He finished his coffee and got to his feet. Be a good idea to look in on Liquor, and see how things were going. The department was getting more and more crowded every minute; three customers were entering for every one who left.
On the way, he passed two women, and caught a snatch of conversation:
"Don't go down on the third floor, for Heaven's sake ... terrible fight ... smashing everything up--"
Worried, he continued into Liquor, and the looks of the crowd there increased his worries. Too many men between twenty and thirty, all dressed alike, looking alike, talking and acting alike. It looked like a goon-gang infiltration, and he was beginning to see why Harvey Graves had wanted the Literates pulled out, and why Joyner, bound by ethics to do nothing against the commercial interests of Pelton's, had known nothing about it. He started toward a counter, to speak to a clerk, but one of the stocky, quietly-dressed young men stepped in front of him.
"Gimme a bottle of Atom-Bomb," he said. "Don't bother wrapping it."
"Yes, sir." The clerk seemed worried, too. He got the bottle and set it on the counter. "That'll be two C, sir."
"I see you're wearing a Radical-Socialist button," the customer commented. "Because you want to, or because Chet Pelton makes you?"
"Mr. Pelton never interferes with his employees' political convictions," the clerk replied loyally.
Saying nothing, the customer took the bottle, swung it by the neck, and smashed it over the clerk's head, knocking him senseless.
"That's all that rotgut's good for," the customer said, jumping over the counter. "All right, boys; help yourselves!"
For a surprisingly long time, the riot was localized in China, where it had begun. Using, alternately, three TV-pickups around the scene of the disturbance, Prestonby watched its progress, and watched successive details of store personnel, armed with clubs and a few knives and sono pistols, hit the riot, shouting their battle cry, and vanish. They were, of course, lambs of sacrifice, however unlamblike their conduct. They were buying time, and they were drawing groups of goons into the action in China and Glassware who might have been making trouble elsewhere.
There was an outbreak on the sixth floor, in Liquor; Claire, touring the store on the other TV-screen, spotted it and called his attention to it. Back of the shattered glass partition, a mob of men were snatching bottles from the shelves and tossing them out to the crowd. One of the clerks, in his gray uniform jacket, was lying unconscious outside. While Prestonby watched, another, and another, came flying out the doorway. A fourth victim, in ordinary business clothes, tattered and disheveled, came flying out after them, to land in a heap, stunned for an instant, and then pick himself up. Prestonby laughed heartily when he recognized Literate--undercover--First Class Russell M. Latterman.