Three Days to Never: A Novel

by Tim Powers

  Moira and I rode our bicycles up and down Marengo Avenue, he thought, in the 1950s and ’60s. The old bungalow houses were rushing past in a blur now, but he remembered each one; there’s where we used to jump from roof to roof with the Edgerly boys, he thought, and there’s where Moira fell off her bike and cracked her head and I had to carry her all the way home, three blocks.

  Golze made a leaning right turn onto Batsford Street, and Marrity could see Grammar’s house ahead on the left—and he remembered riding his bicycle up the sidewalk here on many late afternoons in the winter rain, his canvas newspaper bags empty and slapping wetly against the front wheel fork, and the olive oil taste of Brylcreem in his mouth from the rain running down his face.

  It was tears he tasted now, and he quickly cuffed them away.

  Grammar’s old gray wood-frame house was on the northwest corner of Batsford and Euclid, and Golze turned left onto Euclid—but he drove straight on past Grammar’s back fence and garage.

  Golze was saying, “Fuck fuck fuck,” in a quiet monotone.

  “You passed it,” Marrity said.

  “I know,” snapped Golze, peering into the rearview mirror. “There’s a U-Haul truck parked at the curb.” He was biting his lip. “Our truck won’t be here for another couple of minutes, at least.”

  “You think these guys are here to take the stuff out of her shed?”

  “Maybe.” Golze drove past half a dozen houses, then slowly turned into an old two-strip driveway and backed out again, facing south now. He pulled in to the curb and put the engine in park, but didn’t turn it off. Fifty yards ahead they could see the truck and the cars by Grammar’s back fence.

  “They may just be family,” Golze said, “getting furniture out of the house. But we can’t go in while they’re there. Give me the binoculars from the glove compartment.”

  Marrity opened the glove compartment and handed Golze a pair of heavy olive-green binoculars. “They don’t look like my family,” Marrity said. They must not take the machine away, he thought.

  “Hired movers, maybe.” Golze lifted the binoculars. “Shut up.”

  The gate in the fence opened, and two men in overalls walked out holding faded lawn chairs. Behind them several men were carrying a flat tarpaulin-draped square with table legs visible under it.

  Marrity noticed that the men with the draped table took short steps, planting their feet carefully, and that the table didn’t swing at all.

  “Stop them,” he said, leaning forward, “they are taking the machine.”

  Golze lowered the binoculars to squint at him. “It’s chairs and a table.”

  “They’ve got the Chaplin slab on a table, dammit! If they set it down, the legs would collapse—look how heavy it is!”

  The radio was mounted below the dashboard, and had apparently survived the fire that had wrecked the stereo above it. Golze lifted the microphone.

  “Seconde,” he said.

  “Tierce,” came the reply from the speaker.

  “Come north on Euclid, and when you’re just past the house, I want you to park on the wrong side of the street, north of a U-Haul truck you’ll see there. Kix.” He adjusted the setting of a dial on the radio, then went on, “Let the guys out to run alongside, and then I want you to drive south, in reverse, and ram the U-Haul truck as hard as you can, Wheaties.”

  “No,” said Marrity loudly, “part of it’s glass! They’ll break it!”

  “Frosted Flakes.” Golze changed the frequency again. “Never mind that, do not ram them,” Golze said into the microphone. “Do not ram the truck, understand?”

  “We won’t ram it. Just park where you said? Special K.”

  The men down the street had carried the tarpaulin-covered object to the rear of their U-Haul truck, and had laid it on its side on the hydraulic lift.

  Golze changed the frequency again. “Right. Guns ready. I’ll be right behind you. How soon?”

  “I’m just passing Dodger Stadium,” came the reply. “Five minutes if I crank.”

  “Crank.”

  Golze hung up the microphone.

  “I guess these guys will run if they see guns,” ventured Marrity. He clasped his hands between his knees; he wasn’t shivering, but all his muscles felt poised to start.

  “If they’re Mossad,” said Golze, “they’ll have guns of their own. Our only chance would be to surprise them.”

  “I hope they realize there were some gunshots fired here just a couple of hours ago,” Marrity went on. His mouth was dry. “The cops are likely to respond extra quick if there’s any more.”

  “If they’re Mossad, they know and don’t care.” Golze was staring through the soot-smeared windshield at the men down the street. He exhaled and hitched around on the seat as if to reach into his pocket for his wallet; but what he pulled out was a heavy stainless-steel .45 automatic, and with his thumb he clicked down a little lever on the side of it. “Busy day,” he said.

  Marrity was just narrowly glad that he was still able to see, and clasp his hands, and make a dent in the car seat. Can I continue to exist, he wondered, if these people make it impossible for me to use the machine in 2006?

  The hydraulic lift at the back of the U-Haul truck had risen to the level of the truck bed, and the four men were now wrestling the tarpaulin-covered square into the shaded interior. Another man, dark haired and wearing a blue sweatsuit, closed the gate to the old woman’s yard and trudged toward the passenger side of the truck cab.

  “Got to follow them,” snapped Golze, “can’t wait for our guys. The slab was obviously the last of it.” He jerked the gearshift lever into drive, but slammed it back into park again when the man by the truck fifty yards ahead scattered a couple of handfuls of glittering objects across the asphalt of the street behind the truck.

  “Ach!” exclaimed Golze.

  He opened the driver’s-side door and crouched behind it, bracing his right forearm in the V between the door and the slanting doorpost. Sunlight gleamed on the .45 in his chubby fist.

  The bang of the gunshot was stunning, and the ejected shell spun across the empty driver’s seat and landed in Marrity’s lap; it was very hot, and he brushed it away with a shudder.

  Golze fired three more shots, hammering the air inside the car, and Marrity batted away the hot brass shells as they spun toward him—then Golze paused, and only then did Marrity think to look through the windshield toward the truck.

  The man who had been walking toward the truck was lying down now, mostly on the grass but with one arm draped over the curb onto the street. All Marrity could see inside the truck’s back compartment was the square tarpaulin-draped bulk that must be the Chaplin slab. On the other side of the street, across from the truck, a man had stepped out of a white Honda that had been parked at the curb.

  Then the car Marrity was sitting in was thumping and quivering as flashes winked around the edges of the draped square in the truck and a staccato popping echoed between the old bungalows on either side of the street. The loudest noise was a sharp smack as tiny bits of glass stung Marrity’s cheek and the windshield was suddenly a glowing white grid, and as he ducked he heard Golze tumble back into the driver’s seat.

  There was bright red blood spattered on the fat man’s hand as he shoved the gearshift lever into reverse, and then Marrity was flung forward against the diagonal constriction of the seat belt as the car accelerated backward, the engine roaring. Golze was twisted around to look out the back windshield, which was still clear. Marrity managed to raise his head, and he saw that the left shoulder of Golze’s jacket had a pencil-size hole in it; the white shirt underneath was already blotting with red.

  Something crunched under the back wheels and thumped under the car, and Marrity saw a section of chrome handlebar with a green rubber grip on the end spin away to the curb as the car’s front end jumped briefly—then they were on past, and Golze had backed the car to the far curb and slammed the gearshift lever into drive, and after punching out a section of the opa
que windshield with his right fist, he was driving rapidly north up Euclid. Marrity was as stunned as if he’d been shot himself, and he could not shake the idea that Golze had run over a phantom of Marrity’s childhood, preserved and projected by these unchanged streets until now. He clasped his hands together more tightly.

  “Caltrops,” said Golze, speaking loudly to be heard over the head-wind that was blowing his beard around his ears. His face behind the beard was so pale that it seemed almost green. “This hurts—a lot.”

  “I—beg your pardon?” Marrity said.

  “My shoulder hurts!” With his right hand Golze slapped the wheel around in a right turn onto California Boulevard.

  “I meant—‘caltrops’?”

  “What that guy scattered on the street. Like jacks that little girls play with—but bigger and with pointed ends. They don’t brush aside, they dig in, you gotta pick ’em up one at a time—I couldn’t follow—not on flat tires.” He was breathing fast, almost whistling with each exhalation. “They got the machine—we gotta get the Chaplin movie.”

  But it’s burned up, thought Marrity, and you can’t go back in time to rescue it, now that those guys took the machine. He was feeling nauseated himself; it was just beginning to dawn on him that Golze had probably run over a child a few moments ago.

  “The movie isn’t burned up,” said Golze, “if Daphne Marrity never existed.”

  With conscious care and deliberation, Oren Lepidopt reversed into a driveway and followed the U-Haul truck as it lumbered south on Euclid Street. It would be his job to divert any further attempts to interfere, whether they came from this rival crowd or from the police.

  His ears were ringing. Ernie Bozzaris was dead.

  Lepidopt had been standing in the street, still holding his little .22 automatic, when he had caught the eye of one of the sayanim who had picked up Bozzaris’s body from the curb; and just before sliding the body into the back of the truck and climbing in to pull down the sliding door, the man had given Lepidopt a thumbs-down.

  Lepidopt watched the traffic in all directions as he drove. There didn’t seem to be any cars, police or otherwise, speeding up toward the truck from ahead or from side streets, and Lepidopt let his aching fingers relax on the steering wheel.

  Bozzaris was dead, but Lepidopt had to concentrate on driving. He would think later about his young friend who now would not see today’s sunset.

  Baruch Dayan Emet, Lepidopt thought. Blessed is the Righteous Judge.

  The katsa from Vienna would be landing at LAX in—he rolled his wrist to see his watch—in about an hour. Lepidopt had lost two sayanim and one agent, and had disobeyed the order to do nothing until the senior katsa’s arrival. But he had got Einstein’s machine.

  His telephone buzzed, and he pried the receiver away from its case and switched it on.

  He took a deep breath and let it out, then checked his mirrors and made sure he was following the truck closely. “Yes,” he said.

  “It’s me,” said Frank Marrity’s voice. “You said to call after half an hour.”

  “Good,” said Lepidopt. “Now call again a half hour from now.”

  “How long are we supposed to—”

  “You’ll be picked up soon,” interrupted Lepidopt. “Be patient. Call me again in half an hour.”

  He had to hang up because he needed a free hand to wipe his eyes.

  Rocking in the passenger seat as Golze drove, old Frank Marrity had to remind himself to breathe.

  The movie isn’t burned up if Daphne Marrity never existed.

  Golze was speeding east on California, passing cars. Marrity could hear him breathing, deep and wheezing, over the battering flutter of the headwind through the broken windshield. After a couple of blocks, he cut across the right lane into another residential street, and slowed down.

  “But Daphne does exist,” said Marrity, talking loudly even though the headwind had now diminished.

  “And you and I are having this discussion,” said Golze impatiently. “In your previous lifetime—lifetimes, I guess—we never did, did we? Nothing’s…written in stone.”

  “You’ll go back in time and kill her as a baby you mean? But you don’t have the machine.”

  “We don’t need the machine to do this. This is Einstein’s other weapon, the one he couldn’t bring himself to tell FDR about. The atom bomb was within Einstein’s conscience, but he couldn’t tell Roosevelt how to…unmake people, delete them from reality entirely. Not even if it was to be Nazis.” Golze started a laugh, but choked it off with a fierce scowl after one syllable. “Einstein was okay with ending people’s lives, but he had qualms about making them never have had lives at all—never born, never conceived.”

  Marrity’s eyes were squinting and watering, and he wished he’d brought sunglasses. The car was still moving slowly down the block, passing old houses and lawns that stirred his memories.

  Can these people do that? wondered Marrity. If Daphne never existed…

  But even as of 1987, twelve years of Marrity’s life had been tied up with her; even in his previous good life, he had been her father. Who would he be, if he had never had a daughter?

  And Marrity hated Daphne, the one he knew best, the one he had known since 1987, the one who had backed the car over him, but did he really want to condemn her to…never having existed at all? Not remembered by anyone? Did the little girl he had seen on Grammar’s back porch this morning deserve that?

  And even though Lucy, Daphne’s mother, was dead, he’d be depriving her of Daphne too. Suddenly Lucy’s terminated life would never have included a child, that particular little girl.

  What would become of Daphne’s soul? he thought.

  What will become of mine?

  “It’s risky,” said Golze, his eyes half closed, possibly talking to himself. “Even with a twelve-year-old who hasn’t ever done much of anything. These past three days, at least, will turn out to have happened differently, since she’ll never have been a player. Risky. But ahh—” He exhaled gingerly. “I’m shot, Rascasse is probably dead, the movie’s burned, the Mossad has the machine—if there was ever time for a re-deal, this is it.”

  The radio sputtered. “Prime,” said a voice. It was oddly flat, with no resonance behind it.

  Golze’s white face jerked toward the radio, and though he instantly looked back at the street ahead of him, his hand moved only very slowly toward the receiver.

  At last he lifted it off the hook. “Seconde,” he said.

  “Get back here to the bus,” said Rascasse’s synthesized voice. “We need to get—the Daphne child right now, which only can—be done from here.” The voice became louder, as if a volume knob had been turned up: “And bring the hatband too. Don’t lose it! And get Charlotte here as well. And—mother’s little helper—do it fast.”

  Golze peevishly leaned forward and changed the frequency setting and didn’t take his hand off it. “I can’t get Charlotte. You get her. I need a doctor, I’ve been shot, sympathy for the Devil.” He switched to the next frequency and leaned back, clearing his throat gingerly. The car was moving at barely five miles an hour now.

  “Take off the—hatband,” said the depthless voice on the radio.

  “I’m driving, I can’t—”

  “Take it off. Or have—the old man take it off, if you cannot.”

  “For Chrissakes—” Golze reached up behind his ear and tugged the black choker, and with a snap it came loose. He tossed it into the backseat. “I wasn’t getting blood on it,” he began, but Rascasse’s voice cut him off.

  “Be quiet now,” Rascasse said; then, “The shoulder blade itself is fractured; but the artery below—subclavian—is fine. Infection is of course a likely outcome, but before that happens, all this time line will be gone.”

  Golze paused, his mouth open as he stared at the street through the hole in the windshield. Then he smiled, exposing yellow teeth. “Well, good point. It’ll be a long drive to—can’t always get what you want.” After
changing the frequency again, he said, “To Palm Springs. But you have to pick up me and my companion, this car isn’t driveable. I’m at—”

  “Don’t bother changing frequency, my sight includes you. Park the car. We’ll pick you up.”

  Golze hung up the microphone and squirmed on the seat, his face gray. “I hate it when he looks inside me,” he muttered. “I swear I feel heat when he does it.” He steered the car to the curb in front of a house with a real estate sign in the front yard, and shifted into neutral. “He doesn’t have a French accent when he’s not speaking through his actual mouth, did you notice? Odd phrasing still, but American pronunciation. Accent must have to do with the tongue muscles.”

  The car was stopped. Marrity clasped his hands to keep them from trembling. “If Daphne—” he began.

  “You won’t have to worry about her anymore,” Golze said, wincing as he leaned back in the seat. “And we won’t need to bother you at all—in this new time line, you’ll never meet us.”

  “Won’t you still need to learn about the machine?” asked Marrity. “From me?”

  “Rascasse will manage to interrogate you somehow before we do it, and he’ll remember this time line, even after it’s collapsed to nonexistence. He’ll be the only one who does. I think he’s the one who erased Nobodaddy, if there ever really was such a person, in any time line. Though how an organization can exist if its founder didn’t is a puzzle.”

  “I—won’t remember her?”

  Golze was sweating, and his face was gray, but he stared at Marrity with evident curiosity.

  “Not a bit,” he said. “Not even as much as a hard drive remembers what was on it after a magnet gets rubbed on it. You’ll be a, a whole new hard drive.” He started to reach his right hand toward his wounded left shoulder, but let it fall back onto his lap after getting no more than halfway. “And so will I. I won’t even appreciate not getting shot, since this experience won’t be part of my lifeline. Today is a Tuesday in the August of Never.”

  Marrity relaxed in the car seat, and he realized that he had not relaxed since using Grammar’s device to come back to 1987; in fact, it seemed to him now that he hadn’t been really relaxed for years.