'Not always. But sometimes. The farthest one is 2039. But I think he's gone farther. A lot farther. I think he's gotten hold of the Caltech local-field time-maps. Or maybe he's been dropping his own sensors and making his own maps, I don't know. But I've never seen anything that looks like a map. It doesn't make a lot of sense. But then again -there's that thing that he says, that if we could go back to say, 1907 with a bunch of stuff from today-a transistor radio, a princess phone, a portable TV, a record album, birth control pills, things like that-none of it would make sense to someone living in that time. Even a copy of a news magazine wouldn't make much sense because the language would have shifted so much. So if Eakins has stuff from thirty, forty, fifty years into the future, we wouldn't get much of it-'
'Yes and no. Eifty years ago, they didn't have the same experience of progress, so they didn't have the vocabulary to encompass the kinds of changes that come with time. We have a different perspective -because change is part of our history, we expect it to be part of our future. So, if anything, we look at this stuff and we don't see a mystery as much as we see the limits of our experience.'
'Now, you sound like me.'
'I was quoting you. Paraphrasing.' I shuffled through the papers, the photos, the notes. 'None of this has any bearing on this case, does it?'
'I don't know. But I thought you should see it. Maybe it'll give you an insight into Eakins.'
Shook my head. 'It proves that he knows more than he's telling us. But we already knew that.'
She glanced at her watch. 'Okay, I'm out of time.' She stood up, leaned over and kissed me quickly. 'Take care of yourself-and your little boyfriend too.'
'He's not my-' But she was already gone.
I shoved everything back into the envelope and ordered a steak sandwich. The day had started weird and gotten weirder, and it wasn't half over. I might as well face the rest of it on a full belly.
Went back to the apartment. Photographed everything. Then gathered it up and went straight to the local copy shop. Five copies, collated. Paid in cash. Put one copy in the trunk of the car, put another in the apartment safe, and mailed the other three to three different P.O. boxes. Delivered the originals back to Georgia who accepted them without comment. Eakins had already left the building. But neither of us said anything; it was possible he had the offices bugged - maybe even with his funny poker chips.
By the time I got home, Matty was unpacking groceries. The whole scene looked very domestic. 'Did you have a good day?' he asked. All I needed was a pair of slippers and the evening newspaper.
When I didn't answer, he looked up. Worried. 'You okay?'
'Yeah. I'm just… thinking about stuff.'
'You're always thinking about stuff.'
'Well, this is stuff that needs thinking about.'
He got it. He shut up and busied himself in the kitchen. I went out onto the balcony and stared at Melrose Avenue. Cold and gray, it was going to rain again tonight; a second storm right behind the first. Something Eakins had said -none of it made sense, but one piece of it had its own particular stink of wrongness. Why is Matty not important to this case?
And that led directly to the next question: What did Eakins know that he wasn't telling me? And why wasn't he telling? Because if I knew… it would affect things. What things? What other plan was working?
Obviously, we weren't on the same side. Had we ever been? Never mind that. That's a dead end right now. I had to think about Matty.
If Matty is irrelevant, then… is he still in danger? No, of course he's in danger. He disappeared. We know that. But if he disappeared, then why is he irrelevant…? Unless his disappearance is unrelated. And if his disappearance is unrelated, then… of course, he would be entirely useless to this case. Shit.
But how would Eakins know that? Unless Eakins knew something about Matty. Or knew something about all the others.
And of course, all of that assumed that Eakins was telling the truth. What if he was purposely trying to mislead me? But then that brought me back to the first question. What was Eakins up to?
Not having the answers to any of these questions annoyed me. I didn't have a plan, I didn't have anything on which to base a plan. The only thing I could think was to continue with the plan that Eakins had scuttled -not because it was a good plan, but because it would force the situation. It would force Eakins to… to do what?
When the rain finally started, I went back in and sat down to dinner. Baked chicken. It was cold.
'Why didn't you call me?'
'You were thinking.'
'Urn-' I stopped myself. He was being considerate. 'Okay.'
'Do you want me to warm that up for you?'
'No, it's okay.' I ate in silence for a bit, feeling uncomfortable. Finally I put my fork down and looked across at him. 'Y'know what I just realized. I don't know how to talk to you.'
He looked puzzled.
'This is good - ' I indicated the cold chicken. 'You can cook. I keep wanting to say you'll make someone a wonderful wife someday. But I can't say that because - '
'It's different when you say it. When you say it, it isn't mocking.'
'It's still the wrong thing to say. It's demeaning, isn't it?'
'I don't mind. Not from you.' He started to clear the table.
I took a breath. 'Are you -?' I stopped. 'I don't know how to ask this. Are you… attracted to me?'
He nearly dropped the plates. He was facing away so I couldn't see his expression, but his body was suddenly tense. He finally turned around so he could look at me. 'Do you want me to be?'
'It's like this. I don't connect well to people. Not anybody. Male or female. I can go through the motions. For a while. But only for a while. I'm always… holding back.'
'Why?'
I shrugged.
'That's your answer?'
'When you start raveling, you get unraveled yourself. You get detached. You don't belong to any time, you can't belong to any person. So you turn off that part of yourself.'
He didn't respond right away. He got the coffee pot from the stove and filled two cups. He brought cream and sugar to the table, for himself, not me. As he stirred his coffee, he finally asked, 'So why are you telling me this? Are you telling me I shouldn't care about you because you can't care back?'
'I don't know if I can care about anybody. When I try, it doesn't work out. So I've stopped trying.'
'You didn't answer my question. Why are you telling me this?'
'Because… right now, you're the only person I have to talk to.'
'Not your dad?'
'This is not a conversation I could have with my dad.'
He shook his head in frustrated confusion. 'Just what are we talking about?' 'About the fact that I am so fucking angry and confused and upset and annoyed and frustrated and-and even despairing-that if you weren't here, right now tonight, if you weren't here to talk to… I'd end up sitting alone in a chair again - with my gun barrel in my mouth, wondering if I have the courage to pull the trigger. I've known guys who've sucked the bullets out of their guns. It makes a mess on the wall. And I used to wonder why they did it. That was before. Not anymore. Now I'm starting to understand.'
His face was white. 'You're scaring the hell out of me.'
'You don't have to worry. I'm not going to do anything stupid. I just-I just want you to know that right now… you're doing me the favor by staying here.'
'This is a lot more than I can deal with -I'm not-'
I nodded. 'Kiddo. I'm more than most people can deal with. That's why they leave. Look-I figured, after all you've been through, you'd understand what it feels like to feel so separated from everyone else. I'm coming from the same place -same place, different time zone.'
He stirred his coffee thoughtfully. 'There's a quote I learned in school. Sometimes it helps me. It's from Edmund Burke. I don't know who he is or was, it doesn't matter. He said, 'Never despair; but if you do, work on in despair.''
Considered it. 'Yeah. That's good. It's useful.'
