Portals in Time 2

by Michael Beals

  “That’s fine. I can always give you one of mine, if we get into trouble.”

  Standing up, she looked at Giselle. “Are you ready for this?”

  Giselle stared at her. “You’d better come back, Kat Wolfram. I’ve got used to having you around.” She looked at Dore. “You too, Jock. Hell would be a lonely place without you.”

  Dore put a muscly arm around her dainty shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. “Dinna worry, Lass. I’ll be back. Ye’ll no get rid o me that easily.”

  Kat took a deep breath and handed him the artifact, which looked suddenly small in his large hands. “All you have to do is press Go. But wait until I’m holding you.” Stepping in front of him, she opened his jacket and wrapped her arms around his chest until the twin Pythons were hard up against her shoulders. “I’m ready when you are.”

  He seemed to think about it for a moment, and then he wrapped his arms around her and tensed. “Are you really ready?”

  “I’m really ready,” she hissed. “Press the damn button before I wet myself.”

  For a moment, nothing happened. Kat felt Dore’s arms twitch as he pressed the button, but the Apartment’s living room stayed solidly in place. And then she heard a distant swishing sound, and the room seemed to darken. Something flashed behind her eyes, and then the air seemed to be sucked out of her lungs as whirling gusts of wind tore at her dress. There was a loud shrieking of metal on metal, followed by a strange tinkling sound that seemed to echo, as if a glass had been dropped somewhere in the distance. They were not in the apartment anymore, but they weren’t on Earth either. It was as if they were sinking into a spinning vortex. And then, quite suddenly, she felt the light change. At first, it made no sense, but then she realized, her eyes were closed.

  Jerking her head around, she opened her eyes, but all she could see were streaks of light. It felt as if they were falling, but as she searched her surroundings, the light seemed to grow, and suddenly trees and patches of grass began to materialize. It was like a surreal jigsaw puzzle gradually fitting itself together, Dore’s heartbeat thudding in her ears. She started to smell things, a bizarre mixture of horse manure and flowers. Someone called out, and then the tinkling sound of a girl’s laughter, the warmth of sunlight on her shoulders. And suddenly, they were standing on a grassy lawn, they could see children running around, and women pushing prams. They were standing beneath an old oak tree, its leaves drooping in the summer heat.

  They had arrived.

  CHAPTER THREE

  T here was something magical about the scene Kat was gazing at. She stepped off the grassy area and was standing on a sandy sidewalk between the park and the road. On the other side of the road, a row of pink, four-story apartments glowed in the sunshine, their windows shaded by canvas awnings. There was a row of horse-drawn Hansom cabs standing at the curb, the occasional horse stamping its foot, behatted drivers bored and waiting for fares. Two young women were walking towards her in the dappled sunlight. They were wearing long summer dresses with wide lace collars that covered their shoulders. The shorter woman wore a bow-shaped hat and was chatting to the taller woman, while the taller woman stared at Kat in astonishment. She looked away, and tried to act normally when Kat turned to her.

  And then the shorter of the young women noticed Dore and began staring at him. It was hardly surprising; he cut a dashing figure in his riding boots and English hunting jacket. In fact, the whole scene reminded her of Paris on a summer’s day. It was an extraordinary scene.

  She turned to Dore. “You okay?”

  “This is unbelievable,” he gasped. “That lass smiled at me, which means we’re real. We’re supposed to be dead, but people can see us.”

  “I know. It’s freaky… What shall we do? I feel like walking in the park and buying ice cream.”

  Dore laughed. “If we come across an ice-cream vendor, it’ll be my treat. So, how on earth are we ever going to find Grantham?”

  “I don’t know, Jock. Now that we’re here, it’s a bit daunting. Shall we take a cab and look around? I’d like to get my bearings.”

  “Good idea.”

  Walking to the head of the line of Hansom cabs, they called up to the leading driver. He was somewhere in his forties, had a handlebar mustache, and like the other drivers, was wearing a top hat.

  “How much to Lower Manhattan!” Dore called.

  “Lower Manhattan?” the driver replied. “That’s quite a way, Mister.”

  “I know it is. How much?”

  “There and back?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The driver removed his hat and scratched his head. “For the two of you, it’s forty cents a mile. Lower Manhattan’s five miles. That’d be four dollars, there and back.”

  Dore didn’t have any one-dollar bills. The smallest bill he carried was five dollars. “That’s fine. Will you take five dollars for a slow trip?”

  “How slow are we talking about?”

  “We’re just looking around,” Dore replied, opening the door for Kat to climb in. “Can we go down 6th Avenue?”

  “Sure thing, Mister. Climb aboard.”

  The Hansom cab set off at a trot. He wasn’t the only cab on the road, and they were soon following other Hansom cabs as they worked their way round to the southern end of the park. The road surface seemed to be mainly cobblestones or wooden blocks, but the ride was surprisingly smooth. They passed more women in long dresses, men in different style hats such as bowlers, straw, and top, and when they reached Sixth Avenue, the sidewalks became crowded. People were crossing the road in groups, dodging between the chaotic rumble of horse-drawn carts, carriages, and the many Hansom cabs. Miraculously, no one was run over.

  “Jesus!” Kat remarked. “I can see why they introduced jaywalking.”

  “I’m astonished at the speed we’re doing,” Dore said. “When you think how slowly everything moves in London these days.”

  Kat laughed. “These days? Which days are those, Jock? I’ve lost track of time. Between Hell’s version of New York City, then West Fork, which seems to be stuck in the past, and now this, I don’t know where I am.”

  Dore grunted. “I know the feeling.”

  “Oh, my God!” Kat cried. “There’s Macy’s, but it’s a dry goods store.”

  “Why? What’s it supposed to be?”

  “It’s a huge department store, like Bloomingdale’s.”

  Dore laughed. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  They were passing 34th Street when Kat saw the man. He was standing near a Macy’s entrance, looking very out of place in his jeans and corduroy jacket, and the sneakers he was wearing looked jarringly wrong. Even if Kat hadn’t seen him before, she would have noticed him.

  “Stop the cab!” she cried, leaning out of the window.

  The driver reined the horse to a walk, steered it into the curb, and then waited patiently for further instructions.

  “What’s wrong?” Dore asked, looking around to spot what she’d seen.

  “See that man standing near the entrance to Macy’s?” she gasped breathlessly. “I saw him at West Fork. He was on the plane we boarded when we questioned that woman.”

  Dore squinted at the man. “Yeah, I see him.”

  “We need to talk to him. He might know where we can find Grantham. Even if he doesn’t, he’ll know about McInnes’s involvement.”

  Dore made a move to climb out, but Kat put a hand on his arm. “Stay here, Jock. If we both go, it might scare him. He might make a run for it. I’ll go on my own.”

  “You sure? What if he gets aggressive?”

  “He’s not going to hurt me; he looks petrified. Wait here for me.”

  Climbing out of the cab, she walked further up the street so that she could blend with other pedestrians, then waited for a gap in the traffic and ran across the street. She studied the man as he drew nearer. He was somewhere in his thirties, was going prematurely bald and sported a thick mustache. This part of 6th Avenue almost airless, there wasn’t
a breath of wind, and he was sweating in the heat, flapping his jacket to keep cool. If Kat had passed him in the street when she was alive, she wouldn’t have looked twice at him, but with his modern clothes, he seemed very out-of-place amid all the other people, and she wondered why McInnes hadn’t organized a wardrobe department for escapees.

  When she was a few feet away, she slowed her walk and then stopped. But he didn’t give her a second glance amongst all the other pedestrians, until she spoke to him.

  “You look kind of lost,” she said softly. “Can I help?”

  The man looked at her for a moment, a shy smile forming on his lips, and then he looked away. “I’m fine; thank you. I’m not lost.”

  “Look, I don’t want to scare you, but… well, we’ve met before.” She paused. “I was on your plane.”

  The man’s head jerked around, and he stared at her, his eyes wide with shock. “What… plane?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. I interviewed one of the other passengers on your plane.”

  The man stepped away from her, searching the street for a way to escape. “It was an… an accident,” he stuttered. “I didn’t mean to come here.”

  “Hey, calm down. I’m not here to arrest you.”

  But the man still looked frightened. “You’re not?” he said warily.

  She glanced across the street. The cab was still there, but there was no sign of Dore. “No, I’m not, and I don’t think anyone’s looking for you. I just want to ask a few questions.”

  Letting out a long sigh, the man looked visibly relieved. “What… sort of questions?”

  “Well, for a start, who did you pay to escape from Hell? And how much did you pay him?”

  “I can’t tell you that. They’ll have me killed, and I mean killed.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “The Major. He said they’d come looking for me. He said I’d be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”

  She could imagine McInnes saying that, in his authoritarian tone. “Well, he lied to you. They’re not in a position to come looking for you.”

  So the man explained how the transaction was done by phone, how he had transferred $100,000 to a bank account for a one-way trip into the past.

  She looked around, expecting to see Dore standing in a doorway, but there was no sign of him. “So where is everyone else? Where are all the people you were with?”

  “Only three of us came to 1875. All the others went somewhere else. The two guys I was with have gone to work on the ships. That’s what most people do. They usually jump ship when they get to Europe.” He laughed a grim laugh. “Or they drown and end up back in Hell again.”

  “So what are you doing? Why are you standing here?”

  “I’m waiting for the immigration guy. He supposed to get me a job.”

  “There’s an immigration guy?” The thought that Grantham organized people to deal with immigration was startling. It meant that he was very well organized, and that he probably did have spies amongst the Elites.

  “That’s what I was told, but I’ve been here for two hours, and there’s no sign of him.”

  Kat shook her head. “Have you got any money?”

  “I’ve got $200, which is supposed to be a lot of money.”

  “It’s not bad, but it won’t last forever. What did you do before you got sent to Hell?”

  “I was a journalist. I worked for The Chicago Tribune.”

  She laughed. It wasn’t hard to imagine a journalist in Hell. “Then I suggest you go and get a job, maybe with The New York Post. One more question, did you ever come across a man called Henry Grantham?”

  The man scowled. “We were met by a man in Central park when we arrived, but he didn’t give his name, and I was afraid to ask.”

  “What did he look like?”

  The man pursed his lips and thought for a moment. “He was kind of tall, had a beard, very well dressed. Not very friendly.”

  “Did he have a scar on his right eyebrow?”

  The man brightened. “Yeah, I think he did.”

  “Was it him who told you about the immigration guy?”

  “Yes. He told me to wait by Macy’s store.”

  She tried to put herself in Grantham’s shoes. He was a renegade Gypsy living in the past.

  “What happened to him? I mean, where did he go when you walked down 6th Avenue?”

  “He stayed in the park. He said he was meeting someone.”

  Kat thought about it. If Grantham was meeting escapees daily, she doubted he’d travel all the way from Lower Manhattan. He’d probably live near the park, somewhere like Lincoln Square or Upper West Side.

  Wishing the man good luck, she made her way back across the busy road again, but when she reached the cab, there was still no sign of Dore.

  “What happened to my friend?” she called up to the cab driver.

  “Crossed the road just after you did,” he replied.

  She saw him then. Dore was crossing the road a little further up. When he reached the cab, she said, “That wasn’t necessary, Jock.”

  “Don’t do that again, Kat. It’s too risky. The man might not have been dangerous, but if I were Grantham, I’d have escapees watched to make sure they weren’t being followed. Grantham’s people might be watching us right now. We’ll have to be very careful.”

  Dore was right. It hadn’t occurred to her that the escapees were being watched. “What do you suggest we do?”

  “Hope that no one saw us arrive. Thankfully, we look like regular 1875 New Yorkers. Why don’t we pay off the cab and go for a walk? We’ll soon know if we’re being followed.”

  “Why? What do you think Grantham will do? I could have been anybody.”

  “Yes, you could, and let’s hope that Grantham thinks you were, but we need to be sure.”

  Paying off the cab, they headed back towards Central Park by way of 5th Avenue, but when they reached 46th Street, Dore turned right, then took the second left. She knew what he was doing. He was going to walk around the block and come back onto 5th Avenue again, but further up.

  She glanced at him. “What are you expecting to happen?”

  “I’ll give you two guesses. It won’t happen here; it’s more likely to happen in Central Park.”

  She looked at him in shock. “You think he’ll try to kill us?”

  “Wouldn’t you, if you were in his shoes? His escape business must be worth a huge amount of money. If he’s built a billion-dollar empire, he needs to protect it.”

  “By killing us?”

  “By killing us. We’re the perfect targets. We’re not in Hell anymore, we’re in the real world, but in the past. We’d simply disappear. There are no special hospitals that can put us back together again. In fact, I don’t know what would happen to us if we were shot in the head, for example. Would we go back to Hell again, or would we really die?”

  She punched him in the shoulder. “For God’s sake, Jock, stop trying to scare me. Of course we’d go back to Hell again. Only a glass gun can really kill us.”

  He glanced behind him. “I’ll take your word for it. In the meantime, we’re being followed.”

  She fought the urge to look around. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. A man’s been tailing us ever since 46th Street. Short, skinny guy, wearing a brown coat. He’s about fifty yards back… What time is it?”

  “I don’t know. My watch is on Hell time, but it’s probably about 12:30.”

  “Perfect. All the nannies, moms, and children will have gone home for lunch. We should go to Central Park, head for the lake and rent a boat.”

  “What!” she exclaimed. “How the hell can we escape in a boat?”

  “We don’t want to escape. We want him to follow us. If we can get him in a boat, he’s dog meat.”

  Kat frowned. They were in a very tricky situation. “We can’t kill him, Jock. If Grantham finds out, he might disappear. Our best bet is to lose him and then try to follow him.”<
br />
  Dore scowled and walked faster. They were passing 49th Street, but it was still quite a walk to Central Park.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Kat said, grinning at him. “Follow me.”

  Turning left onto 50th Street, they headed back to 5th Avenue. Sure enough, the man in the brown coat followed them. He was closer now, perhaps only thirty yards away.

  “When we reach 5th Avenue, the first mounted cop we see, I want you to disappear into a shop. Any shop. It doesn’t matter, as long as you’re not with me.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Exiting 50th Street onto 5th Avenue, Kat scanned the streets. She could see the park now, but they were also beside an old church that she’d never noticed before. It was open, so Dore could easily slip inside. Better still, crossing the street towards her was exactly what she’d been looking for, a New York City cop on horseback.

  “Go inside the church, Jock.” Pulling a lock of hair over her forehead, she ran up to the policeman in a state of distress. “Can you help me?” she called, in a tearful voice. “I’m being chased by a strange man, and he won’t leave me alone.”

  The cop peered down at her. He was young and surprisingly handsome. “Which guy?”

  Clutching the collar of her dress as if in fear, she pointed to the man in the brown coat. Seeing the cop staring at him, the man suddenly froze with a look of shock on his face. “That man!” she cried, extending her arm and pointing a finger at him.

  The policeman kicked the horse into a trot and practically ran the man down, before backing him up against a stationary cart. “What are you up to, Mister? Like the ladies, do we?”

  “I was just… just walking,” the man stammered.

  “Is that right? Perhaps you’d like to walk with me.”

  Nodding to Dore, who was now standing there with his mouth open, she disappeared into the crowd of pedestrians, and minutes later, she was hailing a passing cab.

  “Lincoln Square!” she called, as Dore opened the cab door for her to climb in. Slumping into the seat, she beamed at him. “There. Wasn’t that better than killing someone?”