Zoey, a good twenty yards away, saw my expression and came running. "What?"

I held up a hand-I'm trying to find out-put the Professor on speakerphone, and said, "What kind of trouble is she in, Prof?" People fell silent and listened.

"Everything went just as planned, right up to where my character bugged out to save his neck. But when Tony came outside with her, she was unconscious."

"What?" I was incredulous. "How the h.e.l.l can somebody knock out a teleport? Especially one as alert as Erin?"

He sighed. "My theory is, he literally did it without thinking. She never had a chance to see it coming, because even he didn't. Probably picked her up and shook her until she pa.s.sed out. I didn't see any signs he'd actually hit her."

"She was just unconscious? You're sure?" Zoey said urgently.

"Absolutely," he said at once. "I saw her awake and talking a little later on, at Tony's place."

She slumped slightly, and so did I. "Thank you, Willard."

I was confused. "So why isn't everything okay now? She's conscious-and now she knows enough to watch out for further impulse-decisions of Tony's. If anything else happens she doesn't like, worst case, she just teleports back here and we all have dinner." No response. "Right?"

Willard spoke with obvious reluctance. "He stopped at his place before he left town, to change clothes and I suspect to collect his gun and some ammo. Whatever-he carried her inside with him, unconscious. When they came back out, she was awake ... but he'd hobbled her with a pair of handcuffs."

"Oh, s.h.i.t," Zoey and I both said together, and several people around us groaned or gasped.

One teleports naked or not at all. Why this is so, Erin has explained to me several times, and I still don't get it, any more than I can grasp how she teleports in the first place, but the bottom line is, for whatever reasons, organic and inorganic matter can't travel together in the same load. You can teleport your clothing ahead of you, and dress on arrival if you like-or you can simply rob a clothesline at your destination. Or, as Erin had earlier, you can teleport into existing clothing if you happen to know where a set the right size has just been vacated. But not with metal touching your skin. If you're wearing so much as a cla.s.s ring, you can't teleport at all. As long as Erin wore those cuffs on her ankles, she was at the mercy of Tony Donuts Junior.

Zoey and I embraced. Friends moved in from all sides and it became a group hug. "Oh Jake," she groaned in my ear, "she's only seven years old."

"She saved the universe when she was two," I reminded her.

"Twice, really," said Long-Drink McGonnigle, from somewhere to my left.

"With you and Nikola Tesla and Jim Omar and half a dozen other people. She's alone with that gorilla," Zoey continued. Her voice was rising in pitch and speed.

"So better she's seven than a teenager," I said, tightening my embrace. "The day she came out of your belly she was a thousand times smarter than Tony-"

"Sure-that's how she ended up in chains in his car-most of the people he's killed were smarter than him, nearly everyone is-"

I didn't have a comeback for that one, and I could feel her working up toward hysterics. Now that I thought about it, so was I. Screw logic. My irreplaceable daughter was in the murderous hands of a moronic mastodon, her secret weapon disabled, and she was only seven- Tanya Latimer's speaking voice is a lot like Pearl Bailey's singing voice: low, liquid and soothing, absolutely unhurried and unworried. From somewhere behind me she purred, "Zoey, honey, did you read comic books when you were a little girl?"

"Sure, what the h.e.l.l has-"

"Did you ever read Superboy comics?"

"For a while, but-"

"But you stopped after a while, didn't you?"

"Well-" The onslaught of questions was confusing.

"I'll tell you why you stopped. No suspense. Whenever Lex Luthor or somebody tried to kill that boy, you knew they were going to fail, didn't you? How did you know that?"

"Well, obviously, you knew he was going to grow up to be Superm-Oh. Oh."

We had seen Erin at ages above seven. We had lived with a more-than-seven-year-old Erin daily for more than five years now. Ergo, she was positively not going to die at age seven. In fact, we knew for certain she would live to at least age twenty-one, because we'd already met her at that age.

Come to think of it, she was not even going to sustain any noticeable injuries-or we'd have noticed them, back when she was seven and she returned from this time-hop caper.

Zoey and I pulled apart just enough to look into each other's eyes, and I could see we were in complete agreement. No logic chain, however compelling, can be strong enough or solid enough when the fate of your child is at stake. Thanks to Tanya, we could now prove there was nothing for us to worry about ... so now we were only worried half to death.

But that was clearly better than panic, which was where we'd been heading. Keep thinking, Butch-that's what you're good at.... "Thank you, Tanya. Okay, I'm going to a.s.sume Erin is gonna get through this okay because we all broke our a.s.ses saving her. That way I got something to do besides go berserk. Anybody got a problem with that?" No. "Okay, she's on her way north with the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Prof, how good is his car?"

The split-second hesitation cued me that the answer would not be comforting. Can't help you, Sundance. "Pretty good, Jake. An old Dodge ragtop, kept up. It moved pretty good."

And I could guess what kind of driver Tony would be. Rules? In a knife fight? Few humans could find Tony in their rearview mirror and continue to block his path for long. "s.h.i.t. What have we got?" I didn't own wheels myself, hadn't since I sold the ancient school bus in which I'd brought my family down to Key West, ten years before. But some of the gang kept up the hobby.

"I got a Lada," Shorty Steinitz said. n.o.body laughed. "I got a Vincent," said Marty Pignatelli.

It didn't register for me, but several people murmured "Holy s.h.i.t!" or some equivalent.

"A what, Marty?"

"A Vincent Black Shadow," he said.

Now it did register ... and I said, "Holy s.h.i.t!" Even I've heard of the Black Shadow. It's sort of the Stradivarius of high-performance motorcycles. It eats Harleys and s.h.i.ts Yamahas. "I didn't even realize you had a bike, Fifty." He shrugged. "I was a statie."

"Huh." Well, I was impressed ... but on the other hand, the last time I'd ridden a bike, the ancient Irish blessing had come entirely too true: the road rose up to meet me. Not stopping when it reached my a.s.s. I was starting to feel a little trapped. You d.a.m.n fool the fall'll probably kill you....

Double Bill diagnosed my expression. "I have something better, Jacob."

"Hard to believe, but go ahead."

"I have a little twenty-two-foot Grady White semi-V over at Houseboat Row, with a new pair of two-twenty-five Johnsons on her and full cans."

I blinked at him. "Moderate your language, suh-there are ladies present."

"He means a fast boat," Tanya said. "Fueled up."

Jim Omar was somewhere nearby in the hug. "He means a floating rocket, Jake. Traffic's lighter on the Atlantic Ocean than on US 1. You'll probably be in Miami before Tony clears the Keys."

Bolivia, huh, Butch? Falling off a rocket and onto water did sound better than falling off a Vincent onto asphalt. And not only was Omar right about traffic, Florida boaters are slightly less likely than Florida motorists to a.s.sert the right of way with small arms fire. "Okay. Zoey, would you please call Bert and get an address for where Charlie Ponte does meets in Miami, while I get ready to go? Bill, you'll drive this boat, okay? Tom, pack us a few of your Cuban sandwiches and a couple of beers, and dial up a thermos of Atherton Tablelands with cream and sugar." The group hug began to break up. "I don't suppose anybody's got high explosives lying around handy?"

"Sure ting," said Fast Eddie. "Grenades. How many ya want?"

Eddie lives next door to me. "Two should do it."

Zoey stopped poking at the phone. "Jake, what the h.e.l.l do you plan to do with a pair of grenades?"

"Just before we knock on Charlie's door, I'm gonna have Bill duct-tape them into my hands and then pull the pins. I don't care how tough a guy is-you do that, and even Tony Donuts or Charlie Ponte is gonna go right to Plan B. And you and I and Erin are all bombproof."

"I'm not," Double Bill reminded me.

"Stand behind me and you'll be fine."

"Bull-grunty. You provide as much blast-shadow as a hat rack, you skinny b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Zoey got my attention by rapping the top of my skull with the phone. "Jake. Listen to me. No grenades."

I don't get it. She likes the Three Stooges. "Aw ... you're no fun." Whack! "Ow. Okay, I promise. How about a nice little Uzi? n.o.body'll notice that in Miami." I went to our cottage and changed into clothes a Mafia capo would find less contemptible than sandals, baggy shorts, and a Hawaiian shirt emitting as many energetic photons as Duval Street. It was stuff I hadn't worn since I'd left Long Island, high in polyester content. The hair and beard undid a lot of the effect, of course, but it always had.

As I was tying the last shoelace, Zoey came in and handed me a notepad sheet on which was written Charlie Ponte's meeting-place address and his private phone number. She, too, was dressed as a tourist, and it looked a h.e.l.l of a lot better on her. "Tell me this is going to be all right, Spice," she said.

"It's a pipe," I said at once, straightening up and taking her by the shoulders. "You know the logic as well as I do. If anything were to happen to her, it'd be a paradox, and the universe abhors a paradox. We could probably stay here all night singing Beatles songs, and everything would still work out just fine-it has to."

She closed her eyes. "Really? You're sure?" Her shoulder muscles felt like rattan under my fingers.

"Absolutely." I closed my own eyes and confessed. "That's why it's taking all my strength to keep myself from digging the Meddler's Belt out of storage and using it to peek ahead to the back of the book."

Barring Mike Callahan himself, the Meddler was the first time traveler I ever met. He was a freelancer who'd come back from the not-too-distant future to the year 1975, to try to spare someone he loved great pain. He hadn't had access to the deluxe far-future no-moving-parts method of time travel the Callahans and Erin employed; instead he employed a time machine of his own invention, a belt roughly as bulky and c.u.mbersome as the one heavyweight champions wear. Most people who were there that night, including the Meddler himself, believed they saw that belt destroyed with their own eyes, tossed into the fireplace by Mike Callahan. Only a handful of us knew that Mike had used sleight of hand, and the real Meddler's Belt still existed . . . gathering mildew in my storage closet.

"Ah." Now her shoulders were made of steel cable. "' ... but that would be wrong, she quoted, using a comedy Nixon voice that quavered too much. (First presidency to die of a staff infection.) "Cheating," I agreed.

Our eyes opened and found each other. "You got some kind of problem with cheating?" she asked softly.

I was tempted. Quite. But-"It'd be stupid. For several excellent reasons ... but primarily because an unfamiliar method of time travel is way more risk than we need to take," I said. "You don't gamble with the universe to calm your nerves."

Her shoulders relaxed slightly. "You're right. I'm sorry, Slim."

"Gimme a kiss, we got a boat to catch."

She did that, thoroughly. "You watch my a.s.s and I'll watch yours."

"Deal."

We left the cottage, saw Bill just past the bar at poolside with a small ice chest and an underseat bag he was just zipping shut. "We're ready," Zoey called. "Let's go."

He straightened and looked embarra.s.sed. You'd think a man who wears shirts that make mine look drab, a sarong, a Popeye cap, and a gold ring on his bare big toe would look embarra.s.sed more often, but he doesn't. "Uh-," he said. "I have expressed myself poorly. I humbly apologize."

"What are you talking about?"

He hesitated only a second, but that was long enough; Zoey and I had both guessed by the time he explained. "It's a two-man boat."

She stopped in her tracks. "I'll squeeze in," she insisted in a dangerous tone of voice.

We said nothing. Zoey ma.s.ses only a little less than Bill and me put together. I'm scrawny and he's short. She's neither. "I will f.u.c.king water-ski!"

Another good place for a silence.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, Jake, I am not going to sit here, chewing my nails and loading the rifles, while the menfolk form a posse and go rescue my little girl from the Comanches, end of story. Forget it-I'd go completely out of my mind. If there's only two seats, Bill's gonna have to teach one of us to drive."

"," Bill and I said in unison.

She drew in the sort of vast chest-filling breath one might use to bellow or scream at someone hard of hearing on the far side of Mars, held it, held it . . . then she let it out so gently, it didn't make a noise, and in a good imitation of her normal conversational voice she said, "I love you, Jake. Bring our daughter home safe to me." She looked around vaguely, not tracking. "Somebody give him a d.a.m.n cell phone, okay?" Men don't know s.h.i.t about bravery.

"He can have mine," a voice I almost recognized said.

Field Inspector Czrjghnczl stood just inside the open gate, holding her briefcase in front of her with both hands. Men don't know s.h.i.t about bravery. She was dressed just as she had been ever since I first saw her, but her face displayed human feeling. "If I heard right," she said to me, "your daughter is in danger. I can see you don't have time to explain it." She took one hand from the briefcase, found her phone, and tossed it to me underhand; I caught it automatically. "Go with G.o.d."

I was speechless.

"She's right, Jake," Doc Webster said.

Now I was breathless, and so was everybody else. I spun-and there he was, coming around from behind the bar, moving slow, arm in arm with his wife. He looked like he had a rotten headache, but that was as bad as he looked. His color was okay. "You can stay with us, Zoey. We'll make a bucket of coffee and stay up and fret together, the three of us. Jake knows my number."

He was right: if you converted Doc's phone number's numbers to their corresponding letters on the keypad (I'm so old I still think, "dial"), they formed a word I won't repeat here, which was unforgettably obscene.

Mei-Ling held out a hand. "Come on, Zo."

"Everybody else is welcome to hang out, too," the Doc added.

Zoey hesitated. She looked over at Field Inspector Czrjghnczl and sighed. "Want to join us?" she asked. "I'll try to explain what's going on."

The bureaucrat blinked. "I'd love to."

What comes after speechless and breathless? Beliefless?

I filed it all to be dealt with later, squeezed Zoey's hand, and went to get the thermos Tom Hauptman had just finished filling.

9.

BA-DA-STING!.

Our lives are based on what is reasonable and common sense; truth is apt to be neither.

-Christmas Humphreys.

A minute later, Double Bill and I were pedaling like madmen. Duval to South ("Where do all the hippies meet?") to Reynolds to Atlantic Boulevard, past Higgs Beach and Smathers Beach, to the beleaguered but so far unbeaten remnants of Houseboat Row-practically every step of the way was a visual LSD trip, thanks to the Fantasy Fest madness I had forgotten was due to begin that evening. The great lungfuls of air I sucked in as we pedaled tasted not only of the usual sulphur, iodine, frangipani, lime, sunblock, rotting seaweed, and coral, but also of an astonishing potpourri of many different varieties of pot, hash, beer, wine, rum, perfume, perspiration, flatulence, and (least noticeable by far) tobacco. I welcomed the panoply. Whenever I'm frightened enough to retract my own t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, I like all the distractions I can get. Few places on earth could have provided so many, of such high caliber.

Double Bill's floating rocket, the Flat Rock, was moored between a lavish three-story penthouseboat with three satellite dishes and an elaborately trellised gangplank, and a half-sunken century-old derelict tub, in such a way that it was hard to see from the land but easy to get to. I don't know anything at all about boats or sailing or seamanship or navigation, but I'll tell you this: The Flat Rock was well named. Once we cast off and Bill gunned it, it behaved much like a skipped stone, touching the water only occasionally. It was like the backwards of a s.p.a.cecraft reentering earth's atmosphere: every time the ship glanced off the water, its speed increased. G.o.d be thanked, I don't get seasick, so once I accepted that all my vertebrae would be fused into a single bone and I would never walk again, I started to almost enjoy myself a little. Then all at once it began to rain so hard the name Flat Rock took on a whole different meaning, involving aerial bovine urination.

Nonetheless, I had not quite cut my throat by the time we began to smell Miami, so I'd have to agree the voyage was less aggravation than driving would have been. No traffic lights, no accidents, no potholes, no seniors with the left-turn signal permanently on doing thirty in the pa.s.sing lane, no endless reshuffling of the same five gas stations and six fast-food brands, no billboards, speed traps, or gunplay, neither oblivious idiots ahead nor homicidal maniacs behind.

By the same token, of course, no Jeeps full of bronzed twenty-somethings in dental-floss bikinis. Life is imperfect.