Mack Reynolds - Rolltown

“Ummm,” Armanruder said. “And you say you had a double motive?”

“Sir, usually when a mobile town moves, it proceeds more or less haphazardly. When you start off in the morning, everybody knows the destination. So some start early, some take off in small groups, some lag behind. Sometimes, units lag behind for days. All right. I think that tomorrow New Woodstock should be a veritable hedgehog. Women driving, those men who possess guns sitting next to them, ready for action. I think we should drive almost bumper-to-bumper, looking for any trouble, and ready for it if it materializes.”

Doc Barnes muttered, “Sounds like a confounded military convoy.”

Bat said softly, “It is.”

Dean Armanruder was thinking about it, unhappily.

Bat said, “I’d like to put this on the community phone. You see, I suspect we have a leak. Ordinarily, our community phone wouldn’t be tapped by outsiders. But I suspect that anything that goes over it is forwarded to Don Caesar, or whoever. If so, then they’ll pick up this move of ours and perhaps our very readiness will dissuade them.”

Armanruder was taken aback. “A leak? What in the world do you mean by that?”

“I mean that Don Caesar’s men were tipped off that I was coming up that road this morning. On top of that, my pocket phone was taken from me by the kidnappers but was sitting on my table when I returned. I suspect that they were trying to throw a scare into me, showing how efficient they were. And I doubt if a complete stranger to New Woodstock could have done it. He wouldn’t have known where my home was parked and he would have been spotted wandering through the town, even if he did know.”

“That sounds fantastic,” Doc Barnes said.

Bat looked in his direction. “Got any other explanation, Doc?”

“Why, no.”

Armanruder said, “All right, all right. You’re the police officer. So far as I’m concerned, you can make any arrangement you wish pertaining to our so-called order of march tomorrow. Go into my office, if you wish, and use the desk phone there. You’ll be more comfortable.”

Bat nodded and said, “One other thing. I suggest we make all preliminary arrangements for leaving tonight and that we roll at first flush of dawn. These people confronting us#longdash#if they’re confronting us#longdash#are not professional military. I doubt if they’re very well organized. Civilians lack discipline. We might catch them unawares and be completely through the mountains while they’re still comfortably in their beds.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Armanruder admitted. “Notify the town to that effect, Hardin.”

But Bat shook his head. “No. That wouldn’t do. We’ll have to pass that on by word of mouth, not put it on the air. That might tip them off, if they have some way of tapping our communications.”

“How about this leak of yours?” Doctor Barnes demanded. “If there is such a traitor among us, he’ll let them know.”

Bat nodded again. “Of course. And, if so, then we’ll know we’ve got a traitor and not just suspect it.”

“You handle it, Hardin,” Armanruder said.

“Thank you, sir,” Bat said. “I’ll put the assistant deputies to going from home to home explaining the situation.”

He went over to the major entrance of the Armanruder home and found the door open. He entered and headed for the office. He had noted that Dean Armanruder hadn’t bothered to put the matter to a vote with the executive committee, but had arbitrarily made the decision himself. Bat hadn’t liked that, but on the other hand he didn’t want to take the chance that the executive committee might overrule the idea. They weren’t men of action; he doubted if any of them had ever been in combat.

Nadine Paskov, in mini-shorts and sandals, and nothing else, and certainly no advertisement for expansion of the textile industry, met him in the hall.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, but making no move to shield her almost complete nudity.

Bat said, “Mr. Armanruder suggested that I use his office phone to issue a general plan for tomorrow’s move.”

“Tomorrow? Aren’t we leaving today? The sooner we get out of here the better I’ll like it.”

He shook his head. “It would seem safer if we left so early in the morning that most Mexicans would be in bed. In Mexico, mornings are chilly. No Mexican in his right mind arises before the sun is really up there.”

Suddenly, she put a hand on his arm. “Bat, is there really danger? I thought this was all a lot of nonsense.”

He said carefully, “There probably isn’t but the safe thing is to go ahead as though there is. The better prepared we are, the less danger there is.”

“Do you think these people might really shoot at us?”

Oh, oh.

Bat said carefully, “They might, but I’m not really expecting it. We just want to tread carefully, Miss Paskov.”

“Look, Bat, perhaps I should go back with the others to Texas.”

He cocked his head slightly to one side, gnawing his underlip. “Why don’t you?”

She took a breath. “It’s the best job I could ever get.”

“You could always go on NIT, if you couldn’t get another.”

“NIT, NIT! Poverty level, subsistence level income!”

“Well, it’s not as bad as all that. What they call poverty level nowadays would have been considered wealth a hundred years ago.”

“We’re not living a hundred years ago, we’re living now. Do you know what these clothes I’m wearing cost?”

He almost laughed at that, but held it in. She could have bought the shorts and sandals she wore in one of the swank snob shops in some northern city, and he had no idea what she might have had to pay for them, but excellent copies were available, certainly, in any ultra-market back in the States and probably right here in Mexico.

He said, “It’s your decision, Miss Paskov. You can go back with the others, or on with us.”

She said, urgently, “But you don’t understand. He’s written me into his will. I can’t quit.”

Bat was beginning to get impatient with her, aware of the need for him to go about his business. He said, “I don’t see how I can help you in your decision.”

She said, “Look. This mobile monstrosity will attract the most attention. It’s so big. If anybody shoots at our town, they’ll shoot at it first.”

“Well, not necessarily…”

She stepped closer to him, breathing deeply so that the pointed tips of her breasts jiggled. She said, “Yes, yes they will and everything is plastic. A bullet would go right through. Look, Bat, your car is armored, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” He looked at her in sudden realization of what she was building up to.

She said urgently, looking him full in the eyes. “Bat, if you let me ride with you tomorrow, when we make camp tomorrow night, I’ll come to your trailer. I’ll… I’ll let you do anything you want to me. Anything. Or, if you’d rather have something special I’ll do anything to you you want, Bat. Anything at all.”

Bat shook his head and said wearily, “Tomorrow I’ll be riding out in front. If they’ve got something up their sleeves such as mining the road with dynamite, or dropping a neat little avalanche off some mountain peak, I’ll get it first. See here, Miss Paskov, if you’re afraid, I’d certainly give it a long thinking over before continuing all the way to South America. It’s like Ferd Zogbaum said at the assembly, we’re most likely going to run into bigger emergencies than this before we arrive.”

“But I’m in the old fool’s will.”

Bat couldn’t think of anything to say to that. He sidestepped her and continued on to the office. Christ, but she was a handsome woman. He snorted inwardly. He wouldn’t touch her with a long, long pole indeed.