He was a big black man with startling blue eyes, obviously Cuban. Bright metal teeth. "What'll you have?"
"Draft Molly. Use your bathroom?"
"Sure. Ain't cleaned it yet."
Norman was prepared for an odoriferous hell, but it wasn't bad in that respect. The urinal was a metal trough that evidently dispensed a powerful antiseptic. There was blood on the floor, though, and a smeared handprint of dried blood on the stall door.
He opened the door and didn't find a body, so the previous night's activity had probably been conflict resolution rather than murder. He locked the stall and sat down and opened the bag.
He'd bought an old-fashioned revolver for reliability. It had been so long since he'd fired a gun; more than thirty years. In 2020 he'd killed a couple of dozen men for the crime, he always said, of wearing the other side's uniform. Something he'd had in common with Qabil, though their wars were a generation apart, and he was technically the enemy.
In Norman's mind, there were no enemies in war. Just victims. Victims of historical process.
Heavy blued steel. He riddled with a mechanism on the side and the cylinder swung away. He slid six fat cartridges into their homes and snapped it shut.
He could just put the muzzle in his mouth and, again, simplify everything. Sure. Then Rory would have to identify the rest of his body, and Willy Joe and his pals would just shift their focus to her.
Besides, simplifying was against his nature. He resealed the cartridge box and considered what to do with the nineteen remaining rounds. If it were combat, you'd want them as handy as possible. But he couldn't imagine a situation where he'd have the opportunity, or necessity, to reload. He knew that Willy Joe carried a weapon; that was part of his swagger. Maybe his lawyer was armed, too, or there would be bodyguards.
He'd survived two bullet wounds, lung and leg, in the war. He might survive another. But the real lesson from the experience was to aim for the head.
They were experimenting with brain transplants. In Willy Joe's case, anything would be an improvement.
He considered throwing away the nineteen cartridges here, where another patron could make use of them. But with his luck the police would find them instead, and they'd trace them back to him. Assuming he survived lunch.
The rational part of him knew there was little danger; he was useless to them dead. But part of him would always be in the desert, fighting men with guns, and he wasn't going to face one unarmed.
Besides, Willy Joe didn't strike him as particularly rational. He put the bullets back in the bag and took out the light plastic holster. He set the revolver on a shelf and read the instructions, then opened his shirt and twisted the holster back and forth rapidly. It warmed in his hands. He carefully positioned it under his left arm and pressed it into place. It stuck like glue, but would supposedly peel away painlessly. He slipped the gun into it, the weight strange but reassuring, then flushed the toilet (a flagrant violation of the law) and returned to the bar.
The bartender had waited for him to come out. He cracked the tap slowly and filled a frosted mug. "Y'know, I got a memory for faces. You ain't been in here before, but I seen you someplace."
"That's not surprising. I've lived around Gainesville for forty years." The beer was a new kind, bland but with a little catnip bite. Ice-cold, though, and welcome. "Good. Norman Bell. I'm a music teacher and musician."
" Si, si. I've seen you on the cube with your wife, Professor Bell. What you make of all this stuff?"
"Well, I sort of have to go along with the wife. Preserve domestic tranquillity."
He laughed. "I hear ya."
"She makes a good case, though. New Year's Day is going to be interesting."
"Little green men on the White House lawn?"
"Probably something even weirder than that. Something we can't even imagine."
The bartender poured himself a small glass of beer. "Yeah, I was reading ... like why don't they send a picture? They afraid of what we'd do?"
"What my wife says, they have no reason to be afraid of us for anything. They could fry the planet if we made a threatening move."
"Jesus."
"But there are any number of innocent explanations. Maybe they don't send pictures because there's nobody aboard; it's just a robot that's programmed to wander around, listening for radio waves. That's what Rory thinks. My wife."
"That was in the article. Also maybe they're like invisible. Made of energy."
I've had students like that, Norman thought. "I don't think there's anything mysterious about it. They know a lot about us, evidently, and don't want us to know too much about them. That's what a military operation would do."
"So we can kiss our ass adios."
"Not necessarily. We don't know anything about their psychology. They might be following some kind of a ritual. Or keeping us in suspense as a kind of joke. Who knows?"
"Yeah, I guess." He wiped the bar slowly. "You do any gettin' ready for it?"
"You mean emergency preparations?" He shrugged. "Just what we have on hand for hurricanes. Plenty of water and food. I'm more worried about people panicking than aliens."
"Me, too. You ought to go down to the pawnshop and get a gun."
Norman jumped. "¿ Como?"
"What I did. Somethin' a guy at the bar said. "Ammunition will get you through times of no food, but food won't get you through times of no ammo.' The guys with him thought that was muy chistoso. Then one of them whispered something and they looked at me and laughed again. Them's the kind I went out and got the gun for."
" Claro. You must have some rough customers here." Norman nodded toward the bathroom. "Looks like you had a big fight back there last night."
"Oh, mierda. They bust it up?"
"No, just blood."
He nodded philosophically and picked up a bucket. " 'Scuse me."
Norman finished his beer and pondered leaving a tip. No; the guy didn't need any more surprises this morning.
Back in the sunlight, he clipped his bag to the handlebars and looked down, out of the glare: a storm drain. There was nobody in sight, so in a quick motion he pulled out the box of ammo and tossed it into the drain.
It was as if a weight had been lifted from him. Odd. He supposed the act confirmed that the gun's function was purely defensive.
He checked his watch. Twenty minutes, and the restaurant was ten minutes away at a slow pace. Do you show up early for a blackmail lunch, or late, or on time? He decided on time would be best, and took a detour down by the student ghetto, a part of it that still had trees and shade.
This was where Qabil had lived when they met. He'd gone to his apartment a couple of times, though the house was less risky. Unless your wife came home early.
Alice's Tea Room probably had its share of clandestine meetings. The only expensive restaurant in a block of student eateries, it had what they used to call a "shotgun" shape, a long rectangle with one row of tables.
They were at the farthest table, and the two nearest them were empty, with "Reserved" signs. Otherwise the restaurant was full.
The maitre d' approached and Norman pointed. "Joining that party."
The walls were decorated with mediocre-to-okay paintings by local artists. It occurred to Norman that this was an odd choice for a supposedly clandestine meeting. If the bartender at that pool hall had recognized him on sight, what were the chances no one here would?