Chapter Thirteen
He spread his arms out wide and the crowd parted around him as Soma, pulling Bombarda, followed him to the side of the road. Hopping up onto the boardwalk, he turned and shouted, as if to the whole world.
"A-lo-ha!!" and began to laugh loudly. Soma peered up at him and thought all she could see was mouth and tangled hair.
"I see you've got the big guy with you," he winked at her. "Might as well let him go, you know. Seeing as he's already gone, if you know what I mean."
"I don't know what you mean," Soma snapped, clutching Gowdy even more tightly.
"You do know who he is, I suppose," the young man said.
"I don't know who YOU are," Soma replied, which set off another of his laughing fits.
"Oh, you can call me Kai," he said, finally. "That's what HE called me."
Soma gasped and took a step back.
"You're the one he told me about! From the hotel! What did you do to him?" and she raised her fist as if to strike, at which Kai snickered and pretended to cower, holding his hands up over his face.
"Oh no," he cried, "the little girl's gonna hit me. Oh heavens! Oh my!"
"Stop that right now," Soma scolded, "and tell me what you know. What did you do to Bombarda?"
"Bombarda?" Kai stopped joking and looked at her, confused. He seemed genuinely bewildered for a few moments, but then he shrugged and said,
"A name's a name. So you call him Bombarda. Here we know him as the one and only R.A. Gowdy."
"Who's R.A. Gowdy?" Soma asked. It was her turn to be confused. She looked back and forth between Kai and the man she'd always known as Bombarda.
"Yes, R.A. Gowdy," Kai continued, "in the living flesh, if not entirely his own. Presumed dead, of course, who wouldn't be, after more than two hundred years? And if not dead, then missing. Oh yes, there were those who knew he couldn't actually be dead, not dead in the way we knew it back then."
"There's only one way to be dead," Soma muttered, but Kai, placing his hand on her shoulder, disagreed.
"There's plenty of ways," he said.
"Who is R.A. Gowdy?" Soma repeated, "and how come you people never answer a question?"
"Because we don't have to," Kai retorted. "We can do what we want now, can't we? If we don't want to answer, we don't. Just because someone asks you a question, you're not obliged to respond. Someone even talks to you. Who says you have to talk back? Do what you want. That's the way."
"Who is R.A. Gowdy?" Soma said again, this time slowly, emphasizing every syllable.
"Only the greatest writer of pulp trash of his era," Kai sniffed. "Practically the only writer of fiction that anyone still gives a damn about. We like him, you see. We like him a lot. Hector didn't know who it was. He only thought: Stranger, Danger. The way we've been taught."
"Then you didn't mean to do this to him?"
"Oh no, not at all. Too late now, of course. It's a pity."
"There must be a way!" Soma declared. "You did this to him. You can undo it too."
"Not me," Kai put up his hands again. "I didn't do anything, believe me. It was Hector."
"Then where do I find this Hector?" she said.
"Nobody finds Hector," Kai shrugged. "Hector finds you."
They were quiet for a few minutes after that. Soma was studying her friend, Bombarda, trying to associate the new name and story with everything she'd ever known about him. That he'd been a writer was no surprise. She remembered seeing those books at Red Cliff's house, and now wished she'd taken at least one with her. She told herself to go back if she could. In the meantime, no matter what this Kai person said, she was going to discover a way to restore her Bombarda, or whatever his name really was. When she looked back up, Kai was gone. Standing there, right where he'd been, now stood Squee.