“Go where?”
“Come on, buddy. Let’s not make any trouble.”
“I’m not trying to make trouble. I haven’t done anything.”
“Is that right? Well, I hate to tell you this, but you’re three and a half hours over. As much as I’d like to ignore that fact, you know I can’t do that. Now get in the back, or I’ll put you there myself.” To emphasize his words, he takes a step toward me and sets a hand on the gun hanging from his belt.
“Three and a half hours over what?”
“Enough already. Get in the damn car!”
He flicks off the tab holding his gun in place and starts to pull the weapon from its holster.
A few times I’ve been in a situation where there are no good options, just ones that are slightly less bad than others. This is one of those times, and at the top of my current list of bad options is being trapped in the back of a police car.
So I take off running down the street in the direction from which the police car has come.
A gunshot rips through the night. I don’t know where the bullet’s gone. I’m just grateful it hasn’t hit me.
I’m fifty feet from the nearest intersection when the cop shoots again. This time I actually hear the bullet pierce the air a few feet above my head and then smash through a window of the building to my left.
Just as I reach the corner, I hear a door slam and then the engine of the cop car roar into reverse. I take the turn, hoping there’s another intersection close, but it’s a long block without any breaks. I sprint — if you can call it sprinting — knowing I will never make it to the next corner in time.
Behind me, I can hear the cops nearing the corner. They’ll be behind me at any second. Now would be a great time for Lidia to take another jump. Apparently, though, she’s otherwise occupied.
I scan ahead, looking for anything I can hide behind. That’s when I spot the storm drain along the curb. I don’t know if it’s wide enough for me to slip through, but I run to it, and drop to the ground beside it.
My feet and legs go through without a problem. My waist rubs against both sides, but also doesn’t slow me. The police car’s tires squeal as it takes the corner. I’m unsure if they can see me or not, so I continue to push my way through the opening.
It’s my head that proves to be the biggest problem. I have to turn it sideways and can feel the skin scraping off my ears as I pass all the way inside. At this point, the cops have already driven by me. I hear them screech to a halt in the middle of the next intersection, and can imagine that they’re looking in all directions, wondering where I’ve gone.
I figure it’s only a matter of time before they decide to check the drain, so I follow the spillway into the main tunnel and then head down the tube. I randomly turn down other pipes, and don’t slow until I am well away from where I started.
When I spot another spillway, I grab the lower lip and pull myself up so I can peek outside. The road in front of me is wide, and I can see darkened stores on the other side. While this is clearly a main thoroughfare, what I don’t see is a single moving vehicle or pedestrian. It’s as quiet as the street where I arrived.
I try to remember if June 1, 1950, is some kind of special day in Iffy’s time line. There are a few of those in her history, I know, where the whole country seems to shut down for twenty-four hours or more. Perhaps this is one of those occasions, but if it is, I can’t remember its cause. The truth is, I should be right in the middle of America’s postwar boom, when the country was going nonstop.
I move back into the tunnel until I come to a ladder leading up to a manhole. I know if Lidia were to jump now, the chaser’s safety buffers would deposit me at ground level, but I’d feel better just the same not to be underground when the journey begins.
The manhole cover is extremely heavy, and I have to push up with my shoulders to unseat it. Moving the lid proves nearly as difficult. Once there’s enough room for me to wiggle around it, I do. To close the cover again, I sit on the ground and push it with my feet against until it drops into place.
As I stand up, I notice a pair of headlights several blocks to my left — the only ones on the road — heading in my direction. There’s a fountain in front of the building on the far side of the street. I hurry over to it and duck behind the retaining wall, where the water pool would be if there were any water.
The vehicle drives by without slowing. I chance a peek as it moves off, and see that it’s another police car.
It’s after eight… you’re three and a half hours over.
Now that I have time to process what the officer had said, it sounds like he was talking about a curfew. That would certainly account for the shutdown. I’ve read about political and social protests sparking curfews in the latter half of the twentieth and the early twenty-first centuries. Did those stretch as far back as the beginning of the 1950s? And if yes, then wouldn’t a curfew in New York City have been a major event?
Stop it, I tell myself. It’s unimportant.
What I need to do is finish working out how to find Lidia. Everything else is just noise.
According to the chaser, we’ve already been here six minutes shy of an hour. I can’t imagine we’ll be hanging around for that much longer, but I feel exposed here by the fountain.
I spot what looks like an alley a half block to the right, and I head toward it. On the way I notice that there are banners hanging from most of the streetlamps. While they are all similar, they are not the same. I give the closest one a look.
An American flag is printed at the top, but otherwise it is all white with black letters.
WE
WILL
NEVER
STOP
The next one reads:
VICTORY
IS ONLY
POSSIBLE
IF WE
WORK
AS ONE
Wouldn’t today’s date be around the time the Korean War begins? It must be what the signs are referring to. At least that’s what I think until I read a third:
IF HIMMLER
AND HIS
GERMAN MACHINE
ARE NOT
DEFEATED
EVIL
TRIUMPHS
BUY WAR BONDS
TODAY
Himmler? German machine? War bonds?
But it’s 1950. The war in Europe should be five years finished. Himmler, who I believe was one of Hitler’s closest advisors, should be dead or, at the very least, on the run. He certainly shouldn’t be in charge of Germany.
We were in 1939 for no more than a few hours. What was there in that history book Lidia showed me that she could have used to cause this? Did she kill someone whose removal from history paved the way for the Nazis’ success? Maybe she did kill Hitler. From what I’ve learned, his ego certainly didn’t help his country in the end.
I am still staring at the banner, dumbfounded, when I hear the sound of a car around a nearby corner. I race into the alley and huddle in the dark, hoping I wasn’t seen.
It turns out it wouldn’t have mattered much if I had been.
Fifteen seconds later — jump.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I half expect to end up back in Lidia’s doorless room, but that’s not the case. Instead, we travel considerably farther back, to August 8, 1874, at 3:00 a.m.