Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes by Patricia Highsmith Read Free Book Online Page A

a football stadium with a track oval and bleachers and a roof to a certain Midwestern university, and under this stadium, below its underground carpark even, radioactive waste would be stored in lead containers, sealed in vast concrete chambers, and be forgotten. “The area is free from earthquake . . .” read Benny’s private memo on the plan. He was to keep this quiet from even his closest colleagues for the nonce. The project was going to be rushed through with no expense spared by the Well-Bilt Construction Company of Minnesota. In a very few months, the memo said, trucks could begin rolling into the sub-basements, because the underground structure would be Well-Bilt’s priority.
    Benny Jackson’s ulcer got a bit better at once. The Well-Bilt people were going to work round the clock and seven days a week.
    It was amazing to Benny to read about the stadium-to-be in the newspapers. The university had been quite surprised by the gift from Washington, since the present administration was not known for its generosity to educational institutions. The faculty and students, learning of the size and beauty of their future stadium, sent a huge wreath of flowers to Washington with a ribbon on it saying: “Mr. President, we thank you!” Benny had tears of relief, amusement and nervousness in his eyes when he read that.
    Now Benny could afford to say on the telephone, to the requests for dumping sites, that in about two months he would be able to provide space. “Can you hold it that long?” He knew they would have to hold it longer, that was the way things always went, but it was nice to be able to write or say anything with a ring of truth in it.
    Benjamin Jackson was thirty-six, with a small bald spot on his head which otherwise grew straight dark hair. Slender by nature, he was nevertheless developing a paunch. He had a civil engineer’s degree from Cornell, and was married with two children. Two years ago, on his appointment as head of the NCC after a reshuffle of its top men, Benny had quit his job in New Jersey with an ecology department and moved with his family to their present home in West Virginia, two miles away from the handsome headquarters of the NCC, which was a two-storey building, formerly a private prep school.
    “So the touch-me-not can now be touched,” said Gerald Mc-Whirty when Benny told him about the stadium project. “Comforting news.”
    Gerry McWhirty did not look as pleased as Benny had hoped, but then Gerry wasn’t the type to get excited about anything. Gerry hated stalling and lying, and Benny often felt that Gerry didn’t like his job. Gerry had a doctorate in physics, but he liked the quiet life, gardening, tinkering with something in his garage, fixing his neighbor’s video or anything else that got broken. He was good at plant inspection, though a bit too fussy in Benny’s opinion, and Benny had toned down Gerry’s reports many a time. Coolant deficiency at a plant in Wilkes-Barre, Benny remembered, and a couple of “night supervisors” at a plant in Sacramento who Gerry said “didn’t know straight up” about emergency procedures and ought to be replaced. Benny had concurred in regard to the supervisors, but deleted the coolant complaint, because Gerry’s figures hadn’t seemed to Benny impressive enough for the NCC to mention.
    McWhirty often flew with a small staff on inspection tours all over the country. But Benny went alone and incognito to the Midwestern stadium project, because he was curious about its progress.
    What Benny saw was gratifying indeed. A vast oval had been dynamited in the earth, earth-moving machines were busy scooping, trucks rolled away laden with soil and rock, and a couple of hundred workmen swarmed at the scene like bees around a hive. And this was a Saturday afternoon.
    “Dressing rooms and showers underneath, I suppose,” said Benny to a hard-hat workman, just to get his answer.
    “Air-raid shelters too,” replied the workman. “I should