"They're gone," he said finally. He leaped down, and holstering their guns, they plodded back across the grass to the buildings.
On the other side of the street four figures darted out of a shadowed drugstore doorway and silently fled.
"Hey," Thomas said drowsily. "This isn't the Bellamy Theater."
"You don't miss a lot, do you?" growled Negri. "We're back at the Blind Moon."
"Why? Aren't we ever going to get to sleep?"
"We've got to establish our alibi," Spencer explained as they turned into the alley leading to the bar's rear door. "We have to give people the idea that we've been here all evening."
"Evening?" Thomas protested. "It must be nearly dawn."
"It's only a quarter to ten," Jeff said. "I saw the city hall clock about five minutes ago."
Thomas shook his head in dull wonder and followed Spencer into the rear of the kitchen. Except for a teenage boy who stood at the sinks languidly running a wet rag over dishes and dropping them into the water, it was empty.
"What were you doing out there, Spence?" the boy asked.
"Just getting a bit of fresh air," Spencer told him. The four of them filed past and stepped through the kitchen door into the crowded, noisy, smoke-layered public room. They managed to find a table near the door, and sat down with relaxed sighs.
Spencer immediately bounded to his feet. "Whoops," he gasped. "I was supposed to meet Evelyn at nine under Bush-head. I'll see you later. Or tomorrow." He opened the door and sprinted away down the sidewalk.
"Bush-head?" Thomas echoed as the door banged shut.
"It's a statue of Mayor Pelias down by the mission church," Jeff said. "About three years ago, when he began to get really unpopular, somebody looped a rope around the statue's head and tried to pull it down. All that happened was the head broke off. A year or so later—ah, the beer already! Thank you, miss—a year or so later somebody wired a big tumbleweed onto the neck-post; so everybody calls it Johnny Bush-head."
"Huh." Thomas poured himself a beer and sipped it thoughtfully.
"Want to throw some darts?" Negri asked Jeff. Jeff nodded and they stood up and moved away, taking the pitcher with them. Thomas idly traced designs in the dampness on his glass.
A minute or so later, a paunchy old man with wisps of gray hair trailing across his shiny, mottled scalp sat down opposite Thomas.
"All right if I join you?" he asked hesitantly.
He was carrying a glass and a new pitcher of beer, so Thomas's voice had some sincerity when he said, "Certainly, certainly."
"Thank you. Here, let me fill your glass."
"Much obliged."
"Not at all." He set the pitcher down and leaned back. "You're a friend of Spencer's?" Thomas nodded. "A fine lad, he is," the old man went on. "Are you an actor too?"
"Yes," Thomas answered.
"I'll have to manage to see the play. As You Like It, isn't it? One of Shakespeare's best, I've always thought."
Thomas looked at him. "Really? I much prefer… oh, Lear, or Macbeth or Julius Caesar."
The old man blinked. "An educated man, I perceive! Allow me to introduce myself. I am Gardener Jenkins." He cocked a hopeful eyebrow at Thomas, then lowered it when Thomas displayed no recognition. "I was—still am, in a way—a professor of philosophy at the University of Berkeley."
"Oh," said Thomas politely. "What brings you so far south?"
Jenkins pulled a pint bottle of bourbon out of his pocket, uncorked it and topped off his glass of beer with the dark brown whiskey. He sipped it and nodded with satisfaction. "What? Oh, yes. I'm at work on a… very big project, you see, research that couldn't be done at Berkeley." He chuckled ruefully. "And it couldn't be done here, either, I discovered."
Thomas looked more closely at him, noticing for the first time the puffy face and broken-veined skin of the long-time alcoholic. "Oh?" he said, curious about the scholarly old rummy.
"Indeed. Have you ever heard of J. Heinemann Strogoff?"
"Wait a minute," Thomas said. "Strogoff. Yeah. He was a scientist—right?—he did a lot of genetic research and died about ten years ago. I read a pamphlet about him. Loki Ascendant, it was called."
"Good God, son, where did you see a copy of that! I thought mine was the last extant copy outside of those in a few monastic libraries."
"My grandfather had one," Thomas said quickly. "Lost now, I'm certain. Anyway, it said a lot of horrible things about Strogoff."
"Well, sure. It was published by the Church, and the clergy was very hostile toward Strogoff's work."
"What was his work, exactly? The pamphlet talked about… 'soulless constructs,' I recall…"
"He was a biologist and a philosopher. His evaluation of Locke is still considered the definitive one. But what he's famous for, and what set the Church against him, was his work with artificial and mutated species. The tax birds, the forest dwarves, the sewer singers, even the androids—all the weird, semi-rational creatures you find in and around the southern California city-states—were developed by Strogoff and his successors." He took a deep drink of his fortified beer.
A fight at the bar momentarily distracted Thomas. This place certainly isn't restful; but I doubt if I could find my way alone back to the Bellamy. Maybe I'll go sleep in the car, though.
He turned back to his companion. "So how has the study of Strogoff brought you here?" And to this, he added to himself.
"I was—am—editing the Collected Letters of J. Heinemann Strogoff." He rolled the title off with evident relish. "I'm nearly finished, too." Jenkins frowned deeply. "Two days before he died, Strogoff wrote a letter to Louis Hancock, who was then the majordomo of Los Angeles. I found part of the carbon of that letter—just a torn-off piece—in the Berkeley collection of Strogoffs papers. It… it seemed, from what sense I could make of it, that Strogoff was threatening Hancock. And pleading with him, too, at the same time. Anyhow, I figured the complete letter definitely belonged in my book; it was probably the last letter he ever wrote, for one thing." Thomas refilled his glass from Jenkins's pitcher and shook his head when the old man invitingly raised the whiskey bottle. "So," continued Jenkins, "I came to L.A. four years ago. Figured I'd look up Hancock and talk him into letting me make a copy of the complete letter. Hah! Hancock was two years dead when I got here. Killed himself. And his papers were locked in the city archives, where they still, I suppose, are."
"Won't they let you see them?" Thomas asked.
"No. Who knows why—clerks just think that way, I guess. I've made dozens of requests, phrased dozens of different ways. The university even wrote to Pelias, asking him to give access. No dice."
"And you've just stayed on."
Jenkins nodded. "That's right. After a while those bastards at the university terminated my contract. And me with tenure! So I stayed. Money ran out and I found a job on the Greeter. I'll head back up to Berkeley sometime, pick up my stuff and publish the book somewhere else. But… there's no hurry." The level of his drink had lowered, and he refilled it with the bourbon. "No hurry," he repeated vacantly.
Thomas nodded doubtfully. "I'll see you later," he said, getting laboriously to his feet.
"Yeah, take it easy," Jenkins said with a wave.
Thomas looked around at the crowd, but failed to see Jeff or Negri. He walked outside, located the car, and curled up in one of the back seats. The warm eastern wind that was sifting fine dust over the dark streets had kept the car from becoming chilly, and Thomas sank immediately into a deep sleep.