He waited to see if that would surprise her. It didn't. She just nodded. "You'd have to, to stay in business, wouldn't you? If you need bribe money, we can give you . . . some." By the way she bit her lip, the Woos didn't have a lot.
"I think it'll be all right," Paul said gently. The home timeline could give him as much of this America's money, real or counterfeit, as he wanted. He couldn't tell that to Lucy. He couldn't tell her anything about the home timeline. He was just glad small-time—and sometimes not so small-time—corruption was a way of life here. When he said he had connections, she believed him.
"When will I know if you've done anything?" she asked. "When will I know you aren't stringing me along?"
She had a good notion of the way the world could work, all right. "Meet me in the Japanese garden in Golden Gate Park day after tomorrow, about three o'clock," he said.
"I'll be at my job," Lucy said bleakly. "I can't get away. I especially can't get away with Father locked up."
She looked too young to have a full-time job. In the home timeline, she would have been. Things were different here. Paul said, "What time do you get off?"
"Six o'clock," she answered.
"Can you meet me there at six-thirty, then?" he asked. She nodded. He held out his hand. She shook it. They had a bargain— what sort of bargain, Paul didn't know yet.
Lucy thought her shift at the shoe factory would never end. She often felt that way, but it was especially bad tonight. At last, the whistle blew. She got to her feet, stretched, and headed for the clock to time out. She stuck the card in the slot, got it stamped, put it back in its place on the wall, and left the building.
When she waited at the bus stop down at the corner instead of just walking home, Mildred asked her, "Where are you going?" Any time you broke routine, people noticed. They wondered why.
"I've got to meet somebody about Father," Lucy answered. That satisfied the older woman. She probably thought Lucy meant a lawyer or somebody like that, but what she thought wasn't Lucy's worry.
The nickel that went into the fare box was. She hated to spend money. Her family never had enough of it. She didn't know anybody who did, either. But she couldn't walk to the park, not if she wanted to get there by half past six.
The Japanese garden there was one of her favorite spots. Gardeners kept it beautifully landscaped. When it wasn't too crowded with tourists, it was one of the most peaceful places she knew. The big bronze Buddha, green with age, stared out tranquilly over the flowers and ferns and shrubs. And there was the bridge across the stream. It was no ordinary bridge, but a great arc of a circle. You had to climb it to get to the top.
Lucy climbed it for a reason, not just for the fun of it. She could see farther from there than from any other spot in the garden, and Paul Gomes hadn't told her exactly where he wanted to meet. The Japanese garden didn't seem very big . . . till you were in it.
She met him, all right—he was climbing up the other side. She reached the top before he did. "Hello, there," she said.
"Hello, yourself," he answered, scrambling up to stand beside her on the brown-painted planking. "I came up here to look for you."
"I did the same thing," Lucy said. In a strange way, that pleased her. But such pleasures were just that—small. She stabbed out a forefinger. "What do you know about Father?"
"I don't know anything," Paul said. Lucy wanted to hit him, or to push him over the rail into the stream. That would surprise the colorful carp swimming down below. He went on, "I do know I've got an American police captain and an assistant district attorney asking the Germans questions about him."
"Talk is cheap," Lucy said. "We want him back. We miss him. We need him." Had Paul really done anything at all? Or was he just talking to make her feel better? She couldn't tell, and not knowing was a torture in itself.
He said, "I did find out your father's okay. They're holding him, yeah, but they haven't hurt him or anything."
"That's good," Lucy said. Again, she wondered if she could believe him. She wanted to. She wanted to very badly. That only made her more suspicious. Angrily, she demanded, "How do you know?"
"Captain Horvath found out for me," Paul answered. Now Lucy took him seriously. Everybody in Chinatown knew, or knew of, Fatty Horvath. Paul Gomes went on, "It's about even money whether the Germans come after my father and me next."
"You?" Lucy stared. Up there on top of that funny bridge, the idea seemed even more ridiculous than it would have somewhere else. "Why would they want to come after you? With the stuff Curious Notions has, you must be the goose that laid the golden eggs for them."
"Yeah, right," Paul said tightly. Lucy hadn't heard that slang phrase before, but she had no trouble figuring out what it meant. Her cheeks got hot. Paul added, "You remember what happened to the goose that laid the golden eggs, don't you?"
Till Paul reminded her, Lucy hadn't remembered. Now she did. They'd killed the goose, trying to figure out where the eggs came from. She said, "Is that why you people named my father? To get the Feldgendarmerie off your own necks?"
Paul nodded. He looked out across the garden, not at her. "That's right," he said, and then, after a small but noticeable pause, "I'm sorry."
By the way he said those last two words, they were an enormous gift to Lucy—a gift she probably didn't deserve. But he had said them. And, by the look on his face, he knew he couldn't take them back. Lucy said, "Sorry doesn't do anything. You talked to this lawyer fellow, and you talked to Fatty Horvath. But what happens if they can't get Father loose?"
"What do you want us to do then?" Paul asked. "Bust him out of jail?"
He plainly meant it for a joke. But Lucy found herself nodding. "Yes. That seems fair, doesn't it? He's in there on account of you." She studied him carefully. She didn't think she'd ever looked at anyone like that before. And she found herself nodding again. "I think maybe you can, too. With all those strange things you sell in that shop, who knows what else you've got in there?"
Now Paul's eyes snapped back to her. What was on his face was shock—shock and maybe fear to go with it. "You don't know what you're talking about," he said slowly.
The way he said it convinced Lucy he was lying. "Oh, don't I? What would happen if the Germans really tore that place apart? What would they find? How much trouble would you people be in?"
Paul turned white. Lucy had heard people talk about that, but she'd never seen it herself till now. She knew she'd made a hit. She just didn't know where. He hung on to the rail for a moment to steady himself. "We wouldn't be," he answered. "We'd jump in a hole and pull it in after us."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lucy asked. "There's nowhere in the world the Germans can't come after you. Well, maybe the middle of China, but you wouldn't fit in there very well."
He only shrugged. He didn't say anything more. By his sour, unhappy smile, he'd already said too much. Somehow, though, Lucy didn't think he'd been bragging or just plain lying. If he said he had a way to get free of the Germans, he probably did. But she couldn't imagine what it was.
"Who are you, Paul Gomes?" But that wasn't the right question. Lucy realized as much as soon as she asked it. What she really wanted to know was, What are you? On the other hand, she didn't get an answer even to the question she asked.
"You know what you are, Paul?" his father said. "You're an idiot." Paul gave back a sour smile. "I love you, too, Dad." "An idiot," his father repeated, relishing the word. "You think this local girl is cute, so you're ready to move heaven and earth to get her out of a scrape. If that doesn't make you an idiot, kindly tell me what would."