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THE NAKED STORM

C.M. KORNBLUTH

Originally published under the pseudonym “Simon Eisner.”

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Originally published in 1952.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

www.wildsidebooks.com

CHAPTER I

PASSENGER BOYCE

Boyce’s wife, lying in the exact center of her Hollywood bed, said faintly: “Please, darling, no. I have a headache.” All the accessories of a headache were neatly arranged on the blonde wood end table: the squat little bottle of aspirin-phenobarb-codein tablets, the glass of water, the box of cleansing tissues, the bottle of pink capsules, the murder mystery by an Englishwoman. Faced by such corroborative evidence, Boyce could hardly call her a liar.

“After all,” he said steadily, “I’m going to Frisco in the morning.”

A small twinge passed across her face. “You ought to get a good night’s sleep,” she said. “You know you never sleep in trains.”

He looked down at her. For all the good it did him, Peggy was still a good-looking woman. It was, if anything, too warm in the apartment. But as he looked she drew her pink bed-jacket more snugly over her shoulders.

“What have you got that thing on for?” he demanded. “This isn’t a hospital. This is home and I’m your husband.”

“Please, darling,” she said faintly. “I simply can’t argue.”

“You and your goddamned headaches,” he said.

It startled her, and she was startled even more when he struggled into his overcoat and slammed out of the apartment.

Boyce stood shivering in front of the apartment house under the icy blast from Lake Michigan, wondering angrily what to do next. He was going to San Francisco in the morning and he should get a good night’s sleep.

But he was sore.

And a taxi pulled up and the driver’s red face pressed against the right front window and stared at him contemptuously as if to say: “Don’t just stand there, mister. Get in. That’s what I’m here for.”

Boyce got in and told the driver: “The Loop. Anywhere in the Loop.” Have a drink, he thought, calm down, come back and go to bed. Alone.

It was a fifteen-minute drive from the North Side apartment house to the crowded heart of Chicago. The driver pulled to the curb at State and Van Buren and growled: “One seventy-five.”

The face of the meter was set into leather padding at the front of the passenger compartment, below eye-level and badly lit. It might have said anything from thirty-five cents to fifty dollars. Boyce thought briefly of checking the reading, gave up the idea as the beefy face scowled at him, and handed over two singles.

“Thanks,” the driver said, taking a two-bit tip for granted and roaring the motor impatiently as he waited for his fare to get out.

Boyce got out and stood a little forlornly on the curb, jostled by late shoppers, newsstand helpers getting out the morning editions, and movie-goers. It was eight o’clock of a January evening. The sheet-iron Christmas trees with which lamp posts in front of the State Street department stores were decorated this year were still up. Sheet-iron discs, brightly painted, swung from the sheet-iron branches. Every once in a while a gust from the lake four blocks to the east caught one of the discs and made it spin wildly and utter a weird banshee wail.

A bright marquee behind him blinked RESTAURANT-BAR and snatches of music, drum and piano, blasted out when its heavy glass doors opened to let patrons in and out. Have one now, Boyce thought, then grab a cab back to the apartment. He ducked into the place, crossing the line between the icy street with its banshee wailing and the warmly noisy inside.

The bar was a U-shaped affair enclosing a platform on which a three-piece combo of flat-faced little brown men were strumming La Cucaracha. Boyce sipped his drink, looking straight ahead except for an occasional furtive glance at the musicians.

Quite a nice place, he thought. Nicer than the too-hot apartment with the too-cold wife. Peggy would ask him where he’d been and he’d simply tell her a Loop nightclub and she’d be burned up but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him know—as if she had any secrets from him!

Served her right. Husband going away in mid-winter and he doesn’t even get a look at her, much less a night in bed. That damned bed-jacket.

“Yes, sir!” the barman was saying heartily. “The same?”

Boyce nodded and put a five on the bar. This was adding up already. He reached in a sudden panic for his breast pocket and relaxed when he felt the ticket and reservation. Golden Gate Express, leaves Union Station 9:05 A.M., time for a good breakfast, Car 15, Berth 24U. Always an upper until you got to be Senior Buyer and then the sky was the limit if you weren’t too old and if nobody on the Board had a loose-end nephew or cousin to sneak your job away from you. It had happened—not so much in Floor Coverings because you had to know the field from the ground up. But in Furniture and in Appliances the axe could fall on anybody. In Furniture you didn’t have to know anything except the way to the Merchandise Mart, where salesmen showed you around and you simply made the best deal you could and that was that. Appliances was easier yet. The appliance men came around and begged you to buy. Floor Coverings, for some reason, was still an old-fashioned business and you had to know who was who, who was honest, who was prompt. And rugs fluctuated wildly with the price of wool. For that kind of buying you needed brains and foresight—

When in God’s name was Mr. Oberholtzer going to die or retire? Then Mr. Reiner would move up from Assistant to Buyer and Boyce would move up from Senior Salesman to Assistant and everybody would be happy including Mr. Oberholtzer. Mr. Oberholtzer professed to hate the Store and all its works and yet for five years since his stroke he had been dragging himself to the office to put in a couple of hours and then snooze away the rest of the day. And Reiner did Mr. Oberholtzer’s work and Boyce did Reiner’s work and there was nobody to keep an eye on the floor force, which was addicted to promising impossible delivery dates and impossible sizes and shades and impossibly low fitting estimates to clinch their sales and commissions.

He said to the waiting bartender: “Wonder if you ever thought of the rug-man’s problems?”

“Can’t say I have,” the meaty man in the white jacket admitted. “The same?”

He was a son of a bitch, too. All they wanted was your money. “No more,” Boyce told him. He spun around on his stool and went out into the icy air. He felt fine, and magically there was a taxi waiting for him with the door open.

He climbed in and should have said: “North on the Drive,” which would take him home to the headache and the prim bed-jacket. Instead he paused.

“Where to, mister?” the driver finally asked with exaggerated courtesy.

Boyce took the plunge and asked, too casually: “What’s a good place to go and kill some time?”

The driver clicked down the meter flag half-way to “waiting” and scratched his chin. “Well, there’s the Spanish Casino—”

Boyce recoiled. You could conceivably go there with your wife, but if you went alone and somebody saw you it didn’t look too good, what with the percentage girls crawling all over you. He’d heard about it from bachelors on the floor force. Regretfully he said: “Not for me.”

The driver didn’t mind. “You want to see girls,” he said, “there’s a rub-joint out west, Castle Gardens.”

Boyce was vaguely aware that a rub-joint was a low-down dance hall. “Swell,” he said. “Let’s go.” The driver clicked the flag all the way down and headed west on Van Buren Street.

The river, the big ghostly-white railroad stations, the dark used machine-tool district, the honky-tonks glaring and winking—

Half a dozen times Boyce wanted to tell the driver to head north for his home, but was too shy to change his mind in public. I’m a louse, he thought miserably each time. If she’s got a headache she’s got a headache. And she doesn’t get much fun out of it anyway. I ought to tell this guy to head north. But he didn’t.

Castle Gardens was from the outside the windows of the second floor of a corner taxpayer building. You reached the second floor by a flight of creaky stairs. Posters flanked the door: Twenty Beautiful Instructresses, See the Beautiful Palm Room, Admission Free. Cut-out pictures of Esquire girls were pasted on the posters. I’ll just go in and see what it’s all about, Boyce thought. Admission Free.

When he went through the door at the head of the stairs it was all gloom, heat and noise. Bing Crosby assaulted the ears, louder than any juke-box should be, a faceted mirror ball turned slowly in the center of the ceiling casting blots of light that crawled like insects, and women stood about in metallic evening gowns.

“Check your hat and coat,” sounded in his left ear, and a pair of heavy hands started to help him out of the overcoat. Boyce had the feeling that he was being processed like a hog at the stockyards. The owner of the hands and voice, a huge man in a waiter’s tux, pressed a disk into his palm. “The check. How many tickets you want?”

“Ten,” he said. That should be a dollar.

The big man pulled an accordion of tickets from his pocket, tore off ten and said: “That’ll be ten dollars.”

“Oh,” Boyce said, “I’m sorry. I thought they were cheaper. Can I just have one?”

“Look, mister,” said the big man. “You asked for ten, I tore off ten. We have to keep track of the numbers. What’s the idea of coming in here without any money?”

“But I have the money—” Boyce said, and realized he was sunk. He took a ten from his wallet, looking carefully at it in the gloom, and handed it over and got his tickets. He tried to read one, but the woman in evening dress bore down on him purposefully.

There was a kind of etiquette. They kept their distance and tried him one at a time. Vague faces asked him in turn, as thighs pressed him: “Dance, honey? Sit in a booth and play around a little? Have some fun?”

He said to a blonde who draped herself over him: “All right. Let’s dance.”

“You want to give me my tickets first, honey? It’s two for a dance.”

Clipped again. He tore off two tickets and handed them to her. She hoisted her skirt and tucked them into a stocking top, smiling at him with a face that might have been 16 or 46 in the gloom. But her limbs were firm. “You can do that with the next tickets, honey,” she said.

Boyce preened a little. It was turning into quite an evening.

Somebody restarted the thunderous Bing Crosby record and the blonde said: “Let’s dance back there where it’s nice and dark, honey. My name’s Jerrie. What’s yours?”

“Sam,” he said, following her across the floor. He was a fair dancer, he thought. She’d be pleasantly surprised. They probably got nothing but low-class mutts stepping all over their feet in these places…

He found out where it was nice and dark that dancing in Castle Gardens had very little to do with the feet, and that “rub-joint” was a vividly accurate phrase. Bing Crosby broke off with a squawk about half-way through the record.

“Having fun, Sam?” she asked with a professional low-lidded smile. “You want to hide my tickets for me?” She lifted the hem of her skirt. Unsteadily he tore off two more tickets. She leaned against his hand as he slid them under the top of her stocking. Bing Crosby began to thunder at them again and he straightened quickly and took her in his arms, not wanting to miss one expensive, rewarding note of the dance.

She suggested the Palm Room and “some real fun” after the dance. The big man in the waiter’s tux materialized at the curtain behind which the Palm Room lay to collect five dollars cover charge. Boyce gave him a bill and the curtain was drawn on a smaller, even darker room furnished with half a dozen booths, all empty.

“You first, honey,” she said, and he slid into a booth. She followed, intimately. “Honey,” she said, “how about a couple of tickets for sitting this one out with you?” She sat waiting. Dry-mouthed, Boyce raised her skirt almost furtively and put them with the others.

The big man was back. “What’ll it be, Jerrie?” he asked.

“Blue Moon. What are you going to drink, Sam?”

“Rye-gingerale.”

She crooned the Bing Crosby song, with dirty lyrics, into his ear and massaged him while they were waiting for their drinks.

“That’ll be three dollars,” the big man said, putting down a tray with a cocktail and a setup. Jerrie drank her cocktail off in a gulp while Boyce was finding out that he had no more ones, fives or tens. He reluctantly lay a twenty on the table.

“Twenty,” announced the big man, virtuously, holding it up. “Be right back.”

Boyce poured down his rye-gingerale and Jerrie asked for two more tickets. He gave them to her, and a good workout with them. The waiter returned with a tray on which were four Blue Moons and four rye-gingerales.

“Where’s my change?” Boyce asked, astounded.

The big man clunked the tray down on the table and said: “Did you come in here to drink or didn’t you? There’s your change, mister.”

Jerrie massaged him feverishly, saying: “Now honey, don’t make a scene just when we were getting along so good. You want to give me a couple of tickets, honey?”

He drained one of the drinks while she gulped two of hers in quick succession, and gave her the tickets. She squealed and pretended he was hurting her and they both laughed heartily and finished their drinks, exchanging caresses.

“Honey,” she said, breaking away, “you want to buy some more tickets? Just call Charlie and he’ll sell them to you.”

“Hell,” said Boyce suddenly. “Look, isn’t there some place we can go? You got a place? Or a hotel?”

“Don’t you like me right here?” Jerrie asked, with mock-surprise. “All it takes is a couple of tickets. I’ll call Charlie—”

“Nah,” Boyce said. “Don’t call Charlie. We c’d get a nice hotel room.”

“Honey, how much you got on you tonight?”

“Forty bucks left.”

“Look, honey, I’ll call Charlie and you buy some tickets and we’ll have a couple of drinks and then I’ll take you to my place and we’ll have a real party on me, honey, how’s that?”

“You won’t do it for forty bucks?”

Her busy hands took themselves off him and she said in a voice that was suddenly dry and cool: “Act your age, buster. Three-fifty for the hotel, one-fifty for miscellanies, two bucks for the cab, I get what’s left and I miss the rush hour here. You want to be a businessman, stick to your own business. Don’t try to run mine. Are you going to buy some tickets or aren’t you? This is liberty night and we’ll be getting the radar trainees from Great Lakes any minute, so make up your mind.”

“You goddamned tramp,” he said softly. “You remind me of my wife.”

Her painted mouth made a surprised scarlet O in the gloom.

“Let me out,” he said. She slid from the booth and primly straightened her dress. He ignored her, stalking from the Palm Room unsteadily. A couple of the other women headed his way but he outdistanced them.

“M’ hat and coat,” he said to the big man, who was standing by the door.

“The check, mister,” the big man said patiently. He found it and the man got his hat and coat. “That’ll be one dollar, mister,” the big man said, not handing them over. Boyce scooped out his change pocket and found four quarters. He got his coat and the big man said: “Come again, mister. Any time. You want to see a real strip show tonight? Private house? Nice mulatto girls? I can give you a card—”

Boyce raced down the creaking stairs and stood in the street breathing big lungfuls of the icy air. Four very young sailors in pea jackets were coming down the street, looking dubiously at house numbers. One of them said: “Hey, heah’s the place. Is it aneh good, misteh?”

“’s okay,” Boyce mumbled, swaying a little, and they exchanged grins.

“Take it easy, pappy,” they told him and went charging up the stairs.

“Suckers,” he said viciously, half-aloud, and went on down the street to a glow that promised to be a street of shops where he might pick up a taxi for home. “Suckers.” All of us. You can’t buy what you want and if your luck’s bad you can’t marry it either. Her and her goddam headaches. That semi-whore and her goddam tickets. Always something. He knew he couldn’t run away from it, but he wished desperately that it was already 9:05 tomorrow morning and that the streamliner was sliding out of Union Station with him aboard. You couldn’t run away from it, but you could try.

CHAPTER II

BYSTANDERS