"I knew about this hoard of wax we saw the day Murell came in for some
time. I always thought it was being held out to squeeze a better price
out of Belsher and Ravick. Then this friend of mine with whom I was
talking aboard the _Peenemünde_ mentioned that Murell seemed to know
more about the tallow-wax business than about literary matters, and
after what happened at the meeting and afterward, I began putting two
and two together. When I crashed that party at Hunters' Hall, I heard
a few things, and they all added up.
"And then, about thirty hours after the Javelin left port, I was in
the Happy Haven, and who should I see, buying drinks for the house,
but Al Devis. I let him buy me one, and he told me he'd strained his
back hand-lifting a power-unit cartridge. A square dance got started a
little later, and he got into it. His back didn't look very strained
to me. And then I heard a couple of characters in One Eye Swanson's
betting that the _Javelin_ would never make port again."
I knew what had happened from then on. If it hadn't been for Bish
Ware, we'd still be squatting around a fire down on the coast of
Hermann Reuch's Land till it got too cold to cut wood, and then we'd
freeze. I mentioned that, but Bish just shrugged it off and suggested
we go on in and see what was happening inside.
"Where is Al Devis?" I asked. "A lot of people want to talk to him."
"I know they do. I want to get to him first, while he's still in
condition to do some talking of his own. But he just dropped out of
sight, about the time your father started calling the _Javelin_."
"Ah!" I drew a finger across under my chin, and mentioned the class of
people who tell no tales. Bish shook his head slowly.
"I doubt it," he said. "Not unless it was absolutely necessary. That
sort of thing would have a discouraging effect the next time Ravick
wanted a special job done. I'm pretty sure he isn't at Hunters' Hall,
but he's hiding somewhere."
Joe Kivelson had finished telling what had happened aboard the
_Javelin_ when we joined the main crowd, and everybody was talking
about what ought to be done with Steve Ravick. Oddly enough, the most
bloodthirsty were the banker and the professor. Well, maybe it wasn't
so odd. They were smart enough to know what Steve Ravick was really
doing to Port Sandor, and it hurt them as much as it did the hunters.
Dad and Bish seemed to be the only ones present who weren't in favor
of going down to Hunters' Hall right away and massacring everybody in
it, and then doing the same at the Municipal Building.
"That's what I say!" Joe Kivelson was shouting. "Let's go clean out
both rats' nests. Why, there must be a thousand hunter-ship men at the
waterfront, and look how many people in town who want to help. We got
enough men to eat Hunters' Hall whole."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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