Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

“Look there!” the photographer said. He grabbed Rosalee’s shoulders and spun her around. “We make the beautiful portrait.”

I slugged him just as he got the last word out and all three flashes flashed at once.

A lot of times you will see rockers on stage wearing sunglasses. It is not because of the spotlights on them; it is because of flashes from the audience. Usually there is a no-flash rule and security tries to throw out anybody who does it, but some people do not give a shit and they do it anyway. Somebody who steps off the stage by accident can get hurt really bad, and the flashes will blind you.

Which is what happened to us. They had been waiting for all of us to look, and naturally the photographer’s grabbing Rosalee and twisting her around did it. We all looked at her and him and that was good enough. I could not see one damned thing, but I fumbled for my gun anyhow and heard a couple of shots, way, way too loud if you are only used to the shots on TV. Then I heard the boom of a shotgun (later I found out that was what it had been) and people started screaming.

Not just women. Some men were screaming, too.

Almost close enough to touch, a fat guy in a check suit who had been standing at the bar two or three people down from us was bleeding on the floor, gasping and saying, “Oh, God! Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God!” There was a gun on the floor beside him, and I kept thinking somebody ought to pick it up only nobody did.

“Grafton!” That was Naala, turning her head just for an instant as she ran out of the club. She wanted me to follow her and I did, almost tripping over Rosalee, who was on the floor a little in front of me.

Out on the street it was darker than ever, which was bad, but there were a whole lot of people milling around, which was worse. Naala grabbed a guy who was pretty well dressed and shoved her badge in his face. “There was a car, yes? A truck? They force a woman in it?”

He nodded and said something I could not hear.

She asked a couple more questions, and I could see he was saying he did not know. She turned to me. “You saw them? Before the light? You watch them come in?”

I said sure.

“They have put her in a black truck for the dead. There is not room in such a thing for all. Some must be near here, but they scatter, I think. We separate and look. Bring him back to the Golden Eagle. I meet you there.” She pointed. “You go that way.”

I said, “Wait up! They didn’t get her. Didn’t get Rosalee. She was on the floor yelling when I went out. I didn’t see any blood.”

I think Naala stamped her foot. If she did not, she sure looked like she wanted to. “It is not the Rathaus woman they take. It is the other, the one who bring the hand.”

Then she was gone, and all I could think about was that the Unholy Way had Martya.

The way I saw it, the big wheels would have gotten into the hearse. The rest had three choices. Go on foot, getting as far from the scene as they could, or get in a wagon, or go into one of the clubs and mix with the crowd. Three police cars were coming down the street, with people scattering to let them through. I figured they would take care of the people in the clubs, and it would be better for me to go off the way Naala had pointed, looking out for wagons and looking for anybody who had come into the Golden Eagle with the photographer.

Right about here I noticed there was somebody with me, and I might as well tell you about him. It was the third border guard, the guy I saw sometimes riding with cops. I had seen him in JAKA headquarters when they had made me an operator, and three or four times since then. Now he was tagging along. He had on a dark suit, a white shirt, and a dark solid-color tie that was probably navy. Conservative and classy.

As I have said before in this book, all the cops and border guards had never seemed like they noticed him much. Or if they did, it was the way you notice something you are not really interested in. The kids’ books in the dentist’s waiting room, maybe. Something like that. It seemed to me that I ought to speak to him just to let him know I knew he was there and did not mind. If he rode with cops and could get into the JAKA building, maybe he would give me a hand. So I said, “Good to have you along. If you see any of the people we’re looking for, please tip me off. Only nothing obvious.”

He smiled and nodded, looking more like my father than ever.

We went a ways and I heard a locomotive whistle, not like an American locomotive, but like one of the old steam trains you see in movies sometimes. Pretty soon after that, the third border guard turned a corner when I would have gone on straight. At first I thought he was just going off on his own, which was all right with me. But he stopped and looked back at me, and motioned for me to come along.

So I did, walking another eight or nine streets until I found something I had always known must be in the city somewhere, even though I had never been there. It was the railroad station, a red brick building, pretty big, with a little tower with a big clock in it. The clock struck as we started to go in: one, two, three … eleven o’clock. If you backed me into a corner and made me explain why I am telling you all this, I would make a really bad job of it. But it meant something to me. It felt like God was telling me something, but it took me a few minutes to figure out what it was.

The show was about over. We had been looking for Russ. Okay, I had found him. The JAKA (that included me now) had been looking for the Unholy Way. Fine, we had brought it out into the light. Maybe we had not seen all the members, but we had seen a bunch of them in the Golden Eagle and there were probably security cameras. Most of all, the JAKA had been looking for the Unholy Way’s Undead Dragon.

And I was pretty sure I knew who that was. It left a bad taste in my mouth, but that did not change the facts.

God had used the tower and the clock striking eleven to remind me of all that stuff and maybe give me a clue about which way to go. He is good at that.

We went into the station and I sat down on a bench. I had walked a heck of a lot by then, and I had danced some with Martya on top of it, so I would have sat down on the floor if that had been the only place. As it was, there were all these cozy hardwood benches with backs. At least a hundred empty seats, when I only needed one. The third border guard wandered off after I sat down. I looked around for him, but he had gone.

Pretty soon a big, raw-boned woman in a red-and-black-striped dress came in. Disguised, right? Okay, she had changed clothes somewhere and even changed the way she wore her hair, piling it on top of her head. But I would have known her anyhow, and there was a dead giveaway. She was carrying a long canvas case I knew damned well must have the camera and tripod in it, so the buck-toothed guy had stuck her with those. I watched while she rented a locker (there was a guy you gave money to who handed you the key) and put her canvas bag in it.

Of course I thought of busting her on the spot. There were two reasons I did not do it. One was that I did not have handcuffs. Give me a cop with cuffs and a patrol car, and I would have run her in right then.

The other was that the more I looked at it the dumber it looked. Suppose she ran. I would run after her and most likely catch up to her. (But I might lose her.) Or I could shoot, maybe. But I knew myself well enough to know I had no chance of hitting her where I wanted to unless I stopped to aim. That meant that she would get away unless I hit her solidly enough to bring her down. That meant a good hit in a leg, and her legs would be moving fast.

If I missed her, she would get away. If I killed her, she would not talk. Okay, we could probably find out where she lived and search the place. Maybe she had something that would tell us something, and maybe she kept it where she lived. And if she did, we might find it. About one chance in five, maybe.