Panic!

They passed the sign, and the desert lay unbroken again, as ageless as time, as enigmatic as the Sphinx. Lennox turned from the window then and leaned forward slightly, clasping his hands tightly together in an attitude of imploring prayer and pressing the knot they formed up under his wishbone. The pain which had again begun there was alternately dull and acute, and he rocked faintly against the rigid coupling of his fingers, squeezing his eyes shut, waiting for the agony to ebb and subside. He knew it would be that way because he had experienced deep hunger on several occasions in the past nine months, and the pain came and went in approximately the same way each time. It had been almost two days now since he had last eaten anything of substance, fifteen hours since the three chocolate bars he had bought with his last quarter in the bus station, the bus station where he had gone to use the toilet, the bus station in—what town? what difference?—the bus station where he had gotten the ticket ...

No.

He did not want to think about getting the ticket.

Jesus God, he did not want to think about that, but the old man—he could see the old man vividly in his mind—the old man standing there by the urinal, poor old man with a cane, zipping up his fly with gnarled and arthritic fingers, and the rectangle of pasteboard falling out of his baggy pocket and onto the floor, the old man not seeing it, moving away—and he himself moving forward, picking up the rectangle, one-way a long way and he wanted to move again, he wanted to get out of that town, get away from the Polack and the things the Polack had made him do, things like grinding stale bread and adding it to the raw hamburger to make it last longer, things like scraping the remains on the plates of recently departed customers back into the serving pots, things that nauseated and disgusted him.

And then the old man coming back, looking chagrined, looking lost, cane tapping on the tile floor, tapping, tapping, and seeing Lennox there with the ticket in his own trousers now, hidden in there.

“I lost my ticket,” the old man said, “I lost it somewhere, it must have fallen out of my pocket. Have you seen it, son? Have you seen my ticket?”

“No,” he answered, “no, I never saw any ticket.”

“I got to go to my daughter, I got to have that ticket,” the old man said. “She sent me the money, I don’t have any money of my own. How can I get to my daughter now?”

“I don’t know, old man, let me by.”

“What about my ticket? What about my daughter?” pleading with him, eyes blinking silver tears, and he had walked away fast, leaving the old man there, standing there alone and leaning on his cane with the tears in his eyes and the lost’ look on his seamed old face, hurried out of there with the ticket burning in his pocket ...

The pain went away.

It receded, faded into calm, and Lennox was able to sit up again. He rubbed oily sweat from his face, blanking his mind once more, shutting out the image of the old man, and leaned back in the seat; he sucked breath between yellow-filmed teeth, and the fetid and stagnant air burned like sulphur in his lungs.

There was a static, humming sound inside the bus now, and Lennox became aware that the loudspeaker system had been switched on. He raised his head, and the flat, toneless voice of the bus driver filtered out from a speaker on the roof above him. “There’s a roadside oasis a few miles ahead, folks, and since it’s past noon we’ll be stopping there a half-hour for lunch. They’ve got hamburgers, assorted sandwiches, beer and soft drinks, reasonably priced ...”

Lennox doubled forward again, pressing his forehead against the rear of the seat in front of him, his hands burrowing up under his wishbone. Violently and abruptly, the pain had come back.

Two

In a large city sixty miles to the north, in an air-conditioned downtown restaurant, a short, plump man sat in a corner booth and rubbed stubby fingers across his round paunch, cherubic face twisted into a momentary grimace.

The red-haired waitress standing before the booth said, “Is something the matter, sir?”

The plump man, whose name was Harry Vollyer, sighed audibly. “I’ve got a mild ulcer,” he said. “Gives me trouble, every now and then.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Well, it’s all part of the game.”

“Game?”

“Life,” Vollyer told her. “The greatest game of them all.”

“I guess so,” the waitress said. “Would you like to order now?”

“A grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk—cold milk.”

“Yes, sir. And your friend?”

“He’ll have a steak sandwich, no fries, and black coffee.”