Not much had changed in my absence. Perdida still bounded out the front door to greet me. Osvaldo and Jack still sat in the front room, playing with the endlessly fascinating wand toy. The only real difference was that Guillermo had shifted locations, no longer working in the kitchen but now tinkering away in his workshop. I went to see how he was progressing after poking my head through the house’s front door to check on Jack and Osvaldo, both of whom looked up at me as I gave a little greeting. But then they both looked back at the toy, neither finding the ability to speak to me in return.
The workshop’s sliding door was all the way open, the back door and the skylight, too. But it was still awfully warm inside the crowded little space. In the corner near the door, Joaquin Murrieta, Jr.—the rustic forerunner of Carmelita—stood holding a box fan that was plugged into a socket in his chest, aiming the airflow toward Guillermo. It didn’t seem to be helping much. Guillermo wiped sweat from his face with a bandana he kept in his back pocket, mopping his nose to keep his glasses from sliding down when he put them back on.
“You’re back!” he said, clearly pleased to see me as I passed over the threshold.
“I’m a little late. Thanks to an unwelcome visitor.”
He eyed me carefully and said, “Like last night?”
“Not as bad. I think it’s the same Jed, though.”
“Porque?”
“Because this one seems to have the same habits. And I think he says the same thing to people when he feels his hold on my body start to loosen. I’m starting to think of him as Hijack Jed. I don’t like this, Guillermo. Not at all.”
“I don’t like it either,” he said. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yes. Do you think you can keep it from happening anymore?”
He smiled now and wiped his face again. I could see that he took care to avoid wiping the synthetic skin on his cheeks. It didn’t sweat, after all. Turning back to his workbench, he pulled a greasy rag aside and revealed my fedora resting underneath. Seeming to take great care, he lifted it and turned it over so I could see its underside.
At first glance, the hat looked untouched, but then I noticed that the sweatband seemed to bulge out a little. Guillermo pulled down at the top edge of the band, revealing an array of wires and those same little squares of metal he’d built into the net from earlier.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Your safety net,” he said, his face beaming.
“What’s it do?”
“If it works the right way, it keeps you…detenido.”
I cocked my head and thought. “Detained?” I said.
“Si, si.” He nodded, pleased.
“Stopped. Grounded,” I offered.
“Yes! Grounded!”
I took the hat and pulled the brim down in a few places, spotting Chavezium chips soldered to some of the metal squares and other electrical components whose function I couldn’t begin to guess at.
“You’re saying that if I wear this, it’s going to keep me from getting hijacked?”
“And no more visions,” he said.
I nodded, liking the sound of this. “How long do I have to wear it before it starts working?”
He shrugged. “It should start right away.”
“And how long do you expect it’s going to last?”
“Last?”
“I have to take the hat off sometimes, Guillermo.”
He smiled, a little shame-facedly. “I don’t know. You want me to guess, I’d say you’re not protected when you take it off.”
“So, you’re saying I should sleep in it?”
He shrugged but said nothing.
“And shower?”
“There’s baths.”
I stared at the hat. “What about…when I’m with Sherise?”
His smile grew wider. “You can leave your hat on, lobo. This won’t last forever, you know? The German’s book…he said the lost time went away after he stopped crossing over. You get Elsa. You come back. You wear the hat a few weeks. Then we see. Yes?”
I sighed. “Yes,” I said and put the hat on. The hardware under the sweatband made the hat a little snug, but I didn’t care. I instantly felt protected, like I’d picked up a shield. My misgivings about wearing the hat at inconvenient times slipped to the back of my mind.
“Thank you, Guillermo.”
“De nada.”
I adjusted the hat a bit and thanked him again.
“You tell me if anything bad happens. Right away.”
“Of course. You think something might?” I asked.
“No. But I couldn’t experiment with this one.”
“So, I’m the test rat this time.”
He shrugged.
Then he said, “Peggy phoned earlier.”
“How long?”
“Half hour maybe?”
“You mind if I call her back?”
He just gave me a look, suggesting I was on the border of insulting him by questioning his hospitality like that.
Back in the kitchen, I called the office and got my secretary.
“O’Neal called,” she said.
“What did she want?”
News about the kid’s dead parents, I thought. Or Hennigar.
“She sounded annoyed that you weren’t here.”
“I’m sure she’ll get over it. What did she say?”
“She found Beadle. She said you’d want to know.”
“That’s good. Did she say where he is?”
“She wouldn’t let that go. All she said is he’s alive and she’s been in touch with him. She said she tried to grill him on Hennigar but got nothing.”
“All right. Maybe she’ll give him over to me if I ask nice. We’ll see if I can get anything more out of him. Was that it?”
“That, and Miss Dade is a go.”
“Excellent. She have any misgivings?”
“Not a one.”
“Great work, Peggy. I’ll be in touch.”
We hung up.
Guillermo had followed me in from the workshop.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“We’re getting there.” I ran my fingers along the brim of the fedora. “Look, Guillermo, now that you’ve gotten this finished, I need to cross over. This Hennigar issue or not, I’ve got to get Elsa. She’s already had that Chavezium for a few days. I can’t let this go on any longer.”
He looked a little apprehensive, but he said, “I understand, lobo. You’re as safe now as I can make you. Will you go tonight?”
I wanted to, but I also knew that things needed to be planned out a bit more carefully before I crossed over this time.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “In the morning. I’ll have Carmelita go with me, so we won’t need the machine.”
He nodded at this. “And tonight?”
“Tonight, I’m going to see what it feels like to play a gig without worrying about my mind slipping into some other reality.”
“With Sherise?”
“Yes.”
“You want me and Osvaldo to keep el niño?”
I thought about this. His offer would afford Sherise and me with a little time alone. But then again, I’d pawned the kid off on Guillermo for most of the day, and I felt a little bad about extending the time even if Jack and Osvaldo were getting along so well. Aside from that, I’d promised O’Neal I’d keep an eye on the kid, and I’d barely done that. Sure, as long as he was here in Chavez Ravine, he was safe from whoever wanted to harm him. But that wasn’t the same as my fulfilling the promise I’d made the night before.
“Thanks, Guillermo. I’ll take him with me. Maybe I can bring him back here tomorrow, though?”
“Sure. He likes Osvaldo. You sure about tonight?”
“I am. It’ll be an education. Maybe an evening in a burlesque house will get him to start talking.”
Chapter Five
There were no nightmares that night. Nor were there visions.
I kept my hat on the whole time I was at the cl
ub and felt more liberated wearing it than I had since the night of my first vision in the Break O’ Dawn back in New York.
As for Jack, we parked him in Sherise’s office with a pad of paper and a couple of pencils. He doodled on the pages for a while with either me or Sherise sitting with him when we could. I know it was a security breech, but eventually some of the other dancers caught sight of the kid, and soon they were taking turns fawning over him. One of them let him play with her make-up. Detective O’Neal would not have been happy if she’d known any of this, but I figured it was pretty safe since Jack’s status as a missing person had still managed to stay out of the papers and there was zero chance that any of the dancers at Darkness would have known who the kid was.
In the morning, it was back to Guillermo’s but only after a detour to the Hollywood Hotel, where I picked up Carmelita. Of course, Jack accompanied me up to the room Carmelita and Sherise had been sharing the last few nights. He stood beside me as I knocked on the door and then walked in with me when Carmelita answered, a perfect little shadow of me.
“Good morning, Jack,” Sherise said, pretty much ignoring me.
The boy said nothing, but he did at least look up at Sherise when she spoke.
“You sure you’re going to be okay on your own for a few hours?” I asked after she gave me a quick embrace.
“I’ll be fine, Jed. I promise.”
My eyebrow raised of its own accord as my skepticism jumped into high gear.
“Really!” she insisted after catching my expression. “I don’t need to go anywhere or do anything. I’ve got a book I can read, and there’s a radio I can listen to. Plus, I’ve got a little something else I’ve been working on, so I can play around with that, too.”
This last bit was said in an enticing tone, laid out as bait she knew I wouldn’t be able to resist.
She was right. “What are you talking about?” I asked.
With a broad smile, she said, “A new song.”
“Ah,” I said. “Great.”
“You want to hear it?”
I looked around the room, making a show of not seeing a guitar anywhere. “Without accompaniment?”
“Jed, dear, I need you desperately, but I don’t need you constantly.”
I gave her a playfully stern look in response and then said, “Go ahead, then. Let’s hear it.”
She turned and walked across the room, creating a sense that she was in her performance space with Carmelita, Jack, and me as the audience. “It’s sort of jazzy blues,” she said. “Slow and sultry. I imagine the music giving it a sort of longing, needy feel. Coming up with that part is your job, though.”
“Of course.”
She cleared her throat and said, “It’s called ‘Do Me Wrong.’”
“I like it already.”
Then she launched into it, singing quietly at first and then building in volume and intensity.
“If you do me wrong,
I’ll say it’s all right
‘Cause love’s not a song
I can sing in the light
If you do me dark
All through the night,
Then you’ll love me wrong
And that’s still all right
If you do me bad
I’ll say that it’s good
It won’t make me sad
Even though it could
If you do your worst
The way that you should,
Then it might feel bad,
But I’ll say it’s good
Love me like you need me
Hurt me like you don’t
Tell me that you’ll leave me
I know that you won’t
If you do me cruel
I’ll say you’re the best
Treat me like a fool
Just like all of the rest
If you make me cry
Put me to the test,
They’ll say that you’re cruel
But I’ll know you’re the best
If you do me wrong,
I’ll say it’s all right
‘Cause love’s not a song
I can sing in the light
If you do me dark
All through the night,
Then you’ll love me wrong
And that’s still all right
I said you’ll love me wrong
And that’s still all right”
She finished with a wail and then dropped into a bow as Carmelita and I applauded. I thought I heard someone in another room clapping, too. As for Jack, he had watched the performance with rapt attention and still had his eyes glued to Sherise. If the kid hadn’t still been showing signs of trauma, I’d have said he’d just fallen in love. As it was, I couldn’t quite read the stare, but when he saw and heard Carmelita and me clapping, he got a little smile on his face and gave a couple of quick claps, too.
“That’s amazing, Sherise,” I said, walking up to her and hugging her.
“Thanks!”
“Yes,” Carmelita added. “I don’t pretend to understand the music Jed plays, but that was quite a performance.”
“Thanks, Carmelita,” Sherise said. To me, she added, “I want to work on the bridge a little. Maybe make it longer. But I’m pretty happy with it overall.”
“You should be.” But then, thinking about the applause we’d heard from next door, I said, “You might want to be careful about singing it so loud if you’re going to be alone today, though.”
“You’re being paranoid.” She put her hands on my shoulders and turned me toward the door. “Thank you for the positive reviews. Now scoot. All three of you. I’m going to get a shower.”
We followed her instructions. She might have been right about my being paranoid, but I didn’t care. When we got to the hotel’s exit, I second-guessed my original plan and had Carmelita and Jack walk to a different door at the back of the building. Then I went out to the street and drove around the block, pulling into the rear parking lot and waiting for Carmelita and the boy to come out.
From there, we drove to Chavez Ravine. I took a circuitous route with the intention of losing any tail I might have picked up—either Hennigar or any undesirable attention from the LAPD.
As we drove with Jack settled into the back seat, I asked Carmelita, “How are things going with the other job I gave you?”
“You mean my real task for the week?”
“Keeping Sherise safe is plenty real.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. Then, to answer my question, she said, “I have four good candidates, but I’m not finished looking yet.”
“What are they like?”
“Bleak. In two of them, it looks like Los Angeles was hit by the, uh…” She turned her head to look at Jack and then quietly spelled, “B-o-m-b.”
I grimaced, not wanting to know the details. “That’s good, but it might mean the Nazis won. I’m not sure I want to send Elsa and Hennigar into a world where they might be able to find an advantage like that, even if it means hiking through radiation fields to get to their allies.”
“I understand.”
“What are the others like?”
“More isolated. Undeveloped. Like the city was never built. Maybe Europeans haven’t found the continent yet.”
“Those sound better. Keep looking, though.”
“I will. Whenever I have the chance. Do you really think you’ll be able to send them through the portal, though?”
“If I’ve got them both, then they’ll both go through. As long as Guillermo’s gun still works,” I said. “And if I can’t find Elsa, then I’ve got a plan to get Hennigar to drop his guard long enough for me to zap him. Then he goes through, and that’s it.”
“And that will complete my next assignment?”
“That, and keeping Sherise safe for another two days and nights.”
“How much longer until I’m a partner?”
I sighed. “A little longer, Carmelita. There’s a lot that goes into this business. You know
that. And you’re great at what you’ve learned so far. I just have to be sure before we take a step like that. You understand, don’t you?”
“Of course,” she said, and to me it sounded like she meant it.
One more bullet dodged, I thought.
I pulled up in front of Guillermo’s house and ushered the boy inside, leaving Carmelita waiting in the car.
Guillermo greeted me with his usual smile and asked if everything had been going all right with the modified fedora.
“No visions, no invasions,” I said.
“That’s good. You don’t take it off, yes?”
“I put it over my face when I slept,” I said. “Does that count?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know yet. More information is good, though. You tell me if anything happens.”
“I will. Now Carmelita and I need to go.”
His expression turned a little grim at this, and I assumed he was still a little worried despite the protections he’d arranged for me. But then he said, “You’re starting in Boyle Heights?” and I understood there was more at work behind his eyes than concern for my well-being.
“That’s the plan,” I said.
“Can you take something for me?”
“Of course.”
From his front pants pocket, he pulled a folded sheet of paper and handed it over to me.
“Will you read it first, lobo?” he asked. “Make sure it sounds okay?”
I tightened my jaw. Even though I’d had possession of the letter Guillermo’s daughter had written him in another world, I hadn’t read it before giving it to him. It felt strange to be invited to read his reply now, like I was being asked to peek into a stranger’s closet and nose around in there.
“I’m sure it’s fine, Guillermo.”
“Please,” he said, his eyes conveying how much the request meant to him.
I understood. Guillermo’s daughter was an educated woman, a lawyer in her world. And while Guillermo was a genius, he was not as comfortable with English as he was with his native language. He didn’t want this introduction to make him seem in any way small in the eyes of the woman he’d never gotten to know past the age of nine in this world.
The Fedora Fandango: A Dieselpunk Adventure (The Crossover Case Files Book 5) Page 6
