Thunderstruck (145)

PSI-4

The green boy skipped out of La Stella at four o’clock in the afternoon in high spirits, with some attendant difficulty in verbally expressing them.

Mordecai, who was not a total idiot, knew darn well Erik was happy and did not require words to explain why — but he also knew we don’t always want to say things just to get people to understand. There was a need for sharing and community which he was uncertain he’d be able to fulfill even if Erik’s mouth were going a mile a minute on the subject.

He gave it his best shot and said, “I guess you really liked that music reel, huh?”

Erik nodded frantically.

“Those guys were pretty amazing,” he allowed. He did not add that he’d spent most of the reel wondering why in the hell their bows were shedding like that, and even after deciding it was an artistic choice he still wanted to grab both young gentlemen by the ear and drag them to a music store to perform basic ‘cello maintenance. He hoped no gods were going to pour cold water on Erik’s ecstatic expression by adding it for him.

This is a generational thing, the red man decided. He set his violin case on the edge of a convenient cement planter and flicked open both catches with deft fingers. I thought I was an iconoclast, but you show me one music reel with two guys playing the ‘cello all weird and I turn into my father.

“If I play ‘Ticket to Ride’ will you sing along so we can talk about it?” he asked.

“‘Thunder… struck!’” Erik cried.

Mordecai sighed. “Dear one, you know I can’t play it like that, and I don’t think you know all the words…”

Erik proceeded to reproduce the first verse perfectly, including every last “THUNDER!” as he clapped along with himself, grinning.

“…And he don’t care,” Mordecai replied acidly. He latched up his violin case again and set it on the ground next to his shoes. “Is that enough or do you need the verse about picking up ladies?”

“Why don’t you play ‘cello like that?” Erik said.

“Because I have a violin.” He caught himself and put up both hands. “Not that that’s anyone’s fault, dear one.” Least of all yours, for getting hurt. I just happened to think blowing up Julia was an appropriate response to those two men who were trying to kill you. “And I like Angie very much, but I can’t play her like that.”

“You didn’t play Julia like that when you had her!” Erik said. “If you hit her on that back like that, you could’ve done the hunters for Peter and the Wolf!”

Mordecai winced and touched a hand to the back of his head. “Erik… I think I’d better tell you before they do, because it’s the kind of thing they like to bug you about. Can we sit? Or do you just need me to explain what you’ve already seen?”

“I kinda know your dad was… mean,” Erik said. He did a verse of ‘Ticket to Ride’ while they sought out a bench, instead of the one from ‘Thunderstruck’ about picking up ladies. They ended up sitting outside a restaurant Erik had first encountered as Mu, which served expensive hamburgers with a side of drama. Currently, the sign in the window read 3.14, and the people in the fenced area outside were eating various pastries. Erik doubted John’s friend the waiter had anything to do with it, but he wasn’t sure about the guy with the apron and the girl with the blue hair. ‘3.14’ seemed like the kind of name they’d give something, but SoHo was like that too.

He wondered if there were still dead bats in the stove vent.

It was too bad he couldn’t tell his uncle about Mu, but he went there with John, and his uncle wouldn’t be very interested in the funny restaurant after he found out Erik was friends with one of those guys who kicked him.

Mordecai settled with the violin case in his lap, hugging it like a life preserver. “My father wasn’t mean without cause,” he said. “Colored people kind of have this idea, especially when you’re in charge of a family, that when you know what’s right you do whatever you need to get it done, and you don’t have to play fair. It’s cultural. I think I’ve told you some of the stories, but not all of them. I edit what I don’t like. You can have more culture when you’re old enough to pick out the stupid parts for yourself.”

“Clever Jacques who magicked the stripes on the goats,” Erik said. His eyes grew round. “Sold into… slavery?”

“See, I don’t think that’s funny,” Mordecai said. “But the way I heard it, and probably my father, it’s like a prank war. The whole family’s involved and it goes on for generations. Nobody puts on the brakes and goes, ‘Whoa, I think that’s a bit much.’ And Jacques’s favorite son gets sold into slavery, but he comes back and gets to be in charge of everything forever, so it’s like it’s okay. And he deserves dominion over the rest of the family and the whole village because he’s the smartest one. I would still like you to be smart, but I wouldn’t like you to forget to be kind, and slavery isn’t funny no matter how clever you are at getting out of it.”

“I guess people really do keep having that idea,” Erik said.

“What idea?”

“Slavery. Sanaam told me about it. It’s how come black people in the ILV have their own toilets.” Sanaam had said most of the time it was a lot of little tribes fighting and selling each other off, though. He didn’t say anything about your own family doing it. And he didn’t say anything about colored people being slaves.

An image of a city on fire with ancient-looking domed buildings toppling in the flames recurred. He wasn’t quite sure where he saw that before, but it wasn’t to do with slavery. He didn’t think…?

You guys, if you want me to know something, I can hear you. You know that.

“I’d like my own toilet,” Mordecai said contemplatively.

Erik nodded. His small brown shoes were kicking impatiently in the space under the bench, but he refused to acknowledge them. They’d get to the ‘cello stuff eventually. “I thought so too, but I think they make them crummier on purpose.”

“Well, that’s no good,” Mordecai said. He sighed and shook his head. “The point is, even though we’d never do something like sell our own family to prove a point, we grow up hearing stuff like that is okay. My father taught me how to play violoncello, and he thought there was a right way of doing that. If I did it the wrong way, he’d come up behind me and hit me in the head.” Again, he winced and touched the back of his head. “Not so it hurt,” he added quickly. “Just to scare me.”

“That’s still mean,” Erik said, frowning. And he knew it wasn’t just hitting. You wanna play drums like an animal? Is that what you wanna do? Then go and live in the zoo!

He caught Erik flinching, and he noticed the shoes weren’t going anymore. “What did they tell you?”

Erik tipped his head down and away. His hands curled around the edge of the bench as if to keep him in place. This stuff was embarrassing. He knew he wasn’t supposed to know it.  “You… hit the… ‘cello like the… cool guy in the… reel and he said… you had to go… live in the… zoo.”

Mordecai was still rubbing the back of his head and he laughed. “Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.”

Erik gravely shook his head.

“I forget about it most of the time, dear one,” he protested. “I know he didn’t really mean…”

Erik was still shaking his head.

“…Okay, I knew he was mad and that scared me, but I didn’t think he was going to literally put me in the zoo!”

“So?” Erik said.

“There… there are levels,” Mordecai said. “There are levels of meanness. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded.”

“So?”

“Look, I’m not saying I liked the man!” cried Mordecai. “I also don’t like that I can’t enjoy those two guys doing the weird tricks with the ’cellos the same as you, I’m just trying to explain why!”

You’re also saying why we never visit this person or even know if he’s alive and you don’t miss him, Erik thought. “You dad didn’t teach you violin,” he said. “Could you play Angie how it’s fun instead of how your dad said was right?”

Mordecai lifted the violin case and regarded it with a pained expression. He couldn’t even picture it. Not picture it being fun. It just made him embarrassed.

And his head hurt.

“No, dear one. I… I really don’t think I could.”

Erik frowned. “If someone tried to teach me something dumb like it’s bad to have fun, you’d yell at them. Why did you let your dad teach you?”

Mordecai set down the violin. “I didn’t start out like this, Erik,” he said. “Only the gods are born old, and that’s just something they say. You know I used to be little. It wasn’t like a costume, it was all of me. It’s way harder to sort out what’s a stupid thing to learn when you’re little. And a lot of that stuff sticks with you even when you get older and you know it’s dumb.”

Erik blinked. “Am I… learning… dumb stuff I don’t… know yet?”

“Probably,” Mordecai said weakly. He shook his head. “Definitely, but I’m doing my best. I’m sorry.”

Erik curled closer on the bench and put an arm through his arm. “Can I play… Angie how I… like?”

“Yes,” said Mordecai. He drew back slightly. “Just don’t hurt her, Erik. We’re not rock stars. We can’t get a new one whenever we want. Auntie Hyacinth had a hard time finding Angie.” She’d never told him exactly how — Angie was a present — but he got the impression it was annoying, however she’d managed it.

“Okay,” Erik said. Privately, he reminded himself, Oh, boy, we can’t tell him John found Angie in a bookshop either. It’s really hard being friends with someone who broke one of my ribs!

“…And don’t shred the bow on purpose like that, that costs money too,” Mordecai said.

Erik nodded.

“And if you’re going to roll around on the ground, check for broken glass first. And don’t do it anywhere around Candlewood Park, people throw their used needles in the gutters… You know what? Don’t roll around on the ground anywhere outside. That’s an indoor activity. On a stage where nobody is going to step on you. A well-maintained stage! And make sure the pyrotechnics people are licensed!”

Erik folded his arms and canted his head forward incredulously. “Hadn’t I better wear goggles for when the ladies throw their room keys at my head, Uncle Mordecai?”

“Yes! That is an excellent idea! And always remember to use a…” He stopped and pressed an embarrassed hand over his mouth as if he’d just hiccuped. When it came down he was smiling. “Erik, this is me. Do you want to go home and trade for a different parent?”

“Nah,” Erik said. He stood and pulled his uncle by the hand. “I wanna go play violin until it gets dark. It’s Sigur’day.”

“Sigur’day, in the park,” Mordecai replied. “Where shall we play? Not too far uptown, we’re not respectable and we haven’t got a permit.”

Canburry Square was closest, but Erik knew they couldn’t play there anymore. It was like a jinx. He kinda missed Orianna Canburry and her cats. The sculptor put in every single cat — some of them crawling all over Orianna and her pedestal, some of them hidden around the benches and planters in the square — because she put out the big fire to save them. There were twenty-four. He hoped he wasn’t gonna forget where all of them were.

Mittens is in the catnip behind the drinking fountain, he reminded himself. Took me forever to find friggin’ Mittens.

He guessed if he hadn’t found friggin’ Mittens he might’ve been looking for her instead of checking out the horses in the pen like an idiot.

He had an idea some gods had got together and arranged what had happened, like when Violet and Dr. Beetle fixed up John and Robin the waiter for a bet. They wanted him to have a different kind of brain it was easier to mess with — and it could’ve been a bet or something too, the Invisibles didn’t care about being nice like real people. But even if it wasn’t his fault, he couldn’t help feeling stupid about it.

Maybe that’s a dumb thing I’ve learned, he thought. I’ve got to watch that.

“Lyon Square,” Erik decided. It didn’t have a lion in it, which he thought was a shame, but it was one block up and one block over from Canburry Square, so not too much farther on the bus.

Oh, well. When I get famous and the ladies are throwing their room keys at me, I’ll buy a lion and put it there, he thought.

Mordecai held his hand and swung back and forth with Erik on one side and the violin case on the other. “You know, I quite liked it when Keith Moon blew up his drum kit for the newsreel people,” the red man said. “Did I ever tell you about that?”

Erik shook his head.

“The Who used to smash their guitars too. I suppose I didn’t mind because they weren’t ‘cellos…”

———

“…So this is why I’m telling you make sure the pyrotechnics people are licensed. If they’d been in a concert instead of on a set, people could’ve been hurt. And never let the drummer be in charge of anything.”

Erik had been allowed to carry the violin, and he paused, clutching the case in the bus doorway with a doubtful expression. “Anything?”

Mordecai considered this as he offered a hand down. “Right,” he decided. “Anything. Not even lunch orders.” He grinned.

Erik snickered at him. “…Okay.”

The scattered remaining squares downtown were popular and touristy, especially on the weekends, but people who lived in San Rosille liked them too.

And people who lived in San Rosille who would like to sell things to some tourists liked them a lot.

Many of these people, like Erik and Mordecai, lacked permits and operated out of carts or from blankets that could be folded up and hidden when the police got near. Magic also provided an assist, but Mordecai preferred just to latch up the violin case with the money in it and duck into an alley or a store. He was impeccably polite to store owners and restaurateurs wherever he went and many of them knew him by sight if not by name. He always bought something, though he tried to keep these items small and edible. Otherwise, if it didn’t look like something Erik would want to play with or Hyacinth could use, it went into a donation bin at a thrift store on the way home. If he didn’t get rid of things fast, he’d never be able to stem the tide of key chains, postcards and little tchotchkes, and his room at the house would look like a souvenir shop.

(Per his example, Erik had disposed of a politely-purchased set of black silk stockings similarly, but Mordecai did not know this. Yet.)

They set up near a sidewalk cafe and played for about an hour and a half, trading the violin back and forth so that Erik wouldn’t get bored. Erik knew this was because the last time he wandered off (and he hadn’t even been bored! There was just other stuff more interesting, that was all!) he got hurt, and he still felt a twinge of guilt about it. That, and he didn’t play very well yet. He didn’t mind annoying a few people, but he thought he was eating into what Maggie had called ‘the bottom line’ when Uncle Mordecai promised her a percentage. People didn’t like to give him money. He picked up more cash being nice to people in Strawberryfield for Maggie’s grape soda experiment.

“Excuse me, I’m cute,” he informed a young couple walking past.

“Excuse me, you’re obnoxious,” the gentleman said. The lady had to quicken her pace to keep up.

Erik stopped playing, slumped and sighed.

“Obnoxious is a fine quality, dear one,” Mordecai said. “Cultivate it. Cute people don’t rock and roll.”

“What about… Paul?” Erik said.

Mordecai pointed a finger at him, “He’s both. You know he wrote ‘Silly Love Songs’ just to annoy John, don’t you?”

Erik tipped up his chin. “I can be both too.” He lifted the violin, considered it, and then offered it to his uncle with a smile. “Teach me ‘Silly Love Songs’ or I’ll cry and everyone will think you’re mean to me.”

“That’s very good,” Mordecai said. He put Angie to bed and closed the case. “But it’s time to go home now.”

“…Hey!” Erik said.

But while there was much argument about whether or not Wings were any good, there was no negotiating with the position of the sun. Mordecai did not like to have Erik out with him after dark. They could go home and have a nice dinner (or at least a cheap one), and then Erik could spend the rest of the evening in relative safety while Mordecai staked out a street-corner in SoHo and tried not to get mugged or arrested.

Gradually, their laughing discussion of whether Erik was irresponsible enough to learn the drums (Mordecai thought ‘no,’ but Erik was insistent upon ‘yes’) faded into tense silence. Mordecai bundled an arm around the boy and quickened their pace.

“…following…” Erik managed softly, but he didn’t look.

Mordecai also didn’t look. “I know. I see them.”

The men were wearing dark red leather jackets with black alchemical symbols scratched on the backs. Milo would have read them as magical notation standing for the process of separation and the material sulfate. Barnaby would have seen a conjunction of Scorpio with vitriol, and read it with context as go away, we hate you — but also buy-one-get-one-free potato chips, an explosion involving a trestle bridge and the concept of inevitability, because Barnaby was like that. Erik and Mordecai only knew that these men were in some kind of gang and interested enough to be following them, even when they dodged down a side street.

And it was getting dark.

“Okay, I am going to pick a storefront and you and I are going to be very, very nice to whoever happens to be in there, okay?” Mordecai said, eyeing both sides of the street.

“Police…?” Erik said.

“They’re not our police,” Mordecai replied. “First we get indoors with people, then we work out what to do from there. Okay?”

Erik nodded.

Mordecai was doing a rapid social calculus and didn’t entirely notice. Who did he know around here? Who had a reasonable chance of knowing him? And liking him enough not to throw him over to a street gang? This was Courier Lane, a neat little stub of a street which was lined with ornamental cherry trees. The sidewalks were paved and the stores were moderately priced and boutique-like. This was where the nearby factory workers went to pretend they were shopping someplace upscale, and the tourists who didn’t know any better took pictures with the convenient cherry trees and bought postcards from the newsstands. Mordecai felt he took on a picturesque aspect around Courier Lane, providing the shoppers and photographers with literal local color.

More by instinct than logic, he selected an establishment with children’s clothing displayed on wooden hangers in the window and dragged Erik through the door.

A cheerful bell engaged and he winced up at it as if it might be tattling on him to the authorities.

There was a woman with her blonde hair drawn into a wispy bun, busily pairing up tiny shoes behind a glassed-in counter. She straightened and swept a hand through her hairstyle. “Mr. Eidel?”

He stared at her desperately. Come on. I know this. I need to know it.

“Miss Gottschalk,” he said, relieved. “I’m so terribly sorry. I’m afraid we need your help.”

———

Miss Gottschalk made them tea and let Uncle Mordecai use her phone. The phone part didn’t go so great. There was no way of calling Hyacinth’s house direct, and the drugstore nearest the house proved unwilling to send someone there just to placate a random voice on a phone. Finally, with what he thought was brilliance (Erik thought it was pretty smart too), he requested to set up a delivery. They asked him for proof of his address.

“I can’t give you proof of my address, you mentalist, I’m trapped in Hens and Chicks and my only way out is this phone! …It’s a shop on Courier Lane! A lovely shop with reasonable prices and quality merchandise. …I’m sorry, I’m trying to avoid getting killed by a street gang, I don’t need to hear about someone who ordered five hundred boxes of feminine hygiene products sent to their ex-girlfriend’s house for a prank!”

“Mr. Eidel…” sad Miss Gottschalk.

He covered the receiver. “I’m so sorry, my dear. I’ll lower my voice.” He also clenched his teeth. “I am offering to pay you if you will please, please just send someone to my house to let them know I need rescuing. Or even just bring them back to this phone so I can tell them. You will have to trust me for the money, but I do settle my debts. This is an emergency. Please. …I can’t call the police. The men in red jackets will hide until they go and then I’m in the same situation I am now!” He covered the receiver again. “I am sorry, Miss Gottschalk. Truly.”

She just shook her head. The cute young couple looking at baby outfits had gone after the ‘feminine hygiene products’ outburst.

He apologized and he hung up without even swearing. He offered to pay his share of the phone bill. She insisted it wasn’t necessary and asked if he wanted to try again. He tried Hassan’s Kebabs, the bodega past Swan’s Neck and the Xinese restaurant on Eddows Lane. The Xinese restaurant was the worst. They’d made deliveries to the house before and they understood about that, but they didn’t understand ‘I don’t want to order Xinese food, I have become trapped in a children’s clothing store downtown and I need you to explain that to my family so they can come rescue me because you have a phone and they don’t.’ And it seemed like they were trying so hard and they knew something was wrong, but they barely spoke Anglais.

Finally Uncle Mordecai said, “No! I don’t want another restaurant that delivers to Courier Lane! Put down the phonebook, Mr. Lee! Don’t you foreign devils have any children who’ve lived here long enough to forget their damn culture?”

Then they hung up on him.

Then he was all out of people he knew who had a phone. Ted and Maria and Bethany and Pablo and Steven the dry cleaner couldn’t afford one yet.

There was a place for kids to play that had a bookshelf and some toy cars and one of those wire maze things with the colored beads and a pasteboard castle you could actually climb on and ordinarily Erik would’ve been all over that, but he was kinda worried about getting killed by a street gang.

There was a window seat with a striped cushion by the front window with the display clothes and he was sitting there, peering past them, with a cup of tea getting cold next to him. He didn’t want the tea but she didn’t ask and she was trying to be nice to them and he was trying to be nice back to her, but he kept forgetting to drink the tea.

He didn’t see the guys with the red jackets anymore but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. It was getting really dark. There were only gaslamps outside. His uncle had spent a lot of time trying to call someone to help them. Now it was even easier for bad people to get them, and it was getting more and more easy. No one was going to come help them. Nobody who cared about them knew where they were, just that they went to the movies first and that was miles away.

Miss Gottschalk cleared her throat before she had a look out the window too. “How is your tea, Erik?”

He took a sip and he nodded at her in a way he really hoped looked sincere and/or shy. He knew he wouldn’t be able to talk straight and if he started singing she’d think he was nuts.

“Have any of them been by since the one with the matches?” she asked.

Erik shook his head. That one had been scary. He was walking past the front window and he didn’t even slow down, but he pointed at Erik and then lit up a match with his thumb. He didn’t even have a cigarette, he just threw it on the ground and it went out. It was even scarier because Erik thought he recognized that guy from somewhere. Did he sell me ice cream? A soda? Did he put money in the violin case? Did Auntie Hyacinth fix him…?

Miss Gottschalk was talking to Uncle Mordecai now, “I think they call themselves the Vitts. They were in here about a month ago. They wanted me to hang this little sign in the window that said I wouldn’t sell to colored people. They wanted me to turn customers away.” She shook her head. “I am not an activist, Mr. Eidel, but I am a capitalist. They said they’d burn down my store, but of course they haven’t.” She primly adjusted the skirt of her dress. “I pay my protection money to the Naughts and Crosses.”

Uncle Mordecai wanted to say how this was one of the many reasons we don’t want to own our own business, dear one, but he didn’t. “It’s really a shame what you must go through, Miss Gottschalk,” he said. “Do you have anyone to help you out? A… Well, perhaps a boyfriend?”

“Hilda helps me in the stockroom, and she is a dear, but she goes home early on Frig’s Day.” She sighed. “I am afraid I lost my fiance, Mr. Eidel. He was the only man I’ve ever loved. It was the war.”

“Oh, that awful war. It is a shame. You’re so very young.”

Uncle Mordecai was annoyed she didn’t just get over it and marry some big guy who could help walk them to the bus stop, or even a little guy who knew magic or had a gun, but you couldn’t tell it from the outside.

Not unless you had a bunch of stupid gods telling you random stuff all the time.

Why don’t you tell me if that guy with the matches is still out there, you guys?

If you want the help, kid, you know what to do.

No. He put both hands over his ears, for what little good it would do. You go away. I hate you. You can’t come in.

But you’re gonna need me, kiddo…

Miss Gottschalk blushed prettily and turned her head aside. She was a normal person doing normal adult stuff and she didn’t get voices in her head asking her to let them hurt people. “You flatter me, Mr. Eidel.”

“Not one bit. And you’ve been very kind.”

“I-I usually close at six,” she admitted weakly. “I don’t want to throw you out and I won’t, but you must understand… I can’t keep you overnight. Are you certain you don’t want the police?”

“I don’t think they would be much help, Miss Gottschalk. But we’re going to do our best to deal with this as quickly as possible. I need to speak to Erik. Do you have anywhere I can do that alone? He’s terribly shy, and I’m sure he’s been upset.”

Erik took hold of his uncle’s hand. He looked up at her, then he looked at the floor like Milo. He didn’t have to pretend to look upset.

“You can go in the stockroom, Mr. Eidel. I’ll stay on lookout.” She smiled.

“Thank you very much, my dear.”

———

Uncle Mordecai sang the first bit of the 59^th Street Bridge Song. He knew Erik liked that one. Calliope had it on a record.

Erik joined in weakly, although he wasn’t very enthused about it. They did the nonsense syllables together and finished off the chorus, then Mordecai said, “Have they told you anything about what’s going on or what’s going to happen?”

Erik winced and looked away. “Stuff about what you and the lady are thinking, but not the important stuff. The radio-man keeps saying to call him to help us and I can’t get anyone else to talk to me about it!”

Mordecai took him by both shoulders and set him back. He shook him lightly. “You don’t call anyone about this, Erik, do you understand me? Not anyone, because if you end up with the radio-man and if he is who I think he is, he kills people. If you kill somebody, that’s the rest of your life gone. I can keep those men from hurting you, but I can’t stop you from hurting yourself. So I’m just asking you. I’m begging you. Please don’t call anyone.” He sounded near tears.

Erik nodded. Then he began to cry.

Mordecai drew him near and held him. “It’s okay. It’s okay. We are going to get out of this. I am going to be as clever as I can. But even if that doesn’t work, I am not going to let those people hurt you.”

“Will you… hurt them?”

“If I have to, I’ll try. But if it comes right down to it, I am going to let them hurt me instead.” Erik cried out and Mordecai held him tighter. “I know. I know. I’m sorry. But no matter what they do to me, it’ll hurt less than me knowing you threw your life away to come save me. I’ve almost lost you too many times, dear one. Please don’t hurt me that way. Nobody else can hurt me as much as you, so please, please don’t.”

“I’m… sorry!” Erik sobbed.

“It’s not your fault, dear one. It’s not your fault. I’m the one who needs to fix this. I’m sorry if I can’t. I’m going to try. Will you help me try?”

Erik nodded.

“Okay. Then promise me you’ll stay here with Miss Gottschalk and be safe and not call anyone if anything happens. Okay? Because I can’t think about what to do about the other thing while I’m so scared about you.”

“Promise,” Erik said softly.

“Thank you, dear one. That’s all I wanted to talk about. I love you. We’re going to be okay.”

———

Mordecai was holding Erik against his shoulder when they came out of the stockroom. “Miss Gottschalk, what is the oddest way one could possibly get out of this building?”

———

There was a service entrance that opened into the alley, but Mordecai didn’t want that. Too obvious. It was finally decided to go up to the roof via Miss Gottschalk’s apartment above, walk over the tapas restaurant and the Xinese laundry and go down the fire escape at the end of the block. Getting to the next building over would’ve required a six foot leap, as there was not a board available that would close the distance, so the end of the block would have to do. Miss Gottschalk let them up through a trapdoor and followed them onto the roof. She had a little garden up there. Gardenias, mostly.

“Erik, wait with her,” Mordecai said. “Let me try it first and come back.” He smiled at her. “I don’t mind a bit of exercise, if that’s all right with you?”

“Oh, no, dear,” she replied. “I think I ought to hang around anyway, just in case someone happens to think you’re a cat burglar. Mr. Lopez keeps calling the Naughts and Crosses on me and my flowers, you know.”

“I appreciate that, Miss Gottschalk. You’ve been very kind. I shall buy Erik’s shoes and stockings from you until your things don’t fit him anymore. Erik, look after Angie for me.” He guided Erik’s arms around the violin case, then he hugged both and departed over the jury-rigged wall of planters.

It wasn’t really any worse than climbing around on the roof back at Hyacinth’s house to apply the paint. The peaks were even a bit less severe, although there wasn’t a widow’s walk. (Miss Gottschalk only lost her fiance, perhaps she wasn’t entitled to one.) The fire escape was a metal ladder that went all the way up the side of the building, easily accessed from the roof. He peered over the modest eave into the darkening street below, but there really was no hope of seeing them. They might even be altogether gone by now, having assumed the colored guy was using the phone in the shop to call the police. And also having assumed the police were a lot more helpful to colored people than actual colored people knew them to be.

The air was damp and smelled of the sea, as well as Miss Gottschalk’s flower collection. The fog was beginning to obscure the faint glow of the gaslamps. He really didn’t like to have Erik out this late.

He climbed down carefully, looking around as best he could. When he finally planted both feet on the pavement, he had…

Not a premonition. He didn’t get those. But…

During the siege, Diane told him she had this theory that everyone could do what she did. Not even just colored people — everyone. Parents especially, at least until their kids grew up. The metaphysical underlayment of the universe was all-access, it was just that to the untrained mind it was only good for knowing someone is staring at you, or that vase is about to fall, or a small child is currently raiding the cookie jar.

Maybe it was that. Maybe he just heard something or saw something so subtle he didn’t know what it was. But he suddenly knew, despite all protestations to the contrary, that it wasn’t going to be okay.

He cried out, “Erik, stay there and don’t…”

And then the man grabbed him.