Uptown Local and Other Interventions (28 page)

“See,” Ken said, getting down on one knee and putting down a finger to one of them, which promptly climbed up on it and sat there waving its antennae, “they know you’re so careful about cleaning up and never leaving sweet things around because you really hate having to kill anything. So they’re careful to stay well out of sight inside the walls, and never show any sign that’ll make you have to call the exterminators. However—” he cocked an ear at the roach sitting on his finger—”they
do
like to hide in your wall space when the Chinese place around the corner has gotten so filthy in the back that the Board of Health guys descend on them. Then when the coast is clear they go back. They hate the cooks over there, because most of the time they ignore the roaches completely, except when the City’s about to show up. You, however, are consistent. Roaches like consistency.”

Ana was standing there with her mouth open. Finally she found presence of mind enough to close it. “Horse whisperers I knew about,” she said. “
Roach
whisperers…? Only in New York.”

Ken resisted the urge to roll his eyes: he’d been called worse things. “I wouldn’t define my role that narrowly,” he said, and let the roach on his finger back down onto the floor. “Let’s just say I’m a student of the art of conversation. I listen to anything that has something to say to me. Mostly animals, though I do inorganics occasionally, just to keep my hand in.” He looked down at the roaches.
“Okay, guys and gals,”
he said,
“back to business now. And leave those wires alone.”

Ana watched the roaches vanish under the baseboards again, and swallowed. “And here I thought you were in personnel,” she said.

“I am!” Ken said. “They’re personnel. Just not
human
personnel.”

“Oh yeah,” Ana said. “Who do they work for?”

“Life,” Ken said, and went over to the sink to wash his hands. “The same as you and me. They do it the way they were built to. We do it —“  He pulled a paper towel, dried his hands, chucked it in a nearby trash container. “Differently. And some of us do it
very
differently. Which is what I’m getting to here.” He looked around the candymaking kitchen one last time. “Because, taking everything together—the nature of your business, your reputation, the way the place looks, and the history of your company—something is definitely missing.”

“What?”

“Your xocolotl.”

“My zoco
what?”

 “Lotl. The creature that’s been living in this building, maybe in this kitchen, for the past hundred years. The one that helps make your chocolate come out right even when the conditions are all against you.” She was staring at him open-mouthed, but this was no time to let her get her disbelief going again. “I have a feeling your mother probably knew about it. Maybe she meant to tell you and just never got around to it. And after that— You didn’t think it was
just
luck that’s pulled you through, all those times when things should really have gone wrong, did you?”

She frowned. “Excuse me! I thought skill might have had
something
to do with it—”

“Of course it does. That’s the only reason a xocolotl would ever have chosen to stay with you. They’re intimately associated with chocolate culture…have been since human beings discovered it, and them.”

Ana looked understandably confused. “There are lots of animals associated with human food production,” Ken said. “You wouldn’t be surprised to see a horse or an ox plowing, would you? Or a dog herding sheep? This is like that. It’s not quite a symbiotic relationship. But some creatures just seem to be particularly well suited for some kinds of business, or just one kind. You’ve heard about those moths so specifically evolved that they can only drink from only one kind of flower—and the flower’s come to depend on them in turn? There are similarities here. There are other animals that do jobs nearly as specialized. And still others that don’t so much
do
anything…but their presence, or absence, is felt. They’re catalysts, in a way. In the xocolotl’s case, its presence has a subtle effect on your ingredients, the surroundings in which they’re kept…the people who work with them.”

“Oh, come on,” Ana said after a moment. “It sounds like one of those fake sciences, like astrology! Mysterious vague influences—”

“Like gravity wells?” Ken said. “Same principle. Some things bend spacetime out of shape in strange ways. And gravity’s weak, in the great scheme of things. Some things are
much
better at warping space. How many times have you gone looking for your house keys lately and not been able to find them?”

Ana suddenly looked rather thoughtful.

“This is what we’re after,” Ken said. “At least to start with.” He showed her the PDA.

The screen was showing an image of something like an iguana, but mottled in ivory and chocolate-brown, in patterns that were vaguely reminiscent of a Gila monster’s. “You haven’t seen anything like that around here?”

Ana shook her head. “I think I’d remember.”

“It’s been here, though… and for quite a long time. I can feel it. However, it left suddenly a few days ago.”

Ana blushed again, once more looking furious. “Whatever happens with Rodrigo,” Ken said, “you’re going to have to find the xocolotl and bring it home. It’s lived here a long time: it’s repaid you for its security with at least some of your success. But it also doesn’t know any other way of life, and it won’t last long out on the streets. Once it’s back here, things will start to go right again.”

 She just looked at him for several seconds.

Uh oh,
the PDA said.

Then Ana let out a breath. “Who am I to doubt a man who can talk to roaches?” she said.

“If I were anyone else,” Ken said, “I might have mistaken that for irony. Do you have something you can change into? This isn’t going to be the kind of work you want to do in Manolos.”

She caught his glance at her shoes, and grinned. “Wait here,” Ana said, and vanished through a side door and up a flight of stairs. A few minutes later she came down in sneakers and jeans and a T-shirt. “Where are we going?”

“Not far,” Ken said as they went out, and Ana locked the door behind them. “No more than a four-block radius.”

“Who’d have thought the Twilight Zone was so nearby,” Ana muttered as they headed down the street.

*

It took nearly an hour for Ken and easily a couple of miles of walking to get anything out of the PDA but repetitions of
Cooler…a little warmer…no, cooler again.
The problem was partly the xocolotl’s relatively slow metabolism, and partly the location where it had chosen to lose itself: the multitude of surrounding lifesigns tended to drown its own signature out. But three blocks away from Theobroma, the PDA suddenly said,
One block south. One block west.

“Does it see it?” Ana said, looking over Ken’s shoulder.

“Not clearly, but we’re close,” he said. “Your xoco must have been really put out to go this far.”

Ana said nothing for a moment. “This is so weird,” she said. “Magical lizards hiding in people’s kitchens. Some kind of chocolate elemental—“

“It might be too much to call them magical. And elementals are usually a little more, uh, confrontational.”

            “But where does the xoco come from? Is it some kind of alien?”

            “I don’t think so,” Ken said as they crossed the last street onto the block they were heading for. “But there’s an alien connection to the chocolate. Do you believe in UFOs?”

            Ana stared at him, completely flummoxed. “I have no idea. I haven’t given it much thought.”

            “But you know a lot of other people do.”

            “Well, sure.”

            “But doesn’t it seem a little strange when you think of it?” He glanced down at the PDA, turned to his left down the block. “Here we are right out at the edge of our galaxy: a nothing-special little star system out by itself. Why would aliens be coming all the way out here to see us?”

            She gave Ken a rather cockeyed look. “You’re going to tell me, I suspect.”

            “Oh, never
tell
,” Ken said. “Suggest, though. I’m going to suggest that we are the only source of something worth coming thousands of lightyears out of your way for. Cocoa beans…”

Ana burst out laughing. “You are completely nuts!”

            “Possibly,” Ken said. “But you’re the one with the store called ‘Theobroma’. Food of the Gods, huh? Well, what if the Great Space Gods that some people carry on about, only came here for the chocolate? There’s your question for the day.” He stopped by a wire-fence doorway, slipping the PDA into his pocket. He didn’t need its help now. “What’s back there?”

She peered through the grating. “A convenience store. No, wait, there’s a bakery there too: the back door’s down at the end of the alley.” Ana shook the gate slightly, frustrated. “No use, it’s locked.”

“Not for long,” Ken said. He bent down as if to look through the keyhole.
“Buddy,”
he whispered in the Speech, “
do me a favor here, will you? We’re on a mission of mercy.”

The lock’s bolt threw itself. Ken pushed the gate open very softly, trying to keep it from creaking, and held it open for Ana: she slipped through, staring at him again. “How did you do that?”

“I asked nicely,” Ken said.

“Magic!” Ana said.

“Same thing,” Ken said. “Ssh! Come on.”

They made their way down the alley, past the piled-up trash outside the back of the convenience store. “Smell that?”

            “Wish I didn’t,” Ana said.

            “No argument. But I don’t mean the garbage. There’s something else here…”

            Her eyes got wider as she sniffed. “
Cocoa
…?”

            “Your xoco’s been down here,” Ken said. “Come on.”

            They went on past the steel back door of the convenience store. , further down the alley. More garbage—”You’re kidding about the UFOs, though, right?”

            “You’re just not going to take me seriously, are you?” Ken shook his head, smiling slightly. The smile was only partly for her: inside his head he could feel what they’d been looking for, that slow, dark, bittersweet tone of mind. “We’re getting close now. Just follow my lead—”

            He paused in front of the last steel door in the alley, knocked. After a moment bolts were thrown, and the door opened a crack.

            To the face that looked out, Ken simply held up the PDA, knowing that its Manual function was causing it to display itself as whatever ID would be most useful in this situation. “Can we come in?”

The door opened. As he tucked the PDA away, Ken snuck a peek and saw that it was pretending to be a New York City Health Department ID. He repressed a grin as the head baker came to meet them. He was a large, florid Italian gentleman of the kind usually depicted in standup signs outside pizzerias, the only difference being that he was wearing a gauze-backed black-and-white-checked  foodservice cap, and whites that were even whiter in places with flour. “You guys were in here three days ago, we had a clean bill of health, what now?”

“We’re looking for lizards,” Ken said.

“Lizards?”

“There are some loose in the neighborhood,” Ken said. “They’re fond of food service environments like this—nice warm places with quiet spots to hide. Mostly brown, about a foot long, look like iguanas. Won’t take more than a few minutes to check the place. Do you mind?”

He was ready to drop into the Speech for extra persuasiveness, if he had to, but there was no need: what the PDA looked like was already enough to do the job. “Quiet!” the boss snorted, for across the room a gigantic kneading machine was roaring away and making enough noise for a cement mixer.

“Thanks,” Ken said, and made his way in, with Ana close behind him. The staff got out of their way, looking at them with wary interest.

Ken held still for a moment, listening hard, and finally found what he was looking for: then checked the cupboards down the side of one wall, first, before opening the middle one and seeing, as if surprised, the patterned shape back in the shadows.
“I’m here to take you home, fella,”
he said.

I don’t know you. You go ‘way and leave me be,
  said the xocolotl.

He looked over his shoulder. “Ana?”

She came over, got down beside him, looked into the cupboard curiously. “Is that—”

Ken nodded. The short-spined iguana-head turned, and one eye regarded Ana, chameleon-like, from several angles, one after another.

I missed you, 
it said.

Her eyes went wide. “I heard that!”

“It’s not unusual,” Ken said, “once you believe you can.”

Let’s go back,
the xocolotl said.
The chocolate here is bad.

“See that? No problem at all,” Ken said. “Here, stick him in here and we’ll take him home.” He held out the courier bag.

“Do they bite?” Ana said.

“If he bites
you
,” Ken said, “I’d be astonished.”

Carefully Ana reached in and picked up the xocolotl. The bakery staff, standing at a safe distance to watch, made impressed noises as Ana brought him out. “Not poisonous, huh?” said the head baker.

Ken stood up. “Not to her, anyway,” he said.

Ana slipped the xocolotl into the bag. Ken caught another glimpse of that roving eye, which finally fixed on Ana again.
No more fighting,
it said.
 

She looked at Ken with a slightly stricken expression. “How do I explain—” she whispered.

He shook his head. “One thing at a time,” Ken said. He helped her up. Behind them, the head baker was nodding in the resigned manner of a man who’s glad that he’s not to be cited for having a concealed lizard on the premises. “Thanks, goodbye, you want a cake to take with you? No? Okay, goodbye—”

The door slammed behind them. “Why didn’t you want the cake?” Ken said, amused.

“Because he’s right about one thing,” Ana said as they made their way back down to the alley gate.

“Oh?”

“The chocolate there
is
bad.”

*