Raymond didn't let his face change. After a moment, she wailed, "It's a stupid poem, I told that thing it was a stupid poem. I like mine better. Butterfly sandwiches, crunchable things, crisp little bodies with flower-hued wings, butterfly sandwiches, crunchable things, crisp little bodies…"
The driver swore and got out. He left his door open,and a stream of cold air flowed into the car, stinging Raymond's cheeks. He was sweating suddenly. There was no pain, not yet. Maybe there wouldn't be any.Maybany. Maybeonly this, his body ignoring him. The driver's opened his door and dragged him out, leaving him against a wall between two garbage cans. Chrissy suddenly leaned from the open door. "Take his tambourine," she begged. "I really want it, it made such pretty music before," but the driver slammed her door shut, narrowly missing her.
"Bye-bye, Owl," he said, smirking at Raymond."The poem sucks, but I think we can all appreciate the sentiment." He paused. "I understand it don't really kill you. It just makes you look dead. Course,you look dead until you really are. What a trip, huh?"He laughed, then paused to shake out another cigarette and light it. He tossed the match at Raymond.Raymond.Iton his coat sleeve and burned a small hole before it went out.
"Please, Jer, just take the tambourine," Chrissy was begging again as she leaned out the window.
"Shut up, bitch." He slapped her casually and she fell back against the seat, not even crying. Then the driver's got back inside the car and it pulled away, became twin red lights that turned a corner. Raymond sat. He could still move his eyes, but it was getting harder. He looked down at his hands, lax in his lap,the fingers going white in the cold night. Then, without closing his eyes, everything became fuzzy. Then sight was gone completely and he felt as if he had fallen deep inside the black earth,
Cold mountain water,
coming from below
Who are you to ask?
Who am I to know?
"STARS OVERHEAD"
The bar was dark, and stuffy after the cold outside air. The Pig and Whistle was only four blocks from the station and had been the local cop bar for as long as Stepovich had been around. He'd heard from Ed that once the bar had tried to foster a genteel tavern,inn atmosphere, but that the owner had given it up when a bunch of the guys got together and had a new signboard made for him. The antiqued board portrayed a pig in a blue uniform tooting on a silver whistle. The sign was gone now, but so was the attempt at atmosphere. The Pig and Whistle was what it was: a cop bar.
Tonight's crowd was typical. The clientele varied from off-duty patrolmen in worn sweat shirts and jeans to detectives in jackets and ties still. What didn't vary was the way, even here, no one was ever completely relaxed. Eyes moved constantly, men shifted every time the door opened. Most of the women were cops, or office personnel from the station. There were a scattering of cop groupies, uniformly scorned by the female officers. "like we can't get enough of each other all day," Stepovich muttered. "We got to hang around each other all night, too." He lifted his mug and drained it.
"Wha-?" Durand asked.
"Nothing," Stepovich told him.
Durand was holding a plastic sack of ice against his jaw and drinking cold beer. He still couldn't talk much. They'd moved to a table in the corner after the bartender had asked what happened to his face."I slammed his head in the car door by accident,"Stepovich had explained. "Radio squawked and he ducked to grab it just as 1 shut the door." The story was just weird enough to sound plausible. Something Ed had taught him a long time ago. "If you're going to tell a lie, tell a memorable one. Makes it easier to keep your story straight later." Which was great advice, coming from someone who almost never lied.Somlied. Someone who would never get himself into a fix like Stepovich was in now.
Stepovich held his empty mug up, nodded back to Lois when he was sure she'd seen he needed a refill."We should get something to eat soon," he told Durand. He could feel the beer warming his empty stomach, loosening him up.
"Uh-huh," Durand agreed. He lifted the ice pack away from his face, considered a moment then put it back. The damn kid just kept on looking at him, like that, with those eyes. Not pushing, not demandindemanding.Just, knowing that Stepovich already knew all the questions, and knew, too, that he owed Durand some answers.
He took a breath, wondering which was getting to him faster, the beer or the puppy-eyes. "Kid. Look.ThiLook. This happened. It's all like a chain, one little thing after another, none of it really bad, but it looks bad, if you don't know what happened."
"Uh-huh."
Witty conversationalist. Stepovich took a breath."You sure you feel okay? You maybe want to get something to eat, some soup or something? Talk later on?"
"Huh-uh."
Stepovich shifted, his belt creaking, his off-duty gun digging him, just a little, under the arm. He scratched at it, pulling the holster down a bit. "There was a knife, when we busted that gypsy. But I didn't turn it in with his other belongings. I… uh… it went down in the lining of my jacket. And… I had a feeling, Durand. I still do. I don't think the Gypsy we busted killed the liquor store clerk. I know you like him for Cynthia Kacmarcik's killing, but I don't think that's him either. But I do think he's a link. So I gotta find him,"
"Why?"
"To talk to him."
"No." Durand shifted his ice pack, spoke with effort. "Why you think he's a link?"
Stepovich scratched his nose. "I don't know.Mayknow.Maybe they're both gypsies. Mostly, I just got a feeling."
"Where's the knife now?"
Stepovich hesitated. "In a safe place." He prayed he wasn't lying. "I don't wanna, you know, well, if I can take care of this thing without it coming out that I was sloppy about booking the knife in, you know.I mknow.Iou know how it is. It's just better if you don't give them a reason to start checking you out,you know? I do good work, Durand. This was one little screw up, I don't think I should have to pay a big price for it, you know?"
Durand lifted his beer, sipped it carefully. He set it back on the table, sighed, and dropped the sack of melting ice next to it. "I'd feel better if the lab had a look at the knife," he said carefully.
Stepovich looked at him steadily. "The liquor-store guy was shot. And I had the knife when Cynthia Kacmarcik was killed. You know that."
Durand sniffed meditatively. He lifted his big eyes to meet Stepovich's, then looked past him. "Yeah. I know that."
The candle burned down
from its place on the sill.
The curtains caught fire
but the house remained
Standing there still.
Turning around,
saw you looking at me
With tears running down
from the place where your
Eyes used to be.
"WALK THROUGH THE DOOR"
The nora touches the Fair lady on Her knee and says, "She has stopped spinning now."
"Oh, has she? Well, fetch her out then."The nora goes to the door, but finds it already open, and the woman comes forth. In her hands is a length of spun yarn. She goes up to the Fair Lady, who says, "I reached my hand for one who troubled me, and you chose to put yourself in my way, so I took you, instead. Then you contrived to weave, and thought to keep me away from you that way, but your spirit is no stronger than your flesh was. You had to stop at last, Cynthia Kacmarcik, and now we have you."
"When I was born," she says, "My name was Rozsa.BuRoustabout became ill as a babe, and would have died, so they gave me a new name and the illness could no longer find me."