“There must not have been a lot left of Europe after that.”
“I got that impression. The States aren’t much better off. Everyone wants to emigrate to Brazil and Argentina, but there are these long waiting lists to get visas and stuff. Even Mexico’s real fussy about who they let in.”
“So if you’re born in California, you’re going to stay there.”
“Yeah. And so unless you’re rich you join one of the gangs. If you’re a Catholic guy, see, you’re a Giants fan and belong to one of those gangs. And if you’re Protestant, you root for the Dodgers. Things get pretty hairy. That’s who beat me up, one of the Dodgers gangs, because I was wearing my Marichal shirt.”
“I’m glad they didn’t maim you.”
“One of the Giants gangs heard the noise and came and pulled me out of it.” He sighed. “Or they might have killed me. After that the BGs kind of took me in. That’s the Bravos Gigantes, the gang that saved my butt. I told them that I came from a farm out in the valley and didn’t know anything. It was kind of true.”
Sports and religion, I thought, all mixed up into a Chaos cocktail, like the Blues and the Greens in Constantinople. Michael, it turned out, had never heard of Constantinople, so my analogy fell flat, but he understood the concept, all right, in a very reality-oriented way.
“Then later,” Michael went on, “I realized that they knew about parallel worlds and gates, so I told them the truth.”
“They knew?”
“Everyone knows about all kinds of talents there. I think it’s the radiation. It scrambled a lot of genes.”
Michael also confirmed Ari’s theory about the consumer goods in the windmill. Our perps had dealt heroin to obtain American money to buy American luxury goods to take back and sell at home on the black market.
“The BGs told me that the Dodgers gangs were runners for the big dealers,” Michael explained. “They took the orders and stuff like that. And if someone didn’t pay fast enough, they collected the money.”
“One way or the other, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess the Dodgers must have been in Los Angeles in that world, just like they are in ours.”
“No, in Sacramento. They called it Sackamenna, but it’s still the state capital. LA got bombed in a war with the Japanese. That was after America got nukes. No one would have bothered bombing Sacramento, though. It wasn’t worth the trouble.” He considered for a moment. “The BGs weren’t a lot better than the Dodger gangs, just poorer, but they took me in, and I can’t get too down on them. They dealt dope, just local weed, mostly.” He looked away. “And then there were the girls.”
“Ah. Hookers, and the guys were their pimps?”
He nodded and blushed. I got the distinct impression that my little brother was no longer a virgin. Aside from that crucial detail, I kept the Agency informed of everything Michael told me. Not only did I file constant reports, I had several trance sessions with Y.
“I’ve been consulting with the big boss,” he told me in one of these. “We definitely have an interest in your brother, Nola. The Agency’s prepared to offer him a college scholarship when he’s ready to go, along the lines of the old ROTC programs. We pay most of the cost in return for a certain number of years of service.”
“That would really help my family out,” I said. “But you realize that you’re going to have to negotiate with my mother.”
Y’s image went wide-eyed with fear—brown-eyed, too, and his hair darkened. The image of a small dragon materialized between our chairs and hissed.
“Unless our aunt manages to become Mike’s legal guardian,” I went on. “She’s trying. Mother’s considering it. She thinks Mike is an out-of-control juvenile.”
Y’s image relaxed with a small sigh of relief. The dragon disappeared. His eyes returned to blue.
“You know,” I said, “your image changes when you get emotional. Do you really look like it?”
“No, I don’t. I got in the habit of using this one, is all, back when you were new and working on a trial basis. I hide my real self with new recruits, in case they don’t work out.”
“Well, it would be cool to know what you’re really like.”
“I’ll think about it. Keep those reports coming, will you? These glimpses of a deviant level are fascinating. The multiverse is like a chord played on a bevy of harps, but here and there, a discordant note is heard, adding piquancy.”
“Which reminds me, what’s the Agency going to do about that gate in my aunt’s house? My uncle’s nailed the door shut and put a padlock on it, but it worries them.”
“I suppose it would. I’ll talk to the big boss.” The image winked at me. “Other changes are in the wind. Maybe some good ones.”
“I hope that means I get a raise.”
“It could, it could. But, Nola, these are dark and troubled times. We haven’t forgotten your reports on the coven and the Peacock Angel. I fear that the masters of Chaos have looked our way.”
“Have you been watching too much TV lately?”
“Perhaps I have.” Y sighed again and disappeared.
That same day Ari finally heard from Interpol. They wanted him to come back to Israel to appear before some sort of commission before clearing his file of Johnson’s death. They had a plane ticket waiting for him at SFO on a flight leaving that evening. I figured that some of the enemies he’d made at his agency saw their chance to rake him over the coals.
I helped him pack, then went with him down to the airport. With my cross-agency government ID I was allowed to skip all the usual security measures and go with him into the passenger waiting area even though I had no ticket. Two security guards escorted us, because Ari wore his beloved Beretta in its shoulder holster. I got the impression that he would be acting as something of an air marshal on the flight, in fact. He mentioned it briefly when we could be sure no one could overhear us. Just in case, he said.
“I hate to leave you,” he said more publicly. “I was hoping we’d have another couple of days at least. But once I take care of this problem, I’ll be back. I’m due some leave. We can discuss where we’re going to live then.”
For a moment I couldn’t speak. The thought that I was seeing him for the last time hurt.
“Will you miss me?” Ari said.
“Yeah.” I saw no reason to lie. “I will.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
I smiled.
Ari gave me one last kiss, then ran for the gate just as the flight finished boarding. I wandered over to a window and leaned on the rail to watch as the El Al plane pulled slowly away from the boarding tunnel. I was wondering how he would send the final farewell, phone call or e-mail? I couldn’t see him writing an actual letter on paper, the way that Josh Mitchell had. He had class, Josh, even if his desire for a normal life had gotten in the way of our relationship. But however Ari sent the good-bye, I knew I could trust him to be honest and straight out with it, no weaseling around about extra workload or sudden obligations, no postponing the inevitable.
The plane taxied out of sight to head for the run-way. I left the window and walked away before I cried. I passed back through security on the strength of my cross-agency ID, then caught BART into town.
Ari sent me an e-mail the next morning, but only to say that he’d gotten back safely and that he missed me. I figured the spell hadn’t worn off yet.
That afternoon Michael drove over to my place in Uncle Jim’s old truck. He brought a big bag of fast food with him, hamburgers, fries, milkshakes—Aunt Eileen had given him the money, he told me, to make sure I ate. Although I suspected she’d had some healthier kind of food in mind, I kept my mouth shut about it. The Chaos critter trotted into the apartment with him and followed us into the kitchen. I put the food on plates and handed Michael one.
“Nola, there’s something I’ve got to do,” he said. “I bet you won’t like it, though.”
“Yeah?” I said. “Run it by me and see.”
; “I’ve got to get some stuff to José and the Bravos Gigantes. I mean, they saved my butt, and they took me in, and now I’m here where everything’s okay, and they’re not.”
I had to admit that the sentiment gave him credit. “Stuff?” I said. “Define stuff.”
“Nothing illegal.”
“Okay, that’s the first hurdle jumped.”
Michael grinned at me. “I was thinking,” he said, “stuff they could eat, like chocolate. Or maybe sell, like batteries. The problem is, I don’t have much money, just about twenty bucks. That won’t buy a lot.”
He wanted, in short, the same kind of goods that Johnson and Doyle had collected for their gang’s master. The Chaos critter rubbed up against him with a whine. They were both looking at me with big sad eyes.
“I suppose I could chip in a few bucks,” I said, though I felt like a sucker. “But I don’t want you wandering off away from the gate.”
“This little guy can take José a note.” Michael reached down and gave the critter a French fry. “José can see him. Or her. Or whatever.”
“Oh, yeah?” I cut my hamburger in quarters and handed a portion to the critter, who grabbed it with greedy claws. “Tell me more about José.”
Michael was watching the critter cramming the chunk of burger into its pointy mouth. He shrugged and looked up. “José’s cool,” he said. “I bet he’s got talents like an O’Grady, but he doesn’t want to talk about them. It’s bad enough he got dumped by his mother. He doesn’t want to get shot by the cops, too.”
“Wait a minute. Back up here. Dumped by his mother?”
“Yeah, that’s what happens to babies when they’re born with defects. Their moms dump them in empty lots, and the gang girls take them in when they can find them in time. Before they die or the dogs get them.”
“Dogs? You mean, like packs of feral dogs?”
“Yeah. The cops keep shooting them, but there’s always more. A lot of them are deformed, too.”
“Dogs or cops?”
“Just dogs. Deformed guys can’t be cops.”
“Okay. Well, I can chip in more than a few bucks. I’ll see what I can squeeze out of the Agency accountant.” I picked up another chunk of the hamburger and gave it to the Chaos critter.
“Nola, you’re supposed to eat that, not give it away.” Michael fixed me with an apprentice-level gimlet eye. “Inspector Nathan asked me to watch out for your eating disorder till he gets back.”
“The miserable bastard!”
Yet Michael’s innocent faith that Ari would be back touched me enough that I said nothing more. He’d have to learn the hard way, like I had, what happened to O’Gradys who got emotionally involved with normal people.
When we were done eating, Michael drove me down to a big warehouse store in San Bruno, where I spent a hundred bucks of Agency money and a bit more of my own on luxuries for the BGs. As well as chocolate, coffee, and a lot of over-the-counter medicines. Michael picked out shampoo and fancy soaps for the girls who belonged to the gang. Since Aunt Eileen had gone to her bridge club, and Brian was at basketball practice, we drove straight back to the Houlihan house.
Uncle Jim had nailed a board across the door into Nanny’s old lair. Michael had already pried the nails out, very carefully, without bending them, he told me, and set them loosely back into the original holes. Sure enough, he could slip them out with his fingernails. He stowed them in his pockets, then leaned the board against the wall. While I watched, he deftly opened the padlock with a thin piece of wire.
“Where did you learn how to do that?” I said. “From the BGs?”
“Yeah. I figured it would come in handy someday.”
The small square room smelled of mold and dust from the gash Sean had left in the flowered wallpaper. We carried the goods we’d bought inside and stacked them up by the window. Michael unwrapped a chocolate bar and used the paper to write a note, then fed the whole thing to the Chaos critter.
“Go find José,” he said and tapped the left side of his face.
The critter whined once, then turned transparent and disappeared. We waited out in the living room for about twenty minutes before it returned. It trotted over to Michael, made a disgusting gurgling sound, and vomited an oddly clean note onto his shoes. Michael picked it up, read it, and grinned.
“They’re on the way,” he said.
We all hurried down to the storeroom, but the creature disappeared once we’d gotten well inside. As soon as it left, I felt the room shift. For a moment I could barely stay on my feet thanks to the nausea of seeing double. The violet wallpaper, the cartons of Jimmy’s old collections, everything Aunt Eileen had put into the room existed as semitransparent shapes, as if they’d been made out of scratched-up plastic. Beyond them stood the solid presence of the bright yellow wallboard, the torn sheet at the window, and the boxes of goods that Mike and I had brought in.
“You’d better just wait in here,” Michael told me. “You can look out the window, though.”
He opened the window and climbed out. The last traces of Nanny’s old room disappeared and left me standing in another world. I walked over to the window and leaned on the sill to see it.
The lot that this house sat on was roughly the same size and shape as that belonging to the Houlihan house, but instead of lawn and flowers, I saw row after row of vegetables, strangely distorted and misshapen vegetables. Morning glory plants as tall as trees grew in tangles of vines supported by wooden poles. The blue and purple flowers stood out vividly in the watery sunlight, huge flowers maybe six inches across. Out among big tomato plants studded with lumpy green fruit, two teen boys had grabbed a furious old man and were holding him by the arms. He was speaking Spanish so fast, spitting out the words, that I couldn’t understand him, while the boys laughed and held on tighter every time he tried to wriggle free.
Michael stood by the window talking in slangy English with a blond boy of about his own age, who wore a pair of much-mended brown pants and a dirty Giants T-shirt. He was a good-looking kid, I thought, until he turned his head to say hello to me. I had the crazy thought at first that he’d plastered mushrooms on his face. Whether they were warts or tumors, I don’t know, but growths crusted the entire left side of his face and neck, brown and scabby like layers of old mulch.
“This is José,” Mike said. “That’s my sister, Nola.”
“Hey, hi,” José said. “And hey, thanks. Mike told me you gave him the money for the stuff.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re welcome. Thanks for saving his neck when he was here before.”
“Sure. I knew he was one of us the minute we saw him.” He grinned, exposing a gold front tooth. “Once we got the blood off him, anyway.”
Michael laughed and returned the grin.
“Tell me something.” I pointed to the enormous tangles of flowering vines. “Why does he plant so many morning glories?”
“The seeds get you real high,” José said. “We deal with the old dude here and then sell them.”
“Got it,” I said. “Thanks. I just wondered.” I’d read somewhere that scientists thought morning glories might be one of the few plants that would flourish in high radiation conditions. I was seeing the theory confirmed.
José also had six fingers on each hand. I noticed it when he came into the room with Michael to haul the stuff we’d bought outside. When they were done, they stood outside the window and talked for a few minutes more, then shook hands. José whistled to the other boys, who let the old man go and came running to see what Michael had brought them. Other teens came out of the places where they’d been hiding among the plants and clustered around them. The old man recovered his dignity enough to creep up to the edge of the crowd. When Michael grabbed a two-pound bag of coffee beans and handed it to him, he grinned, his mouth wide and toothless.
While the BGs went through the boxes, I stared fascinated at this glimpse of a shattered and poisonous San Francisco. I could just see over the garden up the hill, where at h
ome, nice looking houses sat in tidy rows. Not here—I saw a lot of unpruned trees and wild clusters of bushes. Among them stood the occasional shack or rambling wooden shelter. Distantly I heard dogs barking.
A few at a time, the gang members picked up boxes and drifted away until only José and a brown-haired girl with dark circles under her eyes stayed to talk with Michael. She wore a faded red tank top, a denim skirt way too short even for my taste in clothes, and a pair of heavy brown ugly shoes, one of which looked distinctly orthopedic—Lisa, I assumed. She said little, just stared at Michael while she ran one skinny finger up and down the glass bottle of perfume he’d given her. Looking at her arms, nearly fleshless, and prominent clavicle, I realized for the first time that, yeah, someone really could be too thin. Finally she turned and walked away with an odd rolling gait. The foot must have pained her. I’d never seen anyone with a club foot before. In my world, after all, babies had those problems corrected rather than being dumped in empty lots.
Michael shook hands with José one last time, then climbed back through the window. For a moment I saw double again, only this time the ghostly shapes belonged to José’s world and the solid ones, to mine. When Michael shut the window, José’s world disappeared. By the time we walked out into the hall, the gate had completely closed, and I saw nothing but Jimmy’s old collections in their cartons, the proper shade at the window, and the violets on the torn wallpaper. Michael slammed the door behind us.
“Tell me something,” I said, “do you think José and crew will try to use the gate?”
“They can’t, not without me to open it.” Michael picked up the board he’d left against the wall. “Nobody else in the BGs is a world-walker.”
“Do you think you’ll ever go back there again?”
“I dunno.” He shrugged. “It’s a pretty dangerous place.”
“It’s probably also radioactive. It takes a long time for the leftover death from a nuclear war to decay. I’d hate to have you lighting up Geiger counters for a hobby.”