"Have you seen Tybalt's swordplay? Have you watched the man rehearse? The man is better than me, my poor, poor son. So what shall I do? Have Tybalt fight left-handed? He would destroy you. Break his arms? He would kick you to death. Blind him? Hamstring him? Hire a new Tybalt, a straw man for my son to knock down?"
Valentine threw his weapon clattering into the wings.
"No. No, I must instead create my Romeo from these pitiful makings. I must wrench this wretch—clawing and screaming, if necessary—from his pathetic cocoon, from this Sparky buffoon, and into a man's estate. Assistant stage manager!"
The timid but bright drama student with the misfortune to hold that job peeked from the wings where she had been hiding. Valentine had never learned her name (it was Rose), but had impressed on her from the first day that she was never, never to be beyond the reach of his voice. So when he had cleared the theater, she had found a hole to hide in, but not one so remote as to spare her Kenneth's humiliation. Mister Valentine—always to be called mister, as though he needed distinguishing from Kenneth—usually called her ASM. When he used the full tide, nothing good could come of it.
"Yes, Mr. Valentine?"
"Bring me my sword. Contact everyone. Rehearsals are suspended for a period of... make it two weeks. My son needs to attend drama school."
"Yes, sir."
"This is not to be taken as license to loaf. Upon their return to the stage, all cast members will be expected to know their lines. Cold."
"Yes, sir." Rose handed him his sword.
"Come, Kenneth. We have much work to do."
"Yes, Father."
"En garde!" Valentine shouted, and slashed at his son's face.
Henry Wauk was not precisely asleep when the knock came at his door.
In West Texas, everybody had a siesta during the hottest hours of the day. At three in the afternoon you could fire a cannon down the middle of Congress Street and not worry about hitting anyone. Of course, you could do that at just about any hour; New Austin was not a bustling place.
"Doctor" Wauk took his daily siesta in the office that connected with his, at the top of the stairs over the Long Branch Saloon. Theoretically, this office belonged to Dr. Heinrich Wohl, D.D.S., but just then there was no Dr. Wohl, and there hadn't been for almost fifteen years now. There had been once, and perhaps there would be again, but these days the big dental chair in Wohl's office was never used except when Wauk stretched out in it, shoved his black hat down over his eyes, and sacked out.
Henry never sweated during these naps, though the temperature in his office often reached well over one hundred degrees in the Fahrenheit scale used in Texas. He loosened his string tie and he took off his boots, but made no other concession to the heat. He often bragged to his friends that he was half gila monster and half prairie dog, and that's why he stayed dry. They responded that it was because there was very little water in his system, and he said yeah, that, too. Henry Wauk was an alcoholic.
He counted himself lucky to live in a society that didn't give a damn what he put into his body or what he did with his life. No busybodies had ever tried to reform him. He was a happy drunk. He was also happy to have found, many years ago, the perfect job, which was to be "Dr. Wauk." That was not his real name, but merely the one some wag had written on the shingle outside the doctors' offices in West Texas when the disneyland was built. Wauk and Wohl, get it? He hadn't, actually, but it had been explained to him, and he was content to be Henry Wauk now. Actually, if you had asked him what his name had been, originally, he would have been unable to tell you. "I'm sure it's written down here somewhere. Library card, or something."
For well over forty years he had been refining what he thought of as the Perfect Day. Thirty years ago he got it right, and he'd pretty much stuck to it since then.
Up at the crack of ten, dress and down to the saloon for breakfast, a double prairie oyster: two raw eggs in a double shot of bourbon. Thus fortified, he strolled three blocks to the barbershop for a hot towel and a shave. (Saturdays, a bath in the back room. Once a fortnight, a haircut.)
Noon would find him standing at the bar, drinking slowly, getting the right edge for siesta. When he woke up at five, lunch of pig's knuckles and pickled eggs. At around six it was poker lessons for the tourists. There was no fee for these and all guests of the disney could play, but tuition was steep. At nine or ten dinner would seldom be whatever the cook at the Long Branch said was good that day, because it was usually a damn lie, but the thick steaks were tasty enough. What could you do to ruin a steak? Doc liked them crunchy on the outside and barely dead in the middle. After dinner began the important work of the day: serious poker with the other regulars. Stakes could be high, depending on how much had been taken from the tourists that day. At three or four (or sometimes, seven) he would stagger upstairs to his rooms. It was a good life. It suited him. The Perfect Day.
Of course, once a week or so, medical business would intrude.
Everyone in Texas knew Doc's office hours were noon to three, and he conducted what routine doctoring was necessary from his post at the bar. Prescriptions were handled by his nurse, Charity, who actually sat in the office from ten till siesta time. She was a bright-eyed, intelligent sixteen-year-old who had been firmly rebuffing Henry's advances since she came of age, three years earlier. She was clever with the stethoscope, with mortar and pestle, the scales, and the pill compressor. In fact, Dr. Wauk could and did leave ninety percent of the medical business to her. There was no call for alarm in this, since Henry was no kind of doctor, anyway. How much worse could the nurse be? She was, in fact, a lot better than Wauk in most things.
When he took the job Henry had made a halfhearted attempt to learn a few basics of first aid, which was all that could be dispensed in Texas, anyway. No sane person would have trusted him to handle much more than a hangnail; if you were sick, you went back to the real world for treatment. If you were injured, emergency services could be at your side in two minutes, tops. Only the mildly ill and the occasional dead ever came to Henry's office. Which was good, because Henry was a fumble-fingered pharmacist, a terrible diagnostician, and any really serious laceration made him queasy. Unfortunately, Charity passed out at the sight of blood, so Henry had to patch up all the scrapes and cuts. Most of the work he did was nothing more complicated than a little antiseptic and a bandage.
Naturally, when he became aware of the knocking, he at first assumed it was a goddam tourist who had lost his way. He snorted, shoved the hat down a little farther over his brow.
The knock came again, a little louder this time. Like a noisy goddam fly you kept brushing away. He already suspected he would have to get up, but he tried one more time to ignore it.
Knock, knock, knock.
Henry sat up, shoved his feet into his boots, and stomped toward the door. He drew the long-barreled Colt .45 pistol from its holster hanging by the door. The gun was loaded with blanks, but they were very loud blanks, and they shot real fire from the barrel. Aimed at someone's face from a range of one foot—which was Henry's intention—a first-degree burn was likely. A first-degree burn which the goddam pest could goddam well get treated out in the goddam real world, where he should have gone in the goddam first place.