The Gypsy

by Stephen Brust

  "A pleasant ride," said Raymond softly. He looked down suddenly, and, "How did he get here?" he asked the Coachman, almost accusingly.

  The Coachman shrugged. "Perhaps he never left."

  Durand followed his glance. Little Timmy. The one they'd killed. The bloody corpse didn't stir him at all. Only the pistol in the hand seemed real, and the only emotion it roused in Durand was anger.

  Csucskari said, "We must see to the Wolf."

  And the Wolf is Mike, on the floor with Ed kneeling beside him. Ed pressed his handkerchief against Mike's shoulder, while Laurie knelt beside them,clutching herself as she rocked back and forth. Durand crossed to kneel by his partner. He put his good arm around Laurie, stilled her rocking.

  Durand blinked stupidly and looked around. His partner was on the floor, and his own arm was bleeding. From Ed's color, he was hurting as well, even if no blood showed. The three gypsies looked as if a bare breath of wind might blow them all away. The Coachman leaned up beside the door, whip in hand,as if none of this concerned him. "What do we do?"Durand asked them all.

  Madam Moria sighed heavily. She folded a scarf very carefully and set it aside. For a long second she shut her eyes. Then she opened them, and announced, "Well, I don't have my cane, so I can't make tea." When everyone looked at her, she added,"My good kettle's ruined, too," and glared at Csucskari as if daring him to accept the blame.

  Durand stirred suddenly. He walked over to her phone, a black thing crouching on a small table, and dialed.

  "Officer Durand. My partner is down, and I've been injured. We need an ambulance at thirty-four-sixteen Oak Street Upper, northeast corner of Oak and Carradine. No, no back-up needed; the situation is stable. Hurry on that ambulance though. Mike's hit bad. No, I won't stay on the damn line. Use the nine-one-one trace, for god's sake." He left the receiver off the hook. Going back to Stepovich, he took Laurie firmly by the shoulders and pushed her into Ed's arms. He knelt down, and began laying Stepovich's shirt open.

  "It doesn't look good," Ed muttered, and tried to keep Laurie from looking. Durand refolded the handkerchief and pressed it once more against the wound.

  Stepovich stirred and cried out; Laurie echoed him. She pulled free of Ed, but suddenly Daniel was there, catching her in his arms despite the fiddle he still held. He pulled her face into his chest and held her tightly. She grew still. Durand swayed, then sat back on the floor beside his partner. He put his fingers on the pulse in Stepovich's throat, kept them there. Ed got up and sank slowly onto the couch,one arm wrapped protectively around his ribs. "He'll live," he said. "But…" His voice trailed off.

  Madam Moria had found her other cane. She thumped it impatiently on the carpet, "It's over then,isn't it?" she demanded.

  "Over?" said Csucskari. "No. It's not over. The Fair Lady has been banished from this world, but we have tasks yet to do."

  "We're together now," said Owl. "That is something."

  Durand turned his head, spoke to Csucskari as he kept his fingers on Stepovich's pulse. "There's still a warrant out for you, you know."

  "Yes," said Csucskari.

  "Perhaps it would be best if you left."

  "I don't know where to go."

  "This is something new?" Raymond asked, and laughed.

  "The Pennsylvania border is a good start," said Durand.

  Csucskari caught Raymond's eye. "We must leave together," he said. They both looked at Daniel.

  His grip on Laurie tightened. He stared back at his brother, over her head. "I could be happy."

  "You've chosen already," said Csucskari. "When it mattered most. Why torture yourself?"

  " 'Needs must when the Devil drives,' " Raymond began, but the Gypsy gave a slight shake of his head. The Coachman snorted.

  A tremor shook Daniel. The bow slipped from his fingers, falling to the carpet. He seemed to age before their eyes. He let go of her. She didn't seem to notice.

  Daniel closed his eyes for an instant. Then he opened them and set his jaw. He gave himself a little shake.

  Laurie blinked suddenly, and drew herself up. She looked around the room and Durand saw the confusion grow in her eyes. "Daniel?" she asked, puzzled.

  "Daniel is gone," said the Raven.

  Stepovich groaned.

  Laurie spun suddenly, seemed to see anew her father on the floor. "Daddy!" she wailed, and launched herself at him.

  Mike had stirred. He made a sound that might have been her name, and she flung herself to her knees on the floor beside Durand.

  The Raven turned aside again.

  "We have to go," the big gypsy reminded them all.

  "How?" said Csucskari.

  Something shining flashed through the air, struck the Coachman's chest and fell to the floor. "Get the hell out of here," Ed growled. "You been nothing but a pack of trouble anyway." The Coachman crouched slowly, rose with Ed's Cadillac keys in his hand. He jingled them in a loose fist.

  "Are you sure?" he asked.

  A growing wail of ambulance sirens answered him.A second siren, rising and falling, chimed in. "Get the hell out of here!" Ed snarled. "The cops are coming. And remember: Super unleaded, or she'll knock like hell on the hills."

  "We'll be gone, then," said the Coachman. He opened the door. The big gypsy lifted a hand in a quick goodbye, then led the way down the stairs. The Gypsy took the Raven's arm as tenderly as if he were wounded.

  "Come, brother," he said.

  "I was what she made me," he said softly. "Not as my acts betrayed me."

  The Gypsy tugged at him gently.

  The Raven looked once more at Laurie as she bowed over her father. It was the only farewell he gave her.He straightened, squaring his shoulders. Then he stopped, and picked up his fiddle bow from where he'd dropped it. As the sirens drew nearer, he stood still, looking at the fiddle in his hands.

  "Brother," cautioned the Gypsy.

  Daniel stepped forward suddenly, thrust fiddle and bow at Ed. "For her," he said. "Later. When she wants it."

  Moria scowled. "Are you certain?" she asked.

  "See she gets a case for it." The Raven turned as abruptly as a father abandoning a child. "Let's go,"he told the Coachman, and caught his brother's elbow and hurried him down the stairs.

  The Coachman gave the room one elegant sweeping bow, one last sardonic smile, and followed.

  EPILOGUE

  The Wolf and the Cub

  NOVEMBER TWENTY-FIRST, AFTERNOON

  Bells fasten to your feet.

  That you needn't be alone,

  And I'll dance with you the Gypsy Dance

  That you have always known.

  "GYPSY DANCE"

  "… not really surprised… No, it's what I'd expect her to do… Because if she waited for the kid to ask her, she'd wait forever. So, what did he say?…Yeah, that's about what I'd expect. Well, maybe they would be smarter to wait until this whole mess got cleaned up, but smarter isn't always best, Marilyn,you tell Tiffany that for me." Stepovich listened while he thumbed through his statement again. He started to switch the phone from one ear to the other, then remembered that shoulder no longer worked. "Yeah.I know, it is quite a mess. They said they could have saved my arm if the quack who fixed my shoulder the last time hadn't bungled it… Well, thanks, I appreciate that… I guess I'll have to, won't I?…No, I don't mean to sound bitter, I'm just tired of all the damn questions about… sure I understand, I didn't mean you, ask whatever you want… What makes it so bad is that I'm so foggy about what happened after I got hit… Ed? I don't know. From what I can gather, he was under a coffee table or behind a couch or some damned thing while Durand had all the fun… I was being sarcastic, Marilyn.But as I say, after I got hit, I didn't know much of anything that happened… Yeah, I knew about Ed's friend Madam Moria, but.. yeah, I'd heard that the guy who shot me was the one who did the liquor store clerk, but I don't know why he was at Moria's place,… Me? I told you, Ed just wanted to introduce Durand and me to Madam-Huh? Yeah, as far as I know, the killer just happene
d to show up while we were there. These things happen…, Holes? Who are you. Internal Affairs?… No, really… No, really… Okay, well, tell you what, Marilyn, soon as I'm feeling better, I'll buy you a cup of coffee and tell you the whole story… that's right, the whole story… Yeah, I guess I do owe you that much, but don't blame me when you don't believe it. Hell, I was there, and I don't believe half of it… Yeah, I guess that's a promise. Okay, dinner, not coffee… Okay. Hey, I've got company right now, though, so I got to get off the phone… huh? You bet, Marilyn. A beautiful woman." As he said this, Stepovich's visitor gave an exaggerated look around the hospital room and harrumphed. He bravely waggled his eyebrows at her. "Right… much better, hell, you know cops are made of unbreakable plastic… How should I know, Marilyn? Maybe. I don't even know if they'll offer me a desk job after they read my statement… Yeah, they finally got it out. It ended up lodged between two ribs… bounced all over hell inside me getting there, I guess, they say I'm lucky I'm even… Right. I will. No, really, I will, I promise. You, too. Thanks for calling… Bye."

  As soon as Stepovich hung up the phone, she said,"Cut the cards, three times."

  He sighed and obeyed her. It was awkward, one-handed. They were peculiar cards, even for the kind of deck it was. Thick edges gone soft with age and handling, smelling like some old spicy perfume. Not even their backs matched. She shifted the piles, muttering to herself as she did so. He watched her practiced fingers lay the cards out in a careful pattern on the white hospital sheet beside him. She bent over them, her hair falling forward like a curtain. "Of course," she muttered. "I can see it."

  "See what?" Stepovich asked crabbily.

  Her fingernail tapped a card, two people exchanging chalices. "I see Durand asking a woman with red hair to join her fortune with his. She hesitates, but not for long."

  "Actually, Tiffany Marie asked him," Stepovich pointed out. She ignored his interruption.

  Her hands moved again, jabbing at the ornate cards. "This one, the Queen of Stars? She receives gifts soon, gifts due her. A kettle, perhaps, and a new cane. Perhaps a pound of good tea."

  Stepovich harrumphed.

  Her fingers wandered on. "An older man close to you opens new doors, or finds a new opportunity."It was a hand coming out of a cloud holding a flowering stick. Stepovich noticed that it was a single arm,then threw the thought away.

  "You knew Ed got himself a part-time job. Down at the Classic Caddy. Spends all day arguing about cars with a bunch of other old farts." He coughed slightly, winced from the bruises the bullet had made inside him and the pull of the healing wounds. He took a quick breath, reached to tap a Moon card-"What's this?"

  She shook her head. "One we don't wish to speak of. She is gone from here, but not so far as to give me any comfort. But there is another," she tapped a card with a guy upside down on a cross. "One who is not far behind her. This, the six of Swords, nearby?He does not travel alone." A card with ten circled stars overlay a man on a horse carrying yet another star. Her fingers stroked the two, then lifted away.

  "Here," she said. "This is you. The Fool."

  "Oh, thank you."

  "No. Trust me. It's the right card for you. The beginning of knowledge, the beginning of a spiritual journey"-Stepovich rolled his eyes-"and someone who can walk through danger and not be harmed."

  "Not be harmed?" He gestured at where his arm had been. "What do you call this, a dimple?"

  "And this," she continued quickly, "the five of Cups beside it? That's disappointments, but they're past now. This is the future." It was a woman in a garden with a bird on her finger. "She's enjoying the good things in life. Alone, but getting wiser about herself."

  He suddenly thought of Marilyn, then chided himself. If he wasn't careful, he could start taking this stuff seriously, and then what? Can't go out on patrol today, the cards say it isn't auspicious. But no, he wasn't going to be going out on anymore patrols. Shit. Aloud, he said skeptically, "You can tell all this from a deck of cards?"

  She fixed him with a steady gaze. "The knowing is already within me. The cards are like guideposts for my Seeing." Her gaze went distant. She had aged since he had last seen her, but not in a way that was bad. Almost, he could see as she claimed to. A sadness, a regret in your past, he'd say to her, but something you've learned from.

  "I have the gift, you know," she told him, in a voice gone soft with mystery. Then Laurie grinned suddenly, spoiling the effect. "Or so Madam Moria tells me."

  "You should stay away from that old witch," Stepovich chided her. "Filling your head full of superstition."

  "Daddy!" Laurie objected heatedly. "She does not.And she's going to take me and Jeffrey to the Farmer's Market. That's where she buys the spices to put in her teas."

  "That okay with your mom?"Laurie shrugged. "She said she'd think about it."

  "I bet. Don't go telling her it was my idea."

  "Don't you want to see me in the layout?" Laurie changed the subject.

  "Where are you?" Stepovich asked grudgingly.

  "Here." She tapped a card of a young man with a fish in his cup. "This is me. Page of Cups. It means a captivating young person, studious and drawn to the arts. And you know what this means, here, in my future?" A man with a crown on his head, holding a wand. Green was the color of his jerkin.

  "I'm almost afraid to ask."

  "It means like beginning an apprenticeship. Learning something." Laurie gathered up the cards carefully.

  "Learning what?" Stepovich asked guardedly.

  "Music lessons," she said matter of factly. "That card almost always means music lessons."

  And the street lights never waver.

  And the red lights never dim.

  And the neon always glitters;

  And it was better me than him.

  "RED LIGHTS AND NEON"

  The End

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  STEVEN KARL ZOLTAN BRUST was born in 1955. His hobbies include arguing and drumming. He plays psychedelic rock n' roll for Cats Laughing, twisted trad and quirky Celtic for Morrigan, and Sufi drumming for Sulliman's Silly Surfing Sufi Circus, as well as doing the occasional solo act with guitar and banjo. He supports his music habit by writing, and lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

  For information on ordering "Another Way to Travel"by Cats Laughing (tape or CD) or "Queen of Air and Darkness" by Morrigan (tape), send a self-addressed,stamped envelope to:

  Steel Dragon Press

  Box 7253

  Minneapolis, MN 55407

  MEGAN LINDHOLM lives on a small farm in rural Roy, Washington with her four children and occasionally her fisherman husband, Fred. Hobbies include cleaning up after the children and intending to have a garden. Her tastes in music include psychedelic rock n' roll, twisted trad and quirky Celtic, and Sufi drumming. She highly recommends the soundtrack from the movie that should have been made,"Another Way to Travel." Said soundtrack can be ordered from:

  Steel Dragon Press

  Box 7253

  Minneapolis, MN 55407

  Oh, she also writes.

  AN id=subtitle»

  PROLOGUE

  LATE AUTUMN, HALF MOON, WAXING

  I hope you don't mind

  If I rest inside your door

  Please forgive the snowy footprints

  I'm tracking on your floor.

  "RED LIGHTS AND NEON"

  Doom teka teka teka doom teka tek.

  Doom teka teka teka doom teka tek.

  Doom teka teka teka doom teka tek…

  Doom teka teka teka doom teka tek.

  There is something about the sound of the tambourine.The zils rattle or ring in the same tones and pitches as the kettles in which you heat the water or stew the meat, and the calfskin head that is as old as Nagypapa will predict the rain by saying dum or the dryness by saying doooooom. When the tambourine is played well, the feet move on wings of their own, and the heart leaps with them, while the lips, distant observers above, cannot help but smile a little, no matter how so
mber the mood. This is why the dance and the laughter are one, and whoever says different is either deluded or in the service of You Know Who.And You Know Who has many servants.Some are weak, some are strong. Some need guidance day by day; others, well, others can work their evil on their own, and bring more souls into the sway. For example, there is the Fair Lady, Luci, who-

  No. We will not dwell on that now, there is plenty of time later. Now, we are remembering the tambourine, which is as perfect a match for the fiddle as the onion is for the bacon, and the memory of the ear and the tongue is forever, which is as it should be. These things stay with a person, no matter how many years have passed, or what paths he has trod. Once those sounds are in his blood, he can never forget-

  Never forget-

  Umm…

  Somewhere, perhaps half a mile to his left, a siren divided the evening into sections. Why do they call them sirens, he wondered. What sort of sailor would be attracted to them? The question was rhetorical and ironic. He wasn't worried. He had no reason to think the siren was for him, so he continued to stroll down Saint Thomas, which seemed to be the street where appliance stores gathered, with a few grocers and liquor stores interleaved between them like the thick cloth that keeps the pottery from breaking against itself when-

  Umm…

  He had been a sailor once-twice? Something like that. He remembered rope burns on his hands; endless buckets of fish soup; toothless, fair-haired men with food in their beards shouting to him in Dutch;salt water in his mouth; the sick-sweet smell of rum;earplugs so the batteries wouldn't deafen him; scraping sounds of a too-small tool against an ugly green metal hull; salt water in his mouth. He almost remembered meeting a small shark once, but this could have been a dream. He'd never met a siren, in any case.

  It was coming closer. He almost ducked into a storefront from some urge to flee, but there was really no reason to think they were looking for him. He kept walking.