Read Online Look at the Birdie by Kurt Vonnegut - Free Book Online Page B

the basement. The only sounds that Harve could hear were footfalls overhead.
    Harve gripped his barred door, tried to find some meaning in the footfalls.
    There were the sounds of many big men walking together—one shift coming on, another going off, Harve supposed.
    There was the clacking of a woman’s sharp heels. The clacking was so quick and free and businesslike that the heels could hardly belong to Claire.
    Somebody moved a heavy piece of furniture. Something fell. Somebody laughed. Several people suddenly arose and moved their chairs back at the same time.
    And Harve knew what it was to be buried alive.
    He yelled. “Hey, up there! Help!” he yelled.
    A reply came from close by. Someone groaned drowsily in another cell.
    “Who’s that?” said Harve.
    “Go to sleep,” said the voice. It was rusty, sleepy, irritable. “What kind of a town is this?” said Harve. “What kind of a town is any town?” said the voice. “You got any big-shot friends?”
    “No,” said Harve.
    “Then it’s a bad town,” said the voice. “Get some sleep.”
    “They’ve got my wife upstairs,” said Harve. “I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve got to do something.”
    “Go ahead,” said the voice. It chuckled ruefully.
    “Do you know Ed Luby?” said Harve.
    “You mean do I know who he is?” said the voice. “Who doesn’t? You mean is he a friend of mine? If he was, you think I’d be locked up down here? I’d be out at Ed’s club, eating a two-inch steak on the house, and the cop who brought me in would have had his brains beat out.”
    “Ed Luby’s that important?” said Harve.
    “Important?” said the voice. “Ed Luby? You never heard the story about the psychiatrist who went to Heaven?”
    “What?” said Harve.
    The voice told an old, old story—with a local variation. “This psychiatrist died and went to Heaven, see? And Saint Peter was tickled to death to see him. Seems God was having mental troubles, needed treatment bad. The psychiatrist asked Saint Peter what God’s symptoms were. And Saint Peter whispered in his ear, ‘God thinks He’s Ed Luby.’”
    The heels of the businesslike woman clacked across the floor above again. A telephone rang.
    “Why should one man be so important?” said Harve.
    “Ed Luby’s all there is in Ilium,” said the voice. “That answer your question? Ed came back here during the Depression.He had all the dough he’d made in bootlegging in Chicago. Everything in Ilium was closed down, for sale. Ed Luby bought.”
    “I see,” said Harve, beginning to understand how scared he’d better be.
    “Funny thing,” said the voice, “people who get along with Ed, do what Ed says, say what Ed likes to hear—they have a pretty nice time in old Ilium. You take the chief of police now—salary’s eight thousand a year. Been chief for five years now. He’s managed his salary so well he’s got a seventy-thousand-dollar house all paid for, three cars, a summer place on Cape Cod, and a thirty-foot cabin cruiser. Of course, he isn’t doing near as good as Luby’s brother.”
    “The captain?” said Harve.
    “Of course, the captain earns everything he gets,” said the voice. “He’s the one who really runs the Police Department. He owns the Ilium Hotel now—and the cab company. Also Radio Station WKLL, the friendly voice of Ilium.
    “Some other people doing pretty well in Ilium, too,” said the voice. “Old Judge Wampler and the mayor—”
    “I got the idea,” said Harve tautly.
    “Doesn’t take long,” said the voice.
    “Isn’t there anybody against Luby?” said Harve.
    “Dead,” said the voice. “Let’s get some sleep, eh?”
    Ten minutes later, Harve was taken upstairs again. He wasn’t hustled along this time, though he was in the care of the same sergeant who had locked him up. The sergeant was gentle now—even a little apologetic.
    At the head of the iron stairs, they were met by Captain Luby, whose manners were changed for the better,