Chariot - [Millennium Quartet 03]

by Charles L. Grant

  Finally, one afternoon in late September, Steph and a reluctant Cable threw a welcome to Emerald City, front yard barbecue which everyone attended. After a lot of milling around and trading well-worn gossip about the fate of their street, Steph, being Steph, asked her quite innocently how it was, growing up an African-American in the South.

  Eula looked up at her, head slightly cocked, before lifting a hand in a dismissive wave. “Shoo, girl,” she said, grinning, showing her teeth, “there’s this little place in Alabama, you ain’t never heard of it, a lot of old shacks and cabins, and that’s where this old fat woman’s from. Been through nigger and Negro, colored and black, I guess those politic boys mean well but I been here longer than God and a few angels.” She shook her head, still grinning, and took Steph’s arm. “Ebony is black, honey, and I’m damn sure tougher than that.”

  Her laughter coasted across the desert on the late afternoon’s slow wind, and once she had been persuaded to sing them all a song, no one ever noticed the color again.

  Except the green.

  Jude thought it wonderful, all God’s children living together and getting along.

  Trey didn’t pay her much mind since he wasn’t around all that much, until shortly after they realized she had become, in finger-snap time, a star on the gospel radio circuit. Concerts in churches, auditoriums, high schools, wherever a sound system, a choir, and at least a solid piano could be found.

  He had been on the porch, watching her head down the street toward the taxi, when a gust slammed the hat off her head. It arced like a boomerang, and without thinking he lunged into the yard and grabbed it before it hit the ground, stumbled a few steps, and came up grinning.

  “Haven’t moved like that since I was a kid,” he said, handing it over.

  She fussed with her hair, mostly white, then dusted off the hat and set it in place.

  “Maybe you ought to tie it down,” he had said, miming it flying loose again.

  When she was done, everything in place, she looked up at him. Not smiling. Lips tight. Hands clasping her purse snug against her stomach. “I think,” she said at last, “I got nothing to say to you.”

  And walked away.

  Leaving him in the street, watching her back, wondering what in hell line he had crossed.

  That was no Big Star talking to a Little Person.

  That was pure and simple personal.

  A few questions to his neighbors over the next several days gave him no answers. Everybody loved her, and she loved everybody. Trey had obviously insulted her somehow, it was his fault, he was the one who had to make it up to her.

  He never did because he never tried. Her problem, not his, and they never spoke again.

  Jude, in December, had tried to intervene, but he didn’t want any part of it. It was, he told her, no skin off his nose. She thought that a particularly cruel and cold sentiment, but the only response he could give her was a whatever shrug.

  So the animosity remained.

  Hanging in the heat.

  * * * *

  3

  The plan was simple: even though it was too early for O’Cleary’s shift, he would avoid the Excalibur, in fact stay away from all the hotels at the bottom of the Strip just in case Dodger went wandering. The last thing he wanted today was a confrontation with a man who was almost a friend.

  Instead, he would start midway along, either with Caesar’s, or the much smaller Barbary Coast across Las Vegas Boulevard, and work his way up. Taking his time. No hurry at all. If the slots were well-disposed toward him, he might even visit the older casinos, the ones that hadn’t been given over to families and fads, where the only themes were gambling and dining.

  Usually he wouldn’t do so much in one day; usually Jude didn’t throw him a kiss.

  Had the gesture been more studied, more elaborate, more grand, he would have known it to be mocking, almost scolding. It hadn’t been. It had been quick, without thought. Not much to base a surprise on, but for him, for the time being, it was enough.

  If the cherries, the bars, the sevens lined up right, it wouldn’t be long before Moonbow would have more than a necklace for her birthday.

  Then it wouldn’t make a difference if queens didn’t take to men like him.

  * * * *

  4

  His stomach betrayed him.

  Anxious as he was to talk to his machines, his stomach launched a vigorous and noisy protest as soon as he had parked in his usual space behind the Excalibur. He hoped to ignore it, to get at least one decent session in before he had to appease it, but it gurgled so loudly that one or two people stared, and one or two laughed at the reminder he’d only eaten a slice of toast for breakfast.

  Patience, he thought; patience, my boy, and some food.

  Since there were still remnants of his good mood hanging loose over his shoulders, he decided to treat himself to Madame Song’s, a small, decidedly non-fancy restaurant a block up the Strip from the MGM Grand, tucked into the middle of a handful of small shops that laid obvious traps for obvious tourists. It was associated with no hotel, had no slots in its small foyer, seemed in fact determined to ignore the bustle of the boulevard entirely. A large menu, inexpensive meals, and a willingness to permit its customers to linger made it a favorite among those who were weary of hotel food and prices.

  Tinted glass in the large front window shielded the inside from the boulevard’s glare; the air-conditioning was set permanently to “semi-Arctic,” which taught Trey fast enough not to order hot meals he couldn’t finish quickly; and the noise level was so low it was almost churchlike.

  A place to think, to recoup energy, to brood over losses over a large cup of coffee at three in the morning; no one to hassle you, no one to ride your back if you’ve had one or two drinks too many, no one to provide false hope, false cheer.

  The setup was ordinary: padded rounded booths against the walls and along the front window, bare dark-wood tables in the middle, a short counter hardly anyone ever used. No taped music, Chinese or otherwise. Murals of Chinese landscapes in muted colors. A sign at the register facing the front door that warned potential customers that this was not a Chinese restaurant, get your moo shu pork somewhere else.

  Trey sat in a booth for four near the entrance, his back to the door, chosen because he had long ago discovered it was one of the few places in the room where the air-conditioning ducts didn’t blow straight on him, and his meal. With no effort at all he could see the sprawl of the Monte Carlo across the street, and Caesar’s through the shimmering glare farther up. A little effort looking over his shoulder gave him the skyline-designed New York, New York one block down, and the Statue of Liberty and the Excalibur towers beyond that. Pedestrian traffic was light, street traffic moderate.

  It was Friday; the crowds would turn out much later in the afternoon, seduced by the myth that the heat wouldn’t be so bad once the sun headed for the Spring Mountain Range.

  The waitress, a terminally bored young woman of the old-fashioned gum-chewing, pencil stuck behind the ear kind, brought his egg salad and iced tea and walked away, all without cracking a smile, speaking a word, or letting him know in any number of ways that he was an old and valued customer.

  Her name was Rhonda, and she didn’t give a damn as long as he didn’t forget the tip.

  Which, today, was exactly how he wanted it.

  As he ate, taking his time, he tried to think of Jude throwing him the kiss, and an abrupt wash of sadness close to despair froze the sandwich halfway to his mouth.

  You’re a fool, he thought; you’re building a vague dream on one small gesture. An out-of-character one, at that. You charmed her, you jerk. For one moment you charmed her with a smile and those dimples, that action hero crap, and she forgot, for that moment, who she was.

  Who you are.

  He chewed. He swallowed with some difficulty. He looked through the tinted glass and saw the dragon for what it was in sunlight—lifeless despite the activity, small despite the size. Harsh. W
ithout the depth and magic that night and a million lights cast upon it.

  He took a breath, took a bite, and watched a group of four couples stroll by. They were, as best he could tell, Japanese, two men and three of the women unself-conscious in their surgeon’s masks, the stiff protruding kind that, here, were covered with tiny intricate designs to camouflage another kind of harshness, one that existed outside the valley. They carried cameras, they peered briefly through the tinted glass, they huddled with maps out and fingers pointing, as if the huge signs weren’t maps enough.

  Suddenly one of the women put a palm to her forehead and swayed. Trey watched in horrified amazement when, as she fell backward, the man with her sidestepped quickly to get out of the way. He didn’t even lift a hand to try to catch her.

  Trey almost heard the awful hollow sound when her skull hit the pavement, cursed when none of them moved even then, and bolted from the booth. Once outside he shoved two of the men aside roughly and went down on one knee beside her, hissing soundlessly when his hand touched the burning concrete.

  She was young, almost painfully slender, black hair in even bangs, wearing a short-sleeve blouse with matching white shorts and kneesocks.

  “What are you, nuts?” he snapped at the man who didn’t help her. “Stupid bastard.”

  Carefully, aware that others had begun to stop and look, that the woman’s friends were muttering to each other, he touched two fingers on her neck to get a pulse, then just as carefully gripped her chin and turned her just enough for his left hand to slide under her head.

  He felt the dampness immediately, looked at his fingertips, and saw the blood.

  “Jesus!”

  On his feet again, he slammed open the restaurant door and pointed at the waitress behind the counter. “9-1-1, now!” and bellowed for Madame Song. He didn’t wait, but returned to the woman’s side, pulling off his shirt as he knelt again. He folded it into a pad and as gently as he could slipped it under her head, his good luck charm hanging over her chest.

  “What’s her name?” he asked harshly, without looking up.

  No one answered.

  He glared. “What the hell is her name, damnit?”

  One of the women, eyes watery, whispered, “Yomiko.”

  A curt nod of thanks, and he tapped the fallen woman’s cheeks lightly with a finger. “Hey, Yomiko,” he said. “Come on, Yomiko, come on back.”

  “She ...” The woman leaned over. “She sick?”

  No, but she damn well needs to breathe, he thought.

  “Knife,” he said, looking at each of them in turn. “Do any of you have a knife?”

  They just stared, and it was then that he realized he wasn’t being crowded. Except for the one who told him the woman’s name, the others stayed well away.

  “Here,” a man in the growing crowd said, and tossed him a small Swiss army knife.

  Trey slid open a blade and sliced through the elastic cord that held her mask in place. “Hey, Yomiko,” he whispered, letting the mask fall to one side, “come on, kid, don’t get stupid on me here.” He tapped her cheeks again. He glanced at his shirt and saw the red stain. “Yomiko, come on.”

  Her eyelids fluttered just as Madame Song bustled from the restaurant. She was an imposing six feet tall, as always wearing a blue silk Chinese dress covered by an immaculate apron. Her hair was in a large bun pierced by a gold comb, and however old she was, it did not leave a mark on her face.

  She looked at Trey, looked at the others, and immediately launched into a series of questions, each of whose stammered, respectful answers made the next one more shrill.

  Trey leaned closer to his charge’s face. “Come on, Yomiko, you’re not dead, you know. Come on, honey, wake up.”

  Madame Song yelled and waved her arms; the others cowered.

  A siren.

  Yomiko’s eyelids jumped, fluttered, and opened.

  Trey shaded her eyes with one hand, and smiled. “You feel okay?”

  Dazed, she stared at him.

  “I know. Stupid question. I’m the town expert, in case you’re wondering.”

  Her lips, tiny and pale, twitched.

  “You fainted, huh?”

  Without warning she tried to sit up, gasped. and groaned, and would have cracked her skull again had he not caught her. “Easy, kid, take it easy. You’re going to have a lump back there the size of a baseball as it is.”

  Tears filled her eyes. One hand trembled across her face, and those eyes widened until he took her wrist and gently pulled the hand away.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay, don’t worry.” He winked. “Best air in the West, I guarantee it. You’ll be okay.”

  Her eyes closed.

  “She be all right?” Madame Song asked over his shoulder.

  “Yeah, I think so.” Gently he brushed the bangs from her brow, using the side of his finger to sweep the sweat away. “The heat probably got to her, that’s all.”

  Then, as both a police cruiser and an ambulance pulled into the curb at the same time, he made the mistake of telling her what had happened. That darkened her face and sent her spiraling into another shrill tirade, the tone of which he had heard a couple of times before, when her employees weren’t doing what they had been told. He didn’t need to understand Japanese, or how Madame Song knew it, to know that Yomiko’s friends were being threatened by everything from curses to butcher knives, and by the gods, if they didn’t do right by this young woman, she would hunt them down and take care of them herself.

  He didn’t dare check to see their expressions; this, he figured, was absolutely not the right time to laugh.

  A moment later a hand tugged his shoulder, an “Okay, mister, thanks, we’ll take over,” and he was on his feet. Squinting in the glare. Not feeling all that terrific himself. There were questions, however, and lots of talk, lots of faces, but the only thing he remembered clearly was the sight of Yomiko on a stretcher being slipped through the ambulance’s back doors.

  And her hand, waving to him weakly.

  Finally, the crowd dispersing at the urging of a uniformed cop, Madame Song grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the entrance. “You. Inside. You burn to a crisp, you practically naked.”

  He didn’t argue. He let himself be brought back to his booth, where she ordered Rhonda to give him anything he wanted, and if she charged him for it, she’d be back walking the Strip with the rest of the scum.

  And with that, the woman was gone.

  A few seconds passed in blessed silence before he looked up and said, “You know, I don’t know if I can eat anything, tell you the truth.”

  “Aw, come on, mister,” Rhonda said, her accent pure East Coast. “If you don’t—”

  “You eat!” Madame Song yelled from the kitchen. “You eat, you don’t die in my restaurant of starvation.”

  The waitress lifted a pencil eyebrow—it’s both our lives, mister, your choice.

  He rubbed his upper arms briskly, shivering slightly in the chilled air. Deliberately not looking outside at the few remaining stragglers peering in at him, he took the menu from his hand and began to ask about the specials.

  “You get double burger, well done, all the trims,” Madame Song yelled from the kitchen. “Don’t push it.”

  He started to laugh, caught himself, and handed the menu back with a shrug. “How,” he wanted to know, “does she do that?”

  Rhonda rolled her eyes. “Chinese magic, for all I know. She does it all the time, spooky as hell.” She snapped her gum for punctuation and added, “I’ll see if I can find something back there for you before you freeze to death.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me,” she said as she walked off, hips in motion. “You so much as get the sniffles, my children’ll be cursed cross-eyed.”

  He did laugh then, quickly, quietly. “Come on, you have kids?”

  She didn’t look back. “Nope. But I ain’t taking no chances.”

  A shake of his head, the idea that this was going
to make a beaut of a story to tell the girls, and he wondered what in hell those people had been thinking. That Yomiko had the Sickness? A slight cough was all he had noticed, and no wonder—if they weren’t used to the desert, which they probably weren’t, all that coming and going into and out of air-conditioned rooms would give anyone a cold.

  The fact that the Sickness, the smallpox, often began with symptoms that resembled the flu, was no excuse. He hadn’t lied to the poor woman—Las Vegas had yet to have a single case, even though, for a time, it had swept through Reno, leaving scores of dead behind: