Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

On top of all that, the JAKA would not like a brand-new guy shooting in the railroad station. So no. Shooting if she ran was out, and I would have to catch her. I was fast but I was tired and she looked fast, too. It was dark outside, and there was a jungle of trees and shrubs around the building.

So I just watched, watching out hard for anybody who might be with her and not showing it. It seemed like she was alone, but after she had put the canvas case in her locker she went over to a door with a coffee cup painted on the glass and went in.

That gave me a problem, a good one. There would not be a whole lot of people in there at this time of night. Hell, there were not a lot of people in the whole station. If I went in there I would stand out like a pickle in the lemonade, and she would have seen me in the Golden Eagle just like I had seen her.

If I waited for her to come out, she probably would not. There almost had to be some other way out of that coffee shop, and ten to one she would take it. So I went outside and got around to where the coffee shop had to be. Right, there was an outside door. I backed into the trees.

And waited.

First thing. If she went back into the big room where people waited for trains, I had no way of knowing about it. From there, she could go out the front of the building and I would not see her. Or she could walk the tracks out back. I would not see her there, either. Or she could even take a train, and it was a dead certainty that I would not see her. I was just about ready to stroll into the coffee shop and ask for a glass of water when she came out.

Not through the regular door I had been watching, but through a big overhead door that opened onto a loading dock. For half a minute I wondered whether she was really strong enough to lift that thing, but it was probably counterbalanced some way. It could even have been powered.

Whatever the answer was, here she was, walking fast and leaving the freight door open behind her.

I did not dare to get too close and I almost lost her twice. If I were to go into all that here, it would take half the book. It got later and later, and we got into a really crummy part of the city. There was almost nobody on the streets there, but you saw guys—it was always guys—waiting in the weeds between the trees. I was one building behind her when she opened a door with a key and went in.

I walked past it and had a look. There was black lettering on the window, but I could not read it and there were no lights inside. After that I walked past again on the other side of the street. Sure enough, there was a guy standing in the shadows under a tree.

If I had money, I would have slipped him a little for information. I had nothing, and all of a sudden it hit me that if he was selling something, like peddling crack or maybe pimping, he would have money already. Maybe quite a bit.

So I went up to him and said, “I’ve got a question.”

He looked right past me as though I was not there, and I tried a couple more lines before he slugged me. It was a pretty good one. I staggered backward, but I did not fall until I tripped over something. Then I went down for two or three seconds before I got up and went for him.

He stumbled into some bushes and I should have given him half a dozen more, but I grabbed him instead. He tore loose, leaving most of his shirt behind, and drew. His piece had been stuck in his waistband under the shirt. I kicked him and it fired, the bullet hitting a rock or something and singing away. I know I kicked him then and tagged him some more, but I cannot remember which came first. He went down still holding his gun until I kicked it out of his hand. I will not tell you the rest, but the fight went out of him pretty quick.

There was a wad of bills in his front pants pocket. I got it and got off him, checked to make sure the hand was still in the side pocket of my jacket, and tried to clean myself up a little. That was when I noticed that my new watch was broken.

I was still swearing when a black and silver skidded to a stop and a cop jumped out. You can probably guess what the first thing I did was—I looked for the third border guard in the front seat. He was not there.

The second thing was to flash my badge.

The cop touched his cap. “Need help, operator?”

I nodded and found the gun the guy I had just robbed had dropped. It was an old Walther, the kind the German Army used to use. “You better take this,” I told the cop. “I don’t want it weighing down my pants.”

“Yes, operator.” He took it. “This I will see to. You will file charges?”

“No. He wouldn’t talk to me, but I’ve got a feeling he’ll talk now.”

The cop chuckled.

“What do you know about that place across the street?” I pointed.

“The mortuary, operator?” The cop scratched his head. “They must close soon. A funeral every few weeks, it might be. They have the fine dead wagon, however. It I see now and again. It is behind if it is not out. Good blacks to draw it, operator.”

“Did it go out tonight?”

He pursed his lips. “You know, operator, it did as I think. I passed it.”

“I think it did, too,” I said. The guy Naala talked to had called it a hearse, probably, and when Naala said truck I had thought of the kind of hearse they use here in the States. Over here, quite a few bands buy old hearses for transportation. I asked the cop, “You know where the Golden Eagle is?”

“I do, operator.” He sort of hesitated, which told me he knew it was JAKA.

“Go there and ask around for Naala. She’ll be there. Tell her you talked to five five eight, and tell her where I was.”

“At once, operator.”

“Nice looking, about forty, white blouse, gray jacket, gray skirt. She’s a senior operator. Do you know her?”

He shook his head.

“She’ll be there. Find her and tell her what I said.”

“Yes, operator. I fly.”

I watched him drive away, then told the guy I had tangled with to stand up.

He did, moving pretty slowly, but moving.

I said, “I could take you to JAKA headquarters, and they’d hold you for a year or so just to practice on. Maybe once a week they’d knock you around or burn you a little. I’m not going to do that this time, but I don’t ever want to see you again. You got that?”

He turned his head and spit blood. “Cross the street and you will not.”

I took a step closer and said, “Maybe you’d better tell me about that.”

He ran instead, and he was fast. I watched him duck into the deep shadows, and made a mental note to corner the next guy I wanted to question.

There had been a fight and a shot fired, so I figured there was a pretty fair chance the woman I had followed was looking out a window somewhere, and it would not do to just stroll across the street and try the front door. It had been locked when she got there anyway, so there was a real good chance she had locked it again once she was inside. So I walked a couple of streets down before I turned a corner and circled around to get at the back.

You may have noticed that every once in a while I put something in this book that I cannot explain but think I ought to tell you about anyway. Okay, this is another of those. I passed a store that had a big picture of the third border guard in the window. He was younger in the picture and maybe a little bit better looking than he really was, but it was him.

Here is another thing, but I do not believe it is much of a mystery. Most of the stores I passed had a few lights on. Even some of those that had burglar bars did. But I think that was just like it is here. You leave some lights on so the cops can see in, and like I said, that was a seedy neighborhood. If the lights are on, the cops can see there is somebody in there when there should not be. If they are off in a store that usually has them on, maybe they will check that out, too.