Milt Lesser

“ With dead cities, war became a more personal thing. That was where personal politics came in. War became an individual thing as well as a social enterprise. That was the way you lived.
An old woman came trudging along in the snow, her boot-shod feet making footprints clear down through the thin white covering to the broken gray sidewalk beneath it. She was selling poor-grade booty, trinkets and a few items of faded old clothing. "Anything I've got," she hawked, holding a yellow straw basket up for Hardesty's inspection, "anything in the basket for only a hundred thousand dollars." ”

“ Hardesty had always preferred being a small businessman. He just couldn't see scavenging for a salary, despite the comparative security it offered.
"Well, what do you say, man?"
"No, really, I have to be getting along."
"All right, then. It's an order." Someone thrust a shovel at Hardesty. He glanced at the man's sleeve and saw the starred armband of a block captain. Damn these civil servants! You hated their guts but had to obey them. Oh, they were psychopathic enough. Hardesty admitted that to himself. ”

“ Hardesty raised the shotgun without bothering to aim and fired both barrels. The hag clutched her throat and pitched forward in the snow. One of the men fell with her. Hardesty tossed the now useless shotgun aside and heard something clatter against the wall next to him. Sparks flew. It was a knife. The man's aim had been good, almost too good.
Hardesty circled the block twice, then hid in a doorway. It was a doorway to absolutely nowhere. On one side was the street, on the other was a rubble-filled bomb crater. This had once been a building, but only the doorway stood. ”

“ Not long afterwards, Hardesty was bound to a firing post near the embankment of a crater close to the Lever Brothers stump, but far enough away so none of the glass would be shattered. The firing squad lined up. The blonde girl was third from the right. Hardesty hoped someone would aim for his stomach and the others would miss. If he had to die, he wanted to die painfully. ”

“ Hardesty hoped shelter-seeking pedestrians wouldn't find the bomb crater. He might be able to deal with the woman alone, but he'd lose whatever booty was left in the dead man's pockets if a few dozen scavengers came down into the hole. ”

“ Hardesty walked boldly out into the street. No one stopped him.
Ten minutes later, after hiding in a pile of rubble when he saw someone coming down the street, Hardesty found himself passing the stump of the Lever Brothers Building. The girl, he thought suddenly. He had forgotten about the blonde. He shouldn't be passing here. She might be waiting for him. ”

“ You couldn't get any kind of a decent job with the city unless the Civil Service Board passed on your psychopathy. But they were too smug in an orderly, regimented way. They could quote ordinances to you until you wanted to wring their necks but they were right and if you did, you were as good as dead. ”

“ We got an extra shovel."
Community effort. You had to dig out the ruins. In the early days of the war you looked for living people, but now personal politics had changed that. The diggers had clubs and knives ready in case any survivors were found to contest their booty. They were hacking away at the heaps of broken concrete with consummate effort, stopping every now and then for hot drinks which the Red Cross brought around. They had some union, those Red Cross workers. They were guaranteed ten percent of the booty in any building they serviced during digging. ”

“ Hardesty had won. She would kill the condemned man prematurely, Hardesty would remain behind to go through his pockets for booty. Later on, they would meet at the stump of the Lever Brothers Building and divvy up. ”