Angel knew something unusual was going on when Byron walked off toward the bay. Wordlessly, she followed him as they paralleled the water past the new Oakland Bay Bridge and into the forest of condos on the postquake coastline. Occasionally the fog would roll back far enough for Angel to see some of the coast-hugging reef out in the bay. Even though it was less obvious here than it was on the coastline between Market and Telegraph Hill, if you looked at the forms sticking out of the water, it was easy to imagine the fifty-sixty meters of wharf and landfill that had slid into the bay during the big one.
There was something perverse in having people pay a good five hundred K to live right on the edge of the destruction in a shiny new luxury condo. If anything, it proved a direct relationship between wealth and stupidity. Angel could only make out the vaguest outlines of the first story of the building they approached—but from that glimpse Angel decided that the people living there had to be very stupid.
Byron led her to a secure parking garage adjacent to the building. His car was parked in one of the reserved parts of the garage. Money to service the parking had to run better than the rent on her apartment. The car fit the place.
Angel finally spoke. “A BMW?”
“A BMW 600e sedan,” Byron responded. He pulled a small remote out of his pocket. He pressed a few buttons and the trunk popped open.
“I’m impressed.” The sloping blue vehicle did everything to exude money and power short of grabbing her by the scruff of the neck and shaking her. She could be looking at a hundred grand, easy.
Angel finally noticed the cut of Byron’s suit. A morey wearing a suit had to have money. But Byron’s suit wasn’t an altered human three-piece. The damn thing was tailored for a fox. That was nearly as impressive as the car.
Byron rummaged in the trunk and came out with a green case with a red cross on it. He handed it to her. “Let me give you a place to sit.” He pressed a few more buttons on the remote and the passenger door opened behind her. The leather bucket seat rotated ninety degrees to face the open door.
Angel stared at it and didn’t move.
“It isn’t going to bite.”
Angel shook her head. “Never seen a car that did that.” Sitting, she sank five or six centimeters into the contoured seat. She wished she had furniture this nice at home.
The first aid case rested on her knees. Byron opened it. “First thing, let’s clean that off.” He withdrew a package of gauze and a bottle. “This may sting a little.”
Byron opened the bottle and Angel got a sharp whiff of alcohol. He doused the gauze and rubbed the fur on her cheek. Her eyes watered and her wince must have been noticeable. Byron pulled away the gauze, which was now red with her blood.
Angel looked up at a slightly blurred fox. “What?”
“It looked like I was really hurting—”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re crying.”
“I’m not crying!” she sniffed. “Just dress the thing.”
Byron nodded and went back to cleaning off her wound. It hurt like hell. Angel tried to get her mind off of it. “So—” She grimaced as Byron applied fresh gauze. “—what you do for a living?”
He pulled a small razor out of the kit. “Overpaid delivery boy.” Byron shaved the hair from around her wound. She felt a slight tug, and one of her whiskers fell in her lap. “Until I was laid off.” Byron finished. From the sound, he didn’t want to talk about it.
Angel sat, silent, as he finished binding up her face. When he was done, she was scared to look in the side-view mirror. But despite her fears, the dressing only formed a small rectangle on her right cheek.
She touched her cheek lightly. “At least the scars will be symmetrical.”
He leaned over to peer into the small mirror. “I’m curious about that other one.” He reached over her other shoulder and touched the reflection of her other cheek. On her left cheek was a scar that pulled up one corner of her mouth in a permanent smile.
“Long time ago. You don’t want to hear.”
“Maybe I do.” His finger dropped from the mirror, but his arm remained draped over her shoulder.
Angel sighed. He really didn’t want to hear this. “Ten years ago, a sleazy excuse for a ferret tried to rape me.”
There was an uncomfortably long silence. Byron finally said, “I’m sorry.”
“I told you.”
“Perhaps I should take you home.”
Did she screw up? Still had his arm around her shoulder—good, Angel thought. Let’s just not tell him what happened to that ferret.
“I’d appreciate the ride.”
Byron let go of her and walked around to the driver’s side. “Where am I going?”
“The Mission District,” Angel said, rehearsing in her mind how she was going to ask him up to her place. If he was paying any attention, he could probably smell what she was feeling. She certainly could—even over the stale lime from The Rabbit Hole—and the lust-smell was making her self-conscious.
Angel’s building was near the center of the Mission District, in the heart of a swath of San Francisco’s ubiquitous Victorians and pseudo-Victorians. Many of the houses Byron drove by had survived two major quakes—in fact, there were jokes that restoration work had done more damage in this part of the Mission District than any earthquake could.
Despite the historical context, Angel still thought of her place as an architectural assault. A bay window squatted over an entrance that tried to look like a Roman arch. Both were flanked by square towers that were topped by merlons, of all things. The whole thing sat on a brick foundation wrapped in wrought iron that was close enough to the tilted street that it gave the illusion of being canted at a dizzying angle. The street was so cockeyed this far west of 23rd that, while there were six steps to the door on the right, there were only two to the left.
Byron pulled to a stop between a beat-up off-blue Ford Jerboa and a hulking, heavily modified Plymouth Antaeus. He turned his wheels to the curb and said, “Nice place.”
Angel glanced up and down 23rd, but he had parked right in front of her house. “You’re talking about that house, there?”
Byron shrugged.
No accounting for taste. Give it time, Angel thought, eventually she’d be in love with anachronistic monstrosities like the rest of the city.
But she wasn’t going to hold her breath.
“Come in for a drink?” She wished she’d come up with something less cliché-ridden for the time she spent thinking about it.
“My pleasure, Angel.” It might have been her imagination, but Byron made her name sound like an endearment.
Angel led him upstairs to her flat, having forgotten totally about her roommate. And, having forgotten about Lei, of course Lei was there in the living room waiting for them.
Angel had barely opened the door before Lei bounced off the couch and said, “Early night. How are you—What the hell happened? Are you all right?”
Angel opened her mouth to say something.
“And who’s this?” Lei finished without taking a breath.
Lei was a Vietnamese canine, but Angel had suspicions that she was really an odd-looking ferret with hyped reflexes. Lei was already shaking Byron’s hand before Angel had managed to get a word out.
“Lei,” Angel finally managed, stepping out of the way so Byron could enter the second-story apartment. “Byron. Byron, Lei.” Angel felt a little overwhelmed, being squeezed between a pair of two-meter-tall moreaus.
“Pleased, I’m sure,” Byron said with a slightly amused smile plastered on his face.
“Sorry I’m back early,” Angel said, “but things came up.”
“Really no problem,” Lei said, then whipped her head back to face Byron. “I can imagine.” Angel felt Lei’s tail swat her on the ass.
“Lei—” Angel began.
“How did the game go?” Lei asked as she stopped pumping Byron’s hand.
Angel stood there, for a second not getting Lei’s question.
“Angel, the game.”
“I, uh—” For some reason Angel glanced at Byron. “Don’t know.”
“After all your—” Lei glanced at Byron herself. “Oh, yeah, things came up, didn’t they?”
“Well, yes, you see—”
“Oh, my, look at that time.” Lei didn’t look anywhere near a clock. She reached past Angel to grab a purse hanging off the back of a chair. “It was nice meeting you, Byron.” She pumped his hand again. “But I have to go. Things to see, people to do.”
Lei turned and gave Angel a very broad wink before she slipped past Byron and out the door.
“Lei?” Angel sighed as she heard the door downstairs swing closed. “I hate that.”
“Interesting person.”
Angel closed the door as Byron walked in. She looked over the living room. Great, Lei’d been cleaning again. Byron was going to think she was some anal neat freak. “Make yourself at home.” Were clichés the only thing she could come up with? “I’m going to change into something more—” Don’t say comfortable! “—clean.”
“Please, take your time.”
Angel walked into her bedroom and ripped off the blood-spattered shirt and looked at herself in the mirror. “You’re still a little drunk,” she whispered at her reflection as she manhandled her jeans off over her feet. “Got to be it.”
She looked around for something to wear. Compared to the spotless living room, her room was a blast crater. Angel started by trying to find something that smelled clean, and ended up shoving a double armful of clothes into the closet.
She had to make an effort to avoid further cleaning. “Calm down, Angel,” she whispered.
She looked at her reflection. She could just forgo the clothes. Clothing was a human quirk anyway. It was her place, right?
She grabbed a robe from the closet, a metallic-green thing that she’d bought in Chinatown. She almost walked out without ripping off the price tag. She tossed the tag under the bed.
“I really need a drink.”
Angel walked past the living room and rummaged in the fridge. Coke, Budweiser, a lonely bulb of Ki-Rin, a bottle of white wine . . .
She grabbed the wine.
Angel walked out into the living room and Byron was leaning back on the couch, jacket and tie off, watching the comm. Angel walked up next to him and handed him a glass.
“The local game’s blacked out, but I found the Denver game.”
Angel looked up in time to see the Denver Mavericks’ quarterback get destroyed in a sack that involved a fox, two tigers, and a canine. “Yes!” Angel said at the sight almost spilling her wine. “You a fan?”
“Was there any other reason to be in that bar?” There was something odd in the way Byron said that. “The service is bloody rotten and I can’t say much for the clientele. With one exception, of course.” He toasted her with his glass. God, she loved that accent.
Angel killed the light and sat down next to Byron.
Byron continued, “Of course, I started watching real football—” The Mavericks were second and five, and Al Shaheid, the canine quarterback, sent an incomplete pass off into nowhere. Byron winced. “Didn’t he see that? Rajhadien was wide open.”
“What do you mean real football?” Third down and Shaheid was backpedaling with the ball. “Sack the bastard!”
“Soccer.” Somehow, Shaheid slipped through a gap in the defense and ran for ten and a first down. “Yes!” Byron said with as much enthusiasm as Angel had shown in response to the sack. “But, as far as I know, the States is the only place they let moreaus play anything professionally.”
“What’s your team?” Angel asked, sliding into a comfortable nook under Byron’s left arm.
“Denver—”
“You bastard! I’m tempted to throw you out right now.” Byron’s tail moved around behind her, and Angel reached down and idly began to stroke it.
Angel felt Byron’s sharp nose nuzzle her ear. “I suppose you’re Cleveland?” he whispered.
“Are you kidding? The worst team in the league?”
“How about the Warriors?” Byron asked as the Mavericks’ opponents got a flag on the play. Someone had used their claws again. Trust the Bronx Warriors to do that at least once a game.
“I don’t believe you.” Angel slipped a hand into Byron’s shirt, stroking the fur on his abdomen. “You’re in the town with the best team in the league.”
“Last year maybe.”
Angel set down her drink and started undoing the buttons on his shirt. “Last year, this year, next year, every year—”
“That’s why I’m not an Earthquakes fan.” Byron set down his own drink. “They’re all so full of themse—” One of the Mavericks’ receivers had broken out and was running down the sidelines. “Go, go, go.” Byron began quietly chanting, as Angel undid his pants.
Angel glanced back at the comm and saw the touchdown. They put up the score and it was Mavericks, 25 to zip. There were a dozen seconds left on the clock for the first half. The Warriors might as well just pack up and go home. Not that anyone in his right mind would want to go to the Bronx right now. At least not until there was a cease-fire.
Byron reached over and hit the mute button on the remote.
“You were really upset when the game got preempted,” Byron said as his hands slipped the tie from her robe.
“I was looking forward to a decent massacre.” Angel nipped at one of Byron’s triangular ears.
“The president was talking about a massacre.” Byron rolled over and stretched on the couch under Angel.
Angel sighed and lowered her face until their noses touched. “Political games. At least with football, there isn’t the pretense that it means anything.”
“That’s rather cold.”
“So I’m a cynic.” Angel slid back on to Byron’s hips and nuzzled his chest.
“A few years ago I would’ve argued with you.”
Angel rested her chin on Byron’s chest. Somehow their clothes had ended up as a nest underneath them. The silent comm was the only light in the room.
Byron placed his hand on the back of her head, and began stroking the length of her back. “Let’s change the subject.”
“You were just telling me how cold I was.” Angel found one of his nipples under his chest fur and teethed it.
Byron smiled his incredible smile, and Angel felt his tail wrap around her midsection. “I was mistaken. You’re actually very warm.”
Angel reached between his legs and said, “So’re you.”
Lei didn’t come back until the following morning, and for that, Angel was very grateful.