The Big Eye (2 page)

 

 

It wasn't just a state of mind. It was a Presence. You could almost smell
the Fear. It had feel and texture, like a stifling shroud. It had movement,
too, like a slow, creeping paralysis, reaching clammy fingers into every
nook and crevice of the building, permeating the place.

 

 

It was there, and it was inescapable. David felt it seep into his flesh
and bones. His skin prickled a little; his mouth suddenly felt dry. He
carried his bag to a phone booth and dialed a number.

 

 

"David! DAVID!"

 

 

It was good, hearing her voice again. He felt a surge of quick hunger.
It had been lonely at the observatory, damned lonely. Three months
straight, working nights and sleeping days, without a woman. Three months
straight -- without Carol.

 

 

"Where are you?" She was breathless, almost incoherent. "David, what on
earth are you doing in New York? Where are you?"

 

 

"At Idlewild Airport. Just got off the plane. I was afraid you'd be down
at the studios, broadcasting."

 

 

"I just got in, darling. This very minute. The phone rang -- and there
you were. But what are you doing in New York, of all places, now?"

 

 

David hesitated. His free hand tightened on his brief case in a kind of
muscular reflex brought about by Carol's question. He couldn't tell her,
he couldn't tell anyone. He had strict orders. Security. He was there
for a reason, a reason so big that it frightened him when he even thought
about it. He evaded Carol's question. But she was insistent.

 

 

"Darling, what are you so mysterious about?"

 

 

"I can't tell you."

 

 

There was a pause at the other end of the wire. "Oh," she said finally.
"It's hush-hush."

 

 

"Something like that. But that's only one reason I'm in town. The other
is you, Carol. I've been writing and writing you to come to the Coast.
Now I'm going to take you back with me."

 

 

"But, David, I told you why I can't go. You know why I've got to stay "

 

 

"Yes, I know," he interrupted. "But enough's enough. When I fly back
I'm taking you with me, and that's final!"

 

 

She was silent for a moment. Then: "We'll talk about it when you get
here, darling. And, David, David, don't stop anywhere, for anything.
Come right up to the apartment."

 

 

"Okay. But what about a hotel?"

 

 

"I'll make reservations for you at the Rutherford. You can check in
there later."

 

 

"The Rutherford? Never heard of it."

 

 

"It's a small hotel -- one of the few still open in town. All the big
ones are closed and boarded up -- the Waldorf, the Park Central, the
Ambassador. They've been closing in droves for the last month, ever
since the trouble began. And, David "

 

 

"Yes?"

 

 

"Try to get a cab up here. There's no other way to get around, unless you
walk. The subways and busses stopped running a week ago. And oh -- you'll
have to walk up ten flights."

 

 

"I will? Why?"

 

 

"Our elevator man quit on Wednesday. He's visiting a second cousin
somewhere out in Kansas." She tried hard to be light. "Everybody's
digging up distant relatives out in the country these days."

 

 

He laughed and said he was only thirty and he thought he could make the
ten flights in slow stages, and hung up. Then he walked through the
terminal and out of the gate. A big black air-line limousine waited
for him, to take him to the Forty-second Street terminal. The other
limousines, coming from the city, were loaded with passengers. But he
was the only passenger in his car, headed for New York.

 

 

The driver, a big, beefy, red-faced man, raised the telephone receiver
on the dashboard and spoke briefly to the terminal in town. Then he
swung the big black car onto the Van Wyck Expressway and gave it the
gas. Theirs was the only car in the right-hand lane, and they raced
along at high speed. But the other lane, moving away from the city,
was clogged with cars, bumper to bmnper. Horns honked continuously,
and the drivers cut in and out of traffic.

 

 

They're all going in the same direction, away from town, thought David,
and they're all in a hell of a hurry.

 

 

He stared at the long line of headlights hugging the curves of the
parkway like a great illuminated snake.

 

 

"They've been heading out on Long Island like this for days," said
the driver. "Anywhere, so long as it's away from the city. Babylon,
Sayville, Southampton, Montauk Point -- the further, the better. You'll
find the same kind of traffic moving into Jersey, up into New England
and New York State. And I don't blame 'em."

 

 

"Still, you seem to be sticking it out," said David.

 

 

"Yeah." The driver lit a cigarette, and his fingers trembled a little.
"But don't get me wrong, mister. I'm just as scared as they are. The
company's giving me triple pay for staying on the job, and they flew my
wife and three kids out of town, but I'm going to quit in a couple of
days anyway. I don't like money enough to stick my neck out like this."

 

 

David glanced at the driver's face. It had that same taut, tense look,
the same haunted look he had seen at the airport. He felt a little
queasy. He knew that the same look had settled on his own face now,
like a cold gray mask.

 

 

You couldn't be here and not be afraid. Not now. . . .

 

 

He tried hard to be casual. "Where are they going to find room for all
these people?"

 

 

The driver shrugged. "I don't know. You take the island here now,
mister. It's jammed with extra people, all from the city. Must be half
a million of 'em anyway. They're living in shacks, out in the open,
anywhere. It's sure a hell of a situation. They declared martial law
out here yesterday."

 

 

"That bad, eh?"

 

 

"Yeah. And worse in the city. They've got a couple of Army divisions in
there now. Just to keep order. But as soon as everybody's out, I figure
they'll move the soldiers out. As it is, they're sitting ducks right
now." The driver shook his head. "You know about all the rumors flying
around these days, the funny things happening that nobody can explain.
You know who's behind it as well as I do, and what they're leading up to."

 

 

Yes, thought David, I know. That's why I'm here now. And that's why I
won't be here tomorrow morning. His fingers seemed to perspire damply
on the leather of his brief case as he caught the eye of the driver in
the reflector mirror.

 

 

"If you knew what I knew, driver, you'd turn this big black limousine
around and follow those other cars to wherever they were going, away
from the city.

 

 

The man at the wheel continued to talk. He was almost garrulous; he
seemed grateful for someone to talk to. It was easy to guess that he
had driven an empty car back to the main terminal time after time,
that David's presence was a surprise.

 

 

"You take those GIs now," he said sympathetically. "Those poor bastards
up ahead in town. A lot of 'em couldn't take it -- went over the hill --
deserted. They shot a couple of 'em last night." He shook his head.
"I don't blame 'em for cracking up. It's the waiting that drives you
nuts. It's beginning to get me too."

 

 

They continued down Van Wyck Expressway and into Queens Boulevard,
racing by the slowly moving line of traffic on their left. David stared
at the residential sections of Queens on each side of the main artery.
They presented an eerie sight, a kind of macabre fantasy. They were like
vast stone-and-wooden graveyards, dark and empty.

 

 

But the houses were not really empty. The Fear was there, living in
every one of them. The only sign of movement was on the highway itself,
the solid line of cars crawling along, bumper to bumper, impatient of
delay, heading east -- east and away.

 

 

The limousine sped across the Fifty-ninth Street bridge, into the
silent and dark and dying city, and swung over to East River Drive.
David looked hard at the black buildings and towers etched against the
moon-washed sky. The few illuminated windows he could see were isolated,
far apart, conspicuous in their loneliness.

 

 

And the Fear was the only tenant in these darkened office buildings too.

 

 

And then, at last, they passed the great area between Forty-eighth and
Forty-second streets -- the permanent headquarters of the United Nations.

 

 

With a kind of morbid fascination, David watched it slip by. There it was,
the great international city within a city, the terraces, the auxiliary
buildings and apartments, and finally, the main UN skyscraper itself.

 

 

The building towered there now, dark and empty and silent, a great massive
mausoleum. It seemed to glower at them balefully as they went by. David
fancied that the grass on the terraces now grew rank, and the hedges
and foliage, once trim and clipped, would now be ragged and unkempt.

 

 

It was a symbol of failure now, a great empty House of the Dead, a house
of shattered hopes, of the blighted dreams of mankind.

 

 

Back in 1946, when David had been a boy of sixteen, the delegates of
the nations had first met on the site of the World's Fair and at Lake
Success to bring about the salvation of humanity and the security of the
world. There the giants of a decade and a half ago, Molotov, Byrnes, and
Bevin, as well as the Greats and the near Greats of the other countries,
had met to resolve what hitherto had been considered insoluble problems.

 

 

They had begun with fine words, and noble phrases, and good intentions.
But Byrnes and Molotov and Bevin had haggled and fought to begin with,
and so had their successors, down through the years, here in this
magnificent new setting on East River Drive. Marshall and Acheson,
Stalin and Vishinsky, Truman, and now the President and his aides and
advisers. They had all seen a vision in the beginning, but as time went
on the vision had grown blurred and finally died, and at last it was
gone. The cold war had grown colder with every passing day, and now it
was ready to burst through the bottom of the thermometer.

 

 

And finally, a month ago, they had closed the magnificent buildings.
The delegates had broken, pointing fingers at each other in recrimination,
accusing each other of greed, of imperialism, of stubbornness, of bad
faith. And they had broken irrevocably, and for good. The representatives
had melted away and gone home, and they had closed the buildings and
bolted the doors, and taken down the flags of the nations which had once
flown proudly in the great courtyard, and abandoned it.

 

 

Now the UN stood there, a series of stone ghosts on East River Drive,
seedy and unkempt, the symbol of a Great Failure.

 

 

And it had been the Great Failure that had brought about the Great Fear.

 

 

Now -- everyone had the bomb.

 

 

Yes, thought David, they have it, and we have it. And where do we go
from here? What now?

 

 

The driver turned and saw David staring back at the buildings. "Yeah,
look at the joint," he said. "Many's the time I hauled these striped-pants
diplomats from Idlewild to the UN. Big shots from all over the world. And
where are they now? Hiding in caves, maybe, I dunno. All I know is we've
got millions of dollars' worth of real estate back there, but it's not
worth a nickel now."

 

 

"Maybe they'll open it again some day," suggested David hopefully.
"Maybe they'll still be able to get together."

 

 

"You mean that conference the Secretary of State's having over in Russia
right now?"

 

 

"Yes."

 

 

"Nuts," the driver snorted. "Not a chance. It's too late. People have
gone crazy. They're set on blowing themselves up, and nobody's going to
stop them. It's like watching a car without brakes rolling down a hill
toward a clifi. Everybody's standing around, hollering 'Stop,- stop,' but
nobody's doing anything to stop it. The only question is, who's going to
blow up who?" The beefy man lowered his voice. "And between you and me,
mister, the Russians have already started it. They've already started
to give us the business right now."

 

 

"What do you mean?"

 

 

"You know what I mean. The stories that are going around. The Reds are
supposed to have something extra, something that we haven't been able
to figure out yet, and they're using it right now. Look at all the funny
things that are happening all of a sudden. The earthquake in Dallas and
another in Montreal. The way the television and radio has been blacking
out all of a sudden."

 

 

David was silent for a moment. "And you think the Russians are
responsible?"

 

 

"Who else?" The driver looked at him, a little incredulous. "Things like
this don't happen all of a sudden, out of left field. The Reds have got
something bigger, maybe better, than the bomb. That's what everybody
is saying. What about that atom bomb that went off down in Texas? Blew
three towns right off the map. You can't tell me that was any accident,
mister. The Russians are jabbing at us now, trying to panic us and throw
us off balance. And they'll be winding up for their Sunday punch any
minute now."