The Last Hot Time

by John M. Ford

Black iron through the hard red wheat

  Blue crocuses around her feet

  North prairie house that stands alone

  And the light goes down behind the painted shutters

  In the early dark

  And Persephones daughters are home

  Danny had read the Persephone story: she had been taken away from her mother for part of the year, and the separation made winter. But her daughters . . . ?

  Hard benches in the emigrant cars Straight horizon under strange new stars Railroad passage to a dream of land I 'ntil the wheels stop turning And the milk needs churning And the chaff wants burning And the days get over too soon To quite understand

  White crosses in a pale green plot

  Time passes but the heart moves not

  Take comfort that its Someone's will

  As the storm wina"s rising and the beech tree shudders

  In the golden haze

  And Persephone's daughters are still

  Long shadows from the great white mills Thunder echoes from the unseen hills Somewhere surely there are welcome lights But this is where you 're dwelling And the crop needs weeding And the children feeding And there's never time for a word To soften her nights

  Danny glanced around the room, wondering if there was anyone here who hadn't left home for the Shade. Did anyone get born here? He hadn't seen any children at all. He turned his head away, looked out the window at the empty street. He didn't stop listening.

  Gray geese across the diamond sky

  How long the wings have passed her by

  Good children ought to carry on

  But the clouds shine doubled on the clear blue waters

  In the silver night

  And Persephone's daughters are gone

  Carmen took her bow and came back to the table. Around the room, the other diners were rising from their seats. "Guess we should start?"

  "Guess we should," Lucius said.

  The crowd was moving to a large back room. The tables here were covered with green felt. Behind a brass teller's cage Danny could see racked chips, cased decks of cards in neat stacks. There were already people around a craps table, and a roulette wheel was turning.

  A slightly plump blond woman in a green velvet tuxedo was

  greeting people, shaking hands. "Hello, Lucius, Fox. Nice number, Carmen; thanks. Or do I owe you?"

  "Owe Alvah next time you see him. It's his lyric."

  Lucius said, "Doc, this is Flats Montoya. She owns this joint. Flats, meet Doc Hallownight. He's giving us a try tonight."

  "Good evening, Doc. Didn't I read about you in Lucius's column the other night?"

  "She can cook a rare burger and she reads my column," Lucius said. "Will you marry me? Or at least let me leave teeth marks on your ankles?"

  "Let's hear it for journalistic ethics. Welcome to the game, Doc. Good luck."

  They sat down at one of the round tables. Stagger Lee said, "Our game is even buy-in, table stakes, dealer's choice. You can sit out any game you don't like; we're all friends here, but the game's still poker. Is that all right?"

  "Sure."

  "I'll get the box," the Tokyo Fox said. "Hundred chips each?"

  "Make it a hundred fifty," Stagger said. "Keep us going longer."

  Kitsune nodded and went to the teller's cage. Danny saw the others putting coins on the table, and did likewise. Stagger helped him work out the value of his stake, since the original denominations of the coins didn't seem to mean much here. The Fox returned with several racks of chips and a black wooden box. "The cash goes in here," she said to Danny, "and the house holds the box until we're finished and divide up. They also get a cut of the box for the use of the table. Got it?"

  "Yeah. But why does the money all go up there?"

  "Two reasons," the Fox said. "One, a lot of things get used for money in the Shadow; this establishes that everybody put her stake up, whether it's gold or shamrocks." She herself had put in a small pouch full of beautifully cut stones. "Two, it avoids confusion if someone isn't paying attention, or takes a long piss break, or whatever. Oh, and there's bar service back here too, just in case you think you're playing too well."

  So they played poker. It was, as Stagger Lee had said, a Friendly game, but there was nothing loose about it; a dropped card meant a redeal, as Danny found out carls on. Stagger Lee never dealt

  anything but seven-card stud, no wilds. Kitsune liked draw games, with occasional variations. Lucius alternated seven-stud and five-draw. Carmen changed games every deal, but always called for high-low; it seemed to pay off for her. Danny stuck mostly to five-card draw, what he knew best; he won a couple of big pots but mostly lost slowly.

  There was one thing Danny had never seen before: the buck to show last dealer was a waiter's green order pad, and part of the deal was noting each player's total of chips. All the tables seemed to be doing it.

  It was nearly eleven when the lights flashed red, and a low chime sounded through the room.

  Immediately everyone shoved his and her chips into the center of the table. Every table. Danny stared for a moment, and Lucius shoved Danny's chips in. The Fox slipped the green pad into the flap of her dress. There was a buzz, and the centers of the tables just opened up; the chips dropped out of sight, and the green felt sealed up again.

  Meanwhile, the craps players snapped their chips into racks on the table edge, and the table slid like a drawer into the wall. Two croupiers pulled a false tabletop away from the wainscoting and dropped it over the roulette table; a moment later, waiters were setting salad and hors d'oeuvre dishes out on the "buffet." The teller's cage retracted a foot into the wall, and a panel slid down and faced out flush.

  Another set of waiters came in with trays, and dealt out tea cups, pie, and brandy to all the seated patrons. The standing players were handed drinks; some lit cigarettes, some lounged against the walls.

  A few moments later four police officers came barrelling through the door. Copper buttons glittered on their blue uniforms. "All right," the man in the lead bellowed, "this place is—" He paused, looked around.

  Flats came in, her tuxedo jacket off, a bib-front apron tied over her ruffled shirt and velvet trousers. It read KISS THE COOK. "Hello, O'Gara," she said pleasantly.

  "What's been going on back here, citizen Montoya?" the policeman said.

  "Looks like dessert, O'Gara. Want some tea? I'm all out of doughnuts, and you know I can't afford coffee these days."

  The show went on for fifteen minutes or so; finally the cops filed back out.

  "We always give them fifteen minutes' departure grace," Lucius said to Danny. "Drink your brandy: when there's a raid it's on the house."

  "Which is to say, the house take covers it," Carmen said merrily.

  After fifteen minutes, the table service was removed, order was restored to the craps and roulette players, and the panel covering the chip bucket opened up. The Fox took out the green pad and they reclaimed their stacks.

  "What if they raid us again?" Danny said.

  "Never happen," the Fox said. "It'd be bad art."

  There were no further interruptions. Shortly after one AM, a different chime rang, and Flats came out to say, "Closing down, ladies and gentlemen, closing down. Have you no homes to go to? Last Deal coming up next, ladies and gentlemen, thank you all."

  They finished the hand they were playing—Stagger Lee won with a completely hidden straight—and Kitsune went to retrieve the cash box.

  Danny said, "What about the last deal?" Stagger raised an eyebrow and turned to Lucius, with an odd expression; Lucius touched Danny's elbow and shook his head slightly, conspiratorially.

  Danny followed Lucius out of the back room. The musicians had closed down in the front, but there were still several diners. Danny turned; Kitsune had followed him, but not the others.

  "Sit down a minute, Doc. No more for you, you're driving. 1. burnt beans black for the Doctor here, will you?"

  Danny looked around. Some of the other
back room patrons were gathering their coats to leave, a few were ordering desserts. In the corner two police officers were talking over beer mugs and ravaged hamburger platters. Danny was absolutely certain they had been in the raid.

  "Stagger Lee'll find his own way home," Lucius said. "Let me explain about Last Deal. Everybody still back there gets fifty chips. and they play five-card draw until half of 'em arc tapped. Then everybody goes home. First player out with the biggest winner,

  second with second, and so on. Odd number makes a threesome in the middle. Clear on the concept?"

  Danny tossed it around in his mind for a moment, then nodded.

  Lucius said, "We're just here for the poker. Figured you were, too."

  "Don't blame Stagger," Kitsune said. "He'd have told you if he expected you to play. He made sure you had a ride home, right?"

  Danny drank his black coffee, looked from one of them to the other. "And you—and Lucius—are you—"

  Lucius's eyebrows went up, and he showed a lopsided smile. Kitsune was smiling too. She touched her knee, exposed as she perched on the bar stool. "Don't let the red roses fool you, kid. Lucius only chases girls, and so do I."

  It was all happening too fast. Danny thought hard about what the Fox had said. His mother would have left the room. His grandmother would have come back with a shotgun.

  He thought about—a great number of things. He said, "Can I give either one of you a lift home?"

  Kitsune said, "I'm covered. Lucius would probably appreciate it, though."

  "Yes, I would."

  In the car, driving through the uncertain streets, Danny said, "It's not like I expected. The Shade, I mean."

  "Very little in the world is. I myself find that uncertainty to be one of the few things that makes the prospect of another morning endurable."

  Danny looked at him. Lucius said, "Excuse me, Doc. I was talking like my typewriter."

  "It's all right."

  "Is it? It matters, you know."

  "Well... the other night—"

  "No. Wait. Hold it. I am a journalist, Doc. Anything you tell me is liable to wind up on the opinion pages of a hundred and twenty-seven newspapers syndicated through Global. If you give me your trust, I will value it. I will brood over my ethics, I will agonize, and I will use your secrets, just to get through one more column."

  "I saw somebody get killed the other night."

  "Friend of yours?"

  "No." Danny thought about telling Robin's story. No, that was really out. "I just wondered if—a lot's happened since I got here, and I don't know what to think about most of it."

  "Stop here," Lucius said. They were in the middle of an empty, half-ruined block.

  "You don't live here."

  "Just the fringes of my palatial estate. I want to walk the rest of it. Muse upon a couple of things. Good night, Doc. Thanks for the ride."

  "Yeah. Good night, Lucius."

  Danny drove the rest of the way back wondering what he had said, what he could have said.

  W,

  hen Danny woke late Tuesday morning there was a pot of coffee outside his door, and the Centurion.

  THE CONTRARIAN FLOW

  by Lucius Birdsong

  What times we are living in, loyal readers, what times. Not since the days when the Powers That Clout feared the wholesale dumping of LSD into Our Fair Levee's reservoirs (for late arrivals, LSD refers to a drug of whoopee, not that road on the waterfront) has there been such a to-do over a non-alcoholic beverage.

  Mere days ago one could walk into any flop, crash, or unlit basement in Our Fair Levee and crack open a bottle of the Drink that Keeps on Soaking. No grubby expeditions up to the source, no hoping the source wouldn't laugh in your slack jaws. Why, it was said that in some of the finest wicker hampers of the Gold Coast and the Way Outer I)rie. tucked in among the ehi and the CanfieldY was the odd bonded flagon of Sucker Punch.

  And now? Now you not only have to know to knock two longs and a short, that Louie sent you, and that the password is swordfish, you have to have brought your own, because they ain't got any. Friends, of all the un-Levee-like phrases this correspondent has ever heard, "ain't got any" is by far the un-Levee-est.

  Now, I submit that Our Fair is founded on the principles of personal liberty, free enterprise, and entrepreneurship. If you want to refresh yourself from a noble friend, that is personal liberty. If you prefer to pay someone else to draw one, draw two, draw three-four units of red, that is free enterprise. And if somebody taps, and somebody tipples, and somebody in between collects from both ends, why then, one of you is an entrepreneur and Devil take the hindmost.

  But does it seem, despite all that, that for the last few days Our Fair Levee has had just a little bit less Hell to pay?

  Okay, Danny thought, maybe it makes sense, maybe we did something good. Thanks, Lucius.

  He let out a breath. His chest had been drum-tight without his even noticing. Suddenly, a little relaxed, a little relieved, he had an idea.

  Danny picked up the phone and asked the operator for Ginevra Benci's number. She made the connection for him.

  "Hello?" She sounded sleepy. Danny started to apologize, then caught himself: if he didn't go straight into this he would never manage it at all.

  "It's Doc, Ginny."

  "Hi, Doc." A yawn. "What's going on?"

  "Are you working tonight?"

  "Yeah. Tuesdays to Thursdays, usually, eight at night to two."

  "Would you like to . . ." Okay, what? ". . . see a movie this afternoon? Maybe have some dinner, before you go to work?"

  "This afternoon? Oh! Sure, yeah, that'd be great. What movie?"

  "I heard that there's a Buster Keaton show, all afternoon."

  "Okay. At Laughs Lost, right? Should I just meet you there?"

  "No, I'll come get you."

  "Great. Give me an hour or so, okay?"

  "Yeah. Yeah." He looked around wildly for the clock. ''Two o'clock?"

  "See you then."

  The phone nearly slipped out of his hands as he hung it up. He cleaned up, dressed, went downstairs. Fay and McCain were in the dining room.

  Danny said, "Does Mr. Patrise need me this afternoon?"

  McCain said, "No, I don't think so. He'll be going to the club tonight, and I think he'd like to have you there."

  "I'll meet you there at eight, if that's okay."

  "Just so. Mind telling me where you'll be till then? Just in case."

  "I'm going to the movies. Laughs Lost. We'll probably go out to dinner after—but I don't know where. We, that is—"

  "You needn't say," McCain said easily. "Your time's yours."

  Fay said, "Radiant speak connect? Trupsever glow, carol, abun-daniel."

  She knew, Danny thought. She had sensed something, seen something—or was it obvious? Was McCain grinning, secretlv?

  He nodded to her. She nodded back. He turned to McCain, whose eyes were suddenly flat and cool and empty. "Enjoy yourself, Doc," he said.

  W T hen Danny got to Ginny's building, she was waiting, dashing down the steps in a bright red cloth coat, a bag slung over her shoulder. "My work stuff," she said, tossing the bag behind the seats. "I can change at the club. So we can have a nice, slow dinner."

  Laughs Lost had a big marquee out front, with half an acre of electric bulbs, and spell-fired neon tubing bent into smiling masks. The lobby was full of framed photos of movie stars; all the pictures seemed to be in black and white, and most had a kind of fogg) glow—that was glamour, Danny thought. The seats were worn, and a little creaky. As the lights started to dim, someone dressed as Chaplin's Tramp pushed a broom down the aisle. He tipped Ins hat and disappeared into the darkness.

  First there was a cartoon, a Red Riding Hood and the Wolf

  story set in a world of nightclubs and big cars. When Little Red threw off her cloak, revealing a tiny white dress and a lot of herself, and went into a swing dance, the Wolf's eyes popped yards out of his head. He bashed himself with a mallet. D
anny stared. When had they made this? It couldn't have been for kids.

  The cartoon ended, and in the minute of silence Danny felt his heart banging. He looked straight ahead. The screen flickered again.

  Danny had heard of Buster Keaton, but never seen any of his films. He was hardly ready for the little man with the sad eyes, who never seemed able to smile. Keaton walked onto the screen, in his flat hat and rumpled clothes, and Danny thought, we're supposed to laugh at him}

  Whatever they were supposed to do, they laughed.

  There was a short movie about a moving man with a horse-drawn wagon, slogging on against what seemed like all the powers of nature. And another where Keaton was mistaken for a criminal, ridiculous on the face of it, yet his every action only got more police chasing him. And then a long film about the Civil War, with locomotives chasing one another, burning bridges, cavalry charges— Danny kept thinking of the tight-lipped thriller he had seen the other day, with its spies and trains and war, and somehow it only made this one funnier. The last image was of Buster triumphant (though hardly seeming to notice it), finding a way to salute his fellow soldiers and still kiss his girl.

  Ginny's hand, Danny realized, had slipped easily into his. He started to turn, saw her face white in the glow of the screen. Then, with really rotten timing, the lights came up.

  Stagger Lee was in the lobby, popping chocolate-covered raisins from the jumbo box. "Good afternoon, Doc, Miss Benci. Haven't seen you here before."

  "No," she said. "I've been to some of the late shows, but not this."

  "First time," Stagger said. "What an enviable position. Wish I'd known. It's an addiction, you know: you try the really hard stuff and you'll never kick it." Danny wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. But Stagger Lee just smiled, said, "There's a matinee every weekday. Tomorrow's Laurel and Hardy: I think they figure that's

  midweek, better bring out the heavy artillery. Thursday rotates: Snub Pollard, Charley Chase, Harold Lloyd, lots of other people you never heard of." He pointed a thumb at the pictures on the lobby wall. Stagger Lee had a striking resemblance to Lloyd. "Friday's sound shorts. Fields, the Stooges, Andy Clyde. And the Little Rascals, which is good, because those days I can get some work done. Did you like the cartoon?"