World Walker 1: The World Walker (11 page)

"Screaming Eagle?" he said. "Sounds...interesting. I'm sorry, I know nothing about wine."

The man smiled and put out his hand. "I'm Walter Ford. Walt." Seb shook his hand.

"Seb Lewis," he said, momentarily smug as he'd remembered to give himself a false surname. Varden was unusual - might easily be remembered. He stopped feeling smug when Walt raised an eyebrow in polite disbelief.
 

"Nice to meet you, Seb," said Walt, smiling. Seb swallowed, shaking his head slightly. No point being paranoid. There was no way this guy could know he was using a false name.

"Screaming Eagle is one of the better Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons," said Walt, pouring some for Seb. "Try it." He raised his glass and drank as Seb did the same.

"Yeah, it's good," said Seb. "Smooth," he added, feeling slightly ignorant. Walt nodded.

"I think it's undervalued," he said. "Save some for your steak." His eyes flicked up to the waiter who'd just appeared. Seb ordered a rare steak with an extra portion of fries.

"So where are you headed?" said Walt.

"Albuquerque," said Seb.

"Business?" asked Walt.
 

"No, just wanted to do some traveling," said Seb.

"Can't say I blame you," said Walt. "There's so much of this country that most of us never see. Some of the most unlikely places can take your breath away but you'll never find them sitting on your ass."

"Guess that's true," said Seb.

"Of course, it's also possible to see more of life than 99% of the population by doing nothing other than sitting on your ass." Walt began carefully folding his napkin.

"What do you mean?"

" 'Without going out of my door I can know all things on earth,' " said Walt.

" 'Without looking out of my window'," continued Seb, " 'I can know the ways of heaven'."

"Lao Tzu," said Walt, almost simultaneously with Seb's "George Harrison."

"Who?" they both said at once. Both men laughed. Seb took another sip of wine. Walt pushed his napkin between his hands, making a loose ball.

"5
th
Century BC Chinese philosopher, reputedly the founder of Taoism," said Walt.
 

"Are you seriously telling me you've never heard of George Harrison?" said Seb. "Paul McCartney? John Lennon? Ringo Starr? The Beatles?"

"They were a band popular in the sixties, right?" said Walt.

"Popular in the sixties? Popular? Yeah, I guess you could say they were popular. You're kidding me, right?"

Walt carefully placed the napkin on the table in front of him.

"I was busy in the sixties," he said. He put his hands in front of him, palm down, about ten inches above the napkin. "Wanna see some magic?"

"Busy?" said Seb. "Busy enough to miss The Beatles? Man, you've got some catching up to..."

Seb's voice trailed away. Walt's napkin had begun to move, swelling and receding in an eerie sinuous motion that reminded Seb of a TV show he seen once when a pregnant woman had shown the baby moving under the stretched skin of her stomach. Walt slowly closed one hand into a fist and the napkin mirrored the movement, closing in on itself until it was a tight ball. Then Walt opened his hand again, and as the napkin unfolded itself, he began moving both hands as if he was a puppeteer. The napkin responded to every move of the older man's hands, dancing gracefully side to side, then slowly pirouetting. Seb was entranced, although he knew the secret must be some kind of ultra-fine thread. Even knowing how it was done, it was hard not to be impressed by the convincingly lifelike movement exhibited by the napkin, which was now rising upwards. Seb caught Walt's eye and smiled.

"Hmm," said Walt. "Not really impressed, I see."

"The opposite, actually," said Seb. "I mean - wow - it's amazing. I love close-up magic. Really."

"It's ok," said Walt, "you're not supposed to be impressed yet." Slowly, deliberately, he folded his arms and sat back in his chair. The napkin very slowly folded in on itself and curled back onto the table.
 

"Seriously," said Seb, "you've got some chops. Fantastic."

Walt held up a finger. It seemed a casual gesture, but Seb detected the crowd-controlling skill of a long-time performer. He looked at Walt. The man's face had taken on an aspect of absolute concentration. He was staring at the napkin. Seb had once read that a magician was actually an actor playing the part of a magician. If that was true, this guy was De Niro. He looked utterly composed, focused and serious - the look on his face was that of an athlete about to attempt a world record. Seb felt a palpable sense of power and he could swear the space around Walt's face was shimmering like a heat haze. He looked at the napkin just as it began to unfold itself again. It seemed to coil itself into a crouching position, one white cotton corner pointing toward Seb. Then it began to move. Not a dance this time, more the purposeful, quiet movements of a predator. It crawled slowly across the table, each step hinting at some kind of ancient, instinctive, deadly intent. Seb tried to swallow, but found his throat suddenly dry. Absurdly, he couldn't tear his eyes away from the thing long enough to reach for his wineglass. He was aware of Walt's presence opposite: he wasn't moving a muscle - there was no way this was being controlled by threads.
 

Some sort of animatronic exoskeleton? Wires sewn into the napkin itself?
Even as he forced himself to be logical, a deeper part of him registered what was actually happening. This was real. Walt was somehow imbuing the napkin with its own physicality. Not only was it real, it was dangerous and it was headied straight for him. He tried to move, but his fascination seemed to have locked his arms and legs in place. The thing rocked back, muscles rippling under the surface of the napkin.
 

Oh, God
,
it's going to spring. It's going to attack me
. He braced himself for the inevitable pain even as a tiny part of him tried to dismiss the whole scenario as ridiculous. Just before the creature could move, a hand appeared on top of it. His view momentarily obscured, Seb managed to look up.

"Your steak, sir," said the waiter, plucking the napkin from the table, shaking it out with one hand, then draping it efficiently across Seb's lap. Seb flinched as it landed, then he grabbed it and kneaded it with his fingers. No wires, no threads.

"Are you all right, sir?" said the waiter, placing a steaming plate in front of him, followed by an extra bowl of fries. Seb reached for his wine and took a long swallow.

"Fine, thanks. Yes. Fine."

The waiter nodded and left, dodging his way through a family coming the other way with an ease borne of years working the railroad. Seb looked at Walt, feeling suddenly embarrassed as the fear he had just experienced dissipated.

"Didn't think you could bring your own wine on board," he said. Walt smiled and raised his glass.

"We have an understanding," he said. "Don't let your steak go cold."

"That...trick," said Seb. "I've never seen anything like it."

Walt sipped at the wine, twirling the stem of the glass slowly through long fingers.
 

"I've loved magic all my life," he said. "I'll tell you about it while you eat. Bon appetit."

Seb noticed that Walt didn't ask him whether he actually wanted to hear his story, just assumed he did. He was right, of course. Seb had always slightly envied those who seemed so sure of themselves, of their place in the world. That sense of entitlement. Some people just seemed to have it, while others had to nurse a sense of self-worth so fragile, it sometimes seemed barely present. Seb picked up the steak knife and cut a huge slice, washing it down with the Cabernet Sauvignon, which was beginning to taste better with every mouthful.

"I grew up poor in Chicago," said Walt. "I'm not looking for sympathy, I didn't know anything different. Where I grew up, rich meant you got meat more than once a week. There was no education worth the name - I was expected to earn my keep as soon as I was able. For me, that meant running errands for the local mobster. Well, not for him directly. I was so far down the food chain, I didn't even qualify as bait. I got all the jobs no one else wanted - taking messages, picking up parcels, but mostly cleaning up, fixing drinks. Sometimes, I got to hear things I shouldn't hear, see things I shouldn't see. Passing information like that to the right pair of ears could get you some real money. I was smart enough not to take sides and careful enough not to get myself killed. I had no loyalty to these thugs. They were dangerous and - worse - they had no style, no finesse. They were short-sighted, greedy. Not one of them had the sense to know when to stop, to know when they were attracting too much attention. So their life expectancy was pretty short. Luckily, I developed an instinct for that kind of danger and was always long gone before the inevitable hit the fan.

"In my teens, they let me join the protection run once a week. We were assigned a street and had to collect protection money from the owners of the businesses. 'Business' is too grand a word for what these people did - struggling to make ends meet in one of the hardest periods this country has ever faced."

Seb wondered what period Walt meant. There was no way he was any older than sixty. More likely mid-fifties, which would make him a teenager in the sixties. A teenager in the sixties who hadn't heard of The Beatles.
 

"The cut we took from these shopkeepers kept them just above the breadline," continued Walt. "I didn't much like it, but I needed to feed myself. And - by that time - it was all I knew. Until one day I realized we were avoiding one of the businesses. Nothing special about it, just a small florist. Bernbaum Flowers. Not only did we never get any protection money, we just pretended it wasn't there. No one ever mentioned it. One day I plucked up the courage and asked why. Manny - who headed up the protection boys - told me Sid Bernbaum was an old friend of the boss. I started to ask another question, but the look he gave me stopped me dead in my tracks. 'We don't talk about it, ok?'. I kept my mouth shut but I already knew I was going to find out more."

Walt paused while he filled up both glasses. Seb looked at the bottle. It was still half full, although he was sure they must have drunk it all by now. Another mystery.

"By this time, I'd learned a few useful skills. Late one night, I picked Bernbaum's lock so I could search the shop. Didn't know what I was looking for, couldn't even have put into words what drove me to do it, but I knew I didn't want to spend the rest of my life as a middle-ranking mobster and I'd half-convinced myself this guy might know something that would help with my career progression.

"The shop was dark, warm - the thing that really got me was the smell. You ever noticed how some plants don't release their fragrance until night? Well, this place was so heady, I could hardly breathe. I went further in, decided I'd poke around a little. Then I remember just stopping dead in the middle of the store. I'd barely questioned the compulsion that had led me there, but I suddenly started to wonder what the hell I hoped to achieve. I got cold feet, decided to leave, but it was too late."

Walt sipped his wine, seemingly lost in his own story. The train was slowing. Seb glanced at his watch. 9:08pm. He realized he didn't even know what day it was. He looked out of the window.

"Victorville," said Walt. "Not much to see. But the Chicago train never stops here. I wonder what's going on?"

As the train rounded the bend, a concrete apron in front of a rudimentary station building came into view. A few people were huddled together at one end, looking toward the oncoming train. As the rest of the platform came into view, Seb saw about a dozen armed men, FBI logos on their arms and caps, waiting for the Southwest Chief to stop. Seb froze for a moment, then jerked his head back as he recognized a tall figure looking in his direction. Westlake. How the hell had he got here?
 

Seb got out of his seat. A couple of nearby passengers glanced at him as he lurched to his feet, panicking.

Walt twirled the stem of the glass between manicured fingers.

"Friends of yours?" he said. Seb didn't reply. His mind raced through the possibilities. He could go back to his cabin - but were they coming on board? He could see if any passengers were leaving and try to slip off unnoticed. He scanned the dining car: no one else was getting ready to disembark. He could get out on the other side of the tracks and make a run for it. But he could hardly do that without other passengers giving him away, and he didn't think he would be able to stay hidden long in an unfamiliar place with trained officers searching for him. What the hell could he do?

"Sit down," said Walt, nodding at the seat opposite.
 

Seb shook his head.

"No," he said. "I can't. Those people. I've done nothing wrong...but...I have to leave."

The train had almost come to a stop. The armed figures were heading for the train doors. Seb moved toward the aisle but Walt's hand shot out and caught him by the wrist. Seb turned.

"I can help you," said Walt, "but you're going to have to trust me. There's no way you can outrun those guys. Now sit down."

Seb hesitated - he knew Walt was right about not being able to outrun the uniforms, but he hated the idea of just sitting and waiting to be dragged off the train by the same guys who'd already killed him once today.

"Sit down," said Walt again, "and I'll show you some real magic."

Chapter 12

17 Years Previously

St. Benet's Children's Home, New York

Melissa didn't show up at St. Benet's the next Monday. Or Tuesday. On Wednesday, Seb plucked up the courage to ask Sister Theresa if she had seen her.
 

"That beautiful red-haired girl?" said the nun. "You like her, right?"

Seb blushed to the roots of his hair. Romance was not a subject he'd ever feel comfortable discussing with someone who'd devoted herself to a life of celibacy.

"Um, I guess so, a little," he said. Sister Theresa smiled and winked at him. She was a portly women in her fifties.