OtherWorld

by Sarah Dreher

  “Mine says left,” Gwen said.

  Stoner brought herself back to the business at hand.

  “Mine, too. Let’s give Old Mexico a try.”

  The air inside was cool, the walls of stone and tiled floor a barrier against the steam outside. Stoner supposed there was air conditioning at work, too, but she preferred to think what she was feeling was real. The relief certainly was.

  They passed through a small museum, and found themselves on a balcony overlooking a twilight-lit plaza. Directly beneath them was a fountain, and carts offering bright blankets and sombreros, vivid paper flowers, bowls, piñatas and brightly painted animal statues. Trinkets and souvenirs spilled from large baskets. Serapes of brilliant color were draped from vendors’ stands. Beyond the plaza, the entrance to the San Angel Inn was a gate set in a high wall. The restaurant was closed this early in the day, but the tables held flickering candles and white linen cloths. Around the wall above the Inn ran a bas-relief mural depicting a Central American jungle, where a distant volcano spewed red light and the illusion of flowing lava. Directly ahead stood an Aztec temple. In the background they could hear the rumble of the volcano, and a wildcat’s eerie shriek and roar.

  “Oh,” Gwen said with a little catch of her breath. “It’s lovely.”

  Stoner had to agree. There was no trace of Mickey Mouse here, no Disney hype. Just coolness and color and soft beauty.

  Also no trace of Marylou. No sense of her absence, either. But there was a ride, El Rio Del Tiempo: The River of Time. Rides in WDW tended to be dark things, they had learned yesterday—especially in the Imagination pavilion, with its descent into fantasy and nightmare; and in the Wonders of Life, where they had barely survived a bone-jarring but otherwise disappointing trip through the human body which had caused Gwen to wonder loudly at the exact moment they shot through the blood-brain barrier, why anyone in her right mind would ever want to do that.

  El Rio Del Tiempo had the capacity for darkness and hidden pockets and little halls down which someone might be whisked in a flash. They decided to give it a try.

  It wasn’t crowded. They were alone in their little boat, which would have been neat and romantic under other circumstances, and did offer the opportunity to talk without being overheard, in case someone was following them and trying to overhear.

  Leaving the dock, they floated toward a stone underpass decorated with the carved head of a rather unfriendly-looking man. From everywhere and nowhere came deeply intoned words, words in a language nobody probably ever recognized nowadays—except for language scholars and anthropologists and a few tribes hidden for centuries in the mountainous jungles—rumbled from the air around them. Considerately, the disembodied voice translated into Twentieth-Century English to welcome them to his ancient Mexico. A sharp turn, and they were in a grotto, where movies of ancient dances and rituals were displayed on backlighted screens and reflected in pools of water. Then dancing dolls, and a band of musician-skeletons twirling and swirling at the end of strings. Meanwhile, the voice described the coming of the Spanish Conquistadores and other Whites. Dancing skeletons gave way to more dolls, which frolicked and leapt as if they were high on something. Then another grotto, this time with movies of cliff divers and flying dancers suspended from ropes, and speed boats. The voice—which had only a few minutes before been proud and a little threatening, announced the joys of tourism, while overhead a simulated fireworks display burst against black velvet sky.

  Gwen nudged her. “Look.”

  She peered to her right and saw a small alcove, only large enough to hold one boat, with black doors leading to the outside. At night, it would be completely invisible. But now the sun was white bright, and shining directly on that side of the building. A boat could be whisked onto that siding in the dark and disappear before anyone knew what was happening.

  It didn’t feel as if Marylou had gone that way.

  Still, it confirmed what Stoner had suspected—that there were tunnels and passageways, secret entrances and exits scattered throughout WDW. Places where people could appear and disappear in an instant. All part of the backstage work that went on to maintain the Disney illusions. After all, it wouldn’t do to have a light bulb burn out or a boat break down and just sit there, a symbol of disorder and failure.

  They were near the end of the ride, and now they were passing a plaza where a woman—actually a movie of a woman projected on the wall behind the storefront—ran after the boat and begged them to buy, buy, buy.

  Stoner found the whole thing beautiful but depressing.

  “I know what you mean,” Gwen said. “They were so elegant at the beginning, and by the time the Whites are through with them, they’re dehumanized, reduced to dolls, bones, and images on a screen. Do you think it’s intentional?”

  “Intentional?”

  “A subliminal lesson on how we screw things up.”

  “Maybe not intentional,” Stoner said, “but I certainly got the point.”

  “I’d like to think,” Gwen said, “that somewhere in Mexico, whoever designed this exhibit is laughing her or his head off.”

  “I hope so.”

  Stoner wondered how they had started off in one direction and ended up at the same point without seeming to turn around or to go in a circle. She hoped it hadn’t involved going under the Plaza. She wasn’t fond of going under large, dark, heavy things without knowing it. Even less fond of going under them knowingly. Especially since the one thing in Mexico the White Man hadn’t reduced to doll-like proportions was earthquakes. Mexico had had some sincere earthquakes in its time, and she wasn’t especially eager to experience one. With her luck, she’d be the one the dog found exactly one half hour after she’d breathed her last.

  Wait a minute. She was worrying about Mexican earthquakes in Florida? Obviously, for all its dehumanization, the ride had effectively convinced her she was in Mexico.

  “It has possibilities,” Gwen was saying, “but I didn’t feel anything, did you?”

  Stoner shook her head. “No sign of Marylou’s presence.”

  “Aunt Hermione must be right. Marylou leaves a very faint psychic trail. Let’s try Norway.”

  Norway was dark and complicated, and offered a hundred hiding places—provided you could convince yourself the Maelstrom was an illusion. Which wouldn’t be easy, maybe not even possible. No one in her right mind was going to leap into that raging, sucking water, even if it was recycled, piped in, and only about four inches deep. It made Norway a poor bet for a spot to abduct Marylou Kesselbaum. Assuming you could get her on the ride in the first place. Marylou was about as likely to take a ride into the Maelstrom as she was to—well, to get on their flight back to Boston without heavy tranquilizers.

  But Norway did have a wonderful town square at the end of the ride, dim with perpetual twilight, where a sharp, damp breeze blew and the lamps in windows shed a homey glow.

  And pastries at the outdoor cafe. Which greatly increased the possibility that Marylou had passed that way. Other people might use their sixth senses for fortune telling or finding lost children or playing the stock market or locating the rest rooms in shopping malls. Marylou reserved whatever psychic ability she possessed for only one thing: pastries.

  Germany was a total bust, abduction-wise. No ride, not even a 360° movie. The Biergarten was light and open, and completely extroverted. Despite the tiers of tables on different levels, the impression was that everyone in the room was related in one way or another, and had all decided to eat at the same time. The only way you could be kidnapped from Germany would be through the rest rooms. And they were always crowded, being among the five sets of rest rooms serving all of World Showcase. No waiting, usually, but lots of hustle and bustle and comings and goings and screaming babies and whining children and Satanists busily dying the hair of abducted children.

  Come to think of it, how did one go about dying the hair of an infant, here among the crowds. Could you dye an infant’s hair without attracting attention?
Maybe they had special alcoves, like the changing rooms. With signs on the door: Stolen Infant Disguise Room.

  The heat was getting to her. There was nothing funny about stolen children, even it they were cranky children. She could vouch for that. After all, they’d had a cranky adult stolen, and it wasn’t amusing at all.

  Over by the Refreshment Outpost (which had a sign proclaiming it would someday be the site of the Africa pavilion—as soon as the U.S. Government stopped acting like an idiot over South Africa, though they were too polite to say so), Stape was head-to-head with one of the young men in chino pants and Moroccan-style hats who loitered about waiting for a scrap of litter to hit the ground so they could pounce on it. He was shaking his head. Another dead end.

  Something about it annoyed her. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it definitely annoyed her. So much so that she was completely unamused by the slap-stick, slightly lewd performance of the Teatro di Bologna. So much so that Gwen finally noticed her mood and attributed it to the heat, and dragged her into the American Adventure for a break from the sun.

  “Oh, great,” Stoner said as they seated themselves under a quote from Ayn Rand. “Someone will probably take our picture, and for the rest of eternity we’ll be associated with one of the most people-hating women of the Twentieth Century.”

  “I don’t think anybody’s going to take our picture,” Gwen said reasonably. “But if it’ll make you more comfortable, we’ll try to find a suitable quote to sit under.” She glanced around. “We have Jane Addams over there, but she’s occupied. How about Thomas Wolfe?”

  “You’re being calm and rational,” Stoner grumbled. “You know I hate it when you’re calm and rational.”

  “Well, if you can share what’s got you in such a foul mood, maybe I can work up a little hysteria.”

  Stoner ran her hand through her hair. “I don’t know. I guess it’s Stape. Every time I see her, she’s talking to men. I mean, doesn’t she think women can help us? Why does it always have to be men?”

  Stape was, at that very moment, talking with one of the boys in Colonial costume who had just finished singing bellicose patriotic folk songs on the plaza.

  Gwen studied the situation. “I think,” she said at last, “it’s because ninety percent of the population is heterosexual.”

  Stoner stared at her. “What?”

  “Heterosexuals pay more attention to people of the opposite sex. So, if you’re looking for a woman, your best bet is to ask men if they’ve seen her. Straight women may notice other women, but they don’t study them. Women study men, men study women.”

  “Did you?” Stoner asked. “When you thought you were straight?”

  “I studied women,” Gwen said. “It should have been my first clue.”

  By the time they had finished Canada and the United Kingdom, it was time to rendezvous with Stape. They made their way back to Communicore East and the Electronic Forum.

  CHAPTER 6

  Stape had news. She stood by the Get Set Jet Game, apparently immersed in a video arcade challenge that involved loading passengers and their luggage onto a plane.

  Stoner settled beside her at the Great American Census Quiz, and tried to decide whether she would make less of a fool of herself if she chose Fifty States or Home Sweet Home as her topic.

  “We have to talk,” Stape said as she began her maintenance and safety checklist.

  “Okay.” Maybe School Days would be easier.

  “Meet me at the Electronic Forum. Don’t approach me there. Sit where you can see me, go through the poll, and wait until I leave, then come down front.”

  “Right.”

  “I’ll arrange for us to meet behind the podium, but don’t try to find it yourself in the dark. You’ll fall over something and bust your ass.”

  “Got it,” Stoner said. She chose her answer to the first Fifty States question, and was rewarded with a bleep announcing to all within a ten-mile radius that she had guessed wrong.

  Stape completed her game within the allotted sixty seconds and walked away, obviously under-challenged.

  Stoner allowed herself the humiliation of three more wrong answers, and shuffled back to where Gwen was waiting. “She’ll tell us what she found out, but we have to sit through the Electronic Forum first.”

  “Great,” Gwen said happily. “I love quizzes.”

  The topic for today was Environmental Issues, and they were invited to list them in order of importance. Stoner had always found this kind of questioning particularly annoying, since she couldn’t see how one could choose between breathing, eating, and drinking as one’s top priority. The last she had heard, you would be equally dead without any of the above.

  At least they didn’t try to get her to join any organizations or donate money at the end of this one. Not that she’d have fallen for it if they did. She’d long ago learned not to be taken in by opinion polls which were really gimmicks to suck you in and make you feel like garbage if you didn’t contribute. Between home and the travel agency, she had been well educated in the various disguises assumed by “gimmies.” The large, colorful envelope that cheerily invited you to open it. The official-document ploy. The guilt- trip. The “We’re on the White House Enemies List” device. The “You Will Lose a Chance at a Million Dollars—You Have Made It Through Two of Our Three Hurdles” gambit. The dead give-away was the third-class stamp.

  In the dim alcove behind the podium, Stape took a small notebook and pen light from her breast pocket. “Okay, here’s the poop. Subject was spotted at the following locations, engaged in the following activities: Mexico, Cantina de San Angel, purchased tostadas con pollo, side of guacamole and tortilla chips, chased small children from bench, sat and consumed same —”

  “Consumed the children?” Gwen asked. “Or the bench?”

  Stape gave her a quick smile and returned to her notes. “Following this, subject continued around World Showcase in a clockwise direction, pausing to purchase kransekake from Kringla Bakeri og Kafe—that’s the Norwegian bakery—which she ate except for a few small crumbs she left behind for the birds despite posted warning of same. Stopped next at Lotus Blossom Cafe and bought three egg rolls, which she took onto the double-decker bus.”

  “I’ll bet that’s where it happened,” Gwen whispered.

  “Subject exited bus at the next stop, still carrying egg rolls. Walked back until found seat in the shade at aforementioned Lotus Blossom Cafe. Ate egg rolls. Next stopped at Refreshment Outpost where she purchased a large lemonade. Made one final stop at Yakitori House, consumed one order guydon and two teas.”

  “I’m glad it was her last stop,” Gwen said. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Stoner shushed her.

  “I’ll say this for your friend,” Stape said. “She sure gets around. Foodwise.”

  “She’s known for that,” Stoner said. “Is that the last time she was seen?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “So she could have left the park, or gone on a ride either here or in Magic Kingdom. Or anything.”

  “I’d put Magic Kingdom on the bottom of the list,” Gwen said. “Marylou’s intimidated by children. It’s hardly likely she’d seek out their company.”

  “That still leaves Disney-MGM,” Stape said. “Or she could have gone to the Village, or Fort Wilderness...”

  “In other words,” Stoner said glumly, “she could be anywhere.”

  “I’m afraid so. I’m sorry.”

  Okay, where do we go from here? She felt at a complete loss.

  “I really am sorry,” Stape said. She stared at the ground, her eyes turning down at the edges. She was beginning to resemble Eeyore on a particularly bad day.

  “It’s not your fault,” Stoner said.

  “George might come up with something. Someone might have seen her leave EPCOT.”

  “Maybe,” Stoner hoped she sounded encouraged. “The vendors here certainly are observant.”

  Stape looked uncomfortable. “Well
, she kind of drew attention to herself.”

  Stoner laughed. “Asked the ingredients in every bit of food, and how it was cooked. Right?”

  “Yeah,” Stape said. “She did.”

  “At least we know we’re talking about the right person,” Gwen said.

  * * *

  “So, tell me,” Marylou said as she dealt the cards, “when do I get to meet Mr. Big?”

  David rearranged his hand. “Huh?”

  “Mr. Big. Your boss.”

  “My client.” Darn, he had lousy cards again.

  “Well, when do I get to meet him?”

  “I don’t know.” He was beginning to wish he’d never taught her to play gin. She just kept winning. It made him feel like that poor slob in that old movie, “Born Yesterday.” The one that kept losing to the dumb blonde.

  Marylou drew a card and discarded something useless. “Who do you work for, anyway? The Mob?”

  David looked shocked. “I’m in business for myself.”

  Marylou shrugged. “I thought we might know some of the same people.”

  He glanced at her. “Same people?”

  “My father has friends in the Mob.”

  He eyed her suspiciously. “He does, huh?”

  She thought it might be a good idea to drop that little hint. It’d either make a connection, or make him nervous. She wasn’t going to give him names, of course. Or let on that her knowledge was limited to the few ex-members her stepfather had dealt with during his FBI days—men who’d fallen out of favor and come running to the Feds to save their tails. But it probably wasn’t such a good idea to let him know Max was FBI. It did put them on opposite sides of the street. “He’s retired,” she added.

  “From the Mafia?” David laughed. “You’re putting me on. Nobody retires from the Mafia.”

  “Well, not retired, exactly. More like inactive. Injured in the line of duty. They have an excellent Workers’ Compensation plan.” Marylou drew the six of hearts, which fit very nicely into her hand. If she could get the four of clubs, she’d be out. “Too bad you don’t work for them,” she said. “A bright young fellow like you could be a real comer.”