Portals in Time 3

by Michael Beals

  “I wouldn’t worry about Rostock. He’s not even here at the moment.”

  “We don’t know that, Kat. If Grantham’s got spies, Rostock might know we’re back in Hell, and if you need to see Harper, he could get you en route.”

  Giselle and Lily were both on the phone when they reached the apartment, but Giselle replaced the receiver when she saw them. “You got back just in time. Harper won’t release a second time machine unless he gives it to you personally.”

  “But he does have one.”

  “Harper’s only got the old one, which won’t go back in time.”

  “That’s OK. We won’t need to go back in time. If we do, I’ll use the one we’ve already got. So I’ve got to collect it?”

  “You do. I said you’d call him.”

  “Fine. I’ll call Harper. What happened with Cabot?”

  Giselle smiled. “Well, that’s the good news. He’s already got a New York office in 1964. It’s on Stanton Street in the East Village. He’s over there right now, setting up the phones. He’s registered you and Jock as private detectives under the name of The Demon Detective Agency, which means that by 2025, you’ll be a long-established agency. It doesn’t come with an apartment, so we might have to stay at the hotel in 1866 for a while, but we can use the office. He’s bringing the keys over tonight.”

  “My God, that was quick. So once we’ve got the new time machine, we’re all set. Who’s Lily talking to?”

  “She’s ordering you a helicopter and making sure that Harper doesn’t blow you out of the sky.”

  Noticing that Lily was finally off the phone, she went over to her. “So what’s happening? Did Harper give me an appointment?”

  “Sure did. You’re on the 9 AM flight tomorrow. Can Ellie and I go to the twenty-first century while you’re there? I assume you’re taking Jock with you. If we’re coming to 2025 with you, we’ll need something to wear.”

  That night they ate pizza at an Italian restaurant in Times Square, not far from the apartment, but no one was very hungry. They were more concerned about when Kat and Dore went looking for Grantham again.

  “Grantham must know you’re looking for him,” Lily said. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made his car disappear. As a matter of fact, if he went back in time by a few seconds and drove back in the opposite direction, he might even have seen you. It was broad daylight.”

  “That wouldn’t have helped him,” Kat said. “We were just another car driving through Old Westbury. I doubt if he thought anyone was chasing him.”

  “But isn’t it likely that Grantham has people to watch his back? That man on the lake tried to kill you, and all you did was talk to one of the escapees. If I were as rich as Grantham, I’d make sure I was protected. The man on the lake, in 1875, I might add, is proof of that. If he’s got people watching the escapees, imagine what he might have organized in 2025. They might even have electronic devices to monitor suspicious activity.”

  Kat had to admit, that had occurred to her. Cabot had a portable phone that he’d got from the future. Did Grantham have a portable phone? Did the people protecting him have portable phones? Would they be able to talk to Grantham while he was driving? There’s a suspicious car following you, Mr. Grantham. What would you like us to do?

  “We’re OK, Lily. We borrowed that car. Even if Grantham’s people checked with the DMV, it belongs to an elderly man in Queens. If we’re seen again, it might be a different matter, but the next time we drive to Old Westbury, it will be to knock of Grantham’s door, or to ring his bell, or whatever people do in 2025. But what I wouldn’t mind doing is checking out portable phones. Two can play at the spy game. If we all have portable phones, we can steal another car and surround Grantham.”

  “You want us to steal a car?” Lily exclaimed, with an anxious look on her face.

  “No, you don’t have to. We can all drive to a gas station in the Corvette, and Jock and I can steal another car. It’s not difficult. Then we’ll have two cars.”

  “You’re becoming a criminal, Kat,” Dore remarked.

  “It’s not my fault. You learn these things if you live in Hell.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Giselle said. “If we familiarize ourselves with the roads at Old Westbury and we know more or less where Grantham lives, we can approach the area from two different directions, and if we’ve got phones, we can talk to each other.”

  “We might have to do that. There’s no guarantee that the DMV has his real address.”

  Dore laughed and shook his head.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just that this whole Grantham thing reminds me of Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, You being Sherlock, me being Dr. Watson, and Grantham being Moriarty. We may never be able to arrest Grantham because he’s too clever for us.”

  “God, I hope that’s not the case. Our freedom depends on finding Grantham.”

  Dore shook his head. “No it doesn’t. Hades has already approved the detective agency. If we can find Grantham, even if he escapes again, Hades can easily close down the operation at West Fork, Pernass can close down Holiday of a Lifetime, and we can tout for business in 1964. Does Hades really care about arresting Grantham?”

  She thought back to her conversation with Hades. “I have to say; I don’t think he cares that much. He just wants to stop people from escaping. God’s pretty pissed about it.”

  “Well, there you go then. All we have to do is avoid being killed along the way.”

  “You’re full of comforting words, Jock. Do you really think they’d try to kill us?”

  “They’ve already tried. We’ve still got Rostock on the prowl, and you can bet your virginity that Grantham’s got more Rostocks in 2025. Hired guns aren’t always the brightest of people.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Giselle and Lily were talking to Cabot when Kat and Dore returned from Gypsy headquarters with the new time machine. They were sitting around the coffee table, and Cabot was laughing, which was unusual; Kat had never seen him smile, let alone laugh, although his reptilian face was so wrinkled, his expressions were sometimes hard to make out. Then again, even his laugh was a series of croaking grunts.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “The inspector was telling us a story about Rostock,” Giselle said. “Horses are terrified of him. He once caught a Hansom cab in 1850, and the horse took off down Fifth Avenue. They were in Midtown before the driver could stop it, by which time Rostock was screaming for help, which terrified the horse even more.”

  Kat roared in laughter. Wiping her eyes, she asked, “How are you, Inspector?”

  “I’m very concerned,” he admitted, becoming more serious.

  “About what?”

  “Well, you might find it strange, but I’m being reincarnated in a few months, and to be honest, I’m not looking forward to it.”

  “I don’t understand,” she exclaimed. “You’ll be able to live a real life again.”

  “I’ll lose my memories. I’ve lived in Hell for five-thousand years; I’ve been all over the world, and I know New York like the back of my hand. I even know New York in the real world. I watched them build the subway; I watched Central park being built. I’ve seen Indian villages and buffalo in Upper Manhattan. I don’t want to forget all that. That’s why I go down to the library every day. I want to remember all those things.” He stared at her. “But I won’t remember. It will all be taken from me. And for what? So I can grow up, marry some woman I don’t understand, have children who will all grow up and leave home, and then die a few years later. I don’t want to lose what I have.”

  Before coming to Hell, Kat never imagined that anyone would want to stay. “Well, Hades has given me the OK to set up a detective agency in both worlds. I could certainly use a person with your extensive knowledge to help me run the agency. You might want to suggest to Hades that your talents would be better suited in providing my team and me with guidance because of your many years of service
as a detective in Hell.”

  Kat could see the gears in Cabot’s head spinning as he considered her suggestion. “That’s very gracious of you. I just might take you up on that offer. I’ll speak to Hades about it and see what he has to say.”

  Kat could hear an eagerness in Cabot’s voice and asked, “so, tell me about our new office and where I can buy a portable phone.”

  Cabot leaned back in his chair, which didn’t fit his demon body. “The office is just an office. I’ll give you the key before I leave. As for portable phones, they’re called cell phones, and you can buy them anywhere, department stores, Walmart, Target… The shop will give you instructions on how to use them. They’re very common in 2025. Everyone’s got one, even ten-year-old kids.”

  “Yeah, I noticed. So we’re all set. We’re now accredited, detectives. I can call the DMV and get Grantham’s address.”

  Cabot let out another of his croaky laughs. “It won’t be as simple as that. I’m sure you’ll get an address, but I doubt if it will be genuine. We’ve been looking for Grantham for a long time. We’ve never found him.” He shrugged a demon-like shrug. “Then again, we’ve never been able to follow him either, so maybe you’ll get lucky.”

  She ran her eyes over Cabot. With his old Tweed jacket and the strange-looking shoes that covered his clawed feet, he looked out of place in the bridal suite of the Cosmopolitan Hotel. “Well, we can only do our best. Sorry to throw you out after everything you’ve done, Inspector, but we have to get on.”

  “Not at all,” he said, placing a set of keys on the table and climbing stiffly to his feet. “It’s all in a day’s work, as they say. If you need any more help, I’ll be in the library.”

  When Cabot had gone, she extracted the new time machine and turned to Giselle. “Are you going to be OK wearing this, Ellie? I’d ask Lily to wear it, but you’re the most senior person here.”

  “Oh, I’m not sure, Kat. I’ve got very small wrists.”

  “The size of your wrist doesn’t matter. The watch adapts to your body; you won’t even know you’re wearing it. The only thing is, you’ve never had to deal with modern technology. You don’t even wear a regular watch.”

  “I drive a car,” she protested. “And I’ve got to learn sometime. We’ll soon be buying cell phones. Why don’t I try it out?”

  Strapping the watch to Giselle’s wrist, Kat activated the device and reminded her how to use it, but Giselle let out a shriek when the watch embedded itself in her wrist.

  “I’d suggested you do what I did when we were with Harper. Go into the future for about one hour and see what happens.” She laughed. “If we all disappear, it means we’ve gone back to 1866 while you were gone.”

  Giselle peered at the watch, then very gingerly set the timepiece for one hour in the future. “If you all play a trick on me by hiding out in the corridor, I’ll be furious.”

  “Ellie, we wouldn’t do that to you. We know how nervous you are. Go ahead. I promise we’ll stay here.”

  So Giselle took a deep breath, tapped the face of the watch, opened her mouth to say something, and then promptly vanished. They stood there for what felt like fifteen minutes waiting for her to come back. Kat could imagine her going over to the window to look into the street, or perhaps moving something in the apartment before deciding to return. When she finally re-appeared, her blonde hair was glistening with water.

  Giselle grinned. “It’s still raining outside.”

  “You went all the way downstairs?” Dore asked, looking slightly annoyed. “Ellie, we don’t know where Rostock is. You shouldn’t have done that. Were we all still here?

  “No, you weren’t, and I only put my head outside the door. Anyway, I’m still in one piece. No one tried to shoot me.”

  “OK, fine,” Dore said, sounding less than satisfied. “Shall we get ready? I wouldn’t mind having a decent meal before we go to bed tonight.”

  Kat glared at him humorously. “Why? Do we need to keep our strength up?”

  “Kat,” he said in a warning tone. “You promised you wouldn’t do that.”

  “Sorry!” she sang, sailing into the bedroom to change. “Get changed, everyone. If we’re not here in an hour’s time, we’re obviously going back to 1866.”

  When everyone had changed, and they’d extracted their artifacts from the safe, they prepared to teleport. Dore had a silly smile on his face and kept glancing at Giselle, who pretended not to notice, but Kat could see the look of excitement in her eyes.

  Setting her time machine to August 18, 1866, and checking that everyone had done the same, she pocketed Cabot’s keys to the office in the East Village, counted down from five, and then tapped her wrist. She was getting used to the strange swishing sounds and the blaze of streaking stars that flew past her eyes, but she felt a moment of anxiety as the hotel bedroom in the Fifth Avenue Hotel zoomed into existence. For a moment, she stood there, staring at the furnishings. The complimentary flowers were showing signs of wilting, and the curtains were still open, as they had been when they were last here, but there was also a strange ethereal newness about everything. She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It read 12:35, but the sun was shining brightly outside. For some reason, she’d expected to arrive when it was dark.

  She shook her head. All this time, traveling was very confusing. “Sorry, Jock. I thought we were arriving in the evening, but it’s lunchtime. Why don’t we all go to 2024 and have lunch in the park? Giselle and Lily can do some shopping. They need clothes for 2025.”

  Dore stared at her. “But… we’ve just got here, and we’re dressed for 1866.”

  “So? We can change in to our 1954 clothes.”

  “Also, if we go to 2024, we’ll lose six hours when we come back.”

  “For God’s sake, Jock, we’re not on a schedule. We’ve got five days before the next batch of escapees are due. Why not enjoy ourselves?”

  “I don’t know, Kat. It just feels a bit weird. We’ve also got a problem… two, actually. We can’t teleport to 2024 from the hotel room; The Fifth Avenue Hotel might not be here in 158 years, which means we’ll have to go to the park, but we can’t go to the park in our 1954 clothes. At least, you can’t, and nor can Ellie and Lily.”

  “Oh my God, I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “I don’t see why it’s such a problem,” Lily said. “We can all wear jeans and t-shirts under our dresses. We can take them off when we get to 2024 and then carry our dresses. Jock can wear what he wants. If anyone sees us, we were wearing fancy dress. Anyway, who cares what they think in 2024?”

  “OK. Fine. Jock, go into the bedroom while we change. Lily’s not used to stripping off in front of you.”

  When everyone had changed, and Dore had switched his boots for regular shoes, they walked down to the park. The Hansom cabs still stood in line, but there were few people in the park. Nevertheless, they made their way into the middle of the lawn area before teleporting. The last thing they wanted was to find themselves smack bang in the middle of a busy restaurant.

  But when they arrived in 2024, the lawn was full of people sunbathing. Thankfully, most of them had their eyes closed, or were lying face-down, so they got away with it, but Lily went bright pink when she almost stepped on a semi-naked man.

  The man jumped and shielded his eyes. “You blind, lady?”

  She looked down at the man’s flabby body and grimaced. “Believe me; I wish I was.”

  Climbing out of their dresses as they walked, they made their way over to a quiet part of the lawn and sat down. Giselle looked spaced out, staring at all the people on the pathways.

  Kat smiled at her. “You’ll get used to it, Ellie. The people are the biggest shock after living in Hell for so long. They’re New Yorkers and are a bit brazen. They say what they think; it doesn’t matter who you are.”

  “You mean they’re rude?”

  “They sound rude, but it’s just the way they talk. It doesn’t mean anything. Why don’t you and Lily go and buy some clo
thes? There’s a place called Saks Fifth Avenue. You can buy jeans and a shirt that should be OK in 2025. Buy a pair of sneakers as well. They’re very comfortable.”

  When the girls had gone, she and Dore lay down in the sun. Kat turned to look at Dore. His eyes were closed, and his head was resting on Giselle’s rolled up dress. “You asleep?”

  “No, I’m too wired,” he said, not opening his eyes. “All that teleporting does your head in.”

  “If you had a choice of what year to live in, where would you choose?”

  Opening his eyes, he turned to look at her. “That’s a strange question.” He gazed at her for a moment. “I don’t know, Kat. I just like being alive again. It’s so nice lying here in real sunshine.”

  “It is. That’s why I’m asking. If you had a choice, would you like to live in the future, or the time you came from… or the past?”

  “That’s a tough question. I’ve got no family to worry about. I quite like the past; life was so much simpler then, but I also like the future, with its amazing cars, computers, and modern technology. It would be nice to fly to Scotland once in a while. When you’re up in the hills, life never changes. Why are you asking?”

  “It’s just that things may not be as simple as they seem. You compared Grantham to Moriarty yesterday, and it’s worrying me because I think you might be right. If it’s impossible to bring Grantham in, he may become an ongoing problem. He’s not in Hell anymore. He’s in the real world, which means he can go anywhere he wants. If he’s as rich as we think he is, he could even become political. Can you imagine that, a dead person having political influence in the real world?”

  Dore laughed and sat up. “Politics is a bit beyond me, Lass. That’s why I liked being in the army.”

  She was about to pass comment when she saw Giselle and Lily walking towards them. Lily was wearing tight jeans with a pair of sneakers and what looked like a man’s shirt with the cuffs rolled up. Giselle was wearing quite the opposite, a flowing pink shirt, and a blue skirt that was so short, she was drawing stares from the men they passed. Dore looked gobsmacked when they drew near.