Thomas picked his way through a litter of two-by-fours to the place where Gladhand sat. Another chair stood nearby, and he sank into it. "Weird evening," he said. "With this wind and all."
Gladhand nodded. "Several hundred years ago it was considered a valid defense in a murder trial if you could prove the Santa Ana wind was blowing when the murder was committed. The opinion was that the dry, hot wind made everybody so irritable that any murder was almost automatically excusable. Or so I've heard, anyway."
Thomas pondered it. "There might be something to that," he said.
"No," Gladhand said. "There isn't. Start sanctioning heat-of-anger crimes and you've lost the last hold on the set of conventions we call… society, civilization."
He sat back and pressed the tips of his fingers together. "Some things, Rufus, cannot be avoided. They will happen no matter what efforts you make to prevent them. Once, when I was much younger, I was at a girl's house with some friends. It was about noon, and we were all standing around the piano, singing and drinking lemonade. After a while I glanced down and saw, to my horror, that the fly of my trousers was unbuttoned. I've got to divert their attention, I thought desperately, long enough for me to rectify this potentially embarrassing state of affairs. Thinking quickly, I shouted, 'Hey, will you look at that!' and pointed out the far window. They turned, and I buttoned my fly. But now, I noticed, they were regarding me with… surprise and loathing. Puzzled, I crossed to the window and looked out." Gladhand sighed. "On the front lawn were two dogs engaged in the most primal sort of amorous activity."
The theater manager shrugged. "It was inevitable, I guess, that I would suffer embarrassment that day—and by fighting it, resisting it, I only managed to bring down an even greater embarrassment on myself."
"You mean there's no use in resisting anything?" Thomas asked doubtfully.
"I didn't say that. The trick is, you see, to know which you are: the inevitable consequence or the doomed resistor. Though, as a matter of fact—take my word for it—you can't know until it's too late to change, anyway."
Thomas nodded uncertainly.
"So!" concluded Gladhand briskly, "go rejoin your fellows. It's too hot a night to spend inside."
By the time the moon was high in the heavens most of Gladhand's troupe was on the roof, sitting in deck chairs, propped against chimney pots, or simply sprawled full-length on the tar paper. Lanterns and wine had been brought up from below, and Spencer was striking chords on a guitar.
Thomas noticed approvingly that Negri had downed his sixth glass of wine and was now getting to his feet for a quick trip downstairs.
"I'll be back in a flash, sugar-pie," he told Pat, before lurching away toward the stairs. Thomas casually strode over and sat down where Negri had been.
"Hello, Rufus," Pat said, a little wearily.
"Hi, Pat." A kind of hopeless depression descended on him. I've got nothing to say, he realized. Why are Negri and I bothering this girl anyway? Oh, come on, he protested to himself; all I've done is sit next to her. It isn't me calling her sugar-pie.
"Let's go see if the fire really did go out," Pat suggested, rising to her feet.
"Good idea," Thomas said. They walked out of the uneven ring of lantern light to the rough, time-rounded stones of the coping. The city lay spread out before them, as clear as a toy held at arm's length. The glow of the fire had vanished completely. Distantly came the echoes of three quick gunshots.
"A wild, unholy night," Thomas observed. Pat said nothing. "Where are you from, Pat?" he went on.
She sighed. "Oh, I come from quite a distance, the same as you. I'm the youngest of a very large family, and the smartest, so my parents sent me to the city."
"To make good," Thomas said.
"Or whatever."
"Where the hell?" came an angry shout from behind them. Thomas turned to see Negri striding furiously toward him across the roof. "All right, Pennick," he spat, "you're a little slower than everyone else, so I guess you've got to be told what's what. Listen and save yourself some trouble. Pat is my girl. And no—"
"I'm not your girl," Pat said.
"Shut up," Negri snapped. "I'll decide."
"You'll decide?" Thomas repeated, angry and laughing at the same time. "You heard her, Negri. She isn't interested. What do you plan to do, cut your monogram in her forehead?"
Negri cocked his fist, and it was seized firmly from behind. "You two aren't going to forget the no-fighting rule, are you?" smiled Spencer, releasing Negri's arm.
"Uh, no," Negri admitted. "But I'm challenging this toad to a duel, to decide once and for all whether Pat is my girl or not."
"How can a duel decide that?" Thomas protested. "You mean automatically if I lose—"
"Go ahead, Rufus. Do it," Pat interrupted.
After a tiny pause, Spencer shrugged. "Okay, a duel, then. Jeff, set up the table."
The rest of the actors cleared a circle in the center of the roof and set the lanterns so that the area was well lit. Chairs for spectators were ranged around the perimeter, and Gladhand stumped over and lowered himself into a front-row seat. "This should be instructive," he remarked.
Spencer walked into the circle and raised his hands for silence. "Quiet," he said, "while I explain to Rufus and Pat how our duels work. You'll notice Jeff is setting up a chessboard. What Rufus and Bob are going to do is play a game of chess—the chess pieces, though, will be different-sized glasses. One dueler's glasses will be filled with red wine, the other's with white. When you capture a piece, you must drink it. One loses by passing out or being checkmated."
Jeff had erected the table and two chairs and was now placing glasses in the chessmen's places. The pawns, Thomas noticed, were shot glasses, the bishops and knights fairly capacitous wine glasses, the rooks tumblers, and the queens full-sized beer schooners. The kings were represented by conventional wooden chess pieces, and Jeff held these until the color choice should be made.
"Sit down, gentlemen," Spencer said. "In each of my hands is a cork, one from a Zinfandel, one from a Chablis. Rufus, right or left?"
"Hold it," said Negri. Thomas looked warily across the table at him. "Take the damn wine away. That's for kids. We'll duel with rum, light and dark."
An interested murmur arose from the assembled actors. Clearly this had not been done before. Spencer turned uncertainly to Gladhand, who shrugged and nodded.
"Okay," said Spencer, "Jeff, give the wine to the spectators and dash below for four bottles of rum."
Thomas looked beyond Negri and saw Pat sitting in the first row. She smiled at him. I've got to win this, he thought.
"Bob's been drinking all night," called someone in the crowd. "Rufus is nearly sober. It ain't fair."
Gladhand spoke up: "Rufus has a bad cold, which will doubtless be a handicap equal to Bob's degree of drunkenness. Besides, Bob is the challenger, and is familiar with the strategies of wine-chess."
Jeff clattered back up the stairs with four bottles of rum under his arm. He handed them to Spencer, who uncorked them, held the corks tightly in his fists, and turned to Thomas. Thomas tapped one fist, which opened, revealing the dark cork.
"Rufus is black, Robert white," Spencer said. He filled Thomas's glasses with the dark rum while Jeff filled Negri's with the light. Finally they both stepped back, leaving a daunting array of drinks gleaming in the lamplight on the table. "Your move, Bob," Spencer said.
Negri edged his king's pawn forward two squares. Thomas replied with the same. Abruptly, Negri slid his queen out of the ranks all the way across the board to the rook's fifth place.
Thomas saw the trap immediately; he had last fallen for it before he was ten. Negri hoped Thomas would advance his king's knight's pawn one square in an attempt to drive the enemy queen away. If he did, of course, Negri's queen would leap three spaces to her left, taking Thomas's first-moved pawn and, inevitably with the next move, would dart invulnerably in to capture a rook.