I handed the tan and green booklet to the born Russian. While his buddy looked at my sidearms real careful, the older man opened the passport to look from my picture to me.
The American-born one said, “You’ll have to put your guns in the safe at your hotel. You can’t carry ’em openly in the HRE.”
I nodded. The two passed on, the Russian having handed my passport back to me.
Welcome to the Holy Russian Empire.
CHAPTER FOUR
By the time the train pulled into San Diego, I was hardly able to put two words together. It was evening when I stepped out of the station on Kettner Street. Lucky all I had to do was find a hotel.
The first place I stopped was too expensive. I plodded on. About six in the evening I found a place I could afford two blocks east. It was called the Balboa Palace. It was not anyone’s palace. But the place looked clean, and I could pay for it without crying.
“Can’t carry guns on the street,” the clerk told me, nodding at my Colts. I nodded back, to show I’d heard him, and he handed me my key. My hand was shaking. I took the stairs to the third floor. The clerk called, “We have an elevator!”
I nodded to show I’d heard him, but at the moment I wasn’t up to anything new. Stairs were good enough. I locked my room door behind me. I stripped off my nasty clothes and dropped them to the floor. Then I was in a real bed, and it did not move, and I slept for twelve hours straight.
When I woke up the sun was shining in the window, and the sounds of a city were cranking up outside. I lay there thinking for a bit but then couldn’t stand myself anymore. I had a bathroom of my own, not the norm at Texoma or New America hotels. There was a showerhead over the tub. By the time the water got the right temperature, I was excited about stepping in.
I washed myself twice. Then I washed the clothes I’d worn since I stepped on the train in Texoma. I hung them up around the room. With the windows open to the cool air, I figured they’d dry pretty quick.
I put my guns in the wardrobe and hung out the DO NOT DISTURB sign as I went in search of food.
I hadn’t even registered that there was a dining room the night before. It was right off the lobby and two steps down, and it had windows onto the street and its own door.
I was glad to sit at one of the tables to watch people pass by. It was like watching a circus. I drank good coffee and ate good pancakes and eggs. I saw Chinese people and old-fashioned Russians and quite a few I could not even identify.
There weren’t any women wearing jeans and boots like me. Oh, some women wore pants, but they were loose in the leg and tight in the waist and matched their blouses. Their shoes had heels, which I was not going to do. I’d worn ’em in Dixie. I wouldn’t do that again.
The clerk—not the man from the night before—was standing behind the reception counter, going through a stack of white cards. He was in his fifties, I reckoned. Not as weatherworn as people got in Texoma, but he didn’t look soft. “What can I do for you this morning, miss?” he asked, real polite.
“Rose. Lizbeth Rose.” I shook his hand, which surprised him.
“Paul McElvaney.”
“Do you have a map of the city?” I didn’t know if this was a ridiculous question or not, but if I didn’t start asking, I’d never get answers.
“Right here.” McElvaney pointed at a rack to the left of the high counter. “They’re free.”
That was luck. I took one and said, “If you got a minute, can I ask some more questions, Mr. McElvaney?” There wasn’t anyone else within earshot.
McElvaney nodded. “Call me Paul.”
“Is it really against the law to carry guns on the street?”
“Yes. The police don’t take kindly to open carrying. It would be a big risk on your part, not one you should take.”
“Then do you have a safe? That guests can put things in?”
“We do. You can put in anything you want.”
“I’ll bring my guns down, then. How would I look up someone’s address?”
“Phone book. There’s one in the phone booth on each floor, next to the elevator.”
I had wondered what that was. “Thanks. I heard about trolley cars. How do you get on one? How do you buy a ticket?” San Diego was too big for me to walk everywhere.
Paul told me what I had to do. He hesitated for a second. There was something else he wanted to say.
I made a come on gesture.
“I should warn you,” Paul said. “When California broke off, there were a lot of USA army and navy men here. Quite a few of them didn’t go home. Some of them got jobs in the guards, the police force, for builders. A lot of them didn’t. There are gangs in San Diego that make the streets—well, you have to be careful.”
“I thought the HRE was hard on lawbreakers.” Tracked them down and killed them, was what I’d heard.
“If robbers or killers are on their own, the grigoris and the police take care of them pretty quick. But the gangs have more strings to pull. And there are some Russians mixed in.”
“Thanks for telling me,” I said. I offered him some of my Russian money.
“No,” Paul said. “I was warning you like I would my own daughter. She’s your age.”
“Good to know,” I said. “Thanks, Paul.”
“I can tell you’re a young lady who’s used to taking care of herself,” the clerk said. “This is a lovely city, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you here.”
I nodded, and went to the elevator. Getting the free map and the good advice had made me bold. I watched other people for a minute until I understood the procedure. I pressed the button to call the elevator. It came down, the doors opened, and there was a woman sitting on a little stool.
I stepped inside.
“What floor, please?” the woman asked.
“Three,” I said, and she closed the open grille and then the elevator doors and pulled her handle. Up we went. I had a little whoopsy feeling in my stomach, that was all. The elevator came to a decided stop. I didn’t know what to do next, but the woman opened the doors, first the grille set and then the solid set, and there was my floor. I’d already had my first adventure of the day.
I found a pad of paper and a pen handy in the desk in my room, both printed with BALBOA PALACE. I carried both back to the phone booth, marveled at the folding door on it, opened and shut it a few times just to avoid the next step in my search for information.
No one interrupted me while I looked up a lot of places I needed to visit and wrote down the addresses. Then I read all the directions on the pay telephone, so if I had to use one, I was ready.
While I did all this, the maid had been cleaning my room. I sat at the desk with my maps, both the street map and the trolley map. My head was tired by the time I had it all worked out.
The Grigori Rasputin School was on the mainland side of the bay, not far from the palace and many government buildings located on North Island, which wasn’t really an island.
After I figured out my route to the school, I estimated it would take me forty minutes to walk there. I thought of calling the number I’d written down just to forewarn them I was coming to see my sister. But that seemed … not as good as showing up, somehow. Also, phone calls cost money. So step one was decided.