As steadily as he could, Paul said, "Shoot me and you'll never find out any of the answers you want."
"Not from you, maybe." Bob Lee shrugged. "I know where someone else who's got them is stashed." He had a smile only a reptile could love. But the pistol vanished as fast as it had appeared. "You have some explaining to do. How did you get away from my ... associates? They said you must have used some of your special tricks, because they were watching you all the time."
Now Paul laughed. Bob Lee's eyebrows rose a millimeter or two. Paul said, "If I had as many special tricks as you think I do, would I be in the mess I'm in?"
"Who knows?" Lee's voice was hard and flat. "Anyone can have things go wrong—anyone at all. Now answer my question. How did you get away?"
Paul thought about jumping him. Then he thought better of it. He said, "No special tricks, not like you mean," and told what he'd done at the cafe.
The man from the Tongs studied him. At last, Lee gave a reluctant nod. "Okay. I believe you. I think you caught them napping. I don't think you'll catch them napping again. You'd better not, or I'll have some new associates." He didn't say what would happen to the ones who'd been watching Paul. Paul didn't think they would just get a lecture.
He said, "What are you going to do with what you get from my dad and me? I can tell you, it won't be as much as you think it is. We don't work miracles."
"Close enough," Bob Lee said. "Some of the things you were selling . . ." He eyed Paul like an eagle eyeing a rabbit. After a moment, he went on, "What will we do? Some people have been in the driver's seat here for a long time. Now, maybe it's the turn of some other people." He didn't quite point a thumb at his own chest, but he might as well have.
"How will you be better than the Germans?" Paul asked. "Will you be better than the Germans?"
For a split second, naked surprise showed on Lee's face. Plainly, being better than the Germans had never occurred to him. It probably hadn't occurred to anyone else in the San Francisco Tongs or back in China, either. All they thought about was being on top. Paul wasn't surprised. He couldn't say he wasn't disappointed.
At last, Lee answered, "We won't be the Kaiser. We won't be the Feldgendarmerie. Is that enough?"
"What do I know? I'm just the goose with the golden eggs, remember?"
Lee's laugh was anything but amused. "Some goose."
"Have it your way." Paul shrugged. "Looks like you will anyhow. But if you put the Emperor of China where the Kaiser used to sit and the men from the Tongs move into the Feldgendarmerie offices, what's really changed? Why should anybody who isn't part of your gang even care whether you win or lose?"
Would Bob Lee even understand what he was talking about? A lot of people who made revolutions made them for their own sake and thought no more about it. Lee, meanwhile, studied him again, this time with a different kind of surprise.
"You think about these things, don't you?" Lee said.
"I hope so," Paul answered. "Do you?"
"I also hope so," the older man said. "I know this, though: whatever I think doesn't matter till we overthrow the Germans. If we don't do that, if we can't do that, nothing else matters. Nothing at all."
Paul would have liked to tell him he was wrong. He would have liked to, but he couldn't. He said, "I'll tell you what matters to me. Getting my father out of jail matters to me, that's what."
Lee rose. "I think maybe we have to do that. If he talks to the Germans and you talk to us, nobody is better off. So all right, we take care of it."
He walked out of the room with no more good-bye than that. He wouldn't be trying to free Paul's father as a favor now. He'd be doing it because he saw an advantage for himself in the doing. That meant he was much likelier to get the job done.
Lucy kept walking past Curious Notions every so often. No one in that neighborhood knew who she was. She strolled right by San Francisco policemen and Feldgendarmerie officers. Neither Americans nor Germans gave her any special notice. Why should they have? Whoever she was, she obviously wasn't Paul Gomes.
Sometimes the Feldgendarmerie men had their big Alsatians with them. The dogs took no notice of Lucy, either. She was glad of that. They were even meaner than most of the Germans who led them.
Little by little, the Germans and their American stooges began to pay less attention to Curious Notions. Or maybe they just paid less obvious attention to the store. All Lucy knew was that she saw them less often. No, she knew one other thing, too: she didn't miss them a bit.
She'd just walked past a Feldgendarmerie sergeant with an Alsatian when the dog began to bark. The noise sounded like ripping canvas. Lucy jumped. When she turned around, the sergeant was tugging on the leash for all he was worth. "Nein, Fritz!" he shouted. "Nein!"
Fritz wasn't interested in Lucy. He was trying to get a marmalade cat. And the cat seemed ready for him. Its ears were flat against its skull, its back arched, the fur on its tail puffed out till it looked like a bottle brush. Its green eyes blazed. A snarl showed off needle teeth. That the Alsatian would have made a mouthful of it seemed to bother it not a bit. It would go down swinging.
"Fritz!" the Feldgendarmerie man yelled again. He gave the leash a yank that must have almost choked the Alsatian. With a last growl and then a yelp, the dog came. The sergeant tipped his cap to Lucy. In accented English, he said, "Sorry if he scare you, miss. Dogs and cats, ja?"
"Dogs and cats," Lucy agreed. She liked cats better herself. The sergeant led the dog away. Lucy knelt by the red tabby. She didn't hold her hand out. The cat had been ready to fight. It might bite or claw her. She just waited to see what it would do next.
It eyed her. When she didn't do anything, it started licking a paw and using the wet fur to wash its face. Then it washed its side for a while, and then started nibbling at the tufts of hair between its back toes. It also gnawed at one of its hind claws. She could hear the noise of its teeth. It sounded like a man biting his nails.
After the cat finished taking care of its person, it looked up. It seemed mildly surprised to find Lucy still there. Now she did stretch out her hand towards it. She was ready to snatch it back as fast as she could. But the marmalade cat leaned forward till it seemed about to topple over. It didn't, of course. It sniffed her fingers, then rubbed the side of its head against her hand and started to purr.
"Hello!" Lucy said softly. "Hello!" She scratched behind its ears and stroked its nose. It purred louder. After a minute or so, though, it shook its head till its ears rattled. Then it trotted off, tail held high, as if it had just remembered it was late for dinner with a friend. It didn't look back once.
Lucy wished she could go where she pleased when she pleased. She wished she could make friends and forget about them, both in the blink of an eye. She wished she were a cat, in other words. She wasn't, and she couldn't do any of those things. She could only wish.
When she got home, she went into the kitchen to help Mother with supper, the way she usually did. Instead of handing her a knife or a spoon or an eggbeater, Mother said, "There's something in the mail for you."
"Is there?" Lucy said—that was always a small event, a break from routine. "Who's it from?"
"I don't know. No return address." Her mother paused and then added, "Whoever it is, he has very nice handwriting."
"Oh." That disappointed Lucy, though she tried not to show it. She'd hoped the mail came from Paul, and his handwriting was pretty ordinary. You could read it, but you couldn't say it was anything special.