After that, he clicked his heels, of all things, as if Lucy and her mother were German noblewomen. He and the goons he led stamped out of the apartment. Lucy stared at her mother. Her mother was staring back. Again, they both said the same thing at the same time: "What are we going to do?"
"Hire a lawyer?" Lucy asked, trying to answer the desperate question.
Her mother laughed. The sound was so high and shrill, it wasn't far from hysteria. "Where would we get the money? And even if we had it, why would the Germans pay any attention to what a lawyer says? It sounds like they think we're some kind of spies. How's that for ridiculous?" She laughed again, sounding even wilder than before.
"I'll tell you what's ridiculous," Lucy said grimly. "What's ridiculous is the people at Curious Notions saying they got their stuff from Father. Why would they do that? It's a lie. Father wants to know where they get it himself."
"Who knows if they even did?" her mother said. "That German might have made it up just to confuse us."
Lucy hadn't thought of that. After a few seconds, she shook her head. "No, that's too crazy, Mother. There is something funny about Curious Notions. Father noticed. Would it be any big surprise if the Feldgendarmerie noticed, too?"
"What difference does it make?" Bitterness filled her mother's voice. "They've got your father. That's the only thing that matters. If we had the money, we might pay them to let him go. But they'd just laugh at the sort of bribe we're able to give. They'd throw us in jail for insulting them."
She was bound to be right. E you had enough money, you could get away with anything. The Woos had never had enough money. There were Chinese moneylenders who might give them enough this once. Lucy knew why her mother hadn't said anything about them. Better to be in trouble with the Germans than with the moneylenders. The Germans would kill you, and without a second thought. The moneylenders would kill your children, gloat about it, and then kill you. Father wouldn't deal with them no matter what.
But did no matter what really stretch this far?
"They just look like ordinary people." Lucy knew she sounded bewildered. "We're ordinary people, too. Why would they want to pick on us?"
"Who cares what they look like?" her mother answered. "They've got some scheme going. We must have got in the way. If you're little, that's all it takes. People who are big think they can step on you, and they're usually right."
How could you argue with that? Everything that went on proved how true it was. "It's not fair," Lucy said.
"What is?" her mother replied, another question without an answer. Mechanically, she started picking clothes up off the floor, folding them, and putting them back in drawers. Just as mechanically, Lucy helped her. Lucy's hands knew what to do with sweaters and undershirts and unballed socks. As long as her hands were busy, the clamor in her head eased a little.
It eased, but it didn't go away. The same questions kept gnawing at her. Why had Curious Notions lied about her father? Where did the shop get the gadgets it sold? Why were the Germans so interested in it?
And, above those, the one that really mattered: what would the Feldgendarmerie do with—do to—Father?
Three
Curious Notions stayed open on Sundays. It did a lot of its business then. People who were too busy the rest of the week came in to spend their money. Paul wondered if he would have enough game sets and portable stereo players to last till the next shipment from the home timeline came in.
Not everybody who walked through the door could afford to buy. Merchandise stayed in cases or firmly fastened to walls till customers showed cash. Things got stolen every now and again even so. That annoyed Paul, but less than it would have had the store been his personal source of income. As things were, theft was Crosstime Traffic's worry, not his.
An Asian girl not far from his own age walked up and down the aisles. She paused now here, now there. Her clothes were neat but shabby. Paul didn't think she could afford to get anything, but she didn't seem to want to leave. She kept looking around at the other customers. He began to wonder if she was there to pick pockets, not to look at fancy electronics. But she didn't get near anybody else. In fact, she shied away from other people.
After a while, Paul discovered she was watching them hoping they would go away. That took some time. Finally, though, she was the only person in the place besides him. Even then, she needed a moment to get up the nerve to come to the counter.
Maybe she wanted to buy something after all. "What can I help you with today?" Paul asked in his smoothest tones.
The answer he got was not what he expected. The Asian girl glared at him as if she'd just found him on the bottom of her shoe. In a fierce whisper, she said, "What have you done to my father?"
Paul blinked. Was she nuts? Did she think he was somebody else? "Miss, I haven't done anything to your father," he said carefully. "Why do you think I have? No offense, but I don't even know who he is."
"He's Charlie Woo, that's who," she said, as if he ought to know who Charlie Woo was. His expression must have shown he didn't. That only made her angrier. She pointed a forefinger. "Don't try to pretend you don't know about him, either. You can't fool me. When the Feldgendarmerie arrested him, they said you people said you got your stuff from him. That's a lie, and you know it!" She was quivering with fury.
And then the name did ring a bell. He'd had his lunch across from Charlie Woo's little shop. Yes, Woo was one of the men Dad had fingered for Inspector Weidenreich. He'd been nothing but a name in the phone book to Paul. But names in the phone book didn't have angry teenage daughters. Charlie Woo, on the other hand . . .
"You do know something!" the girl exclaimed. "Don't try to tell me different, either. I can see it in your face."
Paul had never been a very good poker player. "I—" he began, and stopped. He didn't know where to go from there.
"Why did you do it? Why?" Charlie Woo's daughter demanded. "The Germans have him in jail, and they won't let him go. What are we going to do? I've got a little brother. How are we supposed to make ends meet without Father? What can we do?" She looked ready to burst into tears—either that or take a gun from her purse and start shooting.
And the strange thing was, he didn't see how he could blame her. Right before his eyes, she stopped being somebody from an alternate, somebody who mattered to him no more than a character in a video game, and turned into a human being. He still understood why his father had done what he did. Now, though, he also understood what that had done to Charlie Woo's family. Till this girl came in, he hadn't cared. Curious Notions' troubles with the Germans had counted for more. Things suddenly looked different.
"I'll do what I can," Paul said. "I don't know how much that will be, but we'll find out."
Now she stared at him as if she couldn't believe her ears. "You will?" She sounded astonished, too.
"I said so, didn't I?" Paul answered, and wondered how much trouble he'd just let himself in for. "Uh, I'm Paul. What's your name?"
"Lucy," she said, and then, "Why did you get my father in so much trouble if you're willing to help him now?"
That was a good question. He wished he had a good answer for it. Since he didn't, he said, "It was a mistake, that's all. I'll see if I can fix it." That seemed better than telling her, My dad and I didn't think of your father as a human being at all. We just needed to get Inspector Weidenreich out of our hair for a while.
"What will you do?" Lucy asked. She wasn't quite giving him a my-hero look, but she wasn't measuring him for a coffin, either.
There was another question for which he wished he had a good answer. Again, he did the best he could: "I don't think the Germans will listen to me all by myself. But I've got some pretty good connections with American policeman and officials, people the Germans will pay attention to."