by John M. Ford
Carmen came onstage, in a tight gold blouse that showed one shoulder and a triangle of midriff, a trailing black skirt.
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 eer 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 f
olklore, 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.
"And they had this arsenal —Tommy guns and shotguns and pistols and grenades. And Granddad spent two weeks learning how to use them all. And to fight with a knife; he could scrap okay, any kid could in those days, but this was serious. His dad said, 'Two weeks ain't much, but it's better than you're gonna learn from the Army, 'cause most of them guys never had to do it for real. Unless they were like me.' He even made out a list of guys who'd been in the gangs, who Granddad could trust if he needed help. Granddad said he burned the list after the war, because too many of the men on it were heroes then. You want some more tea?"
"Sure," Doc said. When it came, Norma Jean said, "Could you dump two spoons of sugar into mine, and stir it up? This one-wing stuff is no good."
"Your arm's going to be okay, isn't it?"
"Oh, yeah! I didn't mean that—you know I wouldn't have it at all if it weren't for you. The) said it may always be a little weak. but I've got therapy three days a week, and Granddad—well, let me finish that story."
"Please."
"Well," she said, a little more softly, "Granddad says that, when they were up there in the woods, fighting and shooting, it was the first time he really felt like his dad loved him, you know? 'Cause he was teaching him what he knew to stay alive in the war. But then he joined the Marines, and he went off and fought, and after he'd fought for a while ... he understood that his dad'd loved him all the time before—hadn't wanted his son to grow up with guns and knives and wars all the time."
Doc waited. She didn't say any more. He said, "Your Granddad must be quite a guy. ... I mean, is he still alive?"
"Oh, yeah," she said. "He saw me every day I was in the hospital, and he helps me with my PT. He says I ought to learn to shoot a bow and arrow—you know, an Amazon." She looked down at herself, where the chest wound was hidden. Then she grinned again. "When I got so I could sit up, he said he was making plans to bust me out of the hospital—you know, go over the wall at midnight, like in the movies. He made me promise that if he was ever in, I'd—" Her voice caught. "—crash him out. Funny thing to say, huh."
Doc flashed on the end of High Sierra, with Bogart shot down in the desert, and the girl trying to understand his last words, asking what it meant when a man crashes out.
That's a funny thing to ask, sister, the cop replied. // means he s free.
He had a sudden terrible certainty of what Norma Jean's grandfather had meant.
"You could meet him," Norma Jean was saying. "I think he'd like to meet you. I'm sure he would. He's never really been to Town, and keeps saying he should. He calls it Old Town—you know the song? 'There'll be a hot time in Old Town tonight' . . . ?"
"In the old town."
"No. That was later, when people weren't singing about this city anymore. When the song was written, it was about Old Town here. Really."
"I didn't know. Sorry."
"Nothing to be sorry about. Even people who grew up here
don't know that. Lucius Birdsong, the reporter, told me. Do you know Lucius?"
&nb
sp; "Yes."
"Oh, of course you do—someone said he wrote about you. He's such a swell guy, but, you know, so odd—I mean, you wanna carry a torch, okay, but do it for someone who's at least on your side of the street. "
Doc waited, but that seemed to be the end of that discussion. Then she said, quite from nowhere, "You living alone?"
He took her meaning at once, somewhat to his own surprise. "I'm seeing somebody. Pretty regular."
He saw lights fade within her. "I'm glad," she said, earnestly. "Do you ever see Chloe Yadis?"
"Sometimes at the club."
"I heard one of her girls ran away. Jolie-Marie, the little one. I mean, petite, you know."
Doc nodded stupidly.
"My mom would die," Norma Jean said, to no one in particular, and then painfully, "No, she'd die"
Then Doc understood. Norma Jean was stuck in the World now. and she wanted back—back with Mr. Patrise, or somebody close to him, like Doc. Even working for Chloe the madam would be a way back to the bright lights.
But there she was, in that chair. Just like Robin had been.
Floundering, he said, "I'll tell Mr. Patrise that you're better. I know he'll be glad to hear it. And—I really would like to meet your grandfather."
She nodded.
Doc tried to think ahead. "Some night we should . . . spring him. Get him to the Mirada, at least. My car won't hold three, but I could borrow one of the others."
"Oh, wouldn't that be great?" The light returned to her face, briefly. "Unless he—it might not be like he remembers. Wants to remember. I just don't know."
In that moment Doc knew the meeting was over. In the next moment Norma Jean was telling him how much fun she'd had. how great it had been to meet him. She touched the control and rolled
her chair back from the table; Doc stood up hastily.
She was offering him no hand to shake, and even a small kiss on the cheek would have required him to swoop and bend over her in the chair. So he just stood. The man in the dark suit reappeared; he seemed to take no notice at all of Doc.