The Last Hot Time (10 page)

"My dad, he's a big old Finn, but he's got medicine of his own. . . . Anyway, Mama packed me up, and said goodbye. Dad drove me to Green Bay, to the train station, and he said goodbye. Don't think he could have done it with Mama there. The way he did it, he could go back home and tell Mama I'd gotten on the train all right, everything was fine. So what did your folks say, when it happened?"

"They didn't want me to go." Danny put the gun down, thinking hard. He thought he'd gone away on his own account. What did it change if something had made him do it? "We argued a lot about it."

"Oh." Katie chewed on her lip, and then said, "I got scared, on the way. I got off the train when it stopped in Milwaukee, and I thought about just not going on. But it was dark, and when I looked out on the lake and saw the Fire glow ... I got back on. I don't know what would have happened if it had been daytime."

Danny told her about the old man at the truck stop, with his box of Bibles. "Maybe . . . there's always a last chance to change your mind." He wasn't at all sure he believed yet in a call, but he couldn't deny that it made sense.

"Turn back, O man," Katie sang without much of a tune, "forswear thy foolish ways."

Danny said, "Do you still hear from your folks?"

"Mama writes every month. Dad's not much of a writer, but he always puts a line or two in. Sends a photo, sometimes. You know what a bloodstopper is?"

"No."

"Some people can stop bleeding, with a word, sometimes just by willing it. This is old, long before the elves came back. All the loggers know about it; somebody'd take an ax in the foot, or a bucksaw right through the hand, and they'd call the bloodstopper. Even if he was on the phone, he'd work the charm, and the bleeding would just quit."

"You've seen that?"

"Yes. My dad can do it, and on the drive to Green Bay he taught me. A man can only teach a woman, and a woman has to teach a man." She paused, put her hands together. "I haven't worked it. Shade medicine's strange—the elves' and ours both. I'm not sure of it. Not like Tommy." She touched the gun. "The Ojibwa say that everything you are is a gift from the spirit world, and until you have those gifts inside you, you aren't really anything."

Katie smiled crookedly at Danny, as if she wanted him to answer that.

He smiled back, and nodded. He didn't have an answer.

wver a late lunch Monday, Stagger Lee said, "How long has it been since you went to a movie?"

"A while." It had actually been two years. There was no theater in Adair; every chance they could, Danny and Robin had hitched to the drive-in a county over. Rob usually talked them in for half price, since they wouldn't be taking up a car slot: the guy at the gate looked dubious, but Rob had always been good at getting his point across.

Danny couldn't remember what the movie had been.

Stagger Lee said, "The Biograph's showing The Train with Burt Lancaster. That's supposed to be first-rate, and even if it isn't, it's Lancaster. And it's Monday, so Laughs Lost will be running Chaplin all afternoon."

"I don't care."

"Biograph, then. I'm not that big on Charlie. Keaton's on Tuesday: that's different."

The theater was only a few blocks away. No prices were posted at the box office, which was manned by a halfie in a brass-buttoned jacket and an odd round cap. Damn saw people in line pa) with

silver coins, little scrolls of brown paper, a bundle of exotic weeds. Stagger insisted on paying for both of them, with a tarnished quarter. He scooped up the tickets and waited.

"Change, Johnny," he said finally.

The boy behind the glass said, "What, Mr. Lee?"

"There's only two of us for one show. Besides, I saw you palm the dime the World lady gave you."

The boy pushed it across.

As they walked through the doors, Danny said, "How could he do that?"

"What? Cut a deal? Same way I did. Down on the Levee, nothing has a fixed price, and nobody pays retail. Allow me to demonstrate further." He went to the snack counter, waved at the young man behind it.

"Afternoon, Mr. Lee. What can I get for you?"

"Your neon box is stuttering. How about two giant double-butter popcorns for a recharge?"

"Just a moment, Mr. Lee."

The counterman tapped on a side door, spoke with someone within. "Manager says sure thing, Mr. Lee. You know the way?"

Stagger Lee waved a reply and led Danny to a door marked employees ONLY. Beyond it was a service room lit by a steel-shaded bulb, meters and junction boxes around the walls. Some of the boxes had red-lightning warning labels, others a tilted-spiral mark and the words CAUTION SPELLS ACTIVE.

Stagger Lee rapped his knuckles on one of the spell boxes, cocked his head as if listening for something. Danny couldn't detect any change in the room's overall hum.

Danny said, "Should I—you know, watch this?"

"Nothing secret about it. You don't need hocus-pocus when the trick really works."

Stagger opened the box. Inside was a flat brass ring ten inches across, surrounded by other bits of shiny metal and glass. The ring rotated about a turn to the right, then back as far to the left. At each reversal the rest of the machinery ticked and flashed. The big ring didn't seem to be physically connected to anything else; the devices made no obvious sense at all.

Danny wondered how he would explain a fuse box to someone who'd never heard of electricity: You mean the little wires are supposed to burn up?

Stagger brought the silver dime out of his pocket.

"Does that—"

"Just a second, please. Gotta concentrate."

Carefully, Stagger held the coin in the center of the brass ring. He put two fingers of his other hand on a flattened sphere of red glass, and muttered something Danny couldn't hear.

A blob of darkness appeared around the coin, and Stagger pulled his fingertips away. The red glass glowed, not very brightly, and Stagger let it go as well.

The darkness filled the ring, and the coin vanished into it. The blob was like a blind spot in the eyes after staring at the sun; Danny looked away. Stagger exhaled loudly and shut the box.

Danny said, "The coin's fuel?"

"Not really, though it'll get used up. Magic doesn't just happen, abracadabra poof. It runs on energy, like everything else. Can you get your head around the idea of multiple universes?"

"Like Elfland."

"Like that. Some people always thought there were other universes; it helps a lot to have one we can point to. Elfland's a parallel universe, and the magic source is another. There may be more, maybe an infinite number.

"Anyway, Elfland's got a wide-open channel to the magic source. They're bathed in it, like we get sunshine and cosmic ravs. while we're insulated. Sometimes, though—at least since Elfland punched the big holes—we can get into contact with the power.''

"The Touch."

"You got it. If you're good, you can pull in power without props. But spellboxes need something to drop the resistance. Some metals can do it, especially silver." He tapped the box. "The flow will eventually wear the dime away. Nobody rides for free."

"You said people didn't need props," Danny said. "What if you're the dime?"

Stagger Lee said quietly, "Doc. you arc no more than the third person I know who's ever asked that. The answer is that we haven't

been doing this long enough to know. It's going to be interesting finding out. Come on, let's go collect our popcorn and some good seats."

The movie was exciting, a World War Two adventure with evil Nazis and brave Resistance fighters and a long railroad chase. It was in black and white; Stagger explained that movies were still made that way even after color was available. "Artistic choice," he said. "The sort of image you want in the viewer's mind."

"Well, sure, but isn't it—"

"Not what's on the screen. In the mind. Like any magic trick, it's what the audience remembers that counts."

They went back to the house and collected Danny's car. This time they drove north, to a place called the Rush Street Grill. It had large round tables, a short but busy bar, a small bandstand with drums and an amp set up. Lucius Birdsong was there, alone at a big round table, eating a huge sloppy cheeseburger. He was wearing a sweatshirt with what looked like a college seal, with the school name and motto in neat lettering. It actually read J-SCHOOL is for the other guys.

"Glad you could make it, Doc," Birdsong said. "I trust you have brought all you hold dear, intent on bidding it farewell?"

"Listen to this guy," Stagger Lee said. "I've seen him shove in his last typewriter on a pair of fours."

Carmen Mirage came in. Heads turned. She was wearing a bronze shirtwaist blouse with a deep-cut neck, and a long black leather skirt. Her hair glowed with fairy dust. She sat down with Danny and the others. "Deka won't be here tonight. She's got a gig way uptown."

"Neither will Spoke," Stagger Lee said. "He's got a date . . . some distance downtown." Carmen laughed musically.

A woman sat down behind the drum kit, and a man in a vest and black T-shirt stepped up next to her, carrying an electric guitar. The woman began with a stately beat, the man joined it, and then they launched into an instrumental of "Wall of Death."

During "Valentine's Day (is Over)" the Tokyo Fox came in. Under her coat she was wearing a brilliant red dress, one of those Oriental silk dresses with a high collar and a slit halfway up her

thigh that showed black stockings and red high heels.

She looked straight at Danny. "Good evening, Doc."

Danny had the impression that the others were looking at him as well. He didn't turn his head to check. He had a feeling that his response was important. "Hello, Miss Kitsune. Pleased to see you. Are you joining us?"

"Wouldn't miss it," she said as she sat down.

A couple of songs later, the waiter whispered into Carmen's ear. "Well, of course, cara mia," she said, excused herself, and went up to the bandstand.

The drummer began a quick four-beat; the guitarist launched into a twanging riff. Danny hadn't expected country music here. It wasn't that he didn't like country. He was just, well, tired of songs about guns and trucks and the love of good women, dogs, and Jesus in no particular order.

What Carmen sang, though, was jazzy and very quick, not danceable at all:

Black iron through the hard red wheat

Blue crocuses around her feet

North prairie house that stands alone

And the light goes down behind the painted shutters

In the early dark

And Persephones daughters are home

Danny had read the Persephone story: she had been taken away from her mother for part of the year, and the separation made winter. But her daughters . . . ?

Hard benches in the emigrant cars Straight horizon under strange new stars Railroad passage to a dream of land I 'ntil the wheels stop turning And the milk needs churning And the chaff wants burning And the days get over too soon To quite understand

White crosses in a pale green plot

Time passes but the heart moves not

Take comfort that its Someone's will

As the storm wina"s rising and the beech tree shudders

In the golden haze

And Persephone's daughters are still

Long shadows from the great white mills Thunder echoes from the unseen hills Somewhere surely there are welcome lights But this is where you 're dwelling And the crop needs weeding And the children feeding And there's never time for a word To soften her nights

Danny glanced around the room, wondering if there was anyone here who hadn't left home for the Shade. Did anyone get born here? He hadn't seen any children at all. He turned his head away, looked out the window at the empty street. He didn't stop listening.

Gray geese across the diamond sky

How long the wings have passed her by

Good children ought to carry on

But the clouds shine doubled on the clear blue waters

In the silver night

And Persephone's daughters are gone

Carmen took her bow and came back to the table. Around the room, the other diners were rising from their seats. "Guess we should start?"

"Guess we should," Lucius said.

The crowd was moving to a large back room. The tables here were covered with green felt. Behind a brass teller's cage Danny could see racked chips, cased decks of cards in neat stacks. There were already people around a craps table, and a roulette wheel was turning.

A slightly plump blond woman in a green velvet tuxedo was

greeting people, shaking hands. "Hello, Lucius, Fox. Nice number, Carmen; thanks. Or do I owe you?"

"Owe Alvah next time you see him. It's his lyric."

Lucius said, "Doc, this is Flats Montoya. She owns this joint. Flats, meet Doc Hallownight. He's giving us a try tonight."

"Good evening, Doc. Didn't I read about you in Lucius's column the other night?"