Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

its changes like the Upper West Side. It’d been going on twenty years, ever since the Soviets dropped the bomb in 1949 and evaporated Berlin, ending the war. Half the population that was left took the leap and landed in New York; nobody in America minded European immigrants, no matter what they’d been up to in the past. Even after everything went full-tilt Commie from London to Constantinople, people who wanted out bad enough managed to get to New York.
    Since then the refugees had become one with the landscape. Packed into the West 70s and 80s like gunpowder in a pipe were Serbians, Albanians, Wallachians, Turks and Montenegrins; and scattered throughout, German and Hungarian Jews who’d gotten out of Europe in the thirties but hadn’t yet made it to Long Island. After ten years of having their flats divided and subdivided into one-roomers and flops, all the big old apartment buildings on the avenues looked like wedding cakes left too long in a damp basement. The houses on the side streets were even more jam-packed, sometimes holding fifteen or twenty in a two-room apartment.
    The Dynamos’ HQ was on 81st between Columbus and Amsterdam, midblock, at the top of the hill. Most of the places nearby were slumlord specials but these boys had scratch, clearly, and owned their joint. I hopped up the stoop and ding-donged. It was one of those old Victorian whitestone jobs, with mahogany doors and gargoyles carved over the windows, heavy white curtains and thick iron grilles. They hadn’t brought in the afternoon paper yet; the front page of the Sun read ONE MILLION IN VIETNAM TOO MANY, SAYS KENNEDY. Bobby, evidently; only bearable one in the bunch, but not by too much.
    I heard a click, then a creak; then a cadaver in a black suit unlocked the door. Sounded like the start of Inner Sanctum when he dragged it open. »Mister Jones?« he asked. I followed him into the entrance hall, padding over one of those forty-dollar a foot rugs. »Please wait here. Be seated.«
    I took him up on his offer and unloaded on a handy pew next to the parlour’s open double doors. Skinny lanked up the stairs like he was being tugged by strings. A session was going on inside, and I felt free to look – nobody told me not to. Twenty-odd boys and girls sat in a circle on metal chairs. Most looked like insurance salesmen or executive secretaries, in their thirties and forties; they wouldn’t have stood out of the crowd if they’d been alone in the room. In the middle of the circle was a tall balding fellow with grey hair. Doctor Oscar, perhaps? Not likely from my experience. Once the head men really get the racket rolling all they have to do is sit back and let the minions take care of the marks, doesn’t matter if it’s the carnival or the Department of Defence. This one was experienced, I could tell; he might have seemed like he was rambling but he was working his audience like he was the main act at the Copacabana.
    »Now imagine this entire room is filled to the ceiling with shit.« That caught my ear. »Imagine you know a priceless jewel was somewhere deep in that shit.« While he blew hot and cold he started turning, slowly, as if he stood on a lazy susan. »Imagine that the only way to find that jewel was to burrow down through the shit until you found it. Would you?«
    Judging from the glares a few of the participants shot him I gathered I wasn’t the only one wondering what kind of produce he was on. Newcomers, obviously, and not used to the lingo.
    »Aren’t there adults present?« he asked. »Only children? Every one?«
    Two men and one woman lifted their hands gingerly, as if they weren’t sure. None of them looked altogether keen on being teacher’s pet.
    » Zingo!!« shouted the ringleader.
    Skinny trotted back down the stairs. He handed me a brown paper envelope; I took a quick peek inside and, satisfied, passed him the goods. If I was cautious, three hundred would do me three weeks, maybe more, and I supposed these characters could become steady customers without much effort on my part. »You’re interested in the Shake-Out?« he whispered.
    »That’s this?«
    He nodded. »A five week programme ending in Ascendancy. The first week is the introductory period. This is second week, when the programme gathers momentum, and you roll with it down the hill of understanding. Sit here with open ears, if you choose. You choose?«
    His lips pulled back over his teeth like his skin was starting to shrink. »I choose,« I said,