Something about the lady…
Croyd continued to stare. How could he have thought her plain? It must have been a trick of the light. She was breathtakingly lovely. In fact- He wanted her to smile at him.
He wanted to hold her. He wanted to run his hands all over her. He wanted to stroke her hair, to kiss her, to make love to her. She was the most gorgeous woman he had ever laid eyes on.
He heard Devil John whistle softly.
"Look at her, will you?"
"Hard not to," he replied.
He grinned at her, and she smiled back at him. He wanted to grab her. Instead, he said, "Hello."
"I'd like you to meet my wife, Kim Toy," he heard the red man say.
Kim Toy! Even her name was like music…
"Tell me what you want and I'll get it for you," he heard Devil John say to her. "You're so special it hurts."
She laughed.
"How gallant," she stated. "No, nothing. Not just now. Wait a moment, though, and perhaps I'll think of something."
"Do you have it?" she asked her husband.
"No. It was taken by dogs," he replied.
She cocked her head, quirked an eyebrow.
"Amazing fate," she said. "And how do you know this?"
"These gentlemen have told us about it."
"Really?" she observed. "That is so? That is what you told him?"
Devil John nodded.
"That's what we told him," Croyd said. "But-"
"And the bag you dropped when you saw me approaching," she said. "What might it contain? Open it, please, and show me."
"Of course," said Croyd.
"Anything you say," Devil John agreed.
Both men dropped to their knees before her and fumbled unsuccessfully for long seconds before they were able to begin unrolling the top of the bag.
Croyd wanted to kiss her feet while he was in position to do so, but she had asked to see the inside of the bag and that should really come first. Perhaps she might feel inclined to reward him afterward, and-
He opened the bag and a cloud of vapor swirled about them. Kim Toy drew back immediately, choking. As his stomach tightened, Croyd realized that the lady was no longer beautiful, and no more desirable than a hundred others he had passed this day. From the corner of his eye he saw Devil John shift his position and begin to rise and at that moment Croyd realized the nature of his attitude adjustment.
As the smell dissipated, something of the initial wave of glamour rose again from her person. Croyd clenched his teeth and lowered his head near to the mouth of the bag. He took a deep breath.
Her beauty died in that instant, and he extended his power.
Yes, as I was saying, the body is lost. It was destroyed by dogs. Devil John did his best for you, but he has nothing to deliver. We are going now. You will forget that I was with him.
"Come on!" he said to Darlingfoot as he rose to his feet.
Devil John shook his head.
"I can't leave this lady, Croyd," he answered. "She asked me for-"
Croyd waved the opened bag in front of his face.
Darlingfoot's eyes widened. He choked. He shook his head.
"Come on!" Croyd repeated as he slung the bag over his shoulder and broke into a sprint.
With one enormous leap Devil John landed ten feet ahead of him.
"Weird, Croyd! Weird!" he announced as they crossed the street.
"Now you know all about pheromones," Croyd told him.
The sky had become completely overcast again, and a few flurries of snow drifted past him. Croyd had parted with Darlingfoot outside another bar and had begun walking, down and across town. He scanned the streets regularly for a taxi but none came into view. He was loath to trust his burden to the crush and press of bus or subway.
The snowfall increased in intensity as he walked the next several blocks, and gusts of wind came now to swirl the flakes and drive them among the buildings. Passing vehicles began switching on their headlights, and Croyd realized as the visibility diminished that he would be unable to distinguish a taxi even if one passed right beside him. Cursing, he trudged on, scrutinizing the nearest buildings, hoping for a diner or restaurant where he could drink a cup of coffee, and wait for the storm to blow over, or call for a cab. Everything he passed seemed to be an office, however.
Several minutes later the flakes became smaller and harder. Croyd raised his free hand to shield his eyes. While the sudden drop in temperature did not bother him, the icy pellets did. He ducked into the next opening he came to-an alleyway-and he sighed and lowered his shoulders as the force of the wind was broken.
Better. The snow descended here in a more leisurely fashion. He brushed it off his jacket, out of his hair; he stamped his feet. He looked about. There was a recess in the building to his left, several paces back, several steps above street level. It looked completely sheltered, dry. He headed for it.
He had already set his foot upon the first step when he realized that one corner of the boxlike area before a closed metal door was already occupied. A pale, stringy-haired woman, dumpy-looking beneath unguessable layers of clothing, sat between a pair of shopping bags, staring past him. ". So Gladys tells Marty she knows he's been seeing that waitress down at Jensen's…" the woman muttered. "Excuse me," Croyd said. "Mind if I share the doorway with you? It's coming down kind of hard."
"… I told her she could still get pregnant when she was nursing, but she just laughed at me…"
Croyd shrugged and entered the alcove, moving to the opposite corner.
"When she finds another one's on the way she's really upset," the woman continued, "especially with Marty having moved in with his waitress now…"
Croyd remembered his mother's breakdown following his father's death, and a touch of sadness at this obvious case of senile dementia stirred within his breast. But- He wondered. Could his new power, his ability to influence the thought patterns of others, have some therapeutic effect on a person such as this? He had a little time to pass here. Perhaps..
"Listen," he said to the woman, thinking clearly and simply, focusing images. "You are here, now, in the present. You are sitting in a doorway, watching it snow-"
"You bastard!" the woman screamed at him, her face no longer pale, her hands darting toward one of the bags. "Mind your own business! I don't want now and snow! It hurts!"
She opened the bag, and the darkness inside expanded even as Croyd watched-rushing toward him, filling his entire field of vision, tugging him suddenly in several directions, twisting him and-
The woman, alone now in the doorway, closed her bag, stared at the snow for a moment, then said, "… So I say to her, 'Men aren't good about support payments. Sometimes you've got to get the law on them. That nice young man at Legal Aid will tell you what to do.' And then Charlie, who was working at the pizza parlor…"
Croyd's head hurt and he was not used to the feeling. He never had hangovers, because he metabolized alcohol too quickly, but this felt like what he imagined a hangover to be.
Then he became aware that his back, legs, and buttocks were wet; also, the backs of his arms. He was sprawled someplace cold and moist. He decided to open his eyes.
The sky was clear and twilit between the buildings, with a few bright stars already in sight. It had been snowing. It had also been afternoon. He sat up. What had become of the past several hours, and-
He saw a dumpster. He saw a lot of empty whiskey and wine bottles. He was in an alley, but..
This was not the same alley. The buildings were lower, there had been no dumpster in the other one, and he could not locate the doorway he had occupied thethe old woman.
He massaged his temples, felt the throbbing begin to recede. The old woman… What the hell was that black thing she'd hit him with when he'd tried to help her? She had taken it out of one of her bags and
Bags! He cast about frantically for his own bag, with the carefully parceled remains of the diminutive John Doe. He saw then that he still held it in his right hand, and that it had been turned inside out and torn.