Dark Rivers of the Heart

damn service station, but he's working late at a client's. Seems we work around the clock these days."
        "This recession," Roy sympathized.
        "Isn't it ever going to end?" she wondered, rummaging in her purse for something more.
        He cupped the business card in his hand to protect it from the rain, turning it so the red glow of the nearest flare illuminated the print.
        The husband had an office in Century City, where rents were high; no wonder the poor guy was working late to remain afloat.
        "And here's my card," the woman said, extracting it from her purse and passing it to him.
        Penelope Bettonfield. Interior Designer. 213-555-6868.
        She said, "I work out of my home. Used to have an office, but this dreadful recession…" She sighed and smiled up at him through the partly open window. "Anyway, if I can ever be of help -."
        He fished one of his own cards from his wallet and passed it in to her.
        She thanked him again, closed her window, and drove away.
        Roy walked back along the highway, clearing the flares off the pavement so they would not continue to obstruct traffic.
        In his car once more, heading for his hotel in Westwood, he was exhilarated to have lit his one little candle for the day. Sometimes he wondered if there was any hope for modern society, if it was going to spiral down into a hell of hatred and crime and greed-but then he encountered someone like Penelope Bettonfield, with her sweet smile and her aura of gentleness and refinement, and he found it possible to be hopeful again.
        She was a caring person who would repay his kindness to her by being kind to someone else.
        In spite of Mrs. Bettonfield, Roy's fine mood didn't last. By the time he left the freeway for Wilshire Boulevard and drove into Westwood, a sadness had crept over him.
        He saw signs of social devolution everywhere. Spray-painted graffiti defaced the retaining walls of the freeway exit ramp and obscured the directions on a couple of traffic signs, in an area of the city previously spared such dreary vandalism. A homeless man, pushing a shopping cart full of pathetic possessions, trudged through the rain, his face expressionless, as if he were a zombie shuffling along the aisles of a K-mart in Hell.
        At a stoplight, in the lane beside Roy, a car full of fierce-looking young men-skinheads, each with one glittering earring-glared at him malevolently, perhaps trying to decide if he looked like a Jew. They mouthed obscenities with care, to be sure he could read their lips.
        He passed a movie theater where the films were all swill of one kind or another. Extravaganzas of violence. Seamy tales of raw sex.
        Films from big studios, with famous stars, but swill nonetheless.
        Gradually his i'm ression of his encounter with Mrs. Bettonfield changed. He remembered what she'd said about the recession, about the long hours that she and her husband were working, about the poor economy that had forced her to close her design office and run her faltering business from her home. She was such a nice lady. He was saddened to think that she had financial worries. Like all of them, she was a victim of the system, trapped in a society that was awash in drugs and guns but that was bereft of compassion and commitment to high ideals.
        She deserved better.
        By the time he reached his hotel, the Westwood Marquis, Roy was in no mood to go to his room, order a late dinner from room service, and turn in for the night-which was what he'd been planning to do. He drove past the place, kept going to Sunset Boulevard, turned left, and just cruised in circles for a while.
        Eventually he parked at the curb two blocks from U.C.L.A, but he didn't switch off the engine. He clambered across the gearshift into the passenger seat, where the steering wheel would not interfere with his work.
        His cellular phone was fully charged. He unplugged it from the cigarette lighter.
        From the backseat, he retrieved an attache case. He opened it on his lap, revealing a compact computer with a built-in modern. He plugged it into the cigarette lighter and switched it on. The display screen lit.
        The basic menu appeared, from which he made a selection.
        He married the cellular phone to the modern, and then called the direct-access number that would link his terminal with the dual Cray supercomputers in