5 (JULY 26, SAT.)
It's too hot in New York, or else it's too cold. But hot or cold—somebody's always pushing you.
—Joe Frisco
Saturday was my day off and Mae and I drove into New York. We had tickets to a matinee. I switched on the car radio.
"Get some music," Mae said.
"I want to see what's on the news."
"Can't you ever relax?"
"I'm relaxed. I don't have to do anything except listen."
"Promise me you won't go into the office," Mae said. "I want to see that play."
"I have no intention of going to the office," I said. "Not unless there's an earthshaker."
"That's what I mean. Let somebody else handle it for a change. You're not the only man who can do the job."
"Listen," I said. "Here's something."
A commentator on one of the independent stations was saying the Monolithians apparently had made a number of secret agreements with the United States and the United Nations. The American public was being kept in the dark about many things they had a right to know. It was obvious from the alien's press conference yesterday that they were being more frank with the public than the people's own government officials. The defense-weapon demonstration to the nation on television was only one example.
I recognized the voice, which continued on a note of agitation:
"Here is a bulletin just handed to me. A Monolithian spokesman disclosed today that the first two-dozen aliens who landed on Earth have been joined by at least two hundred—I repeat, at least two hundred—more.
"This disclosure was made in answer to a question, reinforcing this commentator's belief that our own government is keeping us in the dark about matters of which we have every right to know the true facts."
"As opposed to the false facts?" I muttered, my copy-reader's instincts affronted.
"Shh," Mae said. "Listen!"
"The Monolithians, on the other hand, appear to be willing to answer almost any nonscientific question put to them, giving at least the appearance of candor which our own officials so sadly lack," the commentator went on.
"The question then arises whether it would be truer to say that our government isalliedwith the aliens, as our officials claim, or whether it iscollaboratingwith them, having capitulated to their unknown military strength in a sort of interplanetary Munich."
Mae gasped.
"Clearly it is the aliens who are acting with confidence, publicizing their movements, while the U.S. government shows a curious unwillingness to keep its own people—you and me—informed. Can it be that the government itself is in the dark about these vitally important matters? Can it be that our own government is acting as the tool of the aliens, having secretly surrendered to a power the like of which this Earth has never known?"
Mae had been listening in mounting alarm. "Do you think he's right?" she asked me. "Is it possible?"
"That's old Clyde Fitchburn, the noted viewer with alarm," I told her. "Don't take him too seriously."
"He can't be making it all up," she said. "Can he?"
"Only about 99 percent of it," I said. "He still hasn't got back to his one little true fact—that two hundred more aliens have landed."
I switched to another station.
"... playing host today to nearly ten times as many aliens as originally landed on Earth," an announcer on one of the network stations was saying.
"Now listen," I said to Mae. "This is news, not an editorial."
"A Monolithian spokesman said the new arrivals—two hundred of them, all male—had landed in a second scout ship, at about midnight, in Central Park, at the northern end of the reservoir.
"The spokesman said in a statement, quote, 'The second contingent arrived in response to the invitation implicit in the law signed yesterday giving the Monolithians U.S. citizenship.' Unquote.
"At nine o'clock this morning, when the stores opened, the Monolithians arrived in a fleet of taxicabs in the midtown area, where they went in separate groups to the different men's clothing stores—Bond, Howard, Ripley, Rogers Peet and Brooks Brothers—and to the men's departments of such department stores as Stern's, Gimbels and Macy's. Here they outfitted themselves in Earth-style clothing, which they charged to the Monolithian Embassy, and left by foot, mingling with the crowds on the sidewalk.
"Dressed like typical New Yorkers, most of them virtually disappeared—that is, they lost their identity as aliens and became indistinguishable from the average male New Yorker.
"The Monolithian spokesman said in answer to a question that their purpose was that of any visitor to New York—to see the sights of the city and become acquainted with its customs."
"There," I said to Mae. "That doesn't sound quite as bad as Fire-Eater Fitchburn's account, does it?"
My wife seemed relieved, but she wouldn't admit it. "They're probably playing it down," she said.
The newscaster said, "Reporters were late on the scene, but if eye witness accounts of passersby are to be believed, the aliens split up into groups of two or three and visited such places as Woolworth's, book stores, movie houses, the Empire State Building, the Planetarium, and took rides on buses and subways."
Mae said, "I'm not sure I'd like it if one of them sat next to us at the play."
"How would you tell?" I asked her.
"I'd know," she said. "Somehow. I'm sure I would."
"Well," I said, "you let me know and we'll interview him at intermission."
We crossed the George Washington Bridge, went down the West Side Highway and found a place to park on Sixth Avenue in the upper thirties. We had half an hour before curtain time and I asked Mae if she would like a drink.
"I think I would," she said. "I seem to have a slight case of the jitters."
We found a quiet place about a block from the theater and sat at the bar in the air-conditioned dimness. I had a Scotch and soda and Mae had a gin and tonic.
"Had any aliens for customers?" I asked the bartender as I paid for the drinks.
"Not so's I noticed," he said. "At least nobody tried to charge it to the Monolithian Embassy. We got a strictly cash trade here."
He went to serve another customer and a well-dressed young man came in and sat down on the vacant stool next to Mae.
"Sam," she whispered, nudging me.
"What?"
"Here's one."
"Where?"
"Right next to me," she whispered. "Look at his clothes. They're brand new."
The bartender went to the new arrival and said, "What'll it be?"
"What do you have?" Mae's neighbor asked.
"Anything you want," the bartender said. "Whiskey, bourbon, Scotch, gin, vodka. Soda, ginger ale, Seven-up. The combinations are limitless."
"I'll have a Scotch and Seven-Up," the stranger said.
The bartender didn't blink an eye. "Yes, sir," he said, and proceeded to blend the two strange ingredients.
"Scotch and Seven-Up!" Mae said to me. "He must be one of them. Who ever heard of such a thing?"
"That's pretty circumstantial evidence," I said.
"Change seats with me, Sam," she said. "I'm getting nervous again."
"Okay," I said. "Want another drink?"
"Definitely." She swallowed the rest of her first one as she slid onto my stool.
"Two more of the same," I told the bartender.
"Coming up," he said. "Right after this Scotch and Seven-Up." He gave me a shrug.
"Say something to him," Mae whispered, meaning my new neighbor at the bar.
"Like what? Shall I ask him what he thinks of American women?"
"You're the newsman," she said. "You ought to know what to ask him."
"This is my day off," I reminded her.
"Go on. Ask him."
"Okay."
I waited till his concoction had been served to him, then said:
"Pretty good drink, Scotch and Seven-Up."
He looked at me in what seemed to be embarrassment. "I don't know, really," he said. "First time I ever had it."
"Stranger in town?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact. Got in only last night."
"Where from?"
"You wouldn't have heard of the place," he said.
("See! I told you!" Mae whispered.)
"I don't know," I said. "I've heard of lots of places: Medicine Hat, Ephrata, Chestnut Bend, Gallipolis, Moses Lake, Lackawack...."
"None of those," he said, as if he were playing a quiz game. "It's a little place in Missouri called Joplin."
"That's easy. I got my Signal Corps training near there during the war."
"You don't say!"
("Ask him where he got the new suit," Mae persisted.)
"Where'd you get the new suit?" I asked him.
"Bond's," he said. "You know, under the waterfall in Times Square? It looked so cool. They have an artificial waterfall on top of the building. It used to be Pepsi-Cola's."
("Ask him what time," Mae said.)
"What time?"
"About nine o'clock," he said. "When it opened. Why?"
("Why?" I asked Mae.)
("Ask him if he saw the aliens in there then.")
"Did you see the aliens in there then?"
"I saw a bunch of men come in in bearskins or something like," he said. "I thought it was an advertising stunt."
("He thought it was an advertising stunt," I told Mae.)
("Doesn't he listen to the radio?" she asked.)
"Don't you listen to the radio?" I asked him.
"The radio?"
"The aliens from Monolithia were getting outfitted in Bond's at nine A.M., according to the radio," I told him without benefit of Mae.
"Is that who they were? Well, well."
He drank his Scotch and Seven-Up at one gulp, making a face over it, and said, "I've got to get going. I have a ticket for a show at 2:30."
("What show?" Mae asked.)
"What show?" I asked him.
He mentioned the new Rodgers & Hammerstein musical. "I'm meeting my wife there. Would you like to see a picture of her and the kids?" He took out his wallet to show me. In addition to the snapshot I saw his Missouri driver's license and an old draft card.
"Nice-looking family," I said.
"Thanks. Got to run now. My wife has the other ticket and I'm meeting her at the seats. Can't get lost that way, I figure. Pleasure talking to you. You, too, ma'am."
He left and I said to Mae: "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Are you satisfied he's not an alien?"
"I don't know. How come he's wearing his new suit the same day he bought it? You always have to wait a week or ten days for alterations."
"Maybe he didn't need any alterations and they cuffed the pants while he waited. At least he won't be sitting next to you in the theater."
"How did he get tickets to that? Are you sure you couldn't do any better than the revival ofWhere's Charley?"
"Not on short notice. He probably paid scalper's prices on the expense account. We'd better start."
We left the bar.
"I guess he won't be," Mae said, backing up the conversation in the way she has. "But for my nerves' sake there'd better not be another man in a new suit sitting next to me, even if he has got a good explanation."
"The odds are against it," I said as we stood at the corner of 44th Street and Broadway and waited at theDon't Walksign. "Just divide two hundred into several million."
TheWalksign flashed on. We were in a group of about fifteen law-abiding pedestrians who started across the street. We had almost reached the other side when somebody yelled, "Look out!"
A big long convertible with a grinning idiot behind the wheel was not only failing to yield the right of way to pedestrians but was making an illegal right turn onto Broadway from the cross street.
I grabbed Mae and hauled her ahead to the curb.
"Damn fool!" I hollered at the driver, who kept on going, blowing his horn.
Everybody scrambled to safety except one young man who hadn't seen or heard, or else had supreme faith in his rights as a pedestrian. The convertible was heading straight at him.
"He'll get hit!" somebody yelled. A traffic cop blew his whistle. A woman screamed. Mae, unable to look, buried her face in my shoulder. The pedestrian never broke his casual stride.
The massive chromed bumper was only inches from him when it began to disintegrate.
First the bumper, then the grille and the oversized fender, then the right front tire dissolved in a shimmering film.
As the tire disappeared, the momentum of the car sent it ahead into what was obviously the protective shield surrounding one of the aliens.
More of the car vanished and it came to a grinding stop, its underside providing the brake as it plowed into the asphalt.
The front of the car, almost clear back to the windshield, simply wasn't there any more. The driver's idiot grin had changed to a look of unbelieving dismay as he stared at the nothingness where his hood used to be.
The young man, who I now saw was wearing a new suit, stepped onto the curb near Mae and me. He paused, looked back for just a moment at the remains of the convertible, and said, as if quoting, "A driver must yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing with aWalksignal," then lost himself in the crowd.