The tenants answered his questions, but they did so with a sullenness that surprised Randolph. Yes, it had been a mess the day before. Yes, it had been rebuilt, obviously, during the night, while they were gone. Yes, just the one night.
"They should be saying thank you," Randolph noted to Oswald. "They're acting as though I were a suspicious character."
"It's our escort," Oswald explained suavely. "These people don't think of cops as their friends. Besides, this is pretty new to them."
Randolph chewed his lip, and decided that Oswald was probably right. But the attitude was general, and it irritated him. He left after the briefest go-through.
That night Bill Howard was conservative in recounting the big news-story of the "slum clearance." He wasn't giving it the real Howard try, Randolph thought, sitting in front of his TV. There was a quote in the story he told, too, from the father of the Jones family that had been on the program the night before. "I reckon it's pretty wonderful, Mr. Howard," Jones had told him. "But I don't rightly know that I like it. Must admit I'm scared of this stuff," he had said, and he waved his hand at the newness.
It was just a single sour note in the story, but it stuck out. The rest was a description, without any mention of the "miracle" part.
At the break, the witches played the credit line to the hilt, though.
"Witches of the world unite to make it clean, clean, clean, Witch clean—NOW!" they chanted their cry, and reenacted the scene of the night before, while the announcer's voice rode over the muted jingle to explain that Witch products had been used to make the slum clean, clean, Witch clean, even though it took carpenters and builders and contractors to remodel a slum building itself. That's better, thought Randolph, watching. No more of this "miracle" nonsense.
It was barely 10:00 a.m. next morning when Randolph's phone rang.