Prestonby looked worried. "I left Ray in my office, with Doug Yetsko," he said. "I can't understand—"
"Maybe Yetsko got a tip that they were coming and got Ray out of the school," Cardon suggested. "I hope he took him home." He caught himself just in time to avoid mentioning the platoon of Literates' guards at the Pelton home, which he was not supposed to know about. "Don't worry, Claire; if anything'd happened to Ray, Mongery'd have been screaming about it to high heaven. That's what he's paid to do."
"Well, I'll stake my life on it; if anybody tried to do anything to Ray while Yetsko was with him, you'd have heard about it," Prestonby said. "It'd have been a bigger battle than this one."
"... Can't seem to find out anything about what's going on at Pelton's store," Mongery continued. "Telephone and radio communication seems to be broken, and, although there is continuous firing going on inside the building, the city police, who have a cordon completely around it, say that the situation in the store is well in hand. Considering Chester Pelton's attacks on the city administration and particularly the police department, I leave to your imagination what they mean by that. We do know that a large body of unidentified plug-uglies whom Police Inspector Cassidy claims are 'special officers' are holding the conveyor line into the store at the downtown Manhattan terminal, and nobody seems to know what's going on at the other end—"
"They have the sections of both belts at the store entrance end wedged," Latterman said, coming up at the moment. "Coccozello has a barricade thrown up across the store end of the tunnel, and they have a barricade about fifty yards down the tunnel. That's where I was fighting when you called me up."
"Anything being done about gold-berging up a radio sending-set?" Prestonby asked.
"Yes. I just called Coccozello," Latterman said. "Fortunately, the inter-department telephone is still working. He's put a couple of men to work, and thinks he may have a set in operation in about half an hour."
"... And if, as I much fear, Chester Pelton has been murdered, then I advise all listening to me to go to the polls tomorrow and vote the straight Anarchist ticket. If we've got to have anarchy in this country, let's have anarchy for all, and not just for Grant Hamilton and his political adherents!" Mongery was saying.