The spectrum of possible victims had never been wide.76 The common financial types of the area would be carrying credit cards like Lowen, Richard W.,77 while the generality of pensioners filling the benches were even less tempting. As Miss Couplard had explained, our economy was being refeudalized and cash was going the way of the ostrich, the octopus, and the moccasin flower.78
It was such extinctions as these, but especially seagulls, that were the worry of the first lady they’d considered, a Miss Kraus,79 unless the name at the bottom of her handlettered poster (STOP THE SLAUGHTER of The Innocents!! etc.) belonged to someone else.80 Why, if she were Miss Kraus, was she wearing what seemed to be the old-fashioned diamond ring and gold band of a Mrs.?81 But the more crucial problem, which they couldn’t see how to solve was: was the diamond real?82
Possibility Number Two83 was in the tradition of the original Orphans of the Storm, the Gish sisters.84 A lovely semiprofessional who whiled away the daylight pretending to be blind and serenading the benches. Her pathos was rich, if a bit worked-up; her repertoire was archaeological; and her gross was fair, especially when the rain added its own bit of too-much.85 However: Sniffles (who’d done this research) was certain she had a gun tucked away under the rags.86
Three was the least poetic possibility, just the concessionaire in back of the giant eagle selling Fun and Synthamon. His appeal was commercial. But he had a licensed Weimaraner, and though Weimaraners can be dealt with, Amparo liked them.87
“You’re just a Romantic,” Little Mister Kissy Lips said. “Give me one good reason.”
“His eyes,” she said. “They’re amber. He’d haunt us.”88
They were snuggling together in one of the deep embrasures cut into the stone of Castle Clinton, her head wedged into his armpit, his fingers gliding across the lotion on her breasts89 (summer was just beginning). Silence, warm breezes, sunlight on water, it was all ineffable, as though only the sheerest of veils intruded between them and an understanding of something (all this) really meaningful.90 Because they thought it was their own innocence that was to blame, like a smog in their souls’ atmosphere, they wanted more than ever to be rid of it at times, like this, when they approached so close.91
“Why not the dirty old man, then?” she asked, meaning Alyona.
“Because he is a dirty old man.”
“That’s no reason. He must take in at least as much money as that singer.”92
“That’s not what I mean.” What he meant wasn’t easy to define. It wasn’t as though he’d be too easy to kill. If you’d seen him in the first minutes of a program, you’d know he was marked for destruction by the second commercial. He was the defiant homesteader, the crusty senior member of a research team who understood Algol and Fortran but couldn’t read the secrets of his own heart. He was the Senator from South Carolina with his own peculiar brand of integrity but a racist nevertheless. Killing that sort was too much like one of Papa’s scripts to be a satisfying gesture of rebellion.93
But what he said, mistaking his own deeper meaning, was: “It’s because he deserves it, because we’d be doing society a favor. Don’t ask me to give reasons.”
“Well, I won’t pretend I understand that, but do you know what I think, Little Mister Kissy Lips?” She pushed his hand away.
“You think I’m scared.”94
“Maybe you should be scared.”
“Maybe you should shut up and leave this to me. I said we’re going to do it. We’ll do it.”
“To him then?”
“Okay.95 But for gosh sakes, Amparo, we’ve got to think of something to call the bastard besides ‘the dirty old man’!”96
She rolled over out of his armpit and kissed him.97 They glittered all over with little beads of sweat. The summer began to shimmer with the excitement of first night. They had been waiting so long and now the curtain was rising.98
M-Day was scheduled for the first weekend in July, a patriotic holiday.99 The computers would have time to tend to their own needs (which have been variously described as “confession,” “dreaming,” and “throwing up”),100 and the Battery would be as empty as it ever gets.
Meanwhile their problem was the same as any kids face anywhere during summer vacation, how to fill the time.101
There were books, there were the Shakespeare puppets if you were willing to queue up for that long, there was always teevee,102 and when you couldn’t stand sitting any longer there were the obstacle courses in Central Park, but the density there was at lemming level. The Battery, because it didn’t try to meet anyone’s needs, seldom got so overpopulated.103 If there had been more Alexandrians and all willing to fight for the space, they might have played ball.104 Well, another summer …
What else?105 There were marches for the political, and religions at various energy levels for the apolitical. There would have been dancing, but the Lowen School had spoiled them for most amateur events around the city.106
As for the supreme pastime of sex, for all of them except Little Mister Kissy Lips and Amparo (and even for them, when it came right down to orgasm)107 this was still something that happened on a screen, a wonderful hypothesis that lacked empirical proof.108
One way or another it was all consumership, everything they might have done, and they were tired, who isn’t, of being passive.109 They were twelve years old, or eleven, or ten, and they couldn’t wait any longer. For what? they wanted to know.110
So, except when they were just loafing around solo, all these putative resources, the books, the puppets, the sports, arts, politics, and religions, were in the same category of usefulness as merit badges or weekends in Calcutta,111 which is a name you can still find on a few old maps of India.112 Their lives were not enhanced, and their summer passed as summers have passed immemorially. They slumped and moped and lounged about and teased each other and complained.113 They acted out desultory, shy fantasies and had long pointless arguments about the more peripheral facts of existence—the habits of jungle animals or how bricks had been made114 or the history of World War II.115
One day they added up all the names on the monoliths set up for the soldiers, sailors, and airmen.116 The final figure they got was 4,800.
“Wow,” said Tancred.
“But that can’t be all of them,” MaryJane insisted, speaking for the rest. Even that “wow” had sounded half ironic.117
“Why not?” asked Tancred, who could never resist disagreeing. “They came from every different state and every branch of the service. It has to be complete or the people who had relatives left off would have protested.”118
“But so few? It wouldn’t be possible to have fought more than one battle at that rate.”119
“Maybe …” Sniffles began quietly. But he was seldom listened to.120
“Wars were different then,” Tancred explained with the authority of a prime-time news analyst. “In those days more people were killed by their own automobiles than in wars. It’s a fact.”121
“Four thousand, eight hundred?”
“… a lottery?”122
Celeste waved away everything Sniffles had said or would ever say.123