A Matter of Time

by Glen Cook

  “Norm?”

  “Huh? Oh. Sorry. Funny. I keep getting these flashbacks to the war. It’s almost like I’m living it over again.”

  “You’d better get ahold of yourself.”

  “I know. I know. I almost had a wreck today. I still don’t know what to do.”

  “There isn’t a whole lot you can. You just go see Hank. Before you do anything.”

  “I told you, I’m not going in there again. Not without an army, anyway. You’ve got me wrong if you think I’m a hero.”

  Le Quyen appeared from the kitchen with a hot cup of tea, which she offered shyly.

  “Thank you, Le Quyen. This’ll help.” And a few sips did. “That reminds me. I invited Beth Tavares over for supper. Been working her pretty hard. Thought that might help make it up.”

  “Maybe. She’d probably appreciate a dinner out more.”

  “You think so? Would you mind?”

  “No. Why should I?”

  Because she had Monday, when first he had mentioned it. Very much. He didn’t comment on her reversal, though. Over the years he had grown accustomed to her inconsistencies, however much they confused him.

  “Okay. You’re probably right. I’ll talk to her. Poor girl. She’s put up with a lot this week.”

  “I think you better go talk to Hank.”

  “I know. I’m stalling. What the hell’s all that racket?”

  Tran’s sons sped outside. Quang returned long enough to announce, “Fire trucks.” He dashed up the street.

  It was Dr. Smiley’s house, at the west end of the block. The one with the junglelike yard. It looked like a bad fire.

  It was the first fire on the block since Cash had moved in.

  “Hope he saves his sweaters,” Annie observed laconically. “What would he do if he had to go around out of uniform?”

  Cash chuckled. Other than for the wilderness state of his yard, Dr. Smiley was known for wearing sweater on sweater, year round, all of them in shades of navy blue.

  “Maybe you should see if he needs anything,” Cash suggested. The man wasn’t a friend, but they had known him for nearly thirty years.

  Cash headed for his confrontation with Lieutenant Railsback.

  The urge to put it off was so powerful that he drove himself straight into Hank’s office. Beth tried to stop him, but he ignored her completely. This had to be done before his nerve collapsed.

  “Christ, Norm, what’s up? You look like hell.”

  “I feel like it. I fucked up. I mean all-time, royally, chocolate-covered, in spades fucked up.”

  Railsback slid around his desk and gently closed the office door. “Bad?”

  “The worst. For all of us. The whole department, maybe. But especially for me. And John.” He told it all at a machine-gun pace.

  Hank surprised him by not blowing up. Beyond agreeing, “You’re right. You screwed up like a grand champion.”

  But Railsback could be that way. When it was too late, when the situation was too serious for yelling, he sometimes didn’t.

  “Dad!”

  Cash had to repeat it all for Hank’s father.

  “You gotta go in after him,” the older man told them.

  “I know that,” Hank replied. “What I’m wondering is how we can cover ourselves.”

  “Say you went in after a burglar reported by an anonymous caller. I’ll go over to the liquor store and make the call.”

  “That won’t mean shit if the inspector’s office starts digging.” He was furious behind the calm exterior. There would be hell to pay later. “The first question will be how come Homicide responded to a B-and-E.”

  Cash stared at the worn oak flooring, tracing the dirt-filled cracks. Why hadn’t he let go of this thing?

  John. Gone!...

  “You ain’t got no choice.”

  “I know, Dad. I know.” Railsback opened the door. “Tavares! Smith! Tucholski! In here!”

  Once they arrived, packing the room painfully tight, till body heat and increased humidity made the place a torture chamber, Railsback explained. “Our idiot friend here, the ghost hunter, the flying saucer man, the part-time time traveler, has managed to lose his partner in his favorite haunted house. We’re going in after him. And you ain’t telling nobody anything about it, not now, not never, unless you get my say-so. It ain’t going to be legal, and so I mean nobody, or I’ll cut your hearts out and have them on my Wheaties with brown sugar. Do I make myself clear?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Good. Tavares, call downstairs for a couple extra shotguns; tear gas; handy-talkies; vests; the works. Tucholski, you, Smith, and Dad will take the backdoor. Me, Norm, and Beth will go in from the front.”

  “Me, too?” Beth asked from the doorway. She had not yet been permitted into the field, though technically she was a detective in training. Railsback was that kind of boss. Had she had any gumption, she could have forced him to stop using her as a secretary.

  “You heard me. This’s a family matter.... Cash!”

  “Eh? Sir?”

  “Where’s your piece?”

  He had to think about it. Contrary to regulations, he almost never carried his weapon. Though there was the riot gun in the trunk of his cruise car....

  “In my desk.”

  “You’ll carry it today. And every day from here on in. Hear this, everybody. This’s going to be a model squad room starting now. When the inspector’s office gets onto our case they aren’t going to find a thing. I make myself clear?”

  He didn’t make them sign in blood, but the thought was there.

  There were problems with the equipment, but Railsback lied and bluffed. In ten minutes they were moving, a car for each group. Cash drove and kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t about to antagonize Railsback. Not even by observing that his having deputized his father was outright illegal.

  Smoke hung heavy over the neighborhood. “Looks like that fire is a real bitch kitty,” said Cash.

  “Don’t want to wish anybody misery,” Hank replied, “but it’ll help. Everybody for blocks will be over there rubbernecking.”

  Cash parked. Hank was right. There wasn’t a soul on the street.

  “That the place, Norm?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Spooky,” said Beth.

  They donned protective vests.

  “Me and Norm will go in,” said Railsback. “You hang on at the door, Beth. And for God’s sake holler if you have to.” He handed Cash a shotgun.

  The fear was there again.

  Beth checked her service revolver, a little frightened, a lot awed. Hank used a handy-talkie to tell Smith and Tucholski to break in the back simultaneously, leaving his father to guard the rear.

  When everyone was in position, Railsback ordered, “Go!”

  Both doors were unlocked.

  Cash went in first, low, just like in training. Hank whirled in behind him.

  Norm hadn’t known what to expect. Anything but what they did find, which was a whole lot of nothing and no one on the ground floor.

  “Smith, watch the stairs. Tucholski, cover us from the basement door while we go down.”

  Nothing again.

  “Okay, we go up.”

  The second floor looked as though it had just been cleaned for the benefit of company. Gone were the bits of dust Cash had spotted during his previous visit. Hank looked puzzled. Cash’s fear began welling up anew. It was too late. Way too late for John....

  “Third floor now. Be damned careful.”

  Cash began shaking. Once again he crouched in a dark and dusty corner while Death stalked him across a cruel French December morning....

  He didn’t know he had fired till Hank grabbed the shotgun. “What the fuck’s the matter with you?”

  Feet pounded up the stairs.

  Smith shoved past, hurtled into the room ahead, yanked curtains aside. “Ah, shit. A cat. You of fed a goddamned cat, Norm.”

  Old Tom, Miss Groloch’s sidekick, was splattered all
over the bronze-flowered wallpaper.

  Cash threw up.

  What else could he do to screw up?

  “Hey, you guys,” Beth called from below. “You all right? Come on down.”

  “What’re you doing in here?” Railsback demanded. “Get back down there and see if anybody heard that shot.”

  “We’ve got an emergency call.”

  “Nothing in the attic,” Tucholski reported. “Looks like she’s cleared out. Took the body with her.”

  “We’d better get out too. Hope nobody’s noticed us yet.”

  That would be too good to be true, Cash thought.

  “What is it, Beth?” Railsback demanded.

  “Dispatcher called. They want us at that fire. They turned up some bodies, and the fire department says it looks like arson.”

  “Bodies?” Cash asked, finally calm enough to talk and think. “Doc Smiley lived by himself. Didn’t have any relatives or anything.”

  “Another one?” Smith asked.

  “Another what?”

  “Old loner.”

  “Naw. This guy was weird, but he was okay. A doctor.

  Refugee. Came over from Europe someplace when the Russians took over.... Hmmm.”

  “What is it?” Railsback asked.

  “Just wondering if there is a connection. The old lady disappears just when Smiley’s house burns down.... Nan, couldn’t be. That’s too far out. She was a lot older than him. Been here eighty years longer....”

  “Worry about it later. Let’s show over there before somebody starts wondering what we’re up to. Hey, Dad. Come here a minute.” He had everyone turn in their raid gear. “Put that stuff in Tucholski’s car, then move it around front. Then keep an eye on the place till we get back. Let’s go, you guys. We might as well walk. We won’t get a parking place much closer.”

  He was right. The fire-chasers had parked up everything from Russell on south.

  It was bad.

  The firemen were still hosing the rubble to cool it. Though most of the brickwork remained standing, the house was a complete loss.

  The battalion chief led them around to a basement entrance his men had wrecked. “In there.”

  Half the wooden parts of the structure had collapsed into the basement, carrying with them furnishings from all three floors. Charred floor joists and wall studs lay tangled like giant pickup sticks. Smoke and steam still rose, and the bricks still held a lot of heat. A man couldn’t spend much time close enough to look inside.

  There had been cities in Germany and France that had looked like this.

  Had Cash not thrown up already, he would have now. Smith did. Iron-gut Tucholski, who claimed to have seen it all, gagged. Hank refused to let Beth close enough to see.

  Parts of two bodies, burned till little but steaming skeletons remained, protruded from beneath the wreckage. One seemed to be that of a child.

  “Smell’s enough to gag a maggot,” Hank observed. He held a wet handerchief over his face. To the battalion chief, “How long before you can start digging them out?”

  “Going to be a couple hours before we’re sure it’s cool enough, and that it won’t flare up again. And we’ll have to scare up a crane.... Jesus, it’s going to be a job. Somebody really torched it. Whole place must’ve been soaked down with gas, it went up so fast. We’re just lucky this was a corner lot and the one next door was vacant.”

  “You sure it was arson?”

  “Positive. Smell the gas?”

  Railsback sniffed. So did Cash. Both wrinkled their noses. The stench of burnt flesh seemed to override all other odors. “Must take a trained sniffer,” Cash gasped.

  A creak and groan came from above. A half-dozen rafters plunged into the basement, kicking up a cloud of ash.

  “Back!” someone shouted. “Get back! The whole damned thing’s going.”

  He was wrong. It was just a chimney, but the crash was enough to scatter the crowd. Hose teams rushed to soak live coals exposed by the falling bricks.

  “Better keep your people back, Lieutenant,” said the battalion chief. “The whole thing might collapse. Or we might not have the natural gas all the way off.... Wish the tourists would go home.”

  Cash thought they were well behaved. Awe seemed to have held all but the boldest at a safe distance. The youngsters were the troublesome ones.

  He and the other officers formed a little skirmish line clique before the ruin, staying out of the fire department’s way, asking neighbors their opinions about what had happened. More police, hospital, and civil defense types kept showing up. The arson squad descended like a swarm of locusts.

  Ten o’clock came. Railsback and Cash were still there. Annie, Tran, and Tran’s sons had done yeoman service running coffee and sandwiches. Tran had even pitched in to help excavate the bodies. The work didn’t seem to bother him. Plenty of practice, Cash supposed.

  There were four of them. Not enough remained to tell much just by looking, but they seemed, by size, to have been young.

  “You know,” said Railsback, “I’ll bet they’re the ones who started it. I been talking to people. They say this Smiley was always having trouble with kids. They might’ve been going to show him with a little fire that got out of control and trapped them.”

  “Yeah? Where’s all the mothers crying, ‘Oh my baby?’ The only trouble he had was kids using his yard for a shortcut.”

  “What kind of guy was he?” Hank asked, watching the last plastic bag disappear into the last ambulance.

  “I don’t know. What do you mean? I knew him for thirty years, but not very well. He was a private sort of guy. Saw him more at the neighborhood association meetings than any other time.”

  “I just wondered. Can’t tell what it was anymore, but he had a lot of strange stuff in his basement.”

  Cash shrugged. He hadn’t noticed. But he hadn’t done much looking. “He says he was a doctor in the old country. I don’t think he ever practiced here. Never did anything but hang around his house and go to stamp-club meetings. He was some kind of expert on rare stamps. The whole third floor of his house was filled with stamp albums and books about stamps. Like to drove me crazy talking about it the one time I went over there.”

  “You see anything strange?”

  “No. Except for the stamp collections the house was the same as any other place on the street. I never went in the basement, though.”

  “Hospital-type stuff. Yeah. That’s what it was.”

  “Now you mention it...” The basement had looked a lot like a ruined intensive care ward.

  “Think he might have been in the abortion business before it was legal?”

  “Without us ever getting a hint?”

  Railsback shrugged. “I’ll believe anything anymore. Not much we can do here now. Shit! I forgot about the Old Man. Smith or Tucholski say anything about taking him in?”

  “I don’t think so.” Cash was too tired to think. And he still had to go back to the station for his own car. He handed Hank the keys to the police vehicle. “Why don’t you get the car, check on your dad, then pick up me and Beth at my house?” Beth had fled thither after her first glimpse of a burned corpse.

  “Okay.”

  As Cash strolled homeward with Tran, the major asked, “What became of your partner? His wife and your daughter-in-law were at your house when I returned from work. They were upset.”

  “Oh, I don’t need that.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I’m wiped out. I don’t think I can cope with Carrie tonight.” He quickly explained what he and John had done, and that John had vanished. Just like O’Brien, four hoods, and a twelve-year-old detective.

  “And now the woman’s disappeared too?”

  “Slick. But I got a good idea where she went. Hank gives me fifteen minutes tomorrow, I’ll find out for sure. She’s got a brother or uncle or something in New York that she doesn’t know we know about. She’ll go there.”

  Annie had managed to get rid of Carrie and Nancy s
omehow. He didn’t ask, just collapsed into a chair and listened bemusedly to Beth and Le Quyen, who were carrying on an animated conversation. Friday would be another along day, and during it he would have to tell Carrie the truth.

  And Teri, too.

  His life was closing in. His job was polluting it, and he was losing his zest.

  He didn’t get to bed till one, and then only with Hank’s hard, “Be in bright and early, Cash!” still ringing in his ears.

  XXII

  On the Z Axis;

  1969-1973;

  Huang’s Academy

  Michael had been there for two years. His teachers had succeeded. He now could not remember ever having been anything but a Maoist. Once, maybe, an unawakened Maoist. But never an enemy of the people. It had been his awakening social conscience that had driven him to enlist in the imperialist army. So he could learn its ways against the day the Revolution came.

  He could scarcely wait for the war’s end. He dreamed of carrying the truth to family and friends.

  He gloried in having been the first American graduate student, and the first of his class chosen to instruct his countrymen. He was now the official greeter of new classes, and one of the senior American staffers. From his humble beginnings here he might one day rise to command an army of liberation.

  There wee signs that the potential had begun to develop at home. The marches, the excitement at last summer’s Democratic Party National Convention, seemed so promising. It was time for a man, an American Mao or Ho.

  Michael believed Huang was grooming him for big things.

  The school had a name so typically, so Chinese communistically, hyperbolic that Michael found it embarrassing to repeat. In English it came out resembling: Institute of Imperialist Recidivist Reeducation for the Purpose of the Establishment of a Peace-Loving People’s Guided Democratic Republic of the United States of America. It sounded better in Chinese.

  Michael suspected that the director himself found the name both tedious and ludicrous and had chosen it in hopes the fascist intelligence agencies would discount it as a fraud or red herring.