"They paid me," panted Bennett, "they want you and Daph real bad. I think — I saw he had a gun — I think they want to kill you! Shit. Shit. Now they'll want me real bad! Maybe I can just give 'em back the money." Daphne saw his eyes in the rearview mirror, glaring. "What did you do?"
"I don't know," Daphne's father said, tucking his briefcase down in front of his knees and groping to find his own seat belt, "but there's a guy I've got to call. Are you heading for the police station? Take a left on Colorado."
"Yes. No." Bennett was breathing hard. "Do you want to go to the police? Your father's back there."
"He knows them," said Marrity. "And he didn't want to come with us." He bit his lip, and Daphne got a quick vision of the old man pushing the sunglasses lady from behind, in the hospital lobby. "He didn't want to come," he said again. "Actually I should call this guy, before we go to the cops."
There was a familiar shoe box by Daphne's foot, and she kicked the lid off it — and squeaked in surprise. Bennett swerved in the traffic lane, then angrily said, "What now?"
"Rumbold!" she said. "Daddy, they've got Rumbold here!"
Her father peered over her at the open box on the floor, and his face went blank with surprise. "What the hell?"
"You mean the teddy bear?" Bennett's voice was loud. "Burned up?"
"Yes," said Daphne's father, "her teddy bear. We buried it. Why do they have it?"
"They probably saw you bury something." Bennett sped up as they passed a Holiday Inn. "They want something from you."
It took Daphne a moment to realize that her father was picturing the videocassette she'd taken from Grammar's VCR, because she was picturing it too. And her father was also picturing a sheaf of creased yellowed papers. The Einstein letters, she was sure.
"I've got to stop and call Moira," said Bennett as he made a rocking left turn onto Colorado. "Tell her to leave work right now and meet us at the Mayfair Market on Franklin, in Hollywood. We'll be there before she is, we can wait for her. We're all in some real trouble, I hope you know that."
Daphne wondered how he could imagine that they might not know that.
"And then what?" asked Marrity.
"I know a place where we can all hide, and decide what to do. Hollywood Hills, panoramic view with Hollywood sign and easy access." He sighed. "I've still got the keys to the place."
Bennett had turned right, onto a street called Garfield, but now he sped right past the police station and the high red dome of City Hall, and made a left turn onto a broader street.
Daphne stared out the left-side rear window at the white headstones of a cemetery wheeling past. For a moment she thought of asking Bennett to stop so that she could bury Rumbold there, but she just sighed and kept silent.
Charlotte could joggingly see herself standing on the sidewalk, and Rascasse lying facedown on it, as Golze hurried up, staring.
"Backup car says sixty seconds," Golze panted. "Bradley shot him?"
"No," said Charlotte, "he hit him with the butt of the gun, and the gun went off. The bullet went into the tree, I think." Through Golze's downward-staring eyes she noted the red blood trickling down through Rascasse's spiky white hair to puddle on the sidewalk pavement under his chin. She was mildly surprised to find that she didn't feel anything at all about him.
"Have the boys be ready to lift him," Charlotte said.
"I may do that," Golze snapped, "or I may leave him right here. I think he's dead."
Golze's vision shifted to the right, and focused on the old man who had refused to get into Rascasse's hijacked car with the Marrity family.
"Who are you?" Golze asked.
"He's the guy who was driving the Rambler," said Charlotte. "Frank Marrity's father." And he gave me an awful shove, she thought, this morning at the hospital.
The old man smiled, though his face went blank again when Golze said, "Bullshit, we killed Marrity's father in '55, in New Jersey. Who are you?"
The old man licked his lips. "Do you have Frank Marrity's fingerprints?"
"Yes," said Golze.
The old man visibly took a deep breath. "Good, you'll want to check this. I'm Frank Marrity, the same guy who just drove away in that car, but I'm from the year 2006. I want to make a deal with you people."
For several long seconds Golze's gaze was fixed on the old man, and Charlotte stared right along with him. Her face tingled, but she couldn't tell if it was hot or cold.
I knew it was possible, she thought breathlessly, I knew Rascasse and Golze were on the track of something that could be attained. I can save my young self, save her vision, save her soul from all my sins… if this guy isn't lying.
The old man who claimed to be Frank Marrity licked his lips again. "Killed my father? — in 1955! Why?"
Charlotte's view of him was blacked out for a moment: Golze had blinked heavily. "Ask the dead guy on the sidewalk there," Golze said. His gaze swung back toward the van, and one of the men who had been inside it was growing in apparent size as he strode up to them.
The man waved back over his shoulder. "Car's here."
"Frisk this guy," said Golze, nodding toward the old man, "then get Rascasse into the car. Charlotte and Hinch and the old guy come with us in the car, you and Cooper stay with the van. Tell the cops one of those guys was shooting at the other, missed and hit the van's tire. You don't know who they were. Give a bad description of them, and of the car. Say we were just strangers who stopped to help, and drove off with this injured guy to find a hospital. You don't know who anybody was. You're bewildered and angry, right? Toss your guns in the car trunk right now."
Golze turned to the street, where a white four-door Honda was slanting in ahead of the van, so Charlotte switched her attention to the man Golze had been talking to, who now proceeded to pat down the old man.
She was still dizzy. As she watched the hands slap and slide over the potbellied torso and the new-looking clothes, Charlotte wondered if this could really be Frank Marrity from… nineteen years in the future. If he was, the years had not been kind. How was your light spent, Frank? she thought. In what dark world and wide? You're a nice-looking guy in '87 — what happened?
A hand grabbed her elbow from behind, and she reflexively switched attention — Golze was looking at her, pulling her toward the car.
"You in back on the left," Golze said to her, "Marrity in the middle, Rascasse on the right. Hurry."
Rascasse wasn't dead — when he had been hoisted up and was being folded into the Honda, he raised his blood-smeared face and muttered something in French.
"Oh la la," said Golze, shoving the old man's head down to get him into the car, then wiping his hand on the shoulder of Rascasse's suit.
As she hurried around to get in on the other side, Charlotte was thinking about the little girl she had waved to in the fleeing car. Charlotte had seen her through Golze's eyes and then jumped to the girl's viewpoint — and it had been the girl's viewpoint, because Charlotte had seen herself behind the car, on the fast-receding sidewalk — but suddenly she had glimpsed a quick image of the little girl herself, up close, in profile.
It only seems to happen with Frank Marrity and his daughter, thought Charlotte as she slid into the seat next to the old Frank Marrity and pulled the door closed, this falling into one viewpoint from the other. What does that mean?
And why did I wave at her?