'Hi. My name's Abigail,' the girl chirped.
'Abigail?' said Charlie in disbelief.
'Abigail,' replied Bill, nodding slowly.
'My name's Charlie,' said Charlie.
'I know.'
'You do? Have we met before?'
'Get to the point,' said Bill.
'Abigail, you've got to help me. I must enlist Bill's inexhaustible fount of scientific knowledge. In an enterprise that is vital to the safety of the city of New York!' Abigail's eyes went wide. Bill's got hard, like dumdum bullets.
'I have reason to believe,' he continued conspiratorially, 'that the ground at Sixth Avenue and 16th Street is unstable. If this is not proved tonight, lives will be endangered! But I must buttress my theory with fact.'
'Don't swear. Gee, that fantastic! Isn't that fantastic, Bill?'
'It sure is,' Bill replied. In a minute he would fantasize her further by strangling his own friend right before her fantasized eyes.
Charlie began to prowl around the living room, his own oculars darting right to left. 'Well, don't just stand there, Bill! We've got to assemble your equipment. Now. Don't you agree, Abigail?'
'Oh, yes. Hurry, Bill, let's do!'
'Yes;' murmured Bill tightly. 'Just let me get my hat and my coat.' He took another look at his friend. 'Is it raining out?'
Charlie was on his hands and knees, peering under the couch. 'Raining out? Don't be absurd! Of course it isn't raining out. What makes you think it's raining out?'
'Nothing,' said Bill. 'I can't imagine where I got the idea.'
Sixth Avenue and 16th Street was not a very busy intersection, even late on a Saturday night. Especially since it had been blocked off in spots by the construction machinery. On the other hand, it wasn't exactly a dark alley, either. The winos, comfortably tucked into their favorite corners, were no problem. But there were enough pedestrians about to make Bill feel uncomfortable and conspicuous with his heavy field case.
'Why can't we go in there?' he asked, pointing to an assemblage of heavy earth movers.
'Because the construction area is protected by a three-meter-high wire fence topped with three rows of barbed wire with triple alarms on the gates and is patrolled by vicious large-fanged guard dogs, is why.'
'Oh,' said Bill.
'Can't you do whatever you have to do right here?' asked Abigail.
'Yeah, you're not going to set off a very big explosion, are you?' Charlie blurted.
It is true that Charlie was still fairly intelligible. But the effects of the Sober-ups were wearing off, and he tended to talk rather louder than normal.
So the word 'explosion' did have the useful effect of sending several couples scurrying to the other side of the street and clearing a broad space around them.
'For cryin' out loud,' whispered Bill, 'will you shut up about explosions! You want to get us arrested?' He turned to survey the wooden fence that closed off the vacant lot behind them. 'There's bound to be a loose board or a gate in this fence. All I'm going to do inside is set off the smallest cap I've got. You'll get the briefest reading I can take, and that's it!'
While Bill and Charlie screened her from the street, Abigail slipped under the hinged plank they'd found. Charlie followed, and Bill came last, after slipping through his field kit. They stood alone in the empty lot.
'Oooo, isn't this exciting!' Abigail whispered.
'One of the most thrilling nights of my life,' growled Bill. He'd long since resigned himself to the fact that the only way he was going to get rid of his friend, short of homicide, was to go through with this idiocy.
'Only let's be ready to get out of here quick, huh? I don't feel like trying to explain to any of New York's finest what I'm doing taking seismic readings in a vacant lot at nine o'clock Saturday night.'
'Is it that late already?' yelled Charlie, oblivious to his friend's attempts to shush him. 'Hurry, hurry!'
'Anything, if you'll only shut up!' Bill moaned nervously. The others watched while he proceeded to dig a small hole with a collapsible spade. He put something from his case into it, then filled in the dirt, tamping it down tightly with the flat of the spade. He walked back to them, trailing two thin wires.
'This is exciting!' said Abigail. Bill gave her a pained look while Charlie fairly hopped with impatience.
Bill hit the small push-button device the wires led from. There was a muffled thump! Clods of earth were thrown several meters into the tepid air of the New York night. They were accompanied by a non-organic shoe and several tong-empty tuna fish cans.
'Well?' asked Charlie. He said it several times before he realized Bill couldn't hear him through the earphones. Finally he tapped him on the shoulder. 'How long will it take?'
'Too long,' said Bill, mooning at Abigail, who was inspecting the midget crater. 'It was a very small bang. I've got to amplify and reamplify the results and wait for a proper printout from the computer. Maybe an hour, maybe two.'
'That is too long!' Charlie whimpered piteously.
'That-is-too-bad!' Bill was just about at the end of his good humor.
'Well, okay, but hurry it up, will you?'
Bill chewed air and didn't reply.
'I don't believe it!' There was a peculiar expression on the young geologist's face.
'What is it, what's happened?' said Abigail.
Bill turned slowly from his instruments, looked up at Charlie.
'You were right. Son of a bitch, you were right! I don't believe it, but . . . unstable! Geez, there's a regular cave down there!'
'Will it affect the tunnel?'
'No, not the line, but as for putting a station down here . . . The whole thing could collapse under other sections of the block. And I couldn't begin to predict what blasting here might do. I don't think anyone would get hurt, but the added expense . . . to ensure the safety of the crane operators and such . . .'
'Now, that would be serious,' said Charlie. 'Hey, what time is it?'
' 'Bout twenty to twelve,' Bill replied, glancing down at his watch.
Charlie looked askance at his watch. 'Heavens, it's twenty to twelve! I've got to run! See you soon, Bill!'
'Not likely,' the geologist murmured.
'And thanks, thanks a million! You'll report your results to the commissioner's office, won't you?'
'Yeah, sure!' shouted Bill as his friend slipped through the loose board. No reason not to. He'd get a lot of credit for his foresight in detecting the faulted area. Maybe a paper or journal article out of it, too. And he'd take it after what he'd gone through tonight.,
'Now, don't be bitter,' whispered Abigail, kissing him selectively. 'You were marvelous! It wasn't that difficult. Besides, I think it was fun. And different. I've never been invited out for a seismic reading before.'
Bill squinted glumly into the bright light that had settled on them. 'And you'll be the first girl to be arrested for it, too.' He sighed, kissing her right back.
'Van Groot! Hey, Van Groot!' Charlie had been stumbling through the tunnel for what seemed like hours. He'd wandered off and on the inspectors' walkway, unmindful of the fact that at any moment a train could have come roaring down the subterranean track to squash him like a bug.
'Here, gnome, here, gnome!' That sounded even worse. If he ran into a night inspector, he might be able to alibi away 'Van Groot!' He didn't think he was clever enough to explain away 'Here, gnome!'
Could he? Well, could he?
'De Puyster!' came a familiar voice. 'Stop that shouting! I can hear you.'
'Van Groot! I've found you!'
'Eureka,' the gnome said dryly. 'I'd sure be distressed if you'd found me and I turned out to be someone else.'
Tonight the gnome administrator was wearing blue sharkskin. The beret was gone, replaced by a gunmetal-
