The Year of the Jackpot Page 4

  Thirty-one domestic air crashes the last week in July… was it sabotage, or was it a sagging curve on a chart? And that neopolio epidemic that skipped from Seattle to New York? Time for a big epidemic? Breen’s chart said it was. But how about bacteriological warfare? Could a chart know that a Slav biochemist would perfect an efficient virus-and-vector at the right time?

  Nonsense!

  But the curves, if they meant anything at all, included “free will”; they averaged in all the individual “wills” of a statistical universe—and came out as a smooth function. Every morning, three million “free wills” flowed toward the center of the New York megapolis; every evening, they flowed out again—all by “free will” and on a smooth and predictable curve.

  Ask a lemming! Ask all the lemmings, dead and alive. Let them take a vote on it!

  Breen tossed his notebook aside and phoned Meade. “Is this my favorite statistic?”

  “Potty! I was thinking about you.”

  “Naturally. This is your night off.”

  “Yes, but another reason, too. Potiphar, have you ever taken a look at the Great Pyramid?”

  “I haven’t even been to Niagara Falls. I’m looking for a rich woman, so I can travel.”

  “I’ll let you know when I get my first million, but—”

  “That’s the first time you’ve proposed to me this week.”

  “Shut up. Have you ever looked into the prophecies they found inside the pyramid?”

  “Look, Meade, that’s in the same class with astrology—strictly for the squirrels. Grow up.”

  “Yes, of course. But, Potty, I thought you were interested in anything odd. This is odd.”

  “Oh. Sorry. If it’s ‘silly season’ stuff, let’s see it.”

  “All right. Am I cooking for you tonight?”

  “It’s Wednesday, isn’t it?”

  “How soon will you get here?”

  He glanced at his watch. “Pick you up in eleven minutes.” He felt his whiskers. “No, twelve and a half.”

  “I’ll be ready. Mrs. Megeath says these regular dates mean that you are going to marry me.”

  “Pay no attention to her. She’s just a statistic and I’m a wild datum.”

  “Oh well, I’ve got two hundred and forty-seven dollars toward that million. ’By!”

  Meade’s prize to show him was the usual Rosicrucian comeon, elaborately printed, and including a photograph (retouched, he was sure) of the much disputed line on the corridor wall which was alleged to prophesy, by its various discontinuities, the entire future. This one had an unusual time scale, but the major events were all marked on it—the fall of Rome, the Norman Invasion, the Discovery of America, Napoleon, the World Wars.

  What made it interesting was that it suddenly stopped—in 1952.

  “What about it, Potty?”

  “I guess the stonecutter got tired. Or got fired. Or they hired a new head priest with new ideas.” He tucked it into his desk. “Thanks. I’ll think about how to list it.”

  But he got it out again, applied dividers and a magnifying glass.

  “It says here,” he announced, “that the end comes late in August—unless that’s a fly speck.”

  “Morning or afternoon? I have to know how to dress.”

  “Shoes will be worn. All God’s chilluns got shoes.” He put it away.

  She was silent for a moment, then said, “Potty, isn’t it about time to jump?”

  “Huh? Girl, don’t let that thing effect you! That’s ‘silly season’ stuff.”

  “Yes. But take a look at your chart.”

  Nevertheless, he took the next afternoon off, spent it in the reference room of the main library, confirmed his opinion of soothsayers. Nostradamus was pretentiously silly. Mother Shippey was worse. In any of them you could find whatever you looked for.

  He did find one item in Nostradamus that he liked: “The Oriental shall come forth from his seat… he shall pass through the sky, through the waters and the snow, and he shall strike each one with his weapon.”

  That sounded like what the Department of Defense expected the commies to try to do to the Western Allies.

  But it was also a description of every invasion that had come out of the “heartland” in the memory of mankind.

  Nuts!

  When he got home, he found himself taking down his father’s Bible and turning to Revelations. He could not find anything he could understand, but he got fascinated by the recurring use of precise numbers. Presently he thumbed through the Book.

  His eye lit on: “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.”

  He put the Book away, feeling humbled, but not cheered.

  The rains started the next morning.

  The Master Plumbers elected Miss Star Morning “Miss Sanitary Engineering of 1952” on the same day that the morticians designated her as “The Body I Would Like Best to Prepare,” and her option was dropped by Fragrant Features.

  Congress voted $1.37 to compensate Thomas Jefferson Meeks for losses incurred while an emergency postman for the Christmas rush of 1936, approved the appointment of five lieutenant generals and one ambassador and adjourned in less than eight minutes.

  The fire extinguishers in a mid-west orphanage turned out to be filled with nothing but air.

  The chancellor of the leading football institution sponsored a fund to send peace messages and vitamins to the Politburo.

  The stock market slumped nineteen points and the tickers ran two hours late.

  Wichita, Kansas, remained flooded while Phoenix, Arizona, cut off drinking water to areas outside city limits.

  And Poptiphar Breen found that he had left his raincoat at Meade Barstow’s Rooming house.

  He phoned her landlady, but Mrs. Megeath turned him over to Meade.

  “What are you doing home on a Friday?” he demanded.

  “The theater manager laid me off. Now you’ll have to marry me.”

  “You can’t afford me. Meade—seriously, baby, what happened?”

  “I was ready to leave the dump anyway. For the last six weeks the popcorn machine has been carrying the place. Today I sat through The Lana Turner Story twice. Nothing to do.”

  “I’ll be along.”

  “Eleven minutes?”

  “It’s raining. Twenty—with luck.”

  It was more nearly sixty. Santa Monica Boulevard was a navigable stream; Sunset Boulevard was a subway jam. When he tried to ford the streams leading to Mrs. Megeath’s house, he found that changing tires with the wheel wedged against a storm drain presented problems.

  “Potty!” she exclaimed when he squished in. “You look like a drowned rat.”

  He found himself suddenly wrapped in a blanket robe belonging to the late Mr. Megeath and sipping hot cocoa while Mrs. Megeath dried his clothing in the kitchen.

  “Meade, I’m ‘at liberty’ too.”

  “Huh? You quit your job?”

  “Not exactly. Old Man Wiley and I have been having differences of opinion about my answers for months—too much ‘Jackpot factor’ in the figures I give him to turn over to clients. Not that I call it that, but he has felt that I was unduly pessimistic.”

  “But you were right!”

  “Since when has being right endeared a man to his boss? But that wasn’t why he fired me; it was just the excuse. He wants a man willing to back up the Know-Nothing program with scientific double-talk and I wouldn’t join.” He went to the window. “It’s raining harder.”

  “But the Know-Nothings haven’t got any program.”

  “I know that.”

  “Potty, you should have joined. It doesn’t mean anything. I joined three months ago.”

  “The hell you did!”

  She shrugged. “You pay your dollar and you turn up for two meetings and they leave you alone. It kept my job for another three months. What of it?”

  “Well, I’m sorry you did it; that’s all. Forget it. Meade, the water is over the curbs out there
.”

  “You had better stay here overnight.”

  “Mmm… I don’t like to leave Entropy parked out in this stuff all night. Meade?”

  “Yes, Potty?”

  “We’re both out of jobs. How would you like to duck north into the Mojave and find a dry spot?”

  “I’d love it. But look, Potty, is this a proposal or just a proposition?”

  “Don’t pull that ‘either-or’ stuff on me. It’s just a suggestion for a vacation. Do you want to take a chaperone?”

  “No.”

  “Then pack a bag.”

  “Right away. But pack a bag how? Are you trying to tell me it’s time to jump?”

  He faced her, then looked back at the window.

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly, “but this rain might go on quite a while. Don’t take anything you don’t have to have—but don’t leave anything behind you can’t get along without.”

  He repossessed his clothing from Mrs. Megeath while Meade was upstairs. She came down dressed in slacks and carrying two large bags; under one arm was a battered and rakish teddy bear.

  “This is Winnie,” she said.

  “Winnie the Pooh?”

  “No, Winnie Churchill. When I feel bad, he promises me blood, sweat, and tears; then I feel better. You did say to bring anything I couldn’t do without, didn’t you?” She looked at him anxiously.

  “Right.”

  He took the bags. Mrs. Megeath had seemed satisfied with his explanation that they were going to visit his (mythical) aunt in Bakersfield before looking for jobs. Nevertheless, she embarrassed him by kissing him good-by and telling him to “take care of my little girl.”

  Santa Monica Boulevard was blocked off from use. While stalled in traffic in Beverly Hills, he fiddled with the car radio, getting squawks and crackling noises, then finally one station nearby: “—in effect,” a harsh, high, staccato voice was saying, “the Kremlin has given us till sundown to get out of town. This is your New York reporter, who thinks that in days like these every American must personally keep his powder dry. And now for a word from—”

  Breen switched it off and glanced at her face. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They’ve been talking that way for years.”

  “You think they are bluffing?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said, ‘Don’t worry.’”

  But his own packing, with her help, was clearly on a “survival kit” basis—canned goods, all his warm clothing, a sporting rifle he had not fired in over two years, a first-aid kit and the contents of his medicine chest. He dumped the stuff from his desk into a carton, shoved it into the back seat along with cans and books and coats, and covered the plunder with all the blankets in the house. They went back up the rickety stairs for a last check.

  “Potty, where’s your chart?”

  “Rolled up on the back seat shelf. I guess that’s all—hey, wait a minute!” He went to a shelf over his desk and began taking down small, sober-looking magazines. “I dern near left behind my file of The Western Astronomer and the Proceedings of the Variable Star Association.”

  “Why take them?”

  “I must be nearly a year behind on both of them. Now maybe I’ll have time to read.”

  “Hmm… Potty, watching you read professional journals is not my notion of a vacation.”

  “Quiet, woman! You took Winnie; I take these.”

  She shut up and helped him. He cast a longing eye at his electric calculator, but decided it was too much like the White Knight’s mousetrap. He could get by with his slide rule.

  As the car splashed out into the street, she said, “Potty, how are you fixed for cash?”

  “Huh? Okay, I guess.

  “I mean, leaving while the banks are closed and everything.” She held up her purse. “Here’s my bank. It isn’t much, but we can use it.”

  He smiled and patted her knee. “Good gal! I’m sitting on my bank; I started turning everything to cash about the first of the year.”

  “Oh. I closed out my bank account right after we met.”

  “You did? You must have taken my maunderings seriously.”

  “I always take you seriously.”

  Mint Canyon was a five-mile-an-hour nightmare, with visibility limited to the tail lights of the truck ahead. When they stopped for coffee at Halfway, they confirmed what seemed evident: Cajon Pass was closed and long-haul traffic for Route 66 was being detoured through the secondary pass.

  At long, long last they reached the Victorville cutoff and lost some of the traffic—a good thing, because the windshield wiper on his side had quit working and they were driving by the committee system.

  Just short of Lancaster, she said suddenly, “Potty, is this buggy equipped with a snorkel?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then we had better stop. I see a light off the road.”

  The light was an auto court. Meade settled the matter of economy versus convention by signing the book herself; they were placed in one cabin. He saw that it had twin beds and let the matter ride. Meade went to bed with her teddy bear without even asking to be kissed good night. It was already gray, wet dawn.

  They got up in the late afternoon and decided to stay over one more night, then push north toward Bakersfield. A high pressure area was alleged to be moving south, crowding the warm, wet mass that smothered Southern California. They wanted to get into it. Breen had the wiper repaired and bought two new tires to replace his ruined spare, added some camping items to his cargo, and bought for Meade a .32 automatic, a lady’s social-purpose gun.

  “What’s this for?” she wanted to know.

  “Well, you’re carrying quite a bit of cash.”

  “Oh. I thought maybe I was to use it to fight you off.”

  “Now, Meade—”

  “Never mind. Thanks, Potty.”

  They had finished supper and were packing the car with their afternoon’s purchases when the quake struck. Five inches of rain in twenty-four hours, more than three billion tons of mass suddenly loaded on a fault already overstrained, all cut loose in one subsonic, stomach-twisting rumble.

  Meade sat down on the wet ground very suddenly; Breen stayed upright by dancing like a log-roller. When the ground quieted down somewhat, thirty seconds later, he helped her up.

  “You all right?”

  “My slacks are soaked.” She added pettishly, “But, Potty, it never quakes in wet weather. Never. You said so yourself.”

  “Keep quiet, can’t you?” He opened the car door and switched on the radio, waited impatiently for it to warm up.

  “—your Sunshine Station in Riverside, California. Keep tuned to this station for the latest developments. As of now it is impossible to tell the size of this disaster. The Colorado River aqueduct is broken; nothing is known of the extent of the damage nor how long it will take to repair it. So far as we know, the Owens River Valley aqueduct may be intact, but all persons in the Los Angeles area are advised to conserve water. My personal advice is to stick your washtubs out into this rain.

  “I now read from the standard disaster instructions, quote: ‘Boil all water. Remain quietly in your homes and do not panic. Stay off the highways. Cooperate with the police and render—’ Joe! Catch that phone! ‘—render aid where necessary. Do not use the telephone except for—’ Flash! An unconfirmed report from Long Beach states that the Wilmington and San Pedro waterfront is under five feet of water. I repeat, this is unconfirmed. Here’s a message from the commanding general, March Field: ‘Official, all military personnel will report—’”

  Breen switched it off. “Get in the car.”

  He stopped in the town, managed to buy six five-gallon tins and a jeep tank. He filled them with gasoline and packed them with blankets in the back seat, topping off the mess with a dozen cans of oil. Then they started rolling.

  “What are we doing, Potiphar?”

  “I want to get west of the valley highway.”

  “Any particular place west?”

  “I think
so. We’ll see. You work the radio, but keep an eye on the road, too. That gas back there makes me nervous.”

  Through the town of Mojave and northwest on 466 into the Tehachapi Mountains—

  Reception was poor in the pass, but what Meade could pick up confirmed the first impression—worse than the quake of ’06, worse than San Francisco, Managua, and Long Beach lumped together.

  When they got down out of the mountains, the weather was clearing locally; a few stars appeared. Breen swung left off the highway and ducked south of Bakersfield by the county road, reached the Route 99 super-highway just south of Greenfield. It was, as he had feared, already jammed with refugees. He was forced to go along with the flow for a couple of miles before he could cut west at Greenfield toward Taft. They stopped on the western outskirts of the town and ate at an all-night joint.

  They were about to climb back into the car when there was suddenly “sunrise” due south. The rosy light swelled almost instantaneously, filled the sky, and died. Where it had been, a red-and-purple pillar of cloud was spreading to a mushroom top.

  Breen stared at it, glanced at his watch, then said harshly, “Get in the car.”

  “Potty! That was—”

  “That used to be Los Angeles. Get in the car!”

  He drove silently for several minutes. Meade seemed to be in a state of shock, unable to speak. When the sound reached them, he again glanced at his watch.

  “Six minutes and nineteen seconds. That’s about right.”

  “Potty, we should have brought Mrs. Megeath.”

  “How was I to know?” he said angrily. “Anyhow, you can’t transplant an old tree. If she got it, she never knew it.”

  “Oh, I hope so!”

  “We’re going to have all we can do to take care of ourselves. Take the flashlight and check the map. I want to turn north at Taft and over toward the coast.”

  “Yes, Potiphar.”

  She quieted down and did as she was told. The radio gave nothing, not even the Riverside station; the whole broadcast range was covered by a curious static, like rain on a window.