He had wondered about food.
He had wondered about sleep.
But he knew the paralysis of wonder.
The first slice had a tenpenny nailhead of muzzy green in the corner; the second and third, the same. The nail, he thought, was through the loaf. The top slice was dry on one side. Nothing else was wrong — except the green vein; and it was only that penicillium stuff. He could eat around it
I'm not hungry.
He replaced the slices, folded the cellophane, carried it back, and wedged it behind the stacked papers.
As he returned to the lamp, a can clattered from his sandal, defining the silence. He wandered away through it, gazing up for some hint of the hazed-out moon—
Breaking glass brought his eyes to street level.
He was afraid, and he was curious; but fear had been so constant, it was a dull and lazy emotion, now; the curiosity was alive:
He sprinted to the nearest wall, moved along it rehearsing his apprehensions of all terrible that might happen. He passed a doorway, noted it for ducking, and kept on to the corner. Voices now. And more glass.
He peered around the building edge.
Three people vaulted from a shattered display window to join two waiting. Barking, a dog followed them to the sidewalk. One man wanted to climb back in; did. Two others took off down the block.
The dog circled, loped his way—
He pulled back, free hand grinding on the brick.
The dog, crouched and dancing ten feet off, barked, barked, barked again.
Dim light slathered canine tongue and teeth. Its eyes (he swallowed, hard) were glistening red, without white or pupil, smooth as crimson glass.
The man came back out the window. One in the group turned and shouted: "Muriel!" (It could have been a woman.) The dog wheeled and fled after.
Another street lamp, blocks down, gave them momentary silhouette.
As he stepped from the wall, his breath unraveled the silence, shocked him as much as if someone had called his… name? Pondering, he crossed the street toward the corner of the loading porch. On tracks under the awning, four- and six-foot butcher hooks swung gently — though there was no wind. In fact, he reflected, it would take a pretty hefty wind to start them swinging—
"Hey!"
Hands, free and flowered, jumped to protect his face. He whirled, crouching.
"You down there!"
He looked up, with hunched shoulders.
Smoke rolled about the building top, eight stories above.
"What you doing, huh?"
He lowered his hands.
The voice was rasp rough, sounded near drunk.
He called: "Nothing!" and wished his heart would still. "Just walking around."
Behind scarves of smoke, someone stood at the cornice. "What you been up to this evening?"
"Nothing, I said." He took a breath: "I just got here, over the bridge. About a half hour ago."
"Where'd you get the orchid?"
"Huh?" He raised his hand again. The street lamp dribbled light down a blade. "This?"
"Yeah."
"Some women gave it to me. When I was crossing the bridge."
"I saw you looking around the corner at the hubbub. I couldn't tell from up here — was it scorpions?"
"Huh?"
"I said, was it scorpions?"
"It was a bunch of people trying to break into a store, I think. They had a dog with them."
After silence, gravelly laughter grew. "You really haven't been here long, kid?"
"I—" and realized the repetition—"just got here."
"You out to go exploring by yourself? Or you want company for a bit."
The guy's eyes, he reflected, must be awfully good. "Company… I guess."
"I'll be there in a minute."
He didn't see the figure go; there was too much smoke. And after he'd watched several doorways for several minutes, he figured the man had changed his mind.
"Here you go," from the one he'd set aside for ducking.
"Name is Loufer. Tak Loufer. You know what that means, Loufer? Red Wolf; or Fire Wolf."
"Or Iron Wolf." He squinted. "Hello."
"Iron Wolf? Well, yeah…" The man emerged, dim on the top step. "Don't know if I like that one so much. Red Wolf. That's my favorite." He was a very big man.
He came down two more steps; his engineer's boots, hitting the boards, sounded like dropped sandbags. Wrinkled black jeans were half stuffed into the boot tops. The worn cycle jacket was scarred with zippers. Gold stubble on chin and jaw snagged the street light. Chest and belly, bare between flapping zipper teeth, were a tangle of brass hair. The fingers were massive, matted—"What's your name?" — but clean, with neat and cared-for nails.
"Um… well, I'll tell you: I don't know." It sounded funny, so he laughed. "I don't know."
Loufer stopped, a step above the sidewalk, and laughed too. "Why the hell don't you?" The visor of his leather cap blocked his upper face with shadow.
He shrugged. "I just don't. I haven't for… a while now."
Loufer came down the last step, to the pavement "Well, Tak Loufer's met people here with stranger stories than that. You some kind of nut, or something? You been in a mental hospital, maybe?"
"Yes…" He saw that Loufer had expected a No.
Tak's head cocked. The shadow raised to show the rims of Negro-wide nostrils above an extremely Caucasian mouth. The jaw looked like rocks in hay-stubble.
"Just for a year. About six or seven years ago."
Loufer shrugged. "I was in jail for three months… about six or seven years ago. But that's as close as I come. So you're a no-name kid? What are you, seventeen? Eighteen? No, I bet you're even—"
"Twenty-seven."
Tak's head cocked the other way. Light topped his cheek bones. "Neurotic fatigue, do it every time. You notice that about people with serious depression, the kind that sleep all day? Hospital type cases, I mean. They always look ten years younger than they are."
He nodded.
"I'm going to call you Kid, then. That'll do you for a name. You can be — The Kid, hey?"
Three gifts, he thought: armor, weapon, title (like the prisms, lenses, mirrors on the chain itself). "Okay…" with the sudden conviction this third would cost, by far, the most. Reject it, something warned: "Only I'm not a kid. Really; I'm twenty-seven. People always think I'm younger than I am. I just got a baby face, that's all. I've even got some white hair, if you want to see—"
"Look, Kid—" with his middle fingers, Tak pushed up his visor—"we're the same age." His eyes were large, deep, and blue. The hair above his ears, no longer than the week's beard, suggested a severe crew under the cap. "Any sights you particularly want to see around here? Anything you heard about? I like to play guide. What do you hear about us, outside, anyway? What do people say about us here in the city?"
"Not much."
"Guess they wouldn't." Tak looked away. "You just wander in by accident, or did you come on purpose?"
"Purpose."
"Good Kid! Like a man with a purpose. Come on up here. This street turns into Broadway soon as it leaves the waterfront."
"What is there to see?"
Loufer gave a grunt that did for a laugh. "Depends on what sights are out." Though he had the beginning of a gut, the ridges under the belly hair were muscle deep. "If we're really lucky, maybe—" the ashy leather, swinging as Loufer turned, winked over a circular brass buckle that held together a two-inch-wide garrison—"we won't run into anything at all! Come on." They walked.
"…kid. The Kid…"
"Huh?" asked Loufer.
"I'm thinking about that name."
"Will it do?"
"I don't know."
Loufer laughed. "I'm not going to press for it, Kid. But I think it's yours."