Under Sadie's Roses
an excerpt

They slipped from an office building in Shanghai to a hill overlooking Los Angeles in the blink of an eye. Jamie was used to it by now, and John, as usual, said nothing, being John.
The hot dry air was a shock after the too-cold air conditioning, and together they walked up the hill to the road, Jamie leaning on John for support. Jamie said nothing. He knew John would have a hard time parsing the words. John, who used to pun and play with words like a kitten with a feather, had paid dearly for this simple talent, to slip from place to place.
Jamie sometimes wondered if John thought it was worth it. If he wished for that part of his brain to work again. If he would trade back. Jamie knew there was one thing both of them would trade for. They had both lost her.
The sun was low, but the heat of the day was still baked into the rocks, and shimmered above the black road. The breeze from each passing car was welcome in the still air. Jamie rocked his left leg forward by pushing from the right, keeping cadence with John’s rhythm. His useless left side would hold him up – he had that much control.
If he hadn’t killed Pei Win, he wouldn’t have the limp. Every step he took reminded Jamie of the price he had paid for that. He would trade for that. He wished he could trade for that. He leaned against John, and they continued down the road, the cripple and the mute. Jamie brought his cell phone from his pocket, and called a cab.
“Cab,” he said to John. John nodded, then said “Hotel shower food eat hot sheets tired bed eat hot.” Jamie smiled. “Yes,” he said, adding a long pause so John would understand that the thought was complete. Then he said “pizza”. John shook his head. “Steak.” Jamie laughed. “Ok, steak.”
The part of John’s brain that handled syntax no longer had that duty, but John was still the smartest man Jamie had ever known. But no one else would know. The loss of language is such a wall in front of the world.
They kept walking, Jamie’s numb left side supported on his friend in a way that had grown natural. They needed each other. The cab would find them whether they walked or not, and difficult as it was, Jamie needed to walk. John did not seem to mind. They walked.
The key to sliding was altitude. Gravity ruled in otherspace, and they could slip from one place to another effortlessly if the two places had the same gravity. Moving uphill was an effort, moving downhill was dangerous if done too fast. The high-rise in Shanghai, the hill in Los Angeles, both had the same gravity. John knew how to control the slide for Coriolus effects, but he could not explain it to Jamie. Jamie could feel around in otherspace, and could make his way through it by touch, but John understood it at the most basic level, in a way Jamie never would. So they walked down the road, downhill towards the city.
Cars passed, ignoring the two travelers. Jamie watched a hawk circling in the ridge lift, looking for dinner. They walked for another half hour before the cab found them.
“Car break down?” asked the cabby, as they got in. “I guess ya don’t got triple A or y’da called them. I got a buddy does engine work if ya need it, he’s real reasonable.”
“We were just walking,” said Jamie. “What’s a nice hotel near the airport? Something with a good steak place nearby.”
“Kobe,” John said.
“A really nice restaurant,” Jamie added, “that serves Kobe beef.”
“That’s that Japanese thing where they give the cow a massage every day? They got that stuff at that penthouse place, top uh the Towers. That’s like a hundred bucks a plate or somethin’ though.”
“No problem,” said Jamie. “Take us to the best hotel near it, we’ll need to wash up a bit.”
“That’d be the Towers then. The hotel’s what’s holding up the restaurant.”
The cabby chattered as he drove down into the city. John ignored him. Jamie made polite noises at intervals, but was not paying attention. He dug into his pocket for the cell phone, and held it in his lap, looking at it. It had been almost an hour since he had called the cab. Plenty of time for the call to have rung alarms in Virginia, triggering contingency plans. Jamie looked out the window as the traffic became denser and noisier, and the cab slowed.
John was looking up at a helicopter, but did not look worried. Jamie leaned over to look up at it, and John said “Traffic”. The cabby agreed, and began a monolog in driving habits in Los Angeles. He was barely through the first twenty minutes of what promised to be a topic of some length when they arrived at the Towers. John got out and stood in front of the building, and Jamie leaned up towards the cabby, awkwardly fishing bills from his left pocket with his right hand. He palmed two bills, and held out another.
“This is for the ride and the conversation,” he said, handing the cabby a one hundred bill. He opened his hand and two more fell into the cabby’s palm. “And those are so you can take the missus out for a Kobe beef dinner.” The cabby did not protest, but the surprise was enough that he finally had nothing to say. Jamie got out and joined John, not looking back. The cabby would remember them well, and remember exactly which restaurant and which hotel. Jamie hoped three hundred dollars would make up for the night of questioning the man was about to go through.
As they walked up to the wide entrance, Jamie dropped the cell phone into a large concrete cylinder marked “Keep Los Angeles Beautiful”. Everything was set.