Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [96]
One of the trailers had overturned on the eastbound Ventura, blocking all three lanes. A few cars squeezed past on the shoulder, but the others were immobile behind a tumbled mass of furniture. The light pickup that had pulled the trailer was angled across the fast lane with a VW embedded in its side.
Thank God I came up the Golden State, Eileen thought. She felt a moment of pity for anyone trying to get to Pasadena this morning, and she cursed the trailer and its owner. People on her side of the freeway slowed to gawk at it, and it took five minutes to get the hundred yards to her off-ramp into Burbank. She drove viciously on the surface streets and pulled into her parking space—with her name on it, Corrigan kept his word about that—with a feeling of relief that the Burbank police seemed to be elsewhere.
Corrigan's was a storefront office near a supermarket, deceptively small because the warehouses were across an alley behind. The entry room was finished in blue nylon, brown Naugahyde, and chrome, and the chrome needed polishing. It always did; Eileen believed that wholesale customers ought to get the impression of a sound business able to keep its commitments, but not of opulence which might tempt them to dicker too hard on prices. The front door was already unlocked. "What ho?" Eileen called.
"Me." Corrigan stumped out of his office. A smell of coffee followed him; Eileen had long ago installed an automatic Silex system with a timer, and she set it up last thing before she left in the evenings. It had improved Corrigan's morning disposition wonderfully; but not this morning. "What kept you?" he demanded.
"Traffic. Wreck on the eastbound Ventura."
"Umph."
"You feel it too, huh?" Eileen said.
Corrigan frowned, then grinned sheepishly. "Yeah. I guess so. I was afraid you wouldn't show up. There's nobody in the front office, and only three back in the warehouse. Radio says half the shops in the city are missing half their people."
"And the rest of us are scared." She went past Corrigan to her own office. The clean glass surface of her desk shone like a mirror. She put her tape recorder down on it and took out her keys, but she didn't open the desk yet. Instead she went back out into the reception area. "I'll take the front office," she said.
Corrigan shrugged. He was looking out through the big plate-glass window. "Nobody's coming in today."
"Sabrini's due at ten," Eileen said. "Forty bathrooms and kitchens, if we can get the decor he wants at the right price."
Corrigan nodded. He didn't seem to be listening. "What the hell's that?" He pointed out the window.
There was a line of people, all dressed in white robes, all singing hymns. They seemed to be marching in step. Eileen looked closer and saw why. They were chained together. She shrugged. The Disney Studios were a few blocks away, and NBC not much further; they often used Burbank for city location shots. "Probably contestants for 'Let's Make a Deal.' Group effort."
"Too early," Corrigan said.
"Then it's Disney. Silly way to make a living."
"Don't see any camera trucks," Corrigan said. He didn't sound very interested. He watched for a few moments longer. "Heard from that rich boy friend of yours? This is his big day."
For just a moment Eileen felt terribly lonely. "Not for awhile." Then she began pulling out folders of color pictures and arranged them to show attractive combinations of accessories: the bathroom your clients dream of.
Alameda was fairly speedy. Tim Hamner tried to remember the connections to the arroyo north of Pasadena. There were high hills just in front of him, the Verdugo Hills that cut through the San Fernando Valley and divided the foothill cities from Burbank. He knew there was a new freeway in there somewhere, but he didn't know how to find it.
"Goddammit!" he shouted. Months to prepare,