Curious Notions

Seven

"I have news," Lucy Woo's father said over dinner, and then, "Pass the mushrooms and broccoli, please."

The bowl sat in front of Lucy. She sent it down the table. When Father served himself and didn't say anything more, she asked, "What is the news?"

He looked at her for a moment before answering. Then, his voice oddly flat, he said, "They've closed Curious Notions."

"What? Paul Gomes and his father?" Lucy couldn't believe it. "Why would they do that? They had to be making money hand over fist."

Father shook his head. "I don't think the people who ran it closed it. I think they had it closed for them." He sat very straight in his chair and looked stern and serious. When people in the United States did something like that, they always meant the Germans. "Everything was gone. You could look in the window and see that. And the neighbors say the wagons were there the other day."

"How terrible!" Lucy said. "Can we do anything for them?"

Normally, that would have been a dumb question. J£ the Feld-gendarmerie took you away, odds were you were gone for good. But not always. Father was here mixing vegetables and rice to prove that. Mother said, "Maybe you can do something, Lucy. You're the one who knows the Triad people."

"Lucy thinks that Paul fellow is cute," Michael said.

Lucy was reminded—not for the first time—what horrible, poisonous creatures little brothers were. She sent Michael a glare that should have knocked him flat. He was tough as a weed, though. As far as she was concerned, the resemblance didn't end there. "Why don't you talk about things you know about—if you know anything?" she hissed.

Michael stuck out his tongue at her. "You do, too!" he jeered. "Nyah, nyah!"

"That will be enough of that," Mother said. "That will be enough of that from both of you, in fact." She pointed a finger at Lucy. Lucy didn't think that was fair. Her brother had started it. She hadn't given him half the trouble he'd given her.

Besides, he was wrong . . . wasn't he? Lucy liked Paul pretty well. He was interesting—a lot more interesting than anybody at the shoe factory, not that that said much. She liked him, yes. But did she like him? She hadn't even thought about it. She wondered why not.

He's strange. The answer formed in her mind as soon as the question did. She'd said as much to Peggy. He was very strange— nice, but strange. Thirty-third Avenue? Not likely! Maybe that silly idea she'd had about different worlds wasn't so silly after all. If anything could make her wonder, it was how strange Paul Gomes was.

Then she shook her head. No, it wasn't just Paul. The things Curious Notions sold—had sold—didn't come from any place she knew, either. Her father would have agreed with that. Where did they come from, then?

The same place as Paul, obviously. But where was that?

"Do you think the Triads would do anything?" her father asked.

"I don't know," Lucy answered. "They might. They were sure interested in anything that had to do with Curious Notions."

Her father drummed his fingers on the desktop. "I was in the Germans' jail. I don't like to think about anybody going in there. If you can get them out, you should."

"I'll try," Lucy said. "I don't know if the Triads will listen to me. Even if they do, I don't know what kind of price they'll ask."

"There usually is a price," Father agreed.

"Always," Mother said softly.

Lucy had already seen that. Stanley Hsu took the idea for granted. To him, it was just the way the world worked. The jeweler had helped her—for the price of a question. Getting people away from the Feld-gendarmerie was bound to cost more. How much more? And in what coin? Lucy could only go and find out. If it wasn't the sort of price she thought she ought to pay... then the German secret police would hang on to Paul and his father.

"I'll do what I think I can, that's all," Lucy said. Her mother and father both nodded. If Michael made small, disgusted noises . . . Well, she didn't have to pay any attention to him. She didn't have to, and she didn't.

Paul wished he'd fled back to the home timeline when he had the chance. Maybe the two hundred dollars in his pocket had kept him from going down to the subbasement and calling for a transposition chamber. Maybe—he hoped more likely—his first thought had been rescuing Dad all by himself.

If so, it only went to show that thinking twice was a good idea. When he first came back to the building that housed Curious Notions, there weren't any Feldgendarmerie men or American police or men from the Tongs inside. (Perhaps the people who'd taken his father thought a kid wasn't worth bothering with. In that case, their first thoughts weren't so hot, either.)

They thought twice before Paul did. Curious Notions was shut up tight now. He couldn't get to the subbasement even if he wanted to. There'd be traps inside, just in case he was dumb enough to try.

He'd taken a room in a grimy old hotel in the Tenderloin District: a dollar a night or five dollars a week. The brick building was so rundown, he wondered if it dated from before the 1906 earthquake. But it wasn't quite that ancient. One of the bricks above the front door had a date carved into it: 1927. It was so very dirty and worn, he needed several days to notice it.

The room itself had seen endless coats of paint. The last one, a sad beige, had been a long time before. It was faded and peeling and filthy. The room had a sink and toilet and tub, a tiny table with two chairs, and a hot plate for cooking. The smell of cheap grease had soaked into the paint. A lot of people on the way down who hadn't quite hit bottom yet had lived here. That fit Paul to a T right now.

There was no thermostat on the wall. Heat came from a cast-iron steam radiator in a corner. It bubbled and clunked and, every once in a while, dripped a little rusty water on the cheap green carpet. The size of the rust stain there said it had been doing that for a long time.

Several locks and dead bolts did their best to make sure the door stayed closed and intruders stayed out. When the desk clerk handed Paul half a dozen keys, he'd eyed them in dismay. What dismayed him even more was that they might not be enough. You didn't use hardware like that where it wasn't needed.

After he got a good look at some of the people who lived in the hotel, he wished the door had twice as many locks on it. If they weren't the people his parents had warned him about, he'd never seen anybody who was. He didn't want to think about what they did for a living. More than a few of them didn't do anything visible for a living. They seemed proud of doing nothing, too.

And they figured Paul was in the same boat they were. He didn't do anything visible, either. If anything, that won him respect in the Tenderloin. A ferret-faced little man with a scar on one cheek grinned as they passed each other on the stairs in the middle of the morning. "Beats working, don't it?" he said.

"Uh-huh," Paul answered with a silly nod. He knew he should have said, Yeah, out of the side of his mouth. But the man with the scar just nodded back and kept going up the stairs.

In this alternate, German college students still dueled with sabers. They got scars like that. Students at a few American colleges imitated the Germans. Paul would have bet a thousand benjamins against a dollar that this fellow hadn't been anywhere close to a college, except maybe to break into a dorm. He'd probably got his scar in a real knife fight. Paul wondered what had happened to the man he'd been fighting. Better not to know, maybe.

Getting away from the hotel and back to his neighborhood was a relief. Curious Notions wasn't in the best part of town, either. Compared to where he was staying now, though, it looked like paradise.

He ducked into Louie's, the hamburger and frankfurter place where he'd bought a lot of lunches. There was no McDonald's or Burger King or Jack in the Box in this alternate. All the hamburger joints and frankfurter stands and pizza parlors here were mom-and-pops. Behind the counter at Louie's stood ... Louie. He was a Greek with slicked-back hair under a white cap that looked like the one Boy Scouts wore in the home timeline.

He did a double take when Paul walked in. Nobody else was in the little restaurant. It got busy at lunch and dinner. In between times, no. "What are you doin' here, kid?" Louie rasped in a voice rough from too many cigarettes. "You outa your mind or somethin'?"

"I'm trying to find out about Dad," Paul said.

"You'll find out, all right," the cook said. "You'll keep him company in the calaboose, that's how you'll find out. Feldgendarmerie wants you bad, sonny. You're hotter'n a two-dollar pistol on Saturday night." He swiped a wet rag across the counter.

"It was the Germans who got him, then?" Paul asked.

"Who did you expect? Santa Claus and the elves?" Louie lit another Camel. Paul tried not to flinch. Smoking in restaurants had been illegal for a hundred years in the home timeline. Smoking itself wasn't illegal there, but people who smoked did it in the privacy of their own homes. Smoking in public was as nasty as picking your nose in public. Paul had never seen Louie do that. But he smoked like a chimney.

Paul said, "I don't know. I wondered if the Chinese had anything to do with it."

"Oh. On account of the competition, you mean?" Louie probably had a grade-school education at best, but he was no dope. He shook his head. "Nah, wasn't them. This was official. Besides, they don't like the Kaiser more than they don't like your old man, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah." Paul nodded.

"But you gotta get lost," Louie said. "There's a reward out for you—two hundred and fifty bucks." That was a lot of money in this alternate. Louie went on, "Some of the clowns around here, they'd turn in their mother for a buck ninety-five."

He was probably right. Paul knew that, no matter how much he wished it weren't so. Trying to sound tough, he said, "I'll be okay."

"Yeah, sure you will. And pigs have wings." Louie waggled his eyebrows and rolled his eyes. "Go on. Get lost. No, hang on." He held up a hand, like a cop stopping traffic. This, that, and the other thing went into a paper bag. When it was bulging, he thrust it at Paul. "Now get lost—and if the cops come around, I never seen you."

The bag held burgers, fries, and some of the honey-soaked baklava that was a labor of love at Louie's. "You're a lifesaver," Paul exclaimed. "Here, wait, though. I can pay you for this stuff."

Louie turned his back. "Like I said, I don't see you. I don't hear you, neither. And I'll tell the . . . Feldgendarmerie the same." Paul didn't know what the Greek word in front of Feldgendarmerie meant. It wasn't a compliment, though. He was sure of that.

"Thanks," he said. "I won't forget this."

"Ghosts. Who'd figure a lousy Frisco burger joint had ghosts in it?" Louie wouldn't turn around.

Paul gave up. He hurried out of Louie's place and out of the neighborhood. Nobody came after him. No policeman's whistle screeched. The bag was heavy with food. He went over to Union Square, not far away. The Victory Monument stood here, as it did in the home timeline. The breakpoint between the two worlds came after the Spanish-American War. In this alternate, that was almost the last glory the USA had won. Pigeons perched on the bronze figure representing naval power atop the tall column in the center of the square. Considering what the birds did to that figure, maybe they stood for air power.

Like so much of this San Francisco, the square looked sad and run down. The grass needed watering and mowing. The wind swirled dust and wastepaper around the base of the Victory Monument. No-body'd painted the park benches in a long, long time. When Paul sat down on one of them, the planks creaked and shifted. He wondered if it would hold his weight, and got ready to jump in a hurry.

He gulped down one of the big, juicy hamburgers—heavy on the onions—and some fries and a chunk of baklava. By the time he got done, he felt as if he'd swallowed a bowling ball. The bag still had a lot of food in it. When Louie gave, he gave with both hands. Paul knew what he'd do for supper tonight.

He wished he knew what to do after supper. The closest people from the home timeline he knew of were in Germany. Getting hold of them would have been easy ... if he could have gone into Curious Notions.

Dumb, Paul. You were really dumb. He made a fist and slammed it down on the bench. That was true, but did him no good. How do I fix things?

"Don't be dumb," he said. Saying it was easy. Doing it? Doing it looked anything but.

Every so often, Lucy walked by Curious Notions on the way home from work. She didn't know why. The place stayed closed. But she did think walking by was safe enough. She was just one face on the street, and she never stopped. She didn't even turn her head as she walked past. She just flicked her eyes to the right and kept on going. Plenty of people in the United States had learned that look-without-seeming-to glance. Not showing what you had in mind was often a good idea.

Once she happened to see somebody coming out of the place. It was neither Paul Gomes nor his father. They weren't the only ones who'd run the shop, though. Lucy paused. She pretended to think about buying a Chronicle. In fact, she gave the stranger a quick once-over.

She needed about three seconds to decide he was a German. Probably a Feldgendarmerie man, she thought. His denim and big belt buckle and broad-brimmed hat were what an American would have worn. The way he walked wasn't even close to American, though. He didn't slouch along the way most men did. He marched.

Lucy could almost hear the trumpets and tubas and drums behind him.

And the way he looked around . . . Americans had known for well over a hundred years that they weren't masters in their own homeland. They acted like it. They had to act like it—the ones who didn't ended up in trouble or dead. A few of those lessons went a long way, especially when the Germans weren't shy about dishing them out. This fellow looked at the world as if he owned it. For all practical purposes, he did. People on the street scrambled to get out of his way. Lucy wasn't the only one who could figure out what he was.

His cold, self-satisfied gaze fell on her. He had a face that ached for a slap, but who could deliver it? By the time he looked away, she was staring hard at the newspaper. He didn't notice that she'd been eyeing him. On down the street past her he went. That invisible, inaudible oompah band still seemed to hover behind him.

Lucy sighed. With people like that coming out of Curious Notions, Paul and his father had to be in a Feldgendarmerie jail. And I do have to see Stanley Hsu. She sighed again. She'd put if off as long as she could, and even a little longer than that. She didn't want to have anything to do with the Triads. But fair was fair. She knew what she needed to do if she wanted to be able to go on looking at herself in the mirror.

Maybe the jeweler would laugh at her. Maybe he'd ask an impossible price—she knew what she wanted wouldn't come cheap. Maybe the Triads would do their best and fail. They weren't top dogs—the Kaiser's men were. Lucy wouldn't feel ashamed if the Triads failed. They were her best hope. Trying her hardest to help the people who'd helped her was what counted.

She started up the street toward Stanley Hsu's shop. It was only a few blocks—but it felt like a long, long way. She didn't want to make a fool of herself. She shrugged. If I do, I do, that's all, she thought. It wouldn't be the first time. It wouldn't be the last. Everybody was a fool now and again. Acting the fool was part of living. The trick—or one trick, anyhow—was trying not to make a fool of yourself the same way twice.

"Lucy! Is that you?"

The voice came from in back of her. She whirled. "Hello!" she said. "What are you doing here? I thought you were . .. somewhere else." Blurting out his name or that she'd thought he was in jail wouldn't do. That might be the quickest way to land him there.

His face twisted. "Just dumb luck that I'm not... somewhere else." He understood what she meant, all right. He went on, "Happened I wasn't home when we had, uh, visitors." He came up to her. "It's good to see you. It's good to see anybody with a friendly face."

"I'm glad to see you, too," Lucy answered. "I didn't know if I would."

"Luck, like I told you," Paul said. "Ah, you ought to know that there's a price on my head. I look like a desperate criminal, don't I?"

He looked tired and worried and on edge. Lucy would have felt the same way. She asked, "What are you going to do now?"

"Try to stay out of trouble myself. Try to get Dad out," he answered. "I don't know what else I can do right now. Things at Curious Notions didn't exactly work out the way I wish they would have." He hesitated. "I was thinking about asking the Tongs for help, but I'm not sure how to go about it."

"I was going to ask them for help for you—and for your father," Lucy added hastily. "Do you want to come with me? I can put you in touch with someone who's able to say yes or no, anyhow." What else Stanley Hsu might say was an interesting question.

Paul nodded. "Would you do that? Thank you very much."

Another pause. "You don't suppose he'll turn me in for the reward, do you?"

"He doesn't need the money," Lucy said, remembering the jeweler's sharp clothes and the fancy gems he sold. Then she realized that wasn't all Paul was worrying about. Might Stanley Hsu have his own reasons for making some sort of deal with the Kaiser's men? Of course he might, and Lucy knew it.

The same knowledge showed on Paul's face. One corner of his mouth twisted up in what wasn't quite a smile. "Beggars can't be choosers, and I'm a beggar right now," he said. "Let's go."

"Are you sure?" Lucy asked. He nodded again. She liked the way he made up his mind without a lot of fuss. He didn't like what he was about to do, but he aimed to go ahead and do it.

He grunted when she opened the door to Stanley Hsu's shop. It didn't look like much on the outside. He grunted again, on a different note, when he saw the kinds of things the jeweler had on his shelves. That's more like it, he might have said without words.

Stanley Hsu was standing behind the counter writing something when Lucy and Paul came in. "Hello, Miss Woo," he said, polite as always. "Who is your .. . friend?" He too spoke without words, asking, Who is this stranger you've brought here?

"I'm Paul Gomes." Paul spoke for himself. He waited to see if his name meant anything to the jeweler.

For a moment, it didn't. Then Stanley Hsu's dark, clever eyes narrowed. "Are you?" he murmured. "How interesting. I am very pleased to meet you, sir."

"I'm not nearly sure I'm pleased to meet you," Paul said. "I suppose you know why I'm here."

Lucy shot him a warning glance. You had to be watch what you said if you wanted something from the Triads. But Stanley Hsu didn't seem offended. Maybe he made allowances because Paul wasn't Chinese. "I think I may," he answered, his voice smooth as silk. "I suppose you know everything has its price."

"Oh, yes," Paul said. "Well, my price is getting Dad out of the Germans' jail. Do that, and we may have some more things to talk about."

Stanley Hsu's nostrils flared. He'd been about to set the Triads' price for helping Paul. Plainly, he didn't like getting beaten to the punch. "You are not without gall, are you?" he said in a low voice.

Shrugging, Paul answered, "I'm doing what I have to do. If you want to talk with me later, you'll play along."

"I have other choices, you know," the jeweler remarked. "The easiest would be to let the Feldgendarmerie have you along with your father."

"No!" Lucy said, though she'd thought of that, too.

Paul amazed her by tipping her a wink. "Go ahead," he told Stanley Hsu. "Yeah, go right ahead. Then when the Germans pump both of us, they'll get whatever we know, and you'll be sitting out in the cold. Enjoy it."

Just for a moment, the jeweler looked as if he'd bitten down hard on a lemon. Then all expression vanished from his face. "You do have gall," he murmured. "We could also squeeze you ourselves, you know."

Lucy started to say No! again. Before the word could come out, Paul held up a hand to stop her. He smiled at Stanley Hsu. "Yes, you could," he agreed. He sounded .. . friendly. Lucy couldn't imagine how he made himself sound that way, but he did. Smiling still, he went on, "You can squeeze as hard as you want, Mr. Hsu. Squeeze hard enough, and I'll tell you all sorts of things. I'm sure of it. But how will you know which ones to believe? Simple—you won't."

"I should not care to meet you when you are as old as I am now," Stanley Hsu said after half a minute's silence. "You would be very difficult."

Proudly, Lucy said, "He's already very difficult, and you know it."

That made the jeweler laugh out loud. "Well, what if he is? You don't want me to give him a swelled head by admitting it, do you?" He nodded to Paul with what looked like real admiration. "You certainly have an interesting way to bargain. I can think of one thing that might bring you into line."

"Oh?" Paul said. "What's that?"

"I might squeeze Miss Woo. I think you would give true answers to make sure I didn't." Stanley Hsu played the game for its own sake. Anyone who got in his way was just an obstacle. He would go on through no matter what.

He horrified Lucy. If he horrified Paul, the young man from Curious Notions didn't show it. "Come on, Lucy," he said. "This wasn't a good idea. But that's okay." He patted a pocket. "I've got a recording of Mr. Hsu saying that. Playing it in the right places ought to do us some good."

"Wait!" Stanley Hsu said. A pistol appeared in his hand as if by magic. "When I say wait, I mean it."

"No, you don't," Paul said. "Think it through. If you shoot me, you don't get any of the answers you want. If you shoot Lucy, you kill the only chance you've got of making me want to play along with you."

"You trust logic too far," Stanley Hsu said. Even so, the pistol disappeared as fast as it had appeared. The jeweler added, "You tempt me to shoot you for no better reason than to show you that you don't know it all."

"If I knew it all, I wouldn't be in this mess, and neither would my father," Paul said. "But I know enough to be worth something to you, and you can do some things I can't. If you spring Dad, we can talk. If you don't. . . well, I can talk to the Germans if I have to. I don't want to, but that's not what this is about."

Stanley Hsu gave Lucy a little bow. "You were right, Miss Woo. He is already very difficult."

"I told you so," she said. Yes, she was proud of her strange friend from—and maybe not from—Thirty-third Avenue.

The jeweler gave Paul Gomes a bow just like the one he'd sent Lucy's way. "I believe we have a bargain. My. .. friends will do what they can for your father. If and when they get him away from the Feldgendarmerie, you will speak freely about some things that interest us."

"Yes. I agree." Paul didn't look happy about the deal. What did he know that he didn't want to tell? Lucy knew she couldn't ask him. Some of the things he knew, he didn't want to tell her, either. She turned to go. Paul started to follow her.

They both stopped when Stanley Hsu coughed. "Excuse me," he said. "I do not wish to be annoying, but there is that recording you made, Mr. Gomes. I would like to have it, or to see it destroyed. Some people might, ah, misunderstand if you made it public."

"Might understand, you mean," Lucy said. Stanley Hsu's shrug was a small masterpiece.

Lucy and the jeweler both stared at Paul when he laughed. "Excuse me," Stanley Hsu said again, "but I do not see the joke." Ice could have formed on his words.

"Well, then, I'd better explain it," Paul said. "The joke is, there never was any recording. I've got the clothes on my back, and that's about it."

Stanley Hsu didn't say anything for more than a minute. He looked at Paul the way he had to look at a stone in a setting when he was trying to decide if it was a diamond or a fake. At long last, he nodded. "All right," he said. "I believe you. I don't think anyone your age has ever bluffed me before. I don't think you had better try it again, either." He sounded quietly furious—at himself, at Paul, or maybe at both of them at once.

Paul looked ready to say something snotty right back. Lucy sensed this wasn't the right time for that. Before he could let loose with whatever he had in mind, she said, "Let's go." She didn't shove him out the door, but she might as well have.

Once he was out on the sidewalk, he blinked as if he didn't quite know how he'd got there. Then, slowly—almost the way Stanley Hsu had—he nodded. "Thanks," he said. "I probably would have said something dumb. I'm trying not to do that so much." He paused. "Thanks for everything else, too."

"You're welcome," Lucy said, and then, "What are you eating?"

"Mostly burgers and hot dogs—uh, franks—and stuff," Paul answered. "I've got a room, and it's got a hot plate, but I'm not much of a cook."

"That's about what I thought. Do you want to come home for supper with me? There's always room for one more." Lucy wasn't sure her mother would agree with her, but even if she didn't, Paul would never know it. Mother would feed him till he was stuffed even if everybody in the family went hungry. Pride ran deep in her.

Paul started to nod, but then caught himself. "I'd better not. It's not because I don't want to, but it probably wouldn't be safe for you. If the Germans are still keeping an eye on your dad, and they see me show up ... That wouldn't be good, not even a little bit."

He was right. Lucy knew it as soon as she heard what he said. "It's not fair," she said, but she also knew fair didn't have anything to do with it. It was smart. It was sensible.

"Take care of yourself, and thanks one more time," Paul said. "I'll probably see you again before too long."

"I guess you will," Lucy said. It wasn't as if they were going out. They had a bond even so. "Where are you staying now?"

"Tenderloin District." He made a face. So did Lucy. The Tenderloin made the Sunset District seem like a Sunday picnic in Golden Gate Park. Paul went on, "I don't think I'd better say just where. What you don't know, nobody can make you tell."

Did he mean the Feldgendarmerie or the Triads? Either way, once more he made more sense than Lucy wished he did. He had a way of making sense. She'd noticed that. Most people blathered on and on, but he came straight to the point. Not even Stanley Hsu could match him. The jeweler was just as smart, maybe smarter— Lucy wasn't sure she'd ever met anybody as smart as Stanley Hsu. But he enjoyed talking around things, talking in riddles, perhaps to show off how smart he was. Paul Gomes didn't waste time fooling around. Lucy liked that better.

"I'd better go." Paul made as if to shake her hand, then seemed to think better of it. With a quick little nod, he hurried off toward the west.

Lucy found herself wishing he hadn't thought better of it. He's shy, she realized in surprise. He hides it pretty well, but he is.

With Paul gone, there wasn't much point to standing in front of the jewelry store. She went on up into Chinatown to her crowded apartment.

Her mother greeted her with, "You're late. How come?" She explained. As she did, her mother's face got longer and longer. "All these people at Curious Notions are nothing but trouble. Nothing but trouble, I tell you."

"Not quite nothing," Lucy said. "Without them, Father might still be in jail."

"Without them, he wouldn't have gone to jail in the first place," Mother pointed out. Lucy made an unhappy face, for that was true, too. But then her mother added, "You should have brought him home to supper. Chicken stew tonight. I could have put on some extra rice to make it stretch. It's about time the rest of us meet this mysterious fellow, don't you think?"

Before Lucy answered, she gave her mother a hug. Then she said, "I did ask him, but he didn't want to come. He said it could bring more trouble down on us if the Germans were watching and saw him here."

"Oh." Mother thought that over. Her mouth tightened. When she nodded, she plainly didn't want to. "I won't tell you he's wrong. I wish I could, but I can't. Should I be glad he's doing us that kind of favor?"

"I don't know," Lucy said. "Would you be glad if he didn't?"

"No-o-o," her mother said slowly. Then she turned away, as if she didn't want Lucy to see what she was thinking. "Go set the table, will you? Supper will be ready in a few minutes."

"Yes, Mother," Lucy said—almost always a safe answer.

Paul wished he knew what was going on inside the Feldgendarmerie jail. How hard were the Kaiser's men squeezing Dad? What was he saying? Paul had no way to find out. The people at Curious Notions had made friends with some San Francisco cops. That often came in handy. Paul didn't want to test it now. The Americans might feel they had to turn him in to the German masters. One mistake like that would be his last.

He would have liked to stay in his hotel room all the time. But he couldn't. For one thing, he'd go stir-crazy cooped up in there with nothing to do. For another, who would do anything for his father if he stayed? Dad could be a pain in the neck sometimes—even a lot of the time. But he was family. He would do whatever he could for Paul. Paul had to do the same for him.

And besides, the sooner Dad was out, the less chance he'd spill the secret of crosstime travel. That would be very bad, not just for him, and not just for Crosstime Traffic, either. It would be bad for who could say how many different alternates.

Paul did venture out every so often, then. Whenever he did, he wished he had eyes in the back of his head till he got out of the Tenderloin District. Then, as soon as he came close to Curious Notions, he started wishing for them all over again. He wasn't just watching for cops and crooks there. Anybody who'd ever known him in this San Francisco might betray him.

He wished he dared go into the shop. Had the Feldgendarmerie discovered the underground room in which the transposition chamber appeared? That could be bad enough all by itself. But the Germans might still have people there waiting to scoop him up. If they didn't, they might have sensors to let them know he was there. Their best gadgets weren't as good as the ones from the home timeline, but they didn't have to be. Paul had no gadgets of his own right now.

Sighing, shaking his head, he turned the corner—and almost walked into a San Francisco policeman. "Sorry," the cop said politely, tipping his hat. He had a face like the map of Ireland. Then his green eyes narrowed. "The Gomes kid! What are you doing here? Have you lost all of your mind?"

"Hello, Andy." Paul got ready to run like the devil. Andy O'Connell's belly stuck out over his belt. He'd eaten a lot of donuts and burgers and chop suey in his years on the beat. He couldn't run any faster than a dump truck. But he had a big pistol strapped to his hip. If he pulled it out and started shooting, he didn't need to run fast.

He kept staring at Paul. "The Kaiser's bully boys want to lock you up and lose the key. You know that?" He didn't make any move for the gun, or for his handcuffs, or for Paul.

"Yeah, I know that. But I don't know why," Paul said. "I didn't do anything."

'The bulletin says 'suspicion of subversion,'" the policeman told him. 'That's what the Germans say when they want somebody and don't want to talk about why. They don't even want us to know why they want you." He spat on the sidewalk to show what he thought of that.

Hope flowered in Paul. He'd always thought Andy O'Connell was a pretty decent guy. He hadn't trusted him far enough to take a chance on him, but now he didn't seem to have much choice. "Is Dad okay?" he asked. "Do you know?"

"I haven't heard that he's not, but I don't know if I would," the cop answered. "You want I should ask around a little? I can do it so it doesn't look funny."

"Would you?" Paul said eagerly. "That'd be great."

"Do my best," O'Connell said. "Meantime, you should make like a tree, and leaf. Find a hole. Jump in. Cover it up over you. The Feldgendarmerie wants you, sonny. They want you bad."

"Now tell me one I didn't know," Paul said.

The Irishman eyed him with real curiosity. "What the devil did you do?" He held up a hand before Paul could answer. "Don't tell me again you didn't do anything. Nobody every did anything, not since the world was new. I'll ask it a different way. What do the Kaiser's boys think you did? If I know that, it'll help me ask the right questions."

No doubt that was true. But anything even close to the truth would be dangerous to Paul. He said, "I can't tell you, because I don't know. All I know is, they grabbed Dad while I wasn't home." That last was the truth, but only a tiny part of it.

"Uh-huh." As cops will, O'Connell had developed a fine-tuned sense of what was so and what wasn't. He didn't come right out and call Paul a liar, but he didn't believe him, either. He shrugged broad shoulders. "Well, like I said, I'll see what I can do. Meantime, you get lost."

"I intend to," Paul said.

"You better," the policeman told him. "There's a reward out for you—you know that?"

Paul nodded. "Somebody told me." He didn't want to name Louie. Anybody who knew anything about him could end up in trouble because of it.

"You're lucky it wasn't somebody who turned you in instead," O'Connell said. "Believe you me, kid, you don't know how lucky you are."

"Some luck," Paul said. "If I were really lucky, the Germans wouldn't be after me." Andy O'Connell just shooed him away. He might have been saying he'd already wasted too much time on him. Paul left. He walked for several minutes before he realized he'd been as lucky with the cop as he had with the short-order cook.