The Last Hot Time (19 page)

Say how you cut it

You'11 never get it so thin

An edge of softness

To turn the hardness within

When will your face fall

After the long masquerade

The razors open

Come out and dance on the blade

So here's a tip of the hat

To all the melancholy people

So uncertain what they 're ready to feel

(Waitin' all night)

Diamond cut diamond

Silk cut steel

During the second verse Matt and Gloss came out, doing a sharp turn around the floor timed to the lyrics. It wasn't really interpretive. Doc supposed that might have made people nervous.

So here's a tip of the glove To all the solitary people Undercover in the world of the real (Hidin all night)

Diamond cut diamond Silk cut steel

Pavel was standing in the doorway, making a hand signal. Pa-trise nodded and looked away. Pavel stared, then went back into the foyer.

So here's a tip of the shoe To all the predatory people Overeager for the whip and the heel (Playin' all night) Diamond cut diamond Silk cut steel

Carmen and the dancers took their bows, disappeared through the curtains. The room lights came up.

Everybody turned around.

Two new people were standing just inside the door. One was a tall, dark-skinned woman with black-and-white hair. She had mirrored sunglasses above lips like a surgical incision. She was wearing a long trenchcoat of silver-gray leather over a loose white cotton suit; no shirt, a thin strip of metallic silver cloth around her long throat. Her hands were thrust into the coat pockets, not casually.

The other was the shortest elf Doc had ever seen, a man built like a bull, his white hair cut down to fuzz on his skull. He had sunglasses as well, heavy-framed black ones. Doc had to check again that he was really Trueblood, and not an albino human, but the ears were definite, as were the weirdly delicate hands—really weird, on those piston forearms. He wore a black team jacket for the Topanga Toons, heavy gray trousers bloused into cycle boots. His wide belt had a bunch of pouches and clips; a white rod, thin as a pencil and eighteen inches long, rode in a sleeve, and there were handcuffs hanging on the other side.

They were eops. They didn't look like any eops Doe had e\er seen before, but he knew anyway.

Someone at another table said, in an awful fake British accent, "I say, Patrise, we're nor being bally raided are we?"

"Relax, Nigel," Patrise said, with complete unconcern. "The

Mirada is not raided. Have another brandy." He stood up. "Officers. We haven't had the pleasure: my name is Patrise, and this is my establishment. Won't you please share our hospitality?"

The two cops came to the table. The tension level dropped a hairsbreadth.

"I'm Lieutenant Rico," the woman said. "This is my partner, Lieutenant Linn." The words might have been steel blanks rolling out of the mill.

Patrise said, "Newly arrived."

"Special assignment. For the Shadow Cabinet."

"Yes, who else. Do sit down. Is there something I can offer you? Coffee?"

Linn put his fingertips together. Rico said "Coffee would be nice of you." They sat down. Alvah played "A Nightingale Sang," and couples came out to dance. The club settled back.

Lieutenant Rico didn't talk much. Lieutenant Linn made an appreciative gesture when his coffee was served, but didn't talk at all.

Patrise said, "You're on special assignment here, you say."

"I did."

"Not voluntary? I think I should be insulted for my city."

"Is it your city, sir?"

"People make cities theirs. Robert Moses and Richard Daley in their ways, Samuel Johnson and Colette in theirs. Excuse me: and Robert Peel, Eugene Vidocq, and Eliot Ness in theirs."

Rico said, "And Capone and O'Banion and Moran?"

"Bugs or Colonel Sebastian?"

Rico turned her head. The silver glasses hid anything that might have been called expression. She said, "You have a reputation as well, Mr. Patrise."

"You're not looking to change employers."

"The Cabinet wants the situation here dealt with."

"Do you mean Whisper Who Dares?"

"I mean the situation."

"That's an admirable desire of the Cabinet."

"They want to avoid a gang war."

"You didn't say 'at all costs'."

"Should I have?"

"No. The Shadow Cabinet never writes a blank check to anybody."

"That's true. It's also true that it takes two sides to have a war."

"Oh, no, Lieutenant. There you're wrong. It takes far more than two sides. There are all those people behind the lines: the ones who support it, supply it, stand facing the walls when the colors pass, and generally say Why Not, all making their particular contributions. All the really good trades are triangle-plus."

Patrise went on, his tone light, friendly, even merry. "You're an officer of some experience, Lieutenant, you and your partner; your reputation has been here before you. How many Ruthins and Sil-verlords have you hauled off how many pinkies? How many Vamps and Snaketooths and miscellaneous starving freelance shiv artists have you scraped off the sidewalk, only to see them returned or replaced by your next turn around the beat? And has there ever been an end of shift when you took off your weapons and armor and said to yourself, 'At last the world is safe for law and justice'?"

Lieutenant Rico said pleasantly, "I won't take that as an insult, sir."

"Not meant as one. I am, as I am certain you and your partner are aware, a voting member of the Shadow Cabinet. Which means that the other members were confident I would not be outvoted. So which arch-ironists pulled you off that unending duty to visit my city and, you'll excuse me, deal with a gang war?"

He had never raised his voice. If anyone beyond the table had heard him above Alvah's music, they had paid no attention.

Rico said, "Thank you for the coffee, Mr. Patrise." She started to rise.

"There's another act onstage in a moment. I think it would be for the best if you stayed that much longer."

"Is that a threat, sir?"

"I never make threats. It's a promise."

Rico stood quite still, drumming her fingers on the chair back. Then she sat, Linn following. The lights dimmed.

Fay sang.

It was a happy song—upbeat, at least. Doc didn't recognize the lyric—but you could never get up and dance to Fay's music. Something suspended all action deep down. Something about The Voice

in joy was nearly unbearable. Doc realized that he had never heard her sing a really sad song. People might die of that.

Or, he thought, of joy.

When she finished, Rico was entirely still; Linn's head was bent, his eyes closed, an ivory Buddha. Finally Rico said, "Thank you for your hospitality, sir."

"You're welcome always."

The detectives left. As always after Phasia's set, others began drifting out as well.

Patrise said, "So what do you think, Stagger?"

"Linn is a dynamics master, no question about it. No indications from Rico; she might have a touch of pure receive, but I doubt it. Pickups tend to be brittle. She didn't strike me as brittle."

"Lincoln?"

"They're serious enough."

Patrise rose, went around the room shaking hands and saying a few words here and there. "Coming, Hallow?"

"I'll be along."

"No hurry. If the Lieutenants should come back, make them welcome, will you?"

"I'll do my best."

"But of course." Patrise waved and went out. Doc looked around for Lucius, who was still sitting at his corner table near the bar.

"This was the place they first called them coppers, do you know, Doctor," Lucius said. "For their uniform buttons. This is the true folklore, accept no substitutes."

Doc nodded. He could sense the pressure going critical inside Lucius, and as much as he wanted to know what was wrong, and to help fix it, Lucius showed no sign of explaining himself, and Doc didn't want to be present at the explosion. "Good night," he said. "I'm sorry I couldn't help with your column."

"You did, though," Lucius said. "I'll have to owe it to you. Have Shaker send over the ol' alphanumeric piano, will you?"

He did, and then he went home. He left word to have the newspaper sent up as soon as it arrived, and slept very badly until it did.

THE CONTRARIAN FLOW

by Lucius Birdsong

Do you hear the horns of Elfland,

Sounding in the night? Hear them calling souls from slumber

At the traffic light. Can you hear the horns of Elfland,

Echo 'cross the dell? Mind, oh mind, your left rear fender

Parking parallel. Now you hear the horns of Elfland,

At the close of day, Seeking out the vile offender

Walking like a jay. Should you hear the horns of Elfland

Soar and swell and wax, Copper voices soon shall follow,

Getting just the facts. When you hear the horns of Elfland

Cleave the night in twain, Just remember, on the Levee

Law and Order reign.

Just a reminder, gentle readers, that from time to time the moon smiles down upon Our Fair Levee with something really putrid caught between its teeth; and if you have been wondering lately if we are really living in a rational universe, why, others are wondering too. Good night, good night, sleep tight.

"I have a message for you," Patrise said the next day. "Norma Jean's feeling much better, and she'd like to meet the man who saved her life."

"Is she coming here:"'

"No," Patrise said slowly, and then, "I think this is best done in the World, if you don't mind a drive. There's a nice place on the North Side, not too far for either of you."

"All right."

"Six tomorrow evening, then."

It was almost sunset Wednesday when Doc drove out through the Shadow fire, and full dark when he reached the restaurant, a small place, dark and quiet. He gave his name, and was taken to an enclosed booth that might have been the only one in the place.

A few minutes later, there was a mechanical whirr. A motorized wheelchair appeared. Norma Jean was in it, working a control with her right hand. A tall man in a dark suit walked a step behind.

Doc stood up. Norma Jean smiled. The man in the suit looked hard at Doc.

Norma Jean said, "I'll see you later, Eddie," and the man vanished. "Oh, come on, sit down." She laughed. "/ sure am."

She was wearing a navy-blue jacket over a low-necked white blouse, a skirt just to her knees, ankle-strapped high heels with little silver buckles.

"Can I—" He reached for the push handles on the chair.

"Nope. Sit." She drove the chair up to the table, and he sat down. He saw that her left arm was in a sling inside the jacket, the hand pale and limp against her chest.

A waiter slid out of the dark. "Just some tea, please," Norma Jean said. "How about you, Doc?"

"Tea's fine."

"I miss coffee," she said, once the waiter had gone. She settled back in the chair. "I wondered what you'd look like. Anna—you know, on the switchboard—said you were red Irish. Are you really?" Her voice was flat, neither musical nor unpleasant; Doc supposed her wind must be short.

He touched his hair. "Really."

She laughed. "I meant Irish, not red."

"Somewhere way back, I think. Is your family Irish?"

"Polish and German. But that's away back too. Seven generations in the city, I think it's seven. We made it to the Gold Coast in the Twenties. My great-grandfather was in the Dion O'Banion gang."

"Yeah?" he said, and then wondered if it was the wrong topic.

But she grinned and said "The real thing. My granddad, his son, used to tell me stories about it. See, when he was little—Granddad, I mean—his dad wouldn't talk to him about the gang days. He'd only say 'I just drove a car, I never shot nobody,' and that it was all made up for the movies.

"But when the war started—you know, with the Japanese and the Germans?"

"Yeah."

"Well, Granddad was going to sign up, because, you know, everybody was. Then his dad said, 'We're gonna go on a trip first.' Granddad said, 'How long?' 'Two weeks oughta do it. Can't win the war in two weeks, can't lose it either.' So they got in the car—it was a big Cadillac, that's what Great-granddad always drove, they called him Cadillac Billy—and they went up to Wisconsin. Granddad thought it was a hunting trip, or maybe ice fishing.

"They got to this lodge in the woods. It belonged to a couple of guys from the mob days. There were pictures and newspaper clippings all over the walls, of everybody—Al Capone, Moran, O'Banion, Torrio. They said John Dillinger was trying to get back there, to hide, when the G-Men shot him.