He shrugged, and nodded to the gumbo chef.
"Anis," he said, holding up two fingers. "Deux."
Fat Pierre grunted, and reached for a dusty bottle. They called themselves French in the sinking city, but couldn't make a proper anis.
"I'm Simone Scarlet," she said, shaking her blood-red nails.
"Enchanté," he replied.
"Are you a preacher?"
"Would it matter?"
The girl smiled. "Preachers are just men like others."
"I'm not a preacher. I'm an Elder of the Church of Joseph."
The drinks arrived. He sipped his. He had to fight to stop his hands shaking. The shadow of the Jibbenainosay was still in his mind. It could never be banished.
Simone Scarlet drank. "You're from Salt Lake City?"
He nodded.
"And does the desert really bloom?"
"It does."
Duroc put her age at about seventeen. She was a little undernourished, her silky limbs a shade too meagre, her skull a touch too apparent under her velvety skin.
Simone Scarlet sighed. "I'd love to become a resettler. It looks so exciting on the newsnets. As if you're really doing something, not just sitting here while the waters rise."
He laid a hand over hers. She was warm to the touch.
"There are always places for the pure in heart, child…"
Her face fell. "Pure…some chance, huh?"
"Pure in heart."
He touched her breast, and felt her fragile heart beating birdlike under her ribs.
She saw something in his eyes he couldn't keep out of them. Her heartbeat increased, and there was a spasm of fear tugging at her mouth.
"You're not…"
"A preacher?" He smiled. "I told you that."
She was trying to back away, but he held her. She looked across the room at a flashily-dressed young black man with an electric blue velour jumpsuit, a mink-banded cowboy hat and more gold in his teeth, on his fingers and around his neck than you'd find in a federal reserve. He nodded to her, urging her on. Simone Scarlet wasn't sure…
Duroc kissed her, hungrily. When he shut his eyes, the Jibbenainosay expanded in his mind, and terror gripped him. He lost his interest in the girl, and let her go.
She looked at him with eyes older man her body. She was torn between being frightened of him and feeling pity.
He called for more anis, and his hands shook.
"What…what is it?"
"Time, Simone," he said. "It's out of joint."
"I don't understand." She laid a hand on his shoulder, massaging through his shoulderpad.
He remembered his business in the city. It was urgent. Nguyen Seth was expecting the best of him. The Path of Joseph had been thorny these last few months. Krokodil was still a nuisance, and the failure of the demon download at Fort Apache had been a severe disappointment to the Dark Ones. A lot of blood would have to be spilled to win back the favour of the masters.
"M'sieur," she said. "I have an apartment nearby. It is above the waterline. Very little damp."
He finished his drink, and handed his cashplastic to the chef. He slipped it through the machine and returned it to him.
He opened his wallet, and slid the cashplastic back into its slit. It didn't quite fit.
He looked at Fat Pierre, who was stirring the steaming gumbo.
"Hand it over," he said.
The chef shrugged, and kept stirring.
"You know very well what I mean, salaud. The American Excess card. Give it back to me."
"I already did."
He took out the fake and crushed it in his fist. It dropped on the counter.
Simone Scarlet was shrinking away again.
"Why you do that?"
Duroc let out a stream of French abuse at Fat Pierre, switching between Parisian gutterspeak and authentic Creole.
He wrenched the card-processing machine off the counter, and pulled it apart. His card, along with several others, was in a compartment at the bottom of the thing. It was a clever device, which reproduced the impressions of the code numbers on a blank plastic chip and turned out an almost-perfect fake in seconds.
Fat Pierre reached for a large knife that was hanging on a rack, but Duroc got him by the scruff of the neck with a strong grip. He swung himself over the counter, and got the chef in a necklock.
Everyone in the diner was looking at him.
The chef tried to ram an elbow into his stomach, but he dodged. He wrestled the burly man over to the stove, and shoved his head into the boiling gumbo.
Fat Pierre's screams bubbled out of the pot. Duroc let the man go and, a towel pressed to his scalded face, he slumped to the floor, whimpering.
Simone Scarlet's mouth was wide open.
Duroc came out from behind the counter, and took Simone's elbow, helping her on with her fakefur wrap.
"Your apartment?" he said. "Can we walk there?"
She nodded.
He steered her past the young man with the golden accessories, and out onto the street.
"Toto," he said, "I don't think we're in Kansas any more."
There was music playing in the distance. With the ripples lapping the kerb, they walked three blocks to Simone Scarlet's apartment house.
As the sun went down, the stench got worse.
III
"Hey, Elvis," said Nick Papageorgiadis, "va-va—vooooom!" Tired, the Op flashed his one-sided sneery grin at the mechanic, and dutifully answered, "Yeah, va-va-voom…"
He was wearing a clean black leather jacket over one of his trademark pink shirts, black pants, black leather boots and a black string tie. His jacket was an Op special, cut loose around the chest to hang unnoticeably over the harness-holster.
Nick shimmied across the garage, waving his rag, and abased himself in front of the pink Cadillac like a Voodoo Bro before Lord Shango or Damballah. The man was into cars like some men were into women or whisky.
"Cad-dee-laaaac, yo!" Nick breathed reverentially, touching the unscarred bodywork of the classic automobile. " Va-va-voooom!"
"Yeah, it'll va-va-voom all right. Check the engine and the oil, though. Can't be too careful about maintenance with a baby like this."
Nick caressed the gleaming hood as if it were his baby daughter, and sprung the concealed catch, exposing the G-Mek engine in its cradle. There was enough power in its gleaming cylinders to lift a Vixen jet fighter off the runway. The mechanic sighed, lasciviously, and reached into the car's workings to tighten a few nuts.
The Op had bought the automobile originally on September the 3rd, 1956, as a gift for Mama Gladys, who didn't drive. It had mainly been in storage in Nick's garage for thirty years, used only when Elvis was on furlough from the army. Ten years ago, Nick had persuaded him to have it completely refitted. An Op needed a flashy car, Nick told him. The Cadillac was fully convertible now, with swampskimmer attachments. If Nick could have found a place to put wings on the thing, it would fly like a bird.
"The lase mounting is a degree off, Nick."
The mechanic looked shocked. "Oh, Elvis, I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault. Just fix it."
"I do it free. I miss it last time."
"You work, you get paid, Nick. You know how I feel about that."
Nick looked sheepish, and shrugged. Elvis could trust him to do a perfect job with the Cadillac. Sometimes, the Op thought Nick loved the car more than his own family.
It was certainly a prime piece of American workmanship. Not a scrap of Japtech in there, from the IFF transmitter to the chaingun. The trunk was spacious enough to accommodate a felon in relative comfort. Fassett had complained, of course, but he had been lucky. If Elvis had left him around Yazoo City, the Krewe would have nailed him to a tree and stripped off his skin.
He'd just dropped his prisoner off at the Federal holding penitentiary on the outskirts of town, and promised to download the documentation into the FBI's files tomorrow. From the car, he had made a few calls to personal friends in the bureau. He thought he could guarantee that Fassett would serve some hard time in a reeducation centre.