Tales of the City 03 - Further Tales of the City

“Maybe Andy’s family can put you up.” He winked, apparently sensing the first question that occurred to Mary Ann. “Don’t sweat it. They’ve never lived in igloos—mostly sod huts propped up on stilts. The Bureau of Indian Affairs built ‘em some new houses about six or seven years ago. Polyurethane walls … much warmer.”
    “I’ll bet,” said Mary Ann, privately saddened that even the Eskimos had been reduced to using plastics.
    “What about defenses?” asked DeDe, as the tiny, single-engine Cessna skirted the coastline northwest of Nome.
    “What about ‘em?”
    “Well, I mean … with Russia only two-and-a-half miles away?”
    “According to Andy,” said Willie Omiak, “they’ve got three M-14 rifles, one grenade launcher and one grenade. It isn’t exactly a full-time job, being a scout.”
    “A scout?”
    “Eskimo Scouts,” explained the pilot. “That’s the official name for Alaska National Guardsmen. They do most of their work in the winter, I guess, when you can walk right across the ice. Most people know better these days. Back in ‘47, the Russians held Andy’s dad for almost two months when he crossed the strait to visit relatives. Hell, it was just family. Nobody even knew about the Cold War.”
    “Do the Russians have forces on Big Diomede?” asked Mary Ann.
    Willie Omiak grinned. “About as scary as ours. A guy in a little shack on the highest part of the island.”
    “What does he do?”
    “Watches,” answered the pilot. “While our guy watches back. Nobody has much reason to visit Big Diomede anymore. Most of our cousins were shipped to the Siberian mainland back in the fifties. For that matter, nobody goes to Little Diomede either. What got you interested?”
    “We’re looking for someone,” said DeDe.
    “An Eskimo?”
    “No,” DeDe replied. “An American.”
    Willie Omiak looked at his passenger, then turned and winked at Mary Ann. “We’ll forget she said that, won’t we?”
    They appeared out of nowhere it seemed—two granite crags united by their isolation, but divided by politics. On the smaller one, a village was visible, a cluster of clapboard and tarpaper houses snuggled against the base of a sixteen-hundred-foot cliff.
    “That’s Ingaluk,” said Willie Omiak, making a low pass between the islands. “It’s Thursday down there. Over there on Big Diomede it’s Friday already.”
    Mary Ann peered down. “You mean …?”
    “We’re flying directly over the International Date Line.” He grinned at her over his shoulder. “This place confusing enough for you?”
    It was eerie, all right. Two continents, two ideologies, two nations—neatly bisected by today and tomorrow. What better place to search for two frightened little children teetering perilously between two fates?
    As the Cessna swooped lower, Mary Ann could make out a schoolhouse and a church. Then the airstrip materialized: a rectangle of asphalt near the shore, delineated by oil drums and half-a-dozen people awaiting their arrival.
    “There’s Andy,” yelled Willie Omiak, as the plane bumped the runway.
    “He looks awfully glad to see you,” said Mary Ann.
    The pilot patted the leather satchel on the seat next to him. “I’ve got the new Playboy,” he grinned.
    Mary Ann’s giggling stopped when she saw the naked dread in DeDe’s eyes. They had chased their quarry to the end of the world. What if it was too late?

Deadline
    P RUE SAT AT HER CORONAMATIC AND WEPT SOFTLY TO herself. Her maid, her secretary and her chauffeur were all in the house, so a visible (or audible) display of grief was completely out of the question.
    She slipped a piece of paper into the typewriter. It hung there listlessly, like a surrender flag, a horrid metaphor for the emptiness she felt now that Luke was gone. What was there to write about, really? What was there to live for?
    She yanked the paper out again, just as the phone rang.
    “Yes?”
    “All right, Prudy Sue, let’s have it.”
    “Have what?” Getting right to the point was Victoria Lynch’s annoying device for flaunting her intuitive powers. Prue refused to play along.
    “You know. True confessions. What the hell’s been going on? You’ve been in the most morbid funk ever since you got back from Alaska.”
    Silence.
    “You looked like holy hell last night at the placenta party.”
    Prue almost bit her head off. “I don’t like placenta parties, all right?”
    (The party had been held in the spacious Pacific Heights garden