The Coming (30 page)

"I remember
eighty
years ago. Don't you worry about me."

"She won't catch pneumonia from exposure," the beautiful woman said. She touched the old woman's hand. "But he's right. You should get out of this rain."

"You should, too, ma'am. You're not exactly dressed for this."

"No." She startled him by taking off her hair and wringing it out. "What I'm dressed for is getting fucked in the ass."

"What?"

"People do it," Suzy Q. said in her defense. "Where you been all these years?"

Rabin swallowed a couple of times. "Sure. But you're wet. You're cold and wet."

The beautiful woman patted her hair into place and favored him with a brilliant smile. "It's a living. Not the cold and wet. The other."

"You aren't a whore, are you?" Suzy Q. said.

"No. No, I'm an actress. And a medical student." She looked up at Rabin. "No laws broken. I just do cube for the Institute of Sexual Studies here." Still smiling, she started to cry. "Could you do me a favor? Could you do something with my cat?"

"¿Perdón?"

She pushed the shoebox an inch toward him. "My cat died. He just died, with the president. I don't know what to do with him. And I don't want to go to work and I wish it would
stop raining."

He carefully picked up the sodden box. "Sure, don't worry about it. But will you do something for me?"

"Sure. That's what I do, is do things for men."

"Get yourself and Suzy inside somewhere. I don't want her to die on my shift."

"Okay. Is that a deal, Suzy?"

"Okay. Let's get a cuppa coffee." They headed toward Main Street, the beautiful woman pushing the cart. She wasn't wearing underwear, and her buttocks clung to the translucent fabric, rolling. Rabin's heterosexual fraction watched with interest. What would it be like to do that with a woman? Just different scenery, he supposed.

His civilian phone rang. He wiggled it out of his pocket. "Yeah?"

"Qabil, this is Felicity."

"What?" The dispatcher? Why wasn't she calling on the shoulder unit?

"I'm downstairs, on the pay phone. Look, you're friends with Norman Bell."

"Well, I…"

"You're friends. He and his wife have to disappear
right now.
I was just up in the boss's office and he got a call from some FBI guy. The feds are gonna pick them up tonight and take them to Washington for questioning."

"About what?"

"You didn't see the cube? Of course not. Look, they're suspected of being foreign agents. For France or her allies."

"What bullshit!"

"Yeah, and they know it is. He joked about it; they just want to lock her up and throw away the key. It's serious, Qabil. A presidential order. From that senile old Indian."

"Allah. Thanks, Felicity. I'll call him right away."

Exasperated, Norman hit the "save" button on the Roland and touched the phone screen. It stayed blank.

"Turn off your house," said a voice he didn't recognize. Another blackmailer?

"House, turn yourself off for thirty minutes." It chimed. "Okay. Who are you?"

There was a click, the distorter going off, and a heavy sigh. "Norm, it's Qabil. There's real trouble."

"Yeah? ¿Qué pasa?"

"Is Rory home?"

"No. I expect her any minute."

"You have to pack up and leave as soon as she gets home. The FBI's going to pick you up tonight, take you to Washington and bury you."

"What, that damned interview?"

"I guess; I didn't see it. They claim you're agents, working for France."

"For
France?
We've never even
been
there."

"Well, you can stay at home and talk it over with them, or you can be missing. That's what I'd advise. It's not like the cube; these guys are a law unto themselves."

"So I've heard. How long do we have?"

"Maybe until dark. I'd leave as soon as possible. Do you have cash?"

"A little."

"What I'd do … take a cab down to Oaks and max out the ATM, then get on the first train to Archer. From there you can use cash to get anywhere, short trips. Go to Canada or Mexico, someplace you don't need a passport."

"But she didn't break any
law."

"All I know is that the FBI is after her. I think they can find a law."

"Jesus. When it rains, it pours."

"Don't worry about the rain. Just move as fast as you can."

Norman had to smile. How long did you have to live in a country before you picked up the catchphrases? "Okay. If Rory agrees, we'll be out long before dark."

"If she doesn't agree, you leave by yourself, okay? All this shit in Washington."

"Sure. I'll get packing. Buenas." Qabil said good-bye and Norman turned off the phone. Of course he wouldn't really leave Rory behind. Both or neither of them would go to Washington. To be buried. In shit? He wondered what Qabil meant by that.

He'd pack for both of them, though. He set out two bags, small enough for carry-on, on the bed, and neatly stacked warm-weather clothing in each. He assumed Rory would rather go to Mexico, for the winter, than Canada. Besides, she didn't speak Canadian.

With both of them packed, he carefully lifted out the contents of Rory's bag. Let her check through and make changes.

She should be here by now, he thought. He went to the phone and punched RR, Rory roving.

"Buenas?" No picture, of course.

"Where are you, darling?"

"In a cab. Home in two minutes. Where did you think I'd be?"

"Just making sure."

"How are you taking it?"

"Um … not on the phone. Talk to you in two minutes." He pushed the "off" button and rummaged through the drawer under the phone for a joint. It was old and dry. He found a match and lit it. Took one puff and stabbed it out in the sink. Wrong direction. He poured a glass of port and sipped it, waiting, thinking.

This might not have anything to do with the interview. The FBI might have linked him and Rory to whatever that superweapon was, that may or may not have been an invention of Pepe's.

The doorknob rattled and Rory knocked. Of course her thumb-print didn't unlock it unless the house was on. He went down the hall and opened the door.

"What, is the house off?"

Norm held the door open and shut it behind her. "Yeah. The shit has hit."

She nodded. "I know. Goddamn governor on top of everything else. But why the house?"

"The governor?"

"Yeah. Why's the house off?"

"The FBI. What did the governor do?"

Rory rubbed her wet hair with both hands. "The governor got me fired, you know that? Did he call the FBI?"

"Fired?"

"You didn't know." Norman opened both hands and made a noise. "The governor leaned on Mal because of an interview I did this morning. So I'm on sabbatical. What does the FBI have to do with it?"

They were in the breakfast nook. "Sit down. Let me get you something to drink."

She sat down. "Just water. What's the FBI? The assassination?"

"Somebody got assassinated?"

She kneaded her forehead. "Of course. Why would you know? The president and all her cabinet, killed in a bomb blast. The vice-president, too."

"My God. Bombed! Was it France?"

"No. Grayson Pauling carried a briefcase full of explosive into a cabinet meeting. Suicide-murder."

"Pauling."

"He was serious about changing the agenda. Lunatic, martyr, I don't have it sorted out. What about the FBI now?"

He got a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. "Qabil called."

"Oh, good. That's all we need."

"No. That's not it. He found out, as a cop, down at the station, he heard the FBI is coming to get you. Take you to Washington."

"Oh, shit." She took the water but didn't drink. "They can't do that. I didn't break any law."

Norm sat across from her with a small glass of wine. "I don't know. Maybe we could talk our way out of it. What Qabil said is they think we're agents for France—"

"We've never
been
to France!"

"Verdad. I think they know that. It's just an excuse."

"Was it before or after the assassination?"

"Just now. I think Qabil assumed I knew about the president dying."

She shook her head. "State of emergency, I guess. But do you really think they can just call us spies and lock us up?"

"I don't know. That's what Qabil thinks. And he's sort of in their line of work."

"Oh, hell. Double hell." She slid the water bottle back and forth in a small arc. "Is that port you're drinking?"

"Get you some?"

"Ah, no." She threw out the water and went to the refrigerator and squeezed herself a tumblerful of the plonk. "So what does your boyfriend recommend that we do?"

"He's not my
boy
friend. He's just looking out for us."

"I'm sorry." She sat down and leaned into her hands; her voice was muffled. "It's been such a day."

"And it's just begun."

She sipped the wine. "Qabil said?"

"He said we should disappear. Before night. Stay on local transport so we can pay cash, and make our way to a country that doesn't need a passport."

"Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean?"

"You'll do it?"

"I'd like about thirty seconds to think about it."

"Go ahead. I'm going to pack some music cubes."

"Packing? You'd leave without me?"

"Of course not. I just want to be ready if you decide to go. I can hear the hounds yapping." He found a cheap plastic box that held a hundred cubes, and started at the beginning, Antonini.

"Oh, hell. Put some jazz in there for me." She stood up. "I'll pack some clothes."

"I already put out a few things. Warm weather?"

"Yeah. Canada doesn't really appeal."

He heard her opening and closing drawers, slamming them. "How about Mexico?"

"Cuba's closer," she said. "Some stuff I wanted to check there, too."

He pulled a couple of handfuls of cubes from her jazz collection, totally random. "Cuba it is." They would have to avoid the Orlando-Miami monorail, unfortunately; that was ticketed like a plane. Have to zigzag their way down.

He took the cube box and a small player into the bedroom and put them in his bag. Rory was almost packed, rattling around in the bathroom. "You have the sunscreen?" she said.

"Both kinds, yeah. Though I guess we could buy it in Cuba."

Rory came out with a plastic bag of toiletries, put it in the travel bag, and zipped it closed. "So. You ready?"

"Yes." He held out a hand. "I'll take your bag.

"I can—"

"On my bicycle. We can't risk a cab."

"Oh, joy." She handed him the bag. "Mother said if I married you I was in for a rough ride. But bicycling through the rain in December?"

"Fleeing the FBI. Sort of strains your sense of humor, doesn't it."

It wasn't too bad, though. The rain was a cool mist, and they only had to go a mile, to the Oaks substation.

They left the bicycles unlocked, trusting that it wouldn't take long for thieves to remove that particular bit of evidence of their flight, and walked into the venerable, not to say crumbling, mall.

It had seen better days, most of them more than a half century before. A whole block of stores had been demolished, their walls knocked down, to make space for a huge flea market, and that drew more customers than the low-rent purveyors of cheap imported clothing and sexual paraphernalia.

There was a weird youth subculture that had taken over one part—the beatniks, who dressed in century-old fashion and smoked incessantly while listening to century-old music. Rory liked the sound of it as they walked by, but it made Norman cringe. They had to go through there to get to the ATMs.

They thumbed two machines to get the maximum from different accounts, four thousand dollars each. The machines didn't hold any denomination larger than one hundred, though, so they wound up with a conspicuously large wad of bills.

Rory looked around. "Uh-oh." She turned back to the machine. "There's a guy staring at us. From the café."

Norm glanced sideways. "Yeah, I see him in Nick's sometimes. Always writing in that notebook."