"Sigmund?" Weldon whispered, his music taking on a tense, agitated tone. "What's going on? Who was that?"
I struggled with my uncooperative lips, unable to turn my head to look directly at him. The facial muscles were starting to come back, but I wasn't quite able to make anything coherent come out yet.
"Come on, who was that?" he persisted. "Should we go after them?"
I fought with my mouth again, and this time I made it. "No," I managed. "Too ... dangerous."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him look over at Amanda and her escort threading their way through the tables. "The police, then? Should I tell Al to call the police?"
"No," I said again, managing this time to put some insistence in my tone. It was all over, I knew, and Amanda was probably dead. But bringing the local cops into it at this point would almost certainly bring about the same result _and_ massively change history, too.
His head turned back toward me. "What did he do to you?"
"Drugged," I said. It was close enough to the truth, and more believable to someone in 1953. "No antidote," I added, to forestall the inevitable question. "Just have to work it out of my system."
They were nearly across the room now. The other two men were on their feet, one of them carefully counting money onto the table. Another minute and they would be out the door and gone.
And I would probably never see them again.
I closed my eyes, unwilling to watch them leave, aching in a way that had nothing to do with my paralyzed muscles. This had been my only chance. Perhaps Amanda's only chance. I'd read the whole thing right, played it right; and then, through a single moment's stupid