Curious Notions ct-2

by Harry Turtledove

  As a matter fact, Dad had used exactly the same argument. Paul hadn't been able to tell him he was wrong, either. Nor could he tell Wong he was wrong. All he could do was ask, "So what happens next?"

  "I think we put you on ice for a while," the Crosstime Traffic man answered. "We've still got to work out how we're going to set all this to rights." He muttered something to himself, then spoke out loud: "It's not going to be as easy as anybody back at the home timeline thought."

  His idea of how to put Paul on ice was .. . different. After the Feldgendarmerie raid, Paul had tried to find the most obscure hidey-hole he could. Sammy Wong, by contrast, walked over to the Palace Hotel on Market Street and booked him in there. It was the fanciest, most expensive hotel this San Francisco boasted.

  Sammy Wong turned out to have the room next door. Grinning, he said, "When somebody goes missing, the cops'll turn the Tenderloin upside down. Nobody'd think to look here."

  "Easy for you to say," Paul answered. "I couldn't have afforded this for a week, not with the money I had."

  "That does make a difference," Wong admitted. "You're here now, though. Enjoy it. Call room service. Order yourself prime rib or a lobster. Why not? It's on the company."

  The bed was big enough to get lost in. The bathtub was big enough to swim in (though nobody here had ever heard of a Jacuzzi). Room service seemed wonderful. Paul decided that, if he had to hide out somewhere, this knocked the socks off the miserable joint where he had been staying.

  Whenever Lucy was out on the street, she looked for Paul. She knew the Triads had lots of people doing the same thing. So did the San Francisco police. And so did the Feldgendarmerie. Her odds of finding him first—of finding him at all—weren't good. She looked anyhow.

  It's for his own good, she told himself. Anyone else who caught him would want to pull information out of him. Whoever did wouldn't be gentle about it, either. Lucy wondered what she'd do if she spotted him first. Tell him to run away and hide, she supposed. But how could he have disappeared so completely?

  Had he somehow gone back to his own world? How? He'd said the only way there was through Curious Notions. He couldn't have got back in the shop . . . could he? She didn't see how. The Feld-gendarmerie hadn't forgotten about it. They weren't that dumb. Germany wouldn't have stayed top dog for as long as she had if the people in her secret police were fools.

  Lucy wondered if Stanley Hsu and his friends had figured out that Paul might have vanished from this world altogether—and that his father might do the same. She didn't say anything to the jeweler about that. She wondered if Lawrence Gomes would mention it. She didn't think so. If that possibility wasn't his ace in the hole, she would have been amazed.

  One evening, she was washing dishes and her little brother was drying them. Michael hated drying dishes, which meant he did a lousy job of it. It also meant he looked for any excuse not to dry them. Even talking with his sister was better than doing what he was supposed to do—especially if he could annoy her. He did his best, saying, "You haven't heard from your boyfriend lately."

  Lucy was washing a big serving platter. Mother would get upset if she smashed it over Michael's head. Too bad, she thought. She looked down her nose at him instead. "I haven't got a boyfriend," she said loftily.

  "You know the one I mean—the guy from that place with the neat electronics." Michael was going to take over Father's shop one of these days (if I don't strangle him first, Lucy thought). He'd already learned a lot about the things Father repaired.

  What he'd learned about people, on the other hand, would fit on a pinhead, and a little pinhead at that. Lucy sometimes thought he was a little pinhead. She said, "Paul's not my boyfriend. You'd better remember that. And you'd better remember he got Father out of jail, so you don't want to make rude remarks about him. You do want to dry that platter. Don't just stick it in the drainer."

  Michael made a face at her. He dried the platter, but wanting to was a different story. Then he made another face, not the same one this time. "If he's not your boyfriend, what is he?"

  "He's none of your business, that's what," Lucy snapped. Michael grinned. He'd made her angry, which won him a point. For a little while, Lucy was hotter than the water in the sink. Then she said, "He's just a friend. That's not the same as a boyfriend. You'll find out what the difference is when you get bigger."

  Her brother made yet another face, one both disgusting and disgusted. At ten, he was sure girls were poisonous. He was sure he'd feel that way forever, too. He wasn't as smart as he thought he was. He wasn't smart enough to realize he wasn't as smart as he thought he was, either.

  When he stopped making gagging and choking noises to go with the horrible face, he said, "If he's just a friend, how come he never comes over here?"

  Because it might bring the Feldgendarmerie down on him. Because it might bring the Feldgendarmerie down on us, too. Lucy smiled sweetly. "Because then he might meet you, and he'd never want anything to do with me again after that."

  "You're mean!" Michael could dish it out better than he could take it. He fired the big gun: "Mommy!"

  "What's going on?" Mother called from the living room. A warning note rang in her voice.

  Michael's explanation differed from Lucy's by about 180 degrees. They both got louder and louder, trying to shout each other down. Michael snapped the towel at Lucy. That could have hurt, but he missed. She splashed him with dishwater. He screeched so shrilly, even dogs would have had trouble hearing him.

  "What's going on?" Mother said again, this time from the doorway. Again, the stories she heard might have happened on two different planets. She set her hands on her hips. "That will be enough from both of you. One more peep from this kitchen out of either one of you and you'll both be sorry."

  Lucy finished washing the dishes. Michael finished drying them. They made faces and sent rude gestures at each other till they were done. Neither said a thing. They got their messages across just the same.

  When Lucy came out of the kitchen, her father looked out from behind his newspaper. That was enough to make her stop in surprise. Once he started looking at the paper, he was usually gone till he got done. Then he surprised her again by saying her name.

  "What is it, Father?" she asked.

  "What do you know about Curious Notions?" Charlie Woo asked in turn. "Will they be opening up again? I want more of a chance to find out how they do what they do."

  I know how they do what they do. They bring things in somehow from another world. No wonder you couldn't figure out how their gadgets work. But Lucy didn't think she could tell him that. He might believe it. He knew those gadgets weren't like any this world made. They hit him the same way Paul's claim to come from Thirty-third Avenue in the Sunset District hit her. They didn't fit. They didn't fit. But the reason they didn't fit was Paul's secret. And he'd made it very plain that he wished she didn't know it, let alone anyone else.

  She might have told her father anyway, except for one other thing. Paul had also made it very plain that knowing his secret was dangerous. If he hadn't, what had happened to him and to his father and to Curious Notions would have. Lucy didn't want her father to know the secret because it might be dangerous to him. The Germans had already jailed him once just for being near the edges of it.

  So all she said was, "I don't think they're going to be opening up again any time soon. The Feldgendarmerie let Mr. Gomes go, but they haven't let him get back to work."

  "I wonder why not," her father said. "If they want to catch him doing something, they should give him the chance to do it. If they leave the place closed, they'll never find out what he was up to."

  Lucy blinked. She hadn't thought of it like that. Most of the time, it would have made good sense. But one of the things Mr. Gomes could do—or she supposed he could—was disappear from this world and go back to his own. And if he did, how could the Feldgen-darmerie go after him?

  "I didn't know you could think like a Feldgendarmerie man," she said.

  H
er father made a face nastier than any of the ones Michael had aimed at her. "You say the sweetest things," he muttered.

  "I didn't mean it like that," Lucy told him.

  That horrible face melted into a tired smile. "I know you didn't, sweetheart," he said. "But I've met the Germans up close, and you haven't. I don't want to think like them, believe you me I don't."

  She started to say she'd met the Feldgendarmerie, too, when they let him out of jail and brought him back here. Something in his eyes told her that would be worse than just wasting her breath. It would be saying something not only stupid but naive. No one could know the German secret police who hadn't been in jail, who hadn't been grilled. Father had. She hadn't. It was as simple as that.

  He went back to his newspaper. She went to her room. He hadn't rubbed her nose in the mistake she almost made. That wasn't his style. But he'd made sure she knew about it. And she did. She didn't think she'd ever be foolish that particular way again.

  The next couple of days, Mrs. Cho was grumpy. She was worse than grumpy, in fact—she was downright mean. Lucy wondered if her supervisor was having a hard time at home and taking it out on her. If it wasn't something like that, then the Triads weren't happy with her. She hoped it was Mrs. Cho's problem.

  But it turned out not to be. When she got back to her desk from lunch on the third day, she fond a note on it. Please see me this evening—S.H., it said in Stanley Hsu's elegant script. Lucy wondered who'd put it there. Mrs. Cho? Somebody from outside the shoe factory? She realized she'd probably never find out.

  She tore the note into little pieces and threw it in the trash. She wished she could ignore it along with ripping it up. But she couldn't, and she knew it.

  She did her best to look on the bright side of things. She usually did, even if it didn't always help. Maybe the jeweler or Mr. Gomes had learned what had happened to Paul. Maybe he'd even be there. She didn't really expect he would, but she could hope.

  Mrs. Cho kept right on being nasty the rest of the day. Did that mean she wasn't the one who'd put the note on Lucy's desk? Or was she just trying to show Lucy that the Triads were still mad at her? Lucy gave up trying to figure it out. She'd get some answers—or she hoped she would—when she saw Stanley Hsu.

  "Hello, Miss Woo. How are you today?" he said when she walked into his shop. His manners were perfect for setting rich customers at ease. That made them feel a little phony, a little oily, to Lucy.

  "I'm all right," she said. "What do you want from me? What do you need from me?"

  "I was wondering—and Paul's father was wondering—whether you'd heard from him," Stanley Hsu answered. "The two of you seem to have struck up quite a friendship. If anyone has seen him, you're likely to be the one."

  "I haven't," Lucy said. Stanley Hsu looked disappointed. Mr. Gomes came out of the jewelry store's back room. He looked disappointed, too. Lucy didn't think he was faking that, though she felt less sure about Stanley Hsu. If Paul's father was still worried about him, what did that mean? Probably that Mr. Gomes didn't think Paul had gone back to their own world. If he believed Paul had, he wouldn't seem so worried . . . would he?

  "Do you have any idea where he might have gone?" Stanley Hsu asked.

  Lucy shook her head. "I was hoping you would." She wasn't going to say a word about that other Sunset District. She didn't know what Paul's father had told Stanley Hsu. She could tell she'd end up in trouble if the man from the Triads found out she knew things he didn't. Mr. Gomes might end up in trouble, too.

  Stanley Hsu just said, "No, we don't."

  Paul's father added, 'This whole business is just a mess. When the Germans grabbed me, Paul managed to stay free. And now he's missing, but I'm out." He nodded to Stanley Hsu, to let him know he knew whom he ought to thank for that. The corners of his mouth turned down in a frown. With the big, droopy mustache he wore, it looked as if he were frowning twice. "Once we get back together, we can . . . figure out what to do next."

  Had the jeweler heard that little hesitation there? Lucy sure had. What had Mr. Gomes started to say? Something like We can go back to where we belong? That would have been her guess.

  "Paul hasn't tried to get in touch with you?" Stanley Hsu persisted. "No notes? No letters? No phone calls at work?"

  "No, Mr. Hsu. Nothing," Lucy said truthfully. She suspected the jeweler already knew the answer was no, but was going through the motions—maybe for Mr. Gomes' sake. She also suspected Stanley Hsu knew exactly what her mail was, and exactly who called her. If Paul had done any of those things and she'd said no ... She didn't think she would have enjoyed that.

  "What are we going to do?" Paul's father aimed the question at Stanley Hsu, not at Lucy.

  The jeweler looked annoyed—not at Lawrence Gomes, but because he had no answer for him. "We're looking," he said. 'That's all I can tell you right now. We are looking. We can do a better job of looking than anyone else in this city. That includes the police and the Feldgendarmerie. We have more eyes than they do, and better eyes. The Kaiser's men and their stooges have to pay bribes. People help us because they want to."

  How true was that? If the Triads asked you to keep an eye out for somebody, would you tell them no? Lucy didn't think that would be smart. The Triads didn't have the law on their side, the way the cops and the Germans did. But they could take revenge that had nothing to do with law. And the Feldgendarmerie had been trying to knock them out ever since Germany conquered the USA. That was a long time ago now, and they hadn't done it yet.

  "If one of us has to be in jail, it should be me," Mr. Gomes said. A father was supposed to say that if he feared his son was in trouble.

  But Stanley Hsu said, "He's not in jail in San Francisco, not with the police and not with the Feldgendarmerie. We would know. I can guarantee that. I don't think he's in jail anywhere else—not unless he left San Francisco on his own. If the Germans or their flunkies have tried to smuggle him out, we would know that."

  He sounded very sure of himself. Lucy believed him, too. She wasn't so sure about Paul's father. "Well, where is he, then?" he exploded. "In the Palace Hotel?"

  Lucy burst out laughing. That was the most ridiculous thing she could imagine. Stanley Hsu gave Mr. Gomes a thin smile. "You are a man of wit, sir."

  "I don't care about wit right now," Paul's father said. "All I care about is getting my son back again."

  "We want the same thing you do," the jeweler said, his voice smooth as glass.

  No, you don't! Lucy wanted to shout it, but she kept quiet. What the Triads wanted to do was get their hands on both people from Curious Notions. Once they had them, they thought they could get answers out of them. Didn't Paul's father see that? But even if he did, what could he do about it? The Triads were his only hope of seeing Paul again. E he didn't play along with them, he had no hope at all.

  "Do you need me for anything else?" Lucy asked Stanley Hsu.

  He shook his head. "No, Miss Woo. I do thank you for stopping by. And if you should hear anything from Paul, please let us know."

  "I will," Lucy said. If I have to, I will. If I think you know anyway, I will. Otherwise? Otherwise, don't hold your breath.

  "It could be very important," Mr. Gomes said.

  "If I have anything to tell, I'll tell it." Lucy was more willing to tell Paul's father than she was to tell Stanley Hsu. She wondered why. Whatever she told Mr. Gomes, the jeweler would find out in short order. She still felt there was a difference. Maybe it was that Mr. Gomes had the right to know about Paul, where Stanley Hsu didn't.

  She was glad to get out of the jewelry shop. The door hadn't quite swung shut before the two men inside started shouting at each other. Lucy wondered what it was all about. She could think of several possibilities. Maybe Mr. Gomes saw more than he'd let on in front of her. She hoped so. He would almost have to, wouldn't he? But the less he showed he knew, the more choices and chances he might have later on. He might give Stanley Hsu a surprise if one of those chances came up.

  Or he mig
ht not. The jeweler was a slick operator. And he wasn't on his own, the way Paul's father was. He had the resources of the Triads behind him. Those resources reached all the way back to China. What could Mr. Gomes put in the scales that would balance them?

  Lucy realized that wasn't just a rhetorical question, as she'd thought at first. The gadgets Curious Notions sold showed that Paul and his father knew things people in this world didn't. That they were able to get from their world to this one showed the same thing. What else did they know that they weren't letting on? Lucy would have bet they had other secrets to use when they needed them. In their shoes, she would have.

  She tried to imagine what some of those secrets might be. She didn't have much luck, and started laughing at herself. They wouldn't be much in the way of secrets if she could figure them out, would they?

  When she got home, her mother said, "You're a little late."

  Lucy shrugged. "I know. I'm sorry. I found out I had to make a stop."

  "Oh." Mother let the word hang in the air. "At the jeweler's?" She didn't give any hints about what she thought of that.

  "Yes, at the jeweler's," Lucy said. "He wanted to know if I had any idea where Paul was. So did Paul's father."

  "I believe that," Mother said. "And do you?"

  "No. I haven't heard from him for a while," Lucy answered.

  Mother didn't say anything for a moment. The knife in her hand flashed, slicing mushrooms almost thin enough to see through. At last, she asked, "Is that good or bad?"

  "I don't know," Lucy said. "I just don't know."

  Living in a luxury hotel was fine for a little while. It might have stayed fine longer if Paul had been able to go out when he wanted to. But Sammy Wong wanted him to sit tight. Paul couldn't blame the man from Crosstime Traffic for that. He understood it. But it made the luxury hotel feel like a luxury jail.

  "Why don't we do something?" Paul asked him. "If the Tongs have my father, why don't we get him away from them? As soon as we do that, we can go to Berlin and get back to the home timeline."