But Plumtree caught his shoulder. “Don’t be a person in a hurry,” she said breathlessly. She linked her arm through his, wincing as her swollen knuckles bumped his elbow. “It’s lucky we’re a couple. Just be a guy out for a stroll by the madhouse with his girlfriend, right?”
“Right.” With his free hand he reached back through the bars of the fence and pushed the bench away; the clatter of it hitting the cement pavement in the yard was lost in the crashing cacophony shaking out through the sprung window. “What’s my girlfriend’s name?” he asked as they began walking—a little hurriedly, in spite of her advice—along the tree-shadowed fence toward the lane that led out to Rosecrans Boulevard.
“I’m Janis again. Cody came back just now like somebody fired out of a cannon, so don’t tell me what happened—okay?—or you’ll just have Valerie on your hands. It’s enough to know that you agreed about escaping, and that we’ve done it.” She gave him a frightened smile. “Let’s make like a tree, and leave.”
He nodded, and though his breathing was slowing down, his heart was still knocking in his chest. “Put an egg in your shoe and beat it,” he responded absently. He could see the corner of the fence ahead, and it was all he could do not to walk even faster. “I did agree, in the end.”
He was remembering a pair of shoes Nina had bought for him, actually leather hiking boots. They were only about an eighth of an inch bigger than his ordinary shoes at any point, but he had constantly found himself catching the sides of them against furniture, and tripping on the tread edges when he’d go upstairs, and generally kicking things he hadn’t realized were in his way; and it had occurred to him that in his ordinary old shoes, as he had routinely walked through each day, he must have been only narrowly missing collisions and entanglements with every thoughtless step.
What size shoe am I wearing now? he thought giddily. I’m not walking any differently, but lately I’ve collided with a man who can talk with my dead wife’s voice, and who can reach out and grab you across a room with a hand he hasn’t got; and I’ve run afoul of a doctor who wants to keep me locked up in a crazy ward and give electro-shock treatments to a woman I…am growing very fond of; and she claims to actually be several people, one of whom doesn’t like me and another of whom is reportedly a man, who can—
He took a shuddering breath and clashed her arm tighter, for he was afraid he might fling it away and just run from her.
—who apparently can, he went on, finishing the thought, call up actual earthquakes at will.
Maybe I’m not wearing any shoes at all now, he thought, in that manner of speaking. It’s mostly barefoot people that break their toes.
“You’ve…seen this stuff too, right?” he said softly. “Ghosts? And—” She didn’t want to hear about the earthquake right now. “—supernatural stuff?” He had spoken haltingly, embarrassed to be talking about the very coin of madness; but he needed to know that he really did have a companion in this scary new world.
“Don’t make me lose time here, Scant.”
“Sorry.” Her abrupt reply had brought heat to his face, and he tried to keep any tone of hurt out of his voice. “Never mind.” Don’t be disturbing her, he told himself bitterly, with talk of something distasteful that might be important to you, like your mere sanity.
“I’m sorry, Scant,” she said instantly, hugging his arm and leaning her head on his shoulder, “I was afraid you’d say something more—something specific!—that would drive me away from you here. You and I can’t have misunderstandings between us! Yes—I’ve seen this stuff too, undeniably. Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell, because even normal things…change, if I take my eyes off them. I never cross the street on the green light, because an hour—a week!—might have gone by between the moment I saw the WALK sign flash and the moment I step off the curb; I always cross with people, almost hanging on to their coats. When I was twelve, my mother took me to her sister’s funeral, and halfway through the ceremony I found out that it was her mother’s funeral, and I was fourteen! I think if she hadn’t ever brought me to another funeral at that same cemetery, so I could recognize it, I wouldn’t have found my way back at all, ever, to this day!”
She laughed helplessly. “But I’ve seen ghosts, too, sure. I attract them, they come to me crying, often as not, telling me they’re lost and want help finding their mothers, these transparent little…cellophane bags, like cigarette-pack wrappers! Or they’re… feeling romantic, and whisper nasty things in my ear, as if they could do anything about it. But they can’t grab me, I always just lose time. And Cody and Valerie have different birthdates from me, so each of us that comes up is a fresh picture, and the ghosts slide off, can’t get a grip.” He felt her shudder through his arm. “I think they’d hurt me, I think they’d kill me, if they could get a grip.”
Cochran kissed the top of her head. “Why are they attracted to you?”
“Because I have ‘wide unclasped the table of my thoughts.’ Don’t ask me about that,” she added hastily, “or you’ll be kissing Valerie’s head.” She smacked her lips. “I wish I’d brought my mouthwash.”
They had rounded the fence corner now, and they were walking on a sidewalk under bright streetlights. Cars were driving by, and he could see the traffic signal for Rosecrans Boulevard only a hundred yards ahead of them.
“I think I could call my lawyer now,” he said, “when we find a Denny’s, somewhere we can sit down and they have a pay phone. I’ve got change for the call, and I think I can slant the story a little to make sure he’ll wire us money and then legally, get us out of Armentrout’s control.”
“A Denny’s would be nice,” Plumtree agreed, “I’ve got a twenty in my shoe, and Ra only knows when I last ate. But we don’t need your lawyer—Cody can get us money and a place to stay, and we’ve got…things to do, locally, people to see.”
Cochran could imagine nothing now but getting back to his house in South Daly City up in San Mateo County as quickly as possible. “People?” he said doubtfully. “What, family?”
“No. I’ll tell you when we’ve got drinks in front of us. Don’t most Denny’s serve liquor?”
“I don’t know,” Cochran said, suddenly very happy with the idea of a shot of lukewarm Wild Turkey and an icy Coors for a chaser. “But most bars sell food.”
CHAPTER SIX
“Tell me how long it takes to prepare the earthquake?”
“A long time, I suppose.”
“But when it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces everything before it. In the meantime, it is always preparing, though it is not seen or heard. That is your consolation. Keep it.”
—Charles Dickens,
A Tale of Two Cities
DO you know about ‘making amends’?” Plumtree asked as she led him across a dark parking lot in the direction of the white-glowing facade of a fast-food icecream place called the Frost Giant. Cochran thought she sounded a little uneasy.
“I suppose,” he said, trudging along beside her and wondering when they would get their drinks and talk. The night air was chilly, and he wished he’d been wearing a jacket when they had escaped from the mental hospital, and he wanted to get someone in San Mateo County to wire him some money tonight, or at least use a credit-card number to get him a motel room. That should be feasible somehow. “Restitution,” he said. “Taking the blame, if you deserve it; paying back people you’ve cheated, and admitting you were the villain, and apologizing.” He smiled. “Why, did that guy in the 7-Eleven give you too much change?” They hadn’t bought anything at the convenience store three blocks back, but Plumtree had cajoled the clerk into giving her seventeen one-dollar bills and a double fistful of assorted coins in exchange for the crumpled twenty-dollar-bill that had been in her shoe. When they had got outside, she had made Cochran give her too four quarters from his pants pocket.