Roadside Picnic (9 page)

The village stretched along the western edge of the city. There once had been summer houses, gardens, orchards, and the summer villas of the city fathers and plant directors. Green, pleasant places with small lakes and clean sandy beaches, translucent birch groves, and ponds stocked with carp. The stink and pollution from the plant never reached this verdant glade – nor did the city plumbing system.

But now everything here was abandoned and they passed only one inhabited house – the window shone yellow through the drawn blinds, the wash on the line was wet from the rain, and a huge dog rushed out at them furiously and chased the car through the mud thrown up by the wheels.

Redrick carefully drove over an old rickety bridge. When he could see the turnoff to Western Highway, he stopped the car and turned off the motor. Then he got out and went on the road without looking back at Burbridge, his hands stuffed into the damp pockets of his jumpsuit. It was light. Everything around them was wet, still, and sleepy. He walked over to the highway and peered from the bushes. The police checkpoint was easily visible from his vantage point: a little trailer house, with three lighted windows. The patrol car was parked next to it. It was empty. Redrick stood watching for some time. There was no action at the checkpoint; the guards must have gotten cold and wornout during the night and were warming up in the trailer. Dreaming over cigarettes stuck to their lower lips. “The toads,” Redrick said softly. He found the brass knuckles in his pocket, slipped his fingers into the oval holes, pressed the cold metal into his fist, and still hunched up against the chill and with his hands still in his pockets, he went back. The jeep, listing slightly to one side, was parked among the bushes. It was a lost, quiet spot. Probably nobody had looked at it in the last ten years.

When Redrick reached the car, Burbridge sat up and looked at him, his mouth open. He looked even older than usual, wrinkled, bald, unshaven, and with rotten teeth. They stared at each other silently, and then Burbridge said distinctly:

“The map ... all the traps, everything ... You’ll find it and you won’t be sorry.”

Redrick listened to him without moving; then he loosened his fingers and let the brass knuckles fall into his pocket.

“All right. All you have to do is lie there in a faint. Understand? Moan and don’t let anyone touch you.”

He got behind the wheel and started the car.

Everything went well. No one got out of the trailer when the jeep drove slowly past, obeying all the signs and making all the correct signals. It accelerated and sped into town through the southern end. It was six A.M. The streets were empty, the pavement wet and shiny black, and the traffic lights winked lonely and unneeded at the intersections. They drove past the bakery with its high, brightly lit windows, and Redrick was engulfed in a wave of the warm, incredibly delicious smell of baking bread.

“I’m starved,” Redrick said and stretched his stiffened muscles by pushing his hands into the wheel.

“What?” Burbridge asked frightenedly.

“I’m starved, I said. Where to? Home or straight to the Butcher?”

“To the Butcher, and hurry.” Burbridge was ranting, leaning forward and breathing hotly on Redrick’s neck. “Straight to his house. Come on! He still owes me seven hundred. Will you drive faster? You’re crawling like a louse in a puddle.” He started cursing impotently and angrily, sputtering, panting. It ended in a coughing fit.

Redrick did not answer. He had neither the time nor the energy to pacify Buzzard when he was going at full speed. He wanted to finish up as soon as possible and get an hour or so of sleep before his appointment at the Métropole. He turned onto Sixteenth Street, drove two blocks, and parked in front of a gray, two-story private house.

The Butcher came to the door himself. He had just gotten up and was on his way to the bathroom. He was wearing a luxurious robe with gold tassels and was carrying a glass with his false teeth. His hair was disheveled and there were dark circles under his eyes.

“Oh, itsh Red? Sho how are you?”

“Put in your teeth and let’s go.”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded him into the waiting room and hurried off to the bathroom, scuffing along in his Persian slippers.

“Who is it?” he asked from there.

“Burbridge.”

“What?”

“His legs.”

Redrick could hear running water, snorting, splashing, and something fall and roll along the tile floor in the bathroom. Redrick sank exhaustedly into an armchair and lit a cigarette. The waiting room was nice. The Butcher didn’t skimp. He was a highly competent and very fashionable surgeon, influential in both city and state medical circles. He had gotten mixed up with the stalkers not for the money, of course. He collected from the Zone: he took various types of swag, which he used for research in his practice; he took knowledge, since he studied stricken stalkers and the various diseases, mutilations, and traumas of the human body that had never been known before; and he took glory, becoming famous as the first doctor on the planet to be a specialist in nonhuman diseases of man. He was also not averse to taking money, and in great amounts.

“What specifically is wrong with his legs?” he asked, appearing from the bathroom with a huge towel around his neck. He was carefully drying his sensitive fingers with the corner of the towel.

“Landed in the jelly,” Redrick said.

The Butcher whistled.

“Well, that’s the end of Burbridge. Too bad, he was a famous stalker.”

“It’s all right,” Redrick said, leaning back in the chair. “You’ll make artificial legs for him. He’ll hobble around the Zone on them.”

“All right.” The Butcher’s face became completely businesslike. “Wait a minute, I’ll get dressed.”

While he dressed and made a call – probably to his clinic to prepare things for the operation – Redrick lounged immobile in the armchair and smoked. He moved only once to get his flask. He drank in small sips because there was only a little on the bottom, and he tried to think about nothing. He simply waited.

They both walked out to the car. Redrick got in the driver’s seat, the Butcher next to him. He immediately bent over the back seat to palpate Burbridge’s legs. Burbridge, subdued and withdrawn, muttered pathetically, promising to shower him with gold, mentioning his deceased wife and his children repeatedly, and begging him to save at least his knees. When they got to the clinic, the Butcher cursed at not finding the orderlies waiting at the driveway and jumped out of the moving car to run inside. Redrick lit another cigarette. Burbridge suddenly spoke, clearly and calmly, apparently completely calm at last:

“You tried to kill me. I won’t forget.”

“I didn’t kill you, though,” Redrick said.

“No, you didn’t ... ” He was silent. “I’ll remember that, too.”

“You do that. Of course, you wouldn’t have tried to kill me.” He turned and looked at Burbridge. The old man was nervously moving his lips. “You would have abandoned me just like that,” said Redrick.

“You would have left me in the Zone and thrown me in the water. Like Four-eyes.”

“Four-eyes died on his own,” Burbridge said gloomily. “I had nothing to do with it. It got him.”

“You bastard,” Redrick said dispassionately, turning away. “You son of a bitch.”

The sleepy rumpled attendants ran out onto the driveway, unfurling the stretcher as they came to the car. Redrick, stretching and yawning, watched them extricate Burbridge from the back seat and trundle him off on the stretcher. Burbridge lay immobile, hands folded on chest, staring resignedly at the sky. His huge feet, cruelly eaten away by the jelly, were turned out unnaturally. He was the last of the old stalkers who had started hunting for treasure right after the Visitation, when the Zone wasn’t called the Zone, when there were no institutes, or walls, or UN forces, when the city was paralyzed with fear and the world was snickering over the new newspaper hoax. Redrick was ten years old then and Burbridge was still a strong and agile man – he loved to drink when others paid, to brawl, to catch some unwary girl in a corner. His own children didn’t interest him in the least, and he was a petty bastard even then; when he was drunk he used to beat his wife with a repulsive pleasure, noisily, so that everyone could hear. He beat her until she died.

Redrick turned the jeep and, disregarding the lights, sped home, honking at the few pedestrians on the streets and cornering sharply.

He parked in front of the garage, and when he got out he saw the superintendent coming toward him from across the little park. As usual, the super was out of sorts, and his crumpled face with its swollen eyes mirrored extreme distaste, as though he were walking on liquid manure instead of the ground.

“Good morning,” Redrick said politely.

The super stopped two feet in front of him and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder.

“Is that your handiwork?” he asked. You could tell that those were his first words of the day.

“What are you talking about?”

“The swings, was it you who set them up?”

“I did.”

“What for?”

Redrick did not answer and went over to unlock the garage door. The super followed.

“I asked you why you set up the swings. Who asked you to?”

“My daughter,” he answered very calmly. He rolled back the door.

“I’m not asking you about your daughter!” He raised his voice. “That’s another question. I’m asking you who gave you permission? I mean who let you take over the park?”

Redrick turned to him and stared at the bridge of his nose, pale and covered with spidery veins. The super stepped back and spoke more softly.

“And don’t you repaint the terrace. How many times have I ... ”

“Don’t bother. I’m not going to move out.”

He got back in the car and started the engine. As he took the wheel, he saw how white his knuckles were. Then he leaned out the window and no longer controlling himself, said:

“But if I am forced to move, you creep, you’d better say your prayers.”

He drove into the garage, turned on the light, and closed the door. He pulled the swag from the false gas tank, fixed up the car, put the bag in an old wicker basket, put the fishing gear, still damp and covered with grass and leaves, on top, and put the fish that Burbridge had bought in a store in the, suburbs last night on top of everything. Then he checked the car one more time. Out of habit. A flattened cigarette butt had stuck to the right rear fender. Redrick pulled it away – it was Swedish. He thought about it and put it into the matchbox. There were three butts in it already.

He didn’t meet anyone on the stairs. He stopped in front of his door and it flew open before he had time to get his keys. He walked in sideways, holding the heavy basket under his arm, and immersed himself in the warmth and familiar smells of home. Guta threw her arms around his neck and froze with her face on his chest. He could feel her heart beating wildly even through his jumpsuit and heavy shirt. He didn’t rush her – he stood patiently and waited for her to calm down, even though he fully sensed for the first time just then how tired and worn out he was.

“All right,” she finally said in a low husky voice and let go of him. She turned on the light in the entry and went into the kitchen. “I’ll have the coffee ready in a minute,” she called.

“I’ve brought some fish,” he said in an artificially hearty tone. “Fry it up, won’t you, I’m starved.”

She came back, hiding her face in her loosened hair; he set the basket on the floor, helped her take out the net with the fish, and they both carried the net to the kitchen and dumped the fish into the sink.

“Go wash up,” she said. “By the time you’re ready, the fish will be done.”

“How’s Monkey?” Redrick asked, pulling off his boots.

“She was babbling all evening,” Guta replied. “I barely got her to go to bed. She keeps asking, where’s daddy, where’s daddy? She wants her daddy all the time.”

She moved swiftly and quietly in the kitchen, strong and graceful. The water was boiling in the pan on the stove and the scales were flying under her knife, and the butter was sizzling in the largest pan, and there was the exhilarating smell of fresh coffee in the air.

Redrick walked in his bare feet to the entry hall, took the basket and brought it to the storeroom. Then he looked into the bedroom. Monkey was sleeping peacefully, her crumpled blanket hanging on the floor. Her nightie had ridden up. She was warm and soft, a little animal breathing heavily. Redrick could not resist the temptation to stroke her back covered with warm golden fur, and was amazed for the thousandth time by the fur’s silkiness and length. He wanted to pick up Monkey badly, but he was afraid it would wake her up – besides, he was as dirty as hell and permeated with death and the Zone. He came back into the kitchen and sat down at the table.

“Pour me a cup of coffee. I’ll wash up later.”

A bundle of evening mail was on the table:
The Harmont Gazette, Sports, Playboy
– there was a whole bunch of magazines – and the thick gray-covered
Reports of the International Institute of Extraterrestrial Cultures,
issue 56. Redrick took a mug of steaming coffee from Guta and reached for the
Reports.
Squiggles and markings, blueprints of some kind, and photographs of familiar objects from strange angles. Another posthumous article by Kirill: “An Unexpected Property of the Magnetic Trap Type-77b.” The surname Panov was framed in black and below in tiny type it said: “Dr. Kirill A. Panov,
USSR
, perished tragically during an experiment in April 19 ... ” Redrick tossed away the journal, gulped some coffee, burning his mouth, and asked: “Did anyone drop by?”

“Gutalin was here,” Guta said, after a slight pause. She was standing by the stove and looking at him. “He was stinking drunk, I sobered him up.”

“How about Monkey?”

“She didn’t want to let him go, of course. She started bawling. But I told her that Uncle Gutalin wasn’t feeling very well. And she told me, ‘Gutalin’s smashed again.’ ”

Redrick laughed and took another sip. Then he asked another question.

“What about the neighbors?”