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returned to the table. He pointed a finger at Paul. "Your records at the high school are where they ought to
be. You got very good grades."
"See?" Paul said triumphantly. "Uh, and thank you."
"Do not thank me," Stanley Hsu said. "Your picture is not in last year's annual, or the one from the year
before, or from the year before that, or the year before that. Your name is not in any of those annuals.
Records are easy to fix. We know about that." Bob Lee nodded, as if to say he knew it very well indeed.
Stanley Hsu went on, "Fixing records does not make things turn true. We want the truth now, please."
Urk, Paul thought. The men from the Tongs were right. Slipping a false record into a file wasn't very hard.
That probably would have been enough to keep the Germans happy. It wasn't enough for these men. They
knew San Francisco better than the occupiers ever could.
"Well?" Stanley Hsu said.
"Well, what?" Paul answered. "I thought we had a bargain. Get my father out, and then we talk. You don't
have any business pressing me till you take care of your half."
"You have gall. I've already seen that," the jeweler said. "How much good it will do you may be another
question."
Bob Lee was blunter: "Times have changed since we made that silly bargain. We need the truth from
you no more nonsense."
"The Feldgendarmerie would tell me the same thing," Paul said.
Stanley Hsu looked pained. Bob Lee only shrugged. "And what would you tell the Feldgendarmerie if they
got their hands on you?" he asked. He answered his own question: "You'd tell them whatever they wanted
you to tell them, that's what."
"And how is that any different from what you want me to do?" Paul asked.
Lee didn't seem to care. He just wanted answers. How he got them, what he did to get them, didn't matter
to him. Stanley Hsu saw the point Paul was making. Whether he agreed with it was probably a different
story. But he did see it. He spoke in Chinese. Bob Lee answered with several crackling sentences in the
same language. The jeweler said something else. Lee threw his hands in the air as he replied. You must be
out of your mind, he was saying, or something much like that.
"You've made yourself . . . hard to find," Stanley Hsu said, in English and to Paul. "How do we know you'll
keep your half of the deal? Tell us where you are staying "
"Show us where you are staying," Bob Lee broke in. "We have already seen you can come up with lies that
seem like the truth."
"Yes show us where you are staying," Stanley Hsu agreed. "That would be better. Then the bargain will
be safe."
Letting them know where he lived was the last thing Paul wanted to do. They would have a hold on him
then. And he was sure they would keep an eye on him 24/7 after that. But he didn't see what choice he
had. This was what he got for being alone in a world not his own.
With a sigh, he gave them the address of the cheap hotel where he was staying. They both made faces.
Bob Lee said, "I wouldn't go into that part of town on a bet."
"I haven't had any trouble except from your people," Paul said.
That didn't impress the Chinese men. Stanley Hsu spoke in Chinese to the man who ran the noodle shop.
That fellow dipped his head and hurried out of the place. When he came back, he had with him the four
young men who'd brought Paul there. Stanley Hsu smiled and said, "They will make sure nothing happens to
you on your way back to your room."
"Right," Paul said tightly. They'd make sure he was staying where he said he was. But he was stuck. He
could see that. He got to his feet and nodded to the jeweler and Bob Lee. "Thanks so much for lunch." He
almost hoped they would get angry. They didn't. They just laughed.
"Let's go," said the young man who'd done all the talking. Paul went. The four of them stayed around him
all the way back to that lousy hotel. He was less sorry to have them along in the Tenderloin than he would
have been a lot of other places in San Francisco. People here went on and on about how bad the Sunset
District was. And it was bad, especially compared to the same part of town in the home timeline. But a sea
gull flying over the Tenderloin was liable to get its pocket picked.
If Stanley Hsu and Bob Lee were telling the truth, nothing much had happened to Dad yet. Maybe the
Feldgendarmerie men knew what a valuable prisoner they had. Maybe they didn't want to do anything to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]