Locked rooms - Laurie R. King [157]
I commented to my friend that the pillars of smoke must be visible for a hundred miles, but when he did not answer, I saw that he had attention only for his home.
It was no longer there. From our feet to the sea, only Telegraph Hill remained, and it appeared embattled. PA would have run straight down to the smoking ruin that was his home had I not brought him down in a flying tackle, and shook him hard, repeating over and over again that he should think: His family would not have been taken unawares by the flames. They would have moved before it, as tens of thousands of others were doing. We needed only find whether they had gone north, or east.
Flames were working their way towards the north. The only thing to do was to go that way as well, as far as we could, and hope we met neither flames nor press-gangs. We nearly ran down the side of the hill, until I seized PA's arm and pointed out to him that two men walking might appear less criminous than two men sprinting away from the wealthy neighborhood.
We walked, quickly, working our way towards our destination. My friend knew all the paths and short-cuts here, as it was a route he traversed daily, and he led me surely through delivery alleys and the foot-paths that cut through hillside gardens. Twice we heard shouts behind us, but with a twist and a turn we would be out of sight again.
We came to an area of pleasant homes between the Italian district and the docks, homes in the process of being emptied by their owners under the watchful eyes of a pair of soldiers. We nodded to them, keeping our hands in our pockets and walking straight down the center of the street to show our innocence, and although we ran the gauntlet without coming to harm, the two soldiers adjusted their long rifles over their shoulders and sauntered after us. We turned a corner and had just stepped into a rubble-strewn alley when there was a rapid and surreptitious movement ahead.
We both stopped dead, caught between some unknown threat and the two soldiers at our backs. PA was turning to ask my opinion when I heard my name being called from ahead.
It is at this point that my “Good Friend” enters the story. I had not seen him in two or three years, was not even certain that he was still living in the city, but we were brought face-to-face here in this deserted alley. He walked up to me and offered his hand.
I took it, said his name, and asked him if he lived here now, but something about the way he answered, or rather took care to avoid answering, led me to interrupt his glib reply with the warning that soldiers were probably on their way to ascertain that we were up to no harm.
Immediately, he grabbed my arm and pushed me down the alley towards where he had come, doing the same with PA, hurrying us ahead of him. His urgency coupled with the awareness of the rifles at our backs proved contagious, and PA and I stumbled over the bricks and tiles until he jumped ahead of us and slipped into an invisible hole between a wall and a shed that had been thrown against it. It was pitch black inside, and GF hissed at us to be silent.
In a minute or so, we heard voices outside, and the two soldiers came down until they were standing just at the entrance to our lair. In the end, they decided that there was nothing here worth stealing anyway, and went back the way they had come.
GF collapsed into nerve-taut giggles, only pulling himself out of the state when I told him that we would be on our way.
“But you mustn't,” he told me. “I need your help.”
“With what?”
“Hiding some stuff.”
I somehow knew in an instant what his attitude of mischief meant. Although we had not been close for years, I knew him of old, known him as a brother when we were both careless youths. In that setting, and being fully aware of what was going on in the city, it took no great leap of imagination