Is That What People Do? (13 page)

And white men, hearing this, experienced strangely guilty feelings and redoubled their efforts to show kindness to Danta, the Last Native.

FISHING SEASON

They had been living in the housing project only a week, and this was their first invitation. They arrived on the dot of eight-thirty. The Carmichaels were obviously prepared for them, for the porch light was on, the front door partially open, and the living room a blaze of light.

“Do I look all right?” Phyllis asked at the door. “Seams straight, hair curly?”

“You’re a vision in a red hat,” her husband assured her. “Just don’t spoil the effect by leading aces.” She made a small face at him and rang the doorbell. Soft chimes sounded inside.

Mallen straightened his tie while they waited. He pulled out his breast handkerchief a microscopic fraction farther.

“They must be making gin in the cellar,” he told his wife. “Shall I ring again?”

“No—wait a moment.” They waited, and he rang again. Again the chimes sounded.

“That’s very strange,” Phyllis said a few minutes later. “It was tonight, wasn’t it?” Her husband nodded. The Carmichaels had left their windows open to the warm spring weather. Through the venetian blinds they could see a table set for Bridge, chairs drawn up, candy dishes out, everything in readiness. But no one answered the door.

“Could they have stepped out?” Phyllis Mallen asked. Her husband walked quickly across the lawn to the driveway.

“Their car’s in.” He came back and pushed the front door open farther.

“Jimmy—don’t go in.”

“I’m not.” He put his head in the door. “Hello! Anybody home?”

Silence in the house.

“Hello!” he shouted, and listened intently. He could hear Friday-night noises next door—people talking, laughing. A car passed in the street. He listened. A board creaked somewhere in the house, then silence again.

“They wouldn’t go away and leave their house open like this,” he told Phyllis. “Something might have happened.” He stepped inside. She followed, but stood uncertainly in the living room while he went into the kitchen. She heard him open the cellar door, call out, “Anyone home!” And close it again. He came back to the living room, frowned and went upstairs.

In a little while Mallen came down with a puzzled expression on his face. “There’s no one there,” he said.

“Let’s get out of here,” Phyllis said, suddenly nervous in the bright, empty house. They debated leaving a note, decided against it and started down the walk.

“Shouldn’t we close the front door?” Jim Mallen asked, stopping.

“What good will it do? All the windows are open.”

“Still—” He went back and closed it. They walked home slowly, looking back over their shoulders at the house. Mallen half expected the Carmichaels to come running after them, shouting “Surprise!”

But the house remained silent.

Their home was only a block away, a brick bungalow just like two hundred others in the development. Inside, Mr. Carter was making artificial trout flies on the card table. Working slowly and surely, his deft fingers guided the colored threads with loving care. He was so intent on his work that he didn’t hear the Mallens enter.

“We’re home, Dad,” Phyllis said.

“Ah,” Mr. Carter murmured. “Look at this beauty.” He held up a finished fly. It was an almost replica of a hornet. The hook was cleverly concealed by overhanging yellow and black threads.

“The Carmichaels were out—we think,” Mallen said, hanging up his jacket

“I’m going to try Old Creek in the morning,” Mr. Carter said. “Something tells me the elusive trout may be there.” Mallen grinned to himself. It was difficult talking with Phyllis’s father. Nowadays he never discussed anything except fishing. The old man had retired from a highly successful business on his seventieth birthday to devote himself wholeheartedly to his favorite sport.

Now, nearing eighty, Mr. Carter looked wonderful. It was amazing, Mallen thought. His skin was rosy his eyes clear and untroubled, his pure white hair neatly combed back. He was in full possession of his senses, too—as long as you talked about fishing.

“Let’s have a snack,” Phyllis said. Regretfully she took off the red hat, smoothed out the veil and put it down on a coffee table. Mr. Carter added another thread to his trout fly, examined it closely, then put it down and followed them into the kitchen.

While Phyllis made coffee, Mallen told the old man what had happened. Mr. Carter’s answer was typical.

“Try some fishing tomorrow and get it off your mind. Fishing, Jim, is more than a sport. Fishing is a way of life, and a philosophy as well. I like to find a quiet pool and sit on the banks of it. I figure, if there’s fish anywhere, they might as well be there.”

Phyllis smiled, watching Jim twist uncomfortably on his chair. There was no stopping her father once he got started. And anything would start him.

“Consider,” Mr. Carter went on, “a young executive. Someone like yourself, Jim—dashing through a hall. Common enough? But at the end of the last long corridor is a trout stream. Consider a politician. You certainly see enough of them in Albany. Briefcase in hand, worried—”

“That’s strange,” Phyllis said, stopping her father in mid-flight. She was holding an unopened bottle of milk in her hand.

“Look.” Their milk came from Stannerton Dairies. The green label on this bottle read: “Stanneron Daries.”

“And look.” She pointed. Under that, it read: “lisensed by the neW yoRK Bord of healthh.” It looked like a clumsy imitation of the legitimate label.

“Where did you get this?” Mallen asked.

“Why, I suppose from Mr. Elger’s store. Could it be an advertising stunt?”

“I despise the man who would fish with a worm,” Mr. Carter intoned gravely. “A fly—a fly is a work of art. But the man who’d use a worm would rob orphans and burn churches.”

“Don’t drink it,” Mallen said. “Let’s look over the rest of the food.”

There were three more counterfeited items. A candy bar which purported to be a Mello-Bite and had an orange label instead of the familiar crimson. There was a jar of Amerrican ChEEse, almost a third larger than the usual jars of that brand, and a bottle of SPArkling Watr.

“That’s very odd,” Mallen said, rubbing his jaw.

“I always throw the little ones back,” Mr. Carter said. “It’s not sporting to keep them, and that’s part of a fisherman’s code. Let them grow, let them ripen, let them gain experience. It’s the old, crafty ones I want, the ones who skulk under logs, who dart away at the first sight of the angler. Those are the lads who put up a fight!”

“I’m going to take this stuff back to Elger,” Mallen said, putting the items into a paper bag. “If you see anything else like it, save it.”

“Old Creek is the place,” Mr. Carter said. “That’s where they hide out.”

Saturday morning was bright and beautiful. Mr. Carter ate an early breakfast and left for Old Creek, stepping lightly as a boy, his battered fly-decked hat set at a jaunty angle. Jim Mallen finished coffee and went over to the Carmichael house.

The car was still in the garage. The windows were still open, the Bridge table set, and every light was on, exactly as it had been the night before. It reminded Mallen of a story he had read once about a ship under full sail, with everything in order—but not a soul on board.

“I wonder if there’s anyone we can call?” Phyllis asked when he returned home. “I’m sure there’s something wrong.”

“Sure. But who?” They were strangers in the project. They had a nodding acquaintance with three or four families, but no idea who might know the Carmichaels.

The problem was settled by the ringing of the telephone.

“If it’s anyone from around here,” Jim said as Phyllis answered it, “ask them.”

“Hello?”

“Hello. I don’t believe you know me. I’m Marian Carpenter, from down the block. I was just wondering—has my husband dropped over there?” The metallic telephone voice managed to convey worry, fear.

“Why no. No one’s been in this morning.”

“I see.” The thin voice hesitated.

“Is there anything I can do?” Phyllis asked.

“I don’t understand it,” Mrs. Carpenter said. “George—my husband—had breakfast with me this morning. Then he went upstairs for his jacket. That was the last I saw of him.”

“Oh—”

“I’m sure he didn’t come back downstairs. I went up to see what was holding him—we were going for a drive—and he wasn’t there. I searched the whole house. I thought he might be playing a practical joke, although George has never joked in his life—so I looked under beds and in the closets. Then I looked in the cellar, and I asked next door, but no one’s seen him. I thought he might have visited you—he was speaking about it—”

Phyllis explained to her about the Carmichaels’ disappearance. They talked for a few seconds longer, then hung up.

“Jim,” Phyllis said, “I don’t like it. You’d better tell the police about the Carmichaels.”

“We’ll look pretty foolish when they turn up visiting friends in Albany.”

“We’ll have to chance it.”

Jim found the number and dialed, but the line was busy.

“I’ll go down.”

“And take this stuff with you.” She handed him the paper bag.

Police Captain Lesner was a patient, ruddy-faced man who had been listening to an unending stream of complaints all night and most of the morning. His patrolmen were tired, his sergeants were tired, and he was the tiredest of all. Nevertheless, he ushered Mr. Mallen into his office and listened to his story.

“I want you to write down everything you’ve told me,” Lesner said when he was through. “We got a call on the Carmichaels from a neighbor late last night. Been trying to locate them. Counting Mrs. Carpenter’s husband, that makes ten in two days.”

“Ten what?”

“Disappearances.”

“My Lord,” Mallen breathed softly. He shifted the paper bag. “All from this town?”

“Every one,” Captain Lesner said harshly, “from the Vainsville housing project in this town. As a matter of fact, from four square blocks in that project.” He named the streets.

“I live there,” Mallen said.

“So do I.”

“Have you any idea who the—the kidnapper could be?” Mallen asked.

“We don’t think it’s a kidnapper,” Lesner said, lighting his twentieth cigarette for the day. “No ransom notes. No selection. A good many of the missing persons wouldn’t be worth a nickel to a kidnapper. And wholesale like that—not a chance!”

“A maniac then?”

“Sure. But how has he grabbed whole families? Or grown men, big as you? And where has he hidden them, or their bodies?” Lesner ground out the cigarette viciously. “I’ve got men searching every inch of this town. Every cop within twenty miles of here is looking. The State police are stopping cars. And we haven’t found a thing.”

“Oh, and here’s something else.” Mallen showed him the counterfeited items.

“Again, I don’t know,” Captain Lesner confessed sourly. “I haven’t had much time for this stuff. We’ve had other complaints—” The telephone rang, but Lesner ignored it.

“It looks like a black-market scheme. I’ve sent some stuff like it to Albany for analysis. I’m trying to trace outlets. Might be foreign. As a matter of fact, the FBI might—damn that phone!”

He yanked it out of its cradle.

“Lesner speaking. Yes...yes. You’re sure? Of course, Mary. I’ll be right over.” He hung up. His red face was suddenly drained of color.

“That was my wife’s sister,” he announced. “My wife’s missing!”

Mallen drove home at breakneck speed. He slammed on the brakes, almost cracking his head against the windshield, and ran into the house.

“Phyllis!” he shouted. Where was she? Oh, God, he thought. If she’s gone—

“Anything wrong?” Phyllis asked, coming out of the kitchen.

“I thought—” He grabbed her and hugged until she squealed.

“Really,” she said, smiling. “We’re not newlyweds. Why, we’ve been married a whole year and a half—”

He told her what he’d found out in the police station.

Phyllis looked around the living room. It had seemed so warm and cheerful a week ago. Now, a shadow under the couch frightened her; an open closet door was something to shudder at. She knew it would never be the same.

There was a knock at the door.

“Don’t go,” Phyllis said.

“Who’s there?” Mallen asked.

“Joe Dutton, from down the block. I suppose you’ve heard the news?”

“Yes,” Mallen said, standing beside the closed door.

“We’re barricading the streets,” Dutton said. “Going to look over anyone going in or out. We’re going to put a stop to this, even if the police can’t. Want to join us?”

“You bet,” Mallen said, and opened the door. The short, swarthy man on the other side was wearing an old Army jacket. He was gripping a two-foot chunk of wood.

“We’re going to cover these blocks like a blanket,” Dutton said. “If anyone else is grabbed, it’ll have to be underground.” Mallen kissed his wife and joined him.

That afternoon there was a mass meeting in the school auditorium. Everyone from the affected blocks was there, and as many of the townspeople as could crowd in. The first thing they found out was that, in spite of the blockades, three more people were missing from the Vainsville project.

Captain Lesner spoke and told them that he had called Albany for help. Special officers were on their way down, and the FBI was coming in on it, too. He stated frankly that he didn’t know what or who was doing it, or why. He couldn’t even figure out why all the missing were from one part of the Vainsville project.

He had got word from Albany about the counterfeited food that seemed to be scattered all over the project. The examining chemists could detect no trace of any toxic agent. That seemed to explode a recent theory that the food had been used to drug people, making them walk out of their homes to whatever was taking them. However, he cautioned everyone not to eat it. You could never tell.

The companies whose labels had been impregnated had disclaimed any knowledge. They were prepared to bring suit against anyone infringing on their copyrights.

The mayor spoke, in a series of well-intentioned platitudes, counseling them to be of good heart; the civic authorities were taking the whole situation in hand.