He climbed out of the car, stretched, walked up to the porch, and knocked. The door opened immediately. John said a few words, nodded, and walked back to the car. I’d cracked the window. “This is it,” he said. I climbed out into air that felt as if you could grab a piece, wring it out, and get water. As we walked to the door, John said quietly, “Wait’ll you see her.”

Marvel Atkins was Hollywood-beautiful, beautiful like you don’t see walking about in the streets. Her black eyes were tilted and large as the moon, her face a perfect oval. She was five-five or five-six and moved like a dancer. She was wearing a thin olive-colored blouse of crumply cotton with epaulets, the kind fashion people think the Israeli Army might wear. She stepped back when she saw me, startled, and turned to John.

“Who is he?”

“Bobby’s friend,” John said. She kept backing up, looking from John to me and back to John.

“He’s white,” she said.

“You Commies really got it taped,” John said wryly.

“I’m a social democrat,” Marvel said, momentarily distracted.

“That’s what I said,” John answered, showing some teeth.

“Maybe we don’t need you,” she said. She was in her early thirties and wore round gold-rimmed glasses like John’s. You hardly saw the glasses because of the eyes.

“You’ve been sitting here for a month. There’s been nothing but talk and whining and bullshit and more bullshit,” John said. “If you think it’ll ever be more than that, we’ll get back in the car and let you handle it. But I think you need us. You need something

“

Their eyes locked as she considered him, and John watched her with the gravity of a Jesuit. After a few seconds of the deadlock a man eased out of a back room into the living room behind Marvel. He was short, thick, and looked as if he could break bricks with his face. He stepped close behind her and muttered something. She nodded.

“We’ll talk,” she said. “Then we’ll see.”

We talked until four in the morning. John stated the proposition as baldly as he’d given it to me: We’d wreck the machine and the town administration. If possible, we’d leave it permanently in the hands of Marvel and her friends.

“A pipe dream,” Marvel said flatly.

“That’s why Kidd is here. He knows about politics, and he knows about wrecking things. He’ll do us a plan,” John said.

I tried to look modest.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” She deliberately looked me up and down again, not impressed, and John grinned. The thick man, whose name was Harold, watched me impassively.