just what he had expected—the boyish face beneath the overseas cap, a half smile, and a carefully retouched glint in the eyes.
“My Ralph. He was wounded in Vietnam.”
He didn’t know what to say and she stuffed the photograph away, her doughy face starching itself into a someone-will-pay expression.
“We fought that war all for nothing. Never had the right leaders …” She paused and he wondered how political she was going to get. God, he hated the type. She snapped the purse shut like she was operating a guillotine and the flesh drew tight over her cheekbones. “What we need is a leader, a strong, honest-to-goodness leader … .”
A leader , he thought.
Someone like Adam Hart?
It had been practically axiomatic that the human race would hate anybody or anything that was superior to it. That it would do its best to destroy it.
But would it really?
There was the very possible chance that people would welcome Adam Hart with open arms. And why not? For the last thirty years people had done nothing but play follow the leader. They were broken in, they were ripe. People were worshippers by nature. They worshipped movie stars, they worshipped athletes, they worshipped dictators.
People wouldn’t fight Adam Hart. They’d parade him down Broadway, they’d shower him with paper, they’d print his biography and buy millions of copies of it, every home would have his portrait.
What was it Marge had said?
I’m ready to build a little shrine in my living room just as soon as I know what to put in it.
“I’ve voted the straight ticket all my life … .” the woman was saying.
He sighed, bought himself a paper from the candy butcher and tried to bury himself in it. The same old news, he thought, blinking to keep awake. The same minor wars, the same tensions, the same murders and rapes and thefts—only the names had been changed, but not to protect the innocent.
Why did Adam Hart want anything to do with it?
And then he thought of the one person who might know, the innocent bystander who probably knew as much about Adam Hart as Olson himself. The one person who would know because she had been there … .
Olson’s sister.
Petey.
He dozed during the afternoon, partly because he was tired and partly because he wanted to get away from the conversation of the woman next to him. He had supper in the crowded dining car, read a few optimistic articles in a professionally optimistic magazine, and was wide awake when the train came into Chicago. It was early evening and a light fog had rolled in from the lake so the city looked like a dark, gray mass of cotton, shot through with black shadows and with a million lights glowing from the depths—lights that were yellowed and diffused by the damp fog.
The train slowed and abruptly the gray night was replaced by the brilliance of the train shed. The aisles filled with people struggling into their coats and stretching to get down their luggage from the luggage racks. He tipped down a battered aluminum suitcase for his seat companion, then pulled down his own and sat back waiting for the aisle to clear.
Outside, baggage men were driving their small trucks past the slowly moving train, porters were waiting to step aboard to help old ladies with their luggage, and a hundred people lined the concrete platform waiting for Mom and Dad or Uncle Harry and Sister Ellen.
The line started moving down the aisle and Tanner watched the people on the platform greet those getting off. The car was half empty before he noticed the two men standing on the platform, a little to the rear of the pressing group of greeters. Two men in brown business suits and conservative ties and well-shined shoes who intently inspected everybody as they got off but greeted no one. They were waiting, he thought.
For whom?
Now the aisle was almost empty. The two men outside had moved closer to the stream of people getting off. At the far end of the coach, a colored woman started to sweep
“My Ralph. He was wounded in Vietnam.”
He didn’t know what to say and she stuffed the photograph away, her doughy face starching itself into a someone-will-pay expression.
“We fought that war all for nothing. Never had the right leaders …” She paused and he wondered how political she was going to get. God, he hated the type. She snapped the purse shut like she was operating a guillotine and the flesh drew tight over her cheekbones. “What we need is a leader, a strong, honest-to-goodness leader … .”
A leader , he thought.
Someone like Adam Hart?
It had been practically axiomatic that the human race would hate anybody or anything that was superior to it. That it would do its best to destroy it.
But would it really?
There was the very possible chance that people would welcome Adam Hart with open arms. And why not? For the last thirty years people had done nothing but play follow the leader. They were broken in, they were ripe. People were worshippers by nature. They worshipped movie stars, they worshipped athletes, they worshipped dictators.
People wouldn’t fight Adam Hart. They’d parade him down Broadway, they’d shower him with paper, they’d print his biography and buy millions of copies of it, every home would have his portrait.
What was it Marge had said?
I’m ready to build a little shrine in my living room just as soon as I know what to put in it.
“I’ve voted the straight ticket all my life … .” the woman was saying.
He sighed, bought himself a paper from the candy butcher and tried to bury himself in it. The same old news, he thought, blinking to keep awake. The same minor wars, the same tensions, the same murders and rapes and thefts—only the names had been changed, but not to protect the innocent.
Why did Adam Hart want anything to do with it?
And then he thought of the one person who might know, the innocent bystander who probably knew as much about Adam Hart as Olson himself. The one person who would know because she had been there … .
Olson’s sister.
Petey.
He dozed during the afternoon, partly because he was tired and partly because he wanted to get away from the conversation of the woman next to him. He had supper in the crowded dining car, read a few optimistic articles in a professionally optimistic magazine, and was wide awake when the train came into Chicago. It was early evening and a light fog had rolled in from the lake so the city looked like a dark, gray mass of cotton, shot through with black shadows and with a million lights glowing from the depths—lights that were yellowed and diffused by the damp fog.
The train slowed and abruptly the gray night was replaced by the brilliance of the train shed. The aisles filled with people struggling into their coats and stretching to get down their luggage from the luggage racks. He tipped down a battered aluminum suitcase for his seat companion, then pulled down his own and sat back waiting for the aisle to clear.
Outside, baggage men were driving their small trucks past the slowly moving train, porters were waiting to step aboard to help old ladies with their luggage, and a hundred people lined the concrete platform waiting for Mom and Dad or Uncle Harry and Sister Ellen.
The line started moving down the aisle and Tanner watched the people on the platform greet those getting off. The car was half empty before he noticed the two men standing on the platform, a little to the rear of the pressing group of greeters. Two men in brown business suits and conservative ties and well-shined shoes who intently inspected everybody as they got off but greeted no one. They were waiting, he thought.
For whom?
Now the aisle was almost empty. The two men outside had moved closer to the stream of people getting off. At the far end of the coach, a colored woman started to sweep
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