“Then, why did you move?” This inquiry was interrupted, suddenly, by the beginning growl of sirens. The limousine had gone less than a block meanwhile. One of the largest sirens was on top of the Sloan Building, which Minerva owned. It was a double-horn, revolving type, with a ten-horsepower motor. This was its first test. Officials hoped it would serve for the entire skyscraper section, penetrating every ferroconcrete tower in the municipal thicket, thrusting its noisy way through them to the warehouses on the bluffs above the river, and perhaps even traversing Simmons Park, to serve in the same harsh breath as a warning for the dwellers in hotels, apartments and apartment hotels along Wickley Heights Boulevard, which was the “gold coast” of Green Prairie. It subsequently proved that the horns were inadequate: they could be heard better in parts of River City than in Wickley Heights and not in the warehouse district at all. But their effect on Central Avenue was astonishing.
As the beginning growl of the siren intensified, traffic stopped dead. Minerva had time to say, “What on earth is that?”
Willis had time to shout back, “Air-raid practice.”
Minerva’s infuriated rejoinder was lost in a crescendo of pitch and volume that yodeled through the streets, the vertical valleys, the stone labyrinths. Car doors, truck doors popped open.
People ran toward the vaulted entries of the tall buildings, following instructions printed in the papers bidding them, if caught in their cars by the surprise alert, to pull to the curb, park and take cover. It was, of course, impossible to pull to the curb in the rush hour on Central Avenue: the whole street was a solid flux of molasses-slow vehicles. So people just stopped where they were, piled out, and entered those doors and arches marked “Shelter Area”—a designation which included virtually all the buildings and arcades for some blocks in every direction.
The first sound-apex of the siren was not its best effort. Even so, Minerva was obliged to wait till the head-splitting scream diminished before she could make herself audible. “Willis,” she bawled, “get us out of this!”
He seemed ready to oblige. “I’ll find an officer,” he said ·and jumped out with alacrity, considering his age.
Minerva leaned back on the cushions of the car. The siren went up again and this time the noise, surging through the canyons of the city, was literally painful. Her ears ached. One of her fillings seemed to vibrate, hurting her tooth. She snatched the hand tassel and hung on as if she were bucking the sound while riding at a fast pace.
The scream held until she thought she could not bear it and then descended the scale.
Around her, now, was a sea of cars and trucks and buses, all untenanted. For a moment, she couldn’t see a soul. Then she caught sight of two men approaching, men with brassards and helmets.