"You play games, I play games. Sam, I need a car and I don"t mean a beat-up Ford. A Cadillac. Doesn"t have to be new, but a cream puff, clean, and a good engine. A Cadillac and a few grand and we"ll be in Laredo by midnight, and in Monterrey by morning. I"ll call you from Mexico City and give you an address. If you really want me to go to Paraguay and stay there, you send the money to D. F. for me to do it."
It did not work out quite that way, but I settled for a used Pontiac and left with six thousand dollars in cash, and instructions to go to a particular used-car lot and accept the deal offered me - Sam would call and set it up. He agreed also to call the Hyatt and get us the bridal suite, and would see that they held it. Then I was to come back at ten the next morning.
I refused to get up that early. "Make that eleven. We"re still on our honeymoon."
Sam chuckled, slapped me on the back, and agreed.
Out in the corridor we headed toward the elevators but went ten feet farther and I opened the door to the fire-escape trunk. Margrethe followed me without comment but once inside the staircase trunk and out of earshot of others she said, "Alec, that man is not your friend."
"No, he"s not."
"I am afraid for you."
"I"m afraid for me, too."
"Terribly afraid. I fear for your life."
"My love, I fear for my life, too. And for yours. You are in danger as long as you are with me."
"I will not leave you!"
"I know. Whatever this is, we are in it together."
"Yes. What are our plans now?"
"Now we go to Kansas."
"Oh, good! Then we are not driving to Mexico?"
"Hon, I don"t even know how to drive a car."
We came out in a bas.e.m.e.nt garage and walked up a ramp to a side street. There we walked several blocks away from the Smith Building, picked up a cruising taxi, rode it to the Texas & Pacific Station, there picked up a taxi at the taxi rank, and rode it to Fort Worth, twenty-five miles west. Margrethe was very quiet on the trip. I did not ask her what she was thinking about because I knew: It can"t be happy-making to discover that a person you fell in love with was mixed up in some shenanigan that smelled Of gangsters and rackets". I made myself a solemn promise never to mention the matter to her.
In Fort Worth I had the hackie drop us on its most stylish shopping street, letting him pick it. Then I said to Marga, "Darling, I"m about to buy you a heavy gold chain."
"Goodness, darling! I don"t need a gold chain."
"We need it. Marga, the first time I was in this world with you, in Konge Knut - I learned that here the dollar was soft, not backed by gold, and every price I have seen today confirms that. So, if change comes again - and we never know - even the hard money of this world, quarters and half dollars and dimes, won"t be worth anything because they"re not really silver. As for the paper money I got from Crumpacker - waste paper!
"Unless I change it into something else. We"ll start with that gold chain and from here on you wear it to bed, you even wear it to bathe - unless you hang it around my neck."
"I see. Yes."
"We"ll buy some heavy gold jewelry for each of us, then I"m going to try to find a coin dealer - buy some silver cartwheels, maybe some gold coins. But my purpose is to get rid of most of this paper money in the next hour - all but the price of two bus tickets to Wichita, Kansas, three hundred and fifty miles north of here. Could you stand to ride a bus all night tonight? I want to get us out of Texas.
"Certainly! Oh, dear, I do want to get out of Texas! Truly, I"m still frightened."
"Truly, you are not alone."
"But -"
""But" what, dear? And quit looking sad."
"Alec, I haven"t had a bath for four days."
We found that jewelry shop, we found the coin shop; I spent about half that flat money and saved the rest for bus fare and other purposes in this world - such as dinner, which we ate as soon as the shops started to close. A hamburger we had eaten in Gainesville seemed an awfully long way off in time and s.p.a.ce. Then I determined that there was a bus going north - Oklahoma City, Wichita, Salina - at ten o"clock that evening. I bought tickets and paid an extra dollar on each to reserve seats. Then I threw money away like a drunken sailor took a room in a hotel across from the bus station, knowing that we would be checking out in less than two hours.
It was worth it. Hot baths for each of us, taking turns, each of us remaining fully dressed and carrying the other"s clothing, jewelry, and all the money while the other was naked and wet. And carrying my razor, which had become a talisman of how to outwit Loki"s playful tricks.
And new, clean underwear for each of us, purchased in pa.s.sing while we were converting paper money into valuta.
I had hoped for time enough for love - but no; by the time I was clean and dry we had to dress and check out to catch that bus. Never mind, there would be other times. We climbed into the bus, put the backrests back, put Marga"s head on my shoulder. As the bus headed north we fell asleep.
I woke up sometime later because the road was so rough. We were seated right behind the driver, so I leaned forward and asked, "Is this a detour?" I could not recall a rough stretch when we had ridden south on this same road about twelve hours earlier.
"No," he said. "We"ve crossed into Oklahoma, that"s all. Not much pavement in Oklahoma. Some near Oke City and a little between there and Guthrie."
The talk had wakened Margrethe; she straightened up. "What is it, dear?"
"Nothing. Just Loki having fun with us. Go back to sleep."
Chapter 21.
What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest.
And he said unto me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Therefore are they before the throne of G.o.d, And serve Him day and night in His temple.
Revelation 7:13-15
I WAS driving a horse and buggy and not enjoying it. The day was hot, the dust kicked up by horse"s hooves stuck to sweaty skin, flies were bad, there was no breeze. We were somewhere near the corner of Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, but I was not sure where. I had not seen a map for days and the roads were no longer marked with highway signs for the guidance of automobilists - there were no automobiles.
The last two weeks (more or less - I had lost track of the days) had been endless torments of Sisyphus, one ridiculous frustration after another. Sell silver dollars to a local dealer in exchange for that world"s paper? - no trouble; I did it several times. But it didn"t always help. Once I had sold silver for local paper money and we had ordered dinner - when, boom, another world change and we went hungry. Another time I was cheated outrageously and when I complained, I was told: "Neighbor, possession of that coin is illegal and you know it. I"ve offered you a price anyhow because I like you. Will you take it? Or shall I do my plain duty as a citizen?"
I took it. The paper money he gave us for five ounces of silver would not buy - dinner for Marga and me at a backwoods gourmet spot called "Mom"s Diner".
That was in a charming community called (by a sign at its outskirts):
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
A Clean Community Blackamoors, Kikes, Papists Keep Moving!
We kept moving. That whole two weeks had been spent trying to travel-the two hundred miles from Oklahoma City to Joplin, Missouri. I had been forced to give up the notion of avoiding Kansas City. I still had no intention of staying in or near Kansas City, not when a sudden change of worlds could land us in Abigail"s lap. But I had learned in Oklahoma City that the fastest and indeed the only practical route- to Wichita was a long detour through Kansas City. We had retrogressed to the horse-and-buggy era.
When you consider the total age of the earth, from Creation in 4004 BC to the year of Our Lord I994, or 5998 years - call it 6000 - in a period of 6000 years, 80 or 90 years is nothing much. And that is how short a time it has been since the horse-and-buggy day in my world. My father was born in that day (1909) and my paternal grandfather not only never owned an automobile but refused to ride in one. He claimed that they were sp.a.w.n of the Devil, and used to quote pa.s.sages from Ezekiel to prove it. Perhaps he was right.
But the horse-and-buggy era does have -shortcomings. There are obvious ones such as no inside plumbing, no air conditioning, no modern medicine. But for us there was an un.o.bvious but major one; where there are no trucks and no cars there is effectively no hitchhiking. Oh, it is sometimes possible to hitch rides on farm wagons - but the difference in speed between a human"s walk and a horse"s walk is not great. We rode when we could but, either way, fifteen miles was a good day"s progress - too good; it left no time to work for meals and a place to sleep.
There is an old paradox, Achilles and the Tortoise, in which the remaining distance to your goal is halved at each The question is: How long does it take to reach your goal? The answer is: You can"t get there from here.