End of the Century Read Free Page A

period after.
    Unlocking the door, Blank found a uniformed officer of the Metropolitan Police waiting on the threshold. After ascertaining Blank's identity, the constable related that he had instructions to escort Blank to Tower Bridge, but was either unable or unwilling to share any further particulars about the matter.
    Blank pulled a silver hunter from his vest pocket, consulted the time, and shrugged. “I have no pressing business until midafternoon,” he said to the constable, casually, and then glanced back over his shoulder, to see Miss Bonaventure lingering in the corridor. “Well, Miss Bonaventure, best get your coat and hat. It seems we are needed.”
    â€œPooh,” Miss Bonaventure said, with a moue of disappointment. “And I'd hoped to finish reading the papers.”

2000 CE
    THE GUY BEHIND THE COUNTER wouldn't stop giving Alice the stinkeye.
    â€œName?”
    â€œAlice Fell.” Like it wasn't on her passport, right there in his grubby mitts.
    â€œAnd how old are you, miss?”
    â€œEighteen.” Again, like it wasn't there in black and white.
    The guy pursed his lips and nodded, looking thoughtful. Alice got the impression he thought she was lying, but really, who would lie about being eighteen? Only a sixteen-year-old. If you were eighteen, and looked it, you'd lie about being twenty-one. At least you would in the States. But then again, the drinking age in England was eighteen, wasn't it? So maybe he had a point.
    â€œAnd is this your luggage, miss? All of it?”
    As if he found it difficult to accept that she'd just gotten off a transatlantic flight with no luggage but a ratty little nylon backpack with an anarchy symbol drawn on it in ballpoint pen. She nodded, trying not to giggle. She's just realized who his accent made him sound like, and found itfunny to imagine Sporty Spice with a bristly mustache working the immigration and customs counter at Heathrow Airport.
    â€œYou've just arrived on Temple Air flight 214 from New York?”
    Alice nodded.
    â€œAnything to declare?”
    Alice had to actively resist the temptation to say “Nothing but my genius,” like Orson Welles or whoever it was had done. Oscar Wilde, maybe? But then, she wasn't really much of a genius, so maybe she'd have been better off saying “Nothing but my angst” or something equally self-aware and mopey. As it was, she managed to resist the impulse altogether, and just muttered “No” while she shook her head.
    â€œMay I look in your bag?” He said it like it was a question, but Alice knew that if she answered anything but “Yes,” she'd be turned right back around and put on a plane back to the States. So she played along, and nodded.
    Here was what the guy pulled out of her backpack, which presently represented everything Alice owned in the world:
    A deck of playing cards, wrapped in duct tape.
    A library bound copy of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Loooking Glass , stamped property of Grisham Middle School, Austin, TX. (She'd stolen the book from the school library when she was in the eighth grade, but she wasn't sure what the statute of limitation on library theft was, or what sort of extradition policy Austin ISD had with the United Kingdom, anyway, so she kept the fact that the book was stolen property to herself.)
    A trade paperback edition of Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc .
    A copy of the 2000 edition of Frommer's London From $85 a Day (shoplifted from the Waldenbooks at Lakeline Mall which, again, Alice failed to mention).
    Two T-shirts, one pair of denim jeans, three pairs of socks, and three pairs of undergarments.
    Two packs of Camel Light cigarettes, one opened and one unopened.
    An antique silver match holder, or “vesta case,” engraved with theinitials “J.D.” and a stylized dragon's head, containing thirty-two wooden matches.
    A wallet containing an American Express