Turmoil and magnificence! White pylons, natty belts of green, lacy bridges, the roaring traffic, nimble-skipping pedestrians waving at the cars and calling—greetings? It sounded like “Suvvabih! Suvvabih! Bassa-bassa!” The shops were packed and radiant, dazzling. Ross wondered fleetingly how one parked here, and then found out. A car pulled from the curb and a hundred cars converged on the spot, shrilling their sweet message and spouting their gay sparkles. Theirs too! There were a pair of jolting crashes as it shouldered two other vehicles aside and parked, two wheels over the curb and on the sidewalk.
“Suvvabih-bassa!” shouted drivers, and the man beside Ross gaily repeated the cry. The vehicle’s doors opened and they climbed out into the quick tempo of the street.
It was loud with a melodious babble from speaker horns visible everywhere. The driver yelled cheerfully at Ross: “C’mon. Party.” He followed, dazed and baffled, assailed by sudden doubts and contradictions.
It was a party, all right—twenty floors up a shimmering building in a large, handsome room whose principal decorative motif seemed to be cooling fins.
Perhaps twenty couples were assembled; they turned and applauded as they made their appearance.
The vehicle driver, standing grandly at the head of a short flight of stairs leading to the room, proclaimed: “I got these rocket flyers like on the piece of paper you guys read me. Right off the field. Twenny points. How about that?”
A tall, graying man with a noble profile hurried up and beamed: “Good show, Joe. I knew we could count on you to try for the high-point combo. You was always a real sport. You got the fish?”
“Sure we got the fish.” Joe turned and said to one of the lovely ladies, “Elna, show him the fish.”
She unwrapped a ten-pound swordfish and proudly held it up while Ross, Bernie, and Helena stared wildly.