She nodded at this. “So where is she, this woman?”
A corner of her triangle-and-star tattoo was still showing, and for a moment when she asked me that question I would have sworn that her eyes were as black as the ink on her skin. Then she moved her head a little and the light caught her differently so I could see the same deep blue I’d always known.
“I don’t know, Annabelle,” I said. “Why does it matter?”
She shook her head. “I don’t suppose it does,” she said, her voice far away even though her mouth was right there in front of me.
In that moment, I knew that the Annabelle I’d known before the war, the one who’d written all those letters to me when I was gone, was no longer there. She looked and sounded the same, felt and smelled the same, too. That was all on the outside. Something else, something deeper was different. And in that second of understanding, two things became clear to me. One was that the change in Annabelle wasn’t something she’d initiated, not something she’d sought out and willingly engaged in. Something had been done to her; someone had influenced her, and they were influencing her still. They’d gotten her to write the break-up letter and then, later, the letter to her grandmother. They’d gotten her to cut off all ties with the life she’d known before these “friends” came to know her. And that was the second thing I realized—this clandestine meeting in my room had been orchestrated by whoever had started pulling Annabelle’s strings, right down to the state of undress I’d found her in. Maybe it was the cult leader O’Neal had told me about and maybe it was someone else, but whoever had gotten into Annabelle’s head was using her now, and not just to find me. Someone else was after the woman who’d called herself Gemma Blaylock, and they were using Annabelle and me as pawns in the most bizarre chess match I’d ever heard of.
But what if the object of this game wasn’t just Gemma Blaylock? What if it also had something to do with her true identity, Carmelita Garcia? I thought of Guillermo and how he’d sort of hired me—and sort of coerced me—into clearing his niece’s name. The old man had known right away about the Crossovers, had had their name on his lips as soon as I’d spilled the bit O’Neal had shared with me. What if there was more to the old inventor than met the eye, I wondered. What if he was mixed up with these Crossovers, too? He’d been awfully accommodating about getting me to the hotel in a way that would keep me off the cops’ radar. What if he’d known what would be waiting for me when I got here? What if his well-worn work shirt hid a tattoo like the ones I was getting so used to seeing?
These possibilities hit me quickly, and I worried that the dark thoughts coursing through my mind were showing on my face. But Annabelle still looked far away, and I knew there was a good chance she hadn’t picked up on the fact that I doubted her veracity or Guillermo’s.
I made a decision—a couple, really. I decided that I couldn’t be controlled by my fear of what had happened in the Break O’ Dawn. Yes, I might still be crazy. But my break with reality—or my slippage into another reality—hadn’t repeated. And since there was no way of knowing whether interacting with Annabelle would be more or less likely to cause that to happen again, I should take my chances and stick with her, as staying away would do nothing but guarantee that my questions would go unanswered. I also decided that I was going to do what I could to undo the spell that Annabelle had been put under. Doing so might not be possible, but I told myself I needed to try. I owed it to the versions of us whose lives had been disrupted by war, and now by so much more.
“You know what?” I said, taking on as light a tone as I thought she’d believe.
“What?” she answered, still distant and distracted.
“I think my friend can wait a little while to get his things back. Why don’t I just go with you tonight, and I’ll go see him tomorrow?”
Her eyes lit up at that. “Really?”
“Sure.”
“Oh, Jed, that’s wonderful! You’re going to love it there! I promise!”
“I’m sure I will,” I said, reasoning that if Guillermo had been playing it straight with me, he’d have to forgive me for not getting his inventions right back to him. There was too much going on here for me to leave it, and if I was going to let myself get pulled into the Crossovers’ nest out on Catalina, it would be better to have a few aces—like Guillermo’s toys—up my sleeve. Expecting Annabelle to pull my biscuits out of the fire wasn’t going to be something I could count on. She’d essentially cracked a door open, though, and I had a pretty strong feeling that some solid answers about Gemma/Carmelita were on the other side. If Guillermo had been honest with me, finding those answers might square things with him.
And if the old man hadn’t been playing fair, following the lead out to Catalina might help me put the puzzle together. Then I’d be able straighten things out with him myself.
Moments later, I was feigning distraction with the empty desk drawers in the hotel room to let Annabelle get dressed without me looking at her. Confident as I felt in my decision regardless of whatever truths it might uncover, I still imagined Joaquin Murrieta, Jr. hunting me down on Catalina Island during the night, directed from the shadows by an angry old man who might know more tricks than I was able to imagine.
Chapter Twelve
When Annabelle said she had a car, I had assumed there was some old jalopy parked in a corner lot nearby, her equivalent of my destroyed Meteor or Guillermo’s pick-up, something she had latched onto on the cheap once she’d gotten to the coast. Instead of heading out the doors of the hotel lobby and onto the street, however, she went to the phone booth next to the front desk. Not bothering to shut the glass door, she popped a nickel into the slot and dialed a number, her pretty blue eyes shooting me sparkly looks as she waited for someone on the other end to pick up. It was late now, after midnight, and there was no clerk on duty behind the desk, so I had no misgivings about being seen here with Annabelle or about her half of the ensuing conversation being broadcast to the rest of the hotel staff during the morning’s gossip run.
“I’m ready, Edward,” was all Annabelle said into the phone, and then she hung up. Hooking her arm into mine, she led me out into the night.
“Who’s Edward?” I asked.
“Don’t be jealous,” she said in a teasing tone and gave my upper arm a playful smack. “He’s just one of Uncle Cosmo’s drivers.”
“And he has a phone in his car?” I asked, incredulous.
“No, silly,” she said, giving my arm a playful slap. “There’s a phonebooth in the parking lot where he’s waiting. That’s where I called.”
“And he’s been waiting this whole time?”
“Yes.”
“And would he have waited all night if we’d decided to stay?”
“You ask too many questions, Jed. Come on.”
The car that stopped in front of the hotel was black and sleek, so much so that it seemed to appear out of the darkness rather than simply pull up to the curb. I couldn’t tell the make in the dark, but its shape said “Expensive.” Smooth fenders covered the wheels almost entirely, and there appeared to be no door handles, making the car look like a single, smooth slice of polished black steel with a few sharply angled windows as its only distinguishing features. The driver parked at the curb and killed the rumbling engine; he got out and walked around to open the passenger door. After giving Annabelle a slight nod, he made a deft move with his right hand and flipped the front seat forward, revealing a small chamber in the rear for passengers. Annabelle climbed in first, and as I was about to follow, the driver said, “I’ll take your bag, sir.”
I wanted to protest, but he had his hand on the handle of my suitcase before I could get a word out. Even so, I didn’t let go. “It looks like there’s plenty of room in back for one little case,” I said, nodding toward the dark chamber Annabelle had just disappeared into.
The driver looked to be in his late twenties. He had a hawk nose and was a good half-a-head taller than me; his expression was stony, and I made hi
m for a vet right away. In other circumstances, I’d have asked him where he’d served, and we might have traded stories or compared scars. On the early morning LA sidewalk, however, I saw he was not open to conversation, and I guessed that working for “Uncle Cosmo” locked him out of fraternizing—even with someone like me, who was clearly not in the same class as the type of person who could afford sleek little cars and big guys to drive them. Even though he was clearly the hired man and had thus probably taken whole courses in being deferential and as invisible as possible, his height and nose gave the impression that he was looking down at me both literally and figuratively. He looked like contempt just about slipped from his pores on a good day, and the fact that I had suggested something as gauche as riding around in the company of luggage only added to his sour expression.
He didn’t let go of the handle.
Silence hung between us for a moment, and then he said, “Please allow me, sir.”
That old suitcase had probably already had nine lives before I’d picked it up in a second-hand shop, and I figured the handle wasn’t likely to survive a tug-of-war, so I let it go. The idea of the case falling to the sidewalk and its contents spilling out in the gutter was less appealing to me than the idea of being separated from my ace in the hole.
“Thanks…Edward,” I said, hoping he wasn’t expecting a tip. A little uneasy about what I was—literally—getting myself into, I delayed a moment by saying, “This is a nice little ride. Not sure I’ve seen one of these on the other coast. What do you call it?”
“It’s a Phantom Corsair, sir.”
I nodded at this and said, “Yup. You don’t find these in Times Square.”
“To be sure, sir. If you please…”
His expression suggested it was high time I clammed up and climbed in, so that was what I did.
Sleek and luxurious though the car looked, the back was actually a little cramped, the rear seats folding down from the backs of the front seats so the passengers faced backward. This meant that I needed to crouch next to Annabelle for a moment while the chauffeur slipped the seatback into place again and set my suitcase in the front compartment. When the engine fired up again and the car started rolling forward, it made me feel a bit unsettled; the rear windows were small and oddly angled, so I was able to see only a portion of the street and the Hotel Dorado disappearing in the distance. I’d faced the rear on plenty of trains in the past but never a car, and the feeling was a bit disorienting.
Annabelle must have been used to the sensation, as she snuggled up next to me once the Phantom got going, linking her arm in mine and putting her head on my shoulder without seeming to notice the city streets rolling away from her rather than toward.
“I’ve missed you so much, Jed,” she said as the driver rounded a corner.
“I’ve missed you, too.”
“We’re not going to be apart any more though, now that you’re here.” She squeezed my arm a little harder, as if to emphasize the fact that I was hers now.
“You sure?” I asked.
“Of course. Why?”
“All those things you said in your letter. About the past, the future. The different roads we needed to take…”
As I said this, I was aware of the odd way that the road we were literally on was unfolding in our vision even as the future we were being chauffeured toward was at our backs.
“You need to forget all about that terrible letter, Jed. Please?”
Forcing a smile, I said, “Sure” and then changed the subject. “This is some car. Your ‘Uncle’ Cosmo…he give you this, or is it a loaner?”
There must have been something in my tone that suggested a quid pro quo, a hint that Annabelle had needed to do something untoward to earn the privilege of cruising through the night in this crazy taxi.
“Jed!” she said with a nervous laugh. “I’ve never known you to act jealous like this. Uncle Cosmo’s not like that. He’s like a funny old bear.”
“That’s good,” I said. “I like bears.”
She gave me another laugh, less nervous this time, and kissed my cheek, an invitation for me to turn my head and show her a little affection. It felt strange to have her inviting such intimacy with Edward, the driver, less than two feet away from us, only the seatback and the rumble of the Phantom’s engine providing us privacy. So, I kept my lips to myself and moved them in ways other than Annabelle had been intending.
“So, how’d you meet this Uncle Cosmo?” I asked.
“Through the friends I made in New York, just like I said in my letter. Let’s not talk about that now, though. Just kiss me, Jed.”
I did as she asked. Even though I had my misgivings, it wasn’t unpleasant.
Edward drove the Phantom down to the docks at San Pedro. He parked and opened the passenger door for us; then he insisted on carrying my suitcase down the wooden ramp that led to the moorings. While the car we’d travelled to the docks in was sporty and exotic, the boat we boarded next looked like the stuff of royalty—not that I was impressed, of course. I’ll just say there was more padded upholstery and polished brass accents than I had ever seen in one place before.
Annabelle led me to a spot on one of the lower decks where plate glass windows provided a view of the docks on one side and the dark ocean on the other. I checked to make sure that my suitcase had actually made it aboard, and then I settled in on the deeply padded loveseat that Annabelle had picked out for us as the yacht cast off. The engine rumbled and we pulled away from San Pedro at a slow pace, lights on the boat’s sides showing the way.
Once we were past the breakwater, the captain—whom I’d neither seen nor heard since stepping onto the boat—gunned the engine, and we were practically flying over the little waves on the dark ocean. Next to me, Annabelle sat as she had in the back of the car with an arm hooked into mine and her head on my shoulder. It didn’t take long for her to fall asleep that way, the steady thrum of the engines and the gentle rocking of the sea putting her out. It was a very expensive lullaby.
I liked the feeling of her sleeping next to me that way, and at the same time, I didn’t. It felt good to be next to her, but it was impossible to shake the picture in my head of the star and triangle tattooed on her fair skin. I had found her after being away for a long time, but at the same time she felt more lost to me now than she had when we’d been half a world and a whole war apart.
After almost an hour at sea, a deeper darkness began emerging out of the general blackness at the western horizon, and I figured this must be Catalina. About that time, Annabelle woke up. She pointed toward the island, and said, “We’ll come out again in the daytime, so you can see the flying fish.”
I didn’t say anything to that, just catalogued the statement as one more thing I’d heard in California that I’d never heard before.
There are no cars in Avalon, the main population center on Catalina Island. It’s mostly a spot for boaters to come over and lounge on their decks or row into shore to lie on the beach. Tourist outfits bring mainlanders over, and there are shops, restaurants, and a couple of hotels as well as a casino, but all of those are along the strip of land next to the boat landings and all within easy walking distance. There are some permanent residents, and they must get along pretty well on foot, too. I didn’t know any of this when I got to the island, though, and it struck me as desolate and empty in the middle of the night. A few lights burned in the houses that clung to the hillsides, leading up into the backcountry where—I later learned—a few ranchers had cattle and bison. But near the dock, all was silent, the tourists having left long before.
Annabelle led the way through the darkened streets of the touristy little town, heading toward a spot a couple blocks from the beach. Her heels clicked on the pavement, the sound striking me as terribly loud in this sleeping hamlet. No servants from the boat followed us, so I was able to carry my suitcase unmolested. After a few minutes of walking away from the little bay where we’d docked, Annabelle led me to a wrought iron gate, beyon
d which I could see what looked like an urban jungle of trees and bushes that butted up against a dark hillside.
“Through here,” she said. Holding hands as we went, we passed through the gate and then kept going along a narrow garden path, little palms and squat trees with wide leaves on either side. At the rear of the garden was a small structure, mostly a roof with four posts holding it up and a low fence along the side opposite the entrance. Lights had been mounted to the posts, and they burned dimly in the night, revealing a low gate in the ornate fence. It took only a moment for me to grasp that it looked like the entrance to a little railroad station, a space large enough to hold ten or fifteen people. And then I saw that it didn’t just look like a train station; beyond the fence was a small tram and a track that led up the hill.
Annabelle flashed her secret smile and guided me through the gate and onto the platform where we stepped onto the little railway car. It had seats as well as straps hanging from the roof for riders who wanted to stand. Annabelle said nothing, just went to the controls at the front of the tram, flipped on the lights and pushed a lever. The little tram lurched forward, which got a giggle from Annabelle while I reached out for one of the straps as quickly as I could, narrowly avoiding a stumble back into one of the seats.
“Here we go!” she said, and I thought she sounded like an excited little girl.
The tram rolled ahead and upwards, winding its way along its narrow track. It went slowly enough after that initial jolt for me to ride standing up without holding on, so I planted my feet near Annabelle’s and peered into the dark with her as the tram climbed the hill. Within minutes, I saw lights up ahead and could make out a large structure that I assumed was Cosmo Beadle’s mansion.
At the upper end of its track, the tram came to a stop, and Annabelle shut the little motor off.
The Blacktop Blues: A Dieselpunk Adventure (The Crossover Case Files Book 1) Page 13