Chapter 6
Coccozello could hear the noise that was still coming out of the darkened screen. As he stepped forward, Claire got another pickup, some distance from the one that had been knocked out. A mob of women customers were surging away from the Chinaware Department, into Glassware; they were running into the shopping crowd there, with considerable disturbance. A couple of store police were trying to get through the packed mass of humanity, and making slow going of it. Coccozello swore and started calling on his reserves on one of the handphones.
"Wait a moment, sergeant," Prestonby stopped him. "Don't commit any of your reserves down there. We're going to need them to hold the executive country, up here. This is only the start of a general riot."
"Who are you and what do you know about it?" Coccozello challenged.
"Listen to him, Guido," Claire said. "He knows what he's doing."
"Claire, you have some way of keeping a running count of the number of customers in and out of the store, haven't you?" Prestonby asked.
"Why, yes; here." She pointed to an indicator on Chester Pelton's desk, where constantly changing numbers danced.
"And don't you have a continuous check on sales, too? How do they jibe?"
"They don't; look. Sales are away below any expectation from the number of customers, even allowing for shopping habits of a bargain-day crowd. But what's that got to do--"
Prestonby was back at the TV, shifting from pickup to pickup.
"Look, sergeant, Claire. That isn't a normal bargain-day crowd, is it? Look at those groups of men, three or four to a group, shifting around, waiting for something to happen. This store's been infiltrated by a big goon gang. That business in Chinaware's just the start, to draw our reserves down to the third floor. Look at that, now."
He had a pickup on the twelfth floor, the floor just under the public landing stages, and at the foot of the escalators leading to the central executive block.
"See how they're concentrating, there?" he pointed out. "In that ladies' wear department, there are three men for every woman, and the men are all drifting from counter to counter over in the direction of our escalators."
Coccozello swore again, feelingly. "Literate, you know your stuff!" he said. "That fuss in China is just a feint; this is where they're really going to hit. What do you think it is? Macy & Gimbel's trying to bust up our sale, or politics?"
Prestonby shrugged. "Take your choice. A competitor would concentrate where your biggest volume of sale was going on, though; political enemies would try to get up here, and that's what this gang's trying to do."
"He's absolutely right, Guido," Claire told the sergeant. "Do whatever he tells you."
Sergeant Coccozello looked at him, awaiting orders.
"We can't commit our reserves in that Chinaware Department fight; we need them up here. Where are they, now, and how many?"
"Thirteen, counting myself and the man in there." He nodded toward the room where Chester Pelton lay in drugged sleep. "In the squad room, on the floor below."
"And for the mob below to get up here?"
"Two escalators, sir, northeast and southwest corners of office country. And we got some new counters that Mr. Latterman had built, that didn't get put out in time for the sale. We can use them to build barricades, if we have to."
"How about a 'copter attack on the roof?"
Coccozello grinned. "I'd like to see that, now, Literate. We got plenty of A-A equipment up there--four 7-mm machine guns, two 12-mm's, and one 20-mm auto-cannon. We could hold off the State Guard with that."
"That isn't saying much, but they're not even that good. So it'll be the escalators. Think, now, sergeant. Fires, burglary, holdups--"
The sergeant's grin widened. "High-pressure fire hose, one at the head of each escalator, and a couple more that can be dragged over from other outlets. Say we put two men on each hose, lying down at the head of the escalators. And we got plenty of firearms; we can arm some of these clerks, up here--"
"All right; do that. And put out an emergency call, by inter-department telephone, not by public address, to floorwalkers from the fifth floor down, to gather up all male clerks and other store personnel in their departments, arm them with anything they can find, and rush them to Chinaware. Tell them to shout 'Pelton!' when they hit the mob, to avoid breaking each others' heads in the confusion, and tell them they're expected to hold the Chinaware and Glassware departments themselves, without any help from the store police."
"Why not?" Claire wanted to know.
"That's how battles come to happen at the wrong time and place," Prestonby told her. "Two small detachments collide, and each sends back for re-enforcements, and the next thing anybody knows, there's a full-size battle going on where nobody wants to fight one. We're going to fight our main battle at the head of the escalators from the twelfth floor."
"You've done this sort of work before, Literate," Coccozello grinned. "You talk like a storm-troop captain. What else?"
"Well, so far, we've just been talking defense. We need to take the offensive, ourselves." He glanced around. "Is there a freight elevator from this block to the basement?"
"Yeah. Wait till I see." Coccozello went to the TV-screen and dialed. "Yeah, and the elevator's up here, too," he said.
"Well, you take what men you can spare--a couple of your cops, and a couple of the office crew--arm them with pistols, carbines, clubs, whatever you please, and take them down to the basement. Gather up all the warehouse gang, down there, and arm them. And as soon as you get to the basement, send the elevator back up here. That's our life line; we can't risk having it captured. You'll organize flying squads to go up into the store from the basement. Bust up any trouble that seems to be getting started, if you can, but your main mission will be to rescue store police, Literates, Literates' guards, and store help, and get them back to the basement. They'll be picked up from there and brought up here on the elevator." He picked up a pad from a desk and wrote a few lines on it. "Show this to any Literate you meet; get Literate Hopkinson to countersign it for you, when you find him. Tell him we want his whole gang up here as soon as possible."
"How about getting help from outside?" Claire asked. "The city police, or--"
"City police won't lift a finger," Prestonby told her. "They never help anybody who has a private police force; they have too much to do protecting John Q. Citizen. Hutschnecker; suppose you call Radical-Socialist campaign headquarters; tell them to rush some of their Lone Rangers around here--"
* * * * *
Russell M. Latterman was lunching in the store restaurant, at a table next the thick glass partition, where he could look out across Confectionery and Pastries toward the Tobacco Shoppe and the Liquor Department. There were two ways of looking at it, of course. He was occupying a table that might have been used by a customer, but, on the other hand, he was known by sight to many of the customers, and the fact that he was eating here had some advertising value, and he could keep his eye on the business going on around him. Off in the distance, he caught the white flash of a Literate smock at one of the counters; one of the new crew sent in to replace the ones Bayne had pulled out. He was glad and at the same time disturbed. He had had his doubts about staging a Literates' strike, and he was almost positive that Wilton Joyner had known nothing about it. The whole thing had been Harvey Graves' idea. There was a serious question of Literate ethics involved, to say nothing of the effect on the public. The trick of forcing Claire Pelton to reveal her secret Literacy was all right, although he wished that it had been Frank Cardon who had opened that safe. Or did he? Cardon would have brazened it out, claimed to have memorized the combination after having learned it by observation, and would probably have gotten away with it. But that silly girl had lost her head afterward, and had gone on to brand herself, irrevocably, as a Literate.
One of the waitresses was hurrying toward him, almost falling over herself in excitement. She began talking when she was ten feet from the table.
"Mr. Latterman! Mr. Latterman!" she was calling to him. "A terrible fight, down in Chinaware--!"
"Well, what do we have store police for?" he demanded. "They can take care of it. Now be quiet, Madge; don't get the customers excited!"
He returned to his lunch, watching, with satisfaction, the crowd that was packing into the Liquor Department, next to the restaurant. That special loss-leader, Old Atom-Bomb Rye, had been a good idea. In the first place, the stuff was fit for nothing but cleaning drains and removing varnish; if he were Pelton, he would have fired that fool buyer who got them overstocked on it. But the audio-advertiser, outside, was reiterating: "_Choice whiskies, two hundred dollars a sixth and up!_" and pulling in the customers, who, when they discovered that the two-hundred-dollar bargain was Old Atom-Bomb, were shelling out five hundred to a grand a sixth for good liquor.
He finished his coffee and got to his feet. Be a good idea to look in on Liquor, and see how things were going. The department was getting more and more crowded every minute; three customers were entering for every one who left.
On the way, he passed two women, and caught a snatch of conversation:
"Don't go down on the third floor, for Heaven's sake ... terrible fight ... smashing everything up--"
Worried, he continued into Liquor, and the looks of the crowd there increased his worries. Too many men between twenty and thirty, all dressed alike, looking alike, talking and acting alike. It looked like a goon-gang infiltration, and he was beginning to see why Harvey Graves had wanted the Literates pulled out, and why Joyner, bound by ethics to do nothing against the commercial interests of Pelton's, had known nothing about it. He started toward a counter, to speak to a clerk, but one of the stocky, quietly-dressed young men stepped in front of him.
"Gimme a bottle of Atom-Bomb," he said. "Don't bother wrapping it."
"Yes, sir." The clerk seemed worried, too. He got the bottle and set it on the counter. "That'll be two C, sir."
"I see you're wearing a Radical-Socialist button," the customer commented. "Because you want to, or because Chet Pelton makes you?"
"Mr. Pelton never interferes with his employees' political convictions," the clerk replied loyally.
Saying nothing, the customer took the bottle, swung it by the neck, and smashed it over the clerk's head, knocking him senseless.
"That's all that rotgut's good for," the customer said, jumping over the counter. "All right, boys; help yourselves!"
* * * * *
For a surprisingly long time, the riot was localized in China, where it had begun. Using, alternately, three TV-pickups around the scene of the disturbance, Prestonby watched its progress, and watched successive details of store personnel, armed with clubs and a few knives and sono pistols, hit the riot, shouting their battle cry, and vanish. They were, of course, lambs of sacrifice, however unlamblike their conduct. They were buying time, and they were drawing groups of goons into the action in China and Glassware who might have been making trouble elsewhere.
There was an outbreak on the sixth floor, in Liquor; Claire, touring the store on the other TV-screen, spotted it and called his attention to it. Back of the shattered glass partition, a mob of men were snatching bottles from the shelves and tossing them out to the crowd. One of the clerks, in his gray uniform jacket, was lying unconscious outside. While Prestonby watched, another, and another, came flying out the doorway. A fourth victim, in ordinary business clothes, tattered and disheveled, came flying out after them, to land in a heap, stunned for an instant, and then pick himself up. Prestonby laughed heartily when he recognized Literate--undercover--First Class Russell M. Latterman.
"I ought to have anticipated that," he said. "Any time there's a riot, the liquor stores are the first things looted. The liquor stores, and the--Claire! See what's going on in Sporting Goods!"
Sporting Goods, between Tools & Hardware and Toys, on the fifth floor, was swamped. One of the clerks was lying on the floor in a puddle of blood, past any help; none of the others were in sight. The gun racks and pistol cases were being cleaned out systematically. This had been organized in advance. There were four or five men working industriously wiping grease out of bores and actions before handing out firearms, and a couple more making sure that the right cartridges went with each weapon. Somebody had brought a small grinding wheel over from Tools and plugged it in, and was grinding points on the foils and epees. Others were collecting baseball bats, golf clubs, and football helmets and catchers' masks. The Tool Department was being stripped of everything that could be used as a weapon, too.
The whole store, by this time, was an approximation of Mutiny in a Madhouse. Dressgoods was being looted by a howling mob of women, who were pulling bolts of material from shelves and fighting among themselves over them. Somebody had turned on the electric fans, and long streams of flimsy fabric were blowing about like a surrealist maypole dance. Somebody in Household Furnishings had turned on a couple of fans, too, and a mob of hoodlums were opening cans of paint and throwing them into the fan blades.
The little Antiques Department, in a corner of the fourth floor back of the Gift Shoppe, was an island of peace in the general chaos. There was only one way into it, and one of the clerks, who had gotten himself into a suit of Fifteenth Century battle armor, was standing in the entrance, leaning on a two-hand sword. There was blood on the long blade, and more blood splashed on the floor in front of him. He was being left entirely alone.
* * * * *
Hutschnecker, called to the telephone, spoke briefly, listened for a while, spoke again in hearty thanks, and hung up.
"Macy & Gimbel's," he told Prestonby. "They heard about our trouble--probably one of their price-spotters phoned in about it--and they're offering to send twenty of their store-cops to help us out. They'll be landing on our stage in eight minutes, rifles and steel helmets."
Prestonby nodded. It would have been quite conceivable that Pelton's chief competitor had started the riot; since they hadn't, their offer of armed aid was just as characteristic of the bitter but mutually-respectful rivalries of the commercial world. A few minutes later, another call came in, this time on the visiphone. Prestonby took it when he saw a Literates' Guards officer in the screen and recognized him.
"That you, Prestonby?" the officer, Major Slater, asked in some surprise. "Didn't know you were at Pelton's. What's going on, there?"
Prestonby told him, briefly.
"Yes; we had some of our people at the store, in plain clothes," Slater said. "Just in case of trouble. On Mr. L.'s orders. They reported a riot starting, but naturally, their reports were incomplete. Can you get one of your landing stages cleared for us? We have two hundred men, in twenty 'copters." Then he must have noticed some of the store Illiterates back of Prestonby, and realized that this offer of help to Literacy's worst enemy would arouse suspicion. "Not that we care what happens to Chester Pelton, but we have to protect our own people at the store."
"Yes, of course," Prestonby agreed. "Come in on our north stage. You'll probably find a fight going on on our twelfth floor, just inside. Anybody who's trying to get up the escalators to the office block will be an enemy."
"Right. We're halfway there now." The Literates' Guards officer broke the connection.
"You heard that?" he asked, turning to the others in the office. "If we can hold out till they get here, we're all right. Did you contact Radical-Socialist headquarters, yet, Hutschnecker?"
"Yes. I talked to a fellow named Yingling. He said that all the party storm troops had been lured out to some kind of a disturbance in North Jersey Borough; he'd try to get them recalled."
Prestonby swore bitterly. "By the time his own party-goons get here, the Literates' Guards and Macy & Gimbel's will have pulled Pelton's bacon off the fire for him. Nice friends he has!"
An alarm buzzer went off suddenly, and an urgent voice came out of the box on the wall:
"Here come the goons! South escalator!"
Prestonby grabbed a burp gun and a canvas musette bag full of clips. By the time he had gotten down to what, in deference to the superstitions of the Illiterate store force, was known as the fourteenth floor, an attack on the north escalator had developed as well. In both cases, the attackers seemed to expect no organized resistance. They simply jumped onto the escalators, adding their own running speed, and came rushing up, firing pistols ahead of them at random.
The defenders, however, had been ready: the fire hoses caught those in the lead and hurled them back. Some of them vaulted the barrier between the ascending and descending spirals and let themselves be carried down again. Less than five minutes after the buzzer had sounded the warning, the attack stopped. The noise on the twelfth floor increased, however, and, leaning over into the escalator-way, Prestonby could see the rioters firing in the direction of the entrance from the north landing stage. Within a matter of thirty seconds, they began to flee, and a wave of Literates' Guards, in their futuristic "space cadet" uniforms, came pouring in after them.
* * * * *
Douglass MacArthur Yetsko put the burp gun back together again, tried the action, and laid it aside with a sigh. He had cleaned every weapon in his and Prestonby's private arsenal, since lunch, and now he had to admit the unpalatable fact that there was nothing left to do but turn on the TV. Ray had been no company at all; the boy hadn't spoken a word since he'd started rummaging among the captain's books. Gloomily, he snapped on the screen to sample the soap shows.
Della Pallas was in jail again, this time accused of murdering the lawyer who had gotten her acquitted on a previous murder rap. Considering the fact that she had languished in jail for almost a year during the other trial, Yetsko felt that she had a sound motive. Rudolf Barstow, in "Broadway Wife," was, like Bruce's spider, spinning his five hundredth web to ensnare the glamorous Marie Knobble. And there was a show about a schoolteacher and her class of angelic little tots that almost brought Yetsko's lunch up.
He shifted the dial again; a young Literate announcer was speaking quickly, excitedly:
"... Scene of the riot, already the worst this year, and growing steadily worse. We take you now to downtown Manhattan, where our portable units and commentators have just arrived, and switch you to Ed Morgan."
The screen went black, and Yetsko swore angrily. Ray lifted his head quickly from his book and reached for the sono pistol Yetsko had given him.
"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and just a moment, until we can give you the picture. We're having what is usually labeled as 'slight technical difficulties,' in this case the difficulty of avoiding having a hole shot in our camera or in your commentator's head. Yes, that's shooting you hear; there, somebody's using an auto rifle! How are you coming, Steve?"
A voice muttered something which, two centuries ago, would have caused an earth-shaking scandal in the whole radio-TV industry.
"Well, till Steve gets things fixed up, a brief review, to date, of what's sure to go down in history as the Battle of Pelton's Purchasers' Paradise--"
"Huh?" Ray fairly shouted, the book forgotten.
"... Started in the Chinaware Department, as a relatively innocent brawl, and spread to the Liquor Department, and then, all of a sudden, everybody started playing rough. At first, it was suspected that Macy & Gimbel's had sent a goon gang around to break up Pelton's fall sale, but when the former concern rallied to the assistance of their competitor with a force of twenty riflemen, that began to look less likely, and we're beginning to think that it might be the work of some of Pelton's political enemies. About ten minutes ago, Major James F. Slater, of the Literates' Guards, arrived with two hundred of his men, to protect the Literates on duty at the store. They captured the entire twelfth floor, where we are, now, with the exception of the Ladies' Lingerie and Hosiery departments around one of the escalators to the lower floors; here the gang who started the riot, and who are now donning white hoods to distinguish themselves from the various other factions involved, have thrown up barricades of counters and display tables and are fighting bitterly to keep control of the escalator head. Ah, here we are!"
The screen lit suddenly, and they were looking, Ray over Yetsko's shoulder, across the devastated expanse of what had been the Ladies' Frocks department, toward Lingerie and Hosiery, which seemed to have been thoroughly looted, then stripped of everything that could be used to build a barricade.
"... Seems to have been quite a number of heavy 'copters just landed on the east stage, filled with more goons, probably to re-enforce the gang back of that barricade. The firing's gotten noticeably heavier--"
* * * * *
Yetsko had turned from the screen, and was pawing in the arms locker. For a job like this, he'd need firepower. He took the ten-shot clip from the butt of his pistol and inserted one with a curling hundred-shot drum at the bottom, and shoved two more like it into the pockets of his jacket. And now, something to clear the way with. He took out a three-foot length of weighted fire hose.
Then he saw Ray. That kid was pinning him down, here, while the captain was probably fighting for his life! But the captain'd told him to stay with Ray--He dropped the weighted hose.
"What's the matter, Doug?" the boy asked. "Pick it up and let's get going."
He shook his head. "Can't. The captain told me I had to take care of you."
The boy opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, and thought for a moment. Then he asked:
"Doug, didn't Captain Prestonby tell you to stay with me?"
"Yes--"
"All right. You do just that, because I'm going to help Claire and the senator. That's who that goon gang's after."
Yetsko considered the proposition for a moment, horrified. Why, this was the captain's girl's kid brother; if anything happened to him--His mind refused to contemplate what the captain would do to him.
"No. You gotta stay here, Ray," he said. "The captain--"
Then his eye caught the screen. Ed Morgan must have found a place where he could run his camera up on an extension rod from behind something; they were looking down, from almost ceiling height, at the barricade, and at the Literates' guards who were firing from cover at it. A sudden blast of automatic-weapons burst from the barricade; more men in white hoods came boiling up the escalator, and they all rushed forward. The few Literates' guards skirmishers were overwhelmed. He saw one of them, a man he knew, Sam Igoe, from Company 5, go down wounded; he saw one of the white-hooded goons pause to brain him with a carbine butt before charging on.
"Why, you dirty rotten Illiterate--!" he roared, retrieving his weighted hose. "Come on, Ray; let's go!"
Ray hesitated, as though in thought. "Ken Dorchin; Harry Cobb; Dick Hirschfield; Jerry McCarty; Ramon Nogales; Pete Shawne; Tom Hutchinson--"
"Who--?" Yetsko began. "What've they gotta do with--?"