"That's about what I thought. Do you want to come home for supper with me? There's always room for one more." Lucy wasn't sure her mother would agree with her, but even if she didn't, Paul would never know it. Mother would feed him till he was stuffed even if everybody in the family went hungry. Pride ran deep in her.
Paul started to nod, but then caught himself. "I'd better not. It's not because I don't want to, but it probably wouldn't be safe for you. If the Germans are still keeping an eye on your dad, and they see me show up ... That wouldn't be good, not even a little bit."
He was right. Lucy knew it as soon as she heard what he said. "It's not fair," she said, but she also knew fair didn't have anything to do with it. It was smart. It was sensible.
"Take care of yourself, and thanks one more time," Paul said. "I'll probably see you again before too long."
"I guess you will," Lucy said. It wasn't as if they were going out. They had a bond even so. "Where are you staying now?"
"Tenderloin District." He made a face. So did Lucy. The Tenderloin made the Sunset District seem like a Sunday picnic in Golden Gate Park. Paul went on, "I don't think I'd better say just where. What you don't know, nobody can make you tell."
Did he mean the Feldgendarmerie or the Triads? Either way, once more he made more sense than Lucy wished he did. He had a way of making sense. She'd noticed that. Most people blathered on and on, but he came straight to the point. Not even Stanley Hsu could match him. The jeweler was just as smart, maybe smarter— Lucy wasn't sure she'd ever met anybody as smart as Stanley Hsu. But he enjoyed talking around things, talking in riddles, perhaps to show off how smart he was. Paul Gomes didn't waste time fooling around. Lucy liked that better.
"I'd better go." Paul made as if to shake her hand, then seemed to think better of it. With a quick little nod, he hurried off toward the west.
Lucy found herself wishing he hadn't thought better of it. He's shy, she realized in surprise. He hides it pretty well, but he is.
With Paul gone, there wasn't much point to standing in front of the jewelry store. She went on up into Chinatown to her crowded apartment.
Her mother greeted her with, "You're late. How come?" She explained. As she did, her mother's face got longer and longer. "All these people at Curious Notions are nothing but trouble. Nothing but trouble, I tell you."
"Not quite nothing," Lucy said. "Without them, Father might still be in jail."
"Without them, he wouldn't have gone to jail in the first place," Mother pointed out. Lucy made an unhappy face, for that was true, too. But then her mother added, "You should have brought him home to supper. Chicken stew tonight. I could have put on some extra rice to make it stretch. It's about time the rest of us meet this mysterious fellow, don't you think?"
Before Lucy answered, she gave her mother a hug. Then she said, "I did ask him, but he didn't want to come. He said it could bring more trouble down on us if the Germans were watching and saw him here."
"Oh." Mother thought that over. Her mouth tightened. When she nodded, she plainly didn't want to. "I won't tell you he's wrong. I wish I could, but I can't. Should I be glad he's doing us that kind of favor?"
"I don't know," Lucy said. "Would you be glad if he didn't?"
"No-o-o," her mother said slowly. Then she turned away, as if she didn't want Lucy to see what she was thinking. "Go set the table, will you? Supper will be ready in a few minutes."
"Yes, Mother," Lucy said—almost always a safe answer.
Paul wished he knew what was going on inside the Feldgendarmerie jail. How hard were the Kaiser's men squeezing Dad? What was he saying? Paul had no way to find out. The people at Curious Notions had made friends with some San Francisco cops. That often came in handy. Paul didn't want to test it now. The Americans might feel they had to turn him in to the German masters. One mistake like that would be his last.
He would have liked to stay in his hotel room all the time. But he couldn't. For one thing, he'd go stir-crazy cooped up in there with nothing to do. For another, who would do anything for his father if he stayed? Dad could be a pain in the neck sometimes—even a lot of the time. But he was family. He would do whatever he could for Paul. Paul had to do the same for him.
And besides, the sooner Dad was out, the less chance he'd spill the secret of crosstime travel. That would be very bad, not just for him, and not just for Crosstime Traffic, either. It would be bad for who could say how many different alternates.
Paul did venture out every so often, then. Whenever he did, he wished he had eyes in the back of his head till he got out of the Tenderloin District. Then, as soon as he came close to Curious Notions, he started wishing for them all over again. He wasn't just watching for cops and crooks there. Anybody who'd ever known him in this San Francisco might betray him.
He wished he dared go into the shop. Had the Feldgendarmerie discovered the underground room in which the transposition chamber appeared? That could be bad enough all by itself. But the Germans might still have people there waiting to scoop him up. If they didn't, they might have sensors to let them know he was there. Their best gadgets weren't as good as the ones from the home timeline, but they didn't have to be. Paul had no gadgets of his own right now.
Sighing, shaking his head, he turned the corner—and almost walked into a San Francisco policeman. "Sorry," the cop said politely, tipping his hat. He had a face like the map of Ireland. Then his green eyes narrowed. "The Gomes kid! What are you doing here? Have you lost all of your mind?"
"Hello, Andy." Paul got ready to run like the devil. Andy O'Connell's belly stuck out over his belt. He'd eaten a lot of donuts and burgers and chop suey in his years on the beat. He couldn't run any faster than a dump truck. But he had a big pistol strapped to his hip. If he pulled it out and started shooting, he didn't need to run fast.
He kept staring at Paul. "The Kaiser's bully boys want to lock you up and lose the key. You know that?" He didn't make any move for the gun, or for his handcuffs, or for Paul.
"Yeah, I know that. But I don't know why," Paul said. "I didn't do anything."
'The bulletin says 'suspicion of subversion,'" the policeman told him. 'That's what the Germans say when they want somebody and don't want to talk about why. They don't even want us to know why they want you." He spat on the sidewalk to show what he thought of that.
Hope flowered in Paul. He'd always thought Andy O'Connell was a pretty decent guy. He hadn't trusted him far enough to take a chance on him, but now he didn't seem to have much choice. "Is Dad okay?" he asked. "Do you know?"
"I haven't heard that he's not, but I don't know if I would," the cop answered. "You want I should ask around a little? I can do it so it doesn't look funny."
"Would you?" Paul said eagerly. "That'd be great."
"Do my best," O'Connell said. "Meantime, you should make like a tree, and leaf. Find a hole. Jump in. Cover it up over you. The Feldgendarmerie wants you, sonny. They want you bad."
"Now tell me one I didn't know," Paul said.
The Irishman eyed him with real curiosity. "What the devil did you do?" He held up a hand before Paul could answer. "Don't tell me again you didn't do anything. Nobody every did anything, not since the world was new. I'll ask it a different way. What do the Kaiser's boys think you did? If I know that, it'll help me ask the right questions."
No doubt that was true. But anything even close to the truth would be dangerous to Paul. He said, "I can't tell you, because I don't know. All I know is, they grabbed Dad while I wasn't home." That last was the truth, but only a tiny part of it.
"Uh-huh." As cops will, O'Connell had developed a fine-tuned sense of what was so and what wasn't. He didn't come right out and call Paul a liar, but he didn't believe him, either. He shrugged broad shoulders. "Well, like I said, I'll see what I can do. Meantime, you get lost."