There can only be one Gabriella Love. A child’s pacifier had bounced off a bridge railing—and landed on the right side for Felix B, who was standing silently next to Bean, and on the wrong side for me. In my Universe A, the rubber duck had detached and fallen and Gabriella Short had not needed to change her name to something more marketable. It’s difficult to be famous when your alter has gotten there first. More to the point, she never stood a chance. In Universe A, movie theaters had faded away over the past two decades, replaced by other forms of entertainment. It’s particularly difficult to be a movie star where there are no movies.
“Gabriella—” I opened my mouth to speak.
“You ruined my life,” she spat out. “We are not on a first-name basis.”
“Citizen Short, then. It was a single moment in time—”
“Can you imagine what’s it’s like to see your own face everywhere—on billboards, T-shirts, ads? At the crossing terminal she was on the cover of a Universe B fashion magazine that I wanted to buy. I could barely face the humiliation at the checkout stand. To be constantly mistaken for a celebrity, the disappointment when they realize you’re not her—”
She seemed to be saying quite a bit for someone who wasn’t going to say one word without a lawyer.
“—and it’s even worse back home in Universe A, because there no one looks at me at all, like I’m invisible. I never pretend I am her when I come here, you know. Never.” She spit the word out.
“Doppelganger,” I said.
The unfamiliarity of the word took her by surprise. She caught her breath for a moment.
“German word, coined when there was only one universe and it was a bad omen to see yourself,” I said. “Literally means body double, usually a sinister, ghostly apparition. If you glimpsed your doppelganger it meant something bad was about to happen.”
“Not the case nowadays, of course,” Felix B said tactfully.
Bean was standing next to him with her hands on her hips, glaring at Gabriella. “You could have stayed home in Universe A. You could have avoided coming here where your alter is so popular.”
“But why should I have to? I knew you had done it,” she said, not taking her eyes off me, “from the minute I saw you in the crossing chamber, looking at suitcases and idly browsing on your omni without a care in the world.”
“Hey! I had plenty of my own concerns,” I said sharply.
Before more could be said, DIM officials descended on the scene and took statements from everyone, then left after declaring the day’s events to be government property, thereby prohibiting us from discussing said events with third parties. “She wanted me to be her understudy. Her understudy!” yelled Gabriella as they led her away.
I sat down heavily next to Mrs. Noor. “I knew people would blame me.”
Bean was still looking stunned.
“It took me awhile to believe it too,” said Felix, giving Bean a reassuring squeeze around the shoulders. (There were only the four of us left, Ham having gone on a mission for another client.)
“It was clever of you to notice there was something going on, Felix,” Bean said. “You probably saved Felix’s life.”
“Yes, murder,” I said loudly. “She had it in for me.” I proceeded to recount my other narrow escapes—the attempted hit-and-runs, the rubber rolling pin in Carmel—and also mentioned the cherry chocolates sent to the Palo Alto Health Center. “Luckily I didn’t swallow any. She must have found out about my allergy somehow.”
“She was foolish to attempt murder at a health center,” Bean said.
“Why?” Mrs. Noor said. “It seems an excellent place to do it. People are always dying in health centers. It must have been aggravating for her that her attempts kept failing.”
I thought of something. “Was she responsible for the pet bug quarantine? Did Gabriella think exposing me to the pet bug would get rid of me?”
“No one was responsible, as far as we could tell,” Mrs. Noor said. “It was just one of those things that happens by chance.”
For some reason I believed her.
“I’m just glad we were able to stop her in time,” Mrs. Noor added, putting down the Manual on the bench next to her and leaning over to inhale the scent of a particularly eye-catching rose.
Or did we? I could almost hear Professor Maximilian saying, Did we stop her in time? “Five murder attempts,” he’d have said. “There is a universe in which the first attempt succeeded and Gabriella ran Felix over shortly after his arrival in Universe B. And another in which the hit-and-run failed, but Felix succumbed to cherry chocolates in the Palo Alto Health Center. And another in which the first two attempts failed but Felix broke his neck in Carmel tripping over a rolling pin. And another in which the first three attempts failed, but Gabriella ran over Felix in her car yesterday, having tried that method again. And also one in which the first four attempts failed, but Felix died a few minutes ago because he wasn’t holding The Nine Tailors in front of his chest or because Mrs. Noor didn’t have The Chicago Manual of Detecting with her and was therefore unable to stop Gabriella in time. Isn’t that interesting?” the professor would have said, and I would have killed him in all possible universes.
“Do we think,” Bean said as if talking to herself, “that Gabriella got a job at Past & Future with the idea of figuring out who ruined her life, or did the idea slowly dawn on her as she researched the Felixes’ life stories?”
Someone barked.
Bean shook the thought off and greeted a heavily breathing Murphina. “Hello there.” She bent down to rub the creature’s pale, furry head. We heard a voice say, “Murphina, where are you?” and the bushes parted to allow James to join our group.
“Hello, Felix. And Felix.” He looked around. “Has anyone seen Gabriella?”
Yes, I thought. Government agents just took her away after she tried to kill me for the fifth time. It seemed socially awkward to say so, however. There was also the small matter of the edict the DIM officials had given us before they left; the events of the past twenty minutes—Gabriella’s final attempt to get rid of me because I was the universe maker—were not to be divulged to third parties.
“Gabriella tried to kill Felix,” Bean said to James. Murphina had rolled over on the white pebbles bordering the rose beds and was letting Mrs. Noor rub her belly. “Felix A, that is, not Felix B.”
“No, that can’t be right,” James said. “Gabriella called me and asked me to get here as fast as I could to assist her in an interview.” He slicked his black hair back with one hand and kept looking around as if expecting Gabriella to jump out from behind a rose bush or a giant-squirrel-shaped shrub at any moment.
“To interview someone?” Felix B said. “My Aunt Hen, you mean?”
“Ah,” Mrs. Noor said. “That must have been her alibi. Gabriella needed a legitimate reason for being here. No one would have suspected her.”
James heard all the facts, wordlessly attached a leash to Murphina, and started to pull her through the shrubbery toward Aunt Henrietta’s apartment.
“James, wait,” Bean said.
She took him aside and I heard her begin to whisper about Professor Maximilian’s omni campaign and James’s exclamation of surprise; then his frown disappeared and even from afar I could see the wheels beginning to turn as he nodded in understanding, probably already brainstorming about possible ways of turning the newest developments into a monetary advantage for Past & Future.
“It’s only fair that he knows,” Bean said defensively when she came back.
Felix B had been leafing through the Chicago Manual. He closed it abruptly and raised a high eyebrow at me. “I’m happy everything turned out all right, but did I hear Aunt Hen call out something about a book as I opened the garden gate? I thought you said you weren’t writing one, Felix.”
“It was the truth when I said it.”
“And now?”
“And now,” I blurted out, “I’ve started a novel about a murder that takes place in
the Sierras just as a cooking competition is about to get underway. The detective’s name is R. Smith.” I winced. “Don’t tell me if you’re writing the same thing. No, tell me, I want to know.”
Felix B said nothing for a moment, then a slow smile spread across his face. “Mine is a cookbook.”
“Is it? It is?”
“I’m calling it Cooking Up a Fiendishly Good Mystery Dinner Party. Lots of recipes, of course—like for the Baked Alaska that we’re having at tonight’s Alaska mystery dinner—and Bleeding Beets—beets are a must at a mystery-themed dinner party, that ominous dark red—Killer Cocktail—Butcher’s Beef—Devil’s Dish—Chocolate Guillotine—” He counted off the recipes on his fingers. “And there’ll also be suggested plots, characters, costumes, historical settings, tricks of the trade, that sort of thing.” He gave a sheepish grin. “It’s more work than I expected. The recipes have to be simplified—seven ingredients maximum is what the publishers want, because more than seven and people get discouraged and won’t buy the cookbook. Not too many exotic spices either, as if turmeric is exotic…” He shrugged. “Being a chef pays reasonably well and I do like doing it—but I want more, a book of my own, maybe make enough money to open my own restaurant. I am thinking of calling it Bistro Mystery and having weekly mystery dinners, not the once-a-month that the owners of the Organic Oven consent to.”
I stared at the man. I had been wrong about him on all accounts. Like dough braided into challah bread or one of Wagner’s giant pretzels, our shared interests—mysteries and food—had intertwined, but in a different way in his life than in mine. The user guides I put together at Wagner’s Kitchen included recipes and anecdotes from the history of cooking, but the former were provided by our Creative Cooking department, not by me. I had never been tempted to incorporate my own food preferences, much less recipe ideas. My whole body felt lighter and I almost did a little jig. “Did you get an advance for it, your cookbook?” I asked.
“Not for someone like me, an unknown. And I have to find someone to stage the food and take photographs.”
“I can hook you up with some people,” I heard myself saying. “Wagner’s Kitchen, where I work, needs that type of stuff done all the time.”
Felix B having gone up into the villa to take the Alaska mystery dinner kit to Aunt Henrietta, the garden gate closed behind Mrs. Noor, Bean, and me. “Mrs. Noor, how did you know I was the universe maker and that that’s why Gabriella kept trying to kill me?”
“Everyone was swarming around you and Felix B like flies, if you’ll excuse my inelegant comparison,” Mrs. Noor said, making Bean wince at the unflattering description of her research group. “Also there was the fact that Gabriella reminded me of a past client. A young man, adopted as a child, came into my agency wanting to find his biological parents. He was certain they could help him realize his financial dream of opening a casino, something his adoptive parents could not. We found his biological parents, but they couldn’t help him either and so he ended up becoming bitter and committing a crime to get the money. A sad story. He forgot, you see, that he was in charge of his own life. As did Gabriella Short.”
“Are you familiar with the works of Agatha Christie, Mrs. Noor? I believe you’ll find that you and Miss Marple have a lot in common.” I added as we walked the detective to her car, “I suppose it was my fault, movie theaters disappearing. Universe A was set on its path by me.”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Noor. She raised a stern hand and a passing car stopped to allow us to cross the street. “If you are going to argue that, then it follows you’re responsible for everything in Universe A. The pristine national parks. The clean air. And I’ve heard the public transit system is quite nice. Plenty of good things in A—”
“Microwave ovens,” I contributed. “Coffee.”
“There you go,” Mrs. Noor said, twisting herself into her two-seater and depositing The Chicago Manual of Detecting onto the passenger seat. “I don’t think we’re prepared to give you credit for any of those, are we? So you don’t get the blame for the bad or the inconvenient things either.”
“Mrs. Noor, thank you for everything,” I said, realizing that I had neglected to thank Felix B for saving my life.
“As I said, I’m only sorry she was able to get off a shot.”
“I can’t help but wonder what would have happened had I not spotted your detective agency across the street from the bus depot or if there had been a tour bus leaving immediately. And what if Aunt Hen’s gardener had planted clover instead of cacti—or if Gabriella had been a better shot—or if Dorothy Sayers had written a thinner book than the 331 pages that make up The Nine Tailors—”
“Never mind all that. Thinking like that only leads to a state of inaction.”
“The loop,” said Bean. “What does your alter do, Detective Noor? You seem like a good person to have on our side.”
“She started out as a detective and ended up as a DIM agent. What can you do. I’ll send you a bill, Felix,” she added and roared away.
[36]
THE CROSSING TERMINAL
“So you’ve started it, then,” Bean said, unwrapping a burrito from its tinfoil package. She had driven to the crossing terminal so speedily that we had time for a quick stop at the Crossing Cantina.
“I’ve written Chapter One.” I felt strangely calm and confident saying it. I hoped the confidence would linger a day or two. “I’m going to try to write the whole thing in words only,” I said, unwrapping a burrito myself.
“Can I read Chapter One?”
“It’s not done. I mean, it’s done, but it’s not ready for reading, not yet.”
“You’d think you’d have gone off mysteries after being—”
“—the victim of repeated murder attempts by a vengeful would-be actress who considers me responsible for her life not taking the path it otherwise might have?”
“Well, yes.”
“Luckily I started writing before I found out I was being stalked by a vengeful would-be actress, et cetera. The whole business with Gabriella simply doesn’t seem real. I think I prefer to treat it as if it never happened. Unhealthy, perhaps, but so what?” I popped a corn chip into my mouth and started crunching away. “Besides, in a proper mystery there’s always a murder. Attempts—even five of them—do not count.”
“I’m glad Gabriella’s murder attempts were unsuccessful.”
“Me too. Quite relieved actually.”
“When a close call like that happens and everything turns out all right, I end up feeling bad anyway and thinking of the Beans in all the other universes where the outcomes weren’t so good. Can you pass me a napkin?”
“You feel bad for you in the universes where Gabriella succeeded?”
“You know what I mean.” She hesitated, napkin in hand. “Er—Felix, I’ve been meaning to apologize for saying you were responsible for paper books being gone from Universe A. It was the link that allowed the omni to be imported from Universe B, so it’s Professor Singh’s responsibility as much as anybody’s. Like Arni said, had events been allowed to run their course, the omni wouldn’t have been invented in Universe A, or at least not for who knows how long.”
“I’ll forget all about it if you come up with a good pseudonym for me. I’m going to need one. To avoid any potential confusion with Felix’s cookbook, should it hit bi-universe status and become a runaway bestseller that everyone buys for their partner on Valentine’s Day.” Also, my recent experience had caused me to become acutely aware of the advantages of anonymity.
“Like Mark Twain?”
“Or Mary Westmacott,” I offered.
“Who’s she?”
“Agatha Christie writing romance novels.”
“Mark Twain chose a pen name from his steamboat days—a call of river depth on the Mississippi—so maybe you can find a phrase from the culinary world.”
“Red Saffron? Serrano Pepper?” I caught sight of the saltshaker sitting next to the bowl of guacamole. “Sal Del Mar?”
“All of those sound like you’re the child of Passivist parents who picked the name by sticking a pin into a list. I can see that the issue will require some thought.” She was watching a group of Passivists shuffle by us on their steady trek through the terminal. I wondered how soon Professor Maximilian’s network of questions and answers would reach people going about their lives, and how long it would take to prove that Passivists weren’t, in fact, nuts but correct in their basic idea. Something occurred to me. “I’m thankful that I got to see Aunt Henrietta again—come back from the dead, so to speak. And if she dies here anytime soon, there’s always the possibility that I could visit her in some third universe, isn’t there?”
“Visit your favorite relatives in universes where they haven’t died yet, that sort of thing? It might catch on. There might even be a universe in which people have figured out how to live forever.”
I offered her more of the guacamole, then scooped up the last bit with a chip. “This whole alphabet soup business, lives A to Z in universes A to Z—does it matter what we do, if our most carefully thought-out actions are on par with the rolling rock and all outcomes occur somewhere anyway?”
“Wouldn’t you rather live in a world where you did the right thing,” she said, efficiently crumpling up her burrito wrapper, “than in one where you were a jerk and didn’t stop for pedestrians?”
Even a bicycle rider like me knew what she meant. I took quick stock of my trip to Universe B. I was leaving with a jar and a measly couple of pages of a novel in my backpack, owing my life to my alter, lacking a wheeled suitcase, and Bean—well, Bean did not like crossings.
“Listen,” I began, “I might have misled everyone when I said I don’t have anything from my parents. There are a couple of boxes at the bottom of my hallway closet, one box with paintings and another that their lawyer gave to me after their deaths. Letters, photos, stuff like that. I’ve been meaning to look through it ever since I found out about my real age. I don’t know if there’s anything of interest there or if you even need anything more now that you have Olivia May’s and Meriwether’s story, but I thought you should know.”
Regarding Ducks and Universes Page 28
