What kind of Sunset District would a San Francisco like that have? One nicer than the tough, grimy horror that held Thirty-third Avenue here? One that was nice enough to have turned out somebody like Paul Gomes?
Lucy laughed one more time. You're crazy, she said to herself. A sparrow hopping around by her feet looked up at her. It didn't think she was crazy. It just wanted a piece of her bun. She tossed down a few crumbs. The little bird got one. More sparrows and pigeons nabbed the rest.
But even though Lucy kept laughing, she kept thinking hard, too. Another San Francisco made more sense the longer she looked at the idea. It would explain how she'd felt Paul was telling the truth and lying at the same time when he said he'd grown up here. It would also explain how Curious Notions got curious things. Simple—they just came from that other San Francisco.
The golden city on lots of hills, she thought. Had the Triads had the same idea? Was that why Stanley Hsu had told her to ask Paul where he was from? The notion would explain everything except how Paul and his father and everything in Curious Notions got to this San Francisco, to everyday, ordinary San Francisco. Magic. It would have to be magic. She didn't exactly disbelieve in magic. Plenty of magicians and fortune-tellers in Chinatown said they could make you healthy, happy, wealthy, and wise—for a price, of course. Of course.
But if magic really worked the way people said it did, how come everybody wasn't healthy, happy, wealthy, and wise? How come so many magicians and fortunetellers weren't healthy, happy, wealthy, and wise?
See? You're being silly, Lucy told herself. But was she really?
Sure as sure, the Triads couldn't believe anything connected with Curious Notions really belonged to this world, either.
If not by magic, though, how had Paul Gomes got here? Lucy imagined an airplane flying from that other San Francisco, wherever it was, to this one. That did it. Shaking her head, she turned to Peggy. "Let's go home," she said. When she got ideas that silly, it was time to call it a day.
Heading for the produce market with two hundred dollars in his pockets, Paul felt rich. That was pretty funny, when you got right down to it. In the home timeline, two benjamins would buy him a burger, but not the fries and the soda to go with it. Here, he could live for months on two hundred dollars—not that he'd call it living.
So many things even the richest man in this alternate couldn't have. Nobody here had ever heard of neobiotics, let alone subflex-ive fasartas. Poor devils, he thought with mild sympathy.
Paul wasn't someone who liked making noise for the sake of making noise. He had to be noisy at the produce market. If he'd kept quiet, nobody would have noticed him. Farmers and customers shouted at one another. Their fingers flashed in price signals—and other gestures. Half of what they yelled singed Paul's ears.
Sellers liked him because he was willing to go high. Buyers swore at him for bumping up prices. But he didn't get the deals he thought he'd clinched. The Tongs must have got there ahead of him. As soon as sellers found out who he was, they didn't want to deal with him any more.
"Beat it, kid," one of them said, not unkindly. "I'm gonna have to unload my scallions on somebody else."
"Why?" Paul demanded. "You won't come close to getting my price, and you know it."
"Maybe not." The farmer shrugged. He lit a cigarette, which disgusted Paul almost as much as wearing furs. "I'll tell you this, though—whatever price I do get for 'em, I'll be in one piece to spend it." He blew three smoke rings, one right after another. That fascinated Paul and grossed him out at the same time.
He said the only thing he thought might help: "How would they know?"
"Kid, they'd know." The fellow with the scallions had no doubts at all. He was probably right, too, even if Paul didn't want to admit it.
Paul left the produce market much less cheerful than he'd gone there. What good was his money if he couldn't use it? No good at all. He might as well have been trying to pass benjamins in this alternate.
What would his father say when he came back with all the money and without any deals for produce? Dad wouldn't be very happy. That was putting it mildly. Paul shrugged. If Dad thought he could buy, he was welcome to try it himself. Paul didn't think he'd have any better luck. The farmers didn't want to deal with the people from Curious Notions. Paul shook his head. No, that wasn't it. The farmers were scared to deal with the people from Curious Notions. There was a difference, a big difference.
How far did the Tongs reach here? Down into the Central Valley, certainly. Across the sea to China, probably. How much could they do against the power of the Kaiser? Not enough to overthrow it, plainly. But enough to give it a hard time in and near San Francisco? It sure looked that way.
Around the last corner. Heading for home, or the closest thing Paul had to a home in this alternate. The marmalade cat came out of Curious Notions and trotted over to rub up against him. He was bending down to pet it before he realized the front door shouldn't have been open like that. He straightened and started to run towards it.
Somebody shouted, "Get out of here, fool, before they grab you, too!"
That was bound to be good advice. Paul hurried into Curious Notions anyhow. The shelves were bare. Whoever they were, they'd carted off all the merchandise.
"Dad?" Paul called, hoping against hope.
No reply. Only silence. He went up the stairs two at a time. He knew he could be walking into a trap, but he did it anyhow. His father wasn't up there. Luckily for him, neither was anyone else. They had torn the apartment over the shop to pieces again. Paul's stomach felt as if it had jumped out a fifth-story window. What was he going to do now?
The answer formed on the heels of the question. He was going to get out before they came back and grabbed him, too. First, escape. Everything else could come later—if there was a later.
Seven
"I have news," Lucy Woo's father said over dinner, and then, "Pass the mushrooms and broccoli, please."
The bowl sat in front of Lucy. She sent it down the table. When Father served himself and didn't say anything more, she asked, "What is the news?"
He looked at her for a moment before answering. Then, his voice oddly flat, he said, "They've closed Curious Notions."
"What? Paul Gomes and his father?" Lucy couldn't believe it. "Why would they do that? They had to be making money hand over fist."
Father shook his head. "I don't think the people who ran it closed it. I think they had it closed for them." He sat very straight in his chair and looked stern and serious. When people in the United States did something like that, they always meant the Germans. "Everything was gone. You could look in the window and see that. And the neighbors say the wagons were there the other day."
"How terrible!" Lucy said. "Can we do anything for them?"
Normally, that would have been a dumb question. J£ the Feld-gendarmerie took you away, odds were you were gone for good. But not always. Father was here mixing vegetables and rice to prove that. Mother said, "Maybe you can do something, Lucy. You're the one who knows the Triad people."