by Timothy Zahn
"He knows," a voice said darkly from behind him.
Roger spun around. Standing at the base of the steps beside one of the trees lining the sidewalk was another young, dark-haired man.
Gripped in his hand was a gun.
6
For that first stretched-out second Roger just stood there, frozen with the impossibility of it. The man hadn't been on the sidewalk—he'd checked everything in sight not more than three seconds earlier.
He hadn't come up from the walk-down apartment below the steps, either—Roger would have seen any movement from that direction. And there was literally nowhere anyone could have come from.
Yet there he was.
"I see we've got something more serious here than just a zoning violation," he said, managing somehow to keep his voice steady.
"Porfirio, are you nuts?" the first man hissed.
"Shut up, Stavros," the gunman said, his eyes smoldering as he walked up the steps to the landing and came to a halt facing Roger. "You heard him. He knows where—"
Abruptly, he broke off, and for a long second he and Stavros stared silently at each other. Roger held his breath; and then Porfirio's lip twitched, and with clear reluctance, he lowered his gun. "My apologies," he said, the words coming out like they had to be forcibly extracted. "My concern for—"
Again, he stopped in mid-sentence. "You were about to tell us your business here," Stavros suggested into the silence.
"Yes," Roger said, watching Porfirio and mentally crossing his fingers. "I'm looking for the parents of Melantha Green."
Porfirio muttered something under his breath. "I told you he knew," he said.
"What's your interest in the girl?" Stavros asked, ignoring the comment.
"We want to return her safely to where she belongs," Roger assured him. "That's all."
"That's great," Stavros said, a hint of cautious enthusiasm in his voice. "Just bring her here. We'll take care of her."
"Her parents live here, then?" Roger asked. "Good. I'd like to speak to them."
Stavros glanced at Porfirio. "Unfortunately, her parents aren't available at the moment," he said.
"Would someone else do?"
"Who do you suggest?" Roger asked cautiously.
There was another of the short staring contests between the two men. "The one you need to see is Aleksander," Stavros said. "I could have him back here in half an hour."
"Sorry, but I have other business," Roger improvised. The longer he hung out with these people, the creepier he felt. "I'll come back another time," he added, trying to maneuver around Porfirio.
The other took a quick step to block him. "Uh-uh," he said, lifting his gun a couple of inches for emphasis. "If we say you wait for Aleksander, you wait."
"Porfirio, put that away," Stavros ordered. "Look, Mr.—What's your name, anyway?"
"Roger Wh—" Roger broke off, catching himself in time. "Just Roger."
"All right," Stavros said. "I understand that you can't wait for Aleksander. But won't you at least talk to someone?"
"Again, who do you suggest?" Roger asked.
"There's a woman here named Sylvia," Stavros said. "Would you be willing to give her a few minutes?"
The sweat gathering on Roger's neck was starting to turn to ice as the breeze hit it. The last thing he wanted to do was stay here a second longer than he had to.
But Porfirio was still holding the gun. And after all, he was here to talk to someone about Melantha.
"You'll be free to leave at any time, of course," Stavros assured him. "But it would be in your best interests, and Melantha's, if you talk to Sylvia."
"What exactly is her relationship with Melantha?" Roger asked, feeling a trickle of hope.
Apparently, Stavros had misinterpreted his hesitation, seeing careful and judicious thought instead of weakness and indecision. Maybe he could get away with pretending to be the strong, reserved type.
"She's family," Stavros said. "It'll be all right. Really."
Roger pursed his lips, as if weighing the options, then nodded. "All right," he said, trying to pitch his voice like he was doing them a favor. "Where is she?"
"I'll take you in," Porfirio volunteered, tucking his gun out of sight in a side pocket.
"No, I'll do it," Stavros said. "This way, Roger."
There was a four-button intercom set in the wall beside the inner door. Stavros didn't bother pushing any of the buttons, but simply turned the knob and pushed the door open. The foyer had a feeling of age, the sense of a place that had somehow managed to avoid the advances of time. Stavros gestured to the polished wooden stairway and they started up.
"You said Sylvia was family," Roger said as they walked. "Melantha's family?"
"We're all Melantha's family," Stavros said over his shoulder.
"Really," Roger said, frowning. Stavros's eyes and skin tone were right, but aside from that there wasn't any particular resemblance. Part of Melantha's extended family? Or did he simply mean they were both members of the same ethnic group?
They got off at the third-floor landing. An odd mixture of aromas swirled through the air, and Roger felt his nose crinkling as he tried to sort out the various components. It was definitely cooking, but not of any ethnic category he could identify. "In here," Stavros said, stepping to the door and opening it.
A stronger wave of the exotic aromas rolled out into the hall. Bracing himself, Roger stepped inside.
He found himself in a room that seemed at first glance to be a copy of a nineteenth-century parlor, complete with flower-patterned wallpaper, a simple dark rug, and furniture of a style his grandmother would have felt right at home with. His second glance picked up the more modern touches: the abstract pictures on the wall, the desk phone, the late-model computer tucked into a rolltop desk in the back corner.
Standing in the center of the room was a thirtyish woman, dark-haired and with the same Mediterranean features he'd noted in both Melantha and the two men downstairs.
And pinned high up on her blouse was a brooch made of delicate silver fibers. A brooch that looked a lot like the one he had in his side pocket.
"Come in, Roger," the woman invited as Roger hesitated by the doorway. "My name's Cassia. I'm a colleague of Sylvia's."
"Thank you," Roger said. "Just a colleague? Not family?"
"We're all family," Cassia said. "In here, please."
She stepped back into an archway leading from the back of the parlor and gestured through it. Roger walked past her, taking the opportunity to look at her brooch more closely. It wasn't a duplicate of the one in his pocket, but it was definitely of the same style. Offhand, he couldn't decide whether that was a good sign or a bad one.
The dining room had been assembled from the same hodgepodge of modern and antique furnishings that he'd already noted in the parlor. Dominating the center was a long wooden table with enough straight-backed chairs to accommodate fifteen or sixteen adults. A half-dozen children were currently seated around it, ranging in age from preschool to perhaps eleven years old. At the near end of the table was a middle-aged woman who seemed to be the one in charge. At the far end, across from her, sat a much older woman with white hair and deep age lines in her face. The children were in high spirits, laughing and chattering away in an unfamiliar language as they dug eagerly into their dinner.
He frowned. Their dinner?
It was dinner, all right. The serving platters were heavy with slices of steaming meat—lamb, he tentatively identified it—plus rice, three different kinds of vegetables, dark bread that looked homemade, butter, and milk. Definitely dinner.
At eleven o'clock in the morning.
"You must be Roger."
Roger lifted his gaze from the table to the older woman's face. For all the erosion of the years, he could still see echoes of what must once have been a striking beauty. Her eyes were bright and aware, sparkling with intelligence. Like Melantha and Cassia, her skin had that olive Mediterranean look.
And like Cassia
, she was wearing a delicately styled silver brooch, this one with a green stone in the center.
"Yes," he acknowledged. "You must be Sylvia."
"Indeed," she said. "I appreciate your willingness to see me."
"No problem," Roger said. "But I don't want to interrupt your party."
"Six children hardly constitutes a party," Sylvia said with a smile.
"They must be voracious eaters," Roger said, nodding toward the table. "That, or you're expecting more company."
The children and the middle-aged woman had stopped their conversation and were looking curiously at their visitor. "Perhaps we should step out to the front room," Sylvia said, pushing her chair back and standing up. A few words in that same strange language, and the children returned to their meal.
"They're all home-schooled," she explained as she circled the table toward Roger.
"And the meal?" he asked. "Dinner, at eleven in the morning?"
"Their fathers work the night shifts," she said. "They're running late today, so we let the children start without them."
"I see," Roger said through suddenly stiff lips. So a whole crowd of these people was about to descend on him? Terrific.
Cassia was standing beside a high-backed sofa when he and Sylvia returned to the parlor. "Sit down," Sylvia invited, gesturing Roger toward a wing-back chair as she lowered herself onto the sofa beside the younger woman. "I understand you've brought word of Melantha. You have her?"
Roger eyed the old woman. She was leaning slightly forward, her eyes bright with anticipation. "I know where she is," he said cautiously. "May I ask your relationship to her?"
"We're family," Sylvia said briefly. "What exactly has she told you?"
Roger felt his throat tighten. What has she told you? No questions about Melantha's health; no inquiry about her safety or well-being. Sylvia's first question had been about Melantha's location; her second had been whether the girl had talked.
Someone had tried to strangle Melantha. Someone, perhaps, who was worried about what she might say to strangers?
"I know someone tried to kill her," he said evenly, watching the lined face carefully. But there was no surprise there he could detect. "I know she's terrified for her life."
"Anything else?"
Roger hesitated. This could be risky, but it might be interesting to see her reaction. "I know there are others interested in her," he said.
Again, Sylvia's face didn't even twitch. But Cassia wasn't in such good command of her face. The sudden compression of lips and throat were all he needed to know he'd hit a nerve.
So they knew about the mugger in the alley. Did they know about the nighttime human fly, too?
"Really," Sylvia said. Her voice, like her face, was perfectly calm. "And who might they be?"
"I thought you might like to tell me," Roger invited.
"I'd prefer to talk about Melantha," Sylvia said.
"That's fine with me," Roger said. "You could start by telling me why you don't seem to care about her well-being."
"That's not true," Cassia protested. "We're more interested—"
She broke off abruptly. "Cassia speaks out of place," Sylvia said. "But she's right. We're more interested in Melantha's well-being than you could possibly understand. Far more than you yourself are, for that matter."
"An interesting assumption," Roger said, feeling warmth flowing into his face. "Especially since I haven't heard either of you even ask about her health."
Sylvia shrugged. "We know she's alive, and the fact that you're here means she must be at least reasonably well. Otherwise, how would you have known where to come?"
"Of course," Roger said. So very logical. The kind of argument he himself might have made, in fact.
"But the danger to her has certainly not ended," Sylvia continued, her voice turning a shade darker.
"That's why we need you to bring her here."
Roger shook his head. "I can't hand her over to anyone except her parents."
The lines in Sylvia's forehead deepened. "You can't protect her, Roger. Only we can do that."
"Perhaps," Roger said. "Who exactly are we protecting her from?"
Sylvia's face hardened, her eyes boring into Roger's. "Listen to me closely," she said, her voice low and strangely resonant. "Melantha isn't the only one in danger. This entire city stands on the edge of chaos and destruction. If you don't want to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, you will tell me where she is."
Abruptly, she rose to her feet. "And you will tell me now."
7
For a moment the room seemed frozen in time. Sylvia seemed to tower over the room, her face burning like that of an ancient Greek goddess, the fire in her eyes demanding instant and total obedience. Roger hunched back in his chair, flinching back before that gaze, too paralyzed to even make a break for the door.
And then, unexpectedly, two other images flickered into view, superimposed on Sylvia's. One was that of Melantha, her face twisted with fear, the way she'd looked the night he'd seen the man climbing the outside of their building. Beside it was Caroline's face, the way she always looked when he'd backed down from a confrontation.
He thought about that face, and how it would look if he had to tell her he'd given in and handed Melantha over to these people.
And suddenly he knew which confrontation he more urgently preferred to avoid. "I'm sorry," he said, forcing himself to stand. "I'll be in touch."
For that first second he thought Sylvia was going to physically try to stop him. Her eyes glinted even more brightly, the wrinkles around her mouth deepening. Roger stood motionless in front of his chair, trying to work up the nerve to move past her to the door. If she decided to get in his way—or worse, if she called down to Porfirio and Stavros—
And then, to his relief, the wrinkles smoothed out and the fire faded from the old woman's eyes.
"Very well," she said, her voice calm again. "I can't force you to stay. But give Melantha a message from us. Tell her that if she comes to us, Aleksander stands ready to protect her."
"I'll tell her," Roger promised, a fresh shiver running up his back. Ungluing his feet from the floor, he walked across the room, heart still thudding with anticipation and dread. But the two women merely watched him in silence.
Until he reached the door. "As for you," Sylvia added as he took hold of the knob, "I warn you that city is no longer a safe place for those who stand beside Melantha."
Roger swallowed. "Is that a threat?"
"Merely a statement of fact," she said. "Good-bye, Roger."
He half expected to find the whole night-shift crew Sylvia had mentioned gathered out on the landing, ready to jump him. But there was no one in sight. Making his way down the stairs, he went outside to discover that Porfirio and Stavros had likewise vanished. He headed back down the street, trying not to look like he was hurrying, an eerie feeling between his shoulder blades. He reached the bustling activity of Central Park West—
And suddenly, it was as if he was in New York again.
He walked six blocks before the tingling began to fade away into the familiar noises and smells of the city. Not until he'd emerged into the sunlight had he realized just how much of a spell the old building had spun around him.
He'd gone there hoping they could help clear up some of Melantha's mystery. All they'd done was make it worse.
He kept walking, trying to figure out what to do next. Going home was definitely out, or at least going home by anything resembling a straight line. He couldn't tell if he was being followed, but he had no doubt that he was. Sylvia's people wanted Melantha, and this was too obvious an opportunity for them to pass up.
He was halfway to his office when it suddenly occurred to him that it wouldn't be safe to go there, either. Even given that his firm was only one of a hundred in the building, he still couldn't take the chance that they might track him down and learn his name and address.
Maybe it was too late already. Even though he hadn't
given them his full name, there couldn't be all that many Roger Wh-somethings listed in the phone book.
On his left was a little restaurant busy with early lunchtime patrons. Ducking into the doorway, shaking his head at the offer of a menu, he pulled out his cell phone.
Caroline answered on the third ring. "Hello?"
"It's me," Roger said. "Any problems?"
"No, not at all," Caroline assured him. "We're having a fine time. I'm teaching Melantha how to latchhook—"
"Calls?" Roger cut her off. "Visitors?"
There was a brief pause. "Neither," Caroline said, her voice suddenly subdued. "What's happened?"
Roger hesitated, wondering if he was jumping at shadows. Out here in the sunshine and brisk New York breezes, it all seemed so silly.
But he hadn't imagined Sylvia's veiled threats. He hadn't imagined the bruises on Melantha's neck.
He certainly hadn't imagined Porfirio and his gun.
"Maybe nothing," he told Caroline. "I was at your Central Park West building a few minutes ago. I found some people who claim to know Melantha's parents, but they wouldn't let me talk to them."
"That seems strange."
"You don't know the half of it," he assured her. "Maybe I'm overreacting, but I want you and Melantha to get out of there."
The pause this time was longer. "Right now?" Caroline asked, her voice not giving any clues as to what she was thinking.
"Yeah, I think so," Roger said, trying to think. "You'll need a hotel. A decent one, hopefully not too expensive."
"How about Paul and Janet's place?" Caroline suggested. "They're not due back from Oregon for another week, and I know they wouldn't mind."
Roger pursed his lips. The Young family lived way over in Yorkville, on the east side of Manhattan, beside a little patch of trees and playground equipment called John Jay Park. If Porfirio and his buddies started their search near the Whittiers' apartment, they'd be hunting a long time before they got to that neighborhood. "Do we have a key?"
"We don't need one," she said. "Remember? They've got electronic locks on their building and apartment now."
