Gene Wolfe - Free Live Free

She shook her head. “I hardly ever do unless I buy them myself.”

“Valentine’s Day will be coming up pretty quick now.”

“I suppose.”

“Tell you what. Give me your address, and I’ll see you get our Valentine’s Day assortment.”

Candy looked stricken. “I can’t.”

“I understand.” He folded his hands in his lap.

“I don’t mean that. I’m moving, and I don’t know yet where to. Most of my stuff’s in storage.”

He brightened. “I suppose you’ll have to find a new apartment after this trip? Do you live by yourself ?”

“I did, yeah … . I’ve been thinking of moving here, to tell the truth. You come here often?”

“Pretty often. On business.”

“Maybe, you know, you could bring it. Meet me somewhere. It wouldn’t have to be Valentine’s Day.”

“I’d like that. I’d like for you to try all our candies, Miss …”

“Garth. Catharine Garth.”

“Do they call you Cathy?”

She smiled shyly. “Sometimes.”

“Here’s my card. I’m John B. Sweet.”

Candy giggled. “Is your name really Mr. Sweet? And you make candy? Gosh, you’re an executive vice president.”

“You can call me John.”

“I’m going to call you John B. I know too many Johns already.” Holding the card, Candy glanced around. “My God! My purse! Where’s my purse?”

“You lost it?”

Her eyes were round as saucers. “I must have left it back at the hotel. All my money—my ticket—”

“Where were you?”

“In the coffee shop. I know I had it there—you know, I paid the waitress. I must have left it on my seat in the booth.”

He took her hand. “Don’t worry, Cathy, she’ll find it and turn it in.”

The driver, a melancholy Pakistani, glanced over his shoulder at them. “Wha’ airline?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Wha’ airline, sirs? Where you want stop?”

“Oh. United.”

“John B., what will I do?”

“Well, to start with, you ought to call the hotel and see if anybody’s found it. Then you should check with your airline—which one was it?”

“En double-you. Is that Northwestern?”

“Right. Check with them. Tell them you’ll have to make a later flight.”

“I don’t even have money to pay for this cab,” Candy moaned.

“Don’t worry—I’ll take care of it. I’ll lend you twenty too, so you can get back to the Consort.”

The cab rushed past a sign: RENTAL CAR RETURN.

As she had feared, the blue suitcase was locked. It was a combination lock with four wheels, the kind the user can set for himself in any of a thousand different ways. “Something easy to remember,” Candy whispered to herself. The only other woman in the ladies’ room glanced at her, then back at her mirror.

She tried the quadruple numbers first—oooo, 1111, 2222, 3333 … . None of them worked. Then 1234, 0123, and on a wild impulse, 8910. None of them worked either. Neither did the year. There was a cutlery shop in the airport, she knew, where you could buy Swiss Army knives. She could get one and a couple of little plastic overnight bags to carry what she wanted to keep. Let’s see, World War II? She spun the little dials to 1940, 1941, then rapidly through the war years to 1946, all without effect. Anniversary? When would that woman have gotten married? Nineteen sixty, 1961, 1962. The catch slid smoothly back.

There were two pairs of shoes inside, and both fit her beautifully. She selected the lizard-skin ones because they had closed toes, and hid her rubber boots in a corner beside the vinyl-covered couch. In a moment more, she had put on panty hose and a clean wool dress. There was even a purse in the bag and some makeup in the purse, with fifty-seven cents in change and an opened package of gum. Candy put two sticks of gum in her mouth and went out into the airport lobby again, still carrying the blue bag. A line of cabs waited where she and John B. Sweet, Executive Vice President of Mickey’s Jawbreakers, had arrived a few minutes before. A driver stowed her blue suitcase in the trunk while she settled herself in the back seat.

“Where to, lady?”

“The Greyhound station. The big one downtown.”

“You gotta ride those things? I hear it can be pretty tough.”

“No,” Candy said, “I just want to check my bag there. I’ve got errands to do around town today, and that’s the only place where I can leave it.”

“Suit yourself, lady,” the cabbie said. “Have a good flight in?”

“Yeah,” Candy told him. “Great.”

When Candy had gone out of the Quaint, the witch said, “And now what of us, Mr. Stubb? Have you an investigation for yourself too? And one for me?”

Stubb nodded. “Soon as I finish my coffee.”

“Then I must tell you I cannot oblige you. I have matters of my own to which I must attend.”

“All right, but you’ll have to loan me the key to your room.”

“I cannot do that either.”

Stubb raised his voice. “Waitress! Hey! What time you got?”

The waitress glanced at him, then at her wrist. “Eight thirty-seven, sir. We’re on Eastern Standard Time here.”

“Thanks, doll.”

The witch said, “And what was that about?”

“A maid came to the door of our room, remember? It couldn’t have been eight o‘clock yet, and there she was. You really think the maids in this place come around and pound on doors at eight o’clock?”

The witch stared at him. At last she said, “It did not seem to me that she intended harm. I sense these things.”

“So do I, but I don’t make a big deal of it. She looked happy.”

“I sensed it before the door was opened. But yes, I concur. So?”

“Let me guess, all right? The maids here probably come to work around six thirty and start off by cleaning up the meeting rooms—any place that’s been used the night before but isn’t being used then. After that, they probably get a list of rooms where people have already checked out. There’s always a few guys with real early flights. Then maybe they do the corridors.”

“What is it you are circling toward, Mr. Stubb?”

“Suppose somebody stopped one on her way to work. Suppose this person said, ‘Look, honey, here’s fifty bucks and a ashtray.’ Or maybe it was one of the Gideon Bibles. Whatever. ‘You put this in room seven seventy-seven when you fix it up, and if you’ll meet me down in the lobby afterward and let me know you did it, I’ll slip you another fifty.’”

“I see. She would wish to get the money at once. Perhaps she would be afraid he would leave if she took too long. You are correct, there is an assignment for us both. We must go to my room and search.”

Before he knocked at Mrs. Baker’s door, Stubb stood on the sidewalk for a moment to study the wreck of Free’s house. As far as he could tell, it was just as he and the others had left it the night before; in fact, he could see their tracks in the snow going up and down the short walk, their footprints on the steps.

In the brilliant winter sunshine, its ruin was more apparent. Most of the front wall had been dashed to rubble. Most of what remained looked as though it might fall at any second. Stubb found himself wondering why the people who did not have houses, himself included, did not riot when houses like this, solid brick houses that might stand for five hundred years if only the governments and the banks would let them alone, were destroyed.

He looked around for the destroyers. The long-necked yellow machine waited quietly at the curb, its deadly black ball lying before its treads like a discarded toy before the paws of some great, sleepy beast. Both the machine and the ball were dusted with sparkling snow. There were no workers in sight. The houses to the left of Free’s had CONDEMNED signs in red on their windows, and some of the windows had been smashed.