Alongside Night(74)
“We’d better leave the dishes till we get back,” Lorimer said to Elliot.
“The First Anarchist Bank and Trust Company,” concluded the actor. “A New Dawn in Banking.”
Yellow cabs were back on the street, though not from any fleet Elliot recognized. He flagged down a Checker with a black flag painted on the door, displaying in white letters the logo for “BLACK BANNER TAXI.” On the door, under the logo, was a rate chart:
AU 2 cents 1ST 1/3 MILE
AU 1 cent EACH 1/3 mile thereafter
AU 1 cent = E .10, 1 US SILVER DIME, 1 QUARTER VENDY
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After Lorimer had climbed in, Elliot followed, telling the driver to take them to Ansonia’s address. The driver flipped on his meter, then picked up the microphone. “This is Black Banner Twenty-Eight. Copy me, Egotripper?”
“Dispatch to Twenty-Eight. Proceed.”
“In transit to Park West and Seventieth.”
“Affirmative, two-eight. Pick up at that location available.”
“I’ll take it, Egotripper. Bee-Bee Twenty-Eight, off.”
“Sounds like a good day,” Lorimer commented to the driver.
“Nonstop,” he replied. “I’ve been up to Park West and Seventieth half a dozen times already today, Well, might as well enjoy it while it lasts.”
“Why shouldn’t it last?”
“Are you kiddin’? Within a week every fleet in this city’ll be back on the street. Price wars you wouldn’t believe. Then when the subways and busses are movin’ again—”
“Who’ll run them?” Elliot asked. “The city’s bankrupt. There’s no official money. Who’ll pay the transit workers?”
“Don’t ask me,” the cabbie said. “All I know is there’s a fortune in equipment just layin’ around, and someone’s damn well gonna make some money with it.”
Between Sixty-ninth and Seventieth streets—the block containing Ansonia Preparatory School—a contingent of New York City Police, still in blue uniforms but now with red Cadre “SECURITY” brassards on their arms, had barricaded off traffic to that part of Central Park West.
It was not a homesteading action, but merely a temporary expedient. Along the street, in line waiting to get underground and out of the cold, were about two thousand persons late of the United States military. Most were—as full-page newspaper advertisements had specified—in uniforms with insignia removed, personal weapons slung over their shoulders, duffel bags at their feet. They had been promised a union -approved contract, billet and food provided, with weekly payment in gold 234
Alongside Night
at rates—depending on position—between four grams a week for infantry and fifteen grams for an engineer. There were no taxes or other deductions.
On a flagpole extending over the street from number ninety was hanging a black flag. It was raised to half-staff. Elliot and Lorimer passed by a now-unbricked entrance to the perpetually unfinished Central Park Shuttle, bypassing the long military lineup going downstairs past a new sign.
AURORA COMMAND
REVOLUTIONARY AGORIST CADRE
The two were challenged at the school entrance by armed Cadre guards. Elliot told them who they were and that they were expected. One guard checked an appointment clipboard and nodded. They were fifteen minutes early.
The couple was unceremoniously escorted into the assistant headmaster’s office on the first floor, but the assistant headmaster was not occupying it. They took seats, Elliot rising a few minutes later when Mr. Harper entered. “Elliot …Ms. Powers,” he said, shaking hands with each of them. “We have a few minutes to chat before our meeting is scheduled to begin.”
Elliot and Harper sat down. Elliot nodded slowly and said,
“So Ansonia was a Cadre front all along.”
Harper allowed himself a half-smile. “Well, a front in the sense that it concealed Cadre lodgings above the school with Aurora built into the subway tunnel below, but Ansonia itself never propagandized agorist ideas. That would have been the last thing we wanted. Any front—to be effective—must misdirect attention away from its actual purpose. So we maintained a policy of ideological neutrality. At most we refrained from the standard ‘civic’ indoctrinations. And, perhaps, we placed a little more emphasis than is usual on logic and clear definition—always dangerous heresies, wouldn’t you agree?”
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Elliot nodded.
“As a policy, also, Dr. Fischer and I did not hire any Cadre allies as teachers. Even without a party line, there is always too much danger of the kind of intellectual inbreeding fatal to academic inquiry. So, at most we tried to weed out those professing a clearly statist philosophy. We were not always successful.”