The simple question stopped him cold. He had not realized how much he had relaxed in her company until the iciness of her querying tightened his muscles. He searched her face for signs of treachery. Her blue eyes went wider at his grim expression and her smile lost its confidence. He took a deep breath to spill out some sort of an answer, but it came out as a racking cough. It didn’t stop. It tortured him, driving the air from his lungs, reddening his face and making tears roll from the comers of his eyes. He pushed against Lynda and then staggered to his feet, his hands on his knees as he bent to try and take in air. Other customers were looking up in dismay, and one man rose to ask her if her friend were choking. Wizard shook his head in an emphatic no. “Air,” he gasped. “Cold air.”
He shook Lynda’s grip from his sleeve and staggered out the door of City Picnics. In the hallway he headed for the stairs and clambered up them, still wheezing and hacking. The circle of his vision was narrowing, darkness closing in from the periphery. He got the door open and staggered out onto the sidewalk, to lean up against the building. His chest did not feel so compressed here. He began to take small, short breaths and then longer, deeper ones. His face was still cooling when Lynda dashed out the door, her head swiveling in all directions.
“There you are!” she exclaimed. She dropped her shopping bag and shrugged into her raincoat, gripping her purse strap with her teeth.“Are you all right?” she demanded as soon as her mouth was empty. “That was just awful! Everyone was so worried, but I said it was just a bronchial attack and grabbed my stuff and followed you. I could tell you didn’t want everyone making a big fuss over you. Now, are you okay?”
Wizard nodded slowly. He straightened from leaning on the building, and she instantly had his arm. She was strong, taking part of his weight whether he wanted her to or not. She began to steer him slowly down the sidewalk, talking all the while.
That was one good thing about her. She talked so much that he had to say almost nothing at all. Now, why was that good? he wondered. He tuned into her monologue. “… Hot buttered rum. Or a hot toddy or Irish coffee. Something hot. I bet I know a good place for that. It’ll cut that junk in your throat and make you feel better. Warm you up inside. Come on, it’s only a few blocks from here.”
Wizard found himself nodding as he leaned against her support. She fit neatly under his arm. A hooker walked past them, headed in the opposite direction. Her heels tacked clearly against the pavement as she strode along, heading for more heavily traveled streets. He had a brief impression of her short bright dress, the elegantly casual coiling of her hair upon her shoulders that was her only wrap against the cold November night, and her parted lips shining in the lamplight. Then her black empty eyes hit him with a bolt of sadness that staggered him back against the wall of the building. She turned her head as she passed, tearing him with the hooks of her smile. Her agony raced through him. For a second he felt sure that, had he been alone, she would have said something to him, and he would have Known something to tell her. But he wasn’t alone, and he didn’t Know, and she kept clipping along, her footsteps fading swiftly from his hearing. He rubbed his forehead and pushed the hair back from his face. Lynda was staring at him. He had almost forgotten her.
“What was that?” she demanded, little lights dancing angrily in her eyes.
“I don’t know,” he managed. Then more words pushed up out of him, words he hadn’t consciously planned to say. “Lynda. I have to go home now. Thank you for treating me so kindly. But.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” She gripped his arm firmly and hauled him up beside her. “Some chippie walks past and gives you the eye, and you decide to drop me and give chase, huh?”‘
“No. No, not that way at all!”
“I know!” Her tone changed, and he stared at her, astonished. She had been joking with him. he realized giddily. Joking. “No, I knew you weren’t going after her. But I also know where you were going. What are you worried about? That they’ll run out of cots at the shelter? Forget that tonight. You’re with me now, and I plan to take good care of you. We’re going to take care of that cough and get you all straightened around. You just wait and see. And trust me. I mean it now. Trust me. Come on.”
She dragged at him like a riptide. There was no resistance left in him. He pushed away his worries as she wrapped his arm around her. They walked, he paying no attention to where they were going.
Second Avenue South. It took a while for him to recognize it, lit up for the evening trade. Neon signs and streetlights and the headlights of passing cars gave more light to the barren streets than they got by day. The brightness of a beer advertisement in the night dazzled his eyes. But the place she chose for them was neither bright nor inviting. She trundled him past the Silver Dollar, Bogart’s, and the Columbus Tavern to draw him into a place whose name he didn’t notice.
The door was heavy, but she dragged him inside. Most of the interior space was devoted to pool tables with low, shaded lights dangling over the green felt. The men playing were working men. Regulars. It was obvious from a glance that he had entered their territory and they looked up from their games to stare at Wizard for longer than was polite. There was a long bar to the right, and to this Lynda steered him.
She hitched her tidy hips neatly onto a seat, but Wizard mounted the backless stool as if it were a strange animal. A confusion of odors assaulted him. He left his eyes rove over the back shelves of tall bottles. “Teddy!” Lynda called out. She was in command here, and enjoying it. “Let us have a couple of Irish coffees. In mugs; I hate those phony glass things. Seems quiet in here tonight.”
It seemed anything but quiet to Wizard. There was the clack and rumble of the pool games and a large-pored man on television was excitedly relating the events of a ball game, backed by a chorus of male voices laughing and swearing and muttering. Above it all was the high-pitched whisper of the television tube, harmonizing with the special pitch of the fluorescent lights over the pool tables. Like tiny twin drills the high sounds bored into Wizard’s ears and temples. And there was a third type of sound, for his ears only. Danger was screaming in here, pressing in all around him like a million tiny needles trying to pierce his flesh with their warnings’ Danger and trap and an exposed back and an idiot on point and a coward on drag, they all screamed, all demanding his attention at once. His eyes roamed the room, trying to find the source of his uneasiness, but found nothing. Only people, the same sort of people he moved among every day. Teddy was setting mugs before them then.
“So where’s Booth these days?” Teddy asked Lynda in a genially teasing voice.
“Not here, thank God!” she replied emphatically. Something whizzed past Wizard’s mind, some very important clue. He went groping after it, but just as he nearly had it, Lynda shook his arm. “Come on, I want you to drink this. It’ll do you good. Clear your chest so you can breathe. Try it, baby.” She set an example, sipping from her mug as her eyes darted around the room. He wondered what she was watching for.
He picked up his own mug. The aroma of coffee rose like a benediction. He put it to his lips and drew in a mouthful.
The cream was sweet, the coffee strong and the whiskey bit pleasantly. Somehow he had not expected it. As he set down the mug he observed to Lynda, “There’s whiskey in my coffee.”
“I hope to God there is, at the prices Teddy charges. Drink it up. Make you feel warmer.”
Wizard nodded as he sipped again. A secret warmth was spreading out from his belly now.
“Listen,” Lynda said suddenly, standing up. “I gotta visit the little girl’s room. You sit tight and watch my stuff. Okay?”
Wizard nodded distractedly. He was experimenting with the coffee, sipping it and trying to sort out the electric shocks of the whiskey from the steady rush of the caffeine. He wrapped both hands around the mug, enjoying the heat against his chilled fingers. He glanced up to find Teddy watching him, a cruel smile hovering on his mouth. Then the smile went past Wizard and turned to a scowl. Wizard heard him growl softly to h
imself in puzzlement. He followed Teddy’s stare.
She was a stout woman, dressed all in black. Her white hair was up in a severe bun at the back of her neck. Her disapproving mouth was buttoned over her double chin. She wore her heavy black good coat and sensible black lace-up shoes. Her eyes were black, too, and piercing. They bored into Wizard, and her second chin trembled with the strength of her indignation.
She pushed past a pool player, spoiling his shot, and stepped up to within inches of Wizard. Her raspy voice cut through the noise of the bar like a radio signal cutting through static.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to yourself! Adding booze on top of everything else. You’re poisoning yourself! And what about the rest of us? After you go down, what happens to us? You’ve got to pull out of this tailspin.”
“Stop bothering the customers, ma’am. This is no place for a lady like yourself. You could get into trouble here. Best you go home now.” Teddy had come out from behind the bar. He didn’t look as tall as he had when serving drinks. He tried to take the old woman’s arm, but she jerked away from him angrily. She glared at the attention she was getting and lifted her voice high.
“Alcohol is a poison. Poison, plain and simple. You can dilute it, you can flavor it, you can age it in oak casks, but it is still poison. You are ingesting poison with every sip you take and asking your body to deal with it. Your body has enough to deal with just surviving in this day and age, without your deliberately poisoning it. Some of us,” her eyes stabbed Wizard, “are less able to deal with the poisons of alcohol than others. Show yourself a man. Put down that evil drink and walk out of here. Take command of your life again!”
She shouted the last sentence as Teddy steered her toward the door, her head swiveling on her neck to fling the message at him. “A poison!” she called as the door swung shut. “Poisonous bait in a trap for the unwary!”
He felt relieved when she was gone, yet, again, the uneasiness nibbled at him. He had missed another clue. He was sure there was a hint at the reason for the nervousness that plagued him here. Yet it was not in the old woman’s words, which he accepted as absolute truth, but in Teddy’s. He knew he shouldn’t be here. He sipped at his coffee, weighing his bits of clues.
But just as they started to tumble into a pattern, he felt a bump of warm flesh and Lynda was back on the barstool behind him.
“Did you miss me?” she asked in a silky voice.
“No,” he replied distractedly, sipping at his drink.
“Oh, you!” Lynda gave him a friendly punch and took a healthy swallow of her drink. Her eyes flickered to Teddy, and then turned on her stool to face Wizard. Her knees were warm bumps against his thigh. She changed her face to a pout and her voice became childish as she complained, “I wish you’d talk to me more. Being out with you isn’t much different from being out alone. You act like we’re not even together. Is something wrong with me? Would you rather be alone?”
He looked at her very carefully. She sounded like a different woman than the Lynda who had fed him earlier. He wondered which question he was supposed to answer first. He had forgotten all about this kind of talking. It wasn’t like talking to Cassie or Sylvester or Euripides or Rasputin. They had things to say, important things said in deceptively simple words. Lynda had something to say, but she said everything except what she was trying to tell him. Her message to him was lost in her words, and he had no idea of how to reply.
He stared at her over the rim of his mug. The renewed warmth of the drink hit the walls of his body like waves against a breakwater. He tried for an instant to find power and focus his magic on her so he could understand what was Truth here.
But even as he groped in his darkened soul, he remembered the magic was gone. A wave of misery washed over him and he took a sip of coffee to counteract it. No wonder he could not find the right thing to say to her. He fell back on his old instincts, and picked through the bewildering array of things he could say to her for the most truthful one. She had stared at him through his long silence. Teddy was smirking as he polished a glass. Lynda’s face was pinker than Wizard had ever seen it.
“I have the feeling,” he said carefully, “that this is not the best place for us to be.” That was better. Speaking his thoughts did focus them, and she had gone from angry to rapt, leaning closer to hear his soft voice. Teddy no longer looked so amused.
“I can’t say what it is that bothers me, but this is not a good place for us.” Teddy’s words leaped into his mind and he mouthed them. “This is no place for a lady like yourself.”
Lynda was glowing in his words, her smile gone soft and gentle. Wizard felt very pleased with himself for an instant. and then the impact of his own words broke on him like a douse of cold water. This was no place for a lady. Not this bar.
This was a man’s bar, with a constant edge in the air. A certain type of man might bring his woman here, but not his lady. It was not a place for quiet talking, for the sharing of thoughts or companionable silences. It was a place for displays and competitions, challenges and threats. It was a place where misplaced men came to prod balls around a table, to drink and mutter angrily and helplessly at one another, and then to fight short, ugly fights. Not a place to bring a friend one valued. So why had Lynda brought him here? And who had brought her here before?
No answers to those questions, but a solution. Leave. He rose from his stool, feeling a strange rubberiness in his knees. It passed and he took Lynda’s arm firmly. He was certain now of the danger here. She had tempted it, but she had fed him. The least he could do was take her to a safer place.
“What’s wrong?” Her voice was a shade short of baby talk, her mouth a plump little pout. Charades for Teddy.
“Nothing, yet. But if you want to sit and talk with me, we have to find a place to talk where I don’t feel exposed. I like my back to a wall. When I’m with a lady, I like to concentrate on the lady, not worry about someone behind me with a pool cue.” He listened to himself in surprise. So he did know how to do that kind of talking. It came out of his mouth too smoothly, too glibly, for it to be new talent. Even the words seemed practiced in their sentences. It poured out of him almost like a Knowing; almost.
“Well—but—let me finish my drink first, then.” She pulled gently away from him, and he saw her eyes dart to Teddy. She wanted him to notice this exchange, to see how Wizard had taken control and wanted to be alone with her. She wanted the other men in the room to see that she was desirable, that this man wanted her. He needed to follow that thought, but the sense of danger pressed against him, squeezing his mind to action. He coughed and, lifting the drink, drained it to clear his throat. The warmth spread through him anew.
“I think we should go someplace quieter, more private.”
These words came even more smoothly. Lynda turned in surprise and gave him a suddenly measuring look.
“Oh. I see. Well, keep your shirt on. The night is young; there’s no rush. Besides, I want to finish my drink.” She leaned to bump her shoulder gently against him, filling his nostrils with her scent. She was enjoying this. He wasn’t.
“I want to leave here now, and I want you to come with me,” he said bluntly. “I think you’d be stupid not to. You could get hurt.”
“Are you threatening her?” Danger spoke from behind him.
Wizard turned to it and found himself eye to eye with Booth.
The final tumbler clicked into place. From the rosy flush on Lynda’s face and the way she moistened her lips, he knew she had scored her hit. This was why she had brought him here, whether she knew it or not, to this place no man would bring a woman he cared about. Because this was Booth’s place, and this was where he had brought her. She had come here to be seen with a new man. To lay a fresh little sting on Booth’s pride in revenge for whatever he had done to her. Because she had known that Booth would come here, and the thought of their confrontation warmed her.
“I’m not threatening her.” Wizard spoke the useless words.
/> Lynda hitched closer on her barstool, and snugged her arm through his, keeping him on point. Perhaps she sensed he wanted to flee.
“Mind your own business. Booth,” she snapped.
“I am. Just because we’re not going together anymore doesn’t mean I want to see you get hurt. Look at this guy, Lynda! Where the hell did you pick him up? I heard what he said to you. Don’t do anything stupid like leaving with him.”
Booth’s words were like lines in a play. Wizard knew this scene by heart, had watched it played out in a thousand settings, but never before had he been a principal in it. He tried to step clear, but Lynda clung to his arm.
“Get lost, Booth. I’ll go anywhere I want, with anyone I want.” Her voice was clear and carrying, filling the tavern and interrupting pool games. She had her audience. “You don’t own me. Not anymore. Mind your own business. You didn’t want to treat me nice when you had me, so leave me alone now. What could he do to me worse than what you did? Answer me that?” Lynda blazed at him gloriously, letting her lips go full and her breasts heave, letting him see all he had so carelessly thrown away. “Baby.” She had turned to Wizard now, changing her voice to intimacy, letting Booth see all he was shut away from. “Take me out of here. You were right. Let’s go someplace more private.” She leveled her eyes at Booth once more and fired with deadly accuracy as she observed in a clear voice, “It’s been a long time since I was with a man who knew how to treat a lady. I’d almost forgotten what it was like.”
Teddy the bartender had edged closer during the exchange. Wizard wondered if he was keeping himself handy to prevent trouble or just to witness it. His eyes had a hard, dead glint in them, the look of a man who expects to watch a fight. He wouldn’t stop it. Wizard stiffened.
“If you’re coming with me, we’re leaving now,” he said to Lynda. His voice was cold, its edge cutting through all other sounds in the room. He kept his eyes on Booth as he stepped away from the bar and was amazed to find how easily Lynda came along with him, floating on his arm. Her purse and bag were on her other arm, and he knew that she had been ready for this move, had planned it just this way. As Wizard moved toward the door, she rode on his arm as regally as any queen.
Wizard of the Pigeons Page 15
