THE FAMOUS MEMPHIS “DRY” RIBS WERE THE specialty of the house at the Blue Sax Grill, a Beale Street institution. With a panache that was part of the atmosphere, the waiters served steaming platters of meat rubbed in spices. Located on the ground floor of an old drugstore, the place wasn’t cheap. John Atkins had gone to the Blue Sax for an early dinner to avoid the crowds. A tall waiter with mahogany skin and a white apron took his order and shouted a few clipped words to the kitchen: “Half order, beer.”
It was only late afternoon, but Atkins wanted to turn in early. He’d declined Walt Jacobs’ invitation to join him and his wife for dinner at their home. He was exhausted for one thing. For another, they both needed to get up before dawn to catch a helicopter for Mayfield, Kentucky, just across the Tennessee line. He and Jacobs and a team of four other seismologists were going to set up an array of seismometers. They wanted to place fifteen instruments on a line running roughly from the extreme southwestern tip of the state due east to Kentucky Lake.
The area had been extremely active with aftershocks. They hoped to get more precise readings on exactly what was happening deep in the ground. The biggest jolt so far was the magnitude 5.1 earlier that morning.
The waiter had just brought his order, placing the heavy plate piled high with ribs in front of him, when Elizabeth Holleran introduced herself.
“May I join you?” she asked.
Atkins hesitated, trying to suppress a groan.
“If you’d rather not,” Holleran said.
“No, please. Sit down,” he said, gathering up the newspaper he’d been trying to read in the dim light. He cleared a space for her. “It’s just been kind of a rough day.” He didn’t want to get into an analytical debate with this woman over sunspots, tidal forces, and earthquake predictions. He was way too skeptical. Way too tired.
“One of the USGS people told me where I might find you,” she said, sitting down.
Atkins pushed back in his seat, waiting for her to begin, wanting to get this over with.
“Would you mind if I ordered something to drink?” Holleran asked. She’d already had quite enough of the attitude in his voice. She felt like telling him to shut up and just listen. But this was too important. She had to be more diplomatic.
“Sure, why not?” Atkins said. He stopped his waiter and asked for another beer. The man quickly returned and banged a frosty mug down on the scarred wooden table without saying a word.
“That’s a waiter with personality,” Atkins said sarcastically. “They give the place its Southern charm.” He was already thinking how to get out of this as quickly and politely as possible.
“Jim Dietz told me to say hello,” Holleran said. She’d just spoken to him on the telephone. “We’re working together on the Point Arguello project.”
Atkins had taken a couple advanced seismology courses from Dietz at Cal Tech. They’d stayed in touch. Atkins liked and respected his intellect.
“Did Jim know what you were going to do down here?” he asked.
Holleran nodded. “He said I was out of my mind.” She took a sip of beer, a big one.
Atkins smiled in spite of himself. She reminded him of an eager graduate student. Maybe a little older, but not much. Late twenties or early thirties. Not bad-looking. Better up close than in that conference room, which was good enough. In fact, she was damned fine-looking, sitting there on the edge of the chair in a green jacket and black corduroy slacks. No makeup at all. Didn’t need it.
Atkins complimented her on her papers describing the dig at Point Arguello. He’d read both of them. It was solid research by someone who’d spent months in the field and wrote with authority. He noticed Elizabeth’s smooth, deep tan. This was a woman who wasn’t afraid of hard work or getting out in the sun. But he wasn’t about to waste any more time than absolutely necessary listening to her talk about Prable and sunspots.
Elizabeth put down her beer mug. She wanted to get started while she still had the nerve. “I need someone to look at this data,” she said. “I was hoping that maybe you could—”
Atkins put up his hands. He’d been expecting it. “Now hold on,” he said. “I heard what you said this afternoon. I don’t want to get involved in that.”
“Otto Prable was a superb scientist. We need to look at his data. I know it’s probably a waste of time. But if you’d just—”
“Why me?” Atkins said. “Why not that guy who introduced you this afternoon? Go to him. I can’t help you. I don’t want to help you. I think Prable just got lucky.”
There was a moment when Elizabeth started to unravel, felt the panic slip out. She was putting her reputation on the line with a complete stranger who was acting like an asshole. She forced herself to calm down.
Atkins helped. His brusque question snapped her out of it. “You think Prable predicted the magnitude 7.1 we just had? Or was that only a precursor? I can’t keep it straight. And what was that date for maximum exposure? January twentieth?”
Elizabeth didn’t like his condescending tone. This was becoming far more difficult than she’d hoped. “Prable said there was a high probability of a severe earthquake,” she said, regulating her voice. “We’ve had one moderately severe quake already and several strong aftershocks. I think we ought to see what the man was talking about.”
“But he wasn’t even a seismologist,” Atkins said.
Elizabeth looked at him, focusing her thoughts. “No,” she said, not fighting the anger this time. “He wasn’t a seismologist. He wasn’t even a geologist. And I say, thank God! I’ve never met such a group of backbiting hypocrites. Have you ever stopped to think that our vaunted profession has never made an accurate earthquake prediction? Not a single one in all these years. Here’s someone who isn’t a seismologist, and we’re quick to knock down his data sight unseen because he didn’t have the right pedigree. Dammit!” She pounded her fist on the table. People glanced at them. Even the glassy-eyed waiters looked momentarily interested.
She started to get up, snatching the straps of her briefcase. To hell with this, she thought. Dietz had been all wrong about Atkins. He was a total jerk. She’d try someone else. Maybe Jacobs.
“No, please,” Atkins said, motioning for her to sit down. “Don’t go.”
Elizabeth Holleran took a breath. She sat back down again. Her eyes were flashing.
“The key issue, it seems to me, is to run a probability analysis of Doctor Prable’s data,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I doubt it’s accurate, but after what’s happened down here, I’d sure want to examine it. He’s talking about a period of maximum stress in another nine days. All my training and instincts tell me he’s way off base, that his work is seriously flawed. But I keep asking myself, what if in some crazy way he’s right? It doesn’t leave much time.”
“And you think he might be right?”
There was that irritating smile again, she thought.
“As a seismologist, I think that’s highly unlikely. But you had to know him, his intellect and integrity. I don’t see how we can afford not to check his theory out.”
She was still angry and a little dismayed with herself for wanting to continue talking to this man. She’d read about Atkins. She guessed he was in his mid-forties. He had a creased, ruddy face and big shoulders and hands. The nose was all wrong, pushed slightly off center and flattened at the bridge.
She took out two computer disks and laid them on the table.
“It’s all right there,” she said. “I would have asked Jim Dietz to take a look at them, but there wasn’t time. After that 7.1, I wanted to get right down here.”
Atkins noticed it first, how their beer glasses started shaking. It was almost imperceptible, then the movement became more pronounced. The glasses were rattling, jiggling on the table. The beer splashed out of them. The ground lurched, a sharp sideways motion. Not much, but strong enough to knock a plate-glass mirror down from the wall. It shattered on the floor.
Atkins figured a magnitude 3. Nothing major, but the restaurant erupted in screams. After the last few days, everyone was on edge. Even a minor aftershock was enough to start a stampede. People knocked over tables as they pushed and shoved their way to the front door.
“They’re going to run right over us,” Atkins said, sliding the table back against the wall. They were near the door, right in the path.
He slipped Elizabeth’s computer disks into his jacket pocket. There was another moderate shake, stronger than the first. A row of liquor bottles fell off the shelves behind the bar. Broken window glass rained down onto the street from the building’s upper stories.
“Don’t… go… out… there!” Atkins shouted. He heard the glass exploding on the pavement outside. “Stay off the street! You’re safer in here.”
It didn’t do any good. A heavyset man, who’d left his wife behind in his rush to get out, elbowed his way toward the door. An elderly woman fell, and Atkins had to push back two people who started to step on her. Elizabeth grabbed the woman by the shoulders and pulled her out of the way.
There was a pileup at the front door. Blows were being thrown as a couple dozen people frantically tried to push and shove their way outside. Atkins had seen it all before in Mexico City. The dead stacked up five and six feet deep around the doors of the high-rises. Trampled. The faces battered beyond recognition.
A solid-looking man in his mid-fifties, white hair and black blazer, collided with Elizabeth. In his haste to flee, he’d looped his arm through the strap in her briefcase. He was pulling her down.
Atkins slammed the man against the wall, freeing Elizabeth’s arm. Eyes bulging with fear, the man swung savagely at Atkins’ face. Ducking under the blow, Atkins hit him in the jaw and stomach, hard punches thrown from the shoulder. The man sat down, his back sliding against the wall.
Many of the patrons cowered under tables. The light fixtures over the tables were swaying. Atkins saw it, felt it in the restaurant. The quake had been nothing at all. But it was making people snap.