Roadside Picnic

In the back room Ernest stepped aside and sat on a chair by the wall. Captain Quarterblad, yellow and angry, stood up from the table. From somewhere on the left a huge UN trooper appeared, his helmet pulled down over his eyes, and quickly frisked him with his large hands. He slowed down at his right pocket and extracted the brass knuckles. He prodded Redrick in the captain's direction. Redrick approached the table and set the briefcase in front of Captain Quarterblad.

"You bloodsucker,” he said to Ernest.

Ernest raised his eyebrows and shrugged one shoulder. It was all clear. The two porters in the doorway were smirking, and there were no other doors and the window was barred from the outside.

Captain Quarterblad, his face contorted by disgust, was digging around with both hands in the briefcase, and taking out the swag and putting in on the table: two small empties; nine batteries; various sizes of black sprays, sixteen pieces in a polyethylene package; two perfectly preserved sponges; and one jar of carbonated clay …

"Anything in your pockets?” Captain Quarterblad asked softly. “Empty them."

"Snakes,” Redrick said. “Skunks."

He pulled out a pack of bills and flung it on the table. They scattered.

"Aha!” the captain said. “Any more?"

"Lousy toads!” Redrick shouted and threw the second pack on the floor. “There you go. I hope you choke on it!"

"Very interesting,” the captain said calmly. “Now pick it up."

"The hell I will,” Redrick said, putting his hands behind his back. “Your slaves will pick it up. You can pick it up yourself, for all I care."

"Pick up the money, stalker,” Captain Quarterblad said without raising his voice, leaning his fist on the table and straining toward Redrick.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then Redrick, muttering curses under his breath, crouched down, and reluctantly set about picking up the money. The porters were snickering behind his back and the UN trooper snorted gleefully.

"Don't snort at me!” Redrick said. “You'll lose your snot."

He was crawling around on his hands and knees, picking up the notes one by one, moving closer and closer to the dark brass ring lying peacefully on the dusty parquet floor. He turned to get better access. He kept shouting obscenities, all the ones he could remember and ones he was making up along the way. When the moment was right, he shut up, tensed, grabbed the ring, pulled it up with all his strength, and before the opened trapdoor landed on the floor he had jumped head first into the gray cold prison of the wine cellar.

He fell on his hands, somersaulted, jumped up, and ran hunched over, seeing nothing, counting on his memory and luck, into the narrow passageway between cases of bottles, knocking them over as he went past, hearing them fall and shatter in the passage behind him. Slipping, he ran up some invisible steps, threw his body against the door with its rusty hinges, and found himself in Ernest's garage. He was shaking and panting, there were bloody spots swimming before his eyes and his heart was beating heavily with strong jolts right in his throat, but he did not stop for a second. He ran to the far corner, and scraping his hands, tore into the mountain of garbage that hid the place where the boards had been removed from the wall. He lay down on his stomach and crawled through, hearing his jacket tear, and when he was out in the narrow courtyard he crouched down behind the garbage cans, pulled off his jacket, threw away his tie, gave himself a quick once-over, brushed off his pants, straightened up, and ran into the yard. He dove into a low smelly tunnel that led to the next courtyard. He listened for the whine of the police sirens as he ran, but there weren't any yet, and he ran faster, scaring playing children, dodging hanging laundry, crawling through holes in rotten fences—trying to get out of the neighborhood as fast as possible, before Captain Quarterblad could cordon it off. He knew the area very well. He had played in all the yards and cellars, the abandoned laundries, and the coal cellars. He had plenty of acquaintances and even friends here, and under different circumstances he would have had no trouble in hiding out, even for a week, in the neighborhood. But he hadn't made a daring escape from arrest under Captain Quarterblad's very nose, adding an easy twelve months to his sentence, for that.