-
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
there wasn't a phone book to be seen, and that was what I
needed. There was a convenience store a couple of blocks down that I'd spotted
from the balcony, so I headed there, hoping that they would have one intact.
When I reached it, I saw that it was kind of a parody of a chain store, but it
accepted the CAID card, which I knew now was the wel-fare card I had, and also
had a big sign in the window saying
CHECKS CASHED!
I went in and saw the pay phone with no books, and so I went to the counter.
The clerk was an Asian woman, possibly Korean, with a fairly thick accent, but
she got the idea.
"Excuse me," I said, uncharacteristically shyly for me. It was the first time
I'd spoken, and my reaction to hearing my own voice was
Jeez! I sound like a male munchkin!
In truth, I probably sounded better than that, but it was one of those voices.
Sharp, nasal, kind of a low soprano on helium, but very easy to understand for
all that. "Do you have a phone book I can look at?"
"Phone book. Yes. Which you want?"
"Do you have a Yellow Pages?"
"Yes, yes." She reached under the counter and handed me a surprisingly thick
book. "Oakland Alameda County" it read. That figured. I thanked her, took it
over to the coffee counter, and looked up "Restaurants." There was no Alice's
Diner listed. I took it back, surprised at how heavy it seemed, and thanked
her.
"You wouldn't happen to have any others around, would you?" I asked her.
"No, sorry. This is it."
I sighed and wondered what the hell I should do. I was al-ready feeling not
only paranoid but very put upon; almost everybody except the lady behind the
counter and the little kids on the balcony seemed a lot bigger than I
was.
I walked out, trying to get some self-control and telling myself, "Think!
Think!"
Just around the corner was a taxi sitting at the curb, the dri-ver a young
black man smoking a cigarette and reading the pa-per. Getting up some nerve, I
approached the cab and leaned down. "Excuse me, but do you know
where an Alice's Diner on San Pablo might be?"
He looked over, frowned, looked thoughtful, and then said, "Not in this area.
That sounds more like Berkeley than Oak-land. I could take you through the
city and up to Berkeley on San Pablo, though."
I shook my head. "No, sorry, I don't think I have the money for it. Thanks
Page 45
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
anyway."
I turned and started to walk away, but he called me back. "Miss? You might try
the number fourteen bus. It goes all the way to El Cerrito for a buck."
Now, that was an idea, and within this area, with the card I had, I wouldn't
even be out the dollar. I couldn't imagine that I'd have a job paying the
basics that would require me to cross the bay or something like that.
It was in fact in Berkeley, up near the university, as the crossroad
suggested, and while it was a fairly new place, it was built to look like and
feel like a classic diner. I went in and saw from the clock on the wall that
it was a little after one in the afternoon.
The manager, a big, beefy guy who looked like he should have had a cigar stub
in his mouth, came over. "Well, hello! You're kinda early, ain'tcha? You ain't
due till four o'clock."
I shrugged and pretended to know what I was doing. "Sorry. I just got bored
and didn't have much else to do, so I figured I might as well come up here.
I'm still getting used to this, remember."
He shrugged. "Suit yourself. I don't need you early, though."
I saw that the three waitresses in the place all wore uniforms with skirts and
stock designs, kind of fifties kitsch, but I figured they'd have one for me
when I came back.
The more I saw the place, both from the bus and while walk-ing around, the
more it felt like the same world, the conserva-tive and boring one I'd become
used to in a sense. I wasn't the only woman wearing jeans, but there weren't a
lot of us; skirts or godawful-looking pedal pushers out of some ancient
I Love Lucy episode seemed standard.
Walking around the neighborhood, I saw a lot of mostly clean-cut young college
types who looked out of place with this university's reputation in the first
world I'd known, and more of them were male than female by far.
There was a TV and appliance shop nearby, but it was un-likely they'd have any
news until after I needed to be at work. Still, I blew another two precious
dollars at a soda fountain yeah, they still had 'em there on a
Coke and some ice cream while waiting for the radio behind the counter to hit
the news.
It was, at least, the lead story.
"
Two dead, one injured, three safe in air crash north of Eu-reka, " the radio
reported. The pilot, the loadmaster, and some-body who sounded a lot like
Rick were reported to have only minor cuts and bruises. The other navy man,
who had to be Cholder, had several broken bones, and another male passen-ger
appeared to be paralyzed but alive. The copilot and a fe-male passenger not
yet identified pending notification of next of kin were said to be dead.
It wasn't the report I had expected. I figured that the para-lyzed man was,
well, me and that they just hadn't realized that he'd been paralyzed all
along. The copilot well, that could mean that something had come through the
cockpit window in the crash, or if he was dead and Cholder was hurt, maybe the
worst damage was on the left side of the plane and that was where he'd been
riding. But the lone female there was only one Alice
McKee and she'd been behind Rick and me, hadn't she?
This was weird, too. She got zapped, I got suddenly trans-muted to somebody
else a hundred or more miles south, and nothing at all added up.
The only way Sister Mary Alice could have been killed, and not Rick and me, in
that plane would be if...
If somebody had been out all along to kill McKee. Some-body for whom Rick and
Cholder and me were all irrelevant.
Somebody who had a lot more control and a lot more abili-ties here than he
should.
There was another dimension, too, one inside me. It was eerie to hear that
I was supposedly still alive someplace else, but there was a tremendous sense
Page 46
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
of relief and emotional long-ing at the news that Rick was in good shape. It
was the same way the male Cory Maddox would have felt toward
Riki, or Angel, but not quite the same. I couldn't explain it, but I sure
wanted to get in contact with him, too, and in more ways than one. Not that
he'd know me from Adam or, rather, Eve.
Trouble was, though, that Stanford might be just south across the bay, but it
might as well be another world away for all I had.
So, with no other choices, I started work at Alice's Diner, complete with one
of those belted dress uniforms. It wasn't brain surgery; the menu was basic
but full, the customers were typical of a university area, and while there was
a lot of sass and at least three attempts to pick me up, the fact was, at the
end of the shift, at midnight, I didn't feel overworked. I also had about
twenty-five bucks in tips strictly off the books.
The more I did it, the more the little tricks for increasing my tips became [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- zambezia2013.opx.pl