The Shimmer

by Carsten Stroud

  Clete was silent but radiating a slow burn. Jack wondered how the Timekeeper would react if his grandfather knocked him off a barstool at the Alcazar Hotel. Finally Clete seemed to work something out, and he softened up a bit.

  “Kid, this is Florida in the fifties. We have the Five Families here. We have Cuba across the way. We got this asshole Castro making all sorts of trouble out in the countryside. Meyer Lansky—you know him?”

  “Yes. I know all about it.”

  “How?”

  Jack shrugged.

  “It’s history now. Or will be.”

  “Well, Lansky opened up Cuba, for now anyway, unless Castro and this Guevara guy actually take the country, and now there is some serious fucking money flowing up and down this coast, and across to Cuba, and back again, and all we can do—the PD—is try to keep the worst of things from getting the better of...”

  “The best of things?”

  “Yeah. Yes. And to do that...”

  “You do what you gotta do.”

  Clete looked at his grandson then, and some kind of deep pain seemed to lighten inside him, just a little, but enough. Jack’s heart went out to him, but then it always had. He loved the man.

  “Lot of people, kid...lot of people...especially the fucking civilians...they judge... You know what I mean?”

  “I do. Easy for them. They have no skin in the game.”

  “What?”

  “They have nothing at stake. No dog in the hunt. They’re in the bleachers. You’re down in the arena.”

  “Yes. We are. Thing is, kid, inside, I’m straight. Always was straight. In Korea, it was easy to be straight. The Rules were...clear, you know? Us, the Corps, and them, the Dinks. But here on this coast, it’s hard to always know what straight is. Tessio Vizzini is a mob guy, but if what he’s doing is so bad, how come so many ordinary people are buying whatever he’s selling, and how come so many city officials—state people too—are taking money to help him operate? Things get...bent. People get bent.”

  The bartender—Freddy or whatever—came back, but Clete waved him away, signaling for the bill.

  “So my main worry... Jack... I wouldn’t want you to judge. You follow? And Mary Alice, she doesn’t know about any of this. She’s...she’s good, Jack...she’s good all the way down. If something were to happen to me, I would never want to see her...hurt. Stained.”

  Jack put a hand on his grandfather’s massive shoulder, left it there for just a second, feeling the heat coming off him. The crowd noise went away.

  “I can tell you this, Clete. It’s against the Rules, but what you’re afraid of? Mary Alice ever being ashamed of you, or stained by you?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It never happens. It. Never. Happens.”

  A lot of things flickered across Clete’s rough-cut face, but the main one was relief.

  Jack didn’t have the heart to tell him why.

  Or maybe he had too much heart to tell him that, if everything ran the way it ran in the history books, Mary Alice Redding had six days to live.

  Unless he did something about that.

  Presuming he could do anything about it at all.

  The Rules.

  Freddy came with the bill, a careful look on his young face. Clete looked at the bill and saw that it was for zero dollars.

  “Compliments of the gentlemen across the way, sir.”

  Clete and Jack looked out into the crowd. A group of lean and shiny men in too-sharp suits were sitting around in a red leather banquette, a silver bucket of champagne in the middle of the table. They were looking at Clete, smiles as wide and dangerous as sharks. They raised their glasses to him, smiled again, drained them and waved at him. They all had French-cuffed shirts with diamond links that glittered as they moved. Clete turned away abruptly, his mood darkening.

  “Who’re those guys?” Jack asked.

  “The one with the slick black hair, that’s Anthony Vizzini, Tessio’s son. He’s next in line for capo if Tessio ever dies. He’s hungry for it, but Tessio isn’t going anywhere for a long time. Unless Anthony finds the balls to cap him, which isn’t likely. The balding guy with the scars is Sergio Carpo, the Vizzinis’ main enforcer. Very bad guy. Likes to use pliers. And the big guy with the face like a beefsteak is Salvatore Bruni. He runs the Cuba drug trade for Tessio. The other two guys I don’t know. Probably a coupla button men new in from Sicily. Tessio’s making some moves against the Traficantes—the Five Families aren’t happy about that, so I guess he’s bringing in some troops in case it all goes to shit in a fucking hurry. They’re all holed up in Tessio’s compound down the shore, gated up and bunkered like Fort Knox.”

  “Going to the mattresses?”

  Clete looked at him.

  “What?”

  Jack felt like an idiot.

  “It was in a movie—The Godfather.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Never mind. They look pretty happy here.”

  “The Vizzinis have a forty percent share in the Alcazar. The Bonnanos and the rest own another thirty percent.”

  Clete turned around on the stool, picked up the bill, held it up so the men at the table could see it, crumpled it into a ball and threw it on the ground, then he stood up, stepped on the crumpled bill, peeled a hundred off a roll—a damn big roll—from his pocket, tossed it on the bartop.

  “There you go, Friday. Keep the change.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Friday—not Freddy—with a nervous glance at the five men in the booth, who were all staring at them, faces white and mouths tight.

  Clete and Jack walked out of the Alcazar and into the sidelong light of late afternoon. The air was hot and thick and smelled of salt water and car fumes. It lay against the skin like a hot wet towel. The Ford was right there in the circle, just as they’d left it. Jacksonville PD parked wherever they damn well pleased, including the roundabout in front of the Alcazar Hotel.

  “Where are we going now?” asked Jack, as they powered out into the crowded cross streets of old town. Clete looked across at him.

  “You up to a road trip?”

  “I have all the time in the world,” said Jack, which made them both smile.

  “Okay then. We’re going to New Orleans—”

  “How we going to get there? Isn’t it all country roads? It’ll take days.”

  “No. It isn’t. We have actual paved highways, even way back here. Like Highway 90, which takes us all the way to New Orleans. Six hundred miles, so it’s an all-nighter. We can split the driving. You got any money?”

  That was a new thought to Jack. He checked his wallet, and of course there were no credit cards in it. Just his Highway Patrol ID and his badge. And no cash either. Apparently the Timekeeper didn’t do cash advances.

  “I had some credit cards—”

  “What? Credit what? You mean like a Diners’ Club card? Who’re you? John Jacob Astor?”

  “Never mind. Nope. I’m busted.”

  “Well, I’m not. We’ll get you some gear on the way out. You got spare autoloaders for that Colt?”

  Jack realized he hadn’t thought about his weapon at all. He’d been aware of the weight of a gun at his waist, but he was so used to it he hadn’t checked his belt, and there was a weapon in the holster, but not his Kimber .45. He tugged it out and turned it in the dashboard light, a blue steel Colt Python, shimmering in the glow.

  Clete looked over at it.

  “Yeah, the .357. Same as mine. I got ammo in the trunk, so we’re good. Just got to get you some kit.”

  “I’ll pay you back.”

  “Who owns my beach house back there?”

  “You do,” Jack lied.

  “Bullshit. It’s yours, right?”

  “Yes. You gave it to me.”

  “Left it to you, you mean?”


  “Quit it, Clete. I’m not telling you anything about stuff like that. What about grand—what about Mary Alice and Declan? Can we just drive off and leave them?”

  “Yeah. They’re down the shore, other side of Matanzas. Rattlesnake Island. She had relatives down there. I sort of sent them away. Wanted them out of the line of fire.”

  “You expecting some?”

  “Yeah. This thing between the Traficantes and the Vizzinis, it’s going to get bloody. My guess is soon. In the meantime I gotta look into this DiSantis dame. And now it seems, so do you.”

  “This is true.”

  “Okay. Good. So, working on the idea that this isn’t all just a bad dream fueled by too many boilermakers, what I got today, looks like she has some background in New Orleans. Figured, fuck it, let’s go look. Check out her place at the Pontalba. See if anybody there knows anything about her. Okay with you? Since we’re both on the same case?”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of going straight at her, since she’s got rooms right here at the Alcazar.”

  “Yeah? And do what? Cuff her and pop her back into the time chute? You got any idea how to do that?”

  “No. I don’t. I just meant, now we got her close, why don’t we just go ask her some questions? See what she has to say?”

  “Ask her questions about what? Crimes she’s gonna commit sixty fucking years in the future? She’ll call the house dicks on us. No, we gotta go dig into her past, see what comes up. If we’re gonna take her down, we’re gonna have to build a case right here, where we are.”

  Jack took that in, couldn’t see any other way, and he was silent for a while as Clete wound his way across the bridges that led to the highway.

  The sun was sliding down over the mainland, and stars were beginning to show. The heat was leaving too, which was nice. Jack cranked the side window all the way down and let the breeze cool him off.

  “The bartender, is Friday really his name?”

  “Sort of. I call him Friday. After that show Dragnet with Jack Webb.”

  “Joe Friday. Yeah. Does he want to be a cop?”

  “No. He’s putting himself through college. And the Friday thing started off because Friday’s his last name too. Well, not actually Friday. It’s spelled like the Krauts do it. Freitag.”

  Jack looked over at Clete, Clete’s face lit up ghostly green by the dashboard lights.

  “Freitag?”

  “Yeah. Freitag.”

  Jack was quiet for a while, his heart hammering against his ribs. He went carefully, as one does when crossing spring ice.

  “You...happen to know his first name?”

  “Yeah. Anton or Antoine or something.”

  “Anson, maybe?”

  “Yeah. Could be.”

  “He’s saving for college?”

  “Yeah.”

  “For what?”

  “Med School. He wants to be a doctor.”

  selena dreams of home

  Selena stepped out of the shower, picked the heavy silk robe off the wing chair in the living room of her suite at the Alcazar, did not put it on, but trailed it behind her like a tiger’s pelt as she padded barefoot across the Persian carpet—it was all reds and greens and golds, as was the suite itself.

  She stopped in front of the heavy redwood cabinet that served as the bar. There was a mirror behind it, reflecting the crystal decanters and the silver champagne bucket.

  And Selena herself, looking back at her.

  She considered her body, well-shaped neck and head—a perfect cameo—a long-dead lover had once described her that way—he died too, as they all eventually died—the curved perfection of her alabaster body, her breasts heavy and full and rounded, the rosebud nipples, the rounded belly, the dark fragrant shadow beneath...her thighs her legs her calves...she had been gifted with a body that drew lives to her...men and women...and she loved them equally and with the same intensity...

  Which was not at all.

  They floated above her body or bore her weight beneath her and she felt...nothing.

  Nothing.

  Only the tedium of pretending.

  Sighing, crying out, gasping.

  All a lie.

  They never reached her core.

  They never would.

  She waited until they were spent, droning in sleep, gone to the world, and she would sit up and look at them sleeping and think how easy it would be to cut them, how sweet it would be to end that fat snoring pig—like Tessio—with a hard-held pillow...and then she would get up and go through their luggage and files and papers...and make plans for them. She had made some plans for Tessio, but they needed work. He was going to be a challenge, but well worth it, if she handled him just right.

  But tonight, she had the locket back. And that would have made her life complete, if, on her way to her suite, she hadn’t looked down into the atrium where the long bar was, where all the people were gathering for afternoon cocktails.

  But she had.

  And there at the bar was Jack Redding, and next to him was Clete Redding. They were leaning together, talking loud over the crowd noise, close and intense, sharing two large beers.

  And then a bartender arrived, with a sheet of paper, a bill she supposed. And she watched as Clete Redding turned around on the barstool and looked hard at five men in a banquette who were toasting him with their champagne glasses. She knew them—Tessio’s son, Anthony. Sergio Carpo, who had once run his rough red hands up under her skirt and defiled her with his fat tobacco-stained fingers, breathing in her ear, saying vile things, this in the lemon tree orchard next to the alligator lagoon at the bottom of Tessio’s estate. And Sal Bruni, who ran the Cuba trade.

  She watched as Clete Redding crumpled the bar bill up and threw it to the ground and sent a bolt of sizzling hate back to the men in the banquette.

  In a way she admired him for that, even as she filed it away. She stood and watched this ugly exchange for a full five minutes, frozen in place, her lungs full of ice and panic flooding through her body. Both Reddings, Clete and Jack.

  Here right now.

  Hunting her.

  Hunting her here in the Alcazar.

  * * *

  Selena sat down on the end of the bed, held the locket between her breasts, her hands folded almost in prayer. She closed her eyes and went away for a few moments, fighting for calm.

  Would they come for her? Were they riding up in the guest elevators right now? Were they striding down the carpeted hall under the crystal chandeliers? Were they now at the door, about to knock? If they were, what would she do?

  They were both armed, she could see that from the atrium balcony, heavy guns at their belts. If she tried to fight them—use the little Colt—they’d kill her where she stood.

  If she let them take her...

  But how could they take her?

  In this place, in this time, she had committed no crimes, at least none that they would know about, and none at all as Aurelia DiSantis.

  Clete Redding was a rogue cop, a very difficult man, but Tessio ran him, and she was under Tessio’s protection here. Unless they intended to kill her outright—and if they did Tessio’s rage would be volcanic—they would have to arrest her.

  On what charges?

  The younger one, Jack, had no powers here, and Clete? Did he even believe that Jack was his grandson? Falling through time to land here? Even if Jack had managed to persuade him of that, which was wildly improbable, there were still only two choices open to them: confront her here, and possibly kill her. Or arrest her and charge her with...again, charge her with what?

  They had nothing.

  And even if they took her to a police station, Tessio would know at once, and he would send his lawyers, and she would be free within the hour.

  And Tessio would jerk Clete Redding’s
chain very hard. She had Tessio in the palm of her hand, literally, and while her power over him lasted, he would do anything she asked.

  So, for now, for this night and the next few days, she should be still, she could stay safe under the protection of Tessio Vizzini.

  That would work, for now.

  The single point upon which this entire framework turned, the thing that was the most acute threat to her existence, was Jack Redding, and the fact that he had somehow followed her into the Shimmer, down the Long Hall and now he was here, in 1957. He was the anomaly, he was the piece that wouldn’t fit, he was the crack in the mirror.

  Removing him would not affect the time membrane in any way that would matter to her, because he shouldn’t be here, because he never was here.

  But if he were to be erased now, in 1957, would that affect her life in the future?

  She thought not. There had been very little contact between the two of them. The world he had existed in would be greatly changed, but not hers, since he had only been a part of hers for a very brief period. And how much larger would the rip be if the solution to the problem of Jack Redding’s existence was the death of his grandfather, in the right here and right now?

  Clete Redding’s death should mean there would never be a Jack Redding to trouble her, either in the future, or here in this time.

  However, since there actually was a version of Jack Redding here now, it would be the cautious and sensible thing to kill him too, just to be on the safe side.

  Yes there would be ripples, reverberations, changes that would affect the future in noticeable ways. But not her future.

  The membrane of time was too dense and too immense to be affected by the little death of one ordinary little man and the death or nonexistence of another little man. There would be a tiny rip in the membrane, but it would soon mend, and the larger universe would navigate the endless mazes of time as it always had, as it always would.

  There were Rules controlling time. She had found that, while she could go back in time, she could never go forward, never get past the Present Time, which for her now was the moment she had broken in on Jack Redding and that lady cop at the beach house She couldn’t break that barrier, see what was going to happen in 2020 or 2030. It was as if Time was creating itself with every new second, and that on the other side of Right Now, there was only Nothing Yet.