showing below it.
“It’s not much, just a scratch,” Andy said and smiled. “Wounded in the line of duty — and by a pitchfork too.”
“Chasing the farmer’s daughter, probably. Some story,” Sol snorted. “You want a drink?”
“If any of the alky is left you can cut it a bit with water. I could use it.” He sipped at the drink and sat back in the chair, some of the strain went out of his face but his eyes were red with fatigue and squinted almost shut. They sat down across from him. “Don’t tell anyone until the official word goes out, but there is a lot of trouble over the water — and there’s bigger trouble on the way.”
“Is that why you warned us?” Shirl asked.
“Yes, I heard part of it at the station on my lunch break. The trouble started with the artesian wells and pumps on Long Island, all the Brooklyn and Queens pumping stations. You know, there’s a water table under the Island, and if too much water is pumped out too fast the sea water comes in, then salt water instead of fresh starts coming out of the pumps. It’s been brackish for a long time, you can taste it when it’s not mixed with upstate water, but they were supposed to have figured out just how much to pump so it wouldn’t get worse. There must have been a mistake or the stations have been pumping more than their quota, whatever happened it’s coming out pure salt now all over Brooklyn. All the stations there have shut down and the quota coming from Croton and upstate had to be enlarged.”
“The farmers been bitching away about the dry summer, I bet they loved this.”
“No bets. They must have had it planned for a long time because they jumped the guards on the aqueduct, they had plenty of guns and explosives, the lot that was stolen from the Albany armory last year. There are at least ten cops dead, I don’t know how many injured. They blew up at least a mile of pipe before we got through. Every hayseed in the state must have been out there trying to stop us. Not many had guns, but they were doing fine with pitchforks and axes. The riot gas cleared them out, finally.”
“Then — there’s no water at all for the city?” Shirl asked.
“We’ll bring water in, but it’s going to be very thirsty around here for a while. Go easy on the water we have, make it last. Use it for drinking or cooking, nothing else.”
“But we have to wash,” Shirl said.
“No, we don’t.” Andy rubbed at his sore eyes with the heel of his hand. “The plates can be wiped off with a rag. And as for ourselves — we just stink.”
“Andy!”
“I’m sorry, Shirl. I’m being awful and I know it. But you have to realize that things are just that serious. We can go without washing for a while, it won’t kill us, and when the water is connected up again we can all have a good scrub. It’s something to look forward to.”
“How long do you think it will be?”
“There’s no way to tell yet. The repairs will take a lot of concrete and reinforcing rods, these are both on top priority, mixing machines, things like that. Meanwhile most of the water will have to come in by railroad tank cars, tank trucks and barges. There is going to be one hell of a problem with distribution and rationing, you can count on things getting worse before they get better.” He dragged himself to his feet and yawned deeply. “I’m going to sack out for two hours, Shirl. Will you wake me up by four at the latest? I have to shave before I leave.”
“Two hours! That’s not enough sleep,” she protested.
“I don’t think so either — but it’s all I’m getting. Someone upstairs is still pushing on the O’Brien killing. An informer in Chinatown has a lead and I have to see him today, instead of sleeping before I go on precinct patrol tonight. I am slowly developing a big hate for Billy Chung, wherever he is hiding.” He went into the other room and dropped onto the bed.
“Can I stay out here while he’s sleeping, Sol?” she asked. “I don’t want to bother him — but I don’t want to bother you either—”
“Bother! Since when has a good-looking
When Shirl went in Andy was sound asleep, sprawled across the bed fully dressed; he hadn’t even taken his shoes off. She pulled down the curtain and darkened the room, then took her manicure set off the foot of the bed. There was a hole worn in the sole of his right shoe and it stared at her like a mournful dusty eye. If she tried to take his shoes off she knew it would only disturb him, so she went out quietly and closed the door. “Batteries need charging,” Sol said, holding the hydrometer up to the light and squinting at the float through the glass barrel. “Has Andy corked off yet?”
“He’s sound asleep.”
“Wait until you try to wake him up. When he goes off like that you could drop a bomb and if it didn’t kill him he wouldn’t hear it. I’ll run the batteries up, he’ll never know it.”
“It’s not fair,” Shirl burst out suddenly. “Why should Andy have to do two jobs at the same time and be the one to get hurt, fighting for the water for the people in the city? What are all these people doing here? Why don’t they go somewhere else if there isn’t enough water?”
“For that there is a simple answer — there’s no place to go. This whole country is one big farm and one big appetite. There’s just as many people down South as there is up North and, since there is no public transportation, anyone who tried to walk to the land of sunshine would starve to death long before he got there. People stay put because the country is organized to take care of them where they are. They don’t eat well, but at least they eat. It needs a big catastrophe like the water failures in the California valleys to move people out, or the Dust Bowl — which I hear has now become international and crossed the Canadian border.”
“Well, other countries then. Everyone came to America from Europe and places. Why don’t some of them go back?”
“Because if you think you got problems you should see the other guy. All of England is just one big city and I saw on TV where the last Tory got shot defending the last grouse woods when they came to plow it up. Or you want to go to Russia maybe? Or China? They been having a border war for fifteen years now, which is one way of keeping the population down — but you’re draft age and they draft girls there so you wouldn’t like that. Denmark maybe. Life is great there if you can get in, at least they eat regular, but they got a concrete wall right across Jutland and beach guards who shoot on sight because so many starving people keep trying to break into the promised land. No, maybe we got no paradise here, but it’s at least livable. I got to run up the batteries.”
“It’s not fair, I still say that.”
“What’s fair?” Sol smiled at her. “Relax. You got your youth, you got your looks, you’re eating and drinking regular. So what’s your complaint?”
“Nothing, really.” She smiled back at him. “It’s just that I get so angry seeing Andy working all the time, taking care of people and they don’t even know it or care.”
“Gratitude you can’t expect, a salary you can. It’s a job.”
Sol dragged out the wheelless bicycle and hooked up the wires from the generator to the ranked batteries on top of the refrigerator. Shirl pulled a chair over to the window and opened her manicure set on the sill. Behind her the creaking moan of the generator rose to a high-pitched whine. She pushed at her cuticle with the orange stick. It was a nice day, sunny but not hot, and it promised to be a nice fall. There was the trouble with the water, but that would straighten out. She frowned a little as she looked out across the roofs and high buildings, only half aware of the endless background roar of the city, cut through by the nearby shrieks of children.
Outside of this business with the water, everything was all right. But it was funny: even though she knew that things were all right, she still had this little knot of tension, a nagging feeling of worry that just wouldn’t go away.
