Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille (11 page)

“How’s it going, Tom?”

“All right. Carrie and I talked and got some things straightened out.”

“That’s good.”

“How about with you?”

“I’m doing all right. I talked to Souci today.”

“Oh, really? How is she?”

“Fine. She says she’s on a diet.”

Libby wiped out a last ashtray and turned the key on what was now an antique cash register. Her hair looked jet-black in this light, her face pale, her eyes very bright. “Okay, I’m done,” she announced.

“Very good,” said Fred, pushing a pair of tables together. The last customers had left fifteen minutes before, and we’d all helped out getting the place ready. No one said anything about what we were gathered for, because they were afraid to, because they were enjoying the suspense, because they were busy, or, in my case, because I wasn’t terribly interested.

Rich ran a bug detector around the room. Jamie said, “What about microphones from outside the building?”

“Any microphone pointed at this building will only hear the D below middle C,” said Rich.

“Ah,” said Jamie, and sat down at one end of the double table, Rose on his right, me on his left. Tom sat next to me with Fred across from him, next to Rose. Eve sat next to Tom, Libby next to Fred, and Rich took the other end, his back to the bar, facing the stage and Jamie. We all drank coffee, some of us with cream and sugar.

Rich and Jamie stared across the table at each other, and I had a sudden premonition that they’d end up shooting each other before the meeting was over. I almost suggested that everyone put his gun behind the bar, but I couldn’t think of a way to say it that would have been taken seriously.

“There are things some of you probably want to know,” said Rich. “Maybe you should begin by asking them.”

“I’m up for that,” said Jamie. “I’ll start. What the hell is going on?”

Rich looked at his fellow conspirators, if you will, then back at Jamie. “Would you care,” he said, “to break that down a little?”

“All right. First of all, why is it this place keeps getting nuked, and, second, why is it that every time it does we end up jumping to another city or planet or solar system or galaxy or dimension—”

“And don’t forget time,” put in Rose.

“Yeah,” said Jamie. “Like she said. What about it?”

“Some of that,” said Fred, “we don’t know ourselves. I was hired originally as a waiter and bouncer, and I didn’t know any of the rest of it until Rich told me. I’ve never met Feng.”

“Who has?” asked Tom.

Rich held up his hand, as did Libby.

“Where is he now?” asked Tom.

Rich looked uncomfortable. “You know we’re dealing with time travel here, right?”

“Yeah,” said Jamie, as if he’d been traveling through time all his life.

“Well, then,
now
is a funny concept. I think I can say that he’s not anywhere—”

“Look,” snapped Libby, “if you could go shooting through time and space anywhere you pleased, would you hang around in a restaurant that might get hit by a nuclear bomb any second?”

“I would,” said Jamie.

“You probably would,” said Rich.

“I thought this place was safe,” said Rose.

The four of us looked at each other. “Well,” said Rich slowly. “It
is
radiation-proof. And it does have means of jumping away from trouble very quickly as long as it has sufficient power, and it does have means of taking that power from a nuclear explosion.”

“So,” said Libby, “as long as the bomb doesn’t hit so far away that we don’t get enough of the energy, or so close that we’re toasted before we can jump—”

“And as long as everything works—”

“We’re okay,” concluded Libby.

“Oh, that’s just great,” said Jamie.

“There’s a pretty big window for how close it has to be and how close it can come,” said Rich.

“It’s worked so far,” added Fred.

Rose said, “Can I have a—”

“No,” said Jamie.

“What else do you want to know?” asked Rich.

“What it’s all about.”

“Saving the future,” said Libby. “Is that noble enough for you?”

Jamie stood up—no, rose to his feet—turned so we had a profile of his face, stuck his chest out, and deepened his voice. “Yes,” he declaimed, “Captain James Lindhal of the Time Travel Rangers shall go forth once more to—”

“Will you sit down?” said Rich.

“I was enjoying it,” said Tom.

“Me, too,” said Libby.

“I want a whiskey,” said Rose.

Jamie sat down.

Fred suddenly turned to me. “You haven’t said anything.”

“I’m just listening. I’ll ask any questions I think of.”

“Very well.”

“Do you think,” asked Jamie of Libby in particular and the table in general, “you might be persuaded to be just a trifle more specific about what you mean by saving the future?”

“It isn’t that easy,” said Rich.

“What’s not that easy?” said Libby. “He wants to know what the whole thing’s about. Tell him.” She turned to Jamie. “A few hundred years from now a large group of nut cases are trying to wipe out all of Feng’s people. We have to fix things.”

“What do you mean, Feng’s people? How many?”

“As I understand it, the population of several worlds.”

“Wow. So, you mean, find these guys and kill—”

“No. This is time-travel stuff. Nothing works that easy. We can’t do anything that would change history, or, rather, the future history that allowed us to be here.”

“Huh? Oh, I see what you mean. But then how—”

“Feng,” said Libby, “says that, up to a point, history will correct itself, and beyond that point it is impossible to do anything that will change it.”

“Okay, then—”

“The exceptions are things he calls nexus points, which are intersections of—” She stopped, looked puzzled, stared at me, then at Fred, and finally turned to Rich and said, “You explain it.”

Rich said, “They can trace effects, so they can find places where if you do this thing, it won’t change history until after the time you left, from the future. Does that make sense?”

“It almost does,” said Tom. “That’s scary.”

Rose nodded.

Tom turned to me. “Do you believe all this?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m not sure why, though.”

He nodded. “That’s about how I feel.”

Jamie said, “So, what do we do?”

“Each time we’ve jumped,” said Rich, “it’s been to a nexus point. Unfortunately at most of them we didn’t stay long enough to accomplish our mission. On the plus side, with all the jumping, we’ve been lucky enough not to lose anyone on the team.”

Jamie said, “How does it know where to go when a bomb hits?”

“Got me,” said Libby. “Rich? Eve? Fred?”

They all shook their heads.

Jamie said, “But what’s the job?”

“We don’t know exactly. Doing whatever we have to to save Feng’s people.”

“You’re sure they’re the good guys?”

Rich said, “Would you grow up?”

“It was a joke,” said Jamie.

“Do you want in?” said Libby.

“If you didn’t think we did, why did you give us the guns?”

“Because they tried to kill Billy, which means you guys are in danger whether you want to be or not, so we owe you the chance to defend yourselves.”

“Who tried to kill Billy?” said Rose, staring at me. Jamie and Tom were also doing the wide-eyed thing.

“That guy who was killed in here,” I said. “I found out that someone thought it was me. They also tried again last night.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” said Rose.

“Because I was stupid.”

“So what else is new?” said Jamie.

“Shit.”

“But that’s another thing,” Jamie continued. “Why
did
they try to kill Billy?”

He looked from Rich to Libby to me, but it was Fred who answered. “I have a theory.”

I said, “I’d like to hear it.”

“I’m not certain of this, but it seems to me that if Feng’s people can go into the past, so can the other guys, and it may be that Billy is the one who will stop them. They have to kill Billy in particular.”

I studied the tabletop. It had a nice mosaic pattern of black against green.

“Well,” I said after a time. “That really sucks.”

The motherfucker has a gun
.

It just kept going over and over in his head like that, like a chant. He couldn’t explain it the way he’d be able to years later—in terms of unwritten rules, customs, and so on—he just felt the outrage.

He was in an alley next to a park with six of his friends. They’d started in the park, and then the, he didn’t know, five or six or seven or eight of them had taken off down the alley. They were fighting because they were fighting, and he would win his fight because he always won, but,
The motherfucker has a gun
. It almost overshadowed the other statement that pierced his thoughts like a dagger:
He’s pointing it at me
.

One of the things he most enjoyed was those delicious moments when he could step back and just watch himself in action; when thinking and planning were beside the point, and the motions of his fists, the sounds of flesh striking flesh, the blur of action around him, all became—as he wouldn’t be able to express it to himself until years later—surreal. It went beyond being impressive to someone else or to himself; it was strange and mystical and like nothing else, and the people he was pounding into the ground were beside the point.

There was a tug, high on his right leg, and somewhere—way, way back—there was pain.

The motherfucker has a gun. The motherfucker just shot me. The motherfucker just fucking tried to fucking kill me
.

And,
I’m going to kill him
.

There was a baseball bat in his hand so he threw it, and he wasn’t surprised until later that, after turning four and a half lazy circles, it actually connected,
bam
, right in the head. He hoped he hadn’t killed him yet, so he could do it again, and so it was, because the motherfucker was starting to stand up already. But then he was there, and then he had the gun, and it was pointing at the motherfucker’s head, and he was slowly, so slowly, squeezing the trigger, and eyes were wide with fear, and he knew he was about to die, and—

“Don’t, Jamie. Don’t kill him.”

Tip’s voice. Shit. What did he want? Well, fuck it, then, and Jamie threw the gun down the alley and started pounding. He’d beat him to death, then. That would be more fun, anyway.

He was gone. So far gone that he was no longer even watching himself; it was just happening, and he was never fully aware of what went on between then and when Tip’s voice finally penetrated for the second time.

“Jamie. Stop it. Jamie, Jesus, you’re killing him. Jamie—”

And, somehow, he did stop. “Okay, Tip.” He felt like he wasn’t even breathing heavy. He wondered when his leg would start hurting, and realized the pants were ruined.

“We gotta split, Jamie. Now.”

“Right,” said Jamie, sounding and feeling just a bit stupid. He looked at the guy he’d been pounding on. Shit. A kid, maybe sixteen, Jamie’s age. And smaller. Why the fuck had he brought the—

Jamie stared. “Tip, is he…is he breathing?”

“Huh? Shit, yes, man. Now let’s go.” Tip had his arm and was starting to drag him. Jamie stared, ignoring the mass of blood over the kid’s face, trying to see some sign of life. He didn’t, but he was in no state to really tell, either.

“Jamie.”

“Yeah, all right.” He allowed himself to be dragged away. He noticed in passing that they were the last two combatants in the area. Then he connected the sirens to the fight they’d had and took off in earnest.

“I’m afraid I killed him,” said Jamie, but so softly Tip didn’t hear him. He didn’t repeat it aloud, or, really, to himself, either. Except that for years, in his mind, he’d see the kid lying there. Sometimes, he would see the kid breathing. Other times he would see that the kid was not. The fight never made it into the papers, and Jamie never ran into any of them again, so he never found out. By the time two months had passed, Jamie had pretty much stopped hanging out with Tip and his friends. Looking around for something to do instead, he picked up his father’s old Gibson and started wailing away at it.

But sometimes, for years, the kid still made his way into Jamie’s dreams, and on those nights Jamie didn’t sleep well.

“I could be wrong,” said Fred.

I nodded.

Jamie said, “We’ll have to be careful to protect you.”

I said, “Let’s not get carried away with this. We should
all
be careful, and not wander around alone, or late at night. They were going for me the first time; they might go for someone else next time. Or for Feng’s itself,” I added, “which they’ve done twice already.”

“This is true,” said Fred.

“Which brings us,” said Libby, “to the question I asked before: Do you want in?”

I said, “It would be pretty silly of me not to, wouldn’t it?”

Libby smiled. “How about it, Jamie?”

He laughed. “What, saving the galaxy? I’m up for it.”

Tom just nodded. Rose said, “Well, if the rest of my band is going to, I guess I will, too. I’ll be the fiddle player.”

“We’d figured you for the whiskey taster,” said Libby.

“I can do that, too.”

“You know,” said Tom, “that does bring up a question: Just what do you want us for? I mean, are you going to give us jobs or something?”

The four of them exchanged looks. “We don’t really know,” said Rich. “Just knowing that we can count on you is the main thing. Other than that, we’ll have to see what happens.”

“One thing,” said Jamie.

“Yeah?”

“About those guns: Do you know what it’s legal to carry in this colony?”

“That’s a tricky question,” said Rich. “For one thing, there are no laws about carrying firearms at all. But you have to understand, most people don’t carry guns, so if Fred wanders around with his Uzi—”

“H&K,” said Fred.

“—whatever, he’s going to get looked at. But the other end of it is, well”—he turned to Eve—” why don’t you tell them?”

She cleared her throat. “Billy, do you remember the sergeant who questioned you after the shooting?”

“Umm, not really. I was pretty much in a daze.”

“Well, his name is Iverness, and—”

“That doesn’t sound very French,” accused Tom.

“Not everyone who lives here is French,” said Rich.

“He was joking,” said Jamie.

Eve continued patiently, “There are several Ivernesses in the local police department.”

“Okay. And?”

“Iverness is the maiden name of Harold Rudd’s mother.”

“Oh, great,” said Jamie, beating me to it. “Does that mean the whole police department is on their side?”

“Pretty much,” said Rich.

“Then we’ve had it,” said Jamie. “They can just walk in here—”

“Let them try,” said Fred.

“But they can’t,” said Rich. “It isn’t that easy. They control the police department, and most of the city, but it isn’t anything like absolute. It means they didn’t really investigate the shooting of whoever was shot here, and it means if we’re found dead one day it won’t be investigated too heavily either, but, no, they can’t go blatantly ignoring their own laws. I hope.”

Jamie said, “So if they shoot one of us they can get away with it, but if we shoot one of them—”

“They’ll probably come after us with the whole department. Yep.”

“Oh, that’s great.”

“No one said life is fair,” said Rich.

After that there wasn’t much to say. We sat for a while, staring into empty coffee cups while trying to think of encouraging things to tell each other and failing.

“I think we should get some sleep now,” said Fred at last.

“Good idea,” said Rich.

Fred continued, “Those of you who are living at the apartment should walk home together, and try to find routes which do not take you past that agency. Ideally, find several and mix them up. Also, you may want to consider moving back here.”

“A thought,” said Jamie, and looked at me. I shrugged. The original reason why I wanted a place of my own had very likely vanished.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“Let’s go home,” said Jamie.

The four of us walked together, looking over our shoulders all the while. I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was in enemy territory, and I was starting to be glad that I had the knife with me, after all.

Tuesday we all stayed in, and, miracle of miracles, got some practicing done. Not a great deal, and we didn’t play very well, but I felt better for having done it. Ditto for Wednesday. I also read a few summaries of recent history that Eve had found in the library’s English-language section. One was mostly political, and too dry for me to force my way through, and the others too technical for me to get much out of.

Later, Rose went into the bedroom to work on some fiddle tunes. Jamie and Tom and I drank coffee. “So, how are things with Carrie?”

“Better,” said Tom. “I don’t know. Sometimes it’s great, and sometimes we just tear each other apart. I know she’s been sleeping with other guys. I can tell. But she denies it. And—”

“I don’t understand that,” I said. “Jealousy, I mean. So, she’s sleeping with other guys. Why does that matter?”

“It wouldn’t bother you?”

“It never has. I don’t know, maybe I’ve just never been in the kind of situation where it would.”

Jamie said, “I used to get jealous, but it was sort of beat out of me by—well, it doesn’t matter. She’s history now.”

“Literally,” said Tom.

Jamie shuddered and we fell silent and began to get depressed.

“All I know,” said Tom, “is that it drives me crazy that she’s sleeping with other guys.”

“It isn’t that I think you’re wrong, it’s just that I don’t understand. It’s different with me. It just hurts that she’s not with me.”

“You’re a pinhead,” said Tom.

“That’s what Libby tells me.”

“It’ll take a while to get over it,” said Jamie.

“I know,” I said. “How many times have you been burned?”

“Like that? Three times. It’s easier after the first.”

“Well, that makes me feel much better. I suppose, though, that it’s pretty surprising it hasn’t happened before, all things considered. Your basic broken heart. Shit. It’s so stupid.”

“It is,” said Jamie. “There’s so much else in life. I mean, take a walk and look around.”

“I’ll get over it,” I said.

“Women,” said Tom.

“Here, here,” said Jamie.

“Well, what about Rose?” I asked.

“What about her?”

“She’s in love with you.”

“Yeah,” he said miserably. “I know.” After a long moment of silence, Jamie said, “You see why I’d rather just worry about people shooting at me? Hell, at least I can shoot back.”

“You know, I almost do understand,” said Tom.

“Me, too,” I said. “That scares me.”

Jamie went out that evening. He took his pistol with him but left the shotgun. I had no idea how worried about him I was until he came back, the next afternoon. Rose, of course, was frantic, and dealt with it by picking on him for the whole rest of the day, mostly about how ugly his beard was. He, of course, responded by calling her various vile and disgusting things, all of which escalated until Tom and I had to leave.

“Be careful,” said Jamie.

“Drop dead,” I suggested cheerfully.

“That’s a great idea, Jim,” said Rose as the door closed behind us. “Why don’t you do what he—” and their voices mercifully faded into the distance. Once out on the naked street, I wanted to bolt back inside. I forced myself to relax, and said, “Well, where to? Feng’s?”

“How about Carrie’s?”

“Sounds good,” I said, and we set off in a direction I hadn’t gone before.

It was more than two miles, but the weather was good for walking. The danger began to take on a feeling of distance and unreality, which made it actually sort of fun; I could almost understand some of how Jamie enjoyed picking out weapons. Tom was, I think, more alert than I, and kept looking around, but nothing untoward happened.

Carrie had rented a tiny little house set in the middle of a big lot. The lot had a lawn that looked ignored and several apple trees that looked even more ignored—a few limbs had broken from the weight of unpicked apples. The house itself, however, seemed to be well tended. The wood stain was new, at any rate, and there were no signs of disrepair that I noticed as we approached. It was incongruous, as if someone had bought a big lot but could only afford a small house. Tom knocked directly on the door; there was no screen. It was opened almost at once.

Carrie stood there in a bathrobe, a look of shock on her face. We could see past her into the house, where Justin sat, wearing only a towel. They both had wet hair. Justin was holding a razor blade over a mirror, on which was a white powder that must have been coke. There was a Baggie next to the mirror with a small quantity of powder in it. I wanted to say, “This is a raid,” just to see what sort of reaction it would elicit, but I didn’t have the chance even if I’d chosen to.

Tom moved quickly, stepping into the house and shoving Carrie aside with the same motion. I came in behind him and he already had the .45 out and was shoving the magazine home with a practiced hand.

“Tom, don’t,” I said as he took aim at Justin’s head. Justin just stared at him.

Carrie began screaming. Tom hesitated, and his hand trembled. “Why the fuck not?” he asked.

I tried to think of a reason and couldn’t. “Don’t do it, Tom,” I said. “Please.” Carrie kept screaming. And Justin—well, he had balls, I’ll give him that. He just stared down at Tom with a superior smirk on his lip, his beady eyes squinting, as if a bullet or two in the head didn’t phase him in the least.
I
wanted to blow him away.

And Carrie kept screaming, and Tom’s hand still trembled as he held the gun pointed right into Justin’s face. “Tom, don’t,” I said once more.

“Shit,” he said. I could hardly hear him over Carrie’s screaming. He turned and looked at her, then took a step forward, and kicked, upsetting table, mirror, and coke. Then he turned and walked out of the house. I backed out after him. Justin still hadn’t moved.

Tom was considerably ahead of me when I closed the door of the house. Carrie’s screams abruptly ceased, but I thought I could hear her starting to cry. I caught up with Tom, looking back over my shoulder in case Justin was armed and decided to try to get us. He wasn’t or didn’t. Tom was taking long strides and still holding the gun. I hoped we didn’t meet up with anyone before he thought to put it away, and, in fact, we didn’t.

When we reached the apartment, Tom sat down in the corner and closed his eyes. Jamie said, “What happened?”

“Never mind,” I said. “Just never mind.”

Later that day Jamie and Rose started in on each other and Tom and I stood up at the same time, and the two of them promptly shut up.

“Hi.”

“Oh, it’s you.”

“Don’t you ever turn your camera on?”

“Not often.”

“Oh. Well, want to get together sometime?”

“And do what?”

“I think we’ve had this conversation before.”

“Look, you called me.”

“That’s true. I must have had a reason.”

“I understand your friend Tom made an ass of himself with Carrie.”

“Is that how you heard it?”

“Well, didn’t he go barging in there, and almost beat Carrie to death, and then break down and start bawling?”

“Hmmmm. That’s not exactly as I remember it.”

“Well, then, what
did
happen?”

“It doesn’t matter. Tom shouldn’t have gone over without calling first, in any case.”

“Why tell
me
? He’s
your
friend.”

“Yeah.”

“Look, I have to go. I’ll see you later.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Sometime. Bye.”

“Bye.”

The next day was Friday, but Fred called and explained he’d found a solo Irish act to play for us that weekend.

At first I was outraged. “Why did you do that?”

“Billy, can you think of what you guys will be like, standing on that stage for three hours?”

“What do you mean? We—oh. Targets.”

“Can you say, sitting ducks?”

“I get it. Shit. I’ll tell the others.”

I did, and they didn’t like it but they understood. Unfortunately it not only left us with nothing to do, but it took all the wind out of our sails for practicing. Tom and I took a walk so we could talk about what had happened, but then we found we didn’t have anything to say, except Tom kept repeating, “I should have killed him. I should have killed him,” like a litany.

Jamie took off again that night.

The next morning, when he wasn’t back, Rose said, “I wonder where Jim is?”

“Who knows?”

“Well, I mean, I wouldn’t want him to be killed. By anyone except me, that is.”

I looked at Tom, who rolled his eyes. “I understand,” I said. “I’m sure he’s all right.”

“But where? I wish he’d let us know.”

I shrugged. Was I supposed to tell her he was safe with some woman, or that he was no doubt out alone all night? “I’m sure he’s fine,” I said. “How are you?”

“Grand,” she said. “Couldn’t be better. This place is so much nicer when that man is away.”

“I mean, aside from him.”

“Fine. I’ve been working on a new song that man wanted me to learn.”

“Great,” I said. She sat down next to me and I put my arm around her, and I think it may have helped her. In any case, thinking I was helping her helped me.