Jaclyn the Ripper (9 page)

She cast a furtive glance at the men's room, gathered her courage, then quickly riffled through his coat. The small woman's purse in an
outside pocket was downright weird and inexplicable, so she left it there, but in another pocket she found a red-leather folder. She opened it, her hands shaking. Inside was a single sheet of dog-eared linen paper bearing His Majesty's crest and formal script indicating that it was a passport from the year 1903. Visas from France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the Balkans and Russia were stamped in the margin obscuring each other, yet clearly written in the center was:

Herbert George Wells (a British subject)
Date of Birth: 21 September 1866
Occupation: Writer.

The last space on the margin had been taken up by a visa from the USA, and she wondered what he had done here in April, 1906, and who he had met. She put his passport away and opened his wallet. A London library card and a membership card in the Fabian Society fell out and fluttered to the floor. She swore softly, scooped them up, was putting the cards back when a letter fell. She picked it up, stopped. Handwriting on pink stationery struck her as oddly familiar, but before she could look further, he was coming out of the men's room. She stuffed the letter inside and got the wallet back in the coat pocket before he saw her. He started toward the chairs, surreptitiously removing bits of paper toilet-seat cover that had stuck to his hands.

“Thank you so much,” he said, smiling bashfully. “I do apologize for the inconvenience.” He took his coat, then hesitated and turned back. Her eyes held him. “You said you were going to San Francisco as well . . . ?”

She didn't know if he was relieved to have someone along for the ride or reluctant—but if she hesitated, she wasn't sure she'd ever get another chance. She thought of the lieutenant again, of her job, and then a vision of herself cynical, gray-haired and used in a police lab twenty years from now flashed through her brain. “Yes. . . . Yes, I am.”

“Jolly good,” he said automatically.

She waited while he put his coat on and straightened it, smiled with admiration. “Love your jacket.”

“Oh, yes, thank you.”

She touched his sleeve. “Harris tweed, right?”

“Why, yes,” he said, startled, “I got it last year.”

“Savile Row?” she said, taking an educated guess.

When he gaped at her, she knew that—at least for the moment—she had him. Starting for the escalators, she resisted the urge to take his hand. Already, his tweed jacket aside, she felt an inexplicable connection between them that left her giddy, that she couldn't quite fathom. She was powerless to stop whatever was happening to her. It went beyond chemistry—of that, she was sure. Her emotions were more like reverence, that she had beheld a futuristic resurrection. She was in the presence of history and fame combined in a handsome, erudite man with beautiful blue eyes who had apparently stepped out of a time machine. She couldn't let the moment slip away. Or him. Then a voice inside bubbled up:
Okay, he's out of his time. You're out of place. You've always been out of place. Perfect. Except what am I supposed to do? I'm not afraid; I don't want to run.
Then it came to her:
Shepherd the man
.

Blushing, she stepped off the escalator, waited for him, turned and saw a security check looming ahead. She sensed that the metal detector was a bad idea, but they had already gotten suspicious looks from an airport cop coming up the escalator behind them, so she continued forward. She filled a tray with her car keys and change, placed shoes and backpack on the conveyor for the X-ray machine, gestured for Wells to do the same. She stepped through the square archway, turned, gave him a sympathetic nod, waited helplessly.

Likewise, he folded his coat and put it on the belt, but had trouble with his shoes. The guards frowned. In fact, everybody frowned because the little man in the ridiculous wool suit was holding up the line, but finally he got his Oxfords off, fed the machine and stepped hesitantly through the metal detector. The alarms went off. Surprised, he jumped back, but the squat, heavy woman guard caught him and pushed him back through the archway while her partner reached for his walkie.

“Empty your pockets, sir.”

He blanched, then protested indignantly, “I beg your pardon?”

“Empty your pockets.”

“Excuse me, but—”

“Empty your pockets!”

He looked to Amber on the other side of the metal detector, but all she could offer was a nod and a frantic gesture for him to do as he was told.

With great reluctance, he took out the special key and placed it on the belt, watched painfully as it disappeared into the maw of the X-ray machine, exhaled with relief when it emerged on the other side. So intent, he didn't notice Amber's gaze, her utter fascination with the key and what it might open. He quickly snatched it up, put his shoes back on and strode off alongside her, not dignifying the guards with a rude remark.

 

“I understand that security is obviously an issue here, but must they humiliate you?” he asked, the special key again safely in his pocket.

They were headed toward the gates, Amber walking very slowly, not sure what to do next. He was determined to fly to San Francisco, but without modern identification, no one would let him near an airplane. He didn't know that, of course, and she worried that if she tried to coax him away from the terminal, she would frighten him off, then spend the rest of her life wondering what might have been with her and this lovely incarnation of H. G. Wells.

People swept past in airport mode, jostling for position.

“Why is everyone in such a rush?”

“That's just the way it is here.” She reassured him with a smile. “There's flights to San Francisco almost every hour, so you don't have to—”

He was staring at a backlit red, white and yellow sign above a large fast-food kiosk. “McDonald's,” he said nostalgically.

She frowned with disbelief.
You must be kidding.

“Scottish cuisine, right?” His eyes twinkled.

She wanted to say,
Where the hell have you been?
but she
knew
, and he didn't know that she knew, so she said nothing. Nevertheless, he chuckled, and she realized that he was playing with her. She blushed, totally lost. She hadn't a clue that when he had come to San Francisco in 1979, his first meal in the twentieth century had been a quarter-pounder with cheese.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

 

They sat in the window behind a sparsely populated gate, eating burgers and fries. Although he hadn't asked, she seized the opportunity to tell him about herself, yet didn't know if he was listening, for he couldn't stop gazing at the jets lumbering gracefully up to the strange tunnels, some pulling out for the runways, giant wings passing in slow motion with hundreds of blank faces in tiny windows. As he absorbed this robotic display of life in a new century, she helplessly continued running off at the mouth.

She told him that life as a criminalist was not “as advertised”; rather, it was drudgery in blood and fluids—extracting clues from corpses who would never come back to life no matter how good a job she did while most of her colleagues in the lab couldn't care less. She worked with bush-league technicians primarily interested in money, sports, new cars and shacking up with as many girls (or men) as possible before they retired. To put it mildly, she was disillusioned and longed for the world she had given up.

“What world is that?” he asked, nibbling on a fry that he'd likened to a chip, his eyes still monitoring the aircraft outside.

Turning dreamy, she went on about various graduate schools where she envisioned herself working toward a Ph.D. in literature followed by postgraduate research in the UK. She wanted to travel—she desired a career immersed in culture, surrounded by higher ideals and fascinating people. Suddenly, she stopped and blushed hard.
I sound like I'm auditioning for a role in this man's life. I'm so obvious.

“Look!” he exclaimed as if he hadn't heard, pointing at an Alaskan
Airlines jet with a giant wolf painted on its tail. “Great Scott, look at that one!”

Deflated, she leaned against the window and realized if she didn't find a way to make herself indispensable, this man—her door to the universe—was going to pass her by, if he hadn't already. She took a breath, then started in as if merely making small talk. “So when does your flight leave?”

“I don't have a ticket yet. I was hoping you might show me where I can exchange some pounds here.”

“I don't really know,” she said casually, “but I've got my laptop so we can go online and find out.”

Confused, he turned to her, not sure what language she was speaking.

She relished having his full attention. “We're cell or ‘WiFi' everywhere, but it's that way in London, too. No?” Watching his eyes, teasing him, she unzipped her backpack, started to take out her laptop, then stopped. “Wait. We don't have to do this.”

“We don't?” he said helplessly.

“No. I mean, I don't know what your situation is, but can't you just use a credit card?”

Nervous now, he looked back at the aircraft outside and hoped her suggestion would pass, but she pushed on, feigning curiosity.

“Is your wife meeting you in San Francisco?”

“Yes.” He nodded vigorously. “Yes, of course.”

“How can she be meeting you if she doesn't know what flight you're coming in on?”

“Look, my dear girl, with all due respect, I—”

“Why don't you call her?” She couldn't help herself. Smiling wickedly, she handed him her cell phone, but he backed away as if it carried some electronic disease. “Don't you have the number?”

Nervous now, he inched away from her, shaking his head.

“I do. . . . I've got the number.”

“
What?
” he said, astonished.

She nodded and smiled, recalled the pictures of Spade House from the exhibition, the memorabilia in a display case.

“061 Sandgate,” she said. “That's Amy's number, isn't it? Amy Catherine Robbins Wells?”

 

They were in a bar at the terminal, cozy in a booth, buffered from the constant roar of aircraft by thick walls, low lights and Muzak. H.G. was on his second Guinness, relieved that the charade was over and that this lovely young woman wouldn't think he was crazy if and when he told her that he was from 1906. She already knew.

When he was on his first Guinness, he'd asked what had brought her to the Getty Museum at 9:46
A.M.
, the inconvenient time of his arrival, and she had told him about the murder. Horrified, he came up out of the booth, but she quickly reassured him that the victim wasn't his wife—she had seen Amy's photograph in the exhibition—no, the victim was a Hispanic security guard, the crime probably gang-related, according to her lieutenant. Still shaken, he declared that he had found Amy's blood in the cabin.

Concerned, Amber had insisted on calling all the emergency rooms in the Brentwood area and now was talking to a dispatcher friend at the police about Amy, describing her as an “old-fashioned tourist” from the UK who was totally unfamiliar with big-city ways. The dispatcher had put Amber on hold.

H.G. stared off at the bright neon signs behind the bar, yet none of it registered. Of course, the murder might be “gang-related,” as Amber had said, thus coincidental, but he was not convinced. As he'd speculated in his lab, Amy could have accidentally sent his time machine to infinity. And if she had . . .

Suddenly, Amber covered her phone, looked up quizzically. “What name should I use?”

“What name?”

“I can't very well say Mrs. H. G. Wells.”

“Right,” he said tentatively.

But she was already back on the phone. “Amy. . . . Amy Catherine Robbins Wells. . . . I know, I know, she's from the UK.”

She waited again, tapping the phone with her finger, then finally
said, “Unhuh. . . . Thanks, Norm. . . . Sure. . . . You, too.” She slid her phone shut and smiled reassuringly. “No news is good news.”

He stared at her as if she were speaking gibberish.

She laughed. “Oh, I'm sorry! What I meant was, no one has seen your wife, and if a report comes in from anywhere, they'll call me first, so she's probably okay.”

He had no choice but to agree. “Yes, I suppose if she were seriously hurt, she wouldn't have been able to dress her wound, and the authorities would've taken her to what you call an ‘ER.' ”

“Yep.”

He exhaled in a whoosh, gazed off and briefly forgot his fears. He was about to ask her about the complexities of getting an aeroplane ticket when she broke into his thoughts with her hand to her mouth and a sudden blush.

“You do call your wife ‘Amy,' don't you?”

“Yes, although she prefers ‘Catherine' because her parents insisted upon ‘Amy.' Once, she confided to me that she always felt insignificant because her father took it a step further by calling her ‘little Amy' and always adding a deprecating laugh.” H.G. sipped his beer.

“So why don't you call her ‘Catherine'?”

“Ah, Catherine. . . .” He smiled and chuckled. “She reserved that
nom de privé
for her inner self. Catherine is a quiet, fine-spirited stranger in our household. She is Amy, escaped. She has never been part of our union, though I have had glimpses of her at times: she will look at me out of Amy's hazel-brown eyes and quite simply, vanish.” He stopped abruptly, annoyed with himself for being so candid with this Amber Reeves of the twenty-first century when he didn't know her at all. He pushed back in the booth, asked defensively, “You're not planning to make a spectacle of me, are you?”

“What?” she said, surprised, then shook her head adamantly. “No, no, I was just asking about names, that's all.”