It was a very narrow entryway. On his left were tiny two person tables up against the windows. There was room for one person to walk between them and the row of barstools at the long red bar. It was noisy in here, and male. A TV was blasting in the corner, accompanied by me pinging of an Eight Ball pinball machine. A cigarette machine was crowded up beside that. The wall behind the bar was decorated with framed photos of teams, mostly baseball. Wizard had no doubt that this was another of Booth’s hangouts. Will, he wouldn’t be in tonight.
It was as safe a place as any to hole up until the cops had finished with their assault victim.
He found a wall table with a cribbage board on it. He seated Lynda with a gesture and then sat down across-from her. Even in the darkened atmosphere of the tavern, she shone with excitement. Men looked at her. at him, and then looked away.
She shook off a shiver and leaned forward to cover his hands with hers.
“I never saw anything like that. Never! Well, on TV maybe, but never real like that. You know, so many times when Booth would rough me up, I’d dream about letting him know what it felt like. Tonight he knew it. Boy. he knew it good!” Her hands tightened on his; he felt her nails digging into his flesh.
She released him and pawed through her purse to slap a five dollar bill on the table. “Order us some drinks, baby. I’ve got to go to the little girl’s room again.” She suppressed another little shiver- Wizard sat silently, looking up at her. As she rose to leave the table, she stepped closer to him. Taking his face in both her hands, she tipped his eyes up to hers. “You arc some special kind of man. But I want you to know you didn’t have to do that for me. I didn’t expect you to protect me like that. No one ever did before.”
Wizard’s voice was hoarse. “I didn’t do it for you,” he croaked softly. Her eyes went puzzled. “I did it because I wanted to. Because it felt good to do it.”
Her hands went warmer on his face. She leaned down to press her mouth against his. “You arc some kind of man, aren’t you? Don’t go way, now- I’ll be right back.”
Her lips were cold on his mouth. They started a shiver that turned into a shaking as she walked away. A wave of heat followed it, and he coughed twice, achingly. He shook his head, feeling muffled, as if his brains were wrapped in a gray veil.
When he opened his eyes, his vision cleared, leaving him unshielded to the reality. His ribs and belly were sore from coughing. He rubbed his hands together, feeling the pain in his raw knuckles like an old, familiar sickness. He closed his eyes to it and saw Booth falling to the sidewalk. He opened them quickly, but the thud of full mugs on the bar was identical to the sound of his knee meeting Booth’s nose- Vertigo swept through him, driving him to his feet. He surged from me table, pushing past a couple of men coming in the narrow door. They parted to let him through. Down the street he saw the steady blip-blip of the ambulance’s lights. He leaned against the building, breathing in hard gasps of the cold air. “I’ve got to get home,” he said aloud, the sickness in his voice.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and stiffened his arms to keep his back straight. He wanted to curl up and around the hurt inside him and lie very still until it passed. But he couldn’t.
He had to get back to the den before he could rest. The alcohol was making me blood pound in his face, and he couldn’t recapture his day. He tried to place himself in time. The cathedral seemed months ago. The incidents before that were ancient.
Was it only this morning the magic had abandoned him? Why?
The questions swirled about in his brain, eluding him. He had never been able to handle liquor; he should have left it alone.
Cassie was right; it was poison. “I've poisoned myself,” he muttered sadly and tottered on. He staggered toward the corner of a sidewalk that stretched eternally longer. “That woman was Cassie,” he admitted when he teetered on the edge of the gutter.
“And I knew it. But I didn’t. I swear I didn’t know her.”
A thin gray fog was stringing through the streets. He tried to rub it from his eyes, but it hung before him like ratty curtains, coloring all he viewed. It opened and closed mockingly around him and whispered soundlessly and mockingly in his ears. Half a block more to go, he told himself and staggered on. On South Jackson he turned into his alley mouth. The fog massed there, defying him. He plunged into it, to crash into Wee Bit O’lreland’s trash and then rebound into Great Winds Kite Shop dumpster. The brick wall caught him roughly. His fire escape was a black shadow overhead.
He craned his head back to look up at it. He gave a testing bounce on his legs. A wave of dizziness and nausea washed up from his belly and drowned him. Wizard took a deeper breath. “You can do anything you have to do,” he reminded himself sternly. He bent his knees deep, ignoring all the pain signals of his body. He concentrated only on the Jump, and sprang. His hands caught like claws on the old pipe. Its rust bit into his palms. He braced his foot against the bricks and pushed up. But his knees had gone rubbery again, and the muscles in his arms were like limp strings. He tightened his arms, straining to pull himself closer to the fire escape. He braced his foot again and gave a kick that let him release the pipe and grab for the edge of the fire escape. His hands caught.
He dangled from the edge of the fire escape. He knew what he must do; he had done it a thousand times. He had to chin himself up to the edge of the fire escape platform and slither onto it. But instead he hung there, like a shirt on a clothesline.
The cold black metal bit into his hands. His palms felt they must tear loose from the muscles and bones beneath them. He hung on doggedly, chewing pain. He could not make the quick hard pull that would jerk himself up to the edge. So he began the long slow tightening of muscles that would drag the full weight of his body up. His shoulder muscles creaked. Just a little farther, he promised himself, refusing to release his pent breath. A little more.
At the instant he knew that he must let go and drop to the pavement below, he felt two hands seize his ankles in a firm grip. Before he could kick free of them, they pushed up on his stiff legs, boosting him to the edge of the platform. He dragged himself up onto it and lay panting with his eyes shut. Waves of pastel light washed across the inside of his eyelids. His heart was slamming against his ribs and he couldn’t remember how to calm it. He had to let it run down as the cold air of the night washed against his sweating face.
“Hey!” The voice came from below. “Aren’t you going to give me a hand up?”
WIZARD ROLLED OUT of her way as she scrabbled up onto the platform. The aging iron landing groaned complainingly under the unaccustomed extra weight. Wizard sat up slowly to look at her. The climb had mussed her hair, but other than that she looked remarkably collected. She had clambered up the wall unaided. Now she brushed her hair back from her face and gave him a grin that was one part defiance to one part mischief.
“See? It’s not that easy to get rid of me. I should have known better than to leave you alone. Why’d you run out on me?”
“I don’t feel good.” Wizard didn’t want to talk, didn’t want her up here, didn’t want to do anything but crawl into an isolated place and curl up around the emptiness and sickness inside him. The magnitude of this disaster was such that he could not comprehend it. If only she would go away he could lie still and understand how awful it all was. Bent nearly double, he began his climb up the flight of metal steps. He heard her following. Well, let her. He couldn’t stop her. Silently he raised his window wider and wriggled inside. It was dark. but not so dark that he couldn’t make out his familiar path through the stacks of cardboard boxes stored in this room. He groped his way to the door of his den. There was a slight rustle from the roosting pigeons as he stepped through the door, but they settled again almost immediately. Behind him, Lynda had snagged her coat on the windowsill. She was muttering curses as she tugged at it, but he had no energy to hush her. He took four steps to his bed and dropped onto it. He could undress later.