Lightning

At six o’clock she put in the stage teeth again and went up the street to get take-out from a Mexican restaurant. “When you’re on the run from the law, you need beans in your belly, tough-guy food.” She came back with rain-dampened bags of tacos, contain­ers of enchiladas, two orders of nachos, burritos, and chimichangas. They spread the food out on the bottom half of the bed, and Thelma and Chris sat on the top half. Laura and Stefan sat in chairs at the foot of the bed.

“Thelma,” Laura said, “there’s enough food here for ten.”

“Well, I figured that would feed us and the cockroaches. If we didn’t have food for the cockroaches, they might get mean, might go outside and overturn my gardener’s pickup. You do have cockroaches here, don’t you? I mean, after all, a swell place like this without cockroaches would be like the Beverly Hills Hotel without tree rats.”

As they ate, Stefan outlined the plan he had devised for closing the gate and destroying the institute. Thelma interrupted with wisecracks, but when he was finished, she was solemn. “This is damned dangerous, Stefan. Brave enough to be foolish, maybe.”

“There’s no other way.”

“I can see that,” she said. “So what can I do to help?”

Pausing with a wad of corn chips halfway to his mouth, Chris said, “We need you to buy the computer, Aunt Thelma.”

Laura said, “An IBM PC, their best model, the same one I have at home, so I’ll know how to use all the software. We don’t have time to learn the operating procedures of a new machine. I’ve written it all down for you. I could go buy it myself, I guess, with money you gave me, but I’m afraid of showing my face too many places.”

“And we’ll need a place to stay,” Stefan said.

“We can’t stay here,” Chris said, enjoying being a part of the discussion, “not if we’re going to be doing stuff with a computer. The maid would see it no matter how hard we tried to hide it, and she’d talk about it because that would be weird, people holing up in a place like this with a computer.”

Stefan said, “Laura tells me that you and your husband have a second house in Palm Springs.”

“We have a house in Palm Springs, a condo in Monterey, another condo in Vegas, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we owned—or at least had time shares in—our very own Hawaiian volcano. My husband is too rich. So take your pick. My houses are your houses. Just don’t use the towels to polish the hubcaps on your car, and if you must chew tobacco and spit on the floors, try to keep it in the corners.”

“I thought the house in Palm Springs would be ideal,” Laura said. “You’ve told me it’s fairly secluded.”

“It’s on a large property with lots of trees, and there’re other show-biz people on that block, all of ’em busy, so they don’t tend to drop over for a cup of coffee. No one’ll disturb you there.”

“All right,” Laura said, “there’s just a few other things. We need changes of clothes, comfortable shoes, some basic necessi­ties. I’ve made a list, sizes and everything. And, of course, when this is all over, I’ll pay you back the cash you gave me and whatever you spend on the computer and these other things.”

“Damn right you will, Shane. And forty percent interest. Per week. Compounded hourly. Plus your child. Your child will be mine.”

Chris laughed. “My Aunt Rumpelstiltskin.”

“You won’t make smart remarks when you’re my child, Christo­pher Robin. Or at least you’ll call me Mother Rumpelstiltskin, Sir.”

“Mother Rumpelstiltskin, Sir!” Chris said, and saluted her.

At eight-thirty Thelma prepared to leave with the shopping list that Laura had composed and the information about the computer. “I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, as soon as I can,” she said, giving Laura and then Chris one last hug. “You’ll really be safe here, Shane?”

“I think we will. If they’d discovered we were staying here, they would’ve shown up sooner.”

Stefan said, “Remember, Thelma, they’re time travelers; once they discover where we’ve been hiding, they could just jaunt forward to the moment when we first arrived here. In fact they could’ve been waiting for us when we pulled into the motel on Wednesday. The fact that we’ve stayed here so long unmolested is almost proof there’ll never be public knowledge that this was our hideout.”

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