Kid smiled back and wished he hadn’t.
It isn’t his moon I distrust so much, he thought, as it is that first wife in Persia. “I understand,” he said, “as much as I’ll let myself.”
“Maybe,” Kamp said after a moment, “you do. Let’s go back down to the party.”
Walking down the steps, Kid felt self-betrayed and wondered if there were any benefit from the feeling. He wanted to find Lanya and Denny.
Outside on the terrace, while the Captain, beside him, looked around as if for someone else to talk to, Kid thought: I feel the responsibility for him now he probably hoped I felt the night I walked him up here. That is not right, and I don’t like it.
Ernestine Throckmorton said, “Captain! Kid! Ah, there you are,” and began to talk definitely only to Kamp.
Kid excused himself, wondering whether she really was an angel, and went down into the gardens.
Lanya was crossing the bridge in a fury of emerald and indigo.
“Hey,” he said. “Have you seen Denny?”
She turned. “You haven’t. He’s feeling abandoned.”
Paul Fenster, holding his drink beneath his chin, stepped around Kid and said: “Jesus Christ, you’ll never believe what was going on back there in April. I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it.” He laughed.
Lanya didn’t, and asked, “What?”
“A whole bunch of black kids, back in April, they’ve got this whole routine worked out. They’ve got this white boy, called Tarzan: And they were just performing! And of course Roger’s nice old colonel from Alabama was there—the one I was telling you about who gave me so much trouble when I was visiting—and of course he was laughing harder than anybody else. I kid you not, they were swinging from the God-damn trees!”
“What did you do?” Lanya had begun to laugh.
“Sweated a lot,” Fenster said. “And tried to think of some way to leave. You know, guys who come to parties like this in berets and talk about liberating the furniture: Now I’m pretty into that. But I guess that type all had sense enough to get out of Bellona while there was some getting. This Stepin Fetchit stuff, though—well, all I can say is, it’s been a while!”
“Suffering’s supposed to be good for the something-or-other,” Kid said.
“It damn,” Fenster replied, “well better be!” He grunted (simianly?) and walked on across the bridge.
Lanya took Kid’s hand. “…Denny?”
“Yeah.”
“I just left him.” Her dress was shimmering black. A silver circle rose on the hem. “In March.” She gestured with her head.
He said, “You’re beautiful.”
He thought, she’s wistful.
“Thank you. You really like the dress?”
He nodded, kept nodding, and suddenly she laughed and closed his mouth with her fingers.
“I believe you. But I was beginning to think it was too much. Of course I was expecting just to stand around in some elegantly arbored corner holding court; not run around working. Where, I wonder, is Roger?”
Kid held her cool hands against his face with his warm ones. “Let’s find Denny.”
Dawn broke on her waist. “You find him,” she said. “I’ll see you a little later.” A scarlet sun, haloed in yellow, eclipsed the silver moon.
He wondered why but said, “Okay,” and left her on the bridge.
The stream became a pool in March, scaled with immobile leaves.
“I told that bitch!” Dollar stood and rocked on bowed legs. “I told that bitch. After what she tried, you know? I just told her.”
Denny sat cross-legged on the stone bench and didn’t look like he was listening too hard.
Kid walked around the pool. “You trying to get in trouble at my party?”
Dollar’s head jerked: he looked scared.
Denny said, “Dollar’s okay. He ain’t done nothing.”
“I ain’t done nothing,” Dollar echoed. “It’s a real nice party, Kid.”
Kid put his hand on the back of Dollar’s pitted neck and squeezed. “You have a good time. Don’t let anything get you, you know? You got a whole lot of space to walk around in. Something gets you here, you walk on over there. Something gets you there, you go on someplace else. If it happens a third time, come tell me about it. Understand? There’s no strange sun in the sky tonight.”