The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (28 page)

Having gotten off her pretty chest what was fretting her, Gwen went right to sleep, and soon I did likewise, for a long, happy, solid night of rest. I woke up restored and cheerful, ready to fight a rattlesnake and allow the snake the first two bites.

Or ready to eat a rattlesnake. Come Monday, I was going to have to find us new quarters; I’m usually willing to go out for other meals but breakfast should be available before one has to face the world. This is not the only reason to be married but it is a good one. Of course there are other ways to manage breakfast at home, but marrying and conning your wife into getting breakfast is, I believe, the commonest strategy.

Then I came a little wider awake and realized that we could get breakfast right here. Or could we? What hours did the kitchen function? What time is it now? I checked the notice posted by the dumbwaiter, was depressed by it.

I had cleaned my teeth and put on my foot and was pulling on my pants (while noting that I must buy clothes today; these trousers were reaching critical mass), when Gwen woke up.

She opened one eye. “Have we met?”

“We of Boston would not consider it a formal introduction. But I’m willing to buy you breakfast anyhow; you were fairly lively. What’ll it be? This fleabag offers only something called ‘café complet,’ a bleak promise at best. Or you can get decent and we’ll creep slowly out to see Sloppy Joe.”

“Come back to bed.”

“Woman, you’re trying to collect my life insurance. Sloppy Joe? Or shall I order for you a cup of lukewarm Nescafé, a stale croissant, and a glass of synthetic orange juice for a luxurious breakfast in bed?”

“You promised me waffles every morning. You promised me. You did.”

“Yes. At Sloppy Joe’s. That’s where I’m going. Are you coming with me? Or shall I order for you the Raffles specialty of the house?”

Gwen continued to grumble and moan and accuse me of unspeakable crimes and urge me to come die like a man while promptly and efficiently getting up, refreshing for the day, and dressing. She finished looking spic and span instead of three days in the same clothes. Well, we both did have brand-new underclothes, recent hot baths, and putatively clean minds and nails…but she looked bandbox fresh while I looked like the pig that slowly walked away. Which was all her misfortune and none of my own; Gwen was wonderfully good to wake up to. I felt bubblingly happy.

As we left room L she took my arm and hugged it. “Mister, thank you for inviting me to breakfast.”

“Anytime, little girl. What room is Bill in?”

She sobered instantly. “Richard, I did not propose exposing you to Bill until after you had eaten. Better perhaps?”

“Uh—Oh, hell, I don’t enjoy waiting for breakfast and I see nothing to be gained by making Bill wait for his. We don’t have to look at him; I’ll grab a table for two and Bill can sit at the counter.”

“Richard, you are a soft-hearted slob. I love you.”

“Don’t call me a soft-hearted slob, you soft-hearted slob. Who lavished spending money on him?”

“I did and it was a mistake and I got it back from him and it won’t happen again.”

“You got some of it back from him.”

“Got back what he had left and quit rubbing my nose in it, please. I was an idiot, Richard. Too right.”

“So let’s forget it. This is his room?”

Bill was not in his room. An inquiry at the desk confirmed what knocking had shown to be likely: Bill had gone out a half hour earlier. I think Gwen was relieved. I know I was. Our problem child had become a major pain in the Khyber. I had to remind myself that he had saved Auntie to see anything good about him.

A few minutes later we entered the local Sloppy Joe. I was looking around for a free table for two when Gwen squeezed my arm. I looked up, then looked where she was looking.

Bill was at the cashier’s station, paying a check. He was doing so with a twenty-five-crown note.

We waited. When he turned around he saw us—and looked ready to run. But there was nowhere to run except past us.

We got him outside without a scene. In the corridor Gwen looked at him, her face cold with disgust. “Bill, where did you get that money?”

He looked at her, looked away. “It’s mine.”

“Oh, nonsense. You left Golden Rule without a farthing. Any money you have you got from me. You lied to me last night—you held out on me.”

Bill looked doggedly stubborn, said nothing. So I said, “Bill, go back to your room. After we’ve had breakfast we’ll see you there. And we’ll have the truth out of you.”

He looked at me with barely restrained fury. “Senator, this ain’t none of your pidgin!”

“We’ll see. Go back to the Raffles. Come, Gwen.”

“But I want Bill to return my money. Now!”

“After breakfast. This time let’s do it my way. Are you coming?”

Gwen shut up and we went back into the restaurant. I saw to it that we did not discuss Bill; some subjects curdle the gastric juices.

About thirty minutes later I said, “Another waffle, dear?”

“No, thank you, Richard, I’ve had enough. They’re not as good as yours.”

“That’s ’cause I’m a natural-born genius. Let’s finish up, then go back and take care of Bill. Shall we skin him alive, or merely impale him on a stake?”

“I’ve been planning to question him on the rack. Richard, life lost some of its beauty when truth drugs replaced thumb screws and hot irons.”

“My beloved, you are a bloodthirsty little wretch. More coffee?”

“You just say that to flatter me. No more, thank you.”

We returned to the Raffles, went to Bill’s room, were unable to raise him, went back to the desk. The misanthrope who had checked me in was again on duty. I asked, “Have you seen anything of William Johnson, room KK?”

“Yes. About thirty minutes ago he collected his key deposit and left.”

“But
I
bought that key!” Gwen said, rather shrilly.

The desk manager was unruffled. “Gospazha, I know you did. But we return the deposit for the return of the key. It doesn’t matter who rented the room.” He reached for his rack, took down key card KK. “The deposit just barely pays for changing the magnetic code if someone fails to return his key—it doesn’t pay for the nuisance. If you dropped your card in the corridor and somebody picked it up and turned it in, we would pay the deposit…then you would have to pay a second deposit to get into your room.”

I took Gwen firmly by the elbow. “Fair enough. If he shows up, let us know, will you? Room L.”

He looked at Gwen. “You don’t want room KK?”

“No.”

He turned his attention to me. “You have Room L at its single rate. For double occupancy we charge more.”

Suddenly I had had it. All the kaka, all the shoving around, all the petty nonsense I could take. “You try to clip me one more crown and I’ll haul you down to Bottom Alley and unscrew your head! Come along, dear.”

I was still fuming when I let us into our room and locked the door. “Gwen, let’s not stay in Luna. The place has changed. For the worse.”

“Where do you want to go, Richard?” She looked and sounded distressed.

“Uh—I would opt to emigrate, right out of the System—Botany Bay, or Proxima, or such—if I were younger and had two legs.” I sighed. “‘Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.’”

“Sweetheart—”

“Yes, dear?”

“I’m here, and I want to mother you. I go where you go. I’ll follow you to the ends of the Galaxy. But I don’t want to leave Luna City just yet…if you will indulge me. We can go out now and search for somewhere else to stay. If we don’t find a place—Rabbi Ezra may be right—can’t we put up with that surly clerk until Monday? Then we can certainly find a place.”

I concentrated on slowing my heart, managed it. “Yes, Gwen. We might shop for a place to move into after the weekend, after the Shriners leave, if we can’t find a suitable place available at once. I wouldn’t mind that shmo on the desk if we were sure of proper cubic after the weekend.”

“Yes, sir. May I tell you now why I need to stay in Luna City for a while?”

“Eh? Yes, certainly. Matter of fact, I ought to stay rooted to one spot for a while, too. Get some writing done, make some money to offset the rather heavy expenses of this week.”

“Richard. I’ve tried to tell you. There are no money worries.”

“Gwen, there are always money worries. I’m not going to spend your savings. Call it
macho
if you like, but I intend to support you.”

“Yes, Richard. Thank you. But you need feel no pressure of time. I can lay hands promptly on whatever amount of money we need.”

“So? That’s a sweeping statement.”

“It was intended to be, sir. Richard, I stopped lying to you. Now is the time for large chunks of truth.”

I brushed this aside with both hands. “Gwen, haven’t I made it clear to you that I don’t care what fibs you’ve told or how old you are or what you have been? It’s a fresh start, you and me.”

“Richard, stop treating me as a child!”

“Gwen, I am not treating you as a child. I am saying that I accept you as you are. Today. Now. Your past is your business.”

She looked at me sadly. “Beloved, you don’t believe that I am Hazel Stone. Do you?”

Time to lie! But a lie is no good if it’s not believed (unless it is told to be disbelieved, which could not apply here). Time to fan-dance instead. “Sweetheart, I’ve been trying to tell you that it does not matter to me whether or not you are Hazel Stone. Or Sadie Lipschitz. Or Pocahontas. You are my beloved wife. Let’s not cloud that golden fact with irrelevancies.”

“Richard, Richard! Listen to me. Let me talk.” She sighed. “Or else.”

“‘Or else’?”

“You know what ‘Or else’ means; you used it on me. If you won’t listen, then I must go back and report that I have failed.”

“Go back where? Report to whom? Failed in what?”

“If you won’t listen, it doesn’t matter.”

“You told me not to let you leave!”

“I won’t be leaving you; I’ll just be running a quick errand, then back home to you. Or you’re welcome to come with me—oh, I wish you would! But I must report my failure and resign my commission…then I’ll be free to go with you to the ends of the universe. But I must resign, not simply desert. You are a soldier; you understand that.”

“You are a soldier?”

“Not exactly. An agent.”

“Uh…
agente provocateuse
?”

“Uh, close.” She smiled wryly. “
Agente amoureuse
perhaps. Although I wasn’t told to fall in love with you. Just to marry you. But I did fall in love with you, Richard, and it may have ruined me as an agent. Will you come with me while I report back? Please?”

I was getting more confused by the minute. “Gwen, I’m getting more confused by the minute.”

“Then why not let me explain?”

“Uh—Gwen, it
can’t
be explained. You claim that you’re Hazel Stone.”

“I am.”

“Damn it, I can count. Hazel Stone, if she is still alive, is well over a century old.”

“That’s right. I’m well over a hundred.” She smiled. “I robbed the cradle, dear one.”

“Oh, for God’s sake! Look, dear, I’ve spent the last five nights in bed with you. You’re an exceptionally lively old bag!”

She grinned at me. “Thank you, dear. I owe it all to Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound.”

“You do, eh? A patent nostrum took the calcium out of your joints and put it back into your bones, and ironed out the wrinkles in your face, and restored your youthful hormonal balance, and unclogged your arteries? Order me a barrel of it; I’m slowing down.”

“Mrs. Pinkham had expert help, dearest. Richard, if you would only let me prove to you who I am, by my thumbprint on the Declaration of Independence, your mind would then be open to the truth, strange though it is. I wish I could offer you identification by retinal patterns…but my retinas had not been photographed then. But there
is
that thumbprint. And there is blood typing, too.”

I began to feel panicky—what would Gwen do if her delusion pattern was toppled?

Then I remembered something. “Gwen, Gretchen mentioned Hazel Stone.”

“So she did. Gretchen is my great great granddaughter, Richard. I married Slim Lemke, of the Stone Gang, on my fourteenth birthday and had my first child by him at Terra’s fall equinox of 2078—a boy; I named him Roger for my father. In 2080 I had my first daughter—”

“Hold it. Your eldest daughter was a student at Percival Lowell when I commanded the rescue operation. So you said.”

“Part of that pack of lies, Richard. I did indeed have a descendant there—a granddaughter on the faculty. So I truly am grateful. But I had to edit the details to fit my apparent age. My first daughter was named Ingrid, for Slim’s mother…and Ingrid Henderson was named for her grandmother—my daughter, Ingrid Stone. Richard, you could not guess at the time how difficult it was for me at Dry Bones Pressure to meet for the first time five of my very own and not be able to acknowledge them.

“But I can’t be Grandmother Hazel when I am being Gwen Novak. So I didn’t admit it…and that was not the first time this has happened to me. I’ve had lots of children—forty-four years from menarche to menopause and I gave birth to sixteen by four husbands and three passing strangers—and took the Stone name back after my fourth husband died. Because I moved in with my son Roger Stone.

“I raised four of the kids Roger had by his second wife—she is a medical doctor and needed a resident grandmother. I got three of them married off, all but the baby, who is now chief surgeon at Ceres General and may never get married as he is handsome and quite self-centered and believes the old saw about ‘Why keep a cow?’

“Then I started taking the vegetable compound, and here I am, fertile again and ready to raise another family.” She smiled and patted her belly. “Let’s go back to bed.”

“God damn it, wench; that won’t solve anything!”

“No, but it’s a swell way to pass the time. And sometimes it puts a stop to recurrent bleeding. Which reminds me—If Gretchen ever shows up, I won’t interfere a second time. I just did not fancy having my great great granddaughter crowding in on my honeymoon—a honeymoon already crowded by too many people and too much excitement.”

“Gretchen is just a child.”