An aged black man in ancient clothes, who through all of this had been lightly holding a pole in the middle of the car, was saying as the noise diminished, “Now don’t get me wrong—don’t get me wrong,” holding out a long, gray-palmed hand to the passengers in general, whom, studiously ignoring him, he was reassuring. “Don’t get me wrong. A well-dressed woman’s sumpm to see, now, y’know, y’know, a thing of beauty’s, yunnastan, a joy fevvah; what I’m talkin ’bout’s a woman who wears a fuh. Now don’t get me wrong—” a deprecatory shake of the head to forestall criticism “—but y’see a woman who wears a fuh takes on the propensities of that animal. Y’see. Takes on the propensities of the animal of whose fuh she wears. Thass right.” He struck a casual, raconteur’s pose and glanced around at his hearers with benign intimacy. As he pushed aside his unspeakable overcoat to place his knuckles on his hip, Auberon saw the heavy swing of a bottle in the pocket. “Now I was in Saks Fiff Avenue thutha day,” he said, “and there was ladies pricin’ a coat made from the fuh of the sable.” He shook his head to think of it. “Now, now, of all th’animals in God’s creation the sable animal has got to be the lowest. The sable animal, my friends, will eat its own children. Y’hear what I’m sayin’? Thass right. The sable is the dirtiest, low-downest, meanest—the sable is a meaner and a lower thing than a mink, people, than a mink, and surely you know where the mink is at. Well! And here was these nice ladies, wouldn’t hurt a fly, feelin’ up this coat made of the sable animal, yas yas, ain’t it fine—” He laughed, delicately, unable to check his amusement any longer. “Yas, yas, the propensities of the animal, no doubt about it…” His yellow eyes fell on Auberon, the only one there who’d followed him with any attention, wondering if he were right. “Mmm-mmm-mmm,” he said, absently, his discourse done, a half-smile on his face; his eyes, wise, humorous, and reptilian at once, seemed to find something amusing in Auberon. The train just then turned a shrieking corner, propelling the man forward down the car. He gavotted away neatly, never falling, though without balance, the bottleweighted pocket clanking on the poles. As he passed, Auberon heard him say “Fans and furred robes hide all.” He was brought up by the train’s coming to a halt, began to dance backward; the doors slid open, and a final lurch of the train tossed him out. Just in time, Auberon recognized his own stop, and leapt out also.
Clamor and acrid smoke, urgent announcements that were a garble of static and drowned anyway by the metal roar of trains and the constant echo and re-echo. Auberon, utterly disoriented, followed herds of riders upward along stairs, ramps, and escalators, and found himself still apparently underground. At a turning, he caught a glimpse of the black man’s overcoat; at the next—which seemed intent on leading him downward again—he was beside him. He seemed now preoccupied, walking aimlessly; the garrulousness he had shown in the train was gone. An actor offstage, with troubles of his own.
“Excuse me,” Auberon said, fishing in his pocket. The black man, with no surprise, held out a hand to receive what Auberon would offer, and with no surprise withdrew the hand when Auberon came up with only the card of Petty, Smilodon & Ruth. “Can you help me find this address?” He read it. The black man looked doubtful.
“A tricky one,” he said. “Seems to mean one thing, but it don’t. Oh, tricky. Take some findin’.” He shuffled off, bent and dreaming, but his hand down at his side motioned with a quick motion that Auberon should follow. “Ever’man I will go with thee,” he muttered, “and be thy guide, in thy mose need to be by thy side.”
“Thanks,” Auberon said, though not quite sure this was meant for him. He grew less sure as the man (whose gait was quicker than it looked, and who gave no warning at turnings) led him through dark tunnels reeking of urine, where rainwater dripped as though in a cave, and along echoing passages, and up into a vast basilica (the old terminal), and further upward by shining stairs into marble halls, he seeming to grow shabbier and smell stronger as they ascended into clean public places.
“Lemme see that again one time,” he said as they stood before a rank of swiftly-revolving doors, glass and steel, through which a continual stream of people passed. Auberon and his guide stood directly in their path, the black man unconscious of them as he studied the little card, and the people flowed around them neatly, their faces fixed in angry looks, though whether because of this obstruction or for reasons of their own Auberon couldn’t tell.
“Maybe I could ask someone else,” Auberon said.
“No,” said the black man without rancor. “You got the one. Y’see I’m a messenger.” He looked up at Auberon, his snake eyes full of unreadable meaning. “A messenger. Fred Savage is my name, Wingéd Messenger Service, I only am escaped to tell thee.” With quick grace he entered the threshing blades of the door. Auberon, hesitating, nearly lost him, threw himself into an empty segment, and was spun out rapidly into a thin cold rain, outdoors at least, and stepped rapidly to catch up with Fred Savage. “My man Duke, y’know,” he was saying, “met the Duke ’bout midnight in a lane behind of the churchyard, with the leg of a man over his shoulder. I says hey, Duke, my man. Said he was a woof—only difference was, a woof is hairy on the outside, y’see, and he was hairy on the inside—said I could rip up his skin and try…”
Auberon dodged after him through the well-drilled march and press of people, doubly afraid of losing him now since Fred Savage hadn’t given back the lawyers’ card. But still he was distracted, his eye drawn upward to heights of buildings, some lost in the rainy clouds, so chaste and noble at the tops and, at their bases, so ignoble, stuffed with shops, lettered, scarred, imposed upon, overlaid like mammoth oaks on which generations have carved hearts and nailed horseshoes. He felt a tug at his sleeve.
“Don’t be gawking upward,” Fred Savage said, amused. “Good way to get your pocket picked. Besides”—his grin was wide, either his teeth were extraordinarily perfect or these were dentures of the cheapest kind—“they’re not for lookin’ up at anyway by the likes of you, y’know, no, they’re for lookin’ out of by the type of folks inside, yunnastan. You’ll learn that, heehee.” He drew Auberon with him around a corner and along a street where trucks contested with one another and with taxis and people. “Now if you look close,” Fred Savage said, “you see this ad-dress seems to be on the avenue, but thass a fake. It’s on thisere street, though they don’t want you to guess it.”