"OK, I'll try there. How will I know her when I see her?" I inquired.
"She's really skinny, like count-my-ribs-through-my-clothes skinny."
One of the jeans-wearing men objected. "She's not that thin."
The green-robed woman weighed in. "Yes, she is. She looks like the ghost of a supermodel who died of malnutrition."
A titter ran through the group.
"All right," I said. "I'll look for the shade of Kate Moss. Thanks."
They were arguing again before I'd gone ten steps. "I still say it's pointless to cast daze on a green wyvern…"
I wondered what Mara's opinion would have been.
I climbed back up the stairs and escaped to the street, still looking for Gwen.
Part art house and part coffeehouse, the Grand Illusion is the northern anchor of the Ave. The southern anchor of this stretch of University Way NE is the University of Washington's administration building. You can walk the gamut from administration to auteurism by way of trendy trash-chic in less than ten blocks, if you don't get run down by an aggressive skateboarder on the way.
When I got to the theater, the film was already rolling. Two student-age couples sipping coffee and chatting in the cafe were the only people in sight. I stared at the ticket counter, trying to decide on my next move.
A young woman in a long batik-dyed skirt and a dark blue sweater let padded up behind me. "Hi," she greeted in a low voice. "Did you want to purchase a ticket? The film started about eight o'clock, so the first feature's almost over."
"I'm looking for someone who said she was coming tonight. Her name is Gwen and she's very… slender."
She gave a rueful smile. "You must mean Lady Gwendolyn of Anorexia. She went in about half an hour ago. If you want, you can wait for her in the coffeehouse."
I bought yet another cup of Java and sat down to wait at a table that commanded a view of the theater door. Twenty-seven minutes later, the film ended and the audience trickled into the coffeehouse. Gwen was easy to spot.
She was a dead ringer for Waterhouse's Lady of Shalott. She was even wearing a long white dress with trailing sleeves. A cataract of strawberry blond hair fell in ripples to her hips, and it appeared that the Lily Maid hadn't dined on anything more substantial than a lettuce leaf and a drop of dew in years. But despite being no bigger around than a pencil, she didn't look skeletal, only whittled away.
As she entered the room I stepped forward to introduce myself. "Excuse me. Are you Gwen?"
The Grey scurried behind her. My skin prickled with cold, unaffected by her watery smile as the dark fog folded around us both. "My name is Gwen." Her voice was as thin as she. "Why were you looking for me?"
"A young man named Cameron Shadley gave me your name. Do you know who I mean?" I asked.
"I know of Cameron Shadley."
"Then you've never met him?"
"Oh, in passing, when he was still in the daylight. We never became friends. He's not with us anymore."
"That would depend on who you mean by 'us, " I said. "He's my client. I'm a private investigator."
"Oh. I didn't know there were any of your profession for our kind. You're not one of us."
"No. I'm the daylight kind."
She giggled a little. "Let me get some tea," she murmured and drifted away to the coffee counter.
In a few minutes, she returned. She toyed with a china pot and a cup, but didn't drink. "I don't know how much help anything you hear from Lady Gwendolyn of Anorexia is going to be. I'm not much use to anyone, you know."
Her use of the nickname in the third person gave me pause. "Maybe you could be more help than you think," I suggested. "Cameron has a little problem with Edward and he asked me to intervene. But I want to know more about Edward first. What do you know about him?"
"Ned? Ned's irresponsible, but he hides it well. I suppose it's easy when you have dozens of underlings to manage the details for you."
"How long have you known him?"
"All my unlife. He made me." Her voice held no rancor, almost no emotion at all, in fact. She spoke in her thin, measured tone, as if she were talking about some other person. "In 1969, I was a carefree little chippy—make love, not war, you know. And Ned was, well, Ned. I didn't know it at the time, but he had just gained control of Seattle, so he got away with a lot. I was a mistake." She paused and sipped her tea, inhaling more of the scent than she swallowed of the brew.
"How is that? Isn't it a deliberate act? I mean, it doesn't happen by accident, does it?"
Her voice floated like petals. "No, it doesn't. What I meant is his choice of me was a mistake and his timing was poor. Long-range planning isn't his best skill. He's an opportunist and very good at it."
"What about you?"
"What about me? I'm nobody. In a community so small that every member counts, I'm only barely a member. I go to movies, because I can like those celluloid people and care about them and they never grow old and die, or stay young and become monsters. They're so nice. Even the bad guys. I like celluloid people."
"What about your role-playing friends?"
"They're not my friends—they're warms." She blinked in slow motion. "Oh. That was rude of me."
"I'm not ashamed to be warm. But if you don't like them, why do you spend time with them?"
"I like them well enough. It's the game that's interesting. I've been with the same game for three years now, but the people change. It's wonderful to feel like life and death and adventure and honor are important. It's better than just drifting along in limbo and feeling like nothing matters. Sometimes it's better than movies. It's almost like being alive. And I matter so much more than I ever did."
"What else can you tell me about Edward?"
"Not much."
"What about TPM?"
"TPM? One of his little projects. I don't know what ever became of that. He liked to play with things, buildings and businesses and things like that. It's a game. To Ned, most of the world is just a big game. He likes to win—he'll even cheat to win, but not if it breaks his own rules. He has rules, you know, they're just not the ones everyone else knows. That's all."
"Tell me about you and Edward, then."
"Me and Edward. I wish there had been a me and Edward. There was just Edward. And then, there was just me. I wasn't a very amusing plaything, I guess. He dumped me. But I get along all right, I suppose."
"You said his timing was poor."
"He was so busy that being a responsible mentor just wasn't a priority," Gwen murmured. "He let me drift a lot. Finally, I just drifted away. He takes care of me when he thinks of it, but mostly he doesn't. But poor Cameron… Ned doesn't like him anymore. He makes things hard for him. Cameron should learn to drift, like I do. It's safer. Do you mind if I go now? The second feature is going to start. It's Jean Renoir. I love Renoir. So lovely and strange." She rose and glided away, disappearing into the dimness of the theater.
I sat and finished my coffee. This case owed more to John Carpenter by way of Fellini than Renoir, as far as I could see.
I walked back along the Ave through the still-thick throngs of college students, panhandlers, and drug dealers hanging out on the street. In some places, their conversational knots blocked the sidewalk and forced me into the street to pass. Despite the cry of the fashionable that grunge was dead, it was difficult to tell the middle-class students from the destitute street people. Scraggly beards, dirt-colored clothes, and lank hair abounded. The Goths and preppies stood out like buzzards and peacocks in a flock of sparrows. And the noise level rivaled that of any migratory-avian watering hole in spring. My ears were ringing by the time I turned off University Way and walked several long blocks to a twenty-four-hour Italian restaurant.