Dinner at Deviant's Palace

by Tim Powers

  Rivas set off in that direction, noticing apartments where friends had lived whose names he now couldn’t remember, terrace bars where he’d taken young ladies for drinks on long ago late nights, canals he’d fallen into…. Much had changed—there were lots full of charred rubble where he remembered houses, new bars that had been Junk & Relic stores in his day, a new wide hole in the street where some cluster of antique sewer tunnels must have collapsed, over which a gaily beribboned but unsteady bridge had been built—but so much had not changed that he thought the ghost of young Gregorio Rivas must still haunt these streets and alleys and rooftop bridges; a self-consciously cynical ghost, inordinately proud of its skill with both sword and pelican, its capacity for liquor, and all the dues it imagined it had paid. The place was still Venice, where he’d spent his youth, still crowded with old buildings rotting under bright new paint, curbside hot food vendors, shouting parrots and street lunatics, still redolent with the smells of ordure and spicy cooking.

  Though the restaurant had mercifully burned down, the doctor’s building was still there, but as he scuffed down the steps to the man’s door he wondered whether he would still be there. It had been—what—six years? He knocked at the door.

  After a few seconds it swung open and he felt weak with relief to see that the man peering out of the doorway was the doctor. “Doctor Dendro!” Rivas said. “I’m glad you still live here. Do you still have that thing you used to call a stretcher barrow? There’s a—”

  The gray-haired man was frowning. “Who are you?” he interrupted.

  “Don’t you recognize me? I’m Greg Rivas. I came to you several times for—”

  “Rivas.” The doctor stared at the ceiling. “You had the clap.”

  “Well,” said Rivas, nettled in spite of everything, “yes. Once. But right now I’d appreciate it if you’d—”

  Abruptly the doctor saw Rivas’s hand. “My God, man, what have you done to your hand? Come in here and—”

  “Doctor,” said Rivas loudly, “I’d be grateful if you’d look at my hand.” More quietly, he went on, “But first I wish you’d get your stretcher barrow and come look at a friend of mine.”

  “He worse off than you?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right.” The doctor waved him inside, and when Rivas had reeled in and blinked around enough to be able to see in the dimness, he smiled, for the place hadn’t noticeably changed since his last visit. Here was still the old wood stove autoclave, here were the window-blocking stacks of terrarium mold gardens, the astrological charts and the live, caged, two-headed snakes which may patients insisted be consulted before they’d accept any medication, the cupboards full of ancient and almost certainly useless bottled pills.

  Doctor Dendro had put on his antique white coat with Doctor, Doctor, Gimme The News stitched on it, and from a closet rolled out the extended, padded wheelbarrow Rivas remembered. “Your man in much pain?” he asked Rivas.

  “Unconscious.”

  “Won’t risk bringing a hypodermic needle, then. Broke one since you were in last. Down to seven now.”

  He wheeled the device out the door and Rivas followed. “I can’t pay you today,” Rivas said, “but as soon as I get back to—”

  “I’ll take an I.O.U.” As they went up the steps the doctor sniffed. “Or will I? Blood’s bad stuff, Rivas. You used to have a little more sense.”

  “It was an accidental dose. I gave some to this friend of mine as a, a sedative, and we both wound up doused in it.”

  “It’s only a sedative to people who want that kind of sedative.”

  When they got up to street level Rivas swayed dizzily in the sudden blast of sunlight.

  “Sure you don’t want a ride in this yourself?” Dendro asked dubiously.

  “No—thank you—I’d fall asleep, and when I next sleep it’s going to be for about twelve hours.”

  He led the doctor back to the alley, and down it to the arch in the wall, and when he stumbled into the enclosed court the two children were gone but of course the far-gone still lay where he’d been, at the foot of the garbage pile. Rivas pointed, then leaned back against the wall and slid down it until he was sitting.

  The doctor trundled his wheelbarrow over to the boy and crouched to look at him. He picked up one of the skeletal wrists, then dropped it and pushed back an eyelid. He looked over at Rivas and then stood up. “Sorry,” he said. “Boy’s dead.”

  Rivas nodded and shrugged, and it wasn’t until the too bright scene blurred and fragmented that he realized, to his weary horror, that he was crying, for the first time in more years than he could remember. He tried to stop and discovered he couldn’t. He was breathing in harsh gasps, tears running down his unshaven cheeks, and he didn’t hear the doctor approach.

  Dendro put his hand on Rivas’s shoulder. “He was a close friend?”

  Rivas shook his head. “Just… some kid. I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with me.” He looked up. The doctor had put the wasted corpse in his wheelbarrow.

  “I’ll take him to the burial pit,” Dendro said, “after I’ve fixed up your hand. Get up now.”

  Rivas climbed to his feet and plodded after the doctor.

  An hour and a half later, his hand a bandaged numbness swinging at his side, Rivas was wandering along the Lennox Street sidewalk, wondering which old acquaintances he might be able to find who’d loan him some money and give him food and a place to sleep. He could remember a number of people, but somehow he couldn’t picture any of them being particularly glad to see him, especially since his years of success in Ellay. And of course it was out of the question to consider looking up any of his old girlfriends. He’d never understood how some people could be friends with ex-lovers; his own romances always ended with at least one party feeling nothing but loathing for the other.

  A street band on a corner ahead was banging out a melody on instruments made of kitchen utensils and car parts, and Rivas slowed, trying to identify the tune of the song. Then with a shock he realized it was a song he’d written himself, many years ago. He kept trying to remember a lyric before the singer could sing it, and finally managed to, moving his lips silently half a beat ahead of the band:

  Well, I haven’t crapped in three weeks,

  Feels like I never will again;

  No, I haven’t crapped in three weeks,

  Wonder if I ever will again—

  They tell me Jaybush is gonna end the world soon,

  Maybe I’ll do it then.

  He had slowed to a stop in front of the musicians, and the singer slid a foot forward to nudge the hat that lay inverted on the pavement. Glancing down, Rivas saw a handful of jigger cards in it. He looked up, met the man’s gaze and shrugged apologetically, and the man rolled his eyes in a way that clearly conveyed, Then take off, hobo.

  Rivas shambled on, but a moment later the music came to an abrupt, twanging halt. He looked back and saw the band hastily packing up, and looking beyond them he saw why.

  Half a dozen of the sort of madwomen known locally as pocalocas were striding aggressively down the street, their arms swinging and their ragged skirts sweeping the pavement. Music often threw pocalocas into violent frenzies that abated only when the music stopped, and they’d been known to claw out eyes and bite as ferociously as dogs.

  The musicians fled into a nearby bar, and they were swearing angrily, for the bar’s owner could certainly charge them for the temporary shelter. Rivas stepped well back out of the path of the wild-eyed women, and as they passed, as a couple of them scowled menacingly at him, it occurred to him for the first time, even though he’d seen them frequently during his years in Venice, that despite their savage restlessness their eyes had a distinctly birdy glaze.

  He didn’t pursue that thought, though, for the sight of them had reminded him of someone who might be willing to help him.

  He’d been about twenty-three years old, walking home in the early hours of the morning after the Bom Sheltr had shut down for the n
ight, and from a dark alley he’d heard hard scuffling and the thump of blows and, in the instant when he’d been considering whether to interfere or move on, he’d heard a muffled female voice call for help. He’d drawn his knife, then, and interfered.

  It was a band of pocalocas beating a young woman, and without using the blade of his knife—just the pommel as a club—he’d managed to kick and punch and slap them away. He’d helped the victim to her feet and then escorted her to her home, and she’d insisted that he sit down and have a drink while she washed the blood off her face and changed her clothes and prodded her ribs to see if any had been cracked.

  When she’d reappeared, pleased that a black eye and some bruises were all she’d suffered, they had talked for a couple of hours, and young Rivas learned that she was a free-lance prostitute. He hadn’t asked, but he’d been certain that that explained the pocalocas’ attack—the madwomen reacted to public displays of affection as strongly as they reacted to music, and if, as he’d guessed, they’d come upon her consummating a business transaction in the alley, it would certainly have been enough to provoke the melée Rivas had broken up; the client, presumably, had made good his escape.

  As he’d left her place at dawn she’d told him she owed him a big one, and during the next few years he’d taken it, as he’d phrased it to himself, in pieces, wandering over to her place whenever he was in the mood and not seeing any particular young lady. Perhaps because neither of them had ever thought of the intermittent liaison as significant, nor, once they’d got to know each other, found any reason to feel more than a faint, slightly patronizing fondness for the other, this relationship had not ended in the kind of bitter acrimony he was used to.

  I wonder, he thought now as he tried to remember where she’d lived, if she’ll still be there, and if I entirely used up the big one.

  The building, when he finally found it after several wrong turns, looked different, but after a moment he realized that it wasn’t; he’d simply never seen it in bright daylight before. You dog, he told himself. So it was with cautious optimism that he walked up the steps and knocked at the door. A man answered the door, though, and the furniture Rivas could see behind him wasn’t any he’d ever seen before.

  The man was frowning suspiciously, and Rivas knew what he must look like, bandaged, bearded, exhausted and dirty, so he conjured up his most respectable tone of voice. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “I’m trying to find a young lady that lived in this apartment, uh, eight years ago.”

  “I only been here three,” the man said, not relaxing his frown. “What’s her name?”

  Rivas felt his face getting red. “I… don’t remember, but she was kind of pretty, skinny, with dark hair…”

  The man swore disgustedly and slammed the door.

  Feeling obscurely humiliated, Rivas hurried back down the steps and walked briskly around the corner. I guess I could head for the old Bom Sheltr, he thought—assuming it’s still there—but when Steve Spink recruited me to play at his place in Ellay, I just went, I didn’t even tell old Hanker I was quitting, much less give notice.

  But the thought of the Bom Sheltr reminded him that this woman—whatever her name had been—had liked to hang out in a place called, what was it, El Famoso Volcan, down on the Ladybug Canal. Lunchtime in those early years of the Seventh Ace had generally found her at one of the umbrella-shaded tables on the place’s canal-front patio. He glanced at the position of the sun above the uneven rooftops. Worth a try, he thought.

  When he got there, though, he saw that the old EL FAMOSO VOLCAN sign was gone, replaced by a relic sign—REALIGNMENT AND BALANCING—obviously chosen more for its size and the handsomeness of its lettering than for any meaning in the old, hard-to-read words. It did still seem to be a restaurant, though, so he decided to go in and have a look—but once again he’d forgotten what he presently looked like.

  He pushed open the door and had taken two steps into the coolness of the place when a hard hand closed on his shoulder. “Trash bins are out back, Chucko,” said a bored, unfriendly voice.

  “Excuse me,” said Rivas, “I know I’m not dressed appropriately, but I simply want to find out whether—”

  “Go somewhere else to find out, Chucko. Right now hit the road.”

  “I’m Gregorio Rivas,” he said angrily, “and I’m the star performer at Spink’s in Ellay, which I imagine even you’ve heard of. Now all I want to do is—”

  He was swung around and propelled with surprising force at the door, which slammed open when he hit it, and he was still moving too fast to negotiate the steps, and he wound up thudding into the hot dust and rolling several yards. As he was struggling dizzily to get up, something clanked on the ground near him. “No hard feelings, Chucko,” the man said, a moment before closing the door.

  Half stunned but at least sitting up, Rivas blinked around stupidly until he saw what the man had thrown after him. It was a half-pint bottle, one-third full and with a few bread crumbs in it, of the cheapest local whiskey. Rivas snatched it up, uncorked it with his loosening teeth and drained it in a series of heroic swallows that sluiced the dust off his bristly chin with dribbled whiskey and made tears cut tracks through the dust on his gaunt cheeks.

  “You’re looking good, Greg,” came a woman’s husky voice from right behind him.

  He paused, then slowly lowered the bottle. Her voice had brought back her name. “Hello, Lisa,” he said.

  She walked around to where he could see her. She doesn’t look bad, he thought. Some gray in her hair, more lines around her eyes and mouth… at least she hasn’t got fat. “I heard you were doing real well in Ellay,” she said. He couldn’t tell whether she was amused or pitying.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked her. “These clothes, my grooming, this fine old liquor I’m sipping?”

  “The way restaurateurs hasten to serve you,” she agreed.

  “Serve me to the canalside dogs. Listen, Lisa,” he said, wishing he hadn’t had the liquor, for he could feel it hitting his abused system hard, “is there any of that big one left?”

  She stared down at him. “A little. Not as much as what you’re maybe thinking.”

  “All I want is a place to sleep—a kitchen corner and a blanket is fine—for tonight, and maybe tomorrow night, no longer than that, and a bit of food, and enough jiggers to get some liquor and clothes.”

  “I’d recommend a bath, too,” she said.

  “Didn’t I say that? I meant to.”

  She seemed to relax. “Okay, Greg. But that spends it, you understand? Not a drop of change.”

  “Sure.” He wobbled to his feet. “Thanks.”

  “What are you back here for? And so trashed-looking? It’s down this way, along the canal a half mile. Can you walk?”

  “Yeah, half a mile, anyway. I’m…” He’d be doing her no favor to let her in on the Irvine-Venice connection. “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Been looking down sewers, it seems like. What’d you do to your hand?”

  “Mashed it. Saw a doctor today. He splinted my first two fingers and had to cut off two.”

  She stopped. “Jesus, Greg! Can you still play your… what was it, pelican?”

  “Right. I don’t know. Holding the bow shouldn’t be too hard, and as for plucking the strings, I never used the missing fingers much anyway. I guess it depends on how the two I’m left with heal up.”

  “Huh. Mashing your hand have to do with finding this person?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anybody going to come looking for you? In rough ways?”

  “No. This,” he said, waving his bandaged hand, “was an accident. Nobody did it to me.”

  “Okay.” For a while they trudged along in silence, then she said, “You know, it was a shock to hear your name after all this time. I was with a guy there in the Lancing, and I hear this commotion by the front door, like a bum’s trying to get in, and then I hear the bum say he’s you. And then I ditch this guy and walk outside and it is you, sitting i
n the dirt and soaking your beard with cheap whiskey! You’re lucky I even still recognized you.”

  “Reckon I am,” said Rivas shortly, not relishing this conversation.

  “Are you in, like, disguise, or are you really this low?”

  “I’m in goddamn disguise, okay?”

  “You’re as grouchy as ever, that’s for sure.”

  “I just lost two fingers, do you mind? I’m never at my most charming right after amputations.”

  “Not a drop of change, Rivas. Not the price of a cup of beer.” Her tone was amiable but obviously sincere.

  She lived in a narrow one-story house that fronted on the canal, with its own tiny pier and a flock of ducks hanging around in case anybody might throw bread crusts. She had obviously prospered, for on the roof he could see a maintained-looking water tank and the pole-mounted propeller of a windmill. She led him in and showed him where the bath was, and when he emerged twenty minutes later she had men’s clothes right in the house that fit him well enough. She’d cooked up scrambled eggs with some canal shrimps and onions and garlic while he was in the tub, and he cheered up immensely when he smelled it.

  He sat down at her kitchen table, picked up his fork, and then didn’t speak for fifteen minutes. “God,” he said finally as he sat back after the last swallow, “thanks. I believe I was about to expire.”

  “You’re welcome. Want a drink?”

  “Oh no, I’d better not, I—well—maybe it’ll help me sleep.”

  “Look at it as medicine,” she agreed drily. “What, beer, whiskey, tequila? No Currency.”

  “To hell with Currency. Uh… tequila.”

  “Coming up.”

  She brought him a big shot with beer and salt and a quartered lemon on the side. He ignored the salt and lemon, bolted the tequila and chased it with the beer.