The Last Hot Time (5 page)

He stopped on a bridge, got out of the car for a look around. The river was low, with sludgy banks littered with broken concrete and old metal. There had been a whole series of bridges toward the west; about half of them looked intact, the others just pilings, or collapsed and partially cleared. One looked as if something had bitten out and swallowed its span. Somewhere upstream—no, downstream; the water was, illogically, flowing out of the lake—a cargo ship was beached and rusting along the waterside, tilted twenty degrees over.

To the southeast there was a green park, little smokes eurling up from among the trees. At least it seemed like something people

were doing. He couldn't tell how far the park went; beyond a certain point, maybe a mile and a half away, the world got vague, like a running watercolor. A long way off to the southeast the sky was just a long smudge of smoky color. Danny had been to the Paint Pots at Yellowstone Park once, all steam and sulfur and colors; it was like that, but stretching for miles.

A breeze whistled through the bridge ironwork. It was the only sound there was. There was nobody here. The emptiness, the loneliness was awful.

A dull metallic sound came from beneath the road. Contraction? Loose bolts? Trolls?

He got back into the car. Up ahead was more iron, framing the street. He took a right, and the sun went out: the street was framed and roofed by metal lacework, big riveted girders. The elevated railroad, Danny realized. There didn't seem to be any trains running, though he saw a couple of station signs, and a stairway with people sitting on the steps.

Danny drove as straight as he could back to the house, down into the garage. McCain and Jesse were playing cards.

"The stuff you put in," Danny said, "does it work, outside? I mean, where there isn't magic?"

"Sure," Jesse said. "Not so well, but better'n spit 'n' baling wire." He put a card down.

McCain picked it up. "You know what—"

"Yeah, I know what baling wire is!" Danny shouted.

Both men were looking at him. Neither had any kind of meaningful expression.

Danny said, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" McCain said. "Now, Jesse, he's gonna be sorry. Gin"" He tossed his cards down. "What do you say we go down to the club now? You'll have a better look before the crowd gets there, and we can get a head start on the evening's serious purposes."

"Without Mr. Patrise?"

"Oh, he'll be there. Get your coat. . . and grab your hat. . . ." He sang the last four words in a terrible baritone. "And don't forget your black bag, Doc."

The took the Triumph, McCain folding with care and some difficulty into the passenger seat.

"Left up here," he said. "So, magic or not, you like how she drives?"

"Oh, yeah. I, uh, she doesn't seem to have as much power, though."

"That's 'cause you're partly on spells. They don't have the kind of power you get from high-test gas." He chuckled. "Sounds funny, don't it? You think about magic, thunderbolts, splittin' the Red Sea. And some of it's like that. I hear in Elfland—but we'll never see that. In the Shades it's rickety, and when you tie it to machines it's rickety-tickety. Tin."

"Mr. Patrise's car seemed to have plenty of go."

"Mr. Patrise's car is particular. The others are mostly wood and fiberglass. The kids who can afford 'em ride bikes. But you can't see Mr. Patrise on a bike, now can you?"

They parked in an alleyway and walked the last block to the club, coats flapping in the cool air. Somebody in a cap and a frowzy jacket hustled by, carrying something in brown paper tucked tight under his arm. Danny wondered if he were a Vamp. He supposed he'd have to learn to tell that.

A few steps before they reached the awning, the electric sign came on. Abruptly there was movement at every edge of Danny's vision: people rounding corners, moving deeper into shadows or changing the ones they already had. A few people came out of darkness, too: all of them dressed up, dressed to kill.

"Mr. McCain!" one of them said, a man in a broad-brimmed hat and a cowboy duster, walking with a woman in a fringed jacket and tight skirt of white leather.

"Sheepscry. And Miss West. Good evening." McCain tipped his hat. The man lifted his. He was an elf, ivory-skinned, silver hair— not gray but metallic silver—slicked back, small round glasses with black lenses.

Miss West, who was human, said, "I would imagine this is Doc Hallownight." Her hair was black and white in jagged stripes, and there were a dozen silver studs in her left car.

"Yes, miss," Danny said, and lifted his hat crookedly. "\1 a\ I ask how you knew?"

Sheepscry said, "The inimitable Birdsong wrote about \mi."

Pavel opened the door. "Good evening, everybody! It's cold outside, not in!"

The ceiling stars shone specks of light around the room. Alvah Fountain, in a brocade jacket, was playing "Hey Bartender" at the piano.

"Draw one, draw two . . ." Danny muttered.

"Don't mind if I do, Doc," said Lucius Birdsong, sitting at the end of the bar.

McCain said, "Later, Doc," and moved off.

Danny said, "I heard you wrote about me?"

"Shaker," Birdsong said.

"What's your pleasure, Mr. Birdsong?" the bartender said. He had pointed elf ears, and pale, not pure-white, skin, black hair with patches of steel-blue at the temples. Danny had heard that elves and humans could interbreed.

Birdsong said, "Another one for me, and—is the doctor on duty?"

"Beer, please."

"And a Chi-Cent, Shaker. Unless you've used them all as bar towels."

"Wouldn't think of it, Mr. Birdsong." Shaker reached under the bar and produced a paper.

The paper had the feel of industrial toweling. Danny's thumb smudged the ink, which had a distinct chemical smell. The CHICAGO CENTURION— For This Price, You Don't Expect a Tribune banner, with pictures of eagles and trumpets, was a coarse linoleum or wood cut.

"As your fellow doctor Sam Johnson put it," Birdsong said, grinning, "it's not that the puppy tap-dances like Honi Coles, but that it has any rhythm in the first place. That's how / heard it, anyway."

THE CONTRARIAN FLOW

by Lucius Birdsong

I'm sure every devotee of this pillow-stuffing remembers what Mark Twain said about newspaper obit-

uaries and exaggeration, so I shall merely note for the record that when that well-known gentleman Patrise entered the La Mirada nitery in the small hours of this morning, he was accompanied neither by the sound of clanking chains nor by cherubim strumming six-string Rickenbacker harps.

Witnesses report that an innocent bystander (or rather bysitter—whatever has happened to the standards of marksmanship in Our Fair Levee?) was seriously injured in the incident that inspired all those campfire stories, but was ministered to by an able young man known as Doc Hallownight, of whom Our Fair may expect to hear more anon.

Personal to the Lousy Shots: Mind how you treat Doc. He did you a big favor.

"Sing ho, for the Fourth Estate," Birdsong said, and tapped his glass against Danny's.

The beer he'd been given was a medium brown color, with thick foam. Danny tasted it carefully; it was slightly heavy, a little sweet. He thought he could actually get to like beer like this.

Birdsong finished his drink. "Good night to you, friend."

"Where are you headed?"

"They're showing His Girl Friday at the Biograph. Miss it and they revoke your press card." He paused, looked Danny in the eye. "Circulate, Doc, circulate! Everybody here wants to meet you, and those that don't aren't worth meeting anyway." He tapped the newspaper. "Thank me later."

Danny looked around for McCain, Cloudhunter, someone he'd met last night. The piano was playing something jazzy but slow. He turned to Shaker, saw that the bartender was wearing a lapel button that read HALF THE BLOOD, ALL THE CIVIL RIGHTS.

"Does Mr. Fountain take requests?"

"Sure does, sir."

"No sirs. I'm ... Doc."

"You got it, Doc. Just tell Alvah what von want."

Danny went down the steps to the glossy, cmpt\ dance floor. "Evening, man," Fountain said without missing a note.

"Could you play something . . . that, you know, rocks out a little?"

"Nothin' easier, man. You got yourself a girl to dance with?"

"No."

"Well, maybe by the second chorus."

"Yeah, maybe. Thanks."

"Cool runnings, Doc."

Danny walked back to the bar, hands in his pockets. Halfway there, he could see Shaker setting up another beer for him. As the glass touched the bar, hammer chords came down like thunder, and everything stopped. Fountain had kicked into "Great Balls of Fire" like the world was gonna end in three minutes five.

Couples were pulling each other away from their tables. A woman with a tenor sax came out of nowhere and swung in. High heels banged and elflocks shook. Even the waiters were twirling.

"Good Golly Miss Molly" followed hot, and "Roll Over, Beethoven." Some of the dancers were spending more time airborne than on the floor. Danny just stood there watching, the beer going warm in his hand.

"—gotta hear it again today," Shaker said in his ear. "Oh, come on, Doc! It ain't a movie."

There was a black-haired girl in a deep blue dress, one of those flapper dresses that ended in long points, showing and hiding leg at once. "Do you dance?" Danny said, half hoping she'd knock him on his butt for asking.

'Til try," she said, and he saw that it was Ginevra Benci, the bartender from last night. She held out her bare white arm and he took it.

There was one extraordinary pair of dancers on the floor, a man with dark, dark skin in a pure-white suit, large but totally graceful, and an elf woman in a black sequined flapper dress like Ginevra's, who moved as if she was boneless. Danny tried to follow their style, ridiculous as he felt. After a moment, he realized that the man was looking at him; Danny felt his collar tighten, but the big man winked and nodded, and the couple started doing steps Danny could follow with relative ease.

By the second chorus, Danny and Ginevra were actually moving as a unit, off each other's toes. Danny hadn't done this since—

well, he'd done this, but he had never enjoyed it before.

The piano crashed, the sax cried, and the music stopped. Everybody applauded, even the waiters. Ginevra tugged Danny's arm; he turned and saw Patrise in the doorway, clapping furiously.

"Delighted you could both make it," he said. "And that you kept each other busy. Come up here, let's get to dinner."

Danny looked at Ginevra; she looked slightly away from him. Had Patrise told her to be his date for tonight? There were four couples plus one at the table: the two of them; McCain and an older woman, certainly over thirty, in black and pearls, introduced as Chloe Vadis; Cloudhunter and Carmen Mirage; and the two expert dancers, whose names were—that is, who were called Matt Black and Gloss White. Patrise sat alone at the head of the table.

Other people took the cue, drifting up to the tables and the bar. Fountain had gone back to a slow swing tune. Two couples were still dancing, half melted into each other.

Danny ordered a rare steak. McCain had his well done, with a lobster tail on the side. Ginevra had chicken salad, Gloss a dinner-sized Caesar, Matt a rack of barbecued ribs. Chloe Vadis was brought some kind of multicolored pasta dish. Carmen just had a little fruit cup, and Cloudhunter didn't eat at all. Patrise had a half duck glazed orange he caned like a surgeon.

There were occasional bursts of conversation as they ate; people came by to say hello, to admire Matt and Gloss's dancing, to mutter into Chloe's ear. Patrise had a compliment for every compliment, a quick answer for every question. He gave things a center. Danny still felt one part in three dreaming. He looked at Ginevra. Ginny. He wondered how she felt.

Carmen stood up. So did Cloudhunter. "Well," she said, "here goes nothing."

Patrise said, "Knock 'em dead, primoroso?

Cloudhunter took Carmen's hand and kissed it. She shut her eyes for a moment, then went around the curve toward the Stage, disappeared through a curtain. Cloudhunter bowed and followed.

As the plates were cleared away, the room lights went down. Candles flared to life on the tables—like magic Danny thought, and then let go the "like." The music stopped, and the last dancers left the floor.

A soft-edged spotlight showed Cloudhunter on the bandstand. He was wearing a blue velvet tailcoat and white tie, boots with silver trimmings. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, sounding like the rise of a summer storm, "Miss Carmen Mirage."

He stepped back. She came out, bowed at the light applause, and began singing, a slow, torchy tune.

Tell me what my true love loves

'Cause I want to fit him

Like my hands in gloves

Will he get in motion

For a carol of devotion

Or a cooing like a soft gray doves

You know I can '/ take the waiting

Or the silence or the doubt