The Seeds of Time (68 page)

Abbey reached for the book. The front doorbell rang. As Renalda let go of the book, a moment too early, it slipped from Abbey’s fingers and fell to the floor on its clasp, breaking the lock into two pieces.

She stared at the splayed binding on the floor. “It’s a sign,” she said, “that I should read it.”

Renalda shook her head. “It’s a sin. And you shouldn’t.” She went to the door to deal with their visitor. She turned back. “It’s a sin to read someone else’s diary, you know?”

Abbey raised an eyebrow at this pitiful tactic. “It’s a
sin?”

Renalda’s face crumpled under that hot, hazel gaze. “Okay. It’s bad luck, then.” She left the storeroom, scowling.

Crouching down and picking up the book, Abbey opened it at random, reading:
“Zachariah knows things. I don’t know if he really hears voices from people passed over …”
A small tremor shook her hands as she carefully closed the book.

When Renalda came back, she was shaking her head. “Just Outers begging.” She threw her arms wide, mobes sparkling on her wrists. “Do I look like I have money?”

“Store,” Abbey said. “Screen us Closed for the day. But plug the Barbie special.” She wandered over to the multi-lounger and sat down. The chair sighed as her weight forced stale air from its depths.

“You ever hear of Zachariah Smith?”

Renalda pursed her lips. “That guy with the fragged-out followers? Over at the old high school? Vitt wasn’t
involved with
him
, was she?” Her eyes widened in the ensuing silence. “Vitt wasn’t involved with that
freak
, was she?”

Abbey picked up her tea and sipped it, allowing the cold brew to slide down her throat before it swelled into a blockade.

“Because Father O’Conner says they worship the devil.”

“Yeah, Father O’Conner sees the devil everywhere.”

Renalda opened her mouth to rebut, then reconsidered, retreating to the door. At the threshold she turned and said, “Maybe he is.”

Abbey looked up quizzically. “Is what?”

“Everywhere.” Her roommate hovered at the door, while Abbey turned the diary over in her hands.

“You gonna be okay?”

“Ask me later.” She grasped the small locket hanging around her neck, and even before she heard the front door close behind Renalda, she turned to the diary’s first entry,
January 7, 2012
, and began to read.

An hour later, she found herself in the souped-up, double-discount multi-lounger in the apartment, doing a Net probe on Zachariah Smith, downloading his spending patterns, 3-D Web hits, and every other public-access scrap available in the vast digital imprint that he, like everyone else, left in the communal Net.

Lying in wait for Lobo was a bust. Where was a crook when you really needed one? Abbey waited for the TraveLink system to answer her booking, which the real-time display at the LinkStop said would be here in six minutes.

Abbey had staked out Lowell Street at Penburton, Lobo’s usual hang, where she had occasionally bought a computer upgrade or game from him, at street prices, mind you, and no questions asked. But no Lobo, not today.

She looked up to see her ride coming. Out of all the linked transport options of buses, maxi-taxis, and mini-cars, here came her luck-of-the-draw, an ancient maxi-taxi, a low-riding, seen-better-days sedan, packed with five other riders, amidst whose grocery bags, pet dogs, and knapsacks
she managed to shoulder her way, passing forward her SmartCard, and receiving it back through a relay of hands. As crowded as it was, in truth she didn’t mind a little company in the neighborhood she was headed to, where her sources said Lobo could be found.

Out the windows she could see the block-by-block deterioration of this end of town, including metal bars over storefronts, broken windows, and refuse sprouting from gutters and the stoops of once-tidy brownstones. In the distance, anchoring the far end of Defoe Street, she could make out the strutted dome of the old Lowell Street Train Station, once proud, and now, it was said, a palace for rats.

The taxi deposited her, the driver swore, in front of her destination, but as the vehicle squealed off down the street, she saw by the apartment building numbers that she’d have to hoof it another block or two. As she set out, a cadre of old men with paper bags followed her with squinting eyes and a round-eyed Freaker, newly lit with a hit of Xstasy, smiled his Freaker’s smile.

She quickened her pace. In this quarter of the city, soot covered the remnants of snow, causing the winter to melt fast, with the runoff spilling over the gutters, pooling the sidewalks in places, and forcing Abbey to splash through and soak the cuffs of her jeans.

As she passed an alley, a small girl jumped up in the middle of a dumpster, eating an orange rind. Even at this distance Abbey could see the girl hadn’t seen a bathtub for months. Her long blonde hair was pulled into an off-center ponytail.

Instantly capitalizing on the eye contact, the girl said, “You gotta five?” As Abbey shook her head, the waif backed up and, a moment before toppling off the far end, she cartwheeled off the dumpster into the shadows.

Abbey almost bumped into a reeking old man planted in her path. His face lit up a moment in surprise. Suddenly, it was the face of a man in his twenties; then his youth slipped off again, buried in grime. She swerved away and picked up her pace, finally spotting the etched-in-stone name of the St. Croix. One look at the pockmarked, narrow
apartment building, leaning for support on the one next-door, and Abbey began to doubt she had the right address.

The afternoon was failing, and the tall apartments crowded out the remnants of daylight. This was maybe not the best time to come, maybe not the smartest move she’d ever made, coming here alone … but the longer she stood here fretting, the darker it was going to get. Besides, maybe she could just call for Lobo. Chances were, with all the broken windows, he might hear her, come out on the front stoop, and make himself an unexpected three hundred bucks.

“Lobo!” she called. And waited. Then called again. Damn, not going to be simple, now, was it? She clomped up the stairs and peered at the roster of names by the doorbell. The names were faded, torn and missing, like the current tenants, most likely. Just as she got ready to knock, the door jerked open. A boy of about eight confronted her. “Nobody’s here!” he shouted.

Her hand met the door as he tried to slam it in her face. “Lobo,” Abbey said, just as loudly, matching his tone. “I came to see Lobo.” She pushed into the foyer, where, beyond the boy’s greasy head, a tall stairway climbed into darkness. Not promising.

“Lobo’s not here,” the boy proclaimed. Something in his eyes made him seem remote, perhaps retarded.

“He’s expecting me,” Abbey lied. “I’m a friend.” Which might be stretching it But no pint-sized runaway was going to push her off this easy.

At his split-second pause, Abbey sidled by him. The noise of a slamming door several floors up proved
someone
was home. The boy banged the door shut and raced up the stairs ahead of her, blurting out, “It’s the Blooos, come for some scrooos!”

Doors creaked open and small faces peered out, sometimes stacked, short to tall, like totem poles. As she passed, the doors pinched shut.

“Where’s Lobo?” she asked, shotgun style, hoping to hit something. From the closest door, a lisping, sweet voice said, “Up at the top.”

She hesitated, looking at the murky stairway. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. She
was
carrying a lot of
money. What if Lobo wasn’t home? Come to think of it, what if he
was?
Lobo smiling on Lowell Street with his sales pitch on automatic might be a different Lobo than the one who retreated each night to the top of the St. Croix.

But she’d come this far. She began the climb. Her sherpa jacket began to feel hot and clammy, but she kept it on, clutching her purse to her belly. On the second floor, a window at the hall’s far end provided at least a dim view. She walked to the next flight of stairs, past doors she just hoped would stay closed.

At a noise in back of her, she turned to find a group of four youngsters standing at the head of the stairs as though blocking her retreat. One of them was the ponytail girl from the dumpster. “You got five dollars?” she asked, lifting her skirt and swaying her naked hips. The smallest boy knelt in front of her, demonstrating what the five dollars would buy.

Abbey took a step toward the nasty creatures, edging them backward a notch. “You should be in school! Shame on you!” The girl lowered her skirt, looking doubtful.

“Hey Sooze,” one of the boys said, “she ain’t your mother!” At this, Sooze turned and jumped on the bannister, sliding into the shadowy depths, laughing raucously, followed by the others like monkeys on a vine. Resuming her climb, Abbey found floor after floor of hollow-eyed children, standing on the thresholds of their respective holes, most scattering as she passed.

On the fifth floor she looked up and saw that the staircase ended at a single door. Like a penthouse. Like an attic. She put her hand on the bannister and looked up at the door, black and far away. Her foot tentatively came to rest on the first step, and then withdrew. Eyes dented her back from the fifth-floor baby dens, eyes daring her to do it, to go up and knock on Lobo’s door. And she would. She wasn’t afraid of Lobo, or the wild children, or the dark. She could handle those things, she figured. But not the attic. Attics were places you put all the things you didn’t want anymore, the things you wished you never had, the dark things. Her foot stayed in its concrete boot.

“Lobo’s home,” a voice piped from one of the doorways, maybe impatient with her.

“Lobo!” Abbey yelled. It came out a high-pitched mewl. She sucked in a breath and belted out again, “Lobo!”

From nearby came a repeated “Lobo!” and then down the hall, a chant of “LoBO, LoBO, LoBO,” and this echo floated deeper and deeper into the building as though the house itself had mouths. Abbey turned to face the pandemonium. These children were pitiful and tragic, and, just now, annoying as hell, calling up the urge to pull a few ears, put someone on a chair in the corner.

From behind her she heard, “Who the fuck wants Lobo?”

Abbey swirled. Lobo had come halfway down the stairs in the confusion. He peered at her in the gloom as though
she
were the strange sight, and not him. He wore his skull cap, with gadgets dangling like insects around his cheeks. A torn, baggy sweat suit hung from his stick frame.

“Shit,” he said. “What you doing here?” Silence reigned in babyland. Abbey too felt tongue-tied.

“How’d you get by my guards?”

That snapped her voice back. “These children are living in filth, Lobo. And so are you.”

He grinned easily. “Well, we could move in with you, Ab. How’d that be?”

“Ab, Ab, Ab,” came the chant.

Behind Lobo, up at the top, his door was open. Beyond it lay his gray den, where Abbey could just make out motes of dust highlighted by some distant window or flame.

“Wanna come up?” Lobo asked.

“Not right now.” A trickle of sweat left the nape of her neck and traveled slowly down her spine.

“Somethin’ I can do for you, Ab?” His voice took on a prodding, sarcastic tone. He glanced down at the fifth-floor doors, perhaps posturing for his audience.

Abbey straightened. This could get out of hand. “You listen to me, Lobo,” she said. “I haven’t got time for foolishness. I came to buy something. You don’t want my business, just say so.”

“SAY so, SAY so,” the house repeated.

His hands went up, fending her off. Then a cough shook him and he dug into a pocket, finally pulling out a rag
so repulsive that Abbey had to look away. He blew his nose and looked at her over the wad of cloth.

“It’s that game,” she said. “What do you call it? Nir? Sounds like fun. I’d like to try it. I brought money.” She plunged a hand into her bag and pulled forth a crumpled bunch of greens.

Lobo visibly started at the sight of the money. He lunged for her arm and yanked her partway up the stairs, pulling her close to his face. “You’re fucking stupid.” His breath might have come from a waste vent. He pivoted on the stairs and practically carried her with him down the steps to the hallway. It all happened so fast she didn’t have time to react, except she
did
notice he pulled her down, not up, not up to that lair of his.

He was dragging her down the hallway. “Get out of my way!” he croaked at the youngsters who began streaming out from their warrens. “Get out of my way, all of you, or I’ll cut you off!” he shouted.

“Money!” the kids shouted gleefully. “Money, money, money,” sped through the corridors.

“Fucking stupid!” he whispered hoarsely in her ear. He plunged on, elbowing his way through the crowd of children, now sprinting from doors, up the staircase, down the bannister. There were so many of them, it was a stampede, a swarm. “Money, money, money!” came the refrain from all mouths.

Abbey let him pull her along as his left elbow angled through the bodies like an icebreaker forging a channel. Looking up at her from all sides were little faces contorted with demon energy, screaming, the girls screaming in high-pitched ululations, the boys chanting, money, money, money. She slapped at the insistent hands goosing her from all sides. As they stumbled down the stairs leading to the third floor, a thunderous drumming of feet pursued from behind, threatening to surge over them and pitch them headlong, down, down. And then, for a moment, Abbey saw something glitter, could have been those feral eyes … could have been a knife. Dear God, just two more floors. Her heart lurched against her rib cage in time with an accelerating storm of Money, money, money, money.…