Roadside Picnic

At first, of course, he just stared at me bug-eyed. Then he seemed to understand. He led me by the elbow into his little office, sat me down at his desk, and sat on the windowsill facing me. We lit up. Silence. Then he asked me, careful-like:

"Has something happened, Red?"

What could I tell him?

"No,” I said. “Nothing happened. Yesterday I blew twenty bills at poker—that Noonan is a great player, the louse."

"Wait a minute,” he said. “Have you changed your mind?"

I made a choking noise from the tension.

"I can't,” I said to him through clenched teeth. “I can't, do you understand? Herzog just had me up in his office."

He went limp. He got that pathetic look again and his eyes looked like they were a sick poodle's again. He shuddered, lit a new cigarette with the butt of the old one, and spoke softly.

"You can trust me, Red. I didn't breathe a word to anyone."

"Skip it,” I said. “Nobody's talking about you."

"I haven't even told Tender yet. I made out a pass in his name, but I haven't even asked him if he'll go."

I said nothing and went on smoking. It was funny and sad. The man didn't understand a thing.

"What did Herzog say to you?"

"Nothing in particular,” I said. “Someone squealed on me, that's all."

He looked at me kind of strange, hopped off the sill, and started walking up and down. He ran around his office and I sat blowing smoke rings in silence. I was sorry for him, of course, and I felt bad that things hadn't worked out better. Some cure I came up with for his melancholy. And whose fault was it? My own. I tempted a baby with a cookie, but the cookie was in a hiding place, and the hiding place was guarded by mean men … Then he stopped pacing, came up close to me, and looking off to the side somewhere, asked awkwardly:

"Listen, Red, how much would a full empty cost?"

At first I didn't understand him. I thought at first that he was hoping to buy one somewhere. Where would you buy one? Maybe it was the only one in the world and besides he couldn't possibly have enough dough for that. Where would he get the money from? He was a foreign scientist, and a Russian one at that. And then the thought struck me. So the bastard thinks that I'm doing it for the greenbacks? You so and so, I thought to myself, what do you take me for? I opened my mouth to tell him off. And I shut up. Because, actually, what else could he take me for? A stalker is a stalker. The more green stuff the better. He trades his life for greenbacks. And so it looked to him that yesterday I had cast my line and today I was reeling him in, trying to raise my price.

The thought made me tongue-tied. And he kept staring at me intently, without blinking. And in his eyes I saw not contempt but a kind of understanding, I guess. Then I calmly explained it to him.

"No one with a pass has ever gone to the garage before. They haven't laid the tracks to it yet. You know that. So here we come back from the Zone and your Tender brags to everybody how we headed straight for the garage, picked up what we needed, and came right back. Like we just went down to the warehouse or something. And it will be perfectly clear to everyone,” I said, “that we knew ahead of time what we wanted there. And that means that someone set us on to it. And which of us three that could have been—well, there's no point in spelling it out for you. Do you understand what's in store for me here?"

I finished my little speech. We sat staring into each other's eyes, saying nothing. Suddenly he clapped his hands, rubbed his palms together, and announced in a hearty tone:

"Well, if you can't, you can't. I understand you, Red, and I can't pass judgment. I'll go alone. Maybe it'll go fine. It won't be the first time."

He spread out the map on the windowsill, leaned on his hands, and bent over it. All his heartiness seemed to evaporate before my eyes. I could hear him muttering.

"Forty yards, maybe forty-one, another three in the garage itself. No, I won't take Tender along. What do you think, Red? Maybe I shouldn't take Tender? He does have two kids, after all."

"They won't let you out alone,” I said.

"They will,” he muttered. “I know all the sergeants and all the lieutenants. I don't like those trucks! They've been exposed to the elements for thirty years and they're just like new. There's a gasoline carrier twenty feet away and it's completely rusted out, but they look like they've just come off the assembly line. That's the Zone for you!"

He looked up from the map and stared out the window. And I stared out the window, too. The glass in our windows is thick and leaded. And beyond the windows—the Zone. There it is, just reach out and you can touch it. From the thirteenth floor it looks like it could fit in the palm of your hand.