“The first thing I had to decide was whether to stay in New York or run away. I knew if I didn’t run, they’d catch up to me, and probably sooner rather than later. They had a description, with this as an especially good marker.” Callahan raised his burned hand. “They almost had my name; would have it for sure in another week or two. They’d stake out all my regular stops, places where my scent had collected. They’d find people I’d talked to, hung out with, played checkers and cribbage with. People I’d worked with on my Manpower and Brawny Man jobs, too.

“This led me to a place I should have gotten to much sooner, even after a month of binge drinking. I realized they’d find Rowan Magruder and Home and all sorts of other people who knew me there. Part-time workers, volunteers, dozens of clients. Hell, after nine months, hundreds of clients.

“On top of that, there was the lure of those roads.” Callahan looked at Eddie and Susannah. “Do you know there’s a footbridge over the Hudson River to New Jersey? It’s practically in the shadow of the GWB, a plank footbridge that still has a few wooden drinking troughs for cows and horses along one side.”

Eddie laughed the way a man will when he realizes one of his lower appendages is being shaken briskly. “Sorry, Father, but that’s impossible. I’ve been over the George Washington Bridge maybe five hundred times in my life. Henry and I used to go to Palisades Park all the time. There’s no plank bridge.”

“There is, though,” Callahan said calmly. “It goes back to the early nineteenth century, I should say, although it’s been repaired quite a few times since then. In fact, there’s a sign halfway across that says BICENTENNIAL REPAIRS COMPLETED 1975 BY LAMERK INDUSTRIES . I recalled that name the first time I saw Andy the robot. According to the plate on his chest, that’s the company that made him.”

“We’ve seen the name before, too,” Eddie said. “In the city of Lud. Only there it said LaMerk Foundry .”

“Different divisions of the same company, probably,” Susannah said.

Roland said nothing, only made that impatient twirling gesture with the remaining two fingers of his right hand: hurry up, hurry up.

“It’s there, but it’s hard to see,” Callahan said. “It’s in hiding. And it’s only the first of the secret ways. From New York they radiate out like a spider’s web.”

“Todash turnpikes,” Eddie murmured. “Dig the concept.”

“I don’t know if that’s right or not,” Callahan said. “I only know I saw extraordinary things in my wanderings over the next few years, and I also met a lot of good people. It seems almost an insult to call them normal people, or ordinary people, but they were both. And certainly they give such words as normal and ordinary a feel of nobility for me.