The Distance Beacons (27 page)

"What happened last night? Did she say anything?"

"Well, of course when she got home I told her about you and your crazy theory about Governor Bolton. She wanted to go find you, but I guess she thought you wouldn't appreciate it. We figured you'd spend the night out there, you know, from stubbornness, then come home. We never dreamed—anyway. I went to bed finally, and when I woke up Gwen was gone." Stretch paused for a moment, then continued excitedly. "But wait a minute, Walter, I think she left you a note—you know, on the kitchen table."

"Jesus, Stretch, that's it! That's it!" Then it was my turn to pause. The Feds might have missed Stretch, but they couldn't miss a note sitting on the kitchen table. So they'd have it, and I'd be out of luck. But then I thought: so what? That only meant they'd be the ones to save Gwen, not me. And the important thing was to save Gwen, right? "Stretch, would you go back home and see if you can get that note? You'll have to talk your way past a couple of soldiers. But look: if they won't let you in, tell them about the note, if they don't already know about it. Tell them it might be the key to finding the president, to everything. Let them take it, if they want, just so long as they go looking for Gwen."

Stretch nodded. "I understand, Walter." He started putting on his pants. "Don't worry," he said, "I'll get in there." He fastened his belt with a determined flourish.

I had every confidence in Stretch. When he put his mind to something, he was unstoppable. "I'll wait for you here," I said.

"Right." He finished dressing, then stuck his sweaty running clothes in his briefcase. "Gwen will be fine, Walter," he promised me, "and the president will be fine, and everything will work out for the best. Just wait and see."

"I believe you, Stretch." I didn't believe him. He gave me a reassuring pat and strode off to Louisburg Square.

I was alone again. The storm clouds were closer; the wind was picking up; the boats bobbed a little more actively in the harbor. It wasn't that I disbelieved Stretch, exactly; it was just that I didn't trust his optimism as much as I did his self-confidence. History hadn't lent a lot of support to Stretch's habitual state of mind.

I stared at the ruins of the Aquarium. No, optimism was generally not called for. I caught a quick reflection of myself in a shard of broken glass, and I didn't like what I saw. Wouldn't it have been instructive, I thought, if people in the old days could have had a museum of the future, instead of gawking at turtles and dolphins and whatever else they kept in the Aquarium? Not people's dreams of the future, or politicians' promises, but this thing I was actually living in. Maybe I could be a specimen, to help them temper their optimism with a little reality.

Here, children, is an example of the quite rare
oculis privatus postnuclearensis,
or post-nuclear private eve. This creature haunts the subways and ruined buildings of his world, scrounging meals of little nutritional value and rarely, if ever, doing any real work. Note this specimen's bandaged arm and bruised face, indicative of the dangers he encounters in his nomadic-existence. Note also the slightly glazed expression, often associated with the general intellectual deterioration of this era. Don't go too close to the cage, Jennifer! Do you see the gun stuck in the waistband of his patched and faded jeans? Children, you must never provoke an
oculis privatus postnuclearensis
.

I grinned a savage grin through the bars of my cage. "C'mere, little Jennifer. I won't hurt you. Everything is fine in the future.
The war drum throbs no longer, and the battle flags are furled.
Haven't they taught you that in class, Jennifer?"

I don't think Jennifer would have believed me. The vision faded.

I started thinking about Gwen instead. Maybe the Feds had already saved her. Not likely, though. If she was saved, the president was saved, and the vigil would be over. But the vigil was still very much in progress. So Gwen would be sitting somewhere, probably not far away from here, and probably alone as well. Perhaps she'd be daydreaming, not of the old days, but of rescue, of a knight in shining armor. I supposed she would settle for a banged-up friend with a gun in his waistband—or even for a few hundred soldiers who couldn't have cared less about her, but were willing to free her while in the neighborhood taking care of more important business.

Maybe, I thought, she wasn't alone. Maybe she was sitting with President Kramer in some grim warehouse room, getting her interview at last. Would the president still be as passionate and convincing as she had been at the Federal compound with me?

Or had a couple of days with TSAR subdued her, shaken her faith in herself and in America? I had a feeling it would take a lot to shake President Kramer's faith.

It was getting dark now, and cold. It would be raining soon. What was the problem? Suppose the Feds hadn't believed Stretch. Suppose they had carted
him
off for torture. The Feds were stupid enough to do something like that. Or maybe they'd all just left without me. Why bother with the Sandman? He'd simply screw it up somehow.

Finally I heard footsteps over the rocks and broken cobblestones, and I saw Stretch's tiny figure approaching. He still clutched his briefcase. I stood up and hurried over to him. "What happened?"

His face was glum; my heart sank. He reached into his pocket and took out a piece of paper. He handed it to me. I read Gwen's familiar handwriting in the fading light.

Walter: Meet me at the Globe before noon.

Please.

Love, G.

"I'm sorry, Walter," Stretch whispered.

Chapter 18

I sat down on a rock and stared some more at the useless note.

"People from the government had already searched the place," Stretch said. "Or I guess it was just General Cowens, according to the soldiers I talked to. He saw the note, but apparently he'd already been to the
Globe
so it didn't help him either."

"Did the soldiers give you a hard time?"

"Not really. They were just looking for you. They were the guys who took you to the president that time—remember? The short guy with the bad skin, and the taller guy who stutters?"

I nodded.

"Anyway, I was afraid they might follow me, but I don't think they did. They seemed concerned about you, Walter. They said if I saw you I should tell you to turn yourself in. They said things'll be a lot worse for you if you're caught."

"Okay," I said. "You've told me."

Stretch sat down next to me. "It'll be all right, Walter," he said. "Believe me."

I didn't bother to respond. This time, I don't think he believed himself.

Stretch opened his briefcase. "I brought some other stuff," he said. "Papers and things that were lying around. I thought—you're the private eye. Maybe you could find something Cowens overlooked."

I reached into the briefcase and grabbed a sheet at random.

Walter: Buy bread!

G.

I closed my eyes. This was not helpful. I remembered reading the note a couple of weeks ago. And I remembered that I had never bought the bread.

Her penmanship was so much like my own, I thought. I had taught her to write, back when we were little more than children, spending an idyllic winter together in an undiscovered fallout shelter. If she were to die...

I tried to stomp out the melodrama. Unprofessional. I reached into the briefcase again and took out a notebook. It was empty. I flung it at the harbor and grabbed again. A reminder to pay the iceman. A draft of a letter to the tax department. A doodle. It was the detritus of our everyday lives, not the fabulous clues I needed to solve this case, to save Gwen.

"I'm sorry, Walter," Stretch said again.

"Not your fault, Stretch."

And then, at the bottom of the briefcase, I found what I needed: a scrap of a yellowed envelope with a single word written on it. I studied the word in the fading light. "Where did you find this?" I asked Stretch.

He looked at the envelope. "Gee, Walter, I'm not sure. Maybe—maybe on that little desk in your bedroom. Is it important?"

I could see Gwen stopping off at home to change her clothes before following up on her lead. Or maybe she returned home to look for me—hoping that I had stubbornly ignored her note and was sitting in my third-floor room and brooding about the case. Perhaps she quickly emptied her pockets before leaving, and this one scrap of paper got left behind as she hurried off to be kidnapped. A scrap of paper that Cowens would have no reason to pay any attention to, because he is an outsider, and therefore can never really understand us. "Yeah. I think it's important, Stretch."

The two of us stared at the word scrawled in pencil on the yellowed paper:

mummy

"I don't get it," Stretch said. "Whose mother? Gwen's an
orphan."

"We're all orphans," I murmured. I stood up. "I've gotta get going."

Stretch scrambled to his feet. "Wait a minute, Walter. You have to tell me what you're up to."

Did I? "If I told you," I said, "you'd just want to bring in the Feds."

"Well, what of it? You were willing to bring in the Feds when I went home to get Gwen's note."

"Only if there was no other way to get it. Look, if the Feds are involved, they have only one priority: saving the president. If Gwen happens to get saved too, well, that's okay, but no big deal. Also, what if I'm right about Bolton? I haven't entirely given up on that theory, you know. It'd be just what he wanted, to have us go tell him we know where he's keeping the president."

"And you won't even take me along?"

I shook my head. "This is a job for a professional, Stretch. You'd only get in the way."

Stretch glared at me. "I don't believe any of your reasons," he said. "You're just trying to be a hero. You've botched everything in this case and now you want to make up for your mistakes."

"That's not true." At least, not exactly. "Would I risk Gwen's life just so I can be a hero? I haven't got time to argue with you, Stretch. Just go back home and try to relax. Everything will be fine. Trust me."

Stretch continued to glare. He didn't exude trust. Where was his optimism when I needed it? He didn't say anything; he knew he wasn't going to get anywhere with me. I could be as stubborn as he was. I turned and walked away from him finally, and he didn't complain, and he didn't follow.

* * *

I had a long walk ahead of me, I realized as I started down Atlantic Avenue. I was not in the best of shape, and it was starting to rain. My arm throbbed; my head hurt; I was hungry. But there was no one to help me, even if I wanted help. Bobby was still at the vigil, presumably, waiting for Stretch to show up; Mickey and Doctor J were off somewhere dumping the unconscious soldier. And I had dismissed Stretch as unworthy of being my sidekick.

Well, I honestly did think he'd get in the way. And I
was
worried about the Feds. And I did believe I could save Gwen by myself.

But I had to admit I was glad things had turned out this way. I was in control now, with no friends to lend a hand, nothing to rely on in solving the case but my own ingenuity and courage. What more could a private eye ask for?

A bicycle. It would take forever to get where I was going without one. So what was I supposed to do? I sighed. It was time to be a bad guy. I took out my gun.

The street was deserted, but I figured it wouldn't stay deserted for long. I stopped by the bridge that goes over the Fort Point Channel into South Boston. There was a bad section of pavement at the end. I stood in the shadows just past the bad part, and I waited.

Eventually I saw a lone, hooded figure pedaling across the bridge. I watched the figure reach the broken pavement and slow down, then finally dismount and start to walk the bike across. And that's when I came out of the shadows. "Listen," I said. "I'm really sorry to do this, but I need your bike."

"Oh, shit," the figure said. It was a woman's voice. She took off the hood of her sweatshirt. She was pretty but tired-looking. She had the defeated expression of someone who has struggled for too long with too little to show for it. She stared unhappily at the gun. "But I need the bike," she said. "I'm a messenger. The bike is how I make my living."

I sighed. Gwen had been a messenger before she had become a reporter. "I'm sorry," I said. "This is an emergency. I'd pay you, but I don't have any money right at the moment." I had an idea. "Tell me where you live, and I'll bring the bike back to you afterwards."