The Power by Frank M. Robinson

Author:Frank M. Robinson [Robinson, Frank M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-01-18T05:00:00+00:00

[ELEVEN]

HE was scared but he didn’t go to pieces. He managed to lose his wallet between the car and the sergeant’s desk so when they searched him down, they found no identification. There was nothing to associate him with the William Tanner who was wanted for murder. When they asked him his name and address, he gave them a phony name and an address on West Madison. They didn’t even bother to check.

They threw him into the lockup for overnight and he thanked God for the crowded cell and the ravings of the drunks and the muttered, jumbled conversation of the others. He reveled in it for half an hour, then let himself lapse into a sound sleep. The ticking on his mattress was vermin-infested and his only pillow was his arm, but in the cell he was sale. The jam-packed jail and the confused mumble of thoughts were the best possible protection.

Heavy, steady slumber and then waking dreams that weren’t dreams so much as a drowsy, mental review of what had happened. A kaleidoscope of shifting pictures, the main one of a man in a slouch hat and a trench coat.

He woke up shaking and biting his arm to keep from screaming. . . .

“Okay, let’s get up! You bums can’t sleep all day—let’s shake a leg! Let’s roll out!”

They gave him a breakfast of bread and cereal and let him bathe in a slimy shower room and shave with a razor whose blade was crusted with dried soap and whiskers. At nine o’clock they took him before the judge who yawned, looked bored, and since he was a first offender, let him off with a reprimand. By Monday noon they had let him loose in the world again and he was on his own.

He stayed with the crowds on the sidewalk and didn’t make the mistake of wandering into deserted sections of the public parks or venturing down streets that were empty of people. He headed back towards the Loop and the baking canyons between the steaming buildings.

Up Michigan Boulevard, thick with perspiring businessmen in wilted summer suits and women in thin, cotton dresses and a few sailors in baggy whites with sweat stains showing under their armpits. The lions in front of the Art Institute and the young saplings growing on the roof of the Grant Park garage . . .

He turned in at the public library, headed for the crowded newspaper room and read until noon. He had lunch, then found himself a bench in Grant Park, a stone’s throw from Buckingham Fountain. Kids playing in the water, lovers on the other benches, a family having a picnic on the grass nearby. The safety of numbers.

Van Zandt.

Nordlund.

DeFalco.

Scott.

Grossman.

Which one?

Consider the superman: He toils not, neither does he spin. Or perhaps he spins too much. Given a superhuman needle in a five-straw haystack of humanity, how would you find him? He’s a step up the evolutionary ladder, far superior to me and thee.

Of course there’s always one test which nature uses to judge new species.

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