THE WAITER, AFTER GIVING Thomas a long, doubtful look, led him down the aisle to a narrow booth at the back of the restaurant.
“There you are, sir,” he said. “Would you care for coffee?”
“Yes,” Thomas said, “and a ham and swiss cheese and bell pepper omelette, and sourdough toast, and fried potatoes with onions, and a big glass of very cold beer.”
The waiter slowly wrote it all down on a pad and then stared at Thomas, plainly doubtful about the young man’s finances, but intimidated by the monk’s robe.
“I can afford it,” said Thomas haughtily. He waved the man away.
As soon as the waiter walked off Thomas dipped into his water glass the first finger of his left hand, which he had gashed deeply the night before. He wiped the dried blood off with his napkin. Looks all right, he decided. It’ll leave a scar, but I guess it’s clean.
Most of the restaurant’s booths were empty, which struck Thomas as an odd state of affairs at roughly eight o’clock in the morning on such a nice day. I hope there’s nothing wrong with the food, he thought.
A tiny, leaded-glass window was set in the wall next to his left ear, and he hunched around in his seat to be able to see outside. There was a congested line of vehicles moving north on Western; out of the city, Thomas realized. The carts all seemed to be filled with chairs and mattresses, and he saw men pulling several of them, strapped into harnesses that were meant for horses. A policeman was walking down the line, and the people in the carts were pulling sheaves of papers from their pockets and letting him look at them. Sometimes he would keep the papers and make some person move his cart out of the line and return into the city. Thomas remembered that St. Coutras had said all the cops were androids, and he tried to look more closely at this one, but the wavy window glass prevented him from seeing anything clearly,
Six young men were walking rapidly up the Western sidewalk, holding long sticks. They sprinted the last hundred feet to the policeman and clubbed him to the ground from behind. For a full twenty seconds they crouched above the uniformed body, raining savage, full-arm blows; then they ran away in different directions. Thomas had expected the people in the traffic line to say or do something, but they had just watched the beating disinterestedly. After a few minutes another policeman appeared and began calmly checking their papers.
Thomas turned back to his table, frowning and upset. Do androids feel pain? he wondered. The replacement cop didn’t seem bothered by his predecessor’s fate, Thomas thought—why should I be? Haven’t I got enough problems without having to worry about the well-being of some creature that was brewed in a vat?
At that moment his beer arrived, followed closely by the food he’d ordered. He felt a little queasy about eating until he took a long sip of the cold beer, and then his hunger returned in force. He wolfed the food and washed it down with another glass of beer.
When he finished he had forgotten the unfortunate android and was leaning back, feeling comfortable and wondering whether or not to buy a cigar. After a while the waiter appeared.
“What do I owe you?” asked Thomas, reaching into his pocket.
“Forty solis.”
Thomas smiled. “No, really.”
“Forty solis,” the waiter repeated slowly, moving to block Thomas’ exit from the booth.
Thomas’ smile disappeared. “Forty solis for one breakfast?” he gasped. “Since when? Brother William told me you can get a good dinner for ten.”
“Brother William hasn’t been to town for a while, apparently,” the waiter growled. “The Los Angeles soli has been dropping ever since last summer.” He grabbed Thomas by the collar. “Listen, brother—if you are a monk, which I doubt; where’s your rosary?—you’re lucky we’ll take solis at all, after Thursday morning. Most shops are closed, won’t take any currency till they see where it stands. Now trot out forty solis or we’ll be using your lousy hide to wash dishes with tonight.”
“Oh, all right then!” Thomas said indignantly, pushing the waiter’s arm away. “Here.” He reached into his pocket again with his right hand, and with his left picked up his water glass and splashed its contents into the waiter’s face. While the man’s eyes were closed Thomas punched him in the stomach and then grabbed him by the hair and pulled his dripping face down hard onto his breakfast plate. Bits of egg flew, and the waiter yelled in pain.
Thomas shoved him aside and dashed up the aisle. The cashier, a blond girl in a frilly apron, stepped into his path but then stepped back again when he roared fiercely and waved his arms at her.
His escape looked good until two burly, unshaven men in stained T-shirts and aprons appeared from the kitchen and stood in front of the door. “Grab the bastard!” yelled the waiter, who, blood running down his chin, now advanced on Thomas from behind.
“Oh, Jesus,” moaned Thomas in fright.
A well-to-do family filled a booth by a window nearby; there was an older gentleman, his stocky wife, three children and, under the table, a poodle in a powder-blue dog sweater. They all watched Thomas with polite interest, as if he’d just announced that he was going to do a few juggling tricks.
“I’m sorry, I really am,” Thomas yelled, and picked up their dog with both hands, raised it over his head and pitched it through the window. Taking a flying leap and setting his sandaled foot firmly in a plate of sausages on their table, he dove head-first through the jagged-edged casement. When he rolled to his feet on the glass-strewn sidewalk outside he saw the dog huddled against the wall, terrified but apparently saved from injury by the idiotic sweater.
“Your dog’s okay!” Thomas yelled back through the window. He felt bad about having done that. The two big men in aprons rounded the corner of the building, one armed with a long fork and the other with a spatula. Thomas turned and ran down the block, jogging sharply right on a street called Sierra Vista and then left into a nameless alley. It led him eventually to another big street, and he followed it south, only walking briskly now that the vengeful cooks had been left far behind.
Anton Delmotte sipped at his tomato juice and shuddered.
His boss, sitting across the table from him, looked up. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked unsympathetically. “Did my breakfast disagree with you?”
“Oh, no, Bob.” Delmotte twisted his wrinkled face into an ingratiating smile. “The breakfast was tip-top. As always.”
“Yeah,” Bob grunted absently, returning his attention to the papers before him on the table. “Better than you deserve.”
Delmotte didn’t answer. He took another deep sip of the red juice and managed to swallow it with no change of expression. When Bob left the room a few minutes before, Delmotte had tiptoed furtively to the liquor cabinet with the glass of tomato juice, hoping to find some vodka or gin to fortify it with. Bob’s returning footsteps had sounded on the stair before he’d found any, though, and he’d had to make do with peppermint schnapps.
A short, rat-faced man now leaned in the rear door, his ragged beard and greasy sweatshirt presenting an incongruous contrast with the simple colonial elegance of the dining room. “That kid from Bellflower died during the night,” he said. “I said he was sick. We’ll be lucky if the rest of ’em don’t come down with it.”
Bob let a long sigh hiss out between his teeth. “Okay,” he said. “Tie him up under the wagon and we’ll cut him loose once we get moving. He’s not still in with the others, is he?”
“No, boss. I’ve got him under a couple of boxes out back.”
“Good. Get the rest of them in the wagon. We’ll be moving out at eleven.” The man nodded and withdrew. Bob turned to Delmotte, who had drained the tomato juice. “You swore that kid was okay,” he said. “Not that I should ever take your word for anything.”
“Oh, hell, Bob,” Delmotte protested nervously. “He looked all right. Good muscles, clear eyes. You’d have sworn yourself that it was just a cold.”
Bob stared at him. “Maybe. But you’re the one that did swear it. And Alvarez ordered fifty, not forty-nine.” He stood up and walked to the window, squinting out at the street. “We leave in about two hours. If you haven’t found a replacement for the Bellflower kid by then, we’re leaving you behind.”
“Wha…?” Delmotte turned pale. “Leave me behind? You—I couldn’t get out of the city alone, Bob. I’d starve for sure… but you’re just pulling my leg, aren’t you? Hell, yes. You’d never maroon me, not after all these years. You know as well as—”
“I’m not joking.” Bob still stood at the window, looking out. “I wouldn’t miss you. All you do these days is drink and throw up.” He turned to the old man. “Two hours, Pops. You’d better get busy.” He crossed to the table, picked up his papers and left by the rear door.
Delmotte, trembling wildly, tottered to the liquor cabinet and, wincing, took two deep swigs of the schnapps; then he went into the kitchen and returned with a pot of hot coffee, which he set on the table. A small, cork-stoppered bottle of clear fluid stood on the bookshelf and he fumbled it open and emptied it into the coffee.
“Recompense,” he kept muttering. “A cold, cold recompense.”
He scuttled to the window and peered out, and a crazy spark of hope woke in his rheumy eyes. Back to the bookcase he went, grabbed five volumes at random, and then wrenched open the street door and darted outside.
As he’d moved deeper into the city, Thomas had been increasingly puzzled by the air of unspecified tension that he felt hanging over the sunlit streets; most shops were closed, a surprising amount of broken furniture and old crockery littered the gutters, and the few people he saw moved in groups of at least two, walking fast and glancing uneasily up and down the boulevard.
It’s Friday now, Thomas thought. What was it that happened Thursday morning?
Another fugitive appeared now—an old man, dashing out of a doorway up ahead with a stack of books. Poor man, Thomas thought. All alone, fleeing from whatever it is that everybody’s scared of, trying to hang onto a few treasured books. Even as he watched, the old man stumbled, scattering the books across the sidewalk and into the gutter.
“Let me help you with those,” Thomas said, running over to him. He picked up the volumes, brushed them off and handed them back to the old man.
“Thank you, lad, thank you.” he wheezed. “A kind soul in this cold metropolis. Come inside and let me give you some coffee.”
“No, thanks,” Thomas said, wondering why the old man smelled so overpoweringly of peppermint. “I’ve got to be in San Pedro by sundown, and it’s a long way, I hear.”
“True, lad, true! So long that ten minutes of good conversation over a cup of coffee won’t matter a bit.” He put his arm around Thomas’ shoulders and turned him toward the open door.
“Really,” Thomas protested. “It’s kind of you to offer, and I’m grateful, but I—”
“All right.” Tears stood in the old man’s eyes. “Go, then. Leave me to the dusty loneliness from which suicide is the only exit. I… I want you to keep these books. They’re all I own in the world, but—”
“Wait a minute,” Thomas said, bewildered. “Don’t do that. I’ll have a cup of coffee with you, how’s that? I’ll have two.”
“Bless your heart, lad.”
Delmotte led the ragged young man inside, reflecting, even in this tense moment, how much the lad resembled his long-dead son, Jacob. Jacob would never have let Bob treat me this way, he thought.
“Sit down, son,” he said as jovially as he could, pulling out a chair that faced the door across the table. “Ah, there’s the coffee. Drink up.”
Thomas sat down reluctantly. “There’s no cups,” he pointed out.
Delmotte sagged. “What? Oh, yes. You couldn’t drink it right out of the…? I suppose not. Wait there, I’ll fetch a cup.” He went into the kitchen, stopping first at the liquor cabinet to lower the level of the schnapps another inch. “Medicine,” he explained.
As soon as the old man was gone, Thomas lifted the lid of the pot and sniffed the dark liquid within. It had a sharp, sweet smell.
Delmotte reappeared, waving a cup proudly. “Here you are, Jacob,” he said.
“Thomas. Thomas is my name.”
Delmotte wasn’t listening. He was pouring coffee into the cup and humming softly to himself. “There you are,” he said, pushing the cup toward Thomas.
“I don’t want any.” Thomas tensed his weary legs for a dash out the door.
“You’ll drink it, though, won’t you? You’ve always been my obedient son—not like Bob.”
That does it, Thomas thought. He leaped up and bolted around the table toward the door; but the old man, with surprisingly quick reflexes, sprang from his chair as Thomas rushed past and seized him around the waist.
“Bob!” Delmotte shrilled. “I got one, I got one!”
Thoroughly terrified now, Thomas drove his elbow into the old man’s face. Delmotte dropped to the floor and Thomas ran outside and pelted off down the street.
After a moment Bob stepped out onto the sidewalk, his mouth twisted with impatience and exasperation as he raised a pistol to eye level.
The bullet tore across Thomas’ right side before he heard the shot, and sheer astonishment made him lose his footing and fall to his hands and knees on the pavement. The second shot, with a sound like a muted bell, punched a hole in a pawnbroker’s sign over his head.
“Help, I’m being murdered!” he yelled as he scuttled up the sidewalk on all fours, like a dog. Another bullet zipped past his ear, and then he was around the corner. He got to his feet, breathed deeply for a few seconds and then trotted away down another street that stretched south.
After a block or two he noticed that blood was trickling down his side under his robe and being absorbed by his loincloth. I suppose I can’t afford to bleed to death on the way, he thought impatiently. He ducked into an alley, stepped modestly behind a stack of cabbage crates and, lifting the skirts of his robe, tore away the already tattered hem.
The wound was about two and a half inches long. It was not deep, though it seemed willing to bleed on indefinitely. Thomas held a wad of fabric against the gash and then tied the threadbare brown hem-strips across his middle so that they pressed on the makeshift bandage. The cloth blotted black with blood fairly quickly, but not so quickly as to indicate a torn vein or artery.
His bandage in place, he slumped against the brick wall at his back and heaved a long sigh. When he focused his eyes again, he saw a boy of about ten years glowering down at him from an open second-floor window.
“Uh, hello there,” Thomas said.
The child frowned deeply.
“Say,” Thomas went on, “can you tell me what happened yesterday? Why is everybody so frightened?”
“They blew up Mayor Pelias,” the boy answered after a pause. “Twice, early in the morning. It woke me up.”
“He’s dead, then?”
“No.” The boy stepped away from the window.
Thomas considered and then dismissed the idea of calling him back. He made sure his robe was as neat as possible, and then stepped out onto the sidewalk again and resumed his journey. He was on Western again, he noted, and a number of signs agreed that Wilshire was the big street that lay half a block ahead. I wonder how close San Pedro is now, he thought. I wish I’d brought a map.
He strode on with a firm jaw and lots of determination, but after half an hour of walking he slowed. His forehead, despite the hot sun and his heavy robe, was dry, and a powerful nausea was opening its hand in his abdomen. The glare on the buildings and sidewalks made his eyes water, and squinting helped only a little. Sunstroke, he thought dizzily—or maybe it’s fever, infection from my bullet-wound. I’ve got to rest, get out of this sun.
Pico was the next cross-street, and he turned right, noticing a closed stagecoach station only two buildings away. Its door was recessed a good fifteen feet from the sidewalk, and he looked forward to sitting down and resting in the shaded hall—maybe I’ll even take a short nap, he thought.
Thomas turned into the cool hall, and was halfway to the locked door at the end when he saw the man already sitting there.
“Oh. Hi,” Thomas said, halting. In the sudden dimness he was unable to see the man clearly.
“Howdy, son,” came a mellow voice. “Sit down, make yourself at home. The shade’s here for everybody.”
“Thanks.” Thomas leaned back and slid down the wall into a sitting position.
“What brings you out of doors?” the man enquired. A paper bag rustled and Thomas heard swallowing. “Like a bit of scotch?”
“No, thanks,” Thomas said. “I’m a stranger in town. Just passing through, as they say. What has happened to the mayor, anyway?”
“He’s had a stroke, the story is, after two bombs bounced him out of bed yesterday morning, one ten minutes after the other. I think he’s dead, and they don’t want to let on. They figure the city would really go to the dogs if it got out that he’d kicked off.”
“Would it?” Thomas asked drowsily. “Go to the dogs, I mean.”
“Yeah, probably,” the man said. “The people would try to wipe out the androids, and the androids’d fight back, and then San Diego or Carmel would send an army against L.A. while none of us were paying attention.” He sucked the scotch. “I don’t know. Who cares? I don’t care. Do you care?”
“Not me,” Thomas said agreeably. “I don’t care.”
“Right! Have some scotch.”
“No… well, okay, maybe I will.” The man handed him the bottle and Thomas opened his robe and poured some of the liquid on his stiffening bandage. It felt wonderfully cold on his feverish skin, and smelled so invigorating that he gulped a mouthful of it.
He handed it back to his companion. “Thanks.”
“How’d you get cut?”
“I was shot at,” Thomas told him. “Some crazy old man tried to serve me poisoned coffee, and I ran, so he shot at me. Three times.”
“I’ll take care of him,” the man said with a reassuring nod.
“You will?” Thomas asked curiously.
“Sure. I think I’ll take care of the whole damn city. I’ve had my eye on ’em for a long time. Sin everywhere you look. Dope, whores, murderers—do you know what I saw the other day?”
“What?”
“A screwdriver. There were these two girls, see, photographs, in the plastic handle. They had black bathing suits on, but when you turn the screwdriver upside down the bathing suits slide off, and the girls are naked. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.”
“Oh, yeah.” Thomas nodded and eyed his companion uncertainly. The man was big, with a puffy, ruddy face, and eyes that hid between thick eyebrows and sagging pouches.
“You’re just passing through, you say?” he asked. Thomas nodded. “Well, I’ll hold off till tomorrow night before I unleash them old seven angels of doom, okay?”
“Okay. Much obliged.” I’d be well advised to leave now, Thomas felt, and got to his feet.
“Taking off so soon?”
“’Fraid I have to,” Thomas said.
“Okay. Listen, if you get in any jams, tell ’em the Lord of Wrath is a buddy of yours.”
“Will do.” He waved and walked back out to the sidewalk. I hope San Pedro Harbor isn’t too much further, he thought. I don’t think I could ever get used to this city life.
The sun was well on its way down the afternoon side of the sky when Thomas crossed Park View Street and found himself in MacArthur Park. He had been walking all day, and his wound was throbbing, so when he flopped down on one of the wooden benches he began considering the feasibility of spending the night right there. The tall buildings around the park were softly lit by the golden light, their eastern sides and inset windows shadowed in pale blue. Very pretty, he thought—but I feel the evening chill coming on. I’ll need newspapers to stuff inside my robe for warmth.
An armed street vendor was pushing a cart along Sixth Street. “Get yer red-hot mantras right here, folks. Can’t meditate without a mantra of your own. We got ’em, you want ’em.”
“Hey!” Thomas called. The merchant stopped and looked up the grassy hill to Thomas’ bench. “Can you eat those things? Mantras?” It had occurred to him that it might be some sort of Mexican food.
The street vendor simply stared at Thomas for a few seconds and then moved on, repeating his monotonous sales pitch. Oh well, Thomas thought. I probably couldn’t have afforded one, anyhow.
He had sat back on the bench, and was trying to muster the energy to get up and look for newspapers when he became aware of muffled laughter behind him. It was the first sign of mirth he’d heard since parting ways with St. Coutras that morning, and he turned around curiously.
A young man of roughly his own age—possibly a year or two younger—was leaning on a tree trunk ten feet behind him. He was dressed in brown corduroy pants and coat, with leather boots, and his unruly hair was as red as a new brick. He saw that Thomas had noticed him, so he gave up on trying to conceal his laughter and fairly howled with it. Thomas stared at him, beginning to get annoyed.
“Ho ho,” said the red-haired one finally. “So you’re going to eat a mantra, hey. With proverb jelly and a side order of gregorian chant, no doubt.”
“It’s not food, I take it,” said Thomas stiffly.
“Hell, no.” The young man walked over and put one foot up on Thomas’ bench. “It’s a chant that you say over and over in your mind when you’re meditating. Like… one-two-three-four-who-are-we-for, or Barney-Google-with-the-great-big-googly-eyes.”
“Oh.” Thomas tried not to look chagrined.
“Where are you going, anyway? I’ve been following you ever since Beverly. A young monk with no rosary, soaked in blood and reeking of whiskey—an unusual sight, even these days. I’m Spencer, by the way.”
“I’m Thomas.” They shook hands, and Thomas found that his anger at being laughed at had evaporated. “I’m trying to get to San Pedro,” he explained. “How much further is it?”
“An easy twenty miles,” Spencer said. “Maybe more. Catch the Harbor Freeway about eight blocks east of here and then go south till you fall into the ocean. What’s in San Pedro?”
“I’m going to sign aboard a tramp steamer,” Thomas said, a little defensively.
“Oh. Where are you going to spend the night? On this bench?”
“I was thinking of it.”
Spencer stared at him and then burst out laughing again. “You’re lucky I came by, brother,” he said. “I don’t even want to hint at what’d happen to you if you slept here. This isn’t like sleeping in the orchard out back of the chapel, you know.” He sat down beside Thomas and lit a cigarette with an unnecessary flourish. “They give you any education at your monastery?” he asked after puffing on it for a few moments.
“Yeah,” Thomas said. “In some things.”
“Ever hear of Shakespeare? William H. Shakespeare?”
“Sure.”
“Ah. Well, the Bellamy Theatre, over on Second Street, is putting on As You Like It, which this Shakespeare wrote. I’m in it, I’m one of the actors, and I could find you a place to sleep at the theatre. We all sleep there.”
“That’d be great,” said Thomas eagerly. It was already getting cold, and the prospect of sleeping on a bench was quickly losing its charm.
“Come on, then,” Spencer said, hopping to his feet and flinging away the cigarette. “If we move fast we can get there in time to grab some food.”
Thomas needed no further encouragement.
The few shopkeepers who had opened their doors were locking up now. The evening wind was tossing bits of paper along the sidewalks and carrying, from time to time, the sound of sporadic gunfire from distant streets. Thomas thrust his hands into his pockets and shivered.
“You’re broke, aren’t you?” Spencer asked. “Uh… have no money, that is.”
“Well, I’ve got eleven solis, but that’s it. Yeah, I’m ‘broke’ all right.”
“Were you robbed?”
“No, that’s all I came with.”
“What? You—”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Thomas interrupted. “It’s not quite as stupid as it sounds. I didn’t plan on doing it this way.”
“How did you plan on doing it? And what are you doing, anyway?” Spencer lit another cigarette. He let it hang on his lower lip and then squinted through the smoke.
“Running away from the Merignac monastery, up in the hills.” Thomas answered. “I was an orphan, you see, so the monastery kindly indentured me to work for them until I turned twenty-five—which is four years from now—in exchange for room and board and education.”
“And you’re making a… premature exit.”
Thomas nodded.
“And you grabbed the collection basket one morning, and jumped over the wall, and then discovered there was only eleven solis in it.”
Thomas laughed ruefully. “That’s almost right,” he admitted. “I made a kite and a fishing pole, and last night I went sky fishing.” (“Jesus,” Spencer muttered.) “Those bird-men make their nests up at the high end of the valley, you know, and the monastery lies right in their flight-path. I’ve heard they grab bright, glittery objects like coins and jewelry, and carry ’em home in their pouches to decorate their nests; so I figured if I caught about ten of them, over a period of a month, say, I’d have enough money to fund my escape.”
“Did you know…do you know what they do to sky-fishers?”
“Yeah. They cut their hands off. Seems a little extreme to me.”
“Well, sure. All the penalties are extreme. But the government claims those bird-men are tax collectors, see. They’ve got big nets set up by the Hollywood Bowl, and they catch them, empty their pouches, give ’em a little food and then send them on their way. It’s a government monopoly. Anytime you catch one yourself, it’s the same as holding up a tax collector at gunpoint.”
“Oh.” Thomas thought about it. “Then I really was robbing from the collection basket.”
Spencer snapped his fingers, sending his cigarette flying at a rat who had poked his nose timidly from behind a collapsed and abandoned couch; he missed, but the shower of sparks sent the rat ducking back into the shadows. “And all you got out of it was eleven solis.”
“That’s right,” Thomas said. “I was caught by the abbot the first time I did it. Did you know those bird-men can talk? And yell? So I had to punch the abbot and take off immediately.”
Spencer shook his head wonderingly. “You’re lucky to have got this far. Sky-fishing, punching old priests—and how did you get so bloody?”
“I was shot—relax, I don’t think it’s serious; just plowed up the skin—by a madman. And I’ve been having adventures all day. I was chased by gangs, some guy gave me wrong directions for San Pedro, so I was walking north on Vermont for an hour, and—”
“I get the picture,” Spencer said. “Well, the Bellamy Theatre is just around this corner. We can get you some hot soup, a clean bed and a solid roof to sleep under.” He clapped Thomas on the shoulder. “Relax, brother,” he said. “Your troubles are over.”
They picked their way for a few yards down a cobbled alley that reeked of Chinese food (“Restaurant next door,” Spencer explained) and then climbed a swaying wooden stairway that brought them to a narrow balcony overlooking the alley. Two ruptured, rain-faded easy chairs and a mummified plant in a pot gave evidence of some long-ago attempt to make the balcony habitable, but the only occupants at present were two surly cats.
“This way,” said Spencer, leading Thomas around the chairs to a plywood door set in the brick wall. He knocked on it in a three-two sequence.
“Who is it, for Christ’s sake?” came an annoyed female voice. “The door ain’t locked.”
Spencer pulled the door open. “It’s supposed to be locked,” he complained. “Gladhand said you’re only supposed to open it when somebody gives the secret knock.”
Thomas followed Spencer inside and found himself in a red-carpeted, lamp-lit hallway, looking at a short, dark-haired girl wearing a brown tunic and leotard.
She stared at Spencer for a moment and then, with exaggerated caution, leaned out the door, peered up and down the length of the balcony, pulled the door closed and bolted it securely. “Don’t we have a dresser or something we could lean against it?” she asked innocently.
“Save your cuteness for somebody else, will you, Alice?” said Spencer. “Now sober up, I want you to meet somebody. Thomas, this tawdry baggage is Alice Faber. Alice, this is Thomas, a friend of mine. He needs a place to sleep tonight.”
“My God,” Alice exclaimed, looking at Thomas for the first time. “He’s all bloody! You’re all bloody! Did somebody knife you?”
“No,” said Thomas, embarrassed. “I… uh, was shot at. There was this old guy with an armload of books, and—”
“We’ll have to get you cleaned up,” she interrupted, taking him by the arm. “I won’t do it, but Jean will. I get sick if I see blood. Really. Jean!”
“I’ll see you later,” Spencer said. “When the girls get through with you, there’s somebody you’ve got to talk to.”
“Okay,” Thomas said, and allowed Alice to lead him down a tightly curving stairway to another, wider hallway.
“She’s probably in the green room,” Alice said “Hey, Jean!”
“Yeah?” came a lazy call.
“Come out here and clean up this young man who’s been shot! He’ll bleed to death right here if you don’t move fast.”
“I’m not bleeding,” protested Thomas.
A tall, thin girl leaned out of a doorway. Her tired, sarcastic expression turned to alertness when she saw Thomas swaying in the hall, leaning on Alice’s arm and looking pale and exhausted in his ragged, blood-streaked robe.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Thomas said. “The bullet just creased me, really…”
The sudden shift to the warmth in the building from the chilly air outside had made him dizzy, and he wasn’t sure what he was saying. Jean was standing in front of him now, he noticed, and had apparently asked him a question. Probably asked me my name, he thought; he was still trying to pronounce “Thomas” when her face slid away below him and the back of his head struck the floor.