TIME AND TIME AGAIN The sequel to 3037 (9 page)

He looked at me and asked, “Do you know what kind of run she’s talking about?”

I laughed because I never did understand why they thought prohibition was a good idea during the 1920s.  “I assumed it was a bootleg run,” I replied.

He threw back his head and laughed, “It’s not going to bother you to ride with me, knowing I will be breaking the law?”

“It was a stupid law, anyway,” I said and then I asked a question I had suspected all along.  “B
y the way, y
our last name wouldn’t be Capone, would it?”

He had been shoveling pot roast and mashed potatoes in his mouth.  Now he put his fork and knife down and pointed his finger at me, “You know things.  I’ve read about people like you.
”
  He slapped the table and it made such a loud noise, I jumped.

“Yeah, go to New Orleans with me, Ashley.  You can probably help me with the law if I get stopped.  You want to go too, Rita?”

It was settled, we would all leave right after supper.  I helped Rita
and Pippin
clean up the kitchen and then she packed a bag for herself
and Al and a small one for me.  She had decided to keep most of the clothes from our shopping spree for herself.

Al had left while we were cleaning up saying he was going to change cars.  When he pulled up outside he was driving a flat black old model-T ford.

It was a very frightening trip for me.  Al drove most of the way without his headlights turned on.  Rita slept most of the way, leaning her head on Al’s shoulder.  I was too scared to sleep
.

CHAPTER 17

We went around a hairpin turn on the two lane blacktop and a police car was sitting in the middle of the road.  Al slammed on brakes and turned his wheel to the left so that we skidded almost against the cop car on the side I was sitting on.

There were two cops, one with a big beer belly and one rail skinny.  The one with the belly hitched his pants up in the back and left the front under his belly.

“Something wrong with
y’all’s
lights, son?” He drawled and I r
ealized we were no long in the N
orth.

I spoke up without looking at the other two, “It’s my fault, officer.  I dared him to see if he could drive through here with no lights.  I know it was stupid and dangerous and I’m sorry.”

“You wouldn’t be Al Capon, by any chance, would you?” He asked looking at Al.

“Yes sir, that’s my name.”

“You’re out of your territory, aren’t you, Mr. Capone?
  What are you do
ing down here?”

“He’s taking me back home to New Orleans,” I spoke up again.  “I was in Chicago visiting with Al and Rita and now they’re taking me home.  They also wanted to see New Orleans.  They’ve never been there before.”

He eyed me suspiciously, “Uh, huh, never been there before.  Well since I don’t have a search warrant, I can’t search the car, and we all know what’s in there.  So I’ll just charge you
a
$100 fine,” He said holding out his hand.

Al got out of the car and they walked ar
ound the back where he
opened the trunk and took something out and handed to the cop.  He then peeled off some bills from the roll and handed them to him.  The cop put the bills in his front pocket and the bottle under his shirt, got in his car and left.

“Does that happen often
?” I asked

He smiled and winked at me, “All the time.”

New Orleans looked really different in the 1920s.  The buildings in the French Quarter looked newer and the only music I heard was Jazz.
  The strippers didn’t take off as much, but seemed to do it with more class.  Most of the clubs were
known as speakeasies and honky
tonks.

Al and Rita seemed to know a lot of people and introduced me to Billy Holiday.  There was a photographer taking pictures in the club we were in and Rita and I had our picture made with Billy Holiday and the owner framed it and put it on the wall with other famous people.  I was hoping Joe would see it in the future and know where I was.

Later in the evening, while Al was sitting at a table with some mafia-looking men, Rita and I sat at another table and ordered bourbon and listened to Billy Holiday sing.  I got chills listening to her.

The next morning Rita and Al said goodbye and Al gave me a roll of bills to live on for awhile, and kissed my cheek.

After they left, I wandered the streets in the French Quarter
aimlessly.  I didn’t have any ideas about getting back to Joe.  Suddenly, everything felt so hopeless I sat down on a park bench and cried.

I had walked to the river front and didn’t realize it until I heard jazz coming from a riverboat.  When it pulled up to the dock, I saw a sign aboard advertising for a female singer.  I got on board and asked a big black m
an, who was sitting on the deck,
who
I would see about the job.

My jaw fell open when he said I would need to talk to Joe.  “He
be
at one of the tables playing poker,” he said as he waved his hand toward a red door.

When I opened the door, I never really expected to see my Joe but there he was, sitting at a table
,
covered in red felt
,
with
three other men.

He was dressed in a suit that fit like a glove but, instead of a tie and dress shirt, he was wearing what looked like a frilly blouse.  There were ruffles down the front and at the cuffs.

I remember watching a TV show, in the first life I could remember, named
Yancy
Derringer.  He was dressed just like that and had his hair combed straight back.

The other three were dressed in the same fashion.  They looked like true gentlemen of that time.  They looked up in surprise when I opened the door and I could tell that Joe didn’t recognize me.

Although he looked just like Joe, he talked like a native New Orleans gentleman.
  “Can
I
hep
ya
,
dahlin
?” he said and I replied, “I’m here about the singing job.”

“Can
ya
sing?”

“Sure,” I said and decided to emulate Billy Holiday.

He stood and bowed to the other gentlemen and held out his hand, palm up, “After you.”

I followed him into a narrow hallway and up a narrow set of stairs and into a large room that looked like a combination restaurant/nightclub.  There was a piano in the corner and sitting at the piano playing, “
Ain’t
Misbehavin
,” was Irene.

She quit playing when she saw us and Joe led me over to her.  It turned out that Joe had recognized me after all.  “She came,” he said to Irene.

She got up off her seat and hugged me and started crying, “Thank God,” she said.

I hugged both of them and then said, “How did this happen, Irene?”

“Ashley, just wait until I tell you everything I’ve learned.  Joe, get that nice bartender to bring us some of that excellent wine.  Come on, you two.  Let’s sit over here at one of these tables.”

CHAPTER 18

Irene took a long swallow of the wine and smacked her lips, “I almost don’t know where to begin.  The day you disappeared, Ashley, the sky turned pitch black and the cave, or jellyfish or whatever it was that we had been traveling in, uprooted and floated away.

“There were about half of us in it at the time and it didn’t wait for anyone else. 
Josie
pitched a really good temper tantrum.  She screamed at the cave thing to take her back so she could get you two.

“We didn’t know it at the time but you, Ashley, had slipped into a parallel universe.
  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Joe told me later after we connected that he had gone out to the cave and it wasn’t there.

“Anyway,
Josie
ranted and raved for days until the cave thing got tired of hearing her, I guess and came back.  She fo
u
nd Joe in the bar where you had disappeared and he and his band were playing there.

“The cave thing took off again after it dropped
Josie
off.  You wouldn’t believe the places I
’ve
seen since then, Ashley.  But it would take too long to go into all that.”

She took a deep breath and sipped her wine while I waited.  She got tears in her eyes and then continued, “I don’t know how to explain this part but, after traveling for about 20 years, and experiencing many things, I had reached a place where I could see a much bigger picture.

“I don’t know how else to explain it but I saw you wake up in the future, I saw Joe and
Josie
live almost a lifetime.  I saw you try to find Joe.”

“Yeah,” I interrupted, “He was an old man and I had great grandchildren.  It was horrible.”

Joe pulled me to him and kissed the top of my head, “Let her finish, baby.”

“At one point I tried to intervene.  I messed up big time and sent you into someone else’s body and you were hung.  I’m so sorry you had to experience that, Ashley.”

“I wasn’t crazy about it myself,” I said and I must have looked at Irene like I blamed her.

“Don’t blame her, Ashley,” Joe said.  “She was trying to help.”

Irene chuckled and then continued, “What I finally learned by trial and error was that there are certain places where you can see over into the different universes.  These are usually clear places
or slick surfaces.  There are many but, to name a few, mirrors, lakes or pools with no ripples, and windows.  Did you ever think you saw someone out of the corner of your eye but, when you turned to look, no one was there?  Well you had just gotten a glimpse into a parallel universe.

“What I found out was that I couldn’t interfere,
but
I could get messages across the thin membrane between the different universes.
  I learned to project my image into these membranes and that’s how I was able to tell you to come back to New Orleans.”

“But how did Joe get here?”

“That’s a little harder to explain.  You already know that time is not linear.  Well
I learned to not only project my image into some of the membranes, but I found that I could manipulate the time in which I did
so.  I’ll teach you some day, b
ut it has to do with the fact that time and
space are
interconnected.  All I had to do was to get you both to end up at the same time an
d
place.”

“Oh, is that all?” I asked an
d
we all got a good laugh out of that.

“With Joe, it was easy.  I projected into the assisted living place where he lived and sent him a message while he was looking in his mirro
r
, shaving.”

“I thought I was going senile,” Joe broke in.
“Then when she told me I had to walk to the riverboat and I had to go alone, I felt like she had lost her mind.  I thought there was no way I could walk that far.  But the farther I walked the younger and stronger I became.  It was amazing.

“I stopped at the bank and withdrew some money and got in a poker game and that’s where you found me.”

“So, not only is time not linear but it’s also space related?” I asked.  “I hope you both know that this is blowing my mind.”

Suddenly Joe grabbed me and kissed me and it shut me up.  I responded to his kiss but I was still feeling frustrated.  Everything I had thought I had finally figured out about the universe was not what it was at all.  It was so much more complicated than I would have ever imagined.

I had some more questions but the most important one was what I now asked, “Irene, where and when is
Josie
?”

Joe and Irene looked at each other and I saw tears in their eyes.  Then Irene spoke, “Sometimes, there is a price to pay for moving around within time and space.  Sometimes someone or something is sacrificed.”

I pulled away from Joe, “You sacrificed
Josie
so that we could be together?  How could you?  She was your own flesh and blood.”

I took a deep breath to continue berating Joe but Irene jumped in, “It wasn’t his choice, Ashley.  Quit acting like a two year old.  Sit still while I explain. 
I didn’t say that either one of us sacrificed
Josie
, not on purpose anyway.

“By coming back here and now,
you and
Joe changed history.  We didn’t realize that everything affects everything and everyone else.  If you want to blame anyone, you could blame me but you know that my heart has always been in the right place concerning your family.
”

I sat still for a few moments and I became ashamed of myself.  I whispered, “What happened to her, Irene?”