At the door Meredith peered at the rain. "I think we're getting a Fujiwara effect," she said. "Remember that mess up in the North Pacific on the maps? The Siberian high and the Aleutian low are both unusually deep, and there are two smaller lows circling around and peeling off pieces of themselves—I think we'll be getting these storms for most of a week yet. Give my regards to Tib."
Rainy was halfway to the freeway entrance before she realized what Meredith had said. Actually, Rainy could have sworn she hadn't mentioned Tib's name the whole time she was there! But perhaps that was the giveaway. Rainy didn't mind. Little secrets of that kind were no good if no one could guess them, and the best person in the world to guess them was someone who wouldn't ask questions. Rainy wasn't ready for questions. She hadn't worked out any answer. Of course, Tib was not to be taken seriously—assuming that the word "serious" equated with the word "marriage." Rainy had no intention of taking anyone "seriously" for a good long time yet. Least of all Tib Sonderman. Still, while it lasted—
She grinned to herself and switched the radio on. The Jupes were at it again—some kind of demonstration at the women's jail. She caught a familiar name, and learned that her cosmonaut friend was making quite a hit in Mexico City, finishing up his grand goodwill tour of the Western Hemisphere. There was a rehash of the grand jury investigation of some mobster, and an unusual number of traffic warnings. It looked like Meredith was right about the rain. It was going to go on for a while, and there were reports of creek floodings.
She carried her Christmas gifts up to her apartment and dropped them in a chair while she went to see what the telephone answering machine had for her. Nothing from Tib—well, he hadn't expected that she'd be back so early. Two Merry Christmas wishes from Tinker—of course. And, among the others, a husky, fast-talking voice she did not at first recognize. "Hello, I'm Danny Deere and I want to talk to you. There might be a little something under my Christmas tree if you come over as soon as you get back. Give a call. I'll send my car."
A dirty snowball of frozen gases, a few miles across, crossed the orbit of Neptune. It had begun its fall toward the sun eighty thousand years before. As it grew nearer it picked up speed; when it came a little closer the gases would evaporate, sunlight would reflect from them and it would be visible as a comet. The people who would observe it when it reached the orbit of Earth were already born. By comparison with the mass of a planet, a comet is not very large; the astonomer Babinet called comets "visible nothings". But they are not trivial. A much tinier comet, in Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908, had leveled thousands of square miles of forest. This one would come very close to the earth. How close would depend on the alterations in its orbit imposed by the large planets it would come near, but, for millions of the earth's people, it would be either the most spectacular sight they would ever see, or the last.
Friday, December 25th. Christmas Day. 8:50 PM.
The boss did not like having Manuel and his sons work for the new condominium down the hill, but the boss did not know everything. Today the condo had phoned for help, and so he and Onorio, and Jose, Tomas, and Rafael, had spent two or three profitable hours spreading huge sheets of plastic over the bare ground that would some day be landscaping. It was wet work, in slickers and boots, and Manuel tired of it. When he was out of sight of the maintenance engineer he called his eldest son aside. "You will sign me in when you leave," he ordered, and slogged up the hill, admiring his new boots.
As soon as he was at his door his wife was opening it, her face worried. "The Deere has called for you! I told him you were in the orchards, inspecting for damage from the rain, but he has called three times!"
"I will deal with it," he growled, but he picked up the house phone without waiting to take off his drenched poncho, and Danny Deere came on at once.
"Now, where the fuck you been, Manuel? I got a fucking roof leak! I got water coming in my greenhouse, and what am I supposed to do, climb up there myself?"
"I will attend to it at once, Senor Danny."
"You goddam better! Right away at once! And, listen, I got company coming, has Joel showed up at the gate yet?"
"Not yet, Senor Danny. I will watch for him."
"You will get your ass up here and get my roof fixed!"
"Of course, Senor Danny." Manuel hung up gently and beckoned to his woman, silently waiting. "Run to the condo and tell Tomas to come at once," he ordered. "He must put tar on the roof of the big house. "
"He will be very tired, hombre," she ventured.
"I, too, am very tired! Run! You may take my poncho," he added generously, slipping it over his head and handing it to her. For a moment he debated going up to the house himself. To work at the condominium was very good business. Not only did they pay in dollar bills, with no Social Security numbers attached, but one could sometimes keep a pair of boots or a few tools. But Danny Deere had made his feelings clear, and it was important to Manuel that his boss be happy with him. He had come to the United States four times to get there once. He did not want, ever again, to have to make that trip. The long walk to the bus, the long bus ride to Sonoita, the ride huddled under tarpaulins in the back of the pickup truck, the crawl through the gap in the barbed wire and the last long hike to Pia Oik—success!—and then, at once, failure! In Phoenix the agents of the Border Patrol ambushed them, and then there was another bus ride back to Nogales and it all to do over again.
It was only on the fourth try that he comprehended that he must not trust his guides and smugglers any further. He jumped off the truck outside the town and, miraculously, managed to hitch a ride to California and a job.
Even to remember it frightened him. Those night walks! Two of the youngest men always patrolled ahead with great sticks, for the purpose of killing the rattlesnakes that came out to forage in the cool desert night. And the money! At every point, every person's hand was out. The truck drivers. The guides. The farmhands who hid them overnight. The vendors of sandwiches and tacos and Cokes who fed them along the way—at five times the prices in j the stores they did not dare enter. But there was no choice, for there were no jobs in the Sierra Madre. You either gave your hoarded pesos to some black-jacketed wise fellow from Sinaloa, or you starved.
But, once you had a job picking in the citrus groves, what wealth you could send back to Aguatarde! Enough to bring a wife, and then the children. Enough to bring in a couple of nephews and a cousin or two, to pay you back i with great interest for the favor. Enough, finally, to make your way to Los Angeles itself.
And then to fall in with such a man as Danny Deere — what fortune!
Of course, the Deere was not a good man. What boss was? But Danny Deere's kind of badness exactly fit the needs of Manuel and his brood. So when his nephew Tomas came trotting up to learn what he must do Manuel dispatched him immediately with a bucket of tar to the roof of the big house; and when the limo came up the drive Manuel did not trust to electric controls. He himself rushed out into the rain to open the gate. He bowed, but not so low that he did not catch a glimpse of the young woman in the back seat, looking about her in wonder and pleasure. Manuel shrugged and returned to the house. It had not been a bad Navidad for himself; why should Senor Danny not enjoy his holiday as well?