by Simon Hawke
At one time, according to Solo, Denver had been known as the Queen City of the Rockies, and back then that wasn't a reference to its sizable gay population. The architecture had been primarily of the Victorian style, along with a rather blocky, but not altogether unattractive style of house known as the "Denver Square," of which there were still quite a few remaining. However, in the days just prior to the Collapse, a large influx of people from the east and west coasts had changed the demographics of the city, and Denver had started to lose its own unique identity. They didn't want it to be known as a "cow town" anymore. They wanted to "imagine a great city," which had been a popular progrowth slogan at the time, and in the process of imagining a great city, they had apparently managed to ruin a pretty good one.
Then came the Collapse, and, like most other heavily populated urban centers, Denver suffered. There had been riots and burnings and chronic shortages and power outages and, eventually, Denver had succumbed to the same anarchy the rest of the world had been plunged into. That had been a little over three-quarters of a century ago, however, and since then, they'd made a lot of progress. Or, at least, so Solo said.
I guess I'd been spoiled by Santa Fe. My "City of the Holy Faith" had not been hit as hard by the Collapse as most other places had been. The people had pulled together and managed to largely preserve their graceful and laid-back Southwestern lifestyle. But then, there had never been any major industry in Santa Fe, and the city was in a rather isolated location at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. The people had simply banded together, and since many of them were artists and various counterculture types, they'd had an easier time of it, shifting to an agrarian, barter-based economy. Denver hadn't been so lucky.
The great city they'd imagined had been plunged into a great nightmare of darkness and fighting in the streets. And I got the impression that not all of that had been put behind them. But then, I thought, maybe I was being unfair. I had only just arrived. Why not give the place a chance? What the hell, I could always go back home, right?
The cab dropped us off in front of Solo's building, and we went through the front doors into the lobby. The security guard on duty at the desk was a senior citizen, and I noticed that he greeted Solo with a warm smile and a "Good evening, Commissioner."
"Evening, Joe," said Solo. He paused briefly to introduce me and tell the guard I'd be staying for a while. Joe smiled and greeted me politely.
"Ex-cop," said Solo, as we headed toward the elevator.
"I guessed," I said.
He pushed the call button and the doors opened.
"Floor, please," said the elevator.
"Ten," said Solo.
"Thank you, Mr. Solo." The doors closed, and the elevator started to ascend smoothly. It was very plush in there. Carpeted, nice paneling. The elevator's voice-command capability meant it was computer controlled, very slick and fancy. I gathered that the rent here wasn't cheap.
We got off at the tenth floor and went a short distance down the hall to apartment 10-C. Solo opened up the door and stood aside to let me in.
"Well, here it is," he said. "This is where I hang my hat."
I sauntered in and looked around, twitching my tail back and forth. A nervous habit. "Nice," I said.
"It's got a nice view of the mountains from the balcony."
It did, too, from what I could see through the sliding glass doors, but after that plane ride, I'd had about enough of heights for a while.
"Would you like something to drink?' asked Solo, automatically, and then he remembered he was talking to a cat and added, awkwardly, "I... uh... always keep some milk around for my coffee."
"Milk would be fine, thanks. I take it neat, in a saucer."
Solo looked at me, saw that his leg was being pulled a bit, and grinned. "Neat, in a saucer, coming right up."
The place was a lot different from Paulie's adobe house in Santa Fe. For one thing, it was an apartment, not a house, though its square footage wasn't all that much less than Paulie's home. As far as apartments went, these were pretty classy digs. I made a quick walk-through inventory. Big living room with a nice fireplace, two bedrooms, large bath, separate kitchen, dining room, large balcony. The carpeting was thick, wall-to-wall, brown pile, and fie furnishings looked as if they'd all been bought at once. It was the kind of thing a decisive man who didn't want to waste a lot of time would do. Went in, knew what he wanted, picked up a set. Everything matched, and most of it looked reasonably new. Big, brown leather and mahogany, sturdy kind of stuff, built for comfort with lots of room to stretch out. None of that steel and glass crap. One of the end tables held an honest-to-God Remington bronze that had to be worth a fortune. There were no paintings on the walls, but there were several large, nicely framed Civil War prints by Don Troiani. Again, not cheap. And again, revealing an old-fashioned, manly kind of taste that would give a decorator fits. I noticed a couple of guns hanging on the wall. Antique, black-powder, cap-and-ball revolvers. Navy Colts, by the look of them. I wasn't an expert, but I read a lot, and Paulie had a taste for American history, as well. One of the bedrooms had been turned into a study, with bookshelves and a large oak desk stained dark walnut, with a comfortable leather swivel chair behind it. The desk held a computer, a pipe stand, and a cork-lined humidor, and there was a nice residual smell of cavendish tobacco in the air. Another old-fashioned and outmoded habit. There was no sign of a woman's touch anywhere about the place. Definitely bachelor digs. Warm and comfortable and tidy, with no concessions to style or fashion.
"Milk, straight up, in a saucer," Solo said, putting the dish down as I sauntered back into the living room. "Place meet with your approval?"
"Sorry about that," I said. "Didn't mean to be nosy. It's an inbred trait."
"It's okay," he said. "You hungry? I'm afraid I don't have any cat food, but I can go out and pick some up."
"Thanks, but I'm okay for now," I said.
"You got any preferences?" he asked. "I mean, like particular brands?''
"Hey, man, I spent most of my life rooting around in the garbage for food," I told him. "I'm not a fussy guy. I'll eat just about anything except birds. I hate birds."
Solo grinned and sat down on the couch. "Well," he said, a trifle awkwardly, "here we are."
"Yeah, here we are," I said, taking a seat on the carpet. I didn't know the rules yet, so I had no idea if the guy had a thing about animals on the furniture. When you're a guest, you try to be polite.
I guess neither one of us really knew what the hell we were supposed to do. It wasn't exactly your normal sort of situation. Hey, buddy, do me a favor, take care of my cat after I'm gone. It was pretty obvious that I wasn't your average cat. Hell, I wasn't even your average thaumagene. I had plenty of rough edges. I didn't even know if Solo liked cats.
"So, how do you feel about cats?" I asked him, figuring that at least one of us had to start somewhere.
Solo shrugged. "I don't know really. I've never had one. I guess I'm not really a cat person. Not that I've got anything against cats, you understand, I've never had a dog, either. And I'm not too crazy about birds, myself. Had a hamster once, when I was a kid."
"A hamster, huh?"
"Yeah. It died."
"Sorry to hear that."
"I felt sorta sorry for it, sitting in that cage all the time, and I used to let it out to run around. One time, it got away from me and scurried off somewhere. My mother found it. She sucked it up into the vacuum cleaner."
I tried, but I just couldn't make it. I managed to keep it down for about five seconds, and then I had to laugh. It just started coming up, and there was nothing I could do to hold it in. The thing is, my laugh sounds a whole lot like a hairball coming up. It starts with this wheezing, hacking kind of sound, and then settles down into a sort of rhythmic snorting, and for a second, Solo looked alarmed, thinking maybe I was choking. Then he realized that I was laughing, and he started laughing, too.
"Actually, it was a pretty traumatic experience for me,
as a kid," he said, when we'd both run out of steam.
"I guess it was, at that," I said. "Sorry for laughing, but..."
"Yeah, I know," he said. "Freaked out my mother pretty badly, too. I mean, one second she's just vacuuming the rug, and then there's this soft, funny sort of chunking sound-"
I started to lose it again, and that set him off, too.
"Oh, hell," he said, trying to catch his breath. "I can't believe I'm laughing about this. I cried for days. We pulled it out of the bag and it was all mashed up and covered with dust-''
And we both promptly lost it again. I couldn't even sit up straight. I just fell over on my side and lay there on the carpet, helpless with hysterics. It's not that I find cruelty to animals amusing, you understand, nor that I have a morbid streak.. .well, maybe I do, who knows? But it was just funny as hell somehow. Aside from which, a hamster's really nothing but a rodent, and you know how cats are about mice. I mean, if God hadn't meant for us to bat 'em around, he wouldn't have made 'em so fucking small and stupid.
There was a knocking at the door, and Solo got up from the couch, wiping his eyes. "Excuse me a minute, will you?" he said, heading for the door.
What happened after that kinda put a damper on the evening. He opened the door, and I heard him say something to someone, and then my ears pricked up as I caught the unmistakable scent of a dog. The dog must have smelled me at about the same time, for the next thing I knew, there was a high-pitched, yipping sort of bark, and the most ridiculous thing I ever saw came barreling around the corner into the living room.
It was one of those small French poodles, with its hair cut in that goofy way that leaves bare patches of skin here and big, fluffy balls of hair there, and it even had a ribbon tied up in the hair on top of its ratty-looking head. But that wasn't the worst part, though it was bad enough. Somebody had actually dyed the stupid thing pink.
I don't know if it expected me to arch my back and spit or take off running with a stark, raving terror, but it's kinda hard to get scared by anything that looks so goddamned silly. It came racing up to me, yipping like an Indian, and when I didn't turn tail and run, it dug in and stopped about six inches away from me, all ribbony and pink malevolence, and bared its teeth and started growling.
"Fuck you," I said, and gave it the claws. Just reached out with a quick right and raked it one, right across its wet and shiny little nose.
The damned thing squealed like a pig caught in a meat grinder and beat a hasty retreat, crying out, "Mommy, Mommy!"
Mommy? I felt like I wanted to puke. Being somewhat distracted by the pink avenger, I hadn't noticed the skirt who came in with Solo. She was a real elegant-looking number, dressed in a formfitting, clingy outfit that didn't leave much to the imagination. For that matter, if she'd been wearing a sack, it wouldn't have left much to the imagination. You can't hide a body like that without really working at it.
I have to confess that human bodies don't really do anything for me, but some human females I can find aesthetically appealing. They're usually the ones who have something of the cat about them, the ones with lean, slim bodies and long legs and a sinewy, graceful way of moving. This lady wasn't one of those. This was the kind of babe Hammer would've liked. Voluptuous, with generous, curvaceous hips, small waist, and large breasts that strained at the fabric of her dress. What they call "an hourglass figure." .I've noticed that a lot of human males seem to really lose their cookies over female anatomy like that. I don't know what their thing is about breasts. Far as I can see, they're only fat.
"Ohhh, my poor baby!" said the skirt, crouching down to scoop up her fluffy, whimpering, pink thaumagene in her arms. "What did the nasty kitty do to my Pinky?"
"The nasty kitty gave Pinky a swat in the kisser," I said, wryly.
She stared at me with loathing while she cradled her trembling pink poodle in her arms, protectively. "You horrible thing!" she said. She glanced at Solo. "What is that?" she asked him, in an accusing tone.
"A cat," said Solo.
"I know it's a cat," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "What's it doing here?"
"Visiting," I said.
She ignored me. "Jay, where did you get that awful beast? Don't tell me you actually went out and bought it?"
"Nobody buys me, lady. I'm not for sale," I said. "We had a mutual friend in common, if it's any of your business, and he passed on recently. We were just getting together at his request to trade some war stories and remember what a privilege it was to know him. And if that ridiculous-looking dog of yours hadn't gotten in my face, I wouldn't have gotten into his."
She just stared at me with her jaw hanging open while Solo stood there, looking uncomfortable, and then Pinky whined, "The kitty hurt me, Mommy!"
"Mommy" turned to Solo and said, "Jay, you're not going to keep that mangy beast, are you? 1 insist you lock it up somewhere! It's scaring Pinky. Look how he's trembling!"
"Hell, lady, if I had to go out in public looking like that, I'd tremble, too," I said.
The look she gave me was pure venom.
"Jay..."
"You want I should leave the room?" I asked him, remembering that it was, after all, his home.
"No, Gomez," he said. "You stay right there."
"Jay!"
"Gomez is my guest, Barbara," Solo said, "and your dog came bursting in here and went after him. Far as I'm concerned, the stupid mutt got what it deserved."
He immediately went up quite a few points in my estimation. But then, I should've known. Any friend of Paulie's was liable to be a stand-up guy.
' 'Jay!'' said the skirt, again, in a shocked tone of voice.
"If you can't control your dog, Barbara, then I suggest you keep him on a leash," said Solo. "Gomez is a friend and he's staying."
"Well! Then maybe I should leave!" she said, in a huff.
"Maybe you should," said Solo.
She stared at him with disbelief, then gathered her wits and turned angrily and stalked back to the door. Solo held it open for her.
"If you think I'm going to stand for this sort of treatment," she said, icily, "then you are very much mistaken."
"Good night, Barbara," said Solo.
"Good-bye, Mr. Solo!"
I think she would have liked to slam the door, only Solo was holding it for her and she had precious, trembling Pinky in her arms. She stalked out angrily and he closed the door behind her.
"Sorry about that," I said. "I didn't mean to spoil anything for you."
Solo simply shrugged. "Oh, you didn't spoil anything," he said. "Barbara lives just down the hall. She moved in a couple of weeks ago. She's divorced and she's been dropping hints that we should get to know each other better, coming by and wanting to borrow coffee or have me open a jar of pickles, all that sort of thing. I hadn't quite figured out a way to brush her off politely, but I guess you just took care of that. She was getting to be a bit of a pest."
"Lot of guys wouldn't mind that kind of pestering," I said.
"I guess not," Solo replied, "but Barbara's not really my type."
"What is?"
He walked over to the desk and picked up a small picture frame. He carried it over and held it out so I could see it. It was a photograph of a lady with a lot of cat in her. She had short, blond hair worn down to her collar, green eyes, a small and slightly turned up nose, nice cheekbones, and a smile that lit up the world. She was dressed in faded jeans and a man's white shirt, with moccasins on her feet. The photograph had been taken outside, in a park. She was sitting on a swing, with one arm up above her head, holding onto the chain, and her head cocked to one side, resting on the arm. Slim body. Long legs. Nothing like Barbara at all. Just looking at the photograph, I could tell that when she moved, it would be with a lithe and supple grace, natural and unselfconscious. The photograph was signed, "Forever, Lisa."
"Pretty lady," I said.
"My wife," Solo replied.
I was surprised. I hadn't seen any evidence of a woman around the place.
And then his next words answered my unspoken question.
"She died about fifteen years ago."
"I'm sorry."
He walked back to the desk slowly, and carefully replaced the picture. It looked like a fairly sturdy frame, but he handled it gently. I didn't think it was because he was afraid of breaking it.
"She was killed in a drive-by shooting," he said. "Stupid. She wasn't the intended target. She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Did you get the guy who did it?" I asked.
Solo looked down at the floor. "No. They were never caught."
He stood staring out the window for a long moment. I didn't know what to say. There really isn't anything you can say in a situation like mat. I'd already said I was sorry, and when you lose someone you care about, sorry just doesn't seem to cut it. I knew how he felt. I'd lost Paulie to a killer, too. Only I got the son of a bitch. I tore his fucking throat out.
"She was only twenty-two," said Solo, staring out the window. He turned around and touched the framed photo on the desk. "We were only married for about six months. Forever didn't last too long."
"And you never married again?" I said.
He shook his head. "I still love her, you know. She's been dead fifteen years, and I still think about her. I've tried dating a few women since then, but... it's just not the same. Silly, isn't it?"
Silly was one thing it wasn't. It was romantic to the point of pain. Most people get over something like that in time, but a few never do. I guess when you find something like that, if you're lucky enough to find something so rare, everything else seems like a pale, bloodless substitute in comparison.
"Sounds like you had a hell of a six months," I said. "Some people go through their whole lives and never find anything like that."
"No, I guess they don't," said Solo. "Why don't you tell me about Paul?"
We spent most of the night talking about our old friend. I told him about the Paul Ramirez I had known, the respected Dean of the College of Sorcerers at the University of New Mexico in Santa Fe, and the local bureau chief of the BOT, and he told me about the younger Paulie he remembered, the gifted student warlock whose scholarship had been arranged by Merlin Ambrosius himself, the uncompromising idealist who had no thought of making it in the big-time league of corporate sorcery and who only wanted to learn everything he could, to perfect his art so he could return to his native New Mexico and teach. And he told me about Paulie's broken heart, about how Paulie had met and fallen in love with his sister, a young woman Solo didn't seem to care for very much, and how she'd led him around by the nose because she thought it was amusing until it broke up, he was never quite sure how, only that Paulie took it pretty hard and would never talk about it.
