Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

“I ask a favor instead. A great favor. You owe me no favors, I know. I ask it even so. Will you take me to the cathedral?”

So we did. There was no blood at all, just a clean spot on the pavement in front. I pointed it out to Naala after Papa Iason had gone inside. After that she wanted to see the steps to the top of the tower. I was afraid she was going to want to climb up, but she did not. We were leaving the tower when another JAKA operator ran up to us. It took me a minute to place her, but that was only because I am really pretty stupid. It was the gray-haired lady who had tried on so many hats. She told Naala, “I see a car through window. I think it may be you.” She was a little breathless.

“You have news?”

“Yes! Yes!” Then she wanted to know if I was me, so I got out my badge case and showed my badge and ID card.

“I am Omphala. You are to go to Central at once, both must go. First you find three people, then go. The man is Russell Rathaus. His wife, also, and the woman with her. You bring them all. At once go!”

I said, “Martya?”

“Yes, I think. She is with the man Rathaus? Her you must bring, too.”

When Naala and I were in the car on the way to pick up Russ, I asked her what was up.

She laughed, but it did not sound like she was having fun. “Everything I know. That you think. I know nothing. We must go and find the answer.”

Getting Russ was easy. As it turned out, that was the only easy part. He was at Magos X’s, and came right away, looking happier than I had ever seen him. “I’m going back to America,” he told me. It was in English, and it was the first thing he said after he got into the car.

I said, “That’s great!” and shook his hand.

Naala said, “What is it he say, Grafton?”

I told her, then I asked him how he knew. After that I told Naala his host told fortunes, but he had told me he would not tell mine when we first met.

She laughed, and this time it was for real. “You are a bad, bad young man, I think. He does not wish to spoil you. He will tell you of all the women, beautiful women. Famous women. Rich women. You hear all this and you are unbearable.”

I said I would settle just for beautiful, like her.

“Now you say this, later it is not so. Then you say rich.”

Russ laughed, and so did the cop. I did not think it was all that funny, but I grinned anyway. “Beautiful and rich.” I should have said already that I was sitting in the middle with Naala on one side and Russ on the other.

He leaned close and whispered in English, “He says the Undead Dragon’s dead.”

I nodded and said out loud, “Yeah, we know.”

Naala wanted to know what we were talking about. She did not say so, but I could see it. I just said, “He’s heard the rumor, you know?” and sort of nodded at the cop in the front seat.

When we got to Aliz’s building Naala told Russ to wait in the car. She and I went inside and up a flight to knock on Aliz’s door. Nobody came.

“They are somewhere gone.”

I said maybe they had gone to lunch, and we ought to look in the cafés.

“It is too early. We must look elsewhere.”

So instead of looking anywhere, we had the cop drive us to a police phone so Naala could call headquarters. She talked for a minute or two before she hung up and got back in the car. “They are not there. Not the Rathaus woman, not the other woman, not even Aliz.”

I said, “What do we do now?”

“The Golden Eagle. It may be they are there. It may also be they go elsewhere, but someone there may know. No one in JAKA building know.”

We went quite a ways farther, then I yelled for the cop to stop.

Naala grabbed my arm. “Them you see?”

“I saw Kleon again,” I told her, “and this time Kleon didn’t see me.” The car had stopped, and Russ was getting out so I could.

He was out of sight among the trees and bushes before I got out. I ran and looked and ran and looked, but no Kleon. Finally Naala and Russ caught up to me in the car and I gave it up. Naala was mad, and I do not blame her.

“All right,” I said, “I shouldn’t have done it. I should’ve known I could never catch a guy as scared as he is when he had a little lead.”

Russ was polite enough not to use English this time. “What did you want him for?”

“First off,” I told him, “I wanted to beat the crap out of him. He beat me awhile back and someday I’m going to get even. Second, I wanted to fix it so the cops back in his hometown won’t kill him. I was supposed to sleep at his place every night, only I got kidnapped by the Legion of the Light. You know about all that.”

Russ nodded.

“So the cops are going to shoot him for it, and that’s why he’s on the run. Only I think maybe I can fix it, and I’m going to try.”

“If you can’t, he gets shot,” Russ told me.

Naala called me five kinds of fool, which is one of the worst things you can say in her language, especially if you make the gestures. Which she did. Maybe it should have bothered me, but I was thinking about what Russ had said, and it did not.

So we went to the Golden Eagle and Aliz was not there. Neither were Rosalee or Martya. I told Naala I needed to talk to her in private. To tell you the truth, I expected her to tell me to go to hell, but she did not. She just stared.

Then she nodded and we went over to a booth in the bar and sat down. “I know where they are,” I said. “If you want I’ll go there alone. I’ll collect them and bring them to the JAKA building for you, or we can all go there. Your choice.”

“Where is it you think?”

“Papa Iason’s. You want me to explain?”

Naala shook her head. “If they are there, then you explain. Not now. We will go.”

We did, and they were there waiting for him. Naala sent the cop to find us another car, and gave me a look that made me feel ten feet tall. Then she touched her finger to her lips.

“Now you tell,” Naala whispered. “Most quiet you tell me how you knew.”

“Well, seeing Kleon like that made me think of Martya. Martya’s his wife.”

“This I knew.”

“And I remembered that somebody had sent operators to a bunch of dress shops to look for Rosalee that time. It seems like sometimes they like to help out with other people’s cases now and then. Lend a hand.”

Naala nodded. “This is so.”

“Women like to talk, and I don’t remember Russ ever saying that he had sworn Martya to secrecy when he sent her to give the hand to Papa Iason. She never said anything about that either, not that I heard.”

Naala snapped her fingers. “The hand! It is in your pocket?”

“Sure.” I took it out and held it up. “Only Aliz doesn’t know that, and Martya didn’t know it, either. They probably patched her up at the hospital, gave her a tetanus shot, and sent her back to Aliz. There would have been a lot of talk about witchcraft and black magic. She would have told Aliz about the hand, and Aliz would go to Papa’s looking for it. When we told Papa about the archbishop, his housekeeper was back in the kitchen. You remember how it was? She brought us coffee. Then she went back there, probably to have some breakfast herself. He went off with us and we took him to the cathedral, but his housekeeper didn’t know where he had gone.”

“Here Aliz waits for his return.” Naala looked like she wanted to laugh. “We have made the most large arrest. She will make the great discovery, perhaps. She does not know she is most far behind us.”

“Right, and she has to keep Martya and Rosalee with her until somebody else takes them.”

So there were six of us going to headquarters: Naala and me, Russ and Rosalee, Aliz, and Martya. The driver of our car had found another police car for us, but Russ wanted to ride with Rosalee, so that was a complication. We tried to keep the seat beside the driver open when we could. Naala said there was a regulation about that. This time it meant Martya sandwiched between Naala and me. Naala had wanted me to sit there, but I would not do it. Martya was smaller than I am, curves or no curves.