Water To Burn Part 25

It's impossible to do an accurate SPP over the phone. I had to rely on ordinary clues, the sound of her voice, the way her mind jumped back and forth, my former impression of her. I decided that she was telling me the truth as she saw it.

"I'm sorry he didn't." I put as much sympathy as I could into my voice. "If you can think of anything else that might be relevant, call me." I gave her my landline number. "Leave a message if I'm not answering."

"I will, yeah." She paused for a long breath. "Do you think you can get whoever it was?"

"I don't know yet. One last thing. Don't go anywhere near the ocean for a while. And be real careful if you go out at night."

"I haven't been going out at night at all," Karo said. "You mean I'm not just being paranoid?"

"That's exactly what I mean. And especially, stay away from the ocean." I had a rational lie all ready. "I have reason to suspect that the killer's stalking the coast. He may even be camping out on the beach at times."

"Oh, jeez! Okay. I won't. Oh, c.r.a.p!"

I signed off, then wrote up the conversation for my files and sent a copy off to the Agency. A blackmailer, and he claimed Belial was his familiar-the probability of there being two men like that, even in the Bay Area with its b.u.mper crop of would-be occultists, was low. When I remembered Caleb remarking that his resources were limited at the moment, the probability dropped to zero. With Evers gone, he lacked fresh manure to sell.

Which raised the question, why would Caleb kill Evers, if Evers was his cash cow? Unless Evers was getting ready to do what Karo wanted and go to the police? I remembered him saying how much he wished he'd listened to his girlfriend. He might have been ready to take Karo's advice-too late. I remembered my feeling that the murder had happened on a sudden impulse. If Evers and Caleb had been having that four o'clock drink together, Evers might have told Caleb that the game had ended. Might, maybe, possibly-I didn't know, and it rubbed on my mind the way a stone in a shoe rubs a foot.

By then, it was almost time for the boys, as I was thinking of them, to return. I went into the kitchen to put together some sandwiches. As soon as I opened the refrigerator door, I felt someone staring at me from behind. I turned around and looked out the window on the side wall. No Fog Face, no one at all hovered outside. The feeling vanished as fast as it had begun.

I shrugged and went back to the counter where I had a loaf of French bread and the bread knife.

"Remember the angel's gifts," a voice said from behind me. It sounded high and lilting, to the point where I wasn't sure if it were a man or a woman speaking.

I spun around: no one there. I wondered if I were having a simple IOI, because sometimes the "images," that is, the intuitions I have, do materialize as sound, not sight. Still, this voice had presented itself to my mind as something completely outside of myself.

"Belial?" I said. "Is that you?"

I heard a quick laugh and a snort of scorn. "Belial?" the voice said. "Small fry. Calamari."

"Then who are you?"

No answer, no nothing. I could feel no presence in the flat but my own. I shuddered all over, then went back to making the sandwiches, but I kept my big German steel cooking knife right at hand. When I heard Ari and Michael's voices on the stairs, I felt like cheering in relief.

Michael went straight to the bathroom, which gave Ari a moment to ask if everything had been all right during their absence.

"I guess," I said. "I heard someone talking to me, but I couldn't see him or anything. That's kind of common around here."

"Then why do you sound so worried about it?" Ari said.

"Do I? Well, yeah, it was kind of creepy, but I didn't get an ASTA or SAWM."

"Do you remember what I said about trusting your sodding talents too much?"

I did, and he had a point. If Cryptic Creep, as I named him to myself, was hoping I'd join whatever group he belonged to, he posed no threat-yet. If I kept saying no, as I intended to do, the threat might move a whole lot closer. When Michael returned, I changed the subject. I didn't want him worrying about something I couldn't explain.

The guys pitched into the sandwiches as if they were starving, though Michael talked almost as much as he ate. Guns, apparently, were his new love in life, though he did allow as how Sophie came first and guns, second. I listened politely to the details of how loud and smelly the guns were, though Michael didn't use those particular terms. After they ate, we all went into the living room. Ari and I sat Michael down on the computer chair, while we sat on the couch and faced him across the coffee table.

"Okay, bro," I said. "Let's discuss this crazy idea. I've heard from the Agency. They're going to try to get Sophie her papers. Now we have to get Sophie over here to use them."

Michael started to smile, then got up. He walked over to the window and turned his back on us so fast that I realized he was crying-in sheer relief, an SPP told me. When Ari started to get up, I grabbed him by the shirttail and yanked him back down. Ari opened his mouth to protest, but when I pointed to my tear ducts, he got the message and stayed silent.

First love, I thought to myself. It's always the worst.

With one last sniffle, Michael made a great show of wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his T-shirt, then turned back with a smile that amounted to rictus.

"Sorry," he said. "It uh must be uh tree pollen or something."

"Yeah," I said. "Your eyes are red. Allergies."

Michael glanced around, saw a box of tissues on the floor by my computer desk, and snagged a couple. He blew his nose before he sat back down. Ari, bless him, picked the conversational thread right up.

"What's this Jose going to think," Ari said, "when you show up with a gunman?"

"He'll be real impressed, that's all," Michael said. "You'll be, like, my wingman. In that world, it'll mean I'm seriously somebody."

"I'm very glad," Ari said, "that you don't want to take up permanent residence over there."

"Yeah, it would suck." Michael considered this for a moment. "Y'know, I was kind of afraid that maybe the BGs weren't going to let me leave one of these days. That's another reason why I want to get Sophie out of there."

"Why wouldn't they let you leave?" I said. "That scheme of Jose's?"

"Yeah, whatever it is. Sophie can tell us once we get her here."

"I'm willing to go with you," Ari said, "but can I? Nola has some share of your talents. I don't."

"c.r.a.p." Michael slumped a little on the chair. "Yeah, maybe you can't." He straightened back up. "Although, if Sophie can do it, you should be able to. I guess we'll just have to try it and see."

"Michael Eamonn O'Grady!" I said. "Are you telling me she's already been through once?"

Michael turned bright red. "Just into Nanny's old room. I mean, why go to all this trouble if she couldn't make it across?"

"Okay, you're forgiven. Does she have talents?"

"She doesn't think she does, but she can see Or-Something."

"Once we get her here, we'll find out more." I glanced at Ari. "The question now is, when are we going to try this out?"

"The sooner the better, I suppose," Ari said.

Michael was looking at me with those "you're my second mom" begging eyes.

"Yeah," I said. "The sooner the better."

Which is why, at five o'clock the next morning, I drove Ari and myself over to Aunt Eileen's house. Ari carried his sample case inside, where Michael, dressed in his best jeans and a white shirt with an actual collar, was waiting in the living room. I could smell coffee cake baking and hear the occasional noise of Aunt Eileen working in the kitchen.

"Is Uncle Jim up yet?" I said.

"No," Michael said. "Bri's still asleep, too. You can wait in the kitchen with Aunt Eileen if you want."

"Wash your mouth out with soap," I said, and he grinned at me.

We trooped down the hall to the door that led into Nanny Houlihan's old sitting room, a storage area now that she'd gone to her heavenly reward. While Michael picked the padlock that Uncle Jim had put on the door, Ari knelt down and opened one side of his sample case. He brought out the long thin bundle wrapped in the black cloth, then unwound the cloth to reveal two pieces of what I a.s.sumed was a gun.

The barrel and the trigger holder-I don't know the real name for it-looked like a silver robot arm. While the barrel was a solid tube, the bright red stuff around it had holes in it. Ari snapped this part onto a silver handle or stock or whatever you call those things at the end of a rifle. It also had holes in it.

"Is that made out of Play-Doh?" I said.

Ari rolled his eyes skyward. "It was constructed on the model of a biathlon rifle," he said. "You know, the Olympic event. They make them with piercings to save weight, since you have to ski with them on your back. I had to have it custom built, of course."

"Why the of course?"

"Biathlon rifles are only twenty-two caliber." Ari spoke these words as if they explained something. "But they're very high tech."

"I can see that much."

"Ari?" Michael said. "Were you on the Israeli biathlon team?"

"There isn't one." Ari was putting bullets into the rifle as he talked. "Israel's a bit short on snow."

Michael blushed scarlet and opened the door to the storeroom-and that gate to another world. I marveled all over again that the thing lay right to hand. Logical, I suppose, given what my family was, but improbable all the same. Yet deep in my mind something nagged at me, a thought trying to rise, pointing out that there was a d.a.m.n good reason if only I could see it. At the moment the gate looked fairly ordinary, with a tidy row of cardboard cartons, stacked four deep, along one wall and an open box of old magazines in one corner.

Or-Something materialized near the window and trotted over to sniff at Ari's pant legs, not that Ari could see the little blue creature. Michael brought a plastic bag of salami out of his jeans pocket and took out a couple of slices before stuffing the bag back in. Or-Something rose up on its hind legs to beg. From the other pocket Mike took a note and a rubber band. The note went around the meat, and he tossed the entire thing, rubber band and all, to Or-Something. The creature caught it in yellow claws and gulped it down.

"Go find Jose," Michael said.

As Or-Something dematerialized, the room began to change. The row of cardboard boxes turned transparent, then disappeared. The cream-colored wallpaper, printed with bunches of violets, slowly faded into yellow wallboard. The crisp white shade over the window turned to a piece of dirty sheet, hung at an angle. Ari swore in several languages.

"You can see the change?" I said.

"Oh, yes." He was whispering. "So it's all real. I never quite believed it till now."

We went over to the window, where Michael pulled the sheet aside. I could see the old man's garden with its rows of deformed vegetables and the tall stakes supporting enormous morning-glory flowers, purple and blue in the misty dawn light. As the sun rose higher, the scene shimmered as if I were viewing it through gauze. I could feel the warmth of a real springtime breeze. The weather in this deviant level differed from that in the world I knew. I made a mental note to ask NumbersGrrl if the difference was logical or otherwise.

A gadget in Ari's shirt pocket began to beep with a shrill, steady note.

"Rad alarm." Ari took it out of his pocket, stared at it for a moment, then tapped it into silence. "Odd. It's not the mix of radiation types I was expecting." He put the gadget away. "Still, it's a good thing we're getting your girl out of here. The leukemia rate must be very high."

"It is, yeah," Michael said. "Most people don't live a h.e.l.la long time."

I offered up a silent prayer to Whomever that we weren't too late for Sophie. Michael hauled himself up onto the sill, then swung his legs out of the window and dropped down. Ari slung the rifle across his back and followed. Once he stood on solid ground, he shaded his eyes with one hand and looked around him.

"Nola," Ari said, "stay where you are. I don't like this situation. Too many places for a hostile to hide."

"But-"

"You can watch from where you are," Michael said. "Here's Jose now."

Out among bushes thick with warty green tomatoes, someone moved, then stood up-Jose, all right, and two other BGs, all of them wearing Giants hooded sweatshirts and patched, dirty pants. Jose himself, a blond teen a little older than Michael, was good-looking on the right side of his face. On the left and down his neck grew a thick crust of growths, as brown and scabby as dried mushrooms. His left eye peered out of the crust. I wondered how good its vision was. Jose and his deformities were real enough, no matter how suspicious I was about the place he lived in.

"Hey, BG bro!" Jose waved to Michael with one sixfingered hand, then jerked a thumb in Ari's direction. "Who's this?"

"My wingman," Michael said. "Ari's his name."

"Hey," Jose said. "I always knew you had to be somebody big back at home. Good thing you brought him and that fancy heat he's packing. We've had a little trouble'round here."

"Dodger gang spies?" Michael said.

"Who else? But there's one less of them in the world today," Jose paused to jerk a thumb in the direction of one of his bodyguards, "thanks to Little Sam here and his knife."

Little Sam, a hulking six footer, grinned to reveal a lack of front teeth. I felt more than a little sick at my brother's choice of friends. I could say nothing for several reasons. First and foremost, they had saved his life back when he could have lost it to one of those same Dodger gangs.

"Now," Jose continued, "what's up?"

"A bargain, maybe." Michael arranged a neutral expression. "I'm thinking of buying Lisa from you."

When Jose laughed, the layered growths on his face moved in vertical waves. "I thought that might happen, yeah, one of these days. Let's talk."

They all sat down on the ground, except Ari, who leaned back against the wall, rifle at the ready, and kept his gaze on the garden. Now and then he turned his head back and forth, scanning for trouble, I a.s.sumed.

The negotiations, however, went smoothly. When it came to bargaining, Michael had always been clever, not from a psychic talent but a normal gift for fast talk. I remembered how he used to trade away pieces of the elaborate school lunches I bagged for him, back when he was in grade school. He'd gotten extra cookies and snack cakes from other kids until I found out and began giving him peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly like the other schoolyard wretches got.

"I'll trade her straight over," Jose began. "For that rifle your wingman's carrying."

"No way," Michael said, grinning. "I wouldn't try taking it from him, either."

Ari made a small growling noise. I suspected him of enjoying the role.

"I'm not in the mood to die today, yeah," Jose said. "Okay. What about the usual? Coffee, chocolate, some more of those allergy pills and aspirins. A couple of car batteries."

"I can get all that," Michael said. "The question is how many pounds?"

As they argued back and forth, I began to feel anger rising in my mind, a slow tide that at first seemed inexplicable until I remembered that my brother was buying a woman, a human being, whom Jose considered his property to sell. I found myself thinking of the other gang girls. You can't buy them all, O'Grady, I reminded myself. One is too many, really, to bring over.

I'd run smack into another problem of working for the Agency. Agents tended to uncover more misery than they could cure. I'd been warned about it. Now I was seeing it. I hated it, but I was stuck with it.

As the negotiations dragged on, I kept checking my watch. Theoretically, Michael should have been in school by eight o'clock. Theory gave way to reality as the hands crept around to seven thirty. Between time checks, I soaked up the sunlight and warmth of this alien spring day and studied the view out the window.

Rather than the tidy houses and urban yards of my world, a thick tangle of plants and weeds covered the hill behind this version of the Houlihan house. When I turned my head to look, I saw no houses to either side of the vegetable garden. Thanks to the low population of the city, the Excelsior district had never been developed, or the Sunset, either. When we'd discussed his first trip to this deviant world level, Michael had mentioned how much of San Francisco looked deserted, a consequence, or so he'd been told, of radiation poisoning from the nuclear wars.

I ran an SM:General Location and got a very strange sense of place. The world, not merely this version of San Francis...o...b..t what lay beyond, struck me as oddly small, limited somehow. When I tried to access the CDS, I received no information. I tried letting images rise but only got one ridiculous picture of a hunk of Swiss cheese right out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon. I squelched that and gave up. I decided that the radiation was interfering with my talents. It was the only explanation, anyway, that I could come up with.

Finally, when it was 8:15 and too late to get Michael to that first period study hall, he and Jose stood up. They shook hands, then slapped each other's palms in a ritual seal of the bargain. In my mind, Michael's normal California high school moved very far away.

"I'll get the stuff today," Michael said. "I'll send the critter to tell you when we can bring it over."

"Fine." Jose nodded his approval. "I'll have Lisa here and ready to go, the lucky little b.i.t.c.h."

Michael smiled at the epithet, but I could see the effort it cost him.