And she'd know the whole crosstime secret, not just most of it. That wouldn't do, either.
Could things get better here? Could the United States be free again, after close to a century and a half of getting its nose rubbed in the dirt? Could the Chinese help? Would they help, or would they just want to be top dogs instead of the Germans? Those were all good questions. Paul had answers to none of them.
He wondered what Lucy thought. Everything kept coming back to her. That was . .. interesting. He hadn't realized she'd got so far under his skin. He'd never kissed her, never even held her hand. She wasn't under his skin like that, exactly. But he liked her. More than that, he admired her. She had problems bigger than any he'd ever imagined—till now, anyhow. She didn't even know how big some of them were, because they were the problems of this whole alternate. No matter how big and how tough they were, she carried on. She didn't complain or make a fuss. She just did what she needed to do. He admired that, too.
What about me? Paul wondered. What do I need to do? How do I need to do it? Lucy seemed to know without even thinking about it. Paul had an idea of what he needed to do: get Dad out of jail and get back to the home timeline. How? That was a different question.
He also didn't know what he ought to do now that he could do it without leaving the Tongs any the wiser. He realized he should have thought that out before escaping his followers. Now he was all dressed up with no place to go. And if he had to get free of them again, it wouldn't be so easy. They'd know he could, so they'd keep a tighter watch on him.
Maybe I ought to go back. Maybe I ought to pretend I didn't know they weren't keeping an eye on me. Paul shook his head. He couldn't stand that. He had managed to get away. Not doing something with his new-found freedom seemed a criminal waste.
Casually, his hands in his pockets, he ambled in the direction of Curious Notions. Who could say what might turn up? If he didn't go and take a look around, he'd never find out.
"Lucy, where is Frances Klingerman's personnel folder?" Mrs. Cho asked.
"Isn't it in the maternity file?" Lucy asked. The sewing-machine operator had had a baby boy a week earlier.
"Oh," Mrs. Cho said. "Let me check there." She did, and then nodded. "Yes, I have it. Thank you."
"You're welcome," Lucy said. She made a face behind her supervisor's back. Mrs. Cho knew everything there was to know about the shoe factory's paperwork. She understood company policy and rules and regulations in a way Lucy wouldn't for years and years. Most of the time, she knew where all the folders were, and which papers lurked in each one.
But she didn't know Frances Klingerman had had a baby. She didn't have the faintest idea who Frances Klingerman was. To her, the woman was jut a name on a label on a manila folder. Lucy had worked a few machines away from the new mother. She knew her husband stayed out at night in saloons, and sometimes came home drunk and mean. She knew how the little girl the Klingermans already had was starting to lose her baby teeth. She knew Frances liked to eat sandwiches with really smelly cheese in them for lunch.
Frances Klingerman was a person to her. The woman was nothing but her folder to Mrs. Cho. That seemed wrong to Lucy. What seemed even wronger was that Mrs. Cho could fire Frances Klinger-man or demote her or cut her pay without ever finding out who she was.
Then, all of a sudden, Lucy shivered. If she stayed in the personnel office till she was as old as her supervisor, wouldn't she learn all the ropes? Wouldn't she find out everything there was to know about policies and rules and regulations? Wouldn't she stop thinking about the people who actually made the shoes—stop thinking of them as people? Wouldn't they just turn into ... folders for her? Wouldn't she turn into Mrs. Cho?
She'd never had a scarier thought.
What can I do about it? How can I help it? Like a trapped animal, she looked around the office. Where was the way out? How could she help becoming what her supervisor already was?
Did they have offices like this in the world Paul came from? If they'd figured out how to make the Sunset District a nice place, wouldn't they also know how to turn work into something people could stand or even enjoy? She sighed. They sure hadn't done that here.
Enjoy it or not, she kept going till the end of the day. Every time she took care of something without even thinking about it, she worried. Am I turning into Mrs. Cho? She hoped not. She wouldn't have had to wonder about anything like that if she'd stayed at her sewing machine. Nothing could have made her turn into somebody like Hank Simmons.
She felt even more tired than usual when she started for home. Putting one-foot in front of the other took work. But she kept going. She wondered how Paul was doing. Next to the worries he had, hers were small potatoes.
Thinking about Paul also made her think about Curious Notions. She wondered if Feldgendarmerie men still lurked inside.
She also wondered if the Triads had come by to grab whatever they could. How much would the Germans have left? Was there stuff inside the Germans didn't know about? Was it stuff Paul might have told the Triads about?
It won't hurt to take a look, Lucy told herself. Nobody will pay any attention to me if I just walk by. Vm only another face. For that matter, Vm only another Chinese face. The Feldgendarmerie will think I look like every other Chinese girl in San Francisco.
Talking yourself into doing something dangerous and foolish could be amazingly easy. Lucy didn't worry about that till later— which only went to show how easy it was.
Almost before she knew it, she was walking up the street toward Curious Notions. Paul would have told her she was dumb. Her father would have told her she was dumb. Even Michael would have told her she was dumb. She didn't want to think about what her mother would have told her. She walked up the street anyhow.
And she turned out not to be the only one drawn like a moth to the flame. Paul stood across the street from Curious Notions, leaning against a telephone pole. He seemed casual enough, till she saw his face. He eyed the shop he and his father had run the way a hungry dog eyed at a steak.
He eyed Curious Notions—and didn't even notice the two big, beefy cops sneaking up behind him. The cops looked like something out of a bad movie. They were so obvious, people should have been pointing at them or running away from them. And people were.
Everybody except Paul, whose attention was elsewhere.
"Look out!" Lucy yelled. "They're after you!"
Paul jumped a foot in the air. When he came down, he took off as if he had wings on his shoes.
"Stop!" one of the policemen yelled.
"Stop in the name of the law!" the other one added. They both pounded after him. They didn't draw their guns. Lucy thought that was interesting. They wanted him, all right, but they wanted him alive.
She put her head down and kept walking. The policemen hadn't noticed who she was. They'd been watching Paul as hard as he'd been watching Curious Notions. They had no idea who'd shouted the warning.
One of them blew a whistle—Tweeeeet! The long, shrill blast of sound did nothing to slow Paul down. The cop blew again anyway— Tweeeeet! Paul scooted around a corner. Big black shoes thumping on the pavement, the policemen gave chase. He was speedier than Lucy had thought he would be. The two cops weren't going to catch him unless he fell down and sprained his ankle—or unless they started shooting.
Before long, Lucy heard sirens. More policemen were coming. She hoped Paul would get away. She couldn't do anything more for him right now. It was only luck that she'd been able to do what she had. She walked faster. Some helpful soul was liable to tell the cops what the girl who'd shouted out that warning looked like. Better if she wasn't there when that happened.