"Sometimes. Dad took me around Europe, when he could. We went to Paris four or five times. The Shadow there's called the Rc\ c Gauche. Do you get that?"
"Sorry."
"It's… I'll tell you another time. I think mv favorite cit\ is Florence, though. Florence is beautiful. The art, and the buildings .
Elfland didn't come back there. They say they don't need it."
He helped her get into the car, then got in himself. "So then your name's really-"
"Oh, no. My name-my dad's name-was Artensteen. Ginevra da Benci is a woman in a painting by Leonardo da Vinci. I don't look anything like her, though. Mr. Patrise called me that." She gave him a small, nervous grin. "He said, 'You can't be the Gio-conda. You smile too much.' "
"The Jo-I'm sorry, I'm stupid."
"The heck you are. You know the Mona Lisa?"
"Sure."
"Same painting. She's also called La Gioconda"
He started the car. "So, where do you live?"
"Aren't you going to take me home?"
"Well, yeah, as soon as I find out where it is. Oh." He banged his knuckles on the steering wheel.
"I mean, I think you're a nice guy. And Mr. Patrise has always been really good to me."
"Oh." He heard something clatter down the alley, turned to see what it was. Nothing. His heart was so loud he had to check that the car was still running. "Which way do I go from here? To get to your place?"
She pulled the shoulder belt across her breasts, cinched it. Danny looked away. She said, "Back out of the alley, then right."
After a few blocks, she said, "It wouldn't be the first time for me. I'm not scared." She tugged at her coat. "Do you want to?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I do. But not because somebody told you to."
"Turn right here."
"You're not-you won't lose your job, or anything, if-"
"I'm not one of Chloe's girls. Left, you can't get through down there. Did Mr. Patrise ask you to-well, heck, do anything with me, except drive me home?"
"No."
"Stop the car."
He did, expecting her to get out. Instead she turned to look directly at him. "This is important. Listen. I came out here a year ago last summer. I didn't have a car, I hitched. I thought I was gonna have to go work on the street, or-I don't want to tell you what I thought about doing. You ever been crazy, I mean, just crazy over the way things were, so anything else looked good?" Her voice was rising. Danny knew why.
"McCain picked me up. I knew who Mr. Patrise was; everybody on the Levee does. So I thought, yeah, sure, one night on clean sheets. But Mr. Patrise gave me a job. And Shaker taught me how to tend bar. So if he told me, to lie down for you, I'd do it, okay, Doc?" She breathed in hard, clenched her hands. "He's taken me to dinner a couple of times, and I mean dinner. Everybody who works for him gets things like that. But this is the first time-do you want to know what he said?"
"I guess I do."
"He said, 'Hallow's new, and he's alone, and that's not right. No more right than that you should be alone. See what happens.' "
"You said you'd-"
"That was a long time ago," she said. "I guess we'd better move on, huh?"
Danny started the car again. Ginevra said, "Up here, on the right."
He pulled to the curb in front of a brownstone apartment block, torch-shaped lamps flanking the door. She sat there, buckled in tight. "So I guess nothing happens tonight, huh?"
"Not tonight."
"I could make you some tea, or something."
If he went up there, he surely would not come down until morning. He didn't dare even touch his seat belt, and he surely could not touch hers.
She unfastened herself, turned as much as the little car would allow, her face just inches from his. "You're really sweet. And you want to be nice, and I like that. I appreciate that. But you're on the Levee now, in the Shadow. You have to know nobody cares one way or another. Nobody but us." She kissed him. "Hey, redhead. you're hot."
He didn't move.
"You wanna safeword out, Doc?"
"What do you mean?"
"Have you got a word that means 'really stop it, ri, t; ht now*?"
"I never heard o(that."
"Oh," she said, and Danny understood that he was missing something important. "And I haven't seen any reason to use mine. Well. Let me tell you how to get back to Mr. Patrise's house. You really don't want to get lost around here." She spelled out the directions; he tried to remember them. Then she got out of the car.
His body made him call out, "I'll see you again?"
"Oh, jeez, Doc. Sure."
He waited until she had gone up the steps and entered the building before starting the car. You could have, he kept thinking all the way back, you could have. Nobody. Would. Have. Cared.
"She wasn't afraid" he said out loud, as he passed a cluster of people warming themselves around an oil-drum fire. It brought him to the edge of laughing, and the tension got him home. lie woke up a little after eight the next morning. When he went down to the dining room, Phasia was there, sitting at the table in a long flowered gown. There was also a man Danny hadn't seen before, wearing shirtsleeves and suspenders; he had short brown hair, large dark eyes behind round-rimmed glasses. He ate scrambled eggs and home fries with his left hand and wrote on a pad of graph paper with his right.
"Hello," Danny said.
Fay looked up from her egg cup and toast. She was still very beautiful, especially when she smiled and her crystalline blue eyes twinkled, but the fabulous glow was not there. Danny wondered if he had really seen it at all.
The man scratched his head with the eraser end of his pencil and looked up. "You must be Doc. I'm Stagger Lee. Sit down and join us."
Danny did. One of the staff was there instantly to take his breakfast order.
Stagger Lee said, "You're up kind of early. I thought you were out at the club last night."
"I came back early."
"Oh. I'm just finishing up for the night." Danny noticed that Stagger Lee's shirt was badly wrinkled, and one of his suspenders was flapping loose.
Fay folded her napkin and stood up. Stagger Lee was on his feet at once; Danny did likewise.
"Staganess day toll," she said, or something sounding like that. "Doc well be dockelnight, sorge do well." She made a small, nervous gesture with her hand and left the room..
Stagger Lee said gently "I guess you haven't heard Fay speak."
"I heard her sing last night."
"No. Not the same."
"Phasia," Danny said, understanding. "Aphasia"
Stagger Lee said, "Yup," dragging the syllable way out. "I guess we could sit back down now."
Danny's pancakes and bacon appeared. Stagger Lee said, "Excuse my company while you eat; I need to get this done before I drop over. You know we're going to be out late tonight. You might want to get a couple of hours' sleep this afternoon."
"Does Mr. Patrise party every night?"
"Not every night. And I wouldn't call this evening a party, at least not the way you mean." He worked a while longer, then said, "Are you a poker player, Doc?"
"I know how."
"There's a game Monday night. You'll be welcome." He glanced up. "Unless Patrise wants you then?"
"He hasn't said."
"Right." He sat back, drinking coffee and examining his notes. As Danny finished his breakfast, Stagger Lee said, "I've got the infirmary keys. You ought to get your bag like you want it before tonight."
Stagger Lee led the way out of the dining room, absent-mindedly hitching his loose suspender. "Know anything about magic?"
"They tell me it works here."
"True. Not always well, but it works."
The infirmary was in the south wing. It had white enameled cabinets, a desk and examining table out front; in back was a room with two hospital beds, and another room fitted for light surgery. None of the facilities seemed to have seen much use.