The Year of the Jackpot by Robert Heinlein Read Free Book Online

who thinks that in days like these every American must personally keep his powder dry. And now for a word from—”
    Breen switched it off and glanced at her face. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They’ve been talking that way for years.”
    “You think they are bluffing?”
    “I didn’t say that. I said, ‘Don’t worry.’”
    But his own packing, with her help, was clearly on a “survival kit” basis—canned goods, all his warm clothing, a sporting rifle he had not fired in over two years, a first-aid kit and the contents of his medicine chest. He dumped the stuff from his desk into a carton, shoved it into the back seat along with cans and books and coats, and covered the plunder with all the blankets in the house. They went back up the rickety stairs for a last check.
    “Potty, where’s your chart?”
    “Rolled up on the back seat shelf. I guess that’s all—hey, wait a minute!” He went to a shelf over his desk and began taking down small, sober-looking magazines. “I dern near left behind my file of
The Western Astronomer
and the
Proceedings of the Variable Star Association
.”
    “Why take them?”
    “I must be nearly a year behind on both of them. Now maybe I’ll have time to read.”
    “Hmm… Potty, watching you read professional journals is not my notion of a vacation.”
    “Quiet, woman! You took Winnie; I take these.”
    She shut up and helped him. He cast a longing eye at his electric calculator, but decided it was too much like the White Knight’s mousetrap. He could get by with his slide rule.
    As the car splashed out into the street, she said, “Potty, how are you fixed for cash?”
    “Huh? Okay, I guess.
    “I mean, leaving while the banks are closed and everything.” She held up her purse. “Here’s my bank. It isn’t much, but we can use it.”
    He smiled and patted her knee. “Good gal! I’m sitting on my bank; I started turning everything to cash about the first of the year.”
    “Oh. I closed out my bank account right after we met.”
    “You did? You must have taken my maunderings seriously.”
    “I always take you seriously.”
    M int Canyon was a five-mile-an-hour nightmare, with visibility limited to the tail lights of the truck ahead. When they stopped for coffee at Halfway, they confirmed what seemed evident: Cajon Pass was closed and long-haul traffic for Route 66 was being detoured through the secondary pass.
    At long, long last they reached the Victorville cutoff and lost some of the traffic—a good thing, because the windshield wiper on his side had quit working and they were driving by the committee system.
    Just short of Lancaster, she said suddenly, “Potty, is this buggy equipped with a snorkel?”
    “Nope.”
    “Then we had better stop. I see a light off the road.”
    The light was an auto court. Meade settled the matter of economy versus convention by signing the book herself; they were placed in one cabin. He saw that it had twin beds and let the matter ride. Meade went to bed with her teddy bear without even asking to be kissed good night. It was already gray, wet dawn.
    They got up in the late afternoon and decided to stay over one more night, then push north toward Bakersfield. A high pressure area was alleged to be moving south, crowding the warm, wet mass that smothered Southern California. They wanted to get into it. Breen had the wiper repaired and bought two new tires to replace his ruined spare, added some camping items to his cargo, and bought for Meade a .32 automatic, a lady’s social-purpose gun.
    “What’s this for?” she wanted to know.
    “Well, you’re carrying quite a bit of cash.”
    “Oh. I thought maybe I was to use it to fight you off.”
    “Now, Meade—”
    “Never mind. Thanks, Potty.”
    They had finished supper and were packing the car with their afternoon’s purchases when the quake struck. Five inches of rain in twenty-four hours, more than three billion tons of mass suddenly loaded on a fault already