“Sean? They’re in here?” said the knife-wielding man, with up-speak and nasal vowels that sounded fresh off the boat from Galway Bay.
“You must have the wrong room,” I told him.
“Yer tellin’ me there’s two like her?” he scoffed.
Three more beefy lads arrived at the doorway. Each was wearing a bowler hat or a derby, which put me in mind of old movie comedians. But their headgear aside, these brutes were anything but funny.
Sean, evidently their leader, was the shortest of them. But he had a cocky manner, bruised knuckles and a cauliflower ear.
“Miss Morrow, is it?”
Kati shook her head, bewildered. She kept her eyes on that Bowie knife.
“A fine Gaelic name, darlin’,” he said. “I’ve known a few Morrows in Belfast.”
“You are wrong,” said Kati. “I am from Bavaria.”
“I don’t care if you’re from bloody Buckingham Palace. Come with us quietly now, and you’ll get to keep that pretty face.”
“She isn’t Miss Moro,” I said in soothing tones, wondering what the hell Ariyl had to do with these goons. “You can see her name and face on the poster outside. Katharina Brumbach. You’ve made a mistake.”
The guy with the knife put it uncomfortably close, ready to pare my Adam’s apple.
“Don’t you be makin’ one, fella,” he growled.
“Easy, Padraigh,” said Sean, mildly.
“Leave Mr. Preston alone!” warned Kati.
Sean grinned.
“Well, isn’t this convenient? We were sent for Morrow and Preston, and now here’s Preston, fallin’ right into our lap, too? Speakin’ of laps, I see Miss Morrow’s handiwork in yours. And a bit of a weapon it looks. Kindly be passin’ it over, real slow and careful-like.”
I didn’t move a muscle. “If you want it so much, you take it.”
“Get it, Dennis,” said Sean.
A brown-haired guy with mutton-chop mustache grabbed the iron bar at its bend. He instantly flung it aside and howled, blowing on his burned fingers.
In the confusion, I burst past Sean and Padraigh and dove for the toolbox outside. My fingers closed around something iron and heavy. Sean and his comrades came rushing toward me, but three of them skidded to a halt as I raised a three-foot crowbar.
Only Padraigh kept going. He lunged at me with the Bowie knife, but I parried it aside once, and then again. He tried a third time, and this time I smashed him on the wrist. He yelped in pain and dropped the knife. I kicked it out past the footlights.
Dennis had his own knife out, but he didn’t look eager to get the same treatment Padraigh had.
“Looks like you guys brought a knife to a crowbar fight,” I commented. “Now, why don’t you just blow?”
Sean drew a Webley revolver.
“I beg to differ, boyo,” he said. “’Tis you brought a crowbar to a gunfight. Now would be the time to drop it, unless you wish to be kilt entirely.”
Dennis muttered, “Old One-Eye wants him alive, ye said?”
“Shut yer gob,” growled Sean.
So I had a bit more leverage than it first appeared.
“Don’t do anything rash, Sean,” I advised.
He cocked the Webley and aimed it between my eyes.
“If ye knew me better, you’d know I’m not much for followin’ orders. Drop it.”
I complied. The clunk echoed in the empty auditorium.
“Smart lad,” said Sean.
“I try to make allowances for the poor judgment of others,” I agreed. “But maybe you boys should put your heads together and discuss things?” I added, nodding at Kati behind them.
The next second, the Mighty Sandwina clapped her hands on Sean and Padraigh’s heads, and put them together with enough force to render Padraigh immediately unconscious and make Sean cry out and drop his pistol.
Dennis and I both dove for the gun. He got to it first, I seized his wrist, and we rolled on the floor, punching and choking each other as we fought for control of it.
Uttering ripe curses, Sean grabbed a two-by-four and swung it at Kati. She turned and absorbed the blow on her back. Then she delivered a punch to Sean’s diaphragm that sent him to his knees, gasping for air.
The fourth thug, a blond bruiser, took out a blackjack and slugged Kati with it. That only made her madder. She snatched it from his hand, but instead of using it on him she flung it aside and began punching him.
Sean staggered to his feet and jumped on her back and tried punching her from behind, but Kati ignored her passenger and kept on socking the other guy.
Dennis tried to force the revolver’s muzzle toward Kati, but I kept yanking it aside. He fired once—breaking a window—and again, blasting a hole in the wall.
That second shot finally woke Pop, who fell backwards in his chair. He had the presence of mind to hide behind it.
Kati’s main opponent was built like a prizefighter; he apparently was used to taking shots to the face and though dazed by her first blow, he didn’t go down right away. So Kati’s fists did a boxing career’s worth of damage to him over the next minute. All in all, a single hard blow from the sap would have been kinder.
Max burst into the auditorium, having heard the gunfire. “Kati, ich komme!” he yelled.
If the boxer was hoping to be saved by the bell from the rain of Kati’s blows, no such rescue was forthcoming. He finally had the good fortune to back up and stumble over the fallen Padraigh. He hit the floor, already insensate.
For a finale, Kati lifted Sean off her and threw him across the orchestra pit into the front row.
By this time, Max had vaulted onto the stage. Dennis yanked the pistol toward Max and fired. Max clutched his shoulder and fell.
“Max!” cried Kati.
I bit Dennis’s thumb. He screamed and lost his grip on the pistol.
I jammed the muzzle in his nose.
“Get up!” I ordered, dragging him to his feet.
Kati ran to Max, who lay gasping against the wall.
“Liebchen! Liebchen, bist du verwundet?”
The usher from before peeked his nose in the auditorium’s back door.
“Get the police!” I yelled. He vanished.
Kati was bent over Max, both examining a slight trickle of blood. Miraculously, the bullet had barely grazed him. But tears rolled down her cheeks anyway.
“Oh, my poor little Max!”
“I’m fine,” he told her. “It’s just a scratch.”
Kati carried Max into her dressing room to tend to his wound. She had forgotten all about me, and I guessed that was for the best.
In a sour mood, I shoved the Webley’s muzzle further up Dennis’s nostril. “Who sent you?”
“Dunno his name!” he bleated. “Old One-Eye is all Sean ever called him!”
I looked at Sean, who was draped limply over seats seven and eight, in no shape to answer questions.
I glanced around, and was startled to see Ariyl Moro behind me again. Apparently she had snuck back in the stage door while Pop was hiding.
She looked at me: poised to bore a 45-calibre hole in Dennis’s sinuses. Then at the two men strewn across the stage; then at Sean hung out to dry in the front row.
“What...the...hell?” she exclaimed.
“They tried to kidnap Kati and me,” I explained. “Only they thought she was you, Miss Moro.”
“Oh.” She didn’t offer any explanation beyond that.
“Anyway, the cops are on their way.”
“Cops? There were no cops the night of Kati’s premiere! Oh...David,” she fretted, clearly vexed. “Well, just keep him here.”
Ariyl went to the dressing room.
Kati had already bandaged Max’s shoulder, and was giving him grateful kisses.
“You are my hero,” she told Max.
“Can I ask you two a question?” said Ariyl.
“One moment, please,” said Kati, spotting Dennis and me.
She left Ariyl with Max. I glimpsed Ariyl whispering something in Max’s ear, but I stopped paying attention because Kati was heading for Dennis with murder in her eyes.
“Kati, don’t! The police are on the way!”
“Excuse me, Mr. Preston,” she said, pushing me aside.
Dennis landed one punch on her chin, but it was a love tap compared to her uppercut in response. He flew six feet back and landed with a dislocated jaw.
Ariyl ran out of the dressing room to find Dennis sprawled senseless.
“Why didn’t you stop her?” she asked.
I just pointed to Kati. I figured the answer was obvious.
Ariyl took the gun from my hand. She held it for a few seconds, as if debating what to do with it. She finally pressed it into the unconscious thug’s hand.
Then she said “Pentol” to Kati, whose eyes seemed to glaze over. I realized Ariyl must have given Kati that as a post-hypnotic keyword, to put her back under. Then Ariyl whispered instructions in Kati’s ear. The strongwoman nodded, impassive.
A shrill police whistle split the air.
Ariyl pulled me back into the shadowy recesses of the stage.
Four officers carrying truncheons and attired like Keystone Cops—fortunately not including Officer Walrus—came charging up to the stage. The lead officer surveyed the human wreckage. Then he looked up at Kati.
“All right, all right, would someone please be explainin’ this?” he demanded in a fine thick brogue. The Irish were everywhere in 1902 New York, on both sides of the law.
Max hurried out of the dressing room. A coat hid his bandaged shoulder.
“I am Max Heymann. I’m with The Katharina Brumbach Troupe. After our show, these four strangers came backstage and got into a fight with each other. They were drunk. One of them fired a gun. Kati and I hid in the dressing room. When we came out, they were like this.”
“Ja, this is what we found,” agreed Kati.
“Ye’ve never seen them before?” pressed the officer.
Kati shook her head, as did Max.
“Never.”
Obviously, Ms. Moro had instructed Max and Kati to cover up Kati’s heroics.
“So the four of ’em beat each other senseless? Is that the way of it, lad?” said the sergeant, plainly skeptical.
“We don’t know. We did not see,” said Kati.
“Please, there is an important newspaperman hiding in the lobby,” said Max. “He was going to interview Miss Brumbach. If he has not run off already.”
“All right, I’ve got your names and statements,” growled the sergeant, jotting in his notepad.
The Mighty Sandwina strode up the aisle with Max at her heels, to spread the word of her historic victory over Sandow tonight.
“Anyone else see anything?” the policeman said.
Pop, who was back in his chair, snored his reply.
The sergeant then took the Webley from Dennis’s hand, sniffed the barrel, and looked at the broken window and the bullet hole in the plaster. He shook his head.
“There oughta be a law,” he said, pocketing the snub-nose pistol.
There is—the Sullivan Act, I thought to myself. Except I must have actually said it out loud, judging from his and Ariyl’s reactions.
“The Sullivan what?” the cop asked.
“Gun control...forget it. It won’t be passed for a decade or so.”
With his thumb O’Flanahan pushed his helmet back on his head and stared at me.
“And who might you be?”
“Nobody,” I said. “We were just here to see the show, Sergeant, uh....”
“O’Flanahan. Well, show’s over,” he huffed. “Move along now. Nothin’ to see here.”
“But...”
“Away wit’ yez.”
The other policemen were helping the battered hoodlums to their unsteady feet. Ariyl and I sauntered up the aisle.
“Slower. I want to hear if any of them say something,” she whispered.
A fifth policeman entered the auditorium. O’Flanahan called out to him.
“Murphy, we’ve four hooligans here what we need to run in for disturbin’ the peace. Will ye be callin’ the station house, and have ’em send the Black Maria.”
(For you fans of show tunes, the cop pronounced that name as in “They Call the Wind Maria” and not “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?”)
“I always wondered about that phrase,” said Ariyl. “It’s in a lot of history vidz.”
“It’s Baastin slang,” I said, aping my dad’s Massachusetts accent. “The Black Maria is a paddy wagon.”
O’Flanahan turned sharply to me.
“I mean, a police van,” I said loudly as we went out into the lobby.
We hid in a janitor’s closet. After a decent interval, we slipped back into the darkened auditorium. The police and their prisoners were gone, as were the backstage crew. Pop was still reclined in his chair, sawing logs.
Cracking open the stage door, we watched O’Flanahan and the other cops loading the handcuffed hoods into the aforementioned paddy wagon—a boxy horse-drawn coach of deepest ebon, with barred windows. It was parked at the rear entrance of the theater, looking like a fortified hearse.
The cuffs were superfluous, as were the bars—none of these guys would be making a run for it.
Ms. Moro picked up a thick Manhattan and the Bronx telephone directory. Only 1902, and already it was a thousand pages. Her fingers flicked through them with remarkable speed.
“You must be exhausted. I know I am. Let’s find a hotel for the night.”
“You have money?”
She showed me an Indian Head ten-dollar gold piece.
“A bed would feel pretty good right now,” I conceded. “But since you’re rich, why not the Waldorf-Astoria? I owe them a jacket anyway.”
I heard the door clank shut on the Black Maria, and took a last look out the stage door.
“Too bad there was no one left conscious to tell us who sent them,” I commented.
“I know who,” said Ms. Moro.
“Oh? You planning to let me in on the secret?”
“His name is Octavius Johnson, Senior.”
“Old One-Eye?” I realized. “The same guy who was talking to Edison?”
“No, there are two Johnsons who wear an eye patch. The young guy you saw tonight, that’s Octavius Johnson, Junior. At least for the next decade or so.”
“What happens after that?”
“There’ll be a new Octavius Johnson, Junior. We’ll meet him in Hollywood in 1933. Or rather, we already did.”
“I’m confused. Who is Octavius Johnson, Senior, and why does he get a new son in ten years?”
“Senior’s real name is Jon Ludlo. He’s had a long series of adopted sons, because he’s pretty much immortal.” I stared at her. “Like me.”
“Immortal?” I repeated. “You’re kidding.”
She shrugged, a bit embarrassed.
“We’ve had a century of genetic improvements. I mean, we age, but really slowly. Anyhoo, I thought I was in love with Ludlo, till I found out he was a total psycho. But I agreed to see him just one last time. We went to the Time Travel Agency for a one-day trip. Just a little vacation. Really jacko move on my part, ’cause he started stealing stuff, like the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Which erased big chunks of history.”
“Yeah, I’d think it would.”
“When I found out, we had a big fight in Atlantis.”
I had accepted that she could move us through time, but I assumed it was all some kind of scientific project. Now she was making it sound more like a spring break cruise to the Bahamas that went sour.
“So you broke up?”
“No, I mean literally, we had a swordfight on the beach, while the tsunami was heading for us.”
I sensed she was leaving out some very important details.
“Anyway, I thought Jon drowned, but it turned out he survived. But without a Time Crystal, he was stranded back in time. So for three thousand years, he’s been nursing this huge grudge against me.”
She paused, and tilted her head at me.
“None of this is ringing a bell for you?”
“Not so far.”
“Ludlo’s tried to kill me three or four times. So now he’s really old and really rich, and in every era he lives through, he has goons out looking for me. He wants my Time Crystal, and he wants me dead.”
“And me too?”
“What makes you say that?”
“That Irish gang had orders to bring you and me to Old One-Eye. Octavius Senior, right?”
She bit her lip, and nodded, reluctant.
“Yeah. He wants you too.”
“Why?”
“’Cause you were traveling with me,” she admitted.
“Why was I doing that?”
She shrugged, helpless.
“And you didn’t think it was important to tell me there’s been a contract out on my life for the last thirty centuries?”
“Thirty-five,” she corrected.
“That’s even worse!”
“I’m not supposed to tell you. You have to recall this stuff on your own, remember?”
I heard footsteps, and put my finger to my lips. We waited in the dark.
Kati and Max came backstage. They picked up their overcoats from the dressing room.
“Liebchen, you have made me the happiest man in the world!” he told her in German. “Just name the date!”
“Next year, when we finish the tour,” she answered. He turned out the light. They were silhouettes against the moonlit wall. I saw Kati scoop little Max up and kiss him tenderly.
I felt like a peeping Tom now, but there was no way to leave without announcing our presence. So we watched in silence until she set him down again, and they tiptoed hand in hand past the dozing Pop and out the stage door.
Ms. Moro was smiling with tears in her eyes. Apparently she wasn’t kidding about this being her favorite historical love story.
“Happy now?” I said to her.
She nodded. We watched them head down the stairs to the street.
“Lucky little bastard,” I muttered.
She exhaled, annoyed.
“You really need to stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Why should I? He gets the most amazing woman in the world, and what do I get? A price on my head.”
“You’re in no danger, professor.”
“Says you. I’m gonna wish I had Kati next time some mook shows up waving a gun in my face.”
That pissed her off. She slammed the phone directory on the table so hard it sounded like a rifle shot.
“Okay, I’ve had it. You think you love Kati?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you don’t. She just reminds you of someone you do love.”
“Oh? And who would that be?”
Ariyl looked around. She spotted the crowbar I’d dropped in the fight, and picked it up.
“Let me give you a hint.”
She threw off her purple cloak, revealing for the first time her astonishingly voluptuous physique. I was wrong—she wasn’t fat at all. Except for a couple places.
Then with a knowing smile, she bent the crowbar double, and back around on itself.
I blinked my eyes. This had to be a rubber prop. This couldn’t be the inch-thick bar I’d used against Padraigh.
As she tied the bar into a bow, her violet velvet sleeves strained to contain bulging biceps that’d make Sandow green with envy.
Then she held the pretzeled steel out to me. “Careful, it’s hot.”
I held the ends, and tried them. Nope, it wouldn’t give. And it was definitely forged steel. The same damned crowbar. I let it drop.
“How did you do that?” I stammered.
She sighed with annoyance.
“The same way I do this!” she said, taking up the hardcover phone book. She tore it in half, cover and all, right through to the spine, just like an usher ripping a ticket.
“Or this,” she said, picking up the two-by-four and snapping it over her knee.
“Or this,” she added, taking the football off the prop table, putting it between her palms and exploding it with one squeeze.
The bang was so loud that Pop stopped snoring for a few seconds.
“Or this,” she said, turning to the plaster wall and ramming her fist half a foot into it. She pulled her hand out and brushed off the dust.
“Oh, my God,” I breathed.
“That’s what I mean by genetic improvements, David. Nothing against Sandwina. She was a marvel in her day. But trust me...you’re safer with me than you’d be with ten Sandwinas.”
She looped a finger through my belt and lifted me off the ground. We were nose to nose now.
“Unless you piss me off.” Then she winked.
“Okay, this is starting to feel familiar,” I said. And it was. My heart was racing a mile a minute, but it wasn’t from fear. I knew what was coming next.
She put both hands on my butt and held me against her powerful body for a long, soft kiss. Then she gave me an oh-so-innocent smile.
“Who do you love?”
“You, Ariyl.”
“That’s right. And it seems I was wrong. Your jeans are nice and tight, aren’t they?”
“Maybe we should get that hotel room,” I breathed.
“I’m not sure I can wait,” she whispered between kisses.
“Well, don’t rush off on my account,” said Pop, still reclining, eyes not quite shut.