"Better git out there and look after yer train," the girl said
carelessly. "When'd you git so all-fired hungry all of a sudden?"
"Put it in a bag. Quick."
"Look who's getting bossy--"
My host rounded the counter, picked up a used paper bag, began stuffing
food in it. The girl stared at him, then pushed him back. "You git back
around that counter!"
She filled the bag, took a pencil from behind her ear.
"That'll be one eighty-five. Cash."
My host took two dog-eared bills from his shirt pocket, dropped them
on the counter and waited while the girl filled a glass. He picked it
up and started out.
"Hey! Where you goin' with my glass?"
The trainman crossed the platform, headed for the boxcar. He slid the
loose door back a few inches against the slack latch, pushed the bag
inside, placed the glass of water beside it, then pulled off his grimy
railroader's cap and pushed it through the opening. He turned. The girl
watched from the platform. A rattle passed down the line and the train
started up with a lurch. The man walked back toward the girl. I heard
him say: "Friend o' mine in there--just passin' through."
I was discovering that it wasn't necessary to hold tight control over
every move of a subject. Once given the impulse to act, he would
rationalize his behavior, fill in the details--and never know that the
original idea hadn't been his own.
I drank the water first, ate a sandwich, then lit a cigarette and lay
back. So far so good. The crates in the car were marked "U. S. Naval
Aerospace Station, Bayou Le Cochon". With any luck I'd reach New
Orleans in another twelve hours. The first step of my plan included a
raid on the Delta National Labs; but that was tomorrow. That could
wait.
* * * * *
It was a little before dawn when I crawled out of the car at a siding
in the swampy country a few miles out of New Orleans. I wasn't feeling
good, but I had a stake in staying on my feet. I still had a few miles
in me. I had my supplies--a few candy bars and some cigarettes--stuffed
in the pockets of the tattered issue coverall. Otherwise, I was
unencumbered. Unless you wanted to count the walking brace on my right
leg and the sling binding my arm.
I picked my way across mushy ground to a pot-holed black-top road,
started limping toward a few car lights visible half a mile away. It
was already hot. The swamp air was like warmed-over subway fumes.
Through the drugs, I could feel my pulse throbbing in my various
wounds. I reached out and touched the driver's mind; he was thinking
about shrimps, a fish-hook wound on his left thumb and a girl with
black hair. "Want a lift?" he called.
I thanked him and got in. He gave me a glance and I pinched off his
budding twinge of curiosity. It was almost an effort now not to follow
his thoughts. It was as though my mind, having learned the trick of
communications with others, instinctively reached out toward them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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