Lacking further direction, he found a broom and bucket and a mop and some cleaner, and started on the floor, scraping up the detritus of dead cigarette butts, smashed pretzels, and wide sticky patches of beer spills.
Once the floor was reasonably clean, he emptied out the bucket in the sink in the utility closet and paused. Tables, he thought; he didn’t know how Wickie felt about it, but he decided he’d draw the line at cleaning bathrooms if at all possible. He started on the tables.
It was kind of nice, actually. Nobody around, no hassles, no life-threatening crises. Not even Al. Well, he kind of missed Al, but he never seemed to have much time all by himself to think about things.
When he thought about things, his thoughts invariably ended up, eventually, at the same place. Home.
It had been so long since he’d been home he’d almost forgotten what it was like. He couldn’t remember it very well: scraps and bits and pieces of pictures, scenes; sharp, clear images of people without names.
He knew what his mother looked like, because the vagaries of his Swiss-cheese memory hadn’t shot a hole into that particular image—not yet, not this time, anyway. He had no idea any more what his sister Katie looked like as an adult, though he could remember her as a child. He thought his brother Tom was alive, but he didn’t want to ask, in case he was wrong, in case something else had happened after the Leap in which he had changed things so Tom didn’t die in Vietnam.
He could remember, as if reading them off the page, most of the equations supporting the theory of quantum leaping. He still didn’t know what had gone wrong. According to Al, nobody back at the Project quite knew, either. He couldn’t remember what the Project was like, though he knew Gooshie had bad breath and Tina had red hair.
He probably knew that from Al, though.
There had to be lots of other people there, but he couldn’t remember them.
He sighed and finished polishing the last table. There were always windows to do. The Polar Bar featured stained-glass panels with large panes of red and gold and blue and green, underneath clerestory windows of clear glass. Sunlight made colored jewels of light across the floors and tables and the bar. The door was paneled in oak and heavy, mottled amber glass. It gave the place a vaguely men’s-club feeling, dark and burrowsome with occasional glimmers of beauty.
Someone rattled at the front door. He put the rag aside. He could see only a vague shadow through the glass, so he cracked the door open an inch or so. “Yes?”
It was the angry kid from the night before, and he shoved
the door open, pushing Sam aside. He had medium brown hair and dark brown eyes that glittered with anger. His pupils were too small, Sam noted with a clinical part of his mind—some chemical influence there. The boy’s fingers, curled around the door frame, were white and yellow with pressure.
“I want to know what the hell you thought you were doing last night!” the kid demanded, his voice cracking.
“There’s a law about serving liquor to minors,” Sam said mildly, moving just in time to block his visitor from actually entering. He didn’t think the kid was stupid enough to start anything, but just in case, it was always a good idea to keep him on the other side of the portal. At least the frame would limit the scope of his swing.
“It was a private party, dammit!” The boy pushed himself forward, his muscles visibly bunching under the blue T-shirt. There wasn’t any excess fat on him; he was athletic and strong and he moved as if he knew it. He still hadn’t quite grown into his height, but he wasn’t far from it.
Sam shrugged, keeping a wary eye on him. “You got your money back.”
“Where’s Rimae? I want to see Rimae.” He pronounced it Ree-may.
Rimae. That was what Al had said Rita Marie Hoffman was called. This kid was on first-name terms with the owner of the bar? “She’s not here yet. I’m sure she’ll be happy to listen to you later on.”
“Don’t you mess with me, Chief,” the kid snarled.
He was just a kid, tall and all bones and angles. No match for Sam Beckett, who retained the mental disciplines for a number of martial arts he couldn’t remember the names of; no match even for Wickie Gray Wolf Starczynski, who was the same height, not enough older to make a difference, but twenty-five pounds heavier. There was no reason, as far as Sam could see, that the kid should be so sure of himself. The boy was clearly aching for a fight.
Sam wasn’t interested in giving it to him. He shrugged and stepped back, closing the door in the kid’s face before the boy could take advantage of the opening. He could keep pounding at it all day, as far as Sam was concerned; all he’d get for it would be bruised knuckles.
He turned back to find himself with an audience: the redoubtable Rimae and two more kids, a girl in her late teens holding the hand of a boy about the same age, or perhaps a little younger. Rimae was standing arms akimbo, with the air of a woman about to deliver serious trouble.
The girl stood at the end of the bar, looking worriedly from Rimae to Sam and back again. She wore pink bellbottoms that looked a size too small and a loose blouse two sizes too big. She wasn’t holding the boy’s hand for reassurance but rather to reassure; she whispered something in his ear and edged in front of him protectively.
The boy, by contrast, looked nowhere in particular. Sam’s eyes narrowed as he looked at him. There was something— he couldn’t quite remember, something nibbling at the back of his mind. It wasn’t the way he was
