A Pleasure to Burn (36 page)

“Who is it?” Faber cried, for the man who staggered in was in the dark for a moment and then rushing past. “Oh, Montag!”

“I'm going away,” said Montag, stumbling to a chair. “I've been a fool.”

Professor Faber stood at the door listening to the distant sirens wailing off like animals in the morning. “Someone's been busy.”

“It worked.”

“At least you were a fool about the right things.” Faber shut the door, came back, and poured a drink for each of them. “I wondered what had happened to you.”

“I was delayed.” Montag patted his inside pocket. “The money's here.” He took it out and laid it on the desk, then sat tiredly sipping his drink. “How do you feel?”

“This is the first night in many years I've fallen right to sleep,” said Faber. “That must mean I'm doing the right thing. I think we can trust me, now. Once, I didn't think so.”

“People never trust themselves, but they never let others know. I suppose that's why we do rash things, expose ourselves to positions from which we don't dare retreat. Unconsciously, we fear we might give in, quit the fight, and so we do a foolish thing, like reading poetry to women.” Montag laughed at himself. “So I guess I'm on the run. It'll be up to you to keep things moving.”

“I'll do my damndest.” Faber sat down. “Tell me about it. What you did just now, I mean.”

“I hid my remaining books in four firemen's homes. Then I telephoned an alarm. I figured I might be dead by morning, and I wanted to have done something before then.

“God, I'd like to have been there.”

“Yes, the places burned very well.”

“Where are you going now?”

“I don't know.”

“Try the factory section, follow the old rail lines, look up some of the hobo camps. I didn't tell you this before—maybe I didn't quite trust you yet, I don't know—but they were in touch with me last year, wanting me to go underground with them.”

“With
tramps?
”

“There are a lot of Harvard degrees on the tracks between here and Los Angeles. What else can they do? Most of them are wanted and hunted in cities. They survive. I don't think they have a plan for a revolution, though; I never heard them speak of it. They simply sit by their fires. Not a very lively group. But they might hide you now.”

“I'll try. I'm heading for the river, I think, then the old factory district. I'll keep in touch with you.”

“In Boston, then. I'm leaving on the three o'clock train tonight—or, rather, this morning. That's not long from now. There's a retired printer in Boston that I want to see with this money.”

“I'll contact you there,” said Montag. “And get books from you when I need them, to plant in firemen's houses across the country.”

 

M
ONTAG DRAINED HIS DRINK
.

“Do you want to sleep here a while?” Faber asked.

“I'd better get going. I wouldn't want you held responsible.”

“Let's check.” Faber switched on the televisor. A voice was talking swiftly:

“—this evening. Montag has escaped, but we expect his arrest in 24 hours. Here's a bulletin. The Electric Hound is being transported here from Green Town—”

Montag and Faber glanced at each other.

“—You may recall the interviews recently on TV concerning this incredible new invention, a machine so delicate in sense perception that it can follow trails much as bloodhounds did for centuries. But this machine, without fail,
always
finds its quarry!”

Montag put his empty glass down and he was cold.

“The machine is self-operating, weighs only forty pounds, is propelled on seven rubber wheels. The front is a nose, which in reality is a thousand noses, so sensitive that they can distinguish 10,000 food combinations, 5,000 flower smells, and remember identity index odors of 15,000 men without the bother of resetting.”

Faber began to tremble. He looked at his house, at the door, the floor, the chair in which Montag sat. Montag interpreted this look. They both stared together at the invisible trail of his footprints leading to this house, the odor of his hand on the brass doorknobs; the smell of his body in the air and on this chair.

“The Electric Hound is now landing, by helicopter, at the burned Montag home. We take you there by TV control!”

So they must have a game, thought Montag. In the midst of a time of war, they must play the game out.

There was the burned house, the crowd, and something with a sheet over it, Mr. Leahy—yes, Mr. Leahy—and out of the sky, fluttering, came the red helicopter, landing like a grotesque and menacing flower.

 

M
ONTAG WATCHED THE SCENE
with a solid fascination, not wanting to move, ever. If he wished, he could linger here, in comfort, and follow the entire hunt on through its quick phases, down alleys, up streets, across empty running avenues, with the sky finally lightening with dawn, up other alleys to burned houses, and so on to this place here, this house, with Faber and himself seated at their leisure, smoking idly, drinking good wine, while the Electric Hound sniffed down the fatal paths, whirring and pausing with finality outside that door there.

Then, if he wished, Montag could rise, walk to the door, keep one eye on the TV screen, open the door, look out, look back, and see himself, dramatized, described, made over, standing there, limned in the bright television screen, from outside, a drama to be watched objectively, and he would catch himself, an instant before oblivion, being killed for the benefit of a million televiewers who had been wakened from their sleeps a few minutes ago by the frantic beep-beeping of their receivers to watch the big game, the big hunt, the Scoop!

“There it is,” whispered Faber, hoarsely.

 

O
UT OF THE HELICOPTER
glided something that was not a machine, not an animal, not dead, not alive, just gliding. It glowed with a green phosphorescence, and it was on a long leash. Behind it came a man, dressed lightly, with earphones on his shaven head.

“I can't stay here,” Montag leaped up, his eyes still fixed to the scene. The Electric Hound shot forward to the smoking ruins, the man running after it. A coat was brought forward. Montag recognized it as his own, dropped in the back yard during flight. The Electric Hound studied it for only a moment. There was a shirring and clicking of dials and meters.

“You can't escape.” Faber mourned over it, turning away. “I've heard about that damned monster. No one has ever escaped.”

“I'll try, anyway. I'm sorry about this, Professor.”

“About me? About my house? Don't be. I'm the one to be sorry I didn't act years ago. Whatever I get out of this, I deserve. You run, now; perhaps I can delay them here somehow—”

“Wait a minute.” Montag moved forward. “There's no use your being discovered. We can erase the trail here. First the chair. Get me a knife.”

Faber ran and fetched a knife. With it, Montag attacked the chair where he had sat. He cut the upholstery free, then shoved it, bit by bit, without touching the lid, into the wall incinerator. “Now,” he said, “after I leave, rip up the carpet. It has my footprints on it. Cut it up, burn it, air the house. Rub the doorknobs with alcohol. After I go, turn your garden sprinkler on full. That'll wash away the sidewalk traces.”

Faber shook his hand vigorously. “You don't know what this means. I'll do anything to help you in the future. Get in touch with me in Boston, then.”

“One more thing. A suitcase. Get it, fill it with your dirty laundry, an old suit, the dirtier the better, denim pants maybe, a shirt, some old sneakers and socks.”

Faber was gone and back in a minute. Montag sealed the full suitcase with scotch tape. “To keep the odor in,” he said, breathlessly. He poured a liberal amount of cognac over the exterior of the case. “I don't want that Hound picking up two odors at once. Mind if I take this bottle of whisky? I'll need it later. When I get to the river, I'll change clothes.”

“And identities; from Montag to Faber.”

“Christ, I hope it works! If your clothes smell strong enough, which God knows they seem to, we might confuse the Hound, anyway.”

“Good luck.”

They shook hands again and glanced at the TV. The Electric Hound was on its way, followed by mobile camera units, through alleys, across empty morning streets, silently, silently, sniffing the great night wind for Mr. Leonard Montag.

“Be seeing you.”

And Montag was out the door, running lightly, with the half empty case. Behind him, he saw and felt and heard the garden sprinkler system jump up, filling the dark air with synthetic rain to wash away the smell of Montag. Through the back window, the last thing he saw of Faber was the old man tearing up the carpet and cramming it in the wall incinerator.

Montag ran.

Behind him, in the night city, the Electric Hound followed.

 

H
E STOPPED NOW AND AGAIN
,
panting, across town, to watch through the dimly lighted windows of wakened houses. He peered in at silhouettes before television screens and there on the screens saw where the Electric Hound was, now at Elm Terrace, now at Lincoln Avenue, now at 34th, now up the alley toward Mr. Faber's, now
at
Faber's!

“No, no!” thought Montag. “Go on past! Don't turn in, don't!”

He held his breath.

The Electric Hound hesitated, then plunged on, leaving Faber's house behind. For a moment the TV camera scanned Faber's home. The windows were dark. In the garden, the water sprinkled the cool air, softly.

 

T
HE
E
LECTRIC
H
OUND
jumped ahead, down the alley.

“Good going, professor.” And Montag was gone, again, racing toward the distant river, stopping at other houses to see the game on the TV sets, the long running game, and the Hound drawing near behind. “Only a mile away now!”

As he ran he put the Seashell at his ear and a voice ran with every step, with the beat of his heart and the sound of his shoes on the gravel. “Watch for the pedestrian! Look for the pedestrian! Anyone on the sidewalks or in the street, walking or running, is suspect! Watch for the pedestrian!”

How simple in a city where no one walked. Look, look for the walking man, the man who proves his legs. Thank God for good dark alleys where men could run in peace. House lights flashed on all about. Montag saw faces peering streetward as he passed behind them, faces hid by curtains, pale, night-frightened faces, like odd animals peering from electric caves, faces with grey eyes and grey minds, and he plunged ahead, leaving them to their tasks, and in another minute was at the black, moving river.

He found what he was looking for after five minutes of running along the bank. It was a rowboat drawn and staked to the sand. He took possession.

The boat slid easily on the long silence of river and went away downstream from the city, bobbing and whispering, while Montag stripped in darkness down to the skin, and splashed his body, his arms, his legs, his face with raw liquor. Then he changed into Faber's old clothing and shoes. He tossed his own clothing into the river with the suitcase.

He sat watching the dark shore. There would be a delay while the pursuit rode the Electric Hound up and down stream to see where a man named Montag had stepped ashore.

Whether the smell of Faber would be strong enough, with the aid of the alcohol, was something else again. He pulled out a handkerchief he had saved over, doused it with the remainder of the liquor. He must hold this over his mouth when stepping ashore.

The particles of his breathing might remain in an electronically detectable invisible cloud for hours after he had passed on.

He couldn't wait any longer. He was below the town now, in a lonely place of weeds and old railway tracks. He rowed the boat toward shore, tied the handkerchief over his face, and leaped out as the boat touched briefly.

The current swept the boat away, turning slowly.

“Farewell to Mr. Montag,” he said. “Hello, Mr. Faber.”

He went into the woods.

 

H
E FOUND HIS WAY
along railroad tracks that had not been used in years, crusted with brown rust and overgrown with weeds. He listened to his feet moving in the long grass. He paused now and then, checking behind to see if he was followed, but was not.

Firelight shone far ahead. “One of the camps,” thought Montag. “One of the places where the hobo intellectuals cook their meals and talk!” It was unbelievable.

Half an hour later he came out of the weeks and the forest into the half light of the fire, for only a moment, then he hid back and waited, watching the group of seven men, holding their hands to the small blaze, murmuring. To their right, a quarter mile away, was the river. Up the stream a mile, and still apparent in the dark, was the city, and no sound except the voices and the fire crackling.