The Sudden Star (19 page)

Simon didn't move. "I don't know anything about boats."

"Goddamn you, get it in the water, you can row. Head south, this river meets the Indian River farther down, and you can keep heading south along it." Simon and the children turned the boat over and pushed it toward the water. Jeri, walking near them, threw a canteen and two pouches into the boat. "There's some food and water. We even put a few old coins in there for you." She could hear the approaching Jeep.

The boat's bow was in the water, its stern resting on shore. Simon stood up and said, "We need—"

"I know what you need." She unstrapped the knives at her waist and threw them on the ground. She could no longer hear the second Jeep. Simon bent over and picked up the weapons. Jeri stepped back. Leo covered them cautiously with his revolver. "Now just get out of here as fast as you can."

Something whizzed past her, making a pockmark in the sand. Jeri found herself thinking:
Too late, too late.
Leo was staring past her, lowering his weapon. Jeri realized that she knew who was there without having to turn around.

"Drop them, and very slowly," her daughter's voice said.

Helpless now, Jeri watched Cilla stride toward them, and found herself thinking of what they should have done: one of them could have watched the road, one of them could have taken a chance and fired on Cilla to protect the three. But Cilla was her daughter; that fact had stopped Leo, it had stopped Jeri.

"Let's not waste time," Cilla said. She aimed her revolver at the three visitors. "Turn around." Simon and Aisha looked at each other; she took his arm. Jeri suddenly understood that Cilla was going to shoot them right now. She wasn't going to wait or discuss things.

"Cilla," Jeri said, trying to stall, "you don't understand. You don't have to do anything. They just want to leave, can't you see that? They're no danger to us."

Cilla said, "Why take a chance?" Her blue eyes shifted slightly in Jeri's direction as she spoke. Jeri, numb and defeated, turned away from her daughter.

Rocca suddenly dove toward the ground, seizing a knife as he rolled. Cilla spun around, aiming her revolver. The boy, now only a few feet from Cilla, threw the knife. Cilla's gun spat twice before she fell, the knife protruding from her chest. Rocca lay on the sand. His eyes stared sightlessly at the sky; his chest was a bleeding ruin. Cilla groaned.

Jeri had stood still, almost paralyzed, as it all happened very slowly; now, suddenly, it was over. Stunned, she stumbled over to her daughter, knelt, and gently turned her over. Cilla looked up at her with Gene's eyes; her face was sallow under the dark tan. She coughed; blood trickled from her mouth. She sighed, and was gone. Jeri sat there, unable to move, still holding her.

Leo moved past her. He was holding his revolver again, aiming it at Simon and Aisha. Jeri forced herself to move. She released her dead daughter and climbed up, grabbing Leo's arm. "No," she said. Her voice seemed weak. "No more, Leo, let them go, please."

Leo halted. Simon and Aisha picked up the knives they had dropped, pushed the boat into the river, and climbed into it quickly. Leo lowered his gun. The boat began to drift away.

She turned to Leo, trying to speak, and found she could not. She leaned against him, feeling old and feeble.

"We have to bury them," Leo said. At first, she did not understand what he meant.

Jeri stood next to the grave of William Lorris. He had been buried that morning in front of the Flight Crew Training Building, next to the graves of other astronauts. Lorene, wasting no time, had already called for a meeting later in the week. She had glared suspiciously at Leo and Jeri when they told their story; the prisoners had tried to escape and had been shot. One of them had killed Cilla. They were all buried. Lorene had finally accepted the story, believing, Jeri knew, that a mother would not, without taking vengeance, let her own child die.

Jeri's past had died, her future had died. She bowed her head, surprised that she could not cry. She heard a Jeep approaching. It stopped and she looked up. Ved Reese was walking toward her.

He came up and put his hands on her shoulders. "You can't stay here all day," he said. She nodded. He put an arm around her and began to guide her to the Jeep. "Leo told me everything."

She stopped and looked at him. "You did the right thing, Jeri. You have to believe that," he went on. "Leo thinks so." They continued to the Jeep. She climbed in, resting her head on the seat. Ved got in on the other side and started the motor. "Maybe you can write something about the colonel for our records," he said. "No one else has. He deserves it, and it might make you feel better."

"Maybe," she responded, not really believing it.

"I still have blood and urine samples from the visitors. I might as well finish running my tests."

"There's not much point to that now, Ved."

"I might learn something. Besides, I never liked loose ends." He turned the wheel, driving out of the parking lot onto the empty, broken street.

EIGHT

Titus Echeverria

Someone, Aisha felt, was watching her. She clutched her packages closer to her and hurried along the sidewalk, stepping around the beggars who sat on the curb. This section of Harding Avenue was lined with almost identical square, shabby white stucco buildings; she had to look carefully to remember which one was hers. A bus rumbled past, honking loudly as it wound its way past the rickshaws that crowded the street.

She stopped, realizing she was at her destination. The squat, two-story structure overlooked a weedy, overgrown courtyard in which two families had set up tents. In New York, she thought, you could set up in any unoccupied building or space and hold on to it as long as no one took it away. Here, you paid for every inch of space, nothing was unoccupied, you couldn't walk out the door without handing money to somebody. The families in the tents were shelling out, and glad to get the space at all.

She went in the front door and up the rickety, rotting stairs, careful not to trip on a loose piece of wood. She and Simon had a room on the second floor overlooking the street; they got all the heat and all the noise. She balanced the packages in one arm as she unlocked the door.

She entered, closing the door behind her. The room, nine feet wide and twelve feet long, contained a studio couch, a table, a chair, and a propane stove. Simon was sprawled dejectedly on the couch; she was surprised to see him here. She put the packages down on the table, then noticed that the door to the bathroom was open. "I told you," she said as she went to close it, "to keep this shut." She slammed it. The bathroom always stank. The water that ran from the faucets was brown. The toilet could be flushed only once a day, or they would be charged for it.

"What did you get?" he asked.

She stood by the table. "Three quarts of water, two bananas, a piece of cheese, and a sausage."

"Is that all?"

"It's all I could afford."

"What's in the sausage?"

"I didn't ask. It was the cheapest one there." The room was stuffy and hot. She sat in the chair, wiping her forehead. Frayed yellow-white curtains covered their window. She longed to open it, trade the heat of the room for the noise of the streets, but Simon would only close it again. "You didn't get anywhere, did you," she said. "That's why you're here." She said it gently.

"No, I didn't. I don't know why I thought I would." He sat up, resting his elbows on his knees. He had been almost delirious yesterday after finding out Titus Echeverria was living in a suite of rooms at the Americana, rich, known apparently all over Miami Beach. Simon had gone there this morning, dressed in the pale blue suit he had bought right after they had rented the room. The suit, which he still wore, looked soiled and wrinkled now.

"I couldn't even get in the door," Simon went on. "He's well-guarded. I couldn't get past the doorman. I left my name—he went in to check—I even slipped him some money. I don't even know if he talked to anyone, he just came back and told me I couldn't see Titus. I hung around as long as I could, but in this suit I looked damned conspicuous. Maybe I should have bought a better one."

"Simon," she said, trying to phrase her question carefully, "are you sure this guy was really your friend? I mean, if he
had
been told you were there, would he still, maybe, not want to see you?"

He didn't seem upset by the question. "I don't know," he answered. "I don't think he would. People change, I guess, especially if it looks like someone wants a handout. It's worth finding out, one way or the other."

"Don't worry, we'll think of something," she said, trying to convince herself. They had good luck together, they were good partners. After drifting down the Banana River, and then into the Indian River, they had seen other boats. One old guy had taken them aboard his cruiser; he'd been interested in her. She'd resented it a little, though glad at least that his taste in sex wasn't too strange, and he had taken them all the way to West Palm Beach. From there, it had been easy to get a train, crowded and slow as it was, into Miami.

In Miami, their documents had been checked. Then they were shoved with others into an old bus and sent across one of the causeways to Miami Beach. Aisha had felt that the Miami police simply wanted to be rid of them as quickly as possible; she had hoped the inspection in Miami Beach would be as brief. She had been wrong.

Those who were obviously tourists with money had been let off the bus right away. The rest of them had been herded into a room with other unfortunates and left there. They had been there for five days, fed only an occasional bowl of soup, before they finally realized that they would have to bribe their way out. Simon had used most of the coins he had carried with him, concealed in his belt. Their pictures were taken, their names and descriptions noted. They were told to come back and pick up their visitors' permits in a week, and to be out of the city in a month. That had been five days ago. Aisha wondered what happened to the people who had no money for bribes.

Simon had bought a list of vacant rooms for a ridiculously high fee; they had trudged around for a day before realizing that the supposed vacancies were full. They would have been sleeping on a bench if she hadn't seen two men carrying suitcases out of an apartment building and realized that it meant a room might be vacant.

She opened one of the bottles of water, took a sip, and handed it to Simon. "At least you know where he is," she said. "Maybe we can catch him when he's going somewhere."

He swallowed some water. "I don't think we'd be allowed to get that close." He sighed. "Besides, we don't have much time, and we're almost out of money. I had to pay for two weeks here, and I don't even know if we'll have food for that long."

He was right. This city imposed leisure on people. They couldn't work unless they had work permits, and work permits and resident permits were expensive. Even the beggars had permits. They had to gamble on Titus Echeverria; he was the only chance they had.

She got up and sat next to him on the sofa, putting a hand on his arm. She recalled the room at the police station, the hints from the officers there about how she could buy her way out. That was when Simon had decided to use his money; she owed him for that. She had heard, since then, how the police used attractive prisoners. "We'll figure out something," she murmured, "I know we will." She put an arm around him. "Just think of how cold everybody is in New York now." She thought: I won't desert you. They'd get lucky; Simon would practice medicine and she'd be respectable. He could train her as his nurse or something. It would be just like a story in one of the books she used to read.

She heard footsteps on the stairs. There was a loud knock on the door. Startled, she drew away from Simon. "Open up," a man's voice shouted.

"Who is it?" she called back.

"Police."

Frightened, she glanced at Simon. She remembered feeling as though someone was watching her on the way home. "You'd better open the door," he said to her.

She opened the door. A big, pot-bellied officer stood there. He pushed past her and looked around the room, then sat in the chair. She closed the door and crept back to Simon.

The officer took off his cap, brushed back his thinning sandy hair, and smiled. "Mind if I have a little drink?" he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he opened one of the bottles of water. Aisha winced as he drank, remembering how much it had cost her. He put down the bottle, pulled something out of his shirt pocket and threw it across the table. "Thought you might want these."

Aisha leaned over and picked up the objects. Two identity cards, with photographs; two visitors' permits. "Make sure you tear up your other documents. We wouldn't want people gettin' all mixed up," the officer was saying.

"Now I know why people speak so highly of this city," Simon said calmly. "We were told to pick these up. I didn't expect door-to-door service."

The policeman took another swig of water. "Well, now," he murmured, "we always try to take care of our more interesting guests." He peered at them. "Simon Negron," he drawled. "Now, I guess I should say Dr. Simon Negron, who, I hear tell, escaped from prison in New York, and now he shows up here with a permit to enter the city, and if I was to look into how he got that permit, I might find out a few more things. And here he is with Miss Aisha Baraka, a missin' person, reported so by someone influential, so I hear."