the warning and distribute the communiqués … Jimmy has to go with the clock because he set it. He knows it the best”‘

“And I go with the clock”‘ Kevin did not argue. He announced.

“Sure, man”‘ Randy deferred. “Okay, the ladies have been complaining about women’s lib. Let one of them go with the clock. The other can do the phoning of the warning and the delivering of the communiqués with me. Let’s flip a coin. Heads, Vida goes with the clock; tails, Lohania goes.”

“Come on, come on, tails!” Lohania chanted. “Show me tails!”

Vida said nothing. The shiny coin gleamed in Randy’s hand. She knew it was coming down heads; it did. “Okay, let’s move out” she said. The longer they hung around, the longer she had to feel scared.

As they rode down in the elevator, Randy and Lohania giving them a fifteen-minute head start, she said to Kevin and Jimmy, “Did you notice that whenever Randy flips a coin, it’s a shiny quarter and it comes out heads? I didn’t say anything because I’d rather go”

Kevin chuckled. “Yeah. It’s a trick quarter—heads on both sides. I didn’t want to say nothing either. Better for us to take the heavy risks. She’s had enough grief in the past year”

At the moment she loved him, taking his hand between hers, the hand not carrying the briefcase. “She has!”

“But she has to heal herself, you know? Got to come out of it herself”

“But Kevin, sometimes a person can want a little coddling, a little tenderness. Need to be gentled”

“Not in a guerrilla situation. Lohania’s tougher than you think. She’s coming through”

“I’m surprised Randy didn’t fight to take my place” she said.

“Didn’t turn out for the demo either” Kevin stopped on the street corner as if sizing up the weather, the day, and completed a leisurely inspection. “Getting soft. Chickening out. We got to run some discipline on him when we get through with this.”

“Oh, you didn’t buy his sudden conversion to women’s lib?”

Jimmy spoke up suddenly, his voice high and choked, “Y-y-you don’t really think Randy is scared?”

”Why not? I am.” She stared up at the brown-blue sky of polluted sunshine between the buildings on Broadway. She imagined woods, hills of western Connecticut along the Housatonic where Leigh and their friends used to go hiking on a Sunday, easy walks in the boulder-strewn woods. One spring Sunday porcupines had been chasing each other, indifferent to them.

“Yeah, but we’re going. K-K-Kevin’s saying Randy’s too scared to go” Jimmy fell into anxious step beside Kevin. “You don’t mean that! Not about Randy.”

“Shut up,” Kevin barked. He was gazing intently into a store window.

“What is it?” She felt cold metal in her.

“We’re being tailed.”

“Are you sure?” She tried to stare past him for reflections. Jimmy started to turn, and Kevin gripped him by the arm. “Keep walking. Never look back. We’ll shake them in the subway.”

“Sure,” she said. “They can meet us down at Rockefeller Center.”

“Do you mean that?” Kevin said. “Think they been tipped?”

“Let’s lose them first. Then we can consult.” She picked three tokens as if casually from her purse. “Don’t let’s get busted with the clock on us”

“What do you want to do?” Kevin barked. “Drop it in the trash? They’d see us” Kevin ambled along, waving his free hand as if in relaxed conversation. “They already seen us with the case.”

It was next to impossible to go on walking slowly. She wanted to turn, she wanted to turn and look so badly she could scarcely control herself. To turn and face their pursuers. To break into a run. Dash for it. To grab the case from Kevin, toss it into a doorway and make a break. On they strolled. As they came up to the first entrance to the 96th Street station, Kevin said, “I hear a train, now run for it. We’ll take
any
train”

Vida pressed a token into Jimmy’s hand and then one into Kevin’s. She then fell in behind Kevin, who was a good battering ram through rush-hour congestion. Jimmy, after trying to slip through on his own, fell in behind her, and they thrust for the gates. Kevin went over the turnstile; Vida and Jimmy used their tokens. “The local’s in,” Kevin shouted. He got into the train first and forced the doors to stay open as they slid under his arm and in. The doors slammed shut and the train started. They collected together, hanging from straps. The briefcase was clutched between Kevin’s legs.

The express passed them just after 72nd. They got off the local at 59th and trotted into Central Park, watching carefully, circling back, watching. They were no longer followed. Finally they sank on a bench and stared at each other. “Stay here,” she said. “I’m going back to a phone booth and call the house.”

“No, we’ll stick together. There’s a phone booth at the zoo. Let’s haul ass over there.” Kevin stood. He had a need to keep moving that she could feel. “Why would they have followed us today?” She asked argumentatively. “It can’t be chance. They
knew”

“Did any of us say anything on the phone?” Jimmy asked.

“Don’t be funny”“ Kevin walked faster. They had to trot to keep up. “We’re a year past saying anything real on the phone. Maybe they got the kind of tap on us that picks up room conversations. How about that?”

“Maybe” she said slowly. “We’ve talked a bit in the apartment. But not much. Not enough for them to put it together.” And I didn’t tell Leigh: I never did.

“How do we know they put it together?” Jimmy’s hands kept knotting in the pockets of his suit jacket. He shoved his hands into the pockets, where they twitched and struggled like captured birds. “They knew we were going to do something today. So they followed us.”

“I don’t buy that,” Kevin said. “We did all the arguing in that room or in the park. We never discussed target or timing in the apartment.”

“Could the SRO room be bugged?” she asked.

“That’s one possibility,” Jimmy said slowly. “They’ve been waiting for us to act so they could grab us with the clock.”

They marched across the park, pushing themselves. They were all three scared. But they were used to being terrified and acting in spite of terror, used to forcing themselves to fight fear and transcend it into courage. She felt proud to be with them. “I wonder if Lohania and Randy got followed too? They have the statements on them. It doesn’t matter we have the bomb. They’re in the same conspiracy. I hope they paid attention.”

“Dolpho’s not so street smart, but Lulu is. She’ll spot them … There’s your phone” She dialed Leigh’s unlisted number. Since the chaos in the apartment, he had had his own phone put into his room and would not let anyone else use it. He claimed he needed a phone kept free to reach the station and to be reached, and that the regular phone was in use eighteen hours a day.

“Leigh Pfeiffer speaking” his voice came through.

She felt an enormous relief. Now let him catch on for once. “Leigh, this is your old Greek friend. Vasos’ ex-wife.”

“What?” But he recognized her. “What’s up around here, anyhow?”

“Never mind. When did Lohania and Randy leave?”

”They haven’t—”

“Great. We can warn them. Why haven’t they left, do you know?”

“They’re waiting for you to come back.”

“Waiting for
us
to come back? Why?”

“Didn’t you call a while ago and say for them to wait for you? What’s going on around here? What’s all the mystery?”

“Who answered the phone when I am supposed to have called?”

“Randy. He said it was you. The other phone”

“Leigh, something’s rotten. I can’t explain. Lohania will, afterward. Get Lohania, but don’t say in front of Randy that I’m on your phone. Just get her into your room.”

“Sure. Hey, someone’s at the door. I’ll get her”

She waited and waited. Vaguely she could hear occasional dim sounds, but nothing she could identify. She waited and waited. “Deposit ten cents for the next five minutes” the operator said, and she did and waited. Nothing. Why couldn’t he get Lohania in there? Then she thought they might be tracing her call, and sweat broke out on her hands as she gripped the receiver, straining to hear. Why didn’t he come back? Five minutes and more had passed. Then she heard voices. Not Lohania. Men yelling. She could not make out any words. Then she heard a voice close to the phone say, “Hey, Sergeant, this phone’s off the hook.” She quietly replaced the receiver and backed away from the phone.

When she turned at first she did not see Kevin or Jimmy and went faint with panic. Her sight was riddled with black spots as she forced herself to breathe slowly, not to hyperventilate. They had walked toward the entrance and stood watching her. Kevin was drinking coffee from a vendor.

How did she walk toward them? How did she keep from running? “Let’s get out of here. East. Keep walking. They busted the apartment” She took Kevin’s arm and Jimmy’s arm for comfort, but then let go. Their strides were too dissimilar; Jimmy stepped twice to Kevin’s once. “Listen, Randy told Lohania it was off. To sit tight. That we were on our way back. He told everybody I called and said it was off. Then while I was talking to Leigh, somebody came to the door. Cops. I’m telling you, I’m sure they were raided.”

“How could Dolpho think it was you?”

“Either they imitated my voice. Or he’s an agent”

“Dolpho an agent? I might as well suspect you. Or me. It was his idea. If we ever had a hothead, it’s Dolpho”

“Kevin, we can’t go on with the plan. They have the communiqués. They know where we’re going. They know what kind of action this is and the target. They know how we’re dressed.”

“What do you want to do? Turn ourselves in? Fuck that.” Kevin walked even faster. The shiny new briefcase banged against his hard calf muscle, bulging through the thin material of his pants.

“We can’t just quit” Jimmy said. “If Randy is an agent … If they grabbed the communiqués, they have us for conspiracy.”

“We might as well bomb something,” Kevin said reasonably, changing arms with the briefcase. Now it hung between Vida and him. “What else can we do with this Tinker Toy? Unless it’s set to go off and get us”

“I set it” Jimmy said. “I’ll vouch for it”

“Man, your life depends on it” Kevin laughed, a barking sound. “So what the fuck do we do with this live one?”

“We had other targets. Let’s hit one,” Jimmy said.

“No” she said. “If they know about Rockefeller and Whitehall they know the others.”

“Great. Some random place. The politics of that makes sense!” Jimmy’s face was flushed dark red as he sweated in the navy suit.

“Slow down. We’re getting soaking wet,” she said. “We can’t walk in someplace looking as if we ran two miles. How about a police station? Headquarters?”

“With an APB out on us, think again,” Kevin snorted. “Come on, Jimmy, get us a war criminal. You did all that bloody research. Let’s lay a fine on some damn corporation.”

“See, Leigh was right,” she said almost cheerfully. She felt numb and brisk; this was what it was like to be dead. It was all over, all over but a bullet in the back. “Research has its political uses. Let’s have a cup of coffee and pick a target. We have to write propaganda. Jimmy and I can do that in half an hour while you scout.” Move, she thought; we have to do something because they have us anyhow. They can send us up for twenty years on conspiracy, even if we never set off this damned thing. Besides, they’ll try to pin every unsolved bombing in New York on us, and if Randy is an agent, he’ll back them.

“The East side” Jimmy said slowly. “Chase Manhattan’s all the way south. Union Carbide. Du Pont’s on Fifth. IT and T. Sylvania. Mobil Oil. All good war profiteers. I’ll give you a rundown on their games at home and abroad”

“I could do with some breakfast. Some coffee shop on Third, maybe,” Kevin said.

A splash of stomach acid bathed her throat at the mention of food, and for an awful moment she thought she would vomit. “We have to be sure the timing won’t fail,” she said. “We have to give enough warning to clear the building,”

“It’s built right,” Jimmy said stubbornly. He looked like a miserable high school student late for graduation.

“Make it snappy”‘ Kevin barked at them. “I doubt we got all day.”

“You’re wrong” Jimmy said, cold and serious. Connections were being made in his head, that she did not understand, concentrating as she was on not showing her panic. “For whatever time we have, that’s what we have to do in it. Our lives are over. We’re only weapons now. It’s very simple”

With her credit card she outfitted them in different clothes at Altman’s putting the rest into a suitcase she also charged. Kevin checked the suitcase at Grand Central while Jimmy and she made appointments by phone at 150 East 42nd Street. She was applying for a secretarial job. Jimmy was a junior high teacher wanting materials for a unit on Developing Our Natural Resources. Kevin elected to try to enter at lunchtime through Shipping and Delivery, around on 41st Street.

They stood across 42nd Street, taking a last look together before splitting up. Mobil Oil was housed in a massive misshapen aluminum skyscraper that occupied a square block. Blue glass was used in the lower few floors. The windows above were small in the dull metallic walls decorated with wedge-shaped bas-relief like cuneiform inscriptions. The front entrance was squat, a mouth under a big brown marble moustache. “It sure is ugly!” Vida tried to sound cheerful. “Too bad we can’t demolish it. We’d probably get a medal from some architects’ association.”