“You’re wrong, Barnes.” The voice was Free’s and yet not Free’s, as though a new and different Free had come suddenly with the dark.
Barnes gasped, “Where are you, Mr. Free?” and patted his pockets helplessly. “I’ve been trying to quit smoking, and now the candle’s—”
“I know that, Barnes. Don’t be any bigger fool than you can help. A moment ago you said people don’t respect you. I said I did, and I do. But you’re involved in something you don’t understand. That’s the simple truth.”
“Don’t you have—”
“You’re trying to ask me where I put my gizmo, and what it is. A way to make me tell you what I hardly know myself about something you don’t understand. Well, I put it where I told you. In a wall. I could have put it someplace else, but it was a wall I chose.”
Barnes took a step. He hoped it was toward the stair, though he felt a chasm had opened before him.
“And I put a sign on it. I’m not sure you’ll ever see that sign, Barnes, but if you do I think you’ll know.”
The Defenders
Sergeant Proudy mounted the steps of 808 South Thirtyeighth and knocked at the door. It was a fine old door, high, wide, and solid. The Proudys lived in an apartment with a fireplace; Sergeant Proudy wished briefly that he might have that door. It would burn for weeks.
There was no sound from inside. Proudy pushed up the tail of his overcoat, took a blackjack from his hip pocket, and used it to knock again.
After several more knocks, Barnes opened the door. He was half a head shorter than the policeman, who wedged one of his large, black shoes between the door and the jamb.
“You still here, bud?” Sergeant Proudy grunted. “Where’s the old man?”
Barnes hesitated. “I’m afraid Mr. Free’s presently engaged, officer.”
Proudy pushed open the door. “I have to see him. I’ve got a paper here for B. Free. Where is he?”
Barnes backed away. “I think he’s—ah—upstairs. It would probably be better if I went up and asked him to come down and see you.”
“I’ll go up with you,” Proudy said firmly. He followed Barnes up the steep, narrow stair. “You’re still living here?”
“Yes, I am,” Barnes told him. The house was icy cold, but a radio banged and grumbled upstairs.
“You’re going to have to get out. You and the old man and everybody else, if there’s anybody else left.”
Barnes halted, his hands clutching at the banister. “Not now, officer. There are five of us.”
“As of noon of this date.”
Barnes shook his head. “That’s impossible. I’ve only made a couple of calls today—a few neighborhood places. I wanted to see Mr. Free myself, so I couldn’t go very far. I’d make a call or two over in the next street, you follow me? And then I’d come back and check. The first time he was still asleep, and then he was out having breakfast. Probably I waited too long because I got a good order at the second place, and I had to write it up and promise the guy it would be here in ten days or less. You know how it is?”
“You get on upstairs, and while you’re doing it, I’ll make this completely clear. What I got here’s a court order.” Sergeant Proudy had a large nose. He rubbed it. “It says you got to be out at noon because they got to wreck this house. Come noon, we carry you out, and we carry your stuff out, and we dump everything in the street. If you don’t want that, move before then.”
“I really don’t think that’s reasonable, officer,” Barnes said. “Or right, either.” The sergeant was crowding him, jabbing him just above the belt with the end of the blackjack to force him up the stairs. “People, old people like Mr. Free particularly, should have some rights.”
“The law says he’s got the right to take what the state says his house is worth. Ain’t that right? Now go get him.”
“In here, I think.” Barnes trotted past Stubb’s door and knocked at Candy’s.
Bedsprings creaked. The door swung back, the ugly sounds of the radio grew louder, and the fat girl appeared in the doorway. She was heavily powdered and rouged, but she wore the pink robe.
Barnes could see a little of the unmade bed beyond her; it was empty, but something flat and furry and larger than any cat lay there. “I don’t like to bother you,” he said stiffly. “But do you know where Mr. Free is?”
“Not any more. I was taking a nap.” The fat girl yawned as though to prove it, then glanced at Sergeant Proudy. “I’m broke, remember? You were here yesterday.”
Barnes cleared his throat. “He says they’re going to make everyone leave at noon.”
“Not me. I won’t be up then.” The slam of the fat girl’s door was followed by the snick of a night bolt.
“Ozzie, the wrecking. It will be today?”
Across the stairwell, Sergeant Proudy saw a slender, darkhaired woman in a black dress.
“At noon,” Barnes said. “We have to be out by noon.” There was an unspoken appeal in his voice.
“I will try,” the dark woman said. “It will depend, perhaps. Where is Stubb?”
Sergeant Proudy broke in. “The hell with that. I got to serve this paper. Where’s Free?”
“Stubb couldn’t do anything.”
