The Last Hot Time

by John M. Ford

  The next hall was lined with totem poles, painted headdresses of wood, pottery and spears.

  "These are American native, I think?" Cloud said. "From nearby?"

  Doc read the labels. "These are from the Pacific Northwest. Seattle—that's more than a thousand miles. Alaska's at least twice as far."

  Cloud absorbed this, looked around again. "Are your people somewhere here. Doc?"

  "Uh ... I don't think so. Just a moment." He found a wall-mounted building plan, scanned the listings. What was he looking for, exactly? Midwestern Tribes of Uncertain European Ancestry?

  When he turned back, Cloud was crouching by a little girl, showing her the silver bracelet on his left wrist. Doc had a sudden hollow feeling in his stomach. He looked around for worried parents. There they were, closing in quick. He'd never beat them to Cloudhunter unless he sprinted. Maybe that was the best idea, he thought: create a diversion. But he just walked as quickly as he felt he could, and tried to work out the soft answer that turneth away wrath.

  ". . . and these are the names of my sisters. They are very long names in English, but we also call them First Star, and Lilac, and Cools as Rain."

  "Those are pretty names," the child said.

  The father said, "Does the blue stone have a meaning?"

  "There are four like this, cut from the same large stone," Cloud said. "Each of us has one in a band like this. There is no meaning beyond that."

  The girl said, "Momma, if I have a brother, could we have bracelets like that?"

  The woman laughed. "If you ever do, my dear, we'll see."

  The man said, "Would there be any offense if we did that?"

  "It would be your choice, and the jewelry of your making. There could be no offense to take. But I am being rude. This is my friend Hallownight. He has been explaining the museum to me."

  Doc shook hands with the father.

  The woman said to her husband, "I was thinking—what about that piece of rock crystal your grandmother brought with her from Greece? We wouldn't need to use it all, just have a few pieces cut."

  The man looked thoughtful, then smiled broadly. "Just the thing." He held out his hand to Cloudhunter again. "That's a wonderful idea. Thank you so much."

  "I am glad that it pleased you."

  The family moved on. Cloudhunter watched them go, then said quietly to Doc, "The girl will have a brother, the summer of next year."

  "You know that?"

  "I believe the parents do as well. Are human children troubled by their brothers and sisters?"

  "Sometimes. They get upset that their folks seem to like the new baby better."

  "Is that true?" Cloud asked. The question was perfectly innocent—as a child would ask it, with no prior knowledge.

  "I suppose it is sometimes. I don't have any brothers or sisters."

  Cloud was silent. Somehow his silence seemed to echo in the long hall.

  Doc said, "I mean ... I had a little sister, but she died when we were both small."

  "Oh," Cloudhunter said. "I am very sorry." He looked in the direction the family had gone. "Their fear is, I think, of some old pain, some loss they fear to come again."

  Doc considered this. Cloudhunter had used the Touch, of course, but it was apparent he was also interpreting what the magic had shown him. Maybe guessing as well. He wondered how Cloud had known he was lying—well, not telling all the truth —about his sister.

  For the first time since he had crossed into Shadow. Doe fell a desire for magic, a Touch of his own. To be able CO read a patient's

  history from the bones and flesh themselves, know without being told where the worst pain was. . . . He glanced at Cloudhunter, who was examining an eagle-headed totem pole and showed no sign of hearing Doc's thought.

  How did the Touch show itself?

  This wasn't the time to ask. Stagger Lee had said that elves lived their whole lives with magic: there was no reason to suppose Cloudhunter knew what it was like for humans. And there were halls and halls left to explore, a whole world inside walls.

  I hirty-five points," Stagger Lee said, examining Doc's cards. "Good thing for you we're not playing Hollywood."

  Doc nodded and took a long swallow of beer. They were playing in his apartment, to kill a slow afternoon. He was down a substantial number of points—gin rummy didn't seem to be his game— but he couldn't remember how much they'd agreed the points were worth. "Sure you wouldn't rather play poker?"

  "What can you do in poker for two? 'Here's your cards. Yup, that pair wins. Next deal.' Now, two players left out of a table full, that's interesting." He scooped up the cards and began shuffling. "Hey, it's not that long till Monday."

  "Yeah. Another beer?"

  "Much obliged."

  Doc refilled Stagger Lee's glass from the keg. As he set the beer on the table, Stagger fanned and interleaved the cards in an elaborate shuffle, and said, "Last Deal still bothers you, doesn't it?"

  Doc sat down slowly. "You've got a right to do what you want with yourself."

  "Cool. Now say that again like you believe it."

  "Look, have I ever said a word to you about it? To anybody?"

  "No," Stagger said seriously, "and I appreciate that. But you act like the word's stuck right there north of your xiphoid, and a good Heimlich would pop it right out. More to the point, about half an hour before Last Deal, the fun content of poker seems to take a serious drop for you.

  "It's poker. It's not about fun."

  "Nice sidestep."

  "I. . . just don't think I get the idea of never knowing who you're going to sleep with."

  "We always know who. There aren't any strangers at Flats's place. Which is the question." He took a long swallow of his beer. "Don't be offended, but a big reason I didn't warn you about it the first time you were there is that you were a stranger, and you wouldn't have been allowed in anyway."

  "Stagger, what's this about?"

  "Oh, well, the game wasn't going anywhere, cards made me think of Monday night, one thing led to another. I also thought it was about time to make sure of the situation. I take it you haven't just been politely waiting for an invitation to join the game?"

  "No."

  "Fair enough. The other thing that you might as well know is that, on any given night, as many of those couples are going to spend the evening listening to Dave Brubeck, cooking an elaborate late dinner, reading comics, or whatever as end up playing sixty-nine pickup. Don't get me wrong: much as I like Brubeck, I am nonetheless bisexual as I ever was."

  Stagger finished his shuffling. "Now, if you won't misunderstand, how about I teach you honeymoon bridge?"

  l#oc and Ginny went to the Laughs show the following Friday. The films had an odd, flat, gray quality, with black halos around any bright light; Stagger Lee explained that they were "kinescopes," films made from early television.

  The shows had little comedy sketches, musical numbers, blackout jokes that lasted only seconds. Some of the longer playlets had no characters at all, just kitchen utensils or office machines moving to music; not really funny, past the first surprise, but oddly engrossing, watching the machinery dance.

  The artist's name was Ernie Kovacs. During an intermission. Stagger said, "If you'd seen a lot of television, this probably wouldn't look like much to you."

  Ginny said, "Why?"

  "Because ten years later, twenty, thirtv, the rest of television started to catch up to Kovacs's ideas. Do you remember what he

  said in the third program, about 'the first rule of television is, if something works, beat it to death'? Forty years after he said that, thirty after he died, TV was still following that law" Stagger looked past them, into an unseen distance. "If television is ever allowed to function again, I think we could reconstruct everything good about it from Ernie."

  Doc said, joking, "Is the world ready for that?"

  "No," Stagger said seriously. "The world is never ready for anything until it's too late. By which time something else has arrived."


  They watched a sketch of people getting ready for something special, a party or a night out. There was no dialogue, just music, as the men in one apartment and the women in another showered, shaved, made up, dressed (Doc found himself staring hard at the technique of the garter strap in closeup). This tie wouldn't knot; that stocking was torn. The music was driving toward something, some tension that would have to be released.

  A doorbell rang; the women dashed to answer it. Then, abruptly, Doc knew. There were three women in the apartment. There were two men at the door.

  Two left with two, and the third woman, her hair and dress perfect, turned away. The camera was looking down on her from above, above the walls of the apartment. Doc did not think anyone in the theater was breathing, all waiting for a doorbell, a telephone. The woman wandered from one room to the other, small in the depths of the shot.

  The walls of the apartment collapsed outward, the break of the chambered heart. The music crashed to a stop.

  He found Ginny's arm, wrapped his fingers around it.

  One of the ushers was leaning over Doc. "Mr. Hallownight, you're needed outside, sir."

  He and Ginny went to the lobby. Stagger Lee was pulling on a long wool coat and scarf. He looked worried. "Doc, Patrise wants us. Now."

  "What is it? Somebody hurt?"

  "Not yet. Ginny, I'm sorry. We didn't know—Mr. Patrise didn't know, it came up suddenly and we've got no time. Will you get home okay?"

  "Sure," she said. "tJnless I can help."

  "Patrise didn't ask for you. Good of you to offer, but you'd better not get involved. Take notes on the good bits, will you?"

  She nodded, caught Doc's sleeve. "Call me when you get home, okay?"

  "Oh. Yeah, I will."

  Doc and Stagger slid into the TR3. "So where are we going?"

  "Down by the river." He reached inside his coat, brought out a large, odd-looking pistol with a cylindrical wooden grip. "Nice night for a drive," he said. "But what the hell."

  Doc drove into the iron tunnel under the L tracks. "Magic's weaker down here than near Division, right? Does all this iron have something to do with that?"

  "Heard about cold iron, have you?"

  "Yeah. Did it keep the Truebloods out of the Loop? When they first came back, I mean?"

  "No. As an antidote to magic in general and elves in particular, cold iron is way overrated. Some people suspect all it ever did mean was that iron weapons gave us a slightly better chance against the fair folks than bronze ones. Not to mention rocks and sticks."

  Doc slowed down, swung the Triumph around a wrecked car and a half-collapsed wall. Above, among the dark girders, there was a flash of bright metal. It moved. "Stagger! You see that?"

  "Shit! Don't slow down!"

  A figure dropped from above. A flash of purplish light appeared near it, and a brilliant little comet flew past the car. Doc felt his hair prickle as it went by, and there was a sharp bang behind them.

  "Maybe I should give the iron more credit," Stagger Lee said.

  Doc looked in the rear-view and saw two motorcycles swing out of an alley, figures in long coats gunning them. From under wide-brimmed hats, elf hair streamed long and white. Before Doc pulled his eyes back to the road ahead, he registered that the bikes didn't have any wheels in their forks: they were gliding an arm's length above the pavement.

  Stagger leaned out and fired three times. One of the bikes laid down hard and skidded into an L stanchion.

  Doc said, "Where do I go up here?"

  "Right, next chance."

  Doc slowed just enough to make the turn on all wheels, and

  saw another floating bike straight in the headlights. "Hey, chicken," he said under his breath, and floored it. The bike reared up on its rear non-wheel and came for them. Stagger fired another round, then swore and began working at the jammed gun.

  The bike's headlight shone full-moon blue into Doc's eyes as they came together. There was a scraping noise, and the bike jumped the car, an empty fork ripping the canvas top as it went over. The Triumph wavered. Stagger had pulled something out of his coat. "When I say now, punch for the next left!" He leaned out, threw the object. "Now/"

  Doc threw the bar down, heel-and-toed around the corner, seeing a ball of yellow and black fire erupt in the back corner of his eye. Then the two flying bikes plunged out of the light, just black streaks in the moment of vision but still running.

  "Go! Go!"

  Doc checked the rear-view. Yes, they were still back there. After a moment, two bikes with wheels swung in to join them: two white lights, two blue. Ahead was one of the river bridges, a steep arched one, unlighted, barely visible except as a black gap in the shimmering water. It looked scratchy, like a worn old film.

  Stagger said, "After the bridge, turn—"

  "Look." Doc flashed his brights, making the coiled wire blocking the crest of the bridge sparkle like dew on a spider's web. As they started up the slope, he pulled the handbrake, threw the little car into a four-wheel drift, praying they wouldn't roll. The suspension ran out of travel, and metal threw sparks. They came to a stop turned one-eighty, pointing straight at the bikes.

  Stagger thumbed something on his pistol. It spat a long flame and played a bull-fiddle note. Two bikes went down, the others scattered. Doc drove. Loose bits of motorcycles sputtered and banged beneath the car. A body went whump against his door and was gone, all unseen.

  There were no more lights behind them. They were alone.

  "Where to now?"

  "Let me think."

  "Should we just go back to—"

  "No. We need to tell Patrise." They were both gasping. "It may have just been a random ambush."

  "You think so?"

  "No." Stagger started to put his head down, then jerked upright, looking around, behind, for more targets. "Not with the bridge blocked. That took some work. So we really have to see Patrise. Turn right up here."

  A couple of blocks on, Doc felt himself relax, just a little, and then he laughed. Stagger Lee turned to look at him.

  "We beat 'em, didn't we?" Doc said.

  "Yeah," Stagger said, and then he was laughing too. "Guess we did at that."

  "It feels like . . ." He tried to compare it to an ambulance run, but it wasn't the same thing. It felt good to beat bleeding, or shock, or a stopped heart, but this—

  Stagger's voice was suddenly distant. "Next time I'll drive and you shoot. Then tell me what it's like. Second right here."

  "The cave thing?"

  "That's it."

  There was a metal tunnel ahead: streets elevated a full level above them, and a void below. Patrise's big violet car was parked near the entrance. Doc parked behind it.

  Stagger said, "Get out slowly. And don't show a gun."

  "I don't have a gun."

  "Good. Try to look like you don't."

  Two elves stepped out of the shadows, and Doc felt his heart skip; but one of them was Cloudhunter. Cloud had a sword out, a long white flare of metal in the dark. The other elf wore a black leather jacket with throwing knives in chest pockets, a black baton and handcuffs hanging from his belt. Then Doc noticed the copper buttons and the badge.

  "There are elf cops?" he said.

  "Pride, Integrity, GwaedEllyll" Stagger Lee muttered.

  Cloudhunter raised a hand. "What happened to you?"

  "We got hit," Stagger said. "Set up, I think. Is it oka) down there?"

  "Getting no worse," Cloud said calmly. "Patriae will want you both right away." Doc reached for his bat;: he saw. then, the rip in the car top, eighteen inches long and Straight as a steel rule. He

  put a hand to his temple, just exploring. Nothing there. He looked up, saw a dark streak against Cloud's white cheek.

  "You're hurt."

  "Not at all. You are needed." Cloud said "Sergeant Aquila," and the Ellyll officer nodded. Cloud led Doc and Stagger beneath the street. Stagger flipped on a flashlight.

  "There's a whole level down here," Doc said, a
s they walked past riveted iron columns, broken traffic signals, signs corroded past reading, clouds of dust rising and falling in the light beam. He reached into his bag for a tube of goldenrod salve and an adhesive bandage for Cloud's cheek.

  "Two levels, at one point," Stagger said.

  "Why?"

  "It was supposed to solve a traffic problem." He swung the light to this side and that. "Before my time, Doc. City planning's a lost sorcery."

  A car's headlights cut a slant across the street. Four, maybe five bodies were on the pavement, a Ruthin Ellyll in a short red leather cape and some humans dressed in Ruthin colors. The headlight beams ended at a door, and next to the door stood McCain, holding a Thompson with the big round magazine. He touched a finger to the brim of his hat, pushed the door open. From within, red light spilled out into the cold dusty underground, as from an entrance to Hell.

  They went in.

  It was Hell.

  There was a large room with an iron-beamed ceiling, and a freight door into another one. The light was deep red, threaded with paler shafts from flashlights. The rooms were furnished with tables and cages and racks. There were people in the cages, people on the racks and tables: strapped to them, roped to them, bolted and nailed to them. There was a heavy smell of blood and urine and shit. The people looked like drawings in anatomy books, though the light was so red it was hard for Doc to tell what he was seeing, what only imagining. Some of them moved, with the scrape of metal, the crunch of bone.

  There was a soft, wavering moaning through the room, a sound that pierced straight from the ears to the base of the spine; more

  horrible than screaming, because it should have been screaming. This was Hell as Doc had always understood it: a mass-production pain factory with everybody suffering at maximum efficiency and nobody dying on the job.

  Doc pushed the salve and bandage into Cloud's hand, no longer seeing them.

  Mr. Patrise came out of the next room. He was walking stiffly, his face shadowed by his wide flat hat. "Hallow," he said, quite clearly, "I'm glad you're here. I hope you have morphine. Shall we send for more?"