“You know there’s no one up there at night, right?”
“Oh sure,” I said. “I just want to get a look around.”
“You’re not going to have me wait there, too, are you? I just got a call for another fare to pick up in fifteen minutes.”
“No, that’s fine. I won’t be needing another ride tonight.”
When she pulled up to the entrance to the dark parking lot, I checked the meter and handed her another silver dollar. Like the waitress in the diner, the cabbie scrutinized the coin, probably to make sure it wasn’t foreign currency. But then, unlike the waitress, she pocketed it without question and started to make change.
“Keep it,” I said, realizing the tip was generous. “I appreciate your discretion.”
She said nothing to this, just popped the door for me again. Moments later, I was alone in the dark once more, the hills that had formed Chavez Ravine looming in the night beyond the nearby fence. Somewhere in there was at least one night watchman, whom I had to hope was no longer on high alert for intruders.
I had broken out of the place, after all. What would possess a trespasser to break in again after so narrowly escaping? If my luck held, the guard would have considered our earlier encounter as the height of excitement for the night and wouldn’t be counting on more. What would be the odds of two intruders in one night, after all?
I tucked the section of newspaper from the diner under my arm and checked my watch. Guillermo would be opening the gateway in twenty-five minutes, which meant I had thirty-five minutes to get to the other side before he closed it again. Judging how quickly I’d been able to get out of the stadium earlier, I figured there was plenty of time.
It made more sense to go slowly and work at avoiding the night watchman rather than make a quick run at the desired office closer to the last minute, so I approached the fence at its far edge where the parking lot was darkest and closest to the walls of the stadium. I waited there for a solid minute, listening for any sign of the guard on the other side of the fence. When I was satisfied that my movements hadn’t been detected yet, I rolled the newspaper into a tube and poked it through to the other side. Then I reached for the top of the fence and hoisted myself up.
This time, I wasn’t racing to avoid capture, so I swung over the top, paused there for a moment, and then worked my way down the other side, letting myself drop only the last foot or so. Crouching at the base of the fence, I turned and gave another listen—still nothing.
All right, then, I thought, daring to let myself picture the guard napping in an office. It would be just my luck that he’d choose the office I needed for his evening snooze.
I picked up the paper and got moving, and it felt like I was back in Europe, dodging open spaces that would make me vulnerable not to Nazi snipers but to the guard’s vision. Staying low to the ground and hugging a wall, I was soon in the wide-open space of the rocketball field where I paused, my back to the wall, to check for signs of movement again. Hearing none, I made for the opening to the locker room where I’d emerged earlier. Once inside, I took a moment to catch my breath and let my eyes adjust to the greater darkness indoors, no longer able to count on the moonlight to help me find my way without turning on Guillermo’s flashlight.
All was still quiet, so once I was able to make out the doorway on the other side of the locker room, I went in that direction, keeping one hand on the row of lockers and hoping I wasn’t so far from the wall that I’d bang my shin on the bench. I made it to the door without a problem and passed through it.
Now I was in complete darkness and could see nothing, there being no opening at all to the night sky as there had been in the locker room. With everything still seeming secure, I figured I could take a chance on the flashlight, but once I did that, I knew I’d be dependent on it until I was in the office I was after. There would be no way for my eyes to adjust to the dark after the little lightbulb lit up the corridor before me.
So, I opted to stay in the dark, again using my hand to guide me down the hallway. Now, however, I started having doubts. Earlier, I had taken note of the office door I’d exited from, but when I’d entered this hallway, I hadn’t looked to see if that first hallway had had any sort of designation. And now I was traveling back toward that door in the darkness, but in a hallway of many doors. Which was the right one?
I was after the office labeled 4-6W. Guessing that the first number designated the hallway and the second number the office itself, I figured I should try the fourth door and then turn on the flashlight to check the numbers on the first office door I came to.
Finding the fourth doorknob, I took a deep breath and turned it, stepping into the hallway and closing the door with almost no click of the knob behind me. Then I pulled out the flashlight and switched it on, halfway to raising it up to shine the light on the door in front of me.
And that was when a door halfway down the hallway opened. A bigger flashlight beam than mine shone out of the doorway, and a second later the night watchman emerged.
I didn’t bother turning off my light, just turned and flung open the door I’d just closed so silently.
“Hey!” the guard shouted at my back, and I heard his rapid footsteps approaching.
I slammed the door behind me, grateful at least that the guard was on foot this time rather than his hoverboard, and started running back toward the locker room. Halfway down the hallway, I heard the door open behind me, but I kept going even as the guard shouted again. I gritted my teeth, expecting to hear the sound of a gun going off, but all I got were more footsteps.
Maybe he was unarmed, and maybe he was gun shy. It didn’t matter. I kept running.
Through the locker room I went, shutting off the flashlight as I got to the opening to the stadium. Behind me were more footsteps, but I felt like I was gaining ground on the guard. Even so, I didn’t dare look back as I ran across the open expanse of what should have been the neighborhood of Chavez Ravine.
There was another locker room on the other side of the field, and I flew into it, still not daring to look back at my pursuer. I raced through, using the flashlight to keep myself from crashing into anything, and then tore through the door on the other side.
Somewhere along the way, I lost the newspaper. Guillermo would have to settle for my reporting instead.
This side of the stadium’s labyrinth of rooms seemed to be laid out the same as the side I’d been on moments before, so I raced down the hallway and opened the first door I came to. Shutting the door behind me, I was about to kill the flashlight when I saw the door in front of me was marked 1-1W.
Why is this one a W, too? I wondered as I switched off the light and was lost to the darkness.
I heard the guard enter the hallway that I had just exited, his footfalls racing and then stopping. Picturing him out there, staring down the hallway with his flashlight in his hand and trying to decide where I’d gone, I realized in a flash what I had done.
Damn it! I thought as I pictured my return to the stadium. I had somehow let myself get turned around—maybe because of the darkness, maybe because the adrenaline from being chased earlier had caused me to encode a mirror image of the stadium in my memory. Either way, I had gone to the east side locker room and the east side offices beyond it. That was where the guard had found me.
If I’d gone in the right direction in the first place, he never would have seen me.
And now I was three hallways away from the portal—which might be opened right now.
Between me and my goal was a watchman whose night I had already ruined. Simply talking him into letting me go wasn’t an option.
I put my hand lightly on the knob of the door to the hallway, not putting any pressure on it, just touching it so I could tell when it started to turn. At the same time, I leaned close to the door, hoping I could hear the guard’s footsteps in the hallway. There was a chance he would decide that I had run all the way to the end of corridor and disappeared out the other side. In that case, all I had to
do was wait for the sound of footsteps growing faint and the latching of a distant door. It would be one thing that had gone right.
The doorknob moved under my fingers. I wasn’t going to get a break.
Stepping back so that I’d be behind the door when it swung open, I dropped the flashlight into my coat pocket and put my hands up, ready.
The door opened slowly. No light came into the corridor. The watchman had killed his torch to keep me from being able to see him, but now he couldn’t see me either. I could picture the guard inches away, peering into the blackness of the corridor and trying to sense me there.
Leave, I thought. Give up.
He did neither. I felt the door moving against my arm, swinging all the way open. And then I caught the slight sound of his shoe on the tile floor. I could hear him breathing, something I wasn’t doing at the moment.
When I could wait no longer, I grabbed the edge of the door and slammed it into the guard. It would have been nice if I could have caught him in the forehead or the chin with it, knocking him out with its sharp edge. But that didn’t work out either.
The door caught him in the torso, maybe the shoulder. He let out an “Ooof” and a shout, and then I was on him, striking out in the dark and making contact with his face. It wasn’t enough. The guard came at me with the shoulder I’d probably just hit with the door. He slammed me against the wall, and I was ready for his fist to find me in the dark. When it didn’t come immediately, I ducked and at the same time heard something slam against the wall just above me—right where my head had just been.
His flashlight, I thought.
If he guessed that I had ducked, then he would bring it down on my head or neck in another second—which was all the time I needed to throw a punch from my squatting position. It hit him right where I wanted, in the crotch, and I felt him double over above me. From there, it was easy to wrestle the flashlight out of his hands as I drew myself up over him, and then I swung the heavy light downwards, feeling it connect with a satisfying thump.
The guard hit the floor at my feet, groaning.
I switched on the light and gave him a look. There was no blood, but he’d have a nasty bump in no time at all. His eyes were open, but they didn’t focus on me or the light.
“Sorry, pal,” I said. “You should have checked a different door.”
I turned my attention to his belt and saw no gun, just handcuffs and a nightstick. That was a relief.
Then I checked my watch. It was three minutes after the hour. I had two minutes to make it to the portal, which meant no time to cuff the guard in case I didn’t make it.
I ran. Using his flashlight now, I bolted to the fourth hallway, opened the door and ran to the sixth office. 4-6W it said on the door.
Throwing open the door, I saw the glowing oval of the portal. I’d swear it was fading at the edges, but that might just have been my imagination or general pessimism. Either way, I ignored what looked like a bad situation and leapt for the opening, only letting myself wonder after I’d committed to the move what would happen if only part of me made it through the portal before it closed.
I was back in Guillermo’s living room, falling to the floor from the momentum of my leap. The old man was standing next to the machine. Carmelita and Osvaldo were sitting on the couch, and they both jumped to their feet, still holding hands. Perdida barked.
“Shut it,” I said to Guillermo, who nodded, and seconds later the ring of lights faded out.
“Welcome back,” Carmelita said as she extended a hand to help me up.
Guillermo was at my side. “Are you all right, lobo?”
I let go of Carmelita’s hand and gave myself a little survey. My shoulder hurt from my earlier tumble off the fence, and my heart was racing. Otherwise, I seemed all right.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. All in one piece.”
He surprised me then by reaching for my arm and searching for my pulse.
“What gives?” I asked.
“I just want to make sure you’re all right.”
“Trust me, Guillermo,” I said, pulling my wrist away maybe a bit too sharply. “I’m fine. Honestly.”
“What happened?” he asked.
“What was it like over there?” Carmelita inquired at the same time.
I could see a light in her eyes—both of them—that I didn’t care for, an eagerness that her slightly misshapen face somehow magnified. Carmelita wanted to cross over with me. Or possibly without me. It was something I was going to have to put a stop to, I realized.
One more problem.
It had been a long day.
Chapter Eight
Tuesday morning, I let myself sleep in all the way to 8:30. I figured I owed myself after the Monday I’d had, which had gone well into Tuesday morning with Guillermo grilling me for every detail I could recall about the world I’d visited. He had been especially interested in Jetpack Jed and his whole story, asking question after question, most of which I couldn’t answer. His concern for me had not seemed to ebb, no matter how normally I behaved or how much I tried to reassure him.
The plan as we had left it was for me to return to Chavez Ravine around five this afternoon for another foray into the other world. I had gotten some good information but that was all. The time had come to start hunting Elsa Schwartz in earnest.
Until then, I had other work to do.
I got up, showered, dressed and ate, calling Peggy somewhere in that process to let her know I’d be a little late and to see how much more she’d gotten accomplished on the list of Katrina Mulligan’s friends and associates.
“The list is almost done,” she said, her tone overly pleasant. “I’ll bet if you get to the office late enough, it might be all done by then. You want to take the rest of the morning off?”
I smiled at her ribbing and said, “Thanks, Boss. But I’ll be in. I promise.”
Carmelita walked into the kitchen as I hung up the phone. She wore a smart business suit—black and white skirt with a matching blouse. This was not something I’d seen her do since before Elsa’s attack. Her black hair, I saw, had also been combed a little differently so that it partly covered the left side of her face. If I looked closely, I could see the asymmetry around her newly repaired eye and cheek, but I doubted a casual observer would pick up on it.
“You look nice,” I said, hoping my tone left a bit of a question in the air as to the reason for her appearance.
“Thank you,” she said and that was all. She either hadn’t taken the bait or hadn’t been able to process that there was bait to be taken. Not for the first time, I wondered if that accounted at least partly for her connection to Osvaldo: neither one was good at picking up subtleties from the people who were interacting with them. Carmelita had the art more closely mastered, but there were still times—like this one—where she missed a big chunk of unspoken meaning.
So, not seeing a choice, I asked her directly. “Is there a reason you’re dressed so nicely this morning?”
“I think it’s time I went back to work, don’t you?”
“Well…sure, I suppose. There’s not a lot of work to be done right now, though. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go back to Guillermo’s and keep working on your repairs?”
“No. It’s fine. My repairs need to be field tested for a while before I do anything else.” She paused a moment and then said, “Tell me…does Peggy know?”
“About?”
“Me. I mean, really about me.”
“That you’re…”
“Not human.”
I smiled. It was a relief to have the secret out, to not have to continually protect Carmelita from the truth about herself. I was just sorry the revelation had come at such a cost. “I hope you don’t mind, but yes, she does.”
“That’s all right.” She half-turned away and then looked back, one perfect eyebrow raised above her good eye. “When did she find out?”
I looked away and then back again, embarrassed. Then I told her the truth. �
��Right after the two of you met. She didn’t believe it at first, but I convinced her.”
“And she kept it from me?”
“Yes. Does that make you angry?”
She was silent for a moment. “No. Actually, it’s quite impressive. I’ll have to compliment her on her success at keeping the charade going.”
“Guillermo thought it was for your own good, you know. He said it was part of your programming and—”
“I know, Jed. He explained it all to me that night. You don’t have to feel bad.”
“Thanks,” I said, and I really was grateful to still be in my robot assistant’s good graces.
I finished eating and we left the house, making the drive to Broadway in about twenty minutes. Up in the third-floor office, I collected the list of addresses from Peggy and went into my inner space to look them over while Peggy and Carmelita chatted. I closed the door, not deeply interested in the reunion.
With a street map spread across my desktop, I started plotting out the locations Peggy had found. There was still the Beverly Hills address she’d given me the day before along with four more addresses closer to downtown and one over the hill in Studio City.
The day before, Sherise and I had agreed to meet for a late lunch at a café in Hollywood at two o’clock.
Now I had to consider how many of these addresses—and which ones—I could get to and still have time to make it to lunch. I decided on the addresses closer to the office. If they went quickly, I could take care of all four and still be in Hollywood by two. After that, I could head over to Studio City and be back to Chavez Ravine by five. That would just leave the Beverly Hills address for tomorrow, along with the few remaining names Peggy had not yet been able to grab addresses for. All of this, of course, was based on the assumption that I wouldn’t get anywhere with the interviews. If a good lead turned up, however, I would change course and follow that instead. Either way, I’d have something to report to Imelda by tomorrow afternoon.
The Jetpack Boogie: A Dieselpunk Adventure (The Crossover Case Files Book 4) Page 8