He sat for hours, playing his tambourine, neither noticing nor caring whether some passerby stopped for a while to listen before continuing on his way.Two way.Twoone dark and one fair, watched him for some time with that oddly bemused expression people get when they realize for the first time that the tambourine is a musical instrument. He felt a certain pride in getting this reaction, and then he noticed that they seemed frightened somehow. They spoke to each other of only the most inconsequential things; shoes that were too tight, hair that wouldn't behave, yet underneath it all they shared a common terror, which neither would admit to. He thought he saw an animal scurry past, but when he looked he saw nothing.nothing. Presentlynt on their way after giggling and putting a dollar in the pocket of his coat. They seemed not as frightened as they'd been a few minutes before.
He played until dark and the chill began to penetrate his fingers, then he put his instrument away, got up, and began to walk around the city, looking for nothing in particular.
You got your pen and paper.
You got your book of rules,
You got your little list,
Of kings and crooks and fools…
"IF I HAD THE VOICE"
Stepovich fell. His stomach told him so. Fell fast and hard and boneless, just like that boy coming out of the tree. He wondered if it would hurt when he landed, and then he wondered if this blackness had a bottom. Maybe the blackness was the surgeons taking the bullet out of his head. Or maybe the blackness was what came when they couldn't get it out. He could feel someone gripping his hand; maybe Jennie had come to be by his deathbed, maybe this blackness was the dying part. He'd heard there was supposed to be a light when you died, and that you'd want to go toward it. He strained his eyes, looking for it, but all he could see was blackness. He could feel the hand in his and smell cheap brandy and garlic mixed with horse sweat.
The carriage landed with a tremendous sproing, like a body thrown against a chain-link fence. He opened his eyes, half expecting to see Marilyn by his death-bed, but he saw fog and buildings and his blue-and-white by the curb. Someone gripped the front of his uniform. The damn Coachman couldn't have been that strong, but maybe he was that scared. He lifted Stepovich half up and gave him a push that sent him sprawling. Stepovich skinned his palms as he landed mostly on his hands and arms in the street. Madam Moria evidently wasn't pleased about this, because she was still screaming in gypsy, but he Coachman seemed to have some plan of his own. Stepovich fell the rest of the way out of the carriage as the black whip cracked. The hooves of the mismatched team skidded and slipped on the damp pavement as the carriage careened off down the street and into an alley. Madam Moria was looking back and shaking her aluminum cane at him as if it were all his fault.
He got his knees under him, was almost up when Durand trotted up to stand over him. "You okay,Step?" he asked anxiously. It was the only thing that could possibly have made it worse: The puppy helping him up like he was some dazed citizen, gripping the front of his shirt to steady him. "You hurt?"
"No!" Stepovich pushed him roughly away, then had to lean against the building. Shit, his head hurt.He hurt.He up to touch it. Lump. No bullet hole.Whahole. Whatl.
"Well, if you're not hurt, how did they get away?"
"In a carriage," Stepovich said viciously. He took his fingers away from the back of his head, looked at the blood.
"Wanta chase them?"
"Fuck, no!" Stepovich took a shuddering breath,realized that Durand was only trying to get the senior officer to take charge of the situation. "What did you find upstairs?" He tried to sound hard and professional. Sounded dazed to himself.
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"No one in the apartment. No weapon. No sign of a struggle. But I did smell powder. Someone let off a gun in there."
"Blood?"
Durand looked nonplused. "Well… I didn't really notice… I mean, every rug up there is red, and I didn't think to…"
"Right," Stepovich said. He walked ponderously tome squad car, leaned in to reach the mike. He told the dispatcher it was all under control, no sign of any gun or quarrel, cancel the call. The dispatcher came back, her annoyance sounding clearly through the static. "Heard you the first time, Stepovich. Canceled it ten minutes ago."
He turned to Durand. "Did you cancel the call?"
"Huh? No." Durand looked puzzled too, which made Stepovich feel better.
There was a feather on the seat of the car, and the interior stank like a barnyard, or a kernel.
His head was buzzing as he straightened up. He scanned the street, not certain what he was looking for, then he stopped and frowned. "What do you make of that?" he said.
Durand looked back. "What?"
"On the door of the building."
Durand walked over and stared at the smear on the glass. "Blood," he said.
"That's what I thought."
Durand said, "What do we do about it?"
Stepovich sighed and shook his head. "Nothing."
Durand came back to him, and stood a little too close; his voice was a little too demanding as he began, "Enough shit. Step, I want to know-"
"It's Stepovich, God damn you!" he roared, and swung with the weight of the world in his fist.
Look into a deep dark pool.
tell me what you see,
Stars overhead.
Echo of a midnight sky.
branches of a dream
Turnings of a maze.
"STARS OVERHEAD"
The Fair Lady nods to the liderc, who has suddenly appeared before Her. His face is bleeding, and he holds a hand over one eye. "What is it?" She says, not unkindly.
"It's the crawling one," he says. "He is hurt and asking for you."
"Hurt?" The sound of the spinning wheel is constant now, and neither of them notice it.
"He says he's been cut up," says the liderc. "I think it was the Coachman who did it."
"Indeed? How could that be, when he was with an old woman following spools of thread down lanes of curses?"
"I don't know. Mistress. Perhaps before they left?"
"Perhaps. And did you cut the thread, little one?"
"No, Mistress. Not in time. The Coachman saw me and he struck out my eye with a calk on the end of his whip,and then he took them back."
"I see. Well, here is another eye for you." She draws a cinder from the fire and places it in his head. Then She thinks for a moment, and finally nods. "Very well, then we will cut a different thread. Let the Worm bleed. And,for that matter, let the Wolf have him. For now, prepare another guest room. We shall need it soon, I think."
"Yes, Mistress."
"And as for the Coachman, we will send him a bottle of brandy, so that when he drinks it he will be crushed by a horse with five legs and gored by a bull with three horns."
"Yes, Mistress," and the liderc runs off to do Her bidding.
At that moment, there is a scampering of feet and hands across the floor as the nora enters the room. It grovels at the fair Lady's feet. Its bald, leathery head seems to absorb the firelight.
"Well?" She says, beginning to become impatient."Have you failed, as well?"
"Yes, Mistress," it says. "She was protected."
"Protected? How?"
The nora wiggles its rat-ears back and forth, agitated."There was a sound like the chiming of bells and the thundering of cannon, so I could not come near."
"So? It's his damnable brother. Well, we shall see what we can do about that. Send him a good meal, so that when he eats it, the ground will open and swallow him up."