Curious Notions

Ten

Paul's escorts started sticking to him like glue. Whenever he came out of the lobby of his miserable hotel, they walked up to him as if they were old friends. Once, just once, he tried going out the back way, the way the trash went out. Two of them were waiting for him in the alley. They didn't seem surprised to see him. He wasn't very surprised to see them. He walked down the rubbish-strewn alley as if it were the street. They tagged along.

When they got to the sidewalk, the rest of the young men from the Tongs fell in with them. The one who did most of the talking for them said, "Your old man's just about sprung, I hear."

"Good." Paul tried not to get too excited at the news—or at any news he just heard. Seeing was believing. Until he saw, he wasn't going to start jumping up and down. It was too easy for people to lie to him to get him to do what they wanted.

For that matter, even after his father got out of jail—if he did— their troubles weren't over. How were they going to get back into Curious Notions? How were they going to get back to the home timeline? How were they going to keep the Chinese and the Germans from figuring out at least the basics of the crosstime secret?

Good questions were so much easier to find than good answers. He'd noticed that before.

A San Francisco policeman walked by on the other side of the street. He was swinging his nightstick by the leather thong and whistling at the same time. He paid no attention to Paul—he was too busy showing off and having a good time.

"Dumb flatfoot," one of Paul's escorts said.

"Would you rather run into a smart one?" Paul asked.

The young Chinese man didn't bother to answer, not in words. By the way he threw back his shoulders and stuck out his chin, he didn't think there were any smart San Francisco cops. Paul's guess was that he was wrong. Paul also guessed his escort wouldn't listen if he pointed that out. One of these days, the fellow from the Tongs would probably find out the hard way.

"Find out the hard way," Paul muttered. He'd found out too many things about this alternate like that. How many more would he have to bang his nose into before he got back to the home timeline? That led straight back to the even more basic question he'd asked himself before—would he get back to the home timeline?

Up the street toward him came a middle-aged Asian man who reminded him of Bob Lee. It was dislike at first sight, as far as he was concerned. The man strode along as if he owned the sidewalk. He didn't get out of the way for Paul's escorts, and they didn't get out of the way for him.

That was liable to mean trouble. Such faceoffs could end up as badly here as in the home timeline or almost any other world. That Asian man was asking for a trip to the hospital if he thought he could take on so many by himself.

Then, just before he would have bumped into Paul and his escorts, the man spat out a sentence in harsh Chinese. The young men around Paul stopped as if they'd run into a brick wall. Paul took one more step forward, and found himself out in front of the pack.

The man pointed to him. "You," he said in tones that put Paul's back up right away. "You come along with me."

"What? Why?" Paul yelped.

"Triad business, that's why." The man added another sentence in Chinese. Paul understood not a word of it, but it kept his escorts frozen in their tracks.

Hesitantly, the one who did most of the talking for them said, "But we haven't seen you around here before, sir." It was one of the politest protests Paul had ever heard—a lot politer than he would have expected from the young men who led him around.

It didn't impress the stranger. With a sniff, he said, "Well, of course you haven't. I just got here from Hong Kong—he's that important." He jerked a thumb toward Paul.

"Oh," the escort said, his eyes wide. "Do you want us to come with you, then, make sure nothing happens to him?"

An impatient shake of the head answered him. The middle-aged man said, "He's not going anywhere I don't want him to." He slapped his vest pocket. He didn't come right out and say he had a gun in there, but Paul believed it. So did the young men from the Tongs. They didn't argue any more. The man pointed at Paul again, then jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. "Get moving, kid. We don't have all day."

Paul got moving. As he went, he said, "Will somebody for once tell me what the devil's going on?"

"Haven't you figured it out?" The Chinese man steered him around a corner. The fellow paused for a moment before following— he wanted to make sure the escorts weren't coming along in spite of what he'd said. They must not have been, for he caught up to Paul with a smile on his face. It made him look younger and not nearly so unpleasant. "It took me long enough to get here from Berlin—and from Crosstime Traffic."

Now Paul was the one who stopped dead. "From . . . Crosstime Traffic?" he whispered.

"Yup," the Chinese man said cheerfully. "I'm Sam Wong, by the way. Call me Sammy—everybody else does. A dollar for your thoughts." He paused to take a longer look at Paul. "You okay, kid? You're a little green around the gills."

"I don't know." Paul felt dizzy. He wasn't surprised Sammy Wong could see it in his face. Too much was happening too fast "Wait a minute." He tried to gather himself. "You're from—"

"The home timeline? You better believe it," Wong answered.

He knew the right things to say. Nobody in the home timeline said a penny for your thoughts the way they did here. Nobody in the home timeline had even seen a penny since Paul's great-grandfather was a boy. Sammy Wong knew there was a home timeline, which gave him a head start right there. And he knew there was such a thing as Crosstime Traffic.

All of which proved . . . what? If the Feldgendarmerie had squeezed Dad, or if somebody else form the home timeline had goofed and got caught, who could guess what the locals knew?

"I'd better believe it?" Paul said. "How can I? How can I be sure, I mean?"

"Oh." Sammy Wong winked at him. "I get it. You don't think I'm the genuine article. Well, you can find out. Ask me anything."

"Like what?"

Wong shook his head. "No. If I tell you what to ask me, you'll figure I told you to ask that because somebody briefed me on it. You pick the questions."

That made sense. Paul thought. What were some things nobody from this alternate was likely to know? "Who won the Super Bowl last year?"

"The Bengals. Second year in a row," Sammy Wong answered at once.

He was right. But that was the sort of thing clever people might brief an agent about. Paul needed something else. He snapped his fingers. "How much does a Whopper combo cost, and who sells it?"

"You get 'em at Burger King, and they run about five benjamins."

Paul grinned with relief. "Okay. I'm convinced. And I'm mighty glad to see you, too."

"Yeah, well, somebody had to come pick up the pieces. Happens they stuck me with it," Wong said. "What did go wrong here? You guys vanished off the face of the earth."

"They decided our electronics were too good to be true," Paul said bitterly. "I was afraid that would happen, and I was right. They got Dad. Only reason they didn't get me, too, is that I wasn't home when they came."

"That would have made things harder," Wong said. "More complicated, anyhow. For now, it looks like the Chinese are going to be able to get your father out of jail."

"Great!" Paul said—the escort hadn't been lying, then. The older man didn't seem so delighted. After a moment, Paul saw why: "Oh. Then they'll have him instead."

"Right the first time," Sammy Wong said. "And maybe they'll play nice if you sing for them.... I suppose that was the deal?" He waited. Paul nodded. So did Wong. "Okay. Figured as much—it was the only card you had. Can't blame you for playing it. But they might decide to hang on to you and your old man once you do sing. This is their big chance, or they hope it is."

"Uh-huh," Paul said. "Wouldn't do them as much good as they think."

Wong shrugged. "I don't mind giving them some help, as long as I can do it without giving away the crosstime secret."

Paul almost said the secret was already lost. Lucy had it, sure enough. But if he told that to this fellow who'd never met her, what was Wong liable to do? Get rid of her. Crosstime Traffic people could be ruthless when they had to. That was part of their job. Paul didn't care about their job. He didn't want anything happening to Lucy.

He did say, "The Tongs are close. I'm not sure how close the Germans are." Sammy Wong needed to know that. Paul went on, "Don't bet that the Germans aren't, especially now that they've got their hands on Dad. But it was what we were selling that made people sit up and take notice. Like I said, it was too good. People knew it couldn't be from here."

Frowning, Wong said, "I don't know what to do about that. If we just sell ordinary junk, who'll buy from us? Where will we get the money we need to buy produce? The home timeline has to eat, you know." He was smooth. He didn't say anything like Crosstime Traffic has to turn a profit. That was there, but he didn't come out and hit Paul over the head with it.

As a matter fact, Dad had used exactly the same argument. Paul hadn't been able to tell him he was wrong, either. Nor could he tell Wong he was wrong. All he could do was ask, "So what happens next?"

"I think we put you on ice for a while," the Crosstime Traffic man answered. "We've still got to work out how we're going to set all this to rights." He muttered something to himself, then spoke out loud: "It's not going to be as easy as anybody back at the home timeline thought."

His idea of how to put Paul on ice was .. . different. After the Feldgendarmerie raid, Paul had tried to find the most obscure hidey-hole he could. Sammy Wong, by contrast, walked over to the Palace Hotel on Market Street and booked him in there. It was the fanciest, most expensive hotel this San Francisco boasted.

Sammy Wong turned out to have the room next door. Grinning, he said, "When somebody goes missing, the cops'll turn the Tenderloin upside down. Nobody'd think to look here."

"Easy for you to say," Paul answered. "I couldn't have afforded this for a week, not with the money I had."

"That does make a difference," Wong admitted. "You're here now, though. Enjoy it. Call room service. Order yourself prime rib or a lobster. Why not? It's on the company."

The bed was big enough to get lost in. The bathtub was big enough to swim in (though nobody here had ever heard of a Jacuzzi). Room service seemed wonderful. Paul decided that, if he had to hide out somewhere, this knocked the socks off the miserable joint where he had been staying.

Whenever Lucy was out on the street, she looked for Paul. She knew the Triads had lots of people doing the same thing. So did the San Francisco police. And so did the Feldgendarmerie. Her odds of finding him first—of finding him at all—weren't good. She looked anyhow.

It's for his own good, she told himself. Anyone else who caught him would want to pull information out of him. Whoever did wouldn't be gentle about it, either. Lucy wondered what she'd do if she spotted him first. Tell him to run away and hide, she supposed. But how could he have disappeared so completely?

Had he somehow gone back to his own world? How? He'd said the only way there was through Curious Notions. He couldn't have got back in the shop . . . could he? She didn't see how. The Feld-gendarmerie hadn't forgotten about it. They weren't that dumb. Germany wouldn't have stayed top dog for as long as she had if the people in her secret police were fools.

Lucy wondered if Stanley Hsu and his friends had figured out that Paul might have vanished from this world altogether—and that his father might do the same. She didn't say anything to the jeweler about that. She wondered if Lawrence Gomes would mention it. She didn't think so. If that possibility wasn't his ace in the hole, she would have been amazed.

One evening, she was washing dishes and her little brother was drying them. Michael hated drying dishes, which meant he did a lousy job of it. It also meant he looked for any excuse not to dry them. Even talking with his sister was better than doing what he was supposed to do—especially if he could annoy her. He did his best, saying, "You haven't heard from your boyfriend lately."

Lucy was washing a big serving platter. Mother would get upset if she smashed it over Michael's head. Too bad, she thought. She looked down her nose at him instead. "I haven't got a boyfriend," she said loftily.

"You know the one I mean—the guy from that place with the neat electronics." Michael was going to take over Father's shop one of these days (if I don't strangle him first, Lucy thought). He'd already learned a lot about the things Father repaired.

What he'd learned about people, on the other hand, would fit on a pinhead, and a little pinhead at that. Lucy sometimes thought he was a little pinhead. She said, "Paul's not my boyfriend. You'd better remember that. And you'd better remember he got Father out of jail, so you don't want to make rude remarks about him. You do want to dry that platter. Don't just stick it in the drainer."

Michael made a face at her. He dried the platter, but wanting to was a different story. Then he made another face, not the same one this time. "If he's not your boyfriend, what is he?"

"He's none of your business, that's what," Lucy snapped. Michael grinned. He'd made her angry, which won him a point. For a little while, Lucy was hotter than the water in the sink. Then she said, "He's just a friend. That's not the same as a boyfriend. You'll find out what the difference is when you get bigger."

Her brother made yet another face, one both disgusting and disgusted. At ten, he was sure girls were poisonous. He was sure he'd feel that way forever, too. He wasn't as smart as he thought he was. He wasn't smart enough to realize he wasn't as smart as he thought he was, either.

When he stopped making gagging and choking noises to go with the horrible face, he said, "If he's just a friend, how come he never comes over here?"

Because it might bring the Feldgendarmerie down on him. Because it might bring the Feldgendarmerie down on us, too. Lucy smiled sweetly. "Because then he might meet you, and he'd never want anything to do with me again after that."

"You're mean!" Michael could dish it out better than he could take it. He fired the big gun: "Mommy!"

"What's going on?" Mother called from the living room. A warning note rang in her voice.

Michael's explanation differed from Lucy's by about 180 degrees. They both got louder and louder, trying to shout each other down. Michael snapped the towel at Lucy. That could have hurt, but he missed. She splashed him with dishwater. He screeched so shrilly, even dogs would have had trouble hearing him.

"What's going on?" Mother said again, this time from the doorway. Again, the stories she heard might have happened on two different planets. She set her hands on her hips. "That will be enough from both of you. One more peep from this kitchen out of either one of you and you'll both be sorry."

Lucy finished washing the dishes. Michael finished drying them. They made faces and sent rude gestures at each other till they were done. Neither said a thing. They got their messages across just the same.

When Lucy came out of the kitchen, her father looked out from behind his newspaper. That was enough to make her stop in surprise. Once he started looking at the paper, he was usually gone till he got done. Then he surprised her again by saying her name.

"What is it, Father?" she asked.

"What do you know about Curious Notions?" Charlie Woo asked in turn. "Will they be opening up again? I want more of a chance to find out how they do what they do."

I know how they do what they do. They bring things in somehow from another world. No wonder you couldn't figure out how their gadgets work. But Lucy didn't think she could tell him that. He might believe it. He knew those gadgets weren't like any this world made. They hit him the same way Paul's claim to come from Thirty-third Avenue in the Sunset District hit her. They didn't fit. They didn't fit. But the reason they didn't fit was Paul's secret. And he'd made it very plain that he wished she didn't know it, let alone anyone else.

She might have told her father anyway, except for one other thing. Paul had also made it very plain that knowing his secret was dangerous. If he hadn't, what had happened to him and to his father and to Curious Notions would have. Lucy didn't want her father to know the secret because it might be dangerous to him. The Germans had already jailed him once just for being near the edges of it.

So all she said was, "I don't think they're going to be opening up again any time soon. The Feldgendarmerie let Mr. Gomes go, but they haven't let him get back to work."

"I wonder why not," her father said. "If they want to catch him doing something, they should give him the chance to do it. If they leave the place closed, they'll never find out what he was up to."

Lucy blinked. She hadn't thought of it like that. Most of the time, it would have made good sense. But one of the things Mr. Gomes could do—or she supposed he could—was disappear from this world and go back to his own. And if he did, how could the Feldgen-darmerie go after him?

"I didn't know you could think like a Feldgendarmerie man," she said.

Her father made a face nastier than any of the ones Michael had aimed at her. "You say the sweetest things," he muttered.

"I didn't mean it like that," Lucy told him.

That horrible face melted into a tired smile. "I know you didn't, sweetheart," he said. "But I've met the Germans up close, and you haven't. I don't want to think like them, believe you me I don't."

She started to say she'd met the Feldgendarmerie, too, when they let him out of jail and brought him back here. Something in his eyes told her that would be worse than just wasting her breath. It would be saying something not only stupid but naive. No one could know the German secret police who hadn't been in jail, who hadn't been grilled. Father had. She hadn't. It was as simple as that.

He went back to his newspaper. She went to her room. He hadn't rubbed her nose in the mistake she almost made. That wasn't his style. But he'd made sure she knew about it. And she did. She didn't think she'd ever be foolish that particular way again.

The next couple of days, Mrs. Cho was grumpy. She was worse than grumpy, in fact—she was downright mean. Lucy wondered if her supervisor was having a hard time at home and taking it out on her. If it wasn't something like that, then the Triads weren't happy with her. She hoped it was Mrs. Cho's problem.

But it turned out not to be. When she got back to her desk from lunch on the third day, she fond a note on it. Please see me this evening—S.H., it said in Stanley Hsu's elegant script. Lucy wondered who'd put it there. Mrs. Cho? Somebody from outside the shoe factory? She realized she'd probably never find out.

She tore the note into little pieces and threw it in the trash. She wished she could ignore it along with ripping it up. But she couldn't, and she knew it.

She did her best to look on the bright side of things. She usually did, even if it didn't always help. Maybe the jeweler or Mr. Gomes had learned what had happened to Paul. Maybe he'd even be there. She didn't really expect he would, but she could hope.

Mrs. Cho kept right on being nasty the rest of the day. Did that mean she wasn't the one who'd put the note on Lucy's desk? Or was she just trying to show Lucy that the Triads were still mad at her? Lucy gave up trying to figure it out. She'd get some answers—or she hoped she would—when she saw Stanley Hsu.

"Hello, Miss Woo. How are you today?" he said when she walked into his shop. His manners were perfect for setting rich customers at ease. That made them feel a little phony, a little oily, to Lucy.

"I'm all right," she said. "What do you want from me? What do you need from me?"

"I was wondering—and Paul's father was wondering—whether you'd heard from him," Stanley Hsu answered. "The two of you seem to have struck up quite a friendship. If anyone has seen him, you're likely to be the one."

"I haven't," Lucy said. Stanley Hsu looked disappointed. Mr. Gomes came out of the jewelry store's back room. He looked disappointed, too. Lucy didn't think he was faking that, though she felt less sure about Stanley Hsu. If Paul's father was still worried about him, what did that mean? Probably that Mr. Gomes didn't think Paul had gone back to their own world. If he believed Paul had, he wouldn't seem so worried . . . would he?

"Do you have any idea where he might have gone?" Stanley Hsu asked.

Lucy shook her head. "I was hoping you would." She wasn't going to say a word about that other Sunset District. She didn't know what Paul's father had told Stanley Hsu. She could tell she'd end up in trouble if the man from the Triads found out she knew things he didn't. Mr. Gomes might end up in trouble, too.

Stanley Hsu just said, "No, we don't."

Paul's father added, 'This whole business is just a mess. When the Germans grabbed me, Paul managed to stay free. And now he's missing, but I'm out." He nodded to Stanley Hsu, to let him know he knew whom he ought to thank for that. The corners of his mouth turned down in a frown. With the big, droopy mustache he wore, it looked as if he were frowning twice. "Once we get back together, we can . . . figure out what to do next."

Had the jeweler heard that little hesitation there? Lucy sure had. What had Mr. Gomes started to say? Something like We can go back to where we belong? That would have been her guess.

"Paul hasn't tried to get in touch with you?" Stanley Hsu persisted. "No notes? No letters? No phone calls at work?"

"No, Mr. Hsu. Nothing," Lucy said truthfully. She suspected the jeweler already knew the answer was no, but was going through the motions—maybe for Mr. Gomes' sake. She also suspected Stanley Hsu knew exactly what her mail was, and exactly who called her. If Paul had done any of those things and she'd said no ... She didn't think she would have enjoyed that.

"What are we going to do?" Paul's father aimed the question at Stanley Hsu, not at Lucy.

The jeweler looked annoyed—not at Lawrence Gomes, but because he had no answer for him. "We're looking," he said. 'That's all I can tell you right now. We are looking. We can do a better job of looking than anyone else in this city. That includes the police and the Feldgendarmerie. We have more eyes than they do, and better eyes. The Kaiser's men and their stooges have to pay bribes. People help us because they want to."

How true was that? If the Triads asked you to keep an eye out for somebody, would you tell them no? Lucy didn't think that would be smart. The Triads didn't have the law on their side, the way the cops and the Germans did. But they could take revenge that had nothing to do with law. And the Feldgendarmerie had been trying to knock them out ever since Germany conquered the USA. That was a long time ago now, and they hadn't done it yet.

"If one of us has to be in jail, it should be me," Mr. Gomes said. A father was supposed to say that if he feared his son was in trouble.

But Stanley Hsu said, "He's not in jail in San Francisco, not with the police and not with the Feldgendarmerie. We would know. I can guarantee that. I don't think he's in jail anywhere else—not unless he left San Francisco on his own. If the Germans or their flunkies have tried to smuggle him out, we would know that."

He sounded very sure of himself. Lucy believed him, too. She wasn't so sure about Paul's father. "Well, where is he, then?" he exploded. "In the Palace Hotel?"

Lucy burst out laughing. That was the most ridiculous thing she could imagine. Stanley Hsu gave Mr. Gomes a thin smile. "You are a man of wit, sir."

"I don't care about wit right now," Paul's father said. "All I care about is getting my son back again."

"We want the same thing you do," the jeweler said, his voice smooth as glass.

No, you don't! Lucy wanted to shout it, but she kept quiet. What the Triads wanted to do was get their hands on both people from Curious Notions. Once they had them, they thought they could get answers out of them. Didn't Paul's father see that? But even if he did, what could he do about it? The Triads were his only hope of seeing Paul again. E he didn't play along with them, he had no hope at all.

"Do you need me for anything else?" Lucy asked Stanley Hsu.

He shook his head. "No, Miss Woo. I do thank you for stopping by. And if you should hear anything from Paul, please let us know."

"I will," Lucy said. If I have to, I will. If I think you know anyway, I will. Otherwise? Otherwise, don't hold your breath.

"It could be very important," Mr. Gomes said.

"If I have anything to tell, I'll tell it." Lucy was more willing to tell Paul's father than she was to tell Stanley Hsu. She wondered why. Whatever she told Mr. Gomes, the jeweler would find out in short order. She still felt there was a difference. Maybe it was that Mr. Gomes had the right to know about Paul, where Stanley Hsu didn't.

She was glad to get out of the jewelry shop. The door hadn't quite swung shut before the two men inside started shouting at each other. Lucy wondered what it was all about. She could think of several possibilities. Maybe Mr. Gomes saw more than he'd let on in front of her. She hoped so. He would almost have to, wouldn't he? But the less he showed he knew, the more choices and chances he might have later on. He might give Stanley Hsu a surprise if one of those chances came up.

Or he might not. The jeweler was a slick operator. And he wasn't on his own, the way Paul's father was. He had the resources of the Triads behind him. Those resources reached all the way back to China. What could Mr. Gomes put in the scales that would balance them?

Lucy realized that wasn't just a rhetorical question, as she'd thought at first. The gadgets Curious Notions sold showed that Paul and his father knew things people in this world didn't. That they were able to get from their world to this one showed the same thing. What else did they know that they weren't letting on? Lucy would have bet they had other secrets to use when they needed them. In their shoes, she would have.

She tried to imagine what some of those secrets might be. She didn't have much luck, and started laughing at herself. They wouldn't be much in the way of secrets if she could figure them out, would they?

When she got home, her mother said, "You're a little late."

Lucy shrugged. "I know. I'm sorry. I found out I had to make a stop."

"Oh." Mother let the word hang in the air. "At the jeweler's?" She didn't give any hints about what she thought of that.

"Yes, at the jeweler's," Lucy said. "He wanted to know if I had any idea where Paul was. So did Paul's father."

"I believe that," Mother said. "And do you?"

"No. I haven't heard from him for a while," Lucy answered.

Mother didn't say anything for a moment. The knife in her hand flashed, slicing mushrooms almost thin enough to see through. At last, she asked, "Is that good or bad?"

"I don't know," Lucy said. "I just don't know."

Living in a luxury hotel was fine for a little while. It might have stayed fine longer if Paul had been able to go out when he wanted to. But Sammy Wong wanted him to sit tight. Paul couldn't blame the man from Crosstime Traffic for that. He understood it. But it made the luxury hotel feel like a luxury jail.

"Why don't we do something?" Paul asked him. "If the Tongs have my father, why don't we get him away from them? As soon as we do that, we can go to Berlin and get back to the home timeline."

"It's not quite so simple, I'm afraid," Wong answered. "I can get you away, and him, too—that's no problem." Paul stirred. It looked like a problem to him. Before he could say anything, the older man went on, "Getting you people away isn't the only reason I'm here, though. I'm here to try to make sure the Tongs and the Germans don't get their hands on the crosstime secret. That's number one."

"Nice to know I'm excess baggage," Paul said.

Sammy Wong grinned at him. "You're high-quality excess baggage, anyhow."

"Thanks a lot."

The Chinese man nodded, as if to say, Sure. Any time. Maybe he didn't notice the sarcasm. Maybe he did, but didn't want Paul to know he did. That struck Paul as more likely. It also made him want to strike Sammy Wong, preferably with a blunt instrument.

Instead, he went back to his room next door. It was fancy enough—no two ways about that. The carpet was thick enough for his shoes to disappear when he stepped down on it. The TV had a big screen—though the color wasn't as good as it would have been in the home timeline, and the picture was grainier.

No matter how big the TV was, it didn't show much he wanted to see. Newsmen going on about how wonderful the Kaiser was and how everything the Germans did was perfect weren't his idea of excitement. Quiz shows with excitable hosts were just as idiotic here as they were in the home timeline. Comedies struck him as anything but funny. Either the jokes were dumb or they were based on things you had to be from this world to get—or both.

That left sports. Soccer wasn't his cup of tea for killing time on TV. They played baseball and basketball here, too, but he also couldn't get thrilled about teams that weren't his own and players he'd never heard of.

He was, in a word, bored. In two words, very bored.

He even started to hate room service. The food was always good. But it always came from the same menu. You could tell it always came out of the same kitchen. No matter what he ordered, it seemed. . . familiar. A hamburger and greasy French fries from some mom-and-pop—Louie's, say—would have tasted like heaven.

Every time he looked out the window, the skyline reminded him that this wasn't his San Francisco. For the USA in this alternate, it was a first-rate city. But this USA was a second-rate country, and this San Francisco felt second-rate to him. The town he was used to bounced. This one . . . lurched.

Paul thought about asking Sammy Wong for permission to go out, just for a little while. He thought about it—and then he laughed at himself. He knew what the man from Crosstime Traffic would say. Wong would say no, that was what. He might say more than just no—he might say it so it sounded louder and more impressive than just no—but no was what it would boil down to.

And Paul didn't feel like hearing no. When he had to stop himself from kicking in the TV instead of just turning it off, he decided he had to get outside for a little while. Only for a little while, he told himself. Seeing more of the world than he could from his window, eating a hamburger from a place where he'd never been—he did know he shouldn't go back to Louie's or anywhere else in the neighborhood of Curious Notions—struck him as the most wonderful thing in the world.

Part of him knew that what he was thinking about wasn't the greatest idea in the world. The longer he stayed in the Palace Hotel, the less he cared about that part. Was he an animal in a cage? If he was, why hadn't Sammy Wong taken him to the zoo?

He knew why. In the zoo, people would look at him. Wong wanted to put him on ice and keep him on ice. Paul understood his reasons well enough. They made good sense. But their making sense wasn't enough to keep him from climbing the walls.

Only for a little while. The more that handful of words echoed inside his head, the better they sounded. After one last bowl of cioppino that tasted just like the other four bowls of cio'ppino he'd ordered, only for a little while sounded too good to resist.

Paul waited till after midnight. He wanted his keeper (that was how he was thinking of Sammy Wong by now) to be asleep. And he wanted the streets of San Francisco to be nice and quiet. If nobody was around when he took his little jaunt, nothing could go wrong.

He shut his door as quietly as he could. He walked down the hall to the elevator. A real, live elevator operator ran it. "Lobby," Paul said, and tipped him a nickel when he got out. The doorman didn't seem to think anything of someone heading out in the wee small hours. He opened the door with one hand while lifting his top hat from his head with the other.

It was chilly. It was foggy. Paul's breath came out in clouds. The street lights might have been ghosts of themselves. He stuck his hands in his pockets and ambled along. He could have been anybody out there, anybody at all. It felt wonderful.

Most of the shops and restaurants were closed. He did get that hamburger, though, at a place full of tough-looking men and the women who kept them company. Nobody gave him a second glance. He ate fast and got out, coughing from the cigarette smoke that hung in the air. People here smoked a lot more than they did in the home timeline. Maybe they didn't know how dangerous it was. Maybe they just didn't care.

He heard a soft clicking on the sidewalk behind him. Stray dog, he thought. A moment later, the dog came up beside him. It was almost the size of a Shetland pony. The instant he recognized it as an Alsatian, he realized it wasn't a stray. And he realized he was in trouble.

A hard hand fell on his shoulder. "You are Paul Gomes," a German-accented voice said. "Come wiuh me at once. You are under arrest."