“That’s why you’re a reporter, because you like to write?”

“No,” I said. “The writing’s a real pain. When will this time-warp thing happen again?”

She bit into a donut. “That’s Cinderella City,” she said, gesturing to the mall on our right with it. “You ever been there?”

I nodded.

“I went there once. They got marble floors and this big fountain. They got lots of stores. You can buy just about anything you want there. Clothes, jewels, shoes.”

If she wanted to do a little shopping now that she’d had breakfast, she could forget it. And she could forget about changing the subject. “When can we go see the Seven Cities again? Tomorrow?”

She licked cream filling off her fingers and turned the News over. “Not tomorrow,” she said. “El Turco would have liked Cinderella City. He didn’t have no shoes. He had to walk all the way to Colorado in his bare feet. Even in the snow.”

I imagined my hands closing around her plump neck. “When are the Seven Cities going to be there again?” I demanded. “And don’t tell me they’re always there.”

She consulted the celebrity squibs. “Not tomorrow,” she said. “Day after tomorrow. Five o’clock. You must like people, then. That’s why you wanted to be a reporter? To meet all kinds of people?”

“No,” I said. “Believe it or not, I wanted to travel.”

She grinned her golden smile at me. “Like Coronado,” she said.

I spent the next two days interviewing developers, environmentalists, and council members, and pondering why Coronado had continued to follow El Turco, even after it was clear he was a pathological liar.

I had stopped at the first 7-Eleven I could find after letting Rosa and her donuts off and bought a copy of the News. I read the entire back section, including the comics. For all I knew, she was using Doonesbury for an oracle. Or Nancy.

I read the obits and worked the crossword puzzle and then went over the back page again. There was nothing remotely time-warp-related. The moon was at first quarter. Sunset would occur at 7:51 P.M. Road conditions for the Eisenhower Tunnel were snow-packed and blowing. Chains required. My horoscope read, “Don’t get involved in wild goose chases. A good stay-at-home day.”