Curious Notions ct-2 Read online

  They wouldn't do that. Would they? With nothing but bars as far as his eye could see, Paul began to wonder. Maybe this view wasn't that much better than the one in the room where they questioned him after all.

  Lucy was both sick of answering questions and surprised the Germans hadn't done anything but ask them. Oh, they'd yelled and shone bright lights in her face and told her they would do horrible things if she didn't come clean. They'd told her that, yes, but they hadn't done them.

  In her bare cell, Lucy shook her head. They hadn't done them up till now. That didn't mean they wouldn't. They were Germans, after all. Was there anything they wouldn't do?

  At least the people at work knew what had happened to her. For one thing, that probably meant her folks would find out about it. For another, it might mean she'd get her job back if the Feldgendarmerie ever let her out of jail. Mrs. Cho would know why she wasn't coming in now. She'd know Lucy wasn't out somewhere goofing off and having a good time.

  That made her laugh. No, she wasn't having a good time at all.

  When they took her away for another round of questioning, they started yelling at her again. "You must know more than you admit about Curious Notions! You must!" shouted the man behind the lamp. She'd never seen his face. "They named your father a supplier! Why would they do that?"

  To get you out of their hair, Lucy thought. And look how well that worked! She said, "We don't have anything to do with them as far as business goes." Then she remembered something Paul told her in Golden Gate Park. "If you don't believe me, you can ask Captain Horvath. He knows we are what we say we are."

  She wasn't sure how much weight a mere San Francisco cop carried with the Feldgendarmerie. But a police captain wasn't mere, was he, even if he was only an American? Fatty Horvath had a good reputation in Chinatown. And he had done something to get Lucy's father out of a mess a lot like this one.

  "Horvath? Who is this Captain Horvath?" the Feldgendar-merie man behind the lamp demanded. Lucy's heart sank.

  But one of the other Germans in the room said, "Amerikanischer Polizeikapitän." Lucy could figure out what that meant. The Feldgendarmerie man went on in his own language. Lucy recognized more words here and there, but not enough to let her figure out what he was saying. Was he telling the fellow behind the lamp that Horvath was a big wheel, or that he was full of hot air? Lucy's nails bit into her palms in frustration. She couldn't tell.

  Her questioner said, "Tell us more of this Paul Gomes. Tell us everything you know. Tell us in great detail."

  Fright flared in Lucy. Did the Kaiser's men have Paul? It seemed much too likely. She said, "Well, I don't have much to tell you. I've only met him a few times." She wished she could say she didn't know him at all, but they wouldn't believe that. "He seemed like a pretty nice person. He wouldn't shine a light in my face and yell at me." That wasn't much in the way of defiance, but it was all she had in her.

  It didn't impress the Feldgendarmerie man. "My job is not to be nice. My job is to get answers. And I will get answers. I do not care if Paul Gomes is nice or not. I want to know what you know about him. Believe me, I have ways to get what I want. Talking freely is better and easier."

  She did believe him. She was just glad he hadn't done anything worse than shine a light in her face and yell at her. If she didn't give him some of what he wanted, he was liable to. She wondered what she could say that might satisfy him without hurting Paul. "Well, he told me he's from the Sunset District," she said.

  "This we already knew. We have checked his school records," said the man behind the lamp.

  You don't know as much as you think you do, Lucy thought. Paul probably came from the Sunset District, all right, but not from this Sunset District. If the secret policeman understood San Francisco, he would have seen that right away. Somebody like Paul just couldn't come from a place like that. But if he had records there good enough to fool the Feldgendarmerie .. . That said something about how well his people were organized, and how many of them there were.

  "Tell me more," the German said. "Tell me quickly. Do not sit there making up your lies."

  "I'm not lying. I just told you the truth. You said so." Lucy tried to sound angry instead of scared. It wasn't easy, not when she was scared. She tried again: "I know Captain Horvath likes him, and some other important Americans." In fact, she didn't know they liked him. But she did know the people at Curious Notions had influence on them. That was as good as the other.

  No matter how good it was, it didn't impress the Feldgen-darmerie man. "Important Americans?" he jeered. "There are no important Americans." He had a nasty laugh. "There will never be any important Americans."

  One of the other men spoke to him in German again. They went back and forth for a couple of minutes. Lucy wondered what they were talking about. Her, probably. Doing it in a language she couldn't understand was rude. Somehow, she didn't think that would worry them.

  Her questioner returned to English: "A while ago, Polizeikapitän Horvath and some others urged us to let your father go. Is this not so? Did they not do it because of Paul Gomes and his father?"

  "I don't know anything about that," Lucy said, which was technically true. She hadn't asked Captain Horvath or anyone else why he'd asked the Germans to let her father go. She added, "I thought you let him go because you couldn't show he'd done anything wrong."

  The Feldgendarmerie man laughed again, even more nastily than before. "That is not enough reason to let anyone go. Believe me, it is not. The guilty are often good at covering their tracks."

  "If you go on like that, you can show anybody's guilty of anything," Lucy said.

  "You begin to understand," her questioner said. What she began to understand was how much trouble she was in, or could be in. The Feldgendarmerie man went on, "Did you not tell one Margaret Ma at the zoological garden that you are fond of Paul Gomes? Is this not why you seek to cover up for him?"

  Lucy needed a second to remember that Margaret was the name Peggy came from. She'd never called her friend anything but Peggy as long as they'd known each other. Had she said that to Peggy? She couldn't remember. But if Peggy had told the secret police what she thought they wanted to hear, who could blame her? Anything to make them go away.

  "Well? Speak!" the Feldgendarmerie man snapped.

  That made Lucy want to go Woof! She didn't think it would be a good idea. "I do like him, but not like that" she said, which was more or less true. Paul fascinated her, but more as a puzzle than as anything past a friend. So she told herself, anyhow. She went on, "And I'm not trying to cover up for him. But if you ask me about things where I don't know anything, how can I tell you anything?"

  "Ha! A likely story," the German jeered. Then he spoke in his own language to the other Feldgendarmerie officers in the room. They hauled Lucy out of her chair with arrogant, effortless strength and took her down the hall. Back into her cell she went. The door slammed shut. They must have closed it extra hard. The clang of metal on metal sounded dreadfully final.

  Paul blinked and narrowed his eyes against the glare of the lamp. The Kaiser's men let him get away with that much. If he tried to turn away from the bright light, they jerked him back towards it. They got less gentle each time, too. He'd given up. They were liable to tear his head off if they got the chance.

  "Sssso," said the man behind the lamp, the one whose face he'd never seen. He stretched the word out into a long, snakelike hiss. "You are acquainted with a certain Lucy Woo, is that not true?"

  Alarm trickled through Paul. "I've met her," he answered cautiously. "I can't say that I know her real well." Like so much of what he said in this alternate, that was truth and lie mixed together. He hadn't met her all that often, and he didn't know her all that well, not the way he knew his friends in the home timeline. But what he did know, he liked. She had brains and she had spirit. And she was cute: not spectacular, but cute.

  "This is also what she says of you," the Feldgendarmerie man told him.

  Did that mean they had
her? Did it mean the German wanted him to think they had her? Or did it just mean they'd asked her some questions? One thing it had to mean was that the German wanted to see how excited he'd get. He shouldn't get excited, then, or shouldn't show it if he did. All he said was, "Well, there you are."

  "Ja. Here I am. And here you are. You are plainly guilty of enough things—starting with illegal import and export and going on from there—to send you to prison or a penal colony for many years." The German paused. "Not that many people last many years in a penal colony, of course." He paused again. "If you begin telling us the truth, perhaps—perhaps, I say—we can go a bit easier on you."

  "I have been telling you the truth," Paul said. Some of it, anyway. Inside, he was calling himself forty-seven different kinds of idiot. That was probably only half as many as Sammy Wong would call him. And Paul would have been happy—would have been delighted—to smile and nod and agree to every single one.

  He knew what kind of mistake he'd made. He also knew it was one of the commonest for people from Crosstime Traffic. Because they had higher technology than the locals, and because they could usually leave an alternate if they got in trouble there, they often thought nothing could happen to them.

  Not many people last many years in a penal colony, of course. If the Germans sent him to Patagonia or New Guinea or Siberia or even the Mojave, how would Crosstime Traffic ever find him again? If they did find him, how would they pull him out? If they couldn't pull him out, how long would he last?

  This was real. The German on the other side of the lamp wasn't playing games. He'd do what he said he'd do—and he'd be sure he was doing the right thing while he did it, too. The Kaiser might pin a medal on him for it. Why not? He'd deserve one. He was serving his country the best way he knew how.

  Paul braced for the next question. Instead, the Feldgendarmerie man spoke to his pals: "Take him away. We will try something else tomorrow."

  They had him on the ropes. He knew it. He knew it much too well. And now they were letting him off? He didn't care what they'd try tomorrow. That was what he told himself just then, anyhow. They were giving him a day to recover. He felt like singing as the secret policemen hauled him back to his cell.

  He wasn't so cheerful once he'd sat on the edge of the cot for a little while. His imagination started to work. Something else tomorrow? Hot things? Sharp things? Pointed things? Electricity? Wondering was almost a worse torture than what might happen to him. Almost.

  He didn't have a good night at all.

  Four big guards stomped up to Lucy's cell. "You will come with us," one of them said. "Immediately."

  What choice did she have? If she said no, they'd drag her or carry her. Any one of them could have, let alone all four. She kept what pieces of dignity she had left. When they unlocked the door, she strode out with her head high. She might have been a cat going to the vet's. She felt like yowling like a scared cat, too, but she didn't. The guards might think she was afraid, but she didn't want to prove it.

  They didn't take her to the room where they'd been questioning her. She wondered whether that was good or bad. I'll find out, she thought, and shivered.

  "In here," the guard said. He opened an ordinary door. The room beyond it seemed ordinary, too, if bare. It held a cheap table and two even cheaper chairs. The walls and ceiling were painted a plain white. A grayish carpet that had seen better days covered the floor. Only the wire mesh over the small window reminded her she was still in a jail.

  All the guards trooped out. The room had only the one door. She wasn't going anywhere till they let her. She sat down on one of the chairs, wondering what they had in mind. Whatever it was, it wasn't as bad as she'd expected—not yet, anyway.

  Ten minutes later, the door opened again. In came Paul Gomes. Lucy stared at him. He was grimy and worn looking, and he needed a shave. He was well on his way to growing a beard, in fact. She brushed a hand back over her hair, realizing she wasn't at her best herself just then.

  She also frantically tried to think. Had the Feldgendarmerie had him all the time he was missing? She thought the Triads would have known about it if the Germans had. She thought so, but she wasn't sure. The Germans hadn't run things for so long by not being able to keep secrets.

  "I'm sorry you got dragged into this," Paul said as his burly escorts left the room. The door closed behind them. "You had nothing to do with it, not really."

  As he spoke, he pointed to the ceiling and cupped a hand behind his ear. Lucy nodded to show she got it. The Feldgendarmerie was listening to whatever they said. The secret police had to be hoping they'd talk too much. That meant they had to be careful not to.

  "It's good to see you," Lucy said. Then she'd remember she'd told her questioner she didn't know Paul very well. She quickly added, "It's good to see anyone who's not yelling at me and thinking I did things."

  "Boy, do I know what you mean." Paul might have overacted a little, but not much. As he talked, he winked at her. "It's especially bad since we haven't done anything." He paused. "You're right. It is nice to see anybody who doesn't think you're a criminal."

  Lucy smiled at him. He was getting things in between the lines, too. He didn't want the Germans to think the two of them were friends. That would give the Feldgendarmerie one more weapon. Didn't it have enough already?

  "I never thought that." Lucy smiled at him. In fact, they grinned at each other, right there under the Germans' noses. She went on, "I do think it's terrible that you've had so much trouble."

  "Well, it doesn't seem like I'm the only one," Paul answered. "It's just too bad, that's all. You know what I'd like to do when this is all over, to try to make up for some of the trouble we've caused you?"

  "What?" Lucy thought he was an optimist for believing this would be over any time soon, if ever. But if you weren't an optimist when you were in trouble, wouldn't the weight of it squash you flat?

  "I'd like to take you to dinner and a movie, if that's okay." He sounded nervous in a way that had nothing to do with being stuck in the Germans' jail. Lucy remembered thinking he was shy.

  She nodded. "I'd like that." Would anything more come of it? Could anything more come of it? She had her doubts, even if she wished she didn't. The distance between that other San Francisco, the one with the nice Sunset District, and this one felt enormously wide. But dinner and a movie could be fun by themselves.

  "The Feldgendarmerie hasn't been too rough with me. I hope they haven't with you." Paul yawned.

  "No, not too bad." Lucy yawned, too. She wondered why. It was early in the day. She saw Paul sag down in his chair the instant before blackness also washed over her.

  "You idiot." Sammy Wong looked as disgusted as he sounded.

  Paul stared up at him. He remembered yawning, and then nothing else—till the man from Crosstime Traffic appeared in the room. It might have been magic. It might have been, but it wasn't. Across the table from him, Lucy Woo slumped in sleep. Paul's left arm burned. "You drugged us," he said. "You drugged us, and then you gave me the antidote."

  "Hand the clever fellow a prize!" Sammy Wong kept right on glaring at Paul. "I drugged this whole building. Neofentanyl's good stuff. No odor, no taste, goes through the ventilating system like that"—he snapped his fingers—"and knocks you out for eight hours unless you get a shot. To the Devil with me if I know why I bothered giving you one. After that stunt you pulled, I should have just left you here."

  He wasn't wrong. Paul stared down at the cheap gray carpet, feeling ashamed. "I did something stupid. I know that. I've had enough time to think about it in here. I'm sorry."

  "Not sorry enough." His rescuer didn't seem to want to let him off the hook. He had trouble blaming the man from Crosstime Traffic, but even so ....

  He looked up. "Haven't you ever done anything stupid in your whole life?"

  "Not that stupid." Sammy Wong sounded very sure of himself. He turned toward the door. "Come on, kid. Let's get out of here. That eight hours is all very well, but the Kaiser's b
oys are going to start wondering what's up when the phone rings here and nobody answers."

  "Okay," Paul said. "Wake Lucy up, too." He nodded toward the sleeping Chinese girl.

  "What?" Wong stared at him. "Are you nuts? No, I won't wake her up. That's dumber than sticking your nose out of the hotel. Now get moving. We're wasting time."

  "No," Paul said. "It's not fair to leave her here. Crosstime Traffic got her into this mess. The least we can do is get her out."

  "She's a local," Sammy Wong said. "The crosstime secret comes first."

  What would he do if I told him she knows it? Paul wondered. But he clamped down hard on that. The older man might want to shut Lucy's mouth for good. Paul did say, "This room is bound to be bugged."

  "Won't pick up a thing." Again, Sammy Wong sounded sure as could be.

  "Okay." Paul believed him. "But she's helped me a lot. I owe her one. You can't just leave her here with the Feldgendarmerie.."

  Wong blew out a long, exasperated breath. "Why not? If you're gone and she's still here, they'll figure she didn't have anything to do with you."

  "If I'm gone and she's still here, she'll figure I walked out on her," Paul said. "If I go and she stays, the Tongs will figure we're not to be trusted—and won't they be right? They've still got Dad somewhere, remember? Finding me was easy. What about him?" He waited. Sammy Wong looked even more sour than usual. He made a good match for Bob Lee. Paul added what he hoped was the clincher: "Besides, nobody deserves to be in a Feldgendarmerie jail, and she's only sixteen."

  "If I let her out, she can't just go back to her family," Wong said. "The Germans would jug the lot of them."

  "She can't stay here, either. She can't," Paul said. They glared at each other. Impasse. Paul sighed. "If you can't see your way clear to letting her out, I'd better stay here, too. Fair's fair."

  Sammy Wong's eyes got wider than Paul thought they could. "What?" he yelled. "I can't do that! I couldn't do it before, and I especially can't do it now!" He was almost hopping up and down, he was so excited. "What will the Germans think? They all decided to take a nap at the same time?"