I nodded. “All right, Annabelle. I believe you.”
Her expression still looked harsh.
“Honest,” I added. “I really do. I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t something unspoken that you’d maybe missed, sort of a bill that was going to come due and you’d feel…obligated.”
She shook her head. “That’s maybe the way things work other places, but not here. Not with Uncle Cosmo.”
I wiped my mouth with one of Uncle Cosmo’s expensive napkins. There was another question I wanted very much to ask—about which one of Uncle Cosmo’s friends had encouraged her to break things off with me in the letter and then to send that other cruel, brief message to her grandmother. I kept that question for later, however, and asked another one instead.
“And your friend? Did she come, too?”
She got a sad look in her eyes then and said, “No. She wasn’t invited.”
“Just you?”
“Yes.”
“So…not just anybody can stay here?” I asked. “You have to be…special somehow?”
“There are lots of other believers, but not everybody has what it takes to join the circle of friends.”
I nodded at this. “There were some…kids I ran into back in the city the other night. They seemed kind of…rough, if you know what I mean. But they had those same tattoos. I don’t suppose they’d be welcome out here.”
She thought about this for a moment and then said, “Oh, I don’t know. It depends on a lot of things, Jed. I don’t claim to understand it all.”
“Well, these fellas wouldn’t have fit in very well with that party we walked in on last night. Everyone there seemed rather…cultured.”
“They’re all very nice,” she said, clearly trying to read my meaning.
Deciding that now wouldn’t be the time to bring up the woman with the swastika, I said, “So let me get this straight. There are lots of believers out there, even punks in alleys, but only the ‘friends’ get to come out here and partake in the ceremonies and live it up on Uncle Cosmo’s dime.”
“It sounds kind of crass when you put it that way, Jed. Like I said before, not everybody has what it takes.”
“And just what does it take?”
She shrugged. “It’s a special quality Uncle Cosmo sees in some people. A sensitivity to the universe.”
The phrase didn’t sound like anything Annabelle would have come up with on her own, more like something she’d heard—probably more than once. I let it linger in the air for a moment as I tried to figure out what it meant.
“And you’ve got this…sensitivity?” I finally said.
“I must!” Her eyes lit up at this. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You certainly are. But I’m still trying to figure out what everyone’s so excited about. What exactly are you supposedly sensitive to?”
She leaned forward, excited to be talking about her newfound identity among the Crossovers. “It’s like this. Years ago, Uncle Cosmo had a vision. He went to another version of the world. It was just like this one, only different. And in that version of things, the south had won the Civil War, and the U.S. was still divided in two. Can you imagine?”
“I suppose I can,” I said. Detective O’Neal had already set me up for this narrative, but even so I wasn’t entirely ready to be hearing it from Annabelle.
On the one hand, her every word was like a punch in the gut, as I saw how deeply she’d been hooked, how far she’d been reeled in. It was going to take a lot to get her back, I realized, and I had serious doubts about my ability to pull it off. All I had was my questionable charm, a few gadgets borrowed from Guillermo Garcia, and whatever Annabelle and I had shared the night before. It was going to be tough to hold all that up against Uncle Cosmo’s largesse and still come out ahead. For now, all I could do was patronize her and hope she didn’t see through my façade.
And on the other hand, my thoughts were racing as I considered the possibility that the “incident” in the Break O’ Dawn had been a similar sort of crossing over—not into a world where history had been re-written but one in which Annabelle and I were bitter adversaries, the kind who use guns to emphasize their points. Scary as it sounded, the idea that there might be an explanation for my experience other than my having had a break with reality offered me a bit of comfort—but only a bit. At the same time, I considered for the first time the possibility that the version of things where Annabelle’s hair had been red might have been yet another strand of reality. What if there was the world I knew, a world where blonde Annabelle and I didn’t see eye to eye, and a third where redhead Annabelle and I also struggled? In one version, she’d been shot; in another, it had been me who caught the bullet. The big question was: would there be a bullet in this world, too? And, if so, who would it be aimed at and who would fire it?
I couldn’t imagine being in a situation where I might point a gun at this woman, and the more I thought about it, the more it all still seemed crazy.
Clearly oblivious to the fact that I was having all of these thoughts, Annabelle nodded in encouragement that I was getting it and continued with the story. “Some things were the same and some things were different, and in that vision of things, Uncle Cosmo wasn’t an actor like he was in this world. He was a shoe salesman with a wife and kids.”
“Okay,” I said, still trying to keep everything straight. “And this vision told him what?”
“Well, nothing right away. But then he had another one. This was just after the war broke out. And in this one, the U.S. was all one again, and we actually got pulled into the first European war back in the teens or whenever it was. And in that world, Uncle Cosmo was an actor, but he’d gotten married to a different woman than the one he was with when he was a shoe salesman. And this wife was awfully sick, so he’d sunk all his money into taking care of her, so they were barely making it, but he still managed to stay an actor after the talkies came in.”
I nodded but said nothing, wondering if Uncle Cosmo had considered himself insane during or after these experiences.
“It was after that vision that he figured everything out,” she said, even more excited.
“Everything?” I asked.
“Yes! The world, Jed…it’s not just the world. Uncle Cosmo says it’s like tree branches, splitting off and splitting off and splitting off. Different things happen. Big events and little ones. In our world, Merritt Dawson invented the light bulb, but in a different world, what if he died of a fever when he was a kid or his father died in a war so Dawson couldn’t afford to go to college when he grew up, and light bulbs either didn’t get invented or someone else came up with the idea. Do you see?”
I was starting to, but instead of lightbulbs I was thinking about the splits that would lead Annabelle and me to point guns at each other and pull the triggers. It was unfathomable.
“It’s just so fascinating to think about. Just imagine it. In some other version of the world, you didn’t go off to war, but you stayed and we got married. We might have a couple of kids by now. And in another version, the war’s still going on and you’re still over there. In some versions, you might already be dead, or I might, or we never even would have met. It makes your head spin just thinking about it.”
“It does,” I said, and I meant it, fearing that any second I would see that Annabelle’s hair color had changed to red. “And Uncle Cosmo, he claims…what? That you can go to these alternate worlds?”
“Not go like actually go, but with enough training you can have the visions, too.”
“What kind of training?”
“We do mental exercises, meditation, cleansing of the mind and spirit.”
“And lots of parties?”
She smiled at this. “There’s nothing wrong with pleasure, Jed. Those religions that say you need to deny yourself, they’re just missing the point.”
“So, this is a religion?”
“Not exactly. But it sure makes you question all the other ones, don’t it?”
“I suppose.” I said. Then, hoping I was disguising my ulterior motives, I added, “Has anyone succeeded?”
“At what?”
“At having a vision like Uncle Cosmo’s?”
“Oh, lots have. There’s a ceremony once a month on the first night of the full moon. We all gather in the great room, and everyone tries to go into a trance. Uncle Cosmo leads us. And when the lights come up, people talk about what they saw themselves as in the other worlds.”
“Have you ever…seen?”
She shook her head, a sad expression crossing her face. “Not yet. But I will. Uncle Cosmo says I’ve got lots of potential.”
“That’s good. I’m sure you do.” I cleared my throat and imagined the old bristle-mustached actor appraising Annabelle’s beauty. The cynic in me—which is pretty much all there is—thought that if Beadle hadn’t started working her yet with an aim to slip between the sheets with her, he would soon. “Am I…going to get to meet Uncle Cosmo?”
“He’s on the mainland right now,” she said. “One of our friends had a terrible thing happen in Las Vegas, and he died. His wife’s a friend, too, and she’s awfully upset, so Uncle Cosmo’s gathering people together to console her. I think they’re going to have a separate ceremony to see what other things might have happened in other worlds to help the wife feel better, you know? Like show her all the worlds where her husband doesn’t die like that.”
I nodded. “That sounds awfully helpful,” I said for lack of anything better.
“Uncle Cosmo is a very kind man,” she said as she pulled her napkin from her lap and dabbed daintily at the corners of her mouth. “That’s partly why I want to stay out here, because everyone’s so kind. The rest of the world, Jed…so many people, they’re just mean and ugly and want to hurt others to make themselves feel better. But out here with all my friends…everyone just wants what’s best for everyone else. We all realize we’re here not because we deserve it or because we’re special.”
“Why then?”
There was a knock at the bedroom door. Annabelle had had a beatific expression on her face, and now it clouded over as she got up to answer the door.
She answered my question as she went. “Because we all know that stepping off the wrong curb at the wrong time could have made a huge change for all of us in this world. Could have put us in the right place at the right time, or the wrong place at the wrong time. Any one of us could be a millionaire or a pauper, and we know that because in the other worlds, we are. It makes everyone humble.”
Even the paupers, I wanted to say as I thought about the thugs in the alley from the evening before. I kept the thought to myself as she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. She kept the door open a crack, and I could hear a woman’s voice on the other side, but they spoke in low tones so I could catch only the mood of what they were saying. It sounded like Annabelle was asking questions and the unknown woman was giving instructions; her voice had an even, patient tone to it, like a teacher talking to a willing student.
Annabelle was out there for a few minutes, and I started getting impatient. I had partly come out to the island to find out what she was mixed up in and partly to find out what I could about Carmelita Garcia, the woman who’d passed herself off as Gemma Blaylock. While the morning had been nice and luxurious, I was ready to get on with it. The questions Annabelle had asked the night before about the woman I’d ridden into the city with had told me there was some connection between my mysterious companion from the desert and the whole Crossover movement. I knew that Lance Masterson had been a believer or disciple or whatever the Crossover “friends” called themselves, but did that mean Gemma—or Carmelita—was one, too? And if she was, what did that say about Guillermo? Whether or not the old inventor’s niece had really killed Masterson, it was my guess that the Crossovers wanted a piece of her, member or not, and that they wanted to get her before the police did—which made me want to get her before the Crossovers did, if for no other reason than to help me get to the bottom of this mess before she got taken out of the picture, either by the cops or someone looking to avenge Masterson.
The door opened again, and my musings about the connection between Gemma/Carmelita and the Crossovers shot off the scale. Annabelle was holding a silver case identical to the one I’d seen taken from the Swan’s trunk two days before. It had the same dials on the sides and little holes that looked like sockets from a switchboard—or an electric guitar. She carried it with some uncertainty and set the case on the bed without looking at me.
“What’s that?” I asked, trying not to sound overly curious.
“It’s a new invention,” she said. “There are a lot of scientists interested in Uncle Cosmo’s ideas, and they’ve been sharing what they’re working on with him. I haven’t even started showing you all the exciting stuff I’ve seen.”
“What’s that one do?”
“Come here, and I’ll show you.”
I stood, a bit reluctantly, and went to the side of the bed as Annabelle popped the latches on the case and opened it. My eyes went right to the design of the eagle stamped on the inside of the lid. I’d seen that same design on lots of buildings and propaganda in Germany, but now it made me picture the woman from the night before with her Nazi armband and smug smile. Inside the case were coils of cable, a pair of earphones, a set of goggles, a microphone, a smaller leather case, and something that looked like a record player only with six round holes in the plate where a record would normally go. Annabelle unsnapped the lid on the leather case and took out a silver disk just a little larger than the palm of her hand.
“I’ll bet you can’t guess what this is,” she said, holding the disk up.
I shook my head. “Money from one of the other worlds?”
“No, silly. We can’t bring things back and forth. That would be impossible.”
“Okay,” I said. “I give up. What is it?”
“It’s a record that shows movies.”
It wasn’t the most ridiculous thing I’d heard that morning, but it was close.
“Movies,” I said, hoping my face didn’t betray my thoughts.
“Mm-hmm. Watch, I’ll show you.”
She dropped the disk into one of the round depressions on the top of what I’d thought of as a record player. The disk fit perfectly, and she proceeded to fill the other five spaces with more disks from the leather case. Then she unfurled one of the cables, plugging one end into a socket on the outside of the case and running the other end to an electrical outlet near the bedroom door.
“Sit down,” she said, indicating one of the chairs that had been pulled up to the breakfast cart.
That Nazi eagle was about the only thing I could focus on, and it made me want no part of whatever the silver disks really were. Even so, I decided it would be best to play along for now if for no other reason than to get information on what the cult was up to. It might help me find Guillermo’s niece and clear up my problems with O’Neal and Miller. This last bit was something I felt more and more interested in, as I was beginning to sour on the prospect of staying in California. What with all the nutcases who were already here, the thousands more trying to get in every day, and a police force bent on twisting the law to their advantage to keep the riffraff out, I was starting to feel like there had to be somewhere else in another part of the world where I’d feel more like myself—crazy or not.
I was torn, of course, because that would mean leaving Annabelle—unless I could talk her into coming with me. And right now, that didn’t seem too likely.
For now, all I could do was humor her, so I sat, and when Annabelle handed me the goggles, I slipped them over my head but didn’t pull the lenses down over my eyes just yet. A cord hung from the goggles, and she plugged it into one of the sockets on the metal box. Then she handed me the earphones, which I slipped onto my head. As I adjusted the cups to my ears, I watched a second cord get plugged into the machine; Annabelle flipped a switch, and all the noise in the room went
away, leaving me with nothing but a distant hiss to listen to. The microphone came next, and when she spoke into it, I could hear her like she was in my head with me.
“They say the technology isn’t developed enough to fit whole movies onto the disks,” she said, “so each one of these is just something short. Eventually, though, this is the way people are going to watch movies. You won’t have to go to a theater. You can just sit at home and flip on the machine.”
“What’s the point, though?” I asked, and my voice sounded far away and muffled. I had to trust that I was neither shouting nor whispering, as the earphones gave me no real sense of what my voice sounded like to the rest of the world. “Why can’t you just go to the movies?”
“What if the husband wants a Western and the wife wants a romance? Do they split up and go to two different theaters? Or do they make a deal where only one really sees what he wants and the wife gets her turn next weekend? But by then her movie’s gone, so she’s out of luck. This way, you get to choose what you want. You can get the disks from a store and load them in and watch the ones you want. Then take ‘em back when you’re done and get more. One set of goggles and earphones for the husband and one for the wife. Or three more for the kiddies. Everyone’s happy.”
“I still don’t get it,” I said.
“Put the goggles on, and you’ll see,” she said, a smile on her face—probably the same smile as Eve had when she repeated the sales pitch she’d gotten from the serpent.
Against my better judgment, the goggles dropped down. The world went dark just as the earphones had made it go silent. And then the inside of the goggles lit up. It was like looking through binoculars, the images from each lens melding together to form one in my vision.
I was looking at that damned Nazi eagle again for a moment and then it disappeared. Soothing symphonic music started coming through the earphones, and I was looking at what appeared to be a table of contents from a book—only instead of pages or chapter titles, it read: “Disk One: Natural Disasters; Disk Two: Weapons of War; Disk Three: Man-Made Catastrophes; Disk Four: Notorious Crimes.”
The Blacktop Blues: A Dieselpunk Adventure (The Crossover Case Files Book 1) Page 15