Emperors of Time

by Penn, James Wilson

  “You really think the criminal element of San Francisco is even going to be awake at that time on a Saturday morning?” asked Julie.

  “Well… unless we want to try to head out now and adventure after dark in the Tenderloin, we don’t have any other options. You want to try our luck now after we almost got beat up by a bunch of thirteen year olds?” asked Billy. He said all this without much conviction and with a pretty hefty yawn.

  Nobody came up to the bat for the idea of going out to a rough neighborhood after dark. This was probably a combination of prudence and exhaustion. On Tim’s part, at least, it had a lot to do with the fact that his arm still hurt from where he had been slashed earlier. He had washed the wound out with soap and water that afternoon in the shower, or at least he had tried to, and he was at least hopeful that it wouldn’t get infected. But he certainly didn’t want to get a wound on the other arm to match.

  Billy yawned again and said, “Good, see… We can just try to find something tomorrow morning. If we can’t, we can always live off of Rose’s poker skills for the next couple days.”

  The conversation died at that point, after a half-hearted laugh from everyone and a few quick goodnights. Billy turned out the light and stretched out on the floor between Tim, who was laying beside the bed, and the door.

  The alarm, one of those little ones with a small round clock face and a pair of bells at the top, went off with a spectacularly obnoxious ring at six am.

  The ten hours of sleep had done everyone good, though, and Tim felt better than he had since they had arrived on the twentieth century West Coast. The girls dressed and snuck out of the room and the YMCA grounds as stealthily as they could manage, and no one saw them.

  Meanwhile, the boys managed to make some coffee in the kitchen and take two disposable cups each. Tim hadn’t ever drunk coffee before, except for sporadic sips here and there, but he had a feeling that drinking some this morning might keep his circadian rhythms in check. After all, no matter how good he felt at the moment, it was supposed to be about eight PM for him now, and Tim figured that if there was ever a time when you wanted to stay sharp, it was when you had only three days to solve a mystery on which the fate of the world depended.

  After a quick breakfast of coffee, apples, and bread in the vicinity of the YMCA, the four teens set off back toward the Tenderloin area. It was lucky Billy and Julie seemed to have some kind of innate sense of direction, because Tim had none and probably would have wandered around San Francisco all day before independently discovering the area of the city where they had been the previous morning. As it was, they arrived around eight o’ clock. Now the major challenge was the question of how to find someone for Billy to make his sure bets with.

  Billy had thought hotel lobbies might be a good place to look for people ready to gamble, but after popping into a few hotels where people seemed more concerned with paying their bills and dealing with their luggage than anything else, and where the hotel bars weren’t even open at this hour, they got tired of this approach.

  Then, they walked past a cafe and coffee shop which seemed to be doing a thriving business this morning. To judge by the smells coming out of the storefront, the business seemed to consist mostly of coffee and bacon.

  The smells did not give them any particular reason to believe the cafe was doing any trade of the gambling variety that morning, but it was the biggest congregation of any group of people they had seen.

  “Right,” said Billy, after they had decided that they should try the place. “I’ve been thinking. There’s no real reason to rock the boat on the whole women’s lib issue right now, so maybe it’d be best if it was just Tim and me who deal with gambling. I mean… even thirteen year olds were suspicious at you wanting to gamble.”

  “They weren’t suspicious, just chauvinists,” countered Rose with a huff.

  “Still, he’s right, no reason to choose that battle right now, we have plenty of others to fight,” said Julie. “There’s a produce stand over there, and I’m starting to get bored with apples. What do you say to giving Rose and me twenty cents or so and we go do some shopping?”

  So the boys and the girls parted ways. Tim followed Billy into the diner.

  Tim had to admit he was a bit jealous of how confident Billy seemed as he strode up to the bar to talk to the waiter. Of course, Billy did have a bit more cause to be confident, since he looked a lot better put together than Tim did. Even though he had been able to take the improvised jacket bandage off his lower arm, and the blood on his shirt mostly wasn’t showing with the sleeves rolled up, Tim was aware of looking a little bit ridiculous.

  “Pardon me, sir…” said Billy, once he had gotten the waiter’s attention, “but if someone wanted to make a bet on a football game around here, do you know where they could do it?”

  The waiter looked at them and laughed. He got control of himself and said, “See, and I was just going to say I thought you were too young for me to serve you coffee.”

  Billy stammered unintelligibly. They had assumed they would be able to pass for at least eighteen, but looking around at the other folks in the diner, who were mostly middle aged, they could see how maybe they looked more like the thirteen year olds they had met yesterday than actual adults.

  The waiter grinned and pointed to the end of the bar. “No, don’t worry about it. I’ll let him turn you down himself. There’s a guy over there who has been known to take bets from time to time. Of course, I probably should have checked to make sure that you weren’t police before telling you that.” He chuckled to himself. “But I suppose that during your time at police academy they’d at least have taught you how to grow more than that little bit of peach fuzz. Go ahead, and don’t mind me watching you get rejected, this job leaves me needing some entertainment.”

  Understandably, it was a slightly less confident Billy who made his way over to the man at the end of the bar a moment later, but Tim still let him take the lead.

  “So I was wondering if I could place a bet with you… A couple bets, actually… On some football games?” asked Billy.

  The man was middle aged, about as old Tim’s father. That, however, was where the similarities between this man and Tim’s father ended. This man was wearing a brown hat and suit with a gray five o’clock shadow. He had the kind of face that looked like it had a good bit of practice being hardened, but when he looked at Billy, it softened a bit.

  The man looked at Billy probingly. “Ya know, I ain’t usually the kind of man who looks too hard into the welfare of children, but I’m not sure I feel comfortable taking your money… You guys don’t look particularly well… Did you sleep in your clothes last night?”

  “No, we’re doing all right,” said Billy. Well, okay, he more or less stammered it, not really exuding the coolness he meant to.

  The bet-taker looked at him and began to shake his head when Tim finally jumped in and said what he figured Billy would have said had he had his normal confidence.

  “Listen, sir… we really appreciate your concern, but we’re okay. We can afford to gamble. We’re nineteen and we’re from out of town. Our clothes are a little ruffled because we’re travelling on a budget, only brought one set of clothes each. But the reason we’re here is that Billy’s getting married next week. And yeah, he’s got a bit of a weakness for gambling, but that won’t matter next week because his wife-to-be hates gambling. And we’ve had a rough couple days already… I got in a fight with some guys we were playing poker with and got this little scrape here. No big deal, but not the best way to send my friend here into ‘wedded bliss’, if you know what I mean.”

  The bet-taker seemed to think about this for a moment. Finally, he reached out his hand and said, “Alright, fine. The name’s Richie. You want to bet on some football games today, you say? You certainly didn’t give yourselves too much extra time to fool around here, but let’s go ahead and get acquainted.”

  “Tim,” said Tim, shaking Richie’s hand.

  Billy reached o
ut his hand and introduced himself as well.

  “Now let me tell you how this works. The way I do this, is I take other people’s bets and then give the winners what they win minus a ten percent cut for my troubles. Can you boys operate on those terms?”

  “Sure,” said Billy with a smile. “We can do that. Now, if you tell me what kinds of odds you have, we can get these bets placed before the games start.”

  Billy had told the others they should intentionally lose one or two bets to make sure that nobody got suspicious or angry, but he was still fairly sure he could double their money, or even triple it with little trouble.

  Richie took out a notebook. “I’ll just tell you some big name games.” He looked at the notebook for a moment. “I’ve got about one to one odds on the Missouri-Texas game. Even on Army-Notre Dame, Washington-Oregon and Ohio State-Wisconsin as well. Are there any others you wanted specifically?”

  “No, but what happens if there’s a tie?” asked Billy.

  “I’ve got a couple people on each game betting on a tie. Most people bet for a side to win. If there’s a tie and nobody bets on it, I give the money back to the betters minus ten percent. But if someone bets on the tie, then I give them the money from both sides. Of course, if multiple people bet on a tie, I split the money depending on what they each put in,” said Richie.

  “All right. Well, I’ll bet on Army, Wisconsin, and Missouri. That’s fifty cents each, is that enough of a bet per game? I like to spread my risk,” said Billy.

  “You’re fine. Is that all?” asked Richie.

  “No, I want to bet fifty cents on the Washington-Orgeon game being a tie. And… Is there any way I can bet on what score they’ll tie at? I’ve got a quarter left and a crazy hunch.”

  “Hmmm… I don’t have anybody betting a score on that game. But, you know… since you’re getting ready to get married, I suppose I can think about giving you odds myself on that game. A straight bet, commission free. I’m a gambling man myself, you know.”

  Billy grinned. “Fair enough, sir. Well, I think it’s going to be a tie at zero.”

  Richie scratched his chin. “I’ll give you three against one on that. You know there was a game this year where Oregon won by 97 points, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I know. You don’t think I’m a football fan? But this week the biggest win will go to… hmmm… I’m going to say Penn State.”

  “You got any extra money? I’d give you five against one on that one,” said Richie.

  Billy pulled his change from his pocket. They had spent smaller change on other stuff because they would have felt ridiculous trying to give pennies to a bookmaker, so it was only nickels, dimes, and quarters that he pulled out now. After placing the other bets, it turned out he had ten cents left, which he eagerly placed on the Penn State bet. Tim hoped the girls were making out well at the vegetable market, because they were buying the last food they would eat until they were able to collect the money from the bets.

  Billy seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he said, “So, when will we be able to pick up our money if we win anything?” he asked.

  “Well… the benefit to collecting money upfront is that there’s a pretty quick turnaround. We’ll have to wait for the evening newspaper to come out, of course, but I’ll be at the Palace Hotel from about eight to midnight this evening, they’re having a band play their ballroom. And you see, my wife is okay with gambling, but she does insist that I show her a night out every once in awhile. If you’re there, I can get you any winnings you make discreetly. ‘Course you’re going to want to clean yourself up a little before coming, kid, you look like a mess in that tattered shirt.”

  Tim was pretty impressed that Billy had been able to rattle all his bets off without having any reference. When they got out of the restaurant and started walking over to the girls, Billy pulled his lists of bets from his pocket. After a moment of scanning the page, he wiped the sweat from his brow dramatically. “That’s good… I only lost the bet I meant to. Ohio State’s going to win by a point.”

  Chapter 16

  The Palace

  At eight o’clock that evening, Tim was feeling rather foolish wearing Billy’s jacket. It was quite a bit too big for Tim, although it did at least cover up the fact that Tim’s shirt, as Richie had observed, was looking a bit tattered. Meanwhile, Billy was able to pull off his outfit without a jacket just fine, helped by the fact that his shirt hadn’t been stabbed the day before.

  Predictably, the girls were pretty excited about going to the ballroom. At least, Tim thought it was predictable, and also a little tiresome. Mostly he felt this way because he was sour at this turn of events. He was not good at dancing. At least, that’s what he assumed, given that the last time he had danced was at his cousin’s wedding four years ago, and he didn’t remember being particularly good at it. He had no reason to believe he had gotten better at it since.

  It didn’t take long for them to spot Richie, and the boys decided to approach him when he went into the barroom. Tim had been almost disappointed when they spotted Richie, since as long as they were looking for him, they had been wallflowers at the dance, lurking around in the shadows hoping to get a look at him.

  Actually, Tim had been halfway hoping that they wouldn’t be able to get in, that maybe bouncers would stop them at the door. They were only sixteen and seventeen year olds, and there would definitely be alcohol at this dance. But apparently, they were letting just about anybody into this particular party, although they weren’t going to press their luck by trying to order drinks.

  When Richie saw the two boys, he smiled at them. Tim supposed that since he had only been personally involved in two of the bets Billy had won, he wasn’t all that miffed at him.

  “I think you’re my biggest winner of the day,” said Richie, as he handed them some bills. “Of course, I mean in terms of how many bets you won. In dollar amount, you’re still pretty small potatoes. I have some people who place bets in the hundreds. But you did your fair share of damage with what you bet.”

  Billy smiled. “I told you I had a hunch about Oregon-Washington.”

  “That you did,” agreed Richie. “That was where you made most of your money. Someone else put fifty cents on a tie in that game, so you split the winnings with him, but you still made five bucks on it, plus your side action with me. All told, you’re walking away with nine dollars. You sure your wife won’t let you gamble after next week?”

  “Sadly, no,” said Billy, and shook his head. But the word ‘sadly’ hardly agreed with his facial expression, or the one Tim was wearing as they wrapped up their conversation with Richie and made their way back across the dance floor to the girls. Suddenly they had a few dollar bills in their pockets, and it felt pretty good.

  Part one of their mission had gone pretty well. They would definitely be able to eat until Tuesday and they might even be able to spring for a nicer room than the YMCA for one or two of the nights. Even Tim, who was now increasingly aware that he was probably going to have to try to dance at some point in the very near future was in a good mood.

  The boys found the girls back on the dance floor and, with their work done for the evening, Billy almost immediately swept Rose off to dance. The funny thing was that in spite of the fact that the music was ragtime and the dances were like nothing the teens had ever seen before, Billy picked up enough not to look ridiculous almost immediately. Rose, Tim noticed, looked ridiculous, but seemed to be having a grand old time doing it.

  Tim, on the other hand, as he looked away from Rose and Billy and toward Julie, was standing almost still, except for the occasional shifting of his weight from one foot to the other.

  Julie looked at Tim sternly and said, “Oh, come on. Stop looking uncomfortable. We are in a ballroom in the 1910s. This is literally a once in a lifetime experience, and you had better have a good time.”

  Tim stammered something unintelligible about how he was no good at dancing.

  Julie grinned. “Okay, I was
just joking. You don’t have to have a good time. But if you just relaxed and had fun, you’d… ya know… have more fun.” She smiled.

  Tim grinned back in spite of himself. Julie’s smile had always made him feel kind of warm inside. “Can’t argue with that logic, I guess,” he said with a shrug.

  “Good!” she said chirpily. “So, listen… as a girl, I was born with the natural ability to dance.”

  Tim glanced over at some of the moves that Rose was pulling off.

  “Okay, well, maybe not all girls are born with it,” acknowledged Julie. “Although I do have a natural sense of rhythm. But, it’s looking to me like the idea with the fast dances is almost just raucous movement. Follow what everybody else is doing, and just remember that a slow dance can’t be that far off.”

  It looked to Tim like it was a bit more than just random raucous movement, but he tried to copy some of the exaggerated motions that those around him were making, most specifically trying to do what Julie was doing. After all, he was looking at her anyway. And looking at Julie was pleasant enough, in Tim’s opinion, to make up for the unpleasantness of this whole dancing experience more generally.

  Julie was right to think that a slow dance was coming, though, as the next song happened to be one. Tim had no particular idea what to do for a slow dance, either.

  Julie seemed to read this in his face and winked at him, “It’s okay. Just follow my lead… Er, well, actually you’ll be leading, ’cause you’re the man and that’s how it works. But I’ll kind of lead you as you lead me.”

  “What?” asked Tim, as Julie placed his hands where they were supposed to go… one hand on her hip and the other in her hand.

  “Just relax,” Julie instructed with a smile, and once again, her smile helped him along with that. He still had little or no idea what he was supposed to be doing. Still, by watching people around him and generally doing what Julie did, he caught enough of it that no random observer would have noticed that he was not only a bad dancer, but also from a different century.