THE MAN WHO JAPED

CHAPTER 5

T he park was in shadows, and icy-dark. Here and there small groups of people had collected like pools of nocturnal rain water. Nobody spoke. They seemed to be waiting, hoping in some vague way for something to happen.

The statue had been erected immediately before the spire, on its own platform, in the center of a gravel ring. Benches surrounded the statue so that persons could feed the pigeons and doze and talk while contemplating its grandeur. The rest of the Park was sloping fields of wet grass, a few opaque humps of shrubs and trees, and, at one end, a gardener's shed.

Allen reached the center of the Park and halted. At first he was confused; nothing familiar was visible. Then he realized what had happened. The police had boarded the statue up. Here was a square wooden frame, a gigantic box. So he wasn't going to see it after all. He wasn't going to find out what he had done.

Presently, as he stood dully staring, he became aware that somebody was beside him. A seedy, spindly-armed citizen in a long, soiled overcoat, was also staring at the box.

For a time neither man spoke. Finally the citizen hawked and spat into the grass. "Sure can't see worth a d--n [sic] ."

Allen nodded.

"They put that up on purpose," the thin citizen said. "So you can't see. You know why?"

"Why," Allen said.

The thin citizen leaned at him. "Anarchists got to it.

Multilated [sic] it terribly. The police caught some of them; some they didn't catch. The ringleader, they didn't catch him. But they will. And you know what they'll find?"

"What," Allen said.

"They'll find he's paid by the Resort. And this is just the first."

"Of what?"

"Within the next week," the thin citizen revealed, "public buildings are going to be bombed. The Committee building, T-M. And then they put the radioactive particles in the drinking water. You'll see. It already tastes wrong. The police know, but their hands are tied."

Next to the thin citizen a short, fat, red-haired man smoking a cigar spoke irritably up. "It was kids, that's all. A bunch of crazy kids with nothing else to do."

The thin citizen laughed harshly. "That's what they want you to think. Sure, a harmless prank. I'll tell you something: the people that did this mean to overthrow Morec. They won't rest until every scrap, of morality and decency has been trampled into the ground. They want to see fornication and neon signs and dope come back. They want to see waste and rapacity rule sovereign, and vainglorious man writhe in the sinkpit of his own greed."

"It was kids," the short fat man repeated. "Doesn't mean anything."

"The wrath of Almighty God will roll up the heavens like a scroll," the thin citizen was telling him, as Allen walked off. "The atheists and fornicators will lie bloody in the streets, and the evil will be burned from men's hearts by the sacred fire."

By herself, hands in the pockets of her coat, a girl watched Allen as he walked aimlessly along the path. He approached her, hesitated, and then said: "What happened?"

The girl was dark-haired, deep-chested, with smooth, tanned skin that glowed faintly in the half-light of the Park. When she spoke her voice was controlled and without uncertainty.

"This morning they found the statue to be quite different. Didn't you read about it? There was an account in the newspaper."

"I read about it," he said. The girl was up on a rise of grass, and he joined her.

There, in the shadows below them, were the remnants of the statue, damaged in a cunning way. The image of bronzed plastic had been caught unguarded; in the night it had been asleep. Standing here now he could take an objective view; he could detach himself from the event and see it as an outsider, as a person—like these persons—coming by accident, and wondering.

Across the gravel were large ugly drops of red. It was the enamel from the art department of his Agency. But he could suppose the apocalyptic quality of it; he could imagine what these people imagined.

The trail of red was blood, the statue's blood. Up from the wet, loose-packed soil of the Park had crept its enemy; the enemy had taken told and bitten through its carotid artery. The statue had bled all over its own legs and feet; it had gushed red slimy blood and died.

He, standing with the girl, knew it was dead. He could feel the emptiness behind the wooden box; the blood had run out leaving a hollow container. It seemed now as if the statue had tried to defend itself. But it had lost, and no quick-freeze would save it. The statue was dead forever.

"How long have you been here?" the girl asked.

"Just a couple of minutes," he said.

"I was here this morning. I saw it on my way to work."

Then he realized, she had seen it before the box was erected. "What did they do to it?" he asked, earnestly eager to find out. "Could you tell?"

The girl said: "Don't be scared."

"I'm not scared." He was puzzled.

"You are. But it's all right." She laughed. "Now they'll have to take it down. They can't repair it."

"You're glad," he said, awed.

The girl's eyes filled with light, a rocking amusement. "We should celebrate. Have ourselves a ball." Then her eyes faded. "If he can get away with it, whoever he was, whoever did it. Let's get out of here—okay? Come on."

She led him across the grass to the sidewalk and the lane beyond. Hands in her pockets, she walked rapidly along, and he followed. The night air was chilly and sharp, and, gradually, it cleared from his mind the mystical dream-like presence of the Park.

"I'm glad to get out of there," he murmured finally.

With an uneasy toss of her head the girl said: "It's easy to go in there, hard to get out."

"You felt it?"

"Of course. It wasn't so bad this morning, when I walked by. The sun was shining; it was daylight. But tonight—" She shivered. "I was there an hour before you came and woke me up. Just standing, looking at it. In a trance."

"What got me," he said, "were those drops. They looked like blood."

"Just paint," she answered matter-of-factly. Reaching into her coat she brought out a folded newspaper. "Want to read? A common fast-drying enamel, used by a lot of offices. Nothing mysterious about it."

"They haven't caught anybody," he said, still feeling some of the unnatural detachment. But it was departing.

"Surprising how easily a person can do this and get away. Why not? Nobody guards the Park; nobody actually saw him."

"What's your theory?"

"Well," she said, kicking a bit of rock ahead of her. "Somebody was bitter about losing his lease. Or somebody was expressing a subconscious resentment of Morec. Fighting back against the burden the system imposes."

"Exactly what was done to the statue?"

"The paper didn't print the details. It's probably safer to play a thing like this down. You've seen the statue; you're familiar with the Buetello conception of Streiter. The traditional militant stance: one hand extended, one leg forward as if he were going into battle. Head up nobly. Deeply thoughtful expression."

"Looking into the future," Allen murmured.

"That's right." The girl slowed down, spun on her heel and peered at the dark pavement. "The criminal, or japer, or whatever he is, painted the statue red. You know that; you saw the drops. He sloshed it with stripes, painted the hair red, too. And—" She smiled brightly. "Well, frankly, he severed the head, somehow. With a power cutting tool, evidently. Removed the head and placed it in the outstretched hand."

"I see," Allen said, listening intently.

"Then," the girl continued, in a quiet monotone, "the individual applied a high-temperature pack to the forward leg—the right leg. The statue is a poured thermoplastic. When the leg became flexible, the culprit reshaped its position. Major Streiter now appears to be holding his head in his hand, ready to kick it far into the park. Quite original, and quite embarrassing."

After an interval Allen said: "Under the circumstances you can't blame them for nailing a box around it."

"They had to. But a number of people saw it before they put the box up. The first thing they did was get the Cohorts of Major Streiter over; they must have thought something else was going to happen. When I went by, there were all those sullen-looking young men in their brown uniforms, a ring of them around the statue. But you could see anyhow. Then, sometime during the day, they put up the box." She added: "You see, people laughed. Even the Cohorts. They couldn't help it. They snickered, and then it got away from them. I was so sorry for those young men... they hated to laugh so."

Now the two of them had reached a lighted intersection. The girl halted. On her face was an expression of concern. She gazed up at him intently, studying him, her eyes large.

"You're in a terrible state," she said. "And it's my fault."

"No," he answered. "My own fault."

Her hand pressed against his arm. "What's wrong?"

With irony he said: "Job worries."

"Oh." She nodded. But she still held onto his arm with her tight fingers. "Well, do you have a wife?"

"A very sweet one."

"Does she help you?"

"She worries even more than I. Right now she's home taking pills. She has a fabulous collection."

The girl said: "Do you want help?"

"I do," he answered, and was not surprised at his own candor. "Very much."

"That's what I thought." The girl began to walk on, and he went along. She seemed to be weighing various possibilities. "These days," she said, "it's hard to get help. You're not supposed to want help. I can give you an address. If I do, will you use it?"

"That's impossible to say."

"Will you try to use it?"

"I've never asked for help in my life," Allen said. "I can't say what I'd do."

"Here it is," the girl said. She handed him a slip of folded paper. "Put it away in your wallet. Don't look at it—just put it away until you want to use it. Then get it out."

He put it away, and she watched fixedly.

"All right," she said, satisfied. "Good night."

"You're leaving?" He wasn't surprised; it seemed perfectly natural.

"I'll see you again. I've seen you before." She dwindled in the darkness of the side lane. "Good night, Mr. Purcell. Take care of yourself."

Sometime later, after the girl was completely gone, he realized that she had been standing there in the Park waiting for him. Waiting, because she knew he would show up.