A few lights came back on again, but they were dim and fitful. Bosley, meanwhile, had stepped in to claim the baby from Seth's arms.
"You've got no right to do this," Seth protested.
"You're a cocksucker, Lundy," Alstead said. "Fhat gives us all the right we need."
Bosley had a grip on the baby now, but Seth refused to relinquish her.
"Alstead!" Bosley hollered, "give me a hand here."
Alstead didn't need a second invitation. He came around the back of Seth, and grabbed hold of his arms. Larry, mean-' while, had taken out his own gun and had it leveled at Tesla, to keep her from intervening.
"What's going on up there?" he said to her, nodding in the direction of the Heights.
"I don't know. But I do know we're all in deep shit when it gets here. If you want to do some good why don't you evacuate the people who need help, instead of baby snatching?"
"She's got a point, Larry," said Waits. "there's a lot of old folks-2'
"We'll get to them!" Glodoski blustered. "I got it all planned."
Amy began bawling now, as Bosley wrested her from Seth's arms. "She's missing your tits, Lundy," Alstead leered, reaching out to paw his captive's chest.
Seth responded by jabbing his elbow in Alstead's belly, hard enough to drive the wind from him. Cursing, Alstead spun Seth around and punched him in the face, twice, ffi= times, solid blows to nose and mouth. Seth stumbled backwards, his legs betraying him, and fell to the ground. Alstead moved in to kick the youth, but Waits held him back.
"C'mon. Enough!"
"Little cocksucker!"
"Leave him alone, for Christ's sake!" Waits hollered. "We didn't come out here to beat up kids. Larry-?"
Giodoski glanced over at Waits, and as he did so Tesla ducked beneath his arm and flew at him, intending to disarm him. She failed. There was a brief, ragged struggle@e gun twice discharged into the air@fore he caught her a backhanded blow. She reeled before it.
Waits, meanwhile, was hauling the bloodied Seth to his feet, while yelling at Alstead to keep his distance, and Bosley was fumbling for his own -uii, which he'd pocketed before snatching the child.
"Tesla-" Seth hollered, "1.)ok out!"
She shook the blotches from in front of her eyes in time to see not one but two weapons being leveled at her.
"Riiii! " Seth told her.
She had a moment only in which to decide, and her instinct carried the day. Before Giodoski or Bosley could get a bead on her she was away, pelting down the block. Behind her she heard Glodoski yellin-. Then he fired. The bullet carved a niche in the sidewalk a ytrd to her right.
"Larry, stop!" Waits was shoutin-. "Are you crazy?"
Glodoski simply fired again. This time the bullet shattered a store window behind her. She made the corner without a third shot being- fired, and glanced round to see that Waits had caught hold of Glodoski and was attempting to wrest the weapon from him. She didn't wait for the outcome, but darted out of sight and range.
She bitterly regretted losing Seth and Amy, but the encounter had served a purpose Giodoski and his bully-boys would regret. If there was power to be begged, stolen, or borrowed from Buddenbaum then she'd have it, and damn the niceties.
iv As Harry, Maeve, and Raul crossed Unger's Creek the lights in the streets ahead, which had been flickering for a quarter of an hour, gave up completely. The trio halted for a moment, their other senses attenuated in the sudden darkness. There was no comfort to he had from them, however. they heard only panicked cries from the city, and from the thicket and trees silence, as though every nighthird and insect knew what Sapas Humana did not: that death was coming, and the loudest would be found first. As for the other senses, their news was no better. For all the balm of the summer air, it carried that tang Harry had nosed entering the building at Ninth and Thirteenth: rotten fish and smoking spice. It was on the tongue too, tempting the stomach to rebellion.
"They're coming," Raul said.
"It had to happen."
"Will you hurry yourself, then?" Maeve said. "I want to see my city before we all go to Hell."
"Anywhere in particular?" Harry said.
"Yes, as you're asking," Maeve replied. "There's a crossroads-"
"What is it about those damn crossroads?" Harry said.
"It's where I lived. Where we built our house, my husband and me. And let me tell you, that house was a glory. A glory. Until the sons of bitches burned it down."
"Why did they do that?"
"Oh, the usual. Too much righteousness and too little passion. What I would give for a taste, just a taste, of the way it was at the beginning, when we still had hope... "
She fell into silence for a few moments. Then she erupted afresh: "Take me there!" she hollered. "Take me there! Let me see the ground where it all began!"
Tesia found Buddenbaum sifung in the Nook, as Seth had told her she would. The little coffee shop was deserted, and dark but for the fire Buddenbaum had started on a plate in front of him, feeding it with scraps of menu.
"I was about to give up on you," he said, with a smile that was very nearly sincere.
"I got waylaid." "By some of the locals?"
"Yes." She came to his table, and sat down opposite him, plucking a napkin from the dispenser to moo the sweat from her face. Then she plucked another and blew her nose.
"I know what you're thinking," Buddenbaum said. "Oh, do you?"
"You're thinking: Why should I give a shit about these fucking people? They're cruel and they're stupid, and when they're afraid they just become more cruel and more stupid."
"You're exempting us from this, of course."
"Of course. You're a Nunciate. And I'm-"
"The Jai-Wai's man."
Buddenbaum grimaced. "Do they know you've come here?"
"I told them I was going walkabout, to think things through." She dug in her pocket, and pulled out the cards. "Ever seen these before, by the way?" She laid them on the table. Buddenbaum regarded them almost superstitiously, his mouth tight.
"Whose are they?" he said, his fingers hovering over them but not making contact.
"I don't know."
"They've been in powerful hands," he said appreciatively.
Testa went back into her pocket in pursuit of a stray card, and brought out the remains of the reefer she'd confiscated from the crucifixion singer. She sniffed it. Whatever it contained, it smelled appealingly pungent. She plucked a spill of burning cardboard off the plate, and putting the reefer to her. lips, lit it.
"Will you work for them?" Buddenbaum said.
"The Jai-Wai?" she said. He nodded. "I doubt it."
"Why not?"
"They're psychotic, Buddenbaum. they get a buzz out of seeing people suffer."
"Don't we all?" "No." She inhaled, just half a lungful. Held the smoke. "Oh, come on Bombeck," Buddenbaum replied. "You wrote for the movies. You know what gives people a thrill." She exhaled a breath of lilac smoke. "The difference is: This is real."
Buddenbaum leaned forward. "Are you going to share that?" he said. She passed the joint over the fire. It had induced some subtle visual hallucinations. The flames had slowed their licking, and the beads of sweat on Buddenbaum had become crystalline. He drew on the joint, and spoke as he held his breath. "What's real to us isn't what's real to the rest of the world. You know that." He turned his gaze towards the dark street. A family of five was hurrying along the sidewalk, the children sobbing. "Whatever they're suffering," he said, exhaling now,
"and I don't mean to diminish them in saying this-it's an animal response. that's not real in any absolute sense. It will pass. All things pass, sooner or later." She remembered Kissoon, in Toothaker's house. This had been his wisdom too.