Professor Faber opened the door. “Who is it?” he said, for the man who catered was scarcely recognizable. “Oh, Montag!”
“I’m going away,” said Montag, stumbling to a chair. “I’ve been a fool.”
Professor Faber stood at the door half a minute, listening to the distant sirens wailing off like animals in the morning. “Someone’s been busy.”
“It worked.”
“At least you were a fool about the right things.” Faber shut the door, came back, and poured a drink for each of them. “I wondered what had happened to you.”
“I was delayed. But the money is here.” He took it from his pocket and laid it on the desk, then sat there and tiredly sipped his drink. “How do you feel?”
“This is the first night I’ve fallen right to sleep in years,” said Faber. “That must mean I’m doing the correct thing. I think we can trust me, now. I didn’t.”
“People never trust themselves, but they never let others know. I suppose that’s why we do rash things, to expose ourselves in such a position we do not dare retreat. Unconsciously, we fear that we may give in, quit the fight, and so we do a foolish thing, like read poetry to women.” He laughed at himself. “So I guess I’ll be on the run now. It’s up to you to keep things moving.”
“I’ll do my damndest,” Faber sat down. “Tell me about it. What you did just now, I mean.”
“I hid the books in three houses, in different places in each house so it would not look planned. Then I telephoned the firemen.”
Faber shook his head. “God, I’d like to have been there. Did the places burn!”
“Yes, they burned very well.”
“Where are you going now?”
“I don’t know. I’ll keep in touch with you. You can leave some books for me to use, from time to time, in vacant lots. I’ll call you.”
“Of course. Do you want to sleep here for a while?”
“I’d better get going, I wouldn’t want you to be held responsible for my being here.”
“Just a moment. Let’s listen.” Faber waved his hand three times at the radio and it came on, with a voice talking rapidly.
“—this evening. Montag has escaped but will be found. Citizens are alerted to watch for this man. Five foot ten, 170 pounds, blond-brown hair, blue eyes, healthy complexion. Here’s a bulletin. The Electric Dog is being transported here from Albany.”
Montag and Faber glanced at each other, eyebrows up.
“—you may recall the stories recently of this new invention, a machine so delicate that it can follow a trail, much in the way bloodhounds have done for centuries. But this machine always finds its quarry, without fail!”
Montag put his drink down and he was cold.
“The machine is self-operating, on a miniature cell motor, weighs about sixty pounds, and is propelled on a series of seven rubber wheels. The front part of this machine is a nose which, in reality, is a thousand noses, so sensitive they can distinguish ten thousand foods, five thousand flower smells, and remember the identity index odors of 15,000 men without resetting.”
Faber began to tremble. He looked at his house, at the door, the floor, the chair in which Montag sat. Montag interpreted this look. They both looked together at the invisible trail of footprints leading to this house, coming across this room, the fingerprints on the door knob, and the smell of his body in the air and on this chair.
“The Electric Hound is now landing, by helicopter, at the burned Montag house, we take you there by TV control!”
And there was the burned house, the crowd, and something with a sheet over it, Mr. Leahy, yes, Mr. Leahy, and out of the sky, fluttering, came the red helicopter, landing like a grotesque flower while the police pushed back the crowd and the wind blew the women’s dresses.
Mr. Montag watched the scene with a solid fascination, not wanting to move, ever. If he wished, he could sit here, in comfort, and follow the entire hunt on through its phases, down alleys, up streets, across empty running avenues, with the sky lightening to dawn, up other alleys to burned houses, so on to this place here, this house, with Faber and himself seated here at their leisure, smoking idly, drinking good wine, while the Electric Hound sniffed down the paths, wailing, and stopped outside that door right there, and then, if he wished, Montag could rise, go to the door, keeping one eye on the television screen, open the door, and look out, and look back, and see himself standing there, limned in the bright screen, from outside, a drama to be watched objectively, and he would watch himself, for an instant before oblivion, being killed for the benefit of a TV audience that was thousands bigger now, for the TV stations across the country were probably beeping-beeping to waken the viewer to a Scoop!
“There it is,” said Faber.
Out of the helicopter came something that was not a machine, not an animal, not dead, not alive, just moving. It glowed with a green light, like phosphorescence from the sea, and it was on a long leash, and behind it came a man, dressed lightly, with earphones on his shaven head.
“I can’t stay here,” said Montag, getting up, his eyes still fixed to the scene. The Electric Hound shot forward to the ruins, the man running after it. A coat was brought forward. Montag recognized it as his own, dropped in the back yard during flight. The Electric Hound studied this implacably. There was a clicking and whirring of dials and meters.
“You can’t escape,” Faber sighed and turned away. “I’ve heard about that damned Hound. No one has ever escaped.”
“I’ll try anyway. I’m sorry, Professor.”
“About me, about this house? Don’t be. I’m only sorry we didn’t have time to do more.”
“Wait a minute.” Montag moved forward. “There’s no use your being discovered. We can wipe out the trail here. First the chair. Get me a knife.”
Faber ran and brought a knife. With it, Montag attacked the chair where he had been sitting. He cut the upholstery out, into bits, then he shoved it, bit by bit, into the wall incinerator. “Now,” he said, “After I leave, rip up the carpet, it has my footprints on it, cut it up, burn it, leave the floor bare. Rub the doorknobs with alcohol, and after I’ve left here, turn the garden sprinkler on full. That’ll wash away every trace.”
Faber shook his hand vigorously. “Thank you, thank you! You don’t know what this means. I’ll do anything to help you in the future. The plan can go on then, if they don’t burn my house.”
“Of course. Do as I say. And one more thing. A suitcase, get it, fill it with your dirty laundry, the dirtier the better, some denim pants, a shirt, some old sneakers and socks.”
“I understand.” Faber was gone, and back in a minute with a suitcase which they sealed with scotch tape. “To keep the odor in,” said Montag, breathlessly. He swabbed the suitcase with a thick pouring of cognac and whiskey. “I won’t want that Hound to pick up two odors at once. When I get a safe distance away, at the river, I’ll change clothes.”
“And identities. From Montag to Faber.”
“Christ, I hope it works! If your clothes are strong enough, which God knows they seem to be, I might at least confuse the Hound.”
“Try it, anyway.”
“Now, no more talk. I’ll run.”
They shook hands again and looked at the screen. The Electric Hound was on its way, followed by mobile camera TV units, through alleys and across empty morning streets, silently, silently, sniffing the great night wind for Mr. Leonard Montag, going on through the town to bring him to justice.
“We’ll show the Hound a thing or two,” said Montag.
“Good luck.”
“Be seeing you.”
And he was out the door, lightly, running with the suitcase. Behind him, he saw and felt and heard the garden sprinkler system jump up, filling the dark air with moisture to wash away the smell of a man named Montag. Through the back window, the last thing he saw was Faber tearing up the carpet and cramming it in the wall incinerator.
Montag ran.
Behind him, in the city, ran the electric Hound.
HE STOPPED NOW AND AGAIN, across town, to watch through the dimly lighted windows of wakened houses. He peered in at silhouettes of people before television screens, and there on the screens saw where the Electric Hound was, now at Elm Terrace, now at Lincoln Avenue, now at 34th Avenue, now up the alley toward Mr. Faber’s, now at Faber’s!
Montag held his breath.
Now passing on! Leaving Faber’s behind. For a moment the TV camera scanned Faber’s. The house was dark. In the garden, the water was sprinkling in the cool air, softly.
The Electric hound jumped ahead, down the alley.
“Sleep tight, professor.” And Montag was gone, again, racing toward the distant river.
As he ran, he put the Thimble in his ear and a voice ran with him every step of the way with the beat of his heart and the sound of his shoes on the gravel: “Look for the pedestrian, look for the pedestrian, citizens, look for the pedestrian. Any one on the sidewalks or in the street, walking or running, is suspect, look for the pedestrian!” How simple, of course, in a city where no one walked. Look, look for the Walking Man, the man who proves his legs.
