Emperors of Time (17 page)

“Here?” asked
Julie, clearly surprised at the coincidence.

“Yes, well, this
is one of the grandest hotels in San Francisco, after all,” said one of the
women. 

“Still the best,
I would say,” argued the other. “Even after it had to be rebuilt because of the
fire.”

Tim suddenly
remembered that he had come across information about a big earthquake and fire
in San Francisco in 1906.  He tried not to look surprised at the
reference, but Julie and Rose apparently didn’t succeed in doing the same.

“You must
remember the fire…” said one of the women, noticing their facial
expressions.  “You would have been young, it was ten years ago after all,
but…  over three quarters of the city was destroyed.”

“We’re from out
of town,” Tim supplied hastily.  “All of us.  We…  moved here
together pretty recently, actually.”

The women looked
a bit perplexed, but recovered nicely with smiles in short order.  This
made sense, Tim supposed, given that they were budding politicians.  “Well,
the important thing is that you are here now,” registered one of the women, in
a friendly tone. 

The other woman
nodded, and then seemed to have an idea.  “We need some people to help us
serve refreshments tomorrow.  You could all help, if you boys don’t mind
serving some punch,” she said.  She paused a second and then gasped
dramatically.  “Where are my manners?!  Here I am, asking for your
help, and I haven’t even told you my name!  I’m Anna.”

“And I’m
Margaret,” said the other woman.  “And not to be too forward, but we
really could use your help.”

“Absolutely,”
said Rose.  “Anything we can do for the cause, right?”

“Of course,”
said Julie.  “I’m Julie, by the way.”  They each introduced
themselves and the women eagerly handed each of them a button, which they
promptly put on after noticing that the women were wearing their own. 

“Well, we’d like
to ask you to help us hand out these buttons,” said Margaret.  “But we
know you came to dance, and it’s probably only a two person job anyway.”

“You see, mostly
we’re only succeeding in encouraging people to walk away from us,” Anna
confirmed.  “But you’ll be doing us a huge favor helping us out tomorrow
night.  The event starts at six, so if you could be here at five, that
would be splendid.”

Rose assured the
women they would, and everyone shook the two women’s hands before they walked
to another part of the bar to drink the rest of their sodas.

The four teens
were fairly silent.  They had a lot to talk about, but seemed to tacitly
agree that they needed privacy to discuss it. 

“You fellas
think it’s about time to head back to the room, then?” asked Julie.

“I’m not a
fella!” protested Rose.  “But yes, I think we ought to head back.”

“Don’t worry
Rose, she called me pretty earlier,” registered Tim.  “She’s a little bit
confused about gender tonight.”

It was actually
with a bit of regret that Tim crossed the dance floor without getting another
chance to dance with Julie.  Perhaps dancing wasn’t as bad as Tim thought
it was, once you found the right person to dance with. 

“You did great
in there, by the way,” Billy told Rose, as they exited the hotel and started
heading back toward the YMCA.  “I don’t know whether half the stuff you
were saying about businesses and France and Germany was true or not, but they certainly
seemed to buy it.”

“No, seriously,
that was awesome.  Take it from someone who’s actually opened a History
textbook,” said Tim with a laugh.  “Good thinking about putting Hughes
pro-war but acknowledging that he doesn’t come out and say it.  I’m a bit
surprised his supporters would be so quick to agree with you on it, though.”

“They were
probably off script,” acknowledged Rose.  “But most books I’ve read figure
he was always going to go to war, he just didn’t want to anger the pacifists.”

“Let’s keep the
history-nerd talk to a minimum,” said Julie.  “But we definitely just got
invited to an event that pretty much all the Republican political junkies in
San Francisco will attend.  I mean, I know we’ve been on a bit of a
gambling hot-streak lately, but I think this might be the luckiest thing that’s
happened to us yet!”

The next day,
promptly at five o’ clock, Tim, Billy, Julie, and Rose entered the Palace Hotel
for a second time. 

This time, they were
dressed in new clothes.  Well, not exactly “new”, but they had purchased
the clothes from a thrift-store earlier that day.  The thrift store hadn’t
been their first choice, but it turned out that even at a time when the price
of a six ounce bottle of Pepsi was only a nickel, you still couldn’t do much
clothes shopping if you only had nine dollars to your name.  The cheapest
skirt they found at a new clothing store cost $2.49, dresses were significantly
more, and even men’s dress shirts ran $1.50.  But at a thrift shop, they
were able to find men’s shirts for a dime each, and even bought a new jacket
for Tim at 75 cents.  All told, they made it out of there with new outfits
for everyone after dropping only four dollars.

Even this seemed
a little steep to Tim, in terms of percentage of their total net worth, but he
had to admit it would probably look weird if they showed up to a fancy
fundraiser wearing the same clothes they had worn for the last two days. 
They had also managed to head to a drugstore, and for only a dollar bought some
cheap soap, shampoo, and toothpaste.  A quarter from that dollar was spent
on some perfume for the girls, so it wouldn’t be quite so apparent they still
hadn’t found a place to shower. 

Whether or not
she had showered, though, Julie still looked good to Tim, after having found a
cute outfit at the thrift store. 

“You look
stunning,” Tim, had told her.  This made Julie blush again, which Tim
didn’t mind, since he thought that she looked
especially
cute when she
blushed.  Besides, he really did think that she looked stunning, but he
had already called her pretty
and
beautiful the evening before and
didn’t want to come off sounding repetitive. 

Julie had smiled
at him and said, “And you look
handsome
.”  She overemphasized the word
handsome, as if to draw attention to the fact that she had said the right word
this time.

“Well, I’d
certainly better, after all the money we had to spend on this jacket,” quipped
Tim. 

Even after all
this, though, they still had a couple dollars left to eat with over the next
couple days.  And they were really hoping that by being at this function
and listening in on conversations, they might be able to get an idea of the
landscape of the Republican political party in 1916 San Francisco, a group that
they were now rather desperately hoping included whoever the Emperors of Time
had convinced to do their bidding.

“You made it!”
exclaimed Margaret, as she hurried over to meet the four teens at the
door. 

“We did,”
confirmed Rose, who was put in the awkward position of having to acknowledge
the obvious.  “You look fantastic, by the way.”

And Margaret
did, too, wearing a bright festive dress.  “Yes, well…  perhaps the
day will soon come when women can contribute more to a political campaign than
their looks and their ability to throw parties, but today is not that day,” she
said with a frown.  The frown conveyed some bitterness, but she brightened
up quickly.  “Of course, we have to start somewhere… And look at you two,
helping out before you can even vote.”

Julie and Rose
smiled at this.  Rose seemed like she was going to say something in
response, but Billy interrupted her.   He was clearly more interested
in getting to the task at hand than in idle chitchat, and until the guests
started to arrive, their task was helping to set up.  Tim had noticed
Billy scan the room as soon as they walked in.  Like Billy, he noticed
that although the stage had been cleared, except for a single microphone, the
clear floor still mostly resembled a ballroom, aside from the fact that there
were hundreds of chairs stacked in neat piles of six each around the edges of
the room.

“Should we start
setting up the chairs?” asked Billy politely.

“Oh, yes,
yes…  That would be just splendid, I think,” said Margaret.  “You
and…  was it Tim?--” Tim nodded.  “--can start setting up the chairs
and the young ladies and I will work on making the punch.  You want to
make rows of ten chairs per side with an aisle down the middle.  Put the
aisle in the middle of the floor and work your way out from there, and there
will be extra space on both sides as well.  There should be enough chairs
there for twenty rows.  We’re hoping for a big turnout.”

So Billy and Tim
began putting the chairs up, and soon two members of the hotel staff were
helping as well. The chairs weren’t foldout chairs, and they were actually kind
of heavy, at least when you were carrying two at a time. 

This was what
Billy was doing, being the athlete that he was, and it was what the hotel staff
were doing too, each of them being strapping young men in their twenties who
kept looking over at Margaret and Anna like they were trying to impress them or
something.  Which meant that Tim didn’t want to be the only one carrying
just one chair. This in turn meant that his arms ached a bit by the time the
four of them had set up five of the rows.

Tim still wasn’t
completely sure what Margaret and Anna did for the campaign, except that it
clearly involved handing out buttons.  However, over the first twenty
minutes or so of being there, Tim realized that it was clearly Anna who was in
charge.  So it was no surprise when, after Anna started yelling something
about how they needed more banners, it was Margaret who came over thirty
seconds later to talk to Billy and Tim.

“So, yes… 
apparently we’re simply going to need more signs,” said Margaret, with an
almost imperceptible eye roll. 

Rose and Julie
were still helping Anna make the punch and other refreshments, so Billy and Tim
worked together on a banner that said “Charles Hughes for President” in red and
blue letters on a white background as Margaret flittered around the room trying
to solve organizational problems before they got onto Anna’s radar.

“So,” Billy said
quietly to Tim, as he painted in an ‘H’ that Tim had drawn with a pencil, “this
is the first time in my life I have ever given half a crap whether or not
Wilson won a second term.  And now, even though I desperately want
Wilson
to win, I’m making a banner for Hughes.  So, my question is…  Is
that ironic, or just plain weird?”

Tim paused and
thought about this for a moment.  He looked around to make sure no one
else could hear before he said, “I’m going to say just plain weird.  But
to be honest, that’s my default answer, given that you’re only doing any of it
because you just got here from a different century.”

Billy
grinned.  “Sounds like a good rule of thumb,” he agreed.

Billy and Tim
completed two banners before people started trickling in at 5:50 pm. Margaret
came over to tell them to get over to the door to help greet people with Anna,
Margaret, Julie, and Rose. 

During a brief
lull in the arrival of party faithful, Anna instructed the teens to show
enthusiasm and energy.  “We’re here to show the verve and vitality of the
Republican Party!” she encouraged.

So they talked enthusiastically
and didn’t spare exclamations as they shook the hands of everyone who came in
and made sure they had a Hughes button if they didn’t already.  But they
also looked at everyone who came in to try to decide who was capable of setting
off the bomb that would get Hughes elected.  They tried to eavesdrop but
had a bit of a hard job of it, given that every time there was a lull in
greeting newcomers, Margaret and Anna would barrage the teens with instructions
of what they should do once six o’clock rolled around.

The basic idea
was that at six, the girls would start serving punch and snacks to people who
came up to the table, during the ‘meet and greet’ portion of the evening, when
people would get to meet their local representatives and the campaign
workers.  The boys, during that time, would walk around and bring
refreshments to anyone who was older or disabled.  Apparently, as the
ambassadors of the youth of the Republican Party, they were going to make sure
that no one would be unable to chat with someone just because they were unable
or unwilling to get out of their seats.

This was good
news, because it would give Tim and Billy, a chance to walk around the room
with open ears and hear what they could.  So Tim was pretty happy when six
o’ clock rolled around and Margaret and Anna took them over to the punch
bar. 

“So, find
somebody sitting down who doesn’t have a drink and bring one out to them. 
Ask them if they’re having a good time.  Get them excited.  Ask them
if there’s anybody here who they want to talk to.  If they have an answer
for that, let me know, and maybe we can get one of the campaign managers or a
representative to talk to them.  But mostly, just chat with as many people
as you can, and… you know, bring them punch.  People like punch,”
instructed Anna.

Tim made several
trips to and from the punch table after that, making sure to listen to the
guests.  At first, he didn’t hear much that was productive.  A few
people had the odd financial interest in England or France, one or two were
involved in the state government, under the governor Hiram Johnson. 
Johnson was technically a Progressive, but the Progressive Party was generally
supporting Hughes, and so, in general, were Johnson’s employees.

Most of the
conversation was running around the idea of how they had to make sure to get
out the vote and convince those who had wanted Theodore Roosevelt to run again
that Hughes was a good candidate, in spite of the fact that he was a moderate
Republican. After all, California was one of the states that had voted for
Roosevelt, as a Bull-Moose Progressive, in the previous election.  All
this was interesting, Tim thought, but wasn’t much going to help them figure
out who was building a bomb.

Tim was so
focused on trying to hear important things that he almost missed something he
was very surprised to see.  There were two men sitting toward the back of
the ballroom who seemed to be looking at something with a magnifying
glass.  Tim managed to get half a glance at it and noticed that it was a
photograph.   A color photograph.  Now…  that was not quite
impossible…  there had been color photographs since 1850, but they still
weren’t very common, and Tim didn’t like the way they were looking at it like
it was a secret.

Tim got a knot
in his stomach and quickly scurried over to the punch table.  The way that
he looked at Julie and Rose when he got there told them pretty clearly that he
needed to talk to them right away.  Soon the three of them were huddled in
the corner behind the punch table.  He hadn’t been able to signal to Billy
to get over there, because he had been so focused on getting over to the girls,
since he knew where they were.  He felt like he needed to get this hunch
off his chest as soon as possible. 

“Those folks
over there are acting weird, I really think we ought to keep an eye on them and
get out of here if they do anything worrying,” said Tim.  Then, Tim looked
over to where the two men were sitting to point them out to Julie and
Rose.  Which is when he saw Billy.  The two men were leading him out
into the hallway.

Tim, Julie, and
Rose looked at each other.  They were at a loss for what to do. 
Should they chase after them or try to figure out another way to help him? As
it turned out, they didn’t have to decide. 

A third man came
out of an adjoining room and walked straight over to them.  He was
discretely holding a handgun in the pocket of his suit, but he flashed it at
them as he said, “You kids need to follow me, and don’t do anything
stupid.  You know who I’m working for, and you know that even if I got
caught shooting you in a crowd like this one, they would still make that okay
for me.”  He grinned a cheerfully maniacal grin.  “But I’m a softy at
heart, so I mostly hope you don’t make me do that.”

Tim
shrugged.  He didn’t love the idea of following this guy, but getting shot
at wasn’t part of the plan either.  The girls didn’t seem to have any
better idea, so they followed him out of the ballroom and to a back staircase
of the hotel. 

Billy and the
two men were already there.  Billy actually looked relieved to see the
three of them, which perplexed Tim for a second.  He tried to figure out
how more of them being captured could possibly be a good thing.  Then Tim
wondered if Billy had a plan that required all of them to be there.  Well,
reinforcements had arrived.

Then, Tim
remembered that Billy still had a can of mace in his pocket.  In fact,
just as Tim thought of this, Billy seemed to be reaching for it.  He put
his hand in his pocket, began to draw it out, and--  One of the oafs who
had led him out in the first place grabbed Billy’s arm, wrenched it into an
awkward position, and grabbed the mace out of it. 

“What is this,
some kind of futuristic perfume?” asked the oaf.  “Here, I thought you
were reaching for a weapon.  I’ll keep this just to be safe, though.”

“All right
kids.  Up the steps,” instructed one of the other thugs.