Thomas stared up at the narrow, railed scaffold that ran along the bottom edge of the billboard. Was there anybody up there? Yes, by God, Thomas thought excitedly—if that isn't an arm dangling from the far side, I'll eat my shorts.
After glancing quickly up and down Fremont Avenue to be sure he was not being observed, Thomas ran across the weedy lot to the base of the huge sign. One of its old wooden legs had an iron ladder bolted to it, and Thomas swarmed up it energetically, his fatigue temporarily forgotten. The eternal warm wind felt cool to him as it dried the blood and sweat on his chest and face.
He poked his head over the top of the ladder; at the far end of the scaffold lay a heap of old fabric that would resemble a man only to someone expecting to find a man there. "Ben?" Thomas said, standing up cautiously on the swaying platform. "Hey, Ben, it's me. Rufus, from the theater." He edged his way over to the sprawled figure, bent down and shook the old man by the shoulder. "Wake up, Ben! I need your sandals."
The old man didn't move, so Thomas carefully rolled him over onto his back. The face was black with dried blood, although the old irregular teeth were bared in a beatific smile.
Oh no, thought Thomas with a chill of disappointment, they've beaten me to him. He crouched over the body and pulled the trailing coat away from the dead beggar's legs—and saw the sandals, his own old sandals, still strapped to the bony, discolored feet. He wrenched the left sandal off, and sat back against the sign with a deep sigh of relief when he saw the mud-crusted wire still knotted onto the brittle leather straps. He carefully untwisted it and held it in his palm. A damned little scrap of metal, he thought—barely fit for repairing sandals—yet it contains something that powerful men have killed for.
He reached into his pocket for a match, but the pocket was empty. So were the other three. What do I do now, he thought—eat it? I guess I'll just have to take it back to Gladhand in my pocket.
He glanced again at old Corwin and noticed now the dark powder covering his hands and parts of his face. There was no mystery about what finished him.
He swung back down the ladder to the ground, strode across the dirt to the pavement and began walking south. Putting his hands into his pockets, he sauntered along casually, trying to be inconspicuous.
Three androids were trotting up the sidewalk toward him, their expressionless faces lit at intervals by the streetlamps they passed. Thomas wondered if they would recognize him, and suddenly he panicked.
Even the most cursory search would reveal the wire in his pocket. He cursed himself for not just flinging it down a sewer when he had the chance. His fist closed on the wire. If the cops grabbed him, he would at least throw it as far as possible.
He tensed, blinking against the sweat from his forehead, as the three ran the final half block toward him, swiveling their reptilian eyes in his direction; then they were past, their boots tapping the pavement in unison as they sprinted away to the north.
Weak with relief, Thomas leaned against the nearest wall and allowed himself a few deep breaths. Presently he removed the wire from his pocket, and looking up and down the deserted street, he wrapped it in an old bubble-gum wrapper from the gutter. He shoved it into a space between two bricks in the wall, where the loss of a chunk of mortar had left a small but deep hole.
Feeling much freer, he resumed his walk back to the Bellamy, careless now of who might notice him. As he turned left from Fremont onto Second, a two-horse wagon rattled out from under the freeway bridge, and rocked away east on Second after a man in the back flung a bundle of papers onto the far sidewalk. Thomas crossed the street to investigate and found that it was a wired-together stack of about 50 copies of the Saturday morning L.A. Greeter.
Thoughtfully, Thomas untied the baling-wire from around the papers and broke off a roughly equivalent length by bending it rapidly back and forth. He thrust it into his pocket, removed a copy of the paper and continued his eastward course.
Second Street passed under a number of concrete-buttressed bridges between Flower and Broadway.
Out of the darkness beneath one of them came a voice.
"Don't jump around, Rufus," the voice said wearily. "I've got a .357 Magnum aimed right at your belly."
Thomas stopped. "You don't have to call me Rufus anymore, Pat," he said.
"I've grown used to it," she answered, stepping forward so that her face was dimly dry-brushed in moonlight. "You're heading back toward the Bellamy," she observed. "You've got the wire?"
"Yes," Thomas said. "Are you ready to kill me for it?"
"I'd truly rather not," she said, after a pause. "But yes, I'm ready to do that."
"I seem to remember you saying you loved me. I guess you can't hold an android to a statement like that, though."
She sighed. "There is such a thing as generic loyalty, Rufus. Give me the wire and stop talking."
He took the bit of baling wire out of his pocket and stepped forward. "Hold out your hand," he said. She did, and he slowly twisted the wire around her third finger. "With this memory bank I thee wed."
"Oh, for God's sake," she snapped, yanking her hand away. Incredibly, there seemed to be tears in her voice. "Don't be species-chauvinistic. You think we're no more capable of feeling emotions than a… jack-in-the-box, don't you? Don't move, I'm not kidding about this gun. Listen, the police have had suspicions about Gladhand's troupe for weeks; I was sent to audition so that I could keep an eye on things. I… damn it, Rufus, I fell in love with you before Gladhand told me about the underground activities—so I never reported them. The police still don't know the Bellamy Theater is the headquarters of the resistance underground. But when you told me you were this Thomas fugitive, that was too much. To have kept quiet then would have been a betrayal of my whole species. And they wouldn't have killed you, anyway—it was essential that they take you alive, so they could find out where you put… this." She raised her hand.
"Well," Thomas said, "you have it now."
"Yes. Goodbye, Rufus. I… I'm going to give up police work. I'm just not cut out for it."
"You do all right."
"I don't like the work, though. As soon as I can get out of this city I'm going to live in Needles."
"Needles? Why Needles?"
"Why not Needles?" She turned away and disappeared silently into the shadows.
A wagon was parked in front of the Bellamy Theater, and Gladhand, sitting on the driver's bench, waved impatiently for Thomas to hurry up when he saw him approaching.
"We're leaving," the theater manager said. "Pat must have told them about our operations here, so I've moved everybody—"
"She didn't tell them," Thomas interrupted. "I just saw her, and she said she never told them about it—only about me being the celebrated monk. She was in love with me, see."
Gladhand paused. "When did you see her?"
"Not five minutes ago."
Jeff and Lambert emerged from the theater and hopped up onto the wagon. "Hi, Rufus," Lambert said. "You didn't find Corwin, did you?"
"Yes," Thomas said. "I took the wire and hid it, since I didn't have a match. And I took a piece of wire from a bundle of newspapers"—he waved his newspaper,—"and gave it to Pat. She thinks it's the real thing."
They all stared at him for a moment, and then Gladhand laughed softly. "All, it seems, is not lost," he said. "They probably won't find out for… oh, an hour or so that the wire Pat has is a fake." He turned to Jeff and Lambert. "We have time to take the heavy stuff after all. Load this cart and the old car out back. Rufus will help. Hustle, will you? This can only be a temporary extension."
Thomas followed the two young men downstairs into the theater basement. "All these crates," Jeff said, pointing to a low wall of wooden boxes. "I think we can each carry one."