The drunk paused before an entertainment arcade, apparently debating
with himself. After a moment he walked on, weaving unsteadily. He
hesitated only briefly before a restaurant. At the third stop,
a newsview theater, he went inside. The theater was less than
half-filled. Hendley was able to take a seat a few rows behind the
Freeman's now-familiar nodding head with its thinning strands of gray
hair.
A large, circular viewscreen formed most of the wall surface of the
theater, surrounding the viewer. Hendley paid little heed to the
turbulent crowd scenes on the screen. The news was all about the
Organization outside, which explained the nearly empty theater. Few in
the camp followed the events of the working world with any interest,
Hendley had already caught the prevailing attitude. The camp seemed
completely isolated. Even the word "Merger!" repeated several times in
a newscaster's rich drone did not distract Hendley's attention from
the man he had followed. Finally, just when Hendley had begun to fear
that the drunk had fallen asleep, his stoop-shouldered figure rose in
silhouette against the viewscreen. He was leaving!
The Freeman stopped at a nearby bar for a superfluous drink. Hendley
walked on by without even a sidelong glance. He had to be careful
now, do nothing to arouse suspicion. Outside a peekie-house he mixed
with a small crowd, as if considering the blatant suggestions on the
announcement board: YOUR INNERMOST THOUGHTS REVEALED! one said, and
another leered: FREE YOUR HIDDEN DESIRES! And what are your hidden
desires? Hendley asked himself. Care to look at them? Angrily he
brushed the questions aside. The constraints of the outside world had
no place here. Pleasure was all!
The drunk left the bar. Coldly determined now, Hendley waited until
the man was a hundred feet ahead of him, half-screened by late night
traffic, before he set off in pursuit. Sooner or later his prey would
become careless, wander into the park or off into a quiet side street.
The only worry was that he might have a room in one of the buildings
immediately bordering the main street. Then there would be no chance to
catch him alone.
The drunken Freeman took another brief ride on a moving walk. When he
alighted he stumbled to his knees. He was an older man with thinning
hair, but he was stocky and well muscled, Hendley noticed, even though
drink had slowed his reflexes. He scrambled up readily. Hendley let
the distance between them narrow, in spite of the fact that the crowd
was thinning out away from the main entertainment complex. He didn't
want to lose the man now, and he was convinced that the Freeman was too
drunk to notice him. Dusting himself off, the stocky man looked around
in a bemused way as if he were lost. Then, purposefully, he headed for
a side street leading into the residential section.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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