He located the school library and stayed there as long as he thought practical, and then managed to find the students’ projection rooms, where he spent the rest of the morning watching educational Tri-D tapes. It didn’t take him long to locate those pertaining to historical matters involving wars of the past and such items of violence.
He discovered by chance that noon-time meals in the school’s cafeteria were free and saved his paper wrapped reserves from the restro-cafeteria of that early morning.
But sleep was now becoming the ultimate necessity. He hadn’t truly slept for three days and even youth has its limits, especially when under the stress being carried by Billy Antrim.
However, he couldn’t discover a hiding place in the school buildings where he could trust himself for even an hour, and he knew that if he took the chance, an hour would never do. Once down, he was going to be a log for at least eight hours, possibly more. He couldn’t afford to let down his defenses for that length of time, even if he had found a hole in which to hibernate.
The Antrim luck continued to hold when school let out. He took up his books and drifted along with the current of students, those who were pedestrian. He hated to be out in the light of day at all but at least he had protective coloring for a time. He had no idea of how good a description Earth authorities had of him. For all he knew, Luigi Agrigento might have even leaked them a photograph, his fingerprints and whatever else they might have wanted the better to hunt down Billy Antrim. His lips pulled further back in a wolf-like, humorless grin; Big Luigi wasn’t going to be entirely happy until he got word that his former protege was no more. There was a lot Billy knew about the workings of the Maffeo.
As his fellow students dropped off to the left and right, Billy Antrim was faced with the problem of new camouflage. He wasn’t going to be able to walk the streets, certainly not after nightfall, with his armload of books and remain inconspicuous. He had to find shelter, and, above all, he had to find sleep.
He pulled up short before a Sauna-Turkish Bath.
If it was anything like the Moorish type bath which had come down in Sicily from the days when the Saracens had occupied that island, and later went on the planet Palermo…
He’d take the chance. He entered.
The place was, of course, highly automated. There was but one attendant and he, bored, was scanning a portable Tri-D set. He hardly looked up. “In there,” he said.
The dressing room had individual lockers, of course. Right now, he was the only customer. Billy Antrim hesitated only momentarily before parting with his clothes, his food supply and, above all, his knife and gun. But there was nothing for it. He locked them up and slid the elastic which bore the key about his wrist.
There were lettered instructions about the room. He followed directions, spent a minimum time in the steam room, took one quick plunge in the pool, then sought out the massage rooms. They were separate cubicles. He entered one. There was no key, but the door evidently registered OCCUPIED when someone was inside.
He sneered at the instructions for making operative the electrical masseur and flung himself down on the massage table, asleep before his body had completely relaxed on the hard surface.
A voice said, “Hey, chum, you fell asleep. You figuring on stayin’ all night?” There was a laugh, as though something hugely amusing had been said.
Ordinarily, Billy Antrim’s awakening was instantaneous, as a professional killer’s should be. But now his exhausted body resisted awakening. He muttered something, fretfully.
“Come on, come on, boy. I’m closing up.”
Billy Antrim felt a less than gentle hand shaking him. He came instantly alert, staring at the other, his blue eyes ice.
The attendant he had seen earlier in the other office pulled back his hand quickly. He said, stubbornly, “It’s closing.”
Billy swung his legs around and to the floor.
“Awright,” he muttered. “Gosh, I musta fell asleep.”
The attendant left and Billy made his way back to the dressing rooms and reacquired his belongings. Nothing had been touched.
This was the crucial point, now. Before returning to the entry office, he loosened the gun beneath his jacket, but then assumed a puzzled and repentant expression.
He approached the desk with its payment screen against which to press a credit card.
“Ay, Mac,” he said sorrowfully. “Guess what? I’m sorry, but it looks like I forgot my credit card.”
“Oh, yeah?” The attendant looked at him truculently. “I shoulda noticed. Why, you probably ain’t even got a adult card. Come on, boy. Get that junior I.D. out. You’re not talking yourself out of paying up. I seen dead beats before.”
Billy said doggedly, “I’m sorry, Mac, but like I told you. I musta left it home. I’ll pay you tomorrow.”
“I never even seen you before. I’m calling the police, sonny. Nobody’s walking out on this business.” He reached for a switch.
Billy Antrim had two alternatives. The butt of the gun was within inches of his right hand. But a new killing would bring down the fuzz-yokes, and they were already too close behind for comfort.
He said hurriedly, “Look. This here ring. It’s a star sapphire. I’ll let you keep it, until tomorrow. Then I’ll come back and pay off.”
The other’s eyes narrowed in greed. “Okay, boy. I trust you. You know how it is.”
“Yeah, sure,” Billy said bitterly. “I know how it is.” He turned and left.
His mother had given him the ring. Back when they had been flush once. He suspected it had been given to her by a male admirer, most likely a lover, but it was the only thing he still possessed to keep alive the memory of Ruth Antrim, the one person he had ever loved. Now it was gone.
What had happened to Ruth Antrim? After Big Luigi had shipped her off, Billy had never heard. She had probably written him, she would have written, but he suspected Luigi Agrigento had confiscated any such mail. Luigi at the time was amusing himself by educating the boy in the traditions of the Maffeo, and in the use of the gun, the knife, the sap.
It was dark on the street. Warily, Billy Antrim trudged along, portraying the schoolboy who had dropped off at a theater and was now making his way on home.
He had no time to be thinking of Ruth Antrim and Luigi Agrigento, but for the moment he couldn’t keep them from his mind. For the past three days fingers of doubt had been touching sensitive spots in his mind. While still a member of the Maffeo machine of Palermo, it had been easy enough to rationalize his way of life. The things he did were by order of Big Luigi himself, weren’t they? And Luigi Agrigento was the most important man on Palermo. It was as simple as that. What Big Luigi said was law.
But now, as a victim of the machine, rather than a cog in it, the injustice of the Maffeo way was more evident.
Billy Antrim sneered at himself, in sour self-deprecation. He was a rat on the run. Why not face reality? He was scum that the decent members of the race had to mop up. And then, contradictorily, he told himself in braggadocio that they’d have their work cut out in the mopping.
“One chance in a million,” he muttered.
It was getting too late for a schoolboy to be out. He’d be the more conspicuous by hanging onto the guise. He dropped the books into a waste disposal chute, straightened up and walked with a swagger, and as though he had already had two or three drinks before going out on the town seriously.
With luck, he decided, he might be able to crash a party. A party that would provide food and drink, though drink he could do without. Even at the most secure of times, a little alcohol went far with Billy Antrim. He could afford no blurred edges now.
He didn’t find the party, but he did as well.
A middle-aged, slightly overweight, overly-blonde, overly-dressed madonna of the cocktail lounges allowed him to pick her up. In fact, she couldn’t have been more obviously approachable had she dropped her handkerchief. She reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t finger the resemblance.
In their early preliminaries, she giggled archly and said, “I must be robbing the cradle. Why, you can’t…”
