The Last Hot Time (13 page)

"Thanks, Doc," McCain said. "Wasn't something I could talk about with Stagger Lee. Don't tell him that."

" 'Course not."

When McCain had gone, Danny let out a long breath, and stocked his own pockets.

The movie at Laughs was The Ghost Breakers. Damn hadn't much liked the Bob Hope movies he'd seen, but this one wasn't bad, funny and mysterious and even a little scarv. Ginnv's hand

locked onto his during the first thunderstorm scene, and never let go until they were out of the theater and in the restaurant up the street. Then she let him go long enough to get into an inches-deep pizza with half the garden on top.

A bulky figure in a baggy, wrinkled trench coat came up. "Good evening, loyal readers."

"Hi, Lucius."

"Don't stop," Lucius said. "I may be a busybody—in fact, I am a busybody, and a highly paid one at that—but I know better than to interfere with serious eye contact."

"It's a birthday party," Ginny said.

"Oh? Oh, I see. Happy birthday, Doc."

Ginny said, "Would you join us for a while, Mr. Birdsong?"

"Oh, Ginny. Have all those long scotches come between me and my first name?"

Danny said, "Sit down, Lucius. Please."

He spread his hands, shrugged his coat off, pulled up a chair.

Ginny said, "We want to go out someplace after dinner. Not one of the usual places. Do you have any suggestions?"

Lucius ordered a beer. He was frowning. It looked strange on him. "Can I tell you a story, by way of answering that? One you'll never read in the column?"

Danny said, "Sure."

"Okay. Wait for the beer. It needs a beer." They talked about nothing in particular until Lucius's drink came. He clicked glasses with them, took a sip.

"Once upon a time," Lucius said, "I got lost on the Levee. Somewhere up around Division and the River. I mean, / got lost: the Minstrel of the City Streets. I certainly wasn't going to ask directions. Even if I'd seen anyone to ask, which I didn't. It was a cool night, not cold, good for walking. So I walked. Straight line, keep going. After all, sooner or later I'd hit Elfland, or the lake, or New Orleans, or San Francisco, any of which would do for orien-tational purposes."

Danny had never heard Lucius tell a story before. His voice was soft: he was speaking only to the two of them. He had some of the same manner as the newspaper column, but not so dry, not so distant.

"Eventually there was a neon sign up ahead: not buzzing, wired to a spellbox, so I hadn't crossed the Line without noticing. It was a dance joint, jumping pretty good; in go I, who do not exactly jump with the best. It was Danceland. Ever hear of it?"

Danny said no. Ginny said she'd read a magazine article.

Lucius said, "The immediate point is that Danceland is a Shadow joint, but not our Shadow, not the Levee, understand? You can't just turn on Blessing Way and Michigan and get there. But I got there.

"Inside, there were elves in leathers, whole-Worlders in destroyed denim, halfies in anything and all. A bunch of them were slamming, and though he might jitterbug or even Madison if the cause were strong, Birdsong does not slam. Two half-naked Ellyllon were doing the lambada—I don't suppose either of you has ever seen a lambada?"

They shook their heads.

"Good for you. Oh, and a werewolf was waltzing with an elf maiden. Waltzing, Jesus Matilda. So I watched for a while, and then went to the bar, because there are some true compasses in the thickest weather.

"I turned around then. Maybe something made me turn. I saw a man: my height, my build, my color. Thinner, but if any of my other parts got the exercise my tongue does I'd be pretty trim too. He was wearing buckskins, moccasins, and eagle feathers in his hair. He looked me dead in the eye, and he started to dance, solo. Slow, not hard to follow, one-two, step-two. And I follow.

"No one looked at us. What's strange enough to stare at in Danceland? Not dancers, surely. I danced all night with mv eagle brother, until the spells that drove the neon died, and the loose fairy dust in the air got thick enough to choke on, and the fire we show the World went out. Never did touch a drink."

Lucius reached inside his jacket, took out a flat leather case. He showed them three feathers, black and white and golden. "You're an open-spaces man, Doc: have you ever seen an eagle?"

"No. I thought I did once, but it was just a turkey buzzard."

Lucius turned the feathers over in his ringers. "Reporters have sources. That's like magic, but more expensive. There hasn't been a confirmed sighting of a wild eagle since the return of KIHaiul. \<>r

a California condor. And there are rumors about the ravens of Dresden." He put the feathers away.

Danny said, "Are you suggesting we go to Danceland?"

"Oh, no." Lucius finished his beer. "Birdsong on high adventure in one paragraph: Even if it were within my ability to send you, I was just pointing out that you don't really seek places out in the Shades. You find them." Suddenly he reached out, put two fingers against Danny's jaw and turned his head. Ginny had been leaning against Danny's shoulder, and their cheeks touched with something like an electric shock. They both jumped.

"Good night and good hunting," Lucius said, picking up his coat. "See you in the funny papers." He drifted out into the night.

Danny said to Ginny, "Where do you think we should start looking?"

"Do you think you could find my place? I mean, up the stairs and everything?"

"It's worth a try."

Ginevra's apartment was small, and tidy. No, it was austere. Ginny went into the kitchen to make tea, and Danny absorbed the details: a portable CD player and a few dozen discs, classical and old rock and folk; paperbacks on bare wooden bookshelves, plays and poetry and illustrated travel books; cardboard bins of magazines about travel and history. The rather hard chairs were softened a little by throw pillows, and a small orange rug lay precisely in the center of the polished wood floor. The only wall decoration—the only decoration at all, really—was a framed poster of an ornate, domed building with a tower, in the middle of a foreign city. Fl-RENZE, it said.

Ginny came out of the kitchen, holding a tea tray. Danny swallowed. She was wearing black cotton pajamas, a high-collared shirt and long trousers.

"You don't mind my getting changed," she said.

"No. 'Course not. It's your house." Shut up, he told himself.

She put the tray down, sat in the one comfortable-looking chair; she was scrunched over to the side, leaving room. Danny sat on the floor. She smiled oddly and tucked her feet up beneath herself. "There's nothing in this room really big enough, sorry."

He shrugged, shook his head. It was clear enough what she

meant: there would be only one other furnished room in the apartment, and there was no bed in this one.

But he was happy just to look at her, the curves of her body under the cloth. She handed him a teacup.

Danny said, "Do you think this is what Lucius had in mind?"

"Maybe," she said, with a hint of a laugh. Then she said, "He seems so lonely. He's at the club a lot, but he's never with anyone, unless it's someone he's talking to for a story. Or Kitsune Asa."

"Is there really a typewriter there for him?"

She nodded. "That's part of what I mean. He'll be in really late, sometimes the last person there, typing, like he didn't have anyplace else to go. As if going home were like dying." She rubbed her hands on her teacup. "When he told that story, tonight—I wondered where he was going, when he got lost." She shifted again, looked at her bare feet, looked at him, smiled. "Tell me a story. Doc."

"What about?"

"About you. Tell me something nobody else in the city knows about you."

"Oh—"

"Come on, please. You must have done things before you came here. You must have had friends."

"Robin was my best friend at home," he said, too quickly.

"What was she like?"

"No, Rob was a guy. He was about my size, sort of blond. I'm sure he was a lot better looking. He sure didn't have freckles."

"Hmm."

"But, see, the thing about Rob was that he could really talk to people. You always knew what he meant, know what I mean? See, I can't do it."

"Go on. He was your best friend. You took twirls out together, that kind of thing?"

"No. I mean, nobody did, really. We were all a long way apart, and nobody had cars. We had bikes—bicycles, not motorcycles— but where can you go on a bike? The only place close to go, really, was when there was a social at the school, ami then everybody's folks went too." He took a swallow of tea, bur ir didn't stop him: he was started now, and knew he was going to tell it all. The in-

credible thing was that he hadn't told it before now.

Ginny tucked herself up tighter in the chair. Danny put his cup down so he wouldn't spill it. Quickly he said, "What happened was, we were haying on Danny's folks' place. We—were you ever on a farm?"

"No."

"We all did that. Help's always short, and they don't use the machines too much, now, but—well, there was a mechanical baler. That's a machine that bundles up the hay with wire. Rob got caught in it. I don't know how, nobody saw what happened, but he yelled, and you could see blood. . . .

"A couple of us got him out. He was really messed up bad. I'd read some first aid books—I kind of wanted to be a doctor, I guess, but it wasn't going to happen."

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why couldn't you be a doctor?"

"Because you have to go away to school for a long time," Danny said faster than he could think, "and my folks didn't want that." He paused. "I don't have any brothers or sisters. I had a little sister, but she died of flu when she was four."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah." How could he explain that he had felt nothing? That she had been there, and then she wasn't, and at six years old Danny had no idea what all the fuss was supposed to be about?

Ginevra said, "Rob got hurt in the baler machine."

"Yeah. Like I said, I knew a little first aid, and I got tourniquets on, so he didn't bleed to death. But he lost his left arm, and most of his left leg.

"Rob's folks were really grateful. His dad was on county council, and he helped me get my EMT card; the county paid for the training, and I worked at the hospital, and then for the fire department after I made paramedic. And, uh, they helped me buy the TR3 from a sheriff's sale. I don't think my mom and dad were too happy about that."

"And then you came up here."

"Yeah. I hauled some stuff downstairs, and we yelled at each

other, and I said they could shoot me if they wanted to but they weren't gonna stop me.

"I couldn't stand seeing Rob, see. I'd go visit, because we were friends, right? And I'd see him at school, and church. And he'd just sit there in the chair. I told you, Rob was good at letting you know what he meant. He sure did. He hated me 'cause he hadn't died."

"Did he have a girlfriend?"

"No. Not really. Nobody did, much." He tried to follow the question. "He was okay, wasn't cut up—you know, there."

"Was he gay?"

"What?"

"Im sorry," she said, sounding frightened. "I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

"No, it's okay. Really, really, it's okay." He wanted to hold her, show her it was all right, calm her fear, stop his own. "The thing is, you're right. One day—this was maybe a year before his accident—Rob said, 'Let's go for a ride,' and we got on our bikes and just rode. I don't know how far, five miles at least. That's when he told me." How would she understand? She came from the other side of the earth, and lived here, even farther away. "We didn't have 'gay people.' Sometimes you heard somebody was a fag. You know what decent people do to fags in Iowa?"

"I know what they did in Ohio," she said quietly. "Probably not much difference."

"Probably not," Danny said, and shut himself up for a moment. Suddenly Ginevra seemed much closer to him, maybe close enough to touch.

He said, "I guess that's why he hated me so bad. If he could have gotten out, come here, or anywhere, who would have cared? But now he'll never get out. I didn't let him die, and I sure didn't save his life. Like I say, he knew how to tell you things."

"I think you know how to hear things," Ginny said. Damn. with no answer for that, took a swallow of the tea. It had gotten cool, and bitter. "I think I ought to leave/'

"Do you?" She unfolded, arching her feet on the floor, opening a lap to sit on. "Nothing's found us yet We could keep looking."

"No, I'll go." She seemed about to say something: would she

ask him, straight out? He shifted uncomfortably. Could she tell he was hard? If she— begged him—

He stood up. "I had a really good time tonight, Ginny. Thank you."

"Oh. Hey, it's your birthday." She stood up. "You still have a hug coming."

He nodded. She put her arms around him and pressed. She was naked under the pajamas. His crotch tightened some more.