The Last Hot Time (28 page)

table. Unless you'd rather sit here? Show's about to start."

What kind of question was that? Doc wondered. He went to Patrise's table. Patrise and Carmen stood. She hugged him, Patrise gestured toward an empty chair. McCain sat quite still. Then Carmen sat back down. The lights dimmed.

Doc said to Carmen, "Aren't you—"

"Not tonight. Sssh."

The spotlight hit the stage. Stagger's voice came over the speakers, spoke a name Doc didn't recognize.

It was Fay that came onstage. She was wearing a pearl-gray suit with long trousers and a low neckline. Doc swallowed, wiped his damp hands on a napkin.

She sang. With words: clear, intelligible, certain words.

The evening descends The radios on A voice in the air And solitudes gone But who have you got on That favorite spot on The dial

The next voice you hear

Whatever its source

Will be coming through clear

No static of course

Lets close the request lines

Since all of our best times

Are gone

She had a good voice, a very good voice, sweet and warm. Doc felt a warmth on his hand. Carmen was holding it. She was watching the woman on stage, and smiling.

The next voice you hear Will take you right back To flutter and wow

'l'hat our broadcasts lack

Its strange how the cold hands Warm up to the old bands Once more

"Alvah wrote it for me," Carmen whispered. "But I never could sing it. Nor ever can, now."

A wonderful voice. But it was just a song, after all.

We now leave the air Here's station ID We bid you good night With hopes that she'll be Forever the right choice Whoevers the next voice ... You hear

The patrons applauded. Someone called for an encore, but Fay had already vanished through the curtains; she did not reappear. The room was rather quiet after that, and table by table began to clear out.

Mr. Patrise said, "You'll have to excuse me, Hallow. It's been a long day." He stood up. "Coming, Lincoln?"

"Yeah," McCain said, but he just sat there staring at Doc.

Doc said, "Have you seen Lucius, Line?"

"I guess he's around," he said.

Slowly, quietly, Doc said, "If you'd rather not talk to me—"

"Anybody can talk" McCain said, in a dull, metallic voice. Then Doc understood, and knew there really wasn't anything to be said, not now, anyway. McCain got up and walked heavily out.

"I'd better go too, Doc," Carmen said. "Line—well, when he sees his lord survive this loss, he will forgive you."

"I suppose ... I didn't think she'd leave."

Carmen looked at him, her face soft. "Do you think she could have known it herself?"

Doc said, "Wasn't it what everybody wanted?"

"Oh, no," she said. "You did what was right. Big difference." She stood up, looked after McCain. "But you did make her happy. Some of us have to work hard for a lot less. Good night, Doc."

He was alone at the table, looked up and saw he was alone in the room, except for Shaker industriously wiping a glass.

Doc went backstage. Stagger Lee was unplugging some cables. He looked up. "Evenin' Doc. What can I do for you?"

"Is . . . um . . . she still here?"

"She left just after she finished the set. Didn't even change." Stagger put down the stuff in his hands. "You don't remember her name, do you?"

Doc opened his mouth, tried to think.

"I'm sorry, Doc. That was mean, and you've been through plenty. The lady's Shadow name is Phasia; changing it would take— well, acts of substance. That's one of the reasons she's gone. And that is your lesson in magic for this day, young sorcerer." Stagger gave a crooked grin.

"Thanks. Can I have one more?"

"Ask away. Just remember that we wizards are subtle and hard to light."

"Under Wacker Drive. Cloud said it was for power, so did Mr. Patrise. But—power for what? To do what?"

"You read Orwell, Doc? 1984V

"No."

"You should. It's in the library. The phrase you're looking for is 'The object of power is power.' You don't gather power because you want to cash it in for something. You do it because of how it makes you feel. It's a feeling you want more of. And if you get power the way most people do, you get scared that someone else might have more than you.

"As far as I know, Whisper Who Dares didn't have some kind of supervillain doomsday plot that needed derailing just as it counted down to zero. No reflection on what you did, Doc." He pulled some switches, and the lighting room went dim and silent. "Any more questions?"

"Not now."

"Yeah. Not now. Poker Monday. See you there."

Doc went back to the empty main room.

"Another round?" Shaker said.

"Is Mr. Birdsong's typewriter still back there?"

"Sure is. Doe," the elf said. His voice was light, solicitous. read\

to listen. The perfect bartender. He set the typewriter on the bar. "He said you'd ask for it."

There was a note in the machine:

UNION STATION PLATFORM 8

12:15 P.M. sharp

Doc groped for his watch. 11:35. "Where's the Union Station?"

Shaker gave him directions. "Do you want me to close up, sir?"

"Didn't Mr. Patrise—"

"No, sir. Mr. Patrise was quite specific. Your decision."

"Wait fifteen minutes," Doc said, unsure where the words were coming from. "If nobody's come in by then, call it a night."

"You got it, sir."

"Shaker, it's been a little bit—I mean, this evening hasn't been the happiest."

"They're mortals, Doc. They don't always take well to a change in fashion."

Doc turned the car into the station lot at twelve minutes after midnight. He ran up the steps, nearly falling twice, followed the signs to track eight.

Under the dark expanse of the train shed, a pair of red lights were just disappearing in the distance, and a whistle blew long and sad.

Lucius stepped out of the shadows, holding his coat collar up against the cold. "The train left at midnight," he said. "On time, but I wanted to leave a little safety margin." He looked down the platform, along the empty pair of rails, pointing away west.

Lucius said, "She didn't really want to say good-bye. But people have changed their minds about that. She did leave a kiss for you. You won't mind if I only tell you that."

"Where's she going?"

"There are only two ways you can go, relative to Elfland: toward and away," Lucius said, very patiently. "She's going away. To be somebody different from Phasia. Someone more like the way she is now."

" 'Elfland?' You didn't call it Our Fair Levee."

Lucius didn't laugh. "I never have, except on paper."

"Yeah." He looked at his feet. "Would you like a ride . . . somewhere?"

"No." The word was heavy, very final.

Doc said, "You're not leaving too."

"Leave Chicago? Not likely, Doctor. I'm taking a sabbatical from the Centurion, but I doubt it'll last. Ink and sawdust know where they belong. Hold on to my typewriter, will you?"

"I'll tell Shaker."

"A good fellow. He's still got the Fox's money, now that I recall."

"Then what do I do with myself?"

"You get to find out. A voyage of discovery, isn't that a wonderful prospect?" He looked up at the platform roof, a glimmer of moon above it. "Your era may be better than Patrise's. Kinder. Built on care instead of just control."

"My . . . what?"

Lucius said, "Will you take a last piece of advice from the pulp-wood Indian?"

Doc started to protest, then just said, "Of course I will."

"Hold on to Ginny. You can do it. And you've got to. The Great Spirit made you out of better stuff than us, true clay with hot breath in your nostrils. But you weren't fired as we were. That's your power, as clay can shift when brick breaks, but clay needs a form. Ginny's your potter's wheel, Doctor. Lose her and you'll shift away to dust."

"Lucius . . . who are you?"

Then Lucius laughed, loud and ringing through the empty station platform. "Man flesh and Man spirit in Shadow time," he said. "And therefore part what I am made, what my will makes me, and what I might become."

"Lucius, please—"

"See you around, medicine spirit man." He reached out and fingered Doc's lapel, then turned sharply around and walked away, down the platform into fog and hard darkness, colorless as the ending of a Biograph movie. Part of Doc wanted to run after him, but a greater part knew that there would be no more running after.

Doc looked at his coat where Lucius had touched it. Thrust through the buttonhole was an eagle feather.

He got into the TR3, leaned over the dashboard, and said, "Go where I am going. Go. Go. Go."

It didn't work. Whatever higher powers had been slumming on the Levee had packed up their dates and gone home. He had to drive.

As he walked past the switchboard, Lisa said, "Mr. Patrise left word that he would like to speak with you, sir. At your convenience."

Doc dashed straight to the stairs, not waiting for the elevator. Mr. Patrise was sitting behind his desk, in black silk pajamas and a long black dressing gown. For the first time Doc could recall, Patrise looked old.

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

"I asked to see you, Hallow. But we'll let the distinction pass. Do come in."

Doc approached the desk.

Mr. Patrise said, "Did you speak with Phasia, before she left?"

"No, sir."

"That's too bad. She must have had remarkable things to say, after all this time. But then, you did speak with her, didn't you? Every chance you could?"

"I . . . tried."

"The best of mottoes. Perhaps you will have it engraved on your signet, when this office and this house are yours."

"What do you mean, sir?"

"Oh, I'm not handing you the keys yet, Hallow You have a great distance to go before, like Alice, you reach the eighth square. And the Shade is a dangerous place: we may lose you before your ascension. But you've survived—what is it, three direct attempts to kill you now. . . ."

"Three?" Doc thought of the roadway ambush, and the attack on the Rush Street Grill. And— In a small voice, he said, "Cloud-hunter? When he fought Whisper. . ."

"Truebloods are hard to kill, unless they're throwing themselves in the way of destiny. Grieve, Hallow, as is proper, but do

not make grief your master: I think Cloud was happy to give his life for you."

Doc wanted to vomit.

"A question, now, before the night passes," Patrise said. "What is the secret of the Shade?"

"Secret. . ." Suddenly it was obvious; it should have been obvious the first time he'd met Mr. Patrise, traveling with a Trueblood miles from the Shade. "Magic . . . doesn't end at the Shadowline. It works everywhere."

"Just so. Terminus non est: There is no line of division. The Shadow, like all buffer states, is a political fiction meant to keep both sides comfortably separated. We of the Shadow Cabinet have made mistakes; you will make your own. But there will be no more Miami Craters. And when the time comes to conclude the secret— for people to understand that things have genuinely changed—well. Perhaps it will come on your watch."

"But how can that be a secret?"

Mr. Patrise tilted his head to one side. "Absolutely correct, Hallow. It cannot. That is, it cannot be secret from anyone who cares to think and ask questions. It is the second of the three great secrets—the one you keep from yourself."

"What are the others?"

"The first is the one kept from others. You tell me what the third is."

"The truth."

"You see, Hallow? How could you ever say that we did not know one another?"

"But I don't want the house. I wouldn't want your job, even if I could do it. I don't want—"

"To be consumed by the desire for power in itself?" Patrise said, with barely a flicker of emotion. "To become Whisper Who Dares?"

Doc stared at the carpet.

"I think you have been asking hard questions ofStaggef Lee. Read Maehiavelli after you finish with Orwell; you'll see yourself there too, but remember that the mirror never shows the person whole.

"You risked your life for someone else's, without the hope of gain. You were given the power of life and death, and left your prize to the judgment of others. With Ginevra . . . while I would not embarrass you, Hallow, what happens in my house is known to me."

"And . . . when I tried to summon the Word?"

"That too."

"But if you knew I could do that—if you even knew I had the Touch—why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't know. But I also didn't ask you to try. As I did not ask Cloudhunter, or Stagger Lee, who I knew very well did have the Touch." He looked Doc directly in the eyes. "In no small measure you succeeded because you did not know any better. Think about it, Hallow: if you knew that night what you know tonight, would it have been as simple?"