She wondered if Wickie liked to party. Besides with Rimae, that is. The image of the two of them made her giggle, embarrassed. Rimae was old. Nice enough, maybe; she liked living in the house down the road from the Polar Bar, and Rimae was cool, but she sure was funny about Wickie.
Maybe she could talk Kevin into leaving Wickie alone. She could tell him Wickie knew better than to mess with him now.
She scrunched up her face and peered up through the leaves, mature green now, not pale and new any more.
Yeah. She’d talk to Kevin. He’d listen to her. He owed her that much. He was a jerk, but he owed her now.
Davey was standing now, looking around, the stick hanging forgotten from his hand.
It was time to get home. It was long past lunchtime, and Davey was getting hungry.
The bar was empty, and Sam finally had the chance to play whatever he wanted to play without interruption, without an audience, without a damned Observer who was taking his own sweet time about showing up. His hands crashed down on the keys with as much force as Davey had used, and he closed his eyes and breathed deep, as deeply as he could, clear down to the diaphragm, clear down to his toes, trying to relax. It had been more than thirty-six hours since Al had made contact, and he was beginning to wonder if something had happened to him back at the Project. Laced through the worry for him was a thread of worry for himself, too. What was he going to do if Al never came back?
He had to think about it. A couple of times he thought he remembered Ziggy managed to get somebody else through to him, but the memories were spotty. It had never really worked well. He couldn’t hear, or couldn’t see, or something was always wrong. Al was his only sure link to the Project, to Ziggy. If Al was gone, he was going to spend the rest of his life as a half-Mohawk half-Polish bartender who didn’t read much.
He could always have faith that God or Fate or Chance, Time or Whatever the hell was Leaping him around wouldn’t allow him to be abandoned in the seventies, but. . .
But he’d gone over that and over that: There were limits to what Whatever could do. That was why he Leaped to begin with. Leaping was connected to his doing something. Accomplishing something.
Of course, the next question was what.
He could get some petty revenge on Whatever by playing music that hadn’t been written yet, but he couldn’t remember any. His hands softened on the keys. There was one tune he could recall, always: “Imagine.” He played on, still musing.
There was still another problem, one he’d been avoiding thinking about since the first moment of his Leap in: Just how serious was Wickie’s relationship with Rimae, and what was Sam Beckett expected to do about it?
He didn’t need Al around to know what his Observer would advise him about that. For a tactical genius, Al could be very predictable sometimes.
He didn’t know Rimae very well. He didn’t have any strong opinions about her yet. He did know he wasn’t going to sleep with her; he was Sam Beckett, and Sam Beckett didn’t do that sort of thing casually. “Mr. Morals,” Al had called him once. Well, he could live with that.
It might be a little difficult to explain to her; she thought he was Wickie. Of course, by the time he got through telling her about the cabin, he might not have to worry about Wickie’s sex life any more. He’d seen enough of Rimae’s temper to know that the risk of Wickie losing his job was now a little more than 43 percent. It wasn’t that she was a bad person, really, but. . .
He sighed and got up, closing the keyboard cover. Surely there was a laundromat open on Sunday. Besides, he had to return the rug shampooer.
If only he’d Leaped in just to clean the rug.
CHAPTER TEN
The jungle talked at night.
He could smell the dark—a heavy, wet, rotting smell, a smell of dead leaves and unwashed humans and snakes.
Snakes. The black snake that curled through the bamboo bars and flickered its tongue at him, promising death, teasing him. The little grey-green snake that slid through and touched the lieutenant on the leg—the bare leg, exposed through torn and decaying cloth—the leg tied down so the lieutenant couldn’t move it away—just touched him, that was all—and the lieutenant cried, and whimpered, and died.
The snake looked at him next, and he looked back.
He couldn’t move. Each ankle, each wrist was roped to the bars of the cage; his feet were bare, his clothing was no better than the lieutenant’s.
It was hot. Wet. Suffocating. His skin itched with the salt of old sweat.
The snake hissed at him, rose up swaying.
The dead lieutenant turned his head toward him and cried, each tear a memory. The flesh of the dead man’s face was dry against his skull.
The snake was sliding against his hip.
The lieutenant’s face turned into the face of Sam Beckett.
Al Calavicci screamed.
“Al, sweetheart, what is it?”
He exploded into wakefulness, sweating, and Janna yelped as his fist connected with her shoulder. The sound shocked him from wakefulness into awareness. The room was dark, but he wasn’t in the jungle. He wasn’t tied. There was no snake. No lieutenant.
No Sam Beckett either.
Only . .. Janna, that was her name. Janna, who was backed up against the headboard staring at him, clutching at her shoulder. Janna, his wife. Who went from clutching her shoulder to touching his, lightly, seeking and giving reassurance at one and the same time. Ignoring her own pain to comfort his.
Late afternoon. A hotel room in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He knew where he was now.
He sat up wearily. “Oh, God. Janna, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” He
