Gypsies

It occurred to him that he ought to be scared.

Snow had melted into his clothes. His hair was cold and wet against his neck. His feet were numb. His sneakers made wet, rubbery sounds with every step. I should be scared, he thought, because none of it was the way it should be. Something was obviously wrong and he was the center of it; this empty building existed, in some sense, entirely for his benefit.

But there was no question of stopping or turning back. He could not even contain the thought; it didn’t cross his mind. And that should have frightened him more than anything else—but in place of the fear there was only a faint disquiet. Just the outline of fear: as if the fear had been buried, as if the snow had covered it up.

He closed his eyes and walked with uttermost confidence. He came to a stairwell and followed it down, he could not say how far, but the air was warmer when he stopped. It was a hot, stale, enclosed air; it drew the moisture out of his clothes and it constricted his chest.

He arrived at a room. The room possessed a big steel door, but the door eased silently open at Micheal’s touch.

He stepped inside.

The room contained one wooden chair; otherwise it was empty. A bank of lights glared down from overhead. Michael was alone in the room. He had arrived, he thought happily, at the heart of the building.

But his sense of direction evaporated suddenly, and with it the inhibition that had locked in his fear. Suddenly he was scared, badly scared, profoundly scared. It was like waking up from a nightmare. He felt a panic boiling up in him. What was he doing here? What was this place?

He turned back toward the door but discovered with a dawning horror that he could not move in that direction. He tried but simply could not; his legs refused to function; he couldn’t lift his feet. He could not even lean toward the door; could not make himself fall in that direction.

He felt the way a person trapped in a collapsed building must feel: impotent and utterly enclosed. He wanted to scream for help but was afraid of the attention he might attract. But then, he must already have attracted attention. Why else was he here, unless somebody wanted him here?

There was a motion in the doorway and Michael shrank back into the wooden chair. He gripped the mitered edge of it and stared wild-eyed into the unattainable corridor.

A man stepped into the room with him.

It was the man from the car—the man who had driven him here.

The man stepped closer. He smiled. He seemed genuinely happy, and that was terrible in itself—he just radiated happiness.

“Hello, Michael,” he said. “My name is Carl Neuma

Chapter Twenty

“Maybe,” Laura said, “he went out for a walk.”

Which was at least plausible. It was obvious from the state of his open suitcase that Michael had dressed before he left. So, Karen thought, yes, that was a possibility. He could have slipped out sometime after dawn. Maybe he would be back.

It was a reassuring idea and at the end of a quarter hour she had almost convinced herself of it, at which point she became aware that the hotel room door was still locked and, worse, still chained—from the inside.

So he had not left the room after all. Not in this world.

Odd that it was possible to be calm at this revelation. She pointed out the chain lock to Laura, who said, “Goddamn,” and punched out a flurry of numbers on the telephone. It was the number Tim had left. “Room 251,” Laura said tightly, and then, after a long pause, “Fauve—Timothy Fauve… He what? Oh, Christ… No. No, that’s all right. Thank you.”

The receiver rattled down.

“He’s gone,” Karen interpreted.

“Checked out this morning. Damn!”

So Michael was gone and Timmy was gone.

They have him now, she thought. He was the one they wanted and they have him now. That’s what this means.

But Michael had only been gone a few hours at most. It was hardly any time. She wanted to reach back for him … unwind the clock until he was here in the room and she could grab him and hold him, hold him so hard that no one could take him away.

“One time,” Karen said, “when Michael was just two years old—it was a couple of days after his birthday—I had him in a stroller and I was doing some shopping. We were downtown. It was almost Christmas; the stores were crowded. I was bending over a shelf and my back was to him. I was looking for that scented soap I used to send Mama every year—she loved that soap so much—but they didn’t have it, so I was picking through the merchandise. It was like, well, there must be just one, it must be behind something. So I spent a lot of time rooting around, with these crowds just pushing past me. And they still didn’t have what I wanted. So finally I stood up and I looked for the stroller. But it was gone. Gone with Michael in it. And I didn’t panic. I just went cold. It was like the bottom had gone out of everything. I was dizzy but I was very systematic. I called out for him. I asked people, ‘Did you see a stroller—a yellow flowered stroller?’ And I worked my way down the aisle.

And then I saw it. It was like radar—I picked out that stroller in the crowd. It was way off down by the escalators. My heart started to beat hard. I ran over there. I pushed people out of the way—I didn’t care. It was like the hundred-yard dash.

“And when I got there it was just this very confused old woman pushing Michael around. She had spotted the stroller and grabbed hold of it. She thought she was back in 1925 or something. I pried her hands off the push bar and she just looked at me, and there was such confusion and, I guess, grief in that look, I couldn’t be angry. Five seconds earlier I was ready to tear her apart. But I just said, ‘I’ll take care of him now,’ and she said, ‘Oh. Well, all right. Thank you,’ and went wandering down the escalator.

“But what I remember is that run. Spotting his stroller and just going full tilt after it. Nothing mattered but getting there. I’d never run like that before. Never in my life. But I wish—”

She faltered suddenly.

“I wish,” she said, “I could run like that again.” Laura said gently, “Maybe you can. Maybe you have to.”

Karen looked at her sister, trying to make sense of this.

“Maybe he left here on his own,” Laura said, “or maybe he was taken. Either way … I don’t think we have any choice but to follow him.”

“Follow him where?”

“The most obvious place would be the world Tim was talking about. The Novus Ordo. But that’s hardly specific. We have to know where he went—we have to feel it.”

“Can you do that?”

“No. I want to! I’ve been trying. But it’s like trying to follow smoke—I can feel him but it just goes away into the air.” She focused on Karen. “Maybe you can do it.”

But that was absurd, Karen thought. I don’t have any talent at all. She told her sister so.

Laura said, “Karen, I know better. I know you’ve been trying to live a certain kind of life. And I know it’s been a long time. But you were as strong as I ever was—all those years ago.”

“We were kids!”

“It doesn’t change.”

“It does change!”

“You tell yourself that. But it was only ever a lie. Karen, do you understand what I’m saying? Because this is important. If you don’t at least try to do this— well, maybe we’ve lost him. The Gray Man wins. Maybe we don’t get him back ever.”

And Karen thought, My firstborn son. Michael!

But I can’t, she thought. Laura is mistaken. It’s been too long.

But she sat in the silent hotel room with her sister’s eyes on her, and all she could think about was that sprint, ru