'Mother and I had lunch together,' Brenda said quietly. 'Avocado and seafood, surf clam and Earthlife crab.'
'Mayonnaise?'
Jeremy listened as Morales quizzed his daughter like a felon. She went away mumbling to herself. Rita Nogales was a solver of puzzles, like Jeremy himself. If he'd known that...
Well, then what?
Two days later, Jeremy Winslow, horn Hearst, owned one-fifth (not one quarter) of Wave Rider.
Jeremy read through a thick file of data, and learned more of the restaurant than he'd learned in twenty-seven years. Karen's three siblings held another fifth each. The last piece rested with an entity that called itself Andy's Bank. 'Investment outfit,' Harlow said. 'They bailed us out with some money just after we opened.'
In Spiral Town the law would have dithered for much longer; sometimes years. He said so. 'It's communication,' Harlow answered. 'That, and an attitude. The law doesn't like ambiguities. If they'd found any discrepancies in the history of Jeremy Winslow, they'd be on your tail already.'
'So I'm real? '
'Real and a man of property. Let's celebrate.'
'I want to be on the bus at dawn.'
'Dawn?'
He couldn't sit still. He paced, leaning on the stick, careful with the knee. 'Now, here's my plan. Dawn bus. I want to get off at the Swan, that'll be about midmorning. I'll flag down the noon bus and get to Wave Rider after someone else has finished making dinner.'
'There's a noon bus?'
'Why don't you take that one, Harlow? Meet me at the Swan? We'll go on to Wave Rider. In a day or so we'll know if you and the rest of Karen's clan can get along.'
'No, I'll....awn bus. Early dinner?'
'Good. What are the neighbors like?' But Harlow didn't have friends she could invite at short notice.
She had not repeated an invitation that might have been only his imagination. Nonetheless that seemed ominous.
His leg was healing nicely. He was able to get around the kitchen without the cane. He packed for tomorrow's bus trip, and then they spent the afternoon building a dinner for two.
(Speckles pouches all over the table. All the same size, big enough for a head of lettuce, sold with half a cup of speckles in the bottom. He'd thought the merchants were being stingy. Never wondered if they just didn't have a choice.)
She opened what she called a half-bottle of wine, and tried to make him see what made it superior to whiskey. It was weaker, anyway. Again, he thought he was being cautious.
Harlow hadn't played among Otterfolk in years, nor visited the inn, and he had stories to tell her. He told her what 'It's the law!' was about. He got her to telling tales of Destiny Town, and he told her about playing with Varmint Killer in Spiral Town.
lie knew he'd drunk too much when he tried to stand up. Harlow got under his shoulder and led him to bed. She was weaving more than he was.
She got him down to the futon. Then she asked, 'Shall I stay?' He said, 'Of course, woman, it's your apartment,' being more obtuse than should be required of any man; and he let his eyes close and his mouth fall open. He knew no more until morning.
32
The Windfarm
Inn keepers
Not you, not your family, your guests, passing strangers, nobody goes near the Otterfolk birthground. Understand me, Harold?
-Georges Manet, Overview Bureau
He'd leave without her, let her take the noon bus, if he found her asleep. Leave her a note.
But she was bright and perky and handing him a mug of tea in the predawn dark.
Backpacks. Cane. The walk to the Road loosened up his stiff knee. Apollo finished rising. They flagged down the bus. Harlow pointed out sights as they moved out of Spiral Town.
She was asleep before they reached Terminus.
Too soon, she woke. 'Mount Canaveral!' she crowed. 'We used to launch Cavorite from here. Land by the ocean, refuel, fly it back here to load up.'
'Ever see this yourself?'
'No.' She squinted up at the mesa rim. 'How's the knee?'
'Not that good. That looks like quite a climb.'
The bus rolled on. Harlow asked, 'Whereabouts did you and... Andrew... ?' and didn't finish.
The bluff was in view. Andrew might still be there, bones picked clean and maybe scattered. Jeremy pointed well past it and said, 'Far side of the Swan, on the same side. Andrew would have gone out the same way I did.'
Here was the bridge. They signaled to stop the bus, donned packs, and got off, Jeremy leaning heavily on his stick.
Like the bridge, the Swan sagged a little. Lights glowed inside, though the hologram sign wasn't lit. The pit barbecue smelled of recent fire.
Children were all over the place, mid-teens commanding hordes of youngsters with moderate success. They looked too busy to talk. Jeremy and Harlow went in looking for an adult.
Alexandre Chorin was a little old, a little heavy, a little slow to be chasing after children. It was easy to see him as hiding from the noise, here in the shade of what had been the Swan's dining room and was now littered with games and toys. But he seemed glad to see them, or anyone.
'Jeremy's grandchildren will be old enough soon,' Harlow told him. 'We thought we'd stop off and look.'
'I used to fish here,' Jeremy put in.
'We still do,' Chorin said quickly. 'The lake perch are nice. There's a pit barbecue we use sometimes.'
'But then there was that trouble and everyone stopped coming,' Harlow said.
Jeremy: 'My children missed this entirely. Fishing at Swan Lake- It's still Swan Lake?'
'Oh, yes.'
Harlow: 'Do the children know-?'
'Oh, yes, it's one reason they come. Duncan Nick? The city planted an oak over him. It's just up the slope.'
'You can't miss it. And there are horror stories about the Windfarm innkeepers,' in a hoarse whisper. 'There's no knowing how many people stayed here overnight and weren't ever seen again.'
'Well,' Harlow said, 'I'd have thought one felon would have babbled stories. How many were there, a dozen?'
'Five, the caravaners say. All gone when the proles came. If you go up to Swan Lake, you can see how easy it must have been to get into the hills.'
