“Who told you that Eckleburg wanted to see you that second time?” Ginter asked. “After Arthur disappeared?”
“Lorrie did. She called me at home and asked me to meet her at the doctor’s office that Friday. So I did.”
“Was Lorrie present for the meeting?”
“No, she stayed in the waiting room while I went in supposedly to have an eye exam.”
Ginter nodded slowly. “Then either Eckleburg was lied to by Maddox about you or else Eckleburg was lying to Maddox. But why?” he asked rhetorically.
Pamela shrugged. “Maybe they were just all confused and just assumed that since I knew Arthur that I was his girlfriend or else that I was some sort of explosives expert. Maybe they were just mistaken. What’s the big deal?”
They had reached an incline in the road. Ahead cars sped along the cross street that appeared to be the main thoroughfare deVere had mentioned.
“That must be Bridge Street,” Ginter said. Across the thoroughfare on the left side was a corner grocery store. “Let’s stop and get a drink. We have to interact with others eventually. This is as good a place as any to start.”
The sign over the front door announced, “Pete’s Variety.” Inside, a lone cashier stood behind a counter in the middle of the small room. Novelties and simple grocery staples were arrayed around the store. Ginter nodded to the clerk and crossed to a freezer in the rear. Lifting the lid he extracted two cans of ginger ale. He handed one to Pamela. She held it up and slowly turned it over in her hands.
“You need an opener,” Ginter said and looked around. A can opener hung from the freezer by a length of twine. Lewis pried open a diamond shape wedge in the top of one can and handed it back to Pamela. She took one sip before quickly lowering the can. Ginger ale drooled down her face.
“Air escape,” Ginter muttered and took the can from her. He pried another hole at the opposite end and handed the can back to her. “Apparently, pried holes aren’t big enough,” he muttered as he pried two holes in his own soda.
Lewis strode to the counter and studied the shelf in front of it. He picked up a newspaper and scanned the triple headlines. “TAX RATE JUMPS 90 CENTS,” “U.S. KOREA PATROL CLASHES WITH REDS,” “TREATY SIGNED AT KREMLIN.” Yet it was not the headlines that riveted Lewis’ attention but the masthead. Across the top it read, “Manchester Union Leader, Monday, August 5, 1963.”
Ginter handed the newspaper to Pamela. He handed the clerk a one-dollar bill.
“I’ll take the paper too,” he said. The clerk returned sixty cents. He and Pamela stepped back outside. Pamela still clutched the newspaper, staring at the front page. She slowly lowered it.
“We’re in deep trouble if we need a physicist to tell us how to open a can of soda,” she remarked absently.
They began walking down Bridge Street together.
“The big deal,” Ginter said, taking another sip of his ginger ale, “is that Eckleburg either lied to Maddox or Maddox lied to me. Either way someone sent you to scope out a weapons system you weren’t qualified to scope. Someone arranged for it to be you knowing that you would fail—that you wouldn’t be able to tell what it was. Which means someone else wanted us to succeed.”
“Couldn’t this just be all one big mix-up?” she asked.
Ginter shook his head. “There is no way that Dr. T.J. Eckleburg would ever get ‘mixed up’ on something like this. He may be an ass in some ways but Eckleburg sees everything that goes on. Nothing escapes his gaze. He wouldn’t have screwed up on this. Someone sent you knowing that we would fool you. Except that no one else knew what we were up to.”
“O.K., let’s say you’re correct,” Pamela said. “So what? I mean, what difference does it make now?”
Ginter wheeled on her. “It makes a huge difference. It means that someone back there knew what we were up to. In case you’ve forgotten when we arrived here in 1963 there were two cops looking for us. Someone knew we were coming. Somebody had arranged for them to look for us. Yet they had the wrong spot. Why was that? Someone had to be here to send those cops yet that same someone didn’t know where we were.”
Ginter studied the blank look on Pamela’s face.
“You don’t get it, do you? Whoever sent those cops must have come back to tell the cops where we were. Don’t you see? Someone else has come back and is trying to stop us. And if somebody has come back they may have already changed history. And we don’t know what they’ve changed it to.”
Pamela’s eyes widened. “Who… who?” she asked.
“What was it that the civil administrator’s assistant told you? That he had no idea where Arthur was held or any record of him being picked up? You said he looked stunned and nervous? You thought he was bullshitting you. What if he wasn’t? When does a civil administrator, or his flunky, ever act nervous? Suppose they really were confused. I think I know where Arthur Pomeroy and Ralph Collinson are. They’re here, back in 1963 with us. I don’t know how they got here or what the hell they’re doing or why they sent the cops at the right time but to the wrong spot but they’re here. And I don’t know what they’ve done.”
Lewis Ginter stood back and ran his hand through his hair.
“Pamela,” he said. “I need to know everything you know about Arthur Pomeroy and about all of your dealings with Dr. Thomas Eckleburg.”
Chapter 15
“I don’t believe it.”
Paul deVere stood at a window in his hotel room at the southwest corner on the eleventh floor of the Carpenter Hotel surveying the city below him. The window faced west and deVere found himself looking out over a brick mill yard. Beyond it ran the Merrimack River. On the far side of that was a residential area of three-decker apartment houses surrounding a tall thin church spire that dominated the landscape. A working class town, he thought.
Somewhere to his left was Bedford, where he would grow up after his birth in nine years. He tried to discern the border, but the city scape grew vague before him. “All that is real grows vague, and all that is vague lacks boundaries.” He tried to place the quote.
Around the room sat Lewis Ginter, Pamela Rhodes, and Amanda Hutch.
“It makes no sense,” deVere added. He turned and faced the others.
He and Amanda had checked into the hotel 45 minutes before Lewis and Pamela knocked on his door. Their walk downtown had been uneventful, and despite his nervousness the checkin had gone smoothly. He had used the cash and the desk clerk hadn’t asked for identification. Paul had acted nonchalantly, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the cigar store Indian or the hand-cranked Nickelodeon that stood in the corner of the tiled lobby.
“They’re anachronisms,” Amanda had whispered. “Even by today’s standards.”
Paul had resisted the temptation to play with the Nickelodeon.
“No one else knew we came back,” he said. “No one else knew we were working on time travel. There is no other Accelechron and no more fuel.”
He pointed at Pamela. “Even the Descendants had no idea what we were doing. How could Ralph and some guy I never met have any idea? I never talked to Ralph about my work, and he wasn’t any physicist.”
Lewis Ginter shifted in his chair. “I’m not saying that it makes sense. I don’t have an explanation. But someone lied about Pamela’s background and set it up so that we could fool her. They figured she would tell the Descendants that the weapon was legit. The Intervention Project would continue with funding from Eckleburg.”
Amanda turned to Pamela. “Was it Dr. Eckleburg who was suspicious and wanted answers? Or was he reacting to someone else’s concerns?”
Pamela shrugged. “All I know is that he said that there were concerns about this project and would I do them all a favor and check it out.”