Tim Powers - Dinner at Deviant's Palace

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DINNER AT DEVIANT'S

PALACE

Tim Powers

Cover art by John Berkey

ISBN: 0-441-14879-4

e-book ver. 1.0

TO THE THURSDAY NIGHT GANG:

Chris Arena, Greg Arena, Bill Bailey, Jim Blaylock, Jenny Bunn, Pete Devries, Phil Dick, Jeff

Fontanesi, Don Goudie, Chris Gourlay, Dashiell Hamster, Rick Harding, K. W. Jeter, Tom

Kenyon, Dave Lament, Tim Lament, Steve Malk, Phil Pace, Brendan Powers, Serena Powers and

Phil Thibodeau . . .

. . . and the honorary members: Russ Galen, Dean Koontz, Roy Squires, Joel Stein, Ted

Wassard and Paul Williams . . .

. . . and with thanks to Beth Meacham, most perceptive, persuasive and tactful of editors.

BOOK ONE:

WHATEVER I CAN CARRY IN ONE HAND

And suddenly there's no meaning in our kiss,

And your lit upward face grows, where we lie,

Lonelier and dreadfuller than sunlight is,

And dumb and mad and eyeless like the sky.

—Rupert Brooke

ONE

CROUCHED WAY UP at the top of the wall in the rusty bed of the Rocking Truck, Modesto

tugged his jacket more tightly across his chest, pushed back his hat and squinted around at the

city. At the moment there was no one in particular that it would be lucrative to watch for, but just

to keep in practice the boy liked to climb up here and keep track of the comings and goings in

general. Below him to his left was the South Gate area, not quite its usual crowded self because of

the recent rain, and beyond that to the southeast—the direction that was nearly always

downwind—he could see the ragged shacks and black mud lanes of Dogtown, canopied by the

snarls of smoke rising from the eternal fires in its trash-filled trenches.

The boy clambered over the collapsed cab to sit on the hood and look north. The broken-backed

truck, as immovable as the age-rounded concrete wall it straddled, didn't shift under him; nor had

it ever moved in the memory of anyone now living.

The towers made ragged brushstrokes of black down the gray northern sky, and at the skeletal

top of the Crocker Tower he could see bright orange pinpricks that he knew were torches; the

night watch was coming on duty early, and Modesto knew that their various spyglasses would be

turned to the east, watching for any sign of the army that was rumored to be approaching from

San Berdoo. And though even Modesto couldn't see them from here, he knew that out beyond the

north farms there were armed men on horseback patrolling the Golden State Freeway from the

Berdoo Freeway in the north to the Pomona in the south.

Thirty feet below his perch he noticed a grotesque vehicle moving south down Fig Street

toward him, and with a grin half-admiring and half-contemptuous he identified it as the carriage

of Greg Rivas, the famous pelican gunner. Like most kids his age, Modesto considered gunning a

slightly embarrassing historical curiosity, conjuring up implausible images of one's parents when

they were young and foolish . . . . Modesto was far more interested in the more defined

and consistent rhythms of Scrap, and the new dances like Scrapping, Gimpscrew and the

Bugwalk.

With a creaking of axles and an altered pace in the clopping of the horses' hooves, the vehicle

turned west onto Woolshirt Boulevard, and Modesto knew Rivas was just arriving early for his

nightly gig at Spink's.

Bored, the boy turned his attention back to the thrillingly ominous lights in the Crocker Tower.

The carriage was an old but painstakingly polished Chevrolet body mounted on a flat wooden

wagon drawn by two horses, and though the late afternoon rain drabbed the colors and made the

streamers droop, it was by far the grandest vehicle out on Woolshirt Boulevard. Old superstitions

about rain being poisonous had kept the usual street crowd indoors today, though, and only two

boys emerged from a recessed doorway and scampered up to cry, somewhat mechanically,

"Rivas! Hooray, it's Gregorio Rivas!"

Rivas pushed aside the beaded curtain that hung in place of the long gone door, stepped out

onto the flat surface of the wagon and, squinting in the light drizzle, braced himself there as his

driver snapped the reins and drew the vehicle to a squeaking halt in front of the building that was

their destination.

Like most of the structures that stood along the north to south midcity line, this one was a well-

preserved shell of old concrete with neat sections of woodwork filling the gaps where plate glass

had once fabulously stretched across yards and yards of space. The building was three stories

high and, again typically for this area, the wall at the top, now decorated with a profusion of

spikes and ornaments and sun-faded flags, was jaggedly uneven with an ancient fracture. Over the

doorway strips of metal and colored glass had been nailed to spell out, in letters a foot tall,

SPINKS.

"Here," Rivas called to the boys, "never mind it today, no one's around. Anyway, I think I need

a couple of new prompters—lately the goddamn parrots sound more enthusiastic than you guys."

As if to illustrate his point, one of the parrots nesting in the top of the nearest palm tree called

down, "Rivas! Rivas!"

"Hooray!" added another one from a tree farther up the street.

"Hear that?" Rivas demanded as he reached back inside the car for his hat and his vinyl pelican

case. "I think it's because they work free, just for the art of it." He put on his hat, glanced around

below him for unpuddled pavement, spotted an area and leaped to it.

"We don't, though, man," one of the boys pointed out cheerily. Both of them held out their

palms.

"Mercenary little mules," Rivas muttered. He dug a couple of small white cards out of his vest

pocket and gave one to each boy. "There's a jigger apiece, and you should be ashamed to take so

much."

"You bet we are, man." The pair dashed back to their sheltered doorway.

Rivas paused under the restaurant's awning to set his antique hat at the proper angle and comb

his fingers through his dark Van Dyke beard. Finally he pushed open the swinging doors and

strode inside.

A moment later, though, he was pursing his lips irritably, for his careful entrance had been

wasted—the chandeliers, which had been lowered after the lunch crowd, still sat on the floor

unlit, and the room was so dim that if it weren't for the faint smells of stale beer and old grease

the place could have been mistaken for a between-services church.

"Damn it," he yelped, stubbing his toe against the edge of one of the chandeliers and

awkwardly hopping over it, "where are you, Mojo? How come these things aren't lit yet?"

"It's early yet, Greg," came a voice from the kitchen. "I'll get to 'em."

Rivas picked his way around the wooden wheels of the chandeliers to the bar, lifted the hinged

section and stepped behind it. By touch he found the stack of clean glasses, and then the big room

echoed with the clicking of the pump as he impatiently worked the handle to prime the beer tap.

"There's a bottle of Currency Barrows open," called Mojo from the kitchen.

The edges of Rivas's mouth curled down in a sort of inverted smile. "The beer's fine," he said in

a carefully casual voice. He opened the tap and let the stream of cool beer begin filling his glass.

Old Mojo lurched ponderously out of the kitchen carrying a flickering oil lamp, and he

crouched over the nearest chandelier to light the candles on it. "That's right," he said absently,

"you're not crazy about the Barrows stuff, are you?"

"I'm a beer and whiskey man," said Rivas lightly. "Fandango or the twins here yet?"

"Yeah, Fandango is—them's some of his drums on the stage there. He went for the rest."

There was a shuffling and banging from the direction of the back hall just then, and a voice

called, "That you, Greg? Help me with these, will you?"

"Whatever I can carry in one hand, Tommy." Tucking the pelican case under his arm and

sipping the beer as he went, Rivas groped his way to the back hall, relieved the puffing Fandango

of one of his smaller drums and led the way back across the already somewhat brighter room to

the stage.

Fandango put his drums down carefully and wiped sweat from his chubby face. "Whew," he

said, leaning against the raised stage. "Spink was askin' me this morning when you'd be in," he

remarked in a confiding tone.

Rivas put down the drum he'd been carrying and then glanced at the younger man. "So?"

"Well, I don't know, but he seemed mad."

"How could you tell? He probably sleeps with that smile on."

"He said he wanted to talk to you about something." Fandango avoided looking at Rivas by

concentrating on tightening a drumhead screw. "Uh, maybe about that girl."

"Who, that Hammond creature?" Rivas frowned, uneasily aware that Fandango had been seeing

the girl first, and had introduced her to him. "Listen, she turned out to be crazy."

"They all do, to hear you tell it."

"Well, most of them are crazy," Rivas snapped as he climbed up onto the stage. "I can't help

that." He untied the knots that held the vinyl case closed, flipped up the lid and lifted the

instrument out.

Though not even quite two feet long, it was said to be the finest in Ellay, its neck carved of

mahogany with copper wire frets and polished copper pennies for pegs, and its body a smoothly

laminated half sphere of various woods, waxed and polished to a glassy sheen. The horsehair bow

was clipped to the back of the neck, and in profile the instrument did look something like a

pelican's head, the body being the jowly pouch and the long neck the beak.

He put the case on the stage floor, sat down on a stool with the pelican across his knees, and

plucked out a quick, nearly atonal gun riff; then he swung it up to his shoulder, undipped the bow

and skated it experimentally across the strings, producing a melancholy chord.

Satisfied, he laid the instrument back in the open case and put the bow down beside it. He

picked up his glass of beer. "Anyway," he said after taking a sip, "Spink wouldn't be bothered

about any such crap. Hell, this is the eleventh year of the Seventh Ace—all that chastity and

everlasting fidelity stuff left by the Dogtown gate before you and I were born."

As was very often the case, especially lately, Fandango couldn't tell whether Rivas was being

sincere or bitterly ironic, so he let the subject drop and set about arranging the drum stands

around his own stool.

"Say," he ventured quietly a few minutes later, "who's the guy by the window?"

Mojo had got several of the chandeliers lit by now, and the kitchen corner of the room glowed

brightly enough to show a heavy-set man sitting at a table just to the right of the streetside

window. Rivas stared at him for a moment, unable to tell in that uncertain light whether or not the

man was looking his way, or was even awake; then he shrugged. "Jaybush knows."

"And he ain't tellin'," Fandango agreed. "Say, is it still gonna be mostly gunning tonight? I've

been practicing some newer songs, some of these bugwalk numbers, and it seems to me—"

Rivas drained his beer. "Catch!" he called, and tossed the glass in a high, spinning parabola

toward Mojo, who looked up wearily, clanged his lamp down and caught the glass before it could

hit the floor.

"Goddammit, Greg . . ." he muttered, getting to his feet and shambling toward the bar.

"Yeah," said Rivas, frowning slightly as he watched the old man's progress, "it'll be gunning.

They don't pay to hear Rivas doing bugwalk." No, he thought. For that you want those savage

kids coming out of the southeast end of town—Dogtown—the kids who rely on the ferocity of

their voices and ragtag instruments to make up for their lack of musical skill. "Why?"

"I still can't get the hang of the beat on it," Fandango complained. "If you'd just let me bang

away in the same time as what you're playin', or even the time of what you're singin', I could

handle it, but this third and fourth layer stuff, all at different paces but having to touch the peaks

and bottoms together . . ."

"We're going to gun," Rivas said firmly.

After a few moments, "Are you gonna do 'Drinking Alone'?" Fandango persisted. "It's the

hardest."

"Christ, Tommy," said Rivas impatiently, "this is your job. Yes, I'm going to do that song. If

you don't want to learn the whole trade, you may as well grow a beard and beg out on the street."

"Well, sure, Greg, except—"

"Think I moved back here from Venice working like that?"

"No, Greg."

"Damn right. Maybe we'd better go through it now, before the show, to give you some

practice."

Before Fandango could reply, a chair rutched back in the corner and the man at the windowside

table stood up and spoke. "Mr. Rivas, I'd like to have a word with you before you start."

Rivas cocked a wary eyebrow at the man. What's this, he wondered, a challenge over some

despoiled daughter or wife? Or just a bid for a private party performance? The man was dressed

respectably, at least, in a conservative off white flax shirt and trousers and a dark leather Sam

Brown belt—in contrast to Rivas's own flamboyant red plastic vest and wide-brimmed hat.

"Sure," said Rivas after a pause. "Shoot."

"It's a personal matter. Could we discuss it at the table here, perhaps over a drink?"

". . . Okay."

Mojo bumbled up to the stage with the refilled beer glass just as the pelicanist hopped down.

"Thanks," said Rivas, taking it from him. "And a glass of whatever for the citizen yonder."

Mojo turned toward the stranger, who said, "A shot of that Currency Barrows, please."

Rivas walked over to the man's table, holding the beer in his right hand so that his knife hand

was free, and when he got there he hooked back a chair for himself with his foot.

Mojo arrived with the glass of brandy a moment later, set it down in front of the stranger, then

stepped back and cleared his throat.

"On my tab, Mojo," said Rivas without taking his eyes off the stranger—who, he noticed, had

no hair on his head at all, not even eyebrows or lashes.

"No, I insist," the man said, "and Mr. Rivas's beer, too. How much?"

"Uh . . . one ha'pint."

The stranger took a bugshell moneycase from his belt pouch, snapped it open and handed Mojo

a one-fifth card. Mojo took it and lurched away.

"Never mind the change," the man called after him.

Mojo slowed to a more comfortable pace. "Thank you, man," he called back in a voice from

which he was unable to keep a note of pleased surprise.

"Well?" said Rivas.

The man gave Rivas a distinctly frosty smile. "My name is Joe Montecruz. I'd like to hire your

services."

Though still a little puzzled, Rivas relaxed and sat back. "Well, sure. You want a backup band

too, or just me? It's twenty fifths a night for me, and for this band it's seven fifths ha'pint extra. If

I put together a better group it'd be more, of course. Now I'm booked solid until—"

Montecruz raised a hand. "No no. You misunderstand. It's not in your musical capacity that I

wish to hire you."

"Oh." I should have guessed, he told himself. "What, then?" he asked dutifully, just to be

certain he was right.

"I want you to perform a redemption."

He'd been right. "Sorry. I'm retired."

Montecruz's not quite friendly smile didn't falter. "I think I can make an offer that will bring

you out of retirement."

Rivas shook his head. "Look, I wasn't being coy. I've quit. I make plenty now with the music—

and anyway, I'm thirty-one years old. I don't have that kind of reflexes and stamina anymore." Or

luck, either, he thought sourly. "And it's been three years since my last one—the country will

have changed. It always does."

Montecruz leaned forward. "Rivas," he said quietly, "I'm talking five thousand Ellay fifths."

Rivas raised his eyebrows in genuine respect. "That's handsome," he admitted. "There can't be

fifty people in Ellay that can even hope to borrow that much." He took a long sip of beer. "But

I'm retired. I just don't want to risk my life and sanity for strangers anymore. There's other

redeemers around, though. Hell, five thousand would buy Frake MeAn ten times over."

"Is McAn as good as you?"

"Infinitely better, since I don't do it at all now. Thanks for the beer—and now I really should try

to show that damn fool drummer what I want." He got to his feet.

"Wait a minute," Montecruz said quickly, holding up a pudgy hand and beginning to look a

little less confident. "You're the only guy that ever performed eight redemptions—"

"Six. Two got to the Holy City before I could catch them."

"Okay, six. You've still got the record. The girl's father wants the best, and listen, this won't be

as difficult as the others. All you've got to do is locate her, her family will do the kidnap and

breaking—"

"Her family can do the whole thing," said Rivas, straightening up. "I'm not kidding about being

out of that game. Hire me as a pelicanist or songwriter anytime—they're my only occupations

nowadays."

He turned and started back toward the stage, but Montecruz, agile for a fat man, scrambled

around the table and caught Rivas's elbow when he'd taken only four paces.

"We'll go ten thousand!" the man hissed.

Exasperated, Rivas turned back to face him. "I told you my answer."

For a couple of seconds Montecruz's face was expressionless, and looked oddly childlike; then,

"To sing?" he demanded, his voice shrill with incredulous scorn. "You'd stop saving lives—

souls!—to sit in a bar and sing? Oh, but you only did it while you needed the money, isn't that

right? And now that you can fiddle for it, everybody else can . . . can be gutted and skinned, and it

won't disturb your self-satisfaction even as much as a wrinkle in your precious costume would,

huh? It must be nice to be the only person worthy of your concern."

A crooked, unmirthful grin had appeared on the pelicanist's face during Montecruz's speech,

and when the man had finished, Rivas said, "Why don't you go home and just deal with things

you know something about, sport."

He'd spoken quietly, but Mojo and Fandango heard him and looked up in alarm.

The insult, especially deadly in view of Montecruz's hairlessness, hung in the air for several

seconds and hardened jaw muscles made Montecruz's suddenly pale face seem even wider.

Rivas yanked his arm free and took two steps back, the skin over his cheekbones taut and his

left hand near his knife sheath.

Finally Montecruz, whose hand had darted for his own knife, took a deep breath, let it out, and

then whispered, "I don't take that, Rivas—I'll just hold it for a while." He turned and stalked out

of the building.

When the swinging doors had creakily flapped shut after him Rivas looked at the ceiling and

exhaled a long, descending whistle. That, he told himself, was loss of control. Better slow down

on the beer, old buddy—you've had enough already, at home and here, to keep you oiled for the

rest of the evening.

"God, Greg," said Fandango in some awe as the peli-canist walked back to the stage, "you were

mad, weren't you? I just realized, I never seen you mad before—just, you know, grouchy about

something not being done right. What'd he say to make you call him out that way? That stuff

about singing, and your clothes? And whose life did he want you to—"

"Oh, shut up. Tommy," said Rivas wearily. Mojo had got the bright lamps lit at the front of the

stage, so he put on a look of only mild annoyance as he climbed back up onto it. "He didn't make

me mad, all right? I'm tired of everybody thinking they've got a right to my time, that's all. And I

didn't mean to call him out." He picked up his instrument and the horsehair bow, and was

embarrassed to notice that his hands were trembling; he lowered them quickly and shot a freezing

look at the drummer, but Fandango was shaking his head and tapping out a quick burst on one of

his drums and clearly hadn't noticed.

"But you called him a sport," the drummer said. "I mean, sure, you call me that when I screw

up sometimes, but that guy was one—I could see from here he was a baldy."

"I'm going to think you're a mental one if you still can't grasp the tempo of this," said Rivas.

"From the beginning now, and make it rattle." He tapped his foot three times while Fandango

frowned attentively, then began playing.

They had to stop a few minutes later when Mojo began turning the noisy, ratcheted wall cranks

that hoisted the lit chandeliers up to the ceiling, and in spite of his earlier resolve Rivas put down

his pelican and went to the bar for another refill. He came back and perched cross-legged on his

stool and then just stared absently into the still dim corners of the ceiling, where long, dusty

festoons of paper dolls were draped like huge cobwebs around three of the walls.

Only a few customers had wandered in and sat down by the time Mojo finished his tour of the

wall cranks, and Fandango glanced inquiringly toward Rivas, but the pelicanist seemed to have

forgotten his dissatisfaction with the drummer's playing. More people drifted in, and the

chandeliers slowly stopped swinging as the ripple of conversation grew louder and the laughter

and clinking of glasses more frequent; but Rivas remained oblivious, and when the pair of

typically mute Chino twins who were the steel guitarist and chimes-banger arrived and climbed

onto the stage, Rivas's hand-jive greeting was as unconsciously automatic as the twitch of a

horse's flank when a fly lands on it.

Finally Fandango had to nudge him and hiss, "Heads up, Greg!" when the owner appeared and

began threading his way around the tables toward the stage.

Steve Spink and Rivas were of about the same age and build—thirty or so and rangy but

tending a little toward plumpness over the belt—but Spink with his ready smile and undisciplined

tumble of blond hair fairly radiated boyish cheer, while Rivas's dark hair and beard and deeply

lined cheeks gave his face in repose an almost theatrical look of disdain.

Spink leaned toward the stage as Rivas, looking only startled at the moment, hastily hopped off

his stool and picked up his instrument and blinked around in some surprise at the filled room.

"You okay, Rivas?" Spink asked pleasantly.

"Uh, what?" Rivas stepped to the edge of the stage, inadvertently kicking over his forgotten

beer glass. The glass broke, and beer spattered Spink's expensive leather coat.

"Damn it, I asked if you were all right. You don't act like you are. Can you still perform?"

Rivas scowled and straightened to his full height. "Of course I can perform! What do you mean

still? My God, just because I kick over one cheap beer glass—"

"Since when is glass cheap? There was an old guy in here at lunch talking to me. Said you were

a Jaybird once. Any truth to that?"

"Yes," Rivas said haughtily. "I don't make any secret of it. I've been a lot of things in my life."

"You talk about all the other things, though. Did you take the sacrament very often?"

For the second time that evening Rivas felt real anger kindle in him. "Just what are you trying

to say, Steve?"

Spink let his habitual eye-narrowing smile relax into a frown. "I'm sorry, Greg. But you can

understand my concern, can't you? I can't have any of the people I rely on going birdy."

"Start worrying about it when I can't fill your damn place to overflowing for you anymore."

"You're right, Greg. Sorry. I shouldn't have listened to the old guy." He turned to the audience,

and Rivas glimpsed the smile flashing back on. "Ladies and gentlemen," Spink said loudly,

"tonight once again we're privileged to have with us Gregorio Rivas, of Venice."

The applause came right on cue and was satisfactory in volume and duration, and Rivas grinned

as arrogantly as ever as he bowed in acknowledgement—but under it he was uneasy. How would

the applause sound, he wondered, if I didn't have a few paid prompters in the crowd to lead it?

And-how much longer can the dangerous glamor of Venice plausibly cling to me? I've been out

of Venice for five years, after all, and while it's true that Steve's standard intro still gets raised

eyebrows and shocked whispers from strangers, old Mojo the other day was actually surprised

when I mentioned having worked at the Bom Sheltr Bar in Venice—he said he thought that story

was just flash for the tourists, like the fake hooter skulls on spikes on the roof.

As the clapping and whistling was tapering off, Rivas turned to Fandango and the twins and

impulsively hand-jived the signal for "Everybody Wants to Smoke My Comoy," his trademark

song, which he usually saved for reviving an apathetic audience. Fandango hammered out the

staccato opening of the song and the crowd reacted with unmistakably genuine enthusiasm, and

for the next few minutes Rivas forgot his doubts and let his singing and playing absorb him

totally.

During a lengthy alternation between the steel guitarist and the drummer—a sequence Rivas

knew they had no trouble with—he took the opportunity to scan the audience—a little nervously,

for he was afraid the Hammond girl might have shown up to make a scene. Spink might have

liked it, as being evidence of what a genuine Venetian rake-hell the pelicanist was, but Rivas

dreaded such encounters, inevitable though they seemed to be. He peered at each face that he

could make out by the illumination of the chandeliers and the tabletop candles, and was relieved

not to see her.

And she'd be sure to sit where I would see her, he thought with a slightly drunken shiver. Damn

her anyway. Why can't a girl grasp the fact that a breakup can't look tragic to the one initiating it?

It can only seem tragic to the one being ditched; to the one doing the ditching it's . . . fresh air, a

load off the shoulders, a spring in the step and a whistle on the lips—the very opposite of tragic.

And hell, he thought, it's not as if I haven't drawn that hand as well as dealt it; only once,

granted, but I had naively invested so much that time—much more than this Hammond creature

ever could have—that I carry the loss with me still, as helplessly as I carry my skeleton, and like

the old-time stainless steel it doesn't rust away with time into camouflage colors, but is always as

bright as new, and mercilessly reflective.

Rivas turned to the chimes-banger and hand-jived, Remind me later—stainless steel—rust—

camouflage colors. The man nodded.

Yes, thought Rivas with some satisfaction, a nice image. Ought to fit well into a song, with

some dramatic way of having lost the girl . . . death, maybe . . . suicide even, sure . . .

. . . Anything but the way I actually did lose Urania . . . .

He shied away from the memory of himself at the age of eighteen, crouched behind a bush, in

the ruins of a rented suit that stank of brandy and vomit, and, to his everlasting horror, barking

like a dog.

Once or twice in the years since, during unusually objective moods, it had occurred to him that

he might someday find the memory funny. It had certainly not happened yet.

In any case he was glad the Hammond girl seemed willing to disappear painlessly. He'd found

her interesting for a while, but she was no Urania. None of them ever were.

It was nearly time for the pelican to re-enter, and he had just gripped the neck and poised the

bow over the taut strings when he noticed at the bar a well-dressed old man who was watching

him; and his belly went cold several seconds before he even consciously realized who it was, and

he missed his cue.

The steel guitarist looked up in mild surprise and without a falter smoothly began the phrase

again.

He had to begin it one more time, though, and let the more attentive members of the audience

catch on that something was wrong, for Rivas had now remembered who the old man was and

was staring at him with astonishment and hatred and, even after more than a decade, a bit of fear.

"Greg!" whispered Fandango urgently. "Hop aboard!"

Rivas blinked, returned some of his attention to the music, and then at the correct moment

slashed the bow across the strings, and the song continued as usual.

He signaled to the other musicians to drop the time-consuming flourishes from the end of the

song this time, and, as Fandango obediently rattled out a quick conclusion phrase, Rivas, much

soberer now than he'd been a minute ago, lowered his instrument and stepped to the front of the

stage.

"We'll be taking a short break now," he said curtly, and leaving the pelican beside his stool, he

hopped down and strode to the bar—and he was able to do it fairly quickly, for even the bleariest

of the drinkers seemed to sense a dangerous tautness in him, and pulled in their legs and scooted

their chairs closer to the tables to get out of his way.

By the time he stopped in front of the old man his shock had receded enough for him to have

deduced what must have happened to bring the man here.

"There's a private room off the kitchen," Rivas said to him in a voice from which conflicting

emotions had leached all inflection. "Wait till we get in there to tell me about it. Whiskey," he

added, more loudly, to Mojo. "Double, with a chaser, now."

Mojo provided the two filled glasses quickly, and Rivas picked them up and led the old man

away from the bar to a door in a shadowed comer.

"Go fetch us a lamp from somewhere," the pelicanist snapped at the old man as he held both

glasses in one hand to open the door with the other. "Hurry now—chop chop!"

The old man's face had been pinched into the expression of someone who has learned that his

dinner will consist of the stable boys' leftovers, and the change it underwent now was as though

he had been told that he'd have to express gratitude for it too; but he silently did as he was told

and went back to get a lamp from the corner of the bar.

Rivas stood by the door and shut it behind them when the old man had returned with the lamp

and carried it into the little room. All but filling the chamber was a plastic table with half a dozen

chairs around it, and Rivas sat down in one of the chairs and set his drinks in front of himself.

"You should have told Spink who you were this afternoon," he said. "He'd have been impressed

to meet the man who distills Ellay's money."

The lamp clanked down onto the table and the agitated flame made the two men's shadows

fragment and then reform on the wooden walls. "It would do neither of us any good," came the

rasped reply, "to let people know that Irwin Barrows has business with Gregorio Rivas."

Rivas took a gulp of the whiskey and chased it with a long draught of the beer. "Right," he said

coldly, "in fact why let even Rivas himself know, eh? Who was your touchy negotiator this

evening? Some jumped-up vineyard foreman? He didn't handle the approach in a terribly

businesslike way—almost wound up challenging me to a duel."

Irwin Barrows stared at him speculatively. "I considered not telling you this," he said finally,

"but I will, because I don't think it will alter your decision. Montecruz can be excused, perhaps,

for showing some heat—you see, he's her fiancé. They're to be—they were to be—married next

month."

Rivas was surprised by the gust of unhappiness that battered at his control—and even shook it,

for he could feel the color draining from his rigidly expressionless face— and he realized wearily

that the grief he'd been tending like a garden for thirteen years had gradually become domes-

ticated, ceased to be the wild, naturally occurring sort. And then a moment later he was disgusted

with himself for having such an obsessive focus on the feelings of Gregorio Rivas. My God, he

told himself, that Montecruz son-of-a-bitch was right: for you, everything exists only to the extent

that it pleases or displeases your favorite person—you.

Still, I won't fetch her back for him.

He hastily downed the remainder of the whiskey, but instead of the obscuring fog he'd hoped

for, it brought an unwelcome clarity to his thoughts; and he knew, despairingly, that he couldn't

let the Jaybirds have her.

If only I didn't know, he thought, if I hadn't been one myself for almost three years, I could

probably turn him down. If I hadn't seen for myself Jaybush's methodical disassembly of human

minds, his consumption of souls as if they were firewood, I could probably spit in Barrow's face

this minute and stalk out of here in a grand gesture of rejection. You exiled me from her thirteen

years ago—now I exile you from her. How do you like it? Yes, to rub his hitherto celestially

superior nose in it . . . to send his smug complacency out the Dogtown gate . . . to let him beg me

for her, and be contemptuously dismissed . . .

If only I didn't know!

But when he replayed that last thought and considered the several things it indicated about

himself, he had to suppress a shudder, for it had momentarily sickened him simply to be Gregorio

Rivas.

Finally he looked up. "You're right," he said, wishing his voice hadn't hoarsened for the

occasion. "It doesn't alter my decision. I'll do it."

Barrows inclined his head. "Thank you."

"So when did they get her?"

"Last night, late. She was at a party north of here, at Third and Fig, and somehow she wound up

alone out front, and a gang of them started talking to her—I guess you should know their stinking

arguments and tricks as well as anyone—and when her lazy and now unemployed bodyguard

finally caught up with her, it was just in time to see Urania climbing into the back of a Jaybird

wagon as the horses were being whipped up."

"It took off in what direction?"

"East on Third."

"One wagon alone?"

"That's what the bodyguard said."

Rivas sat back and drummed his fingers on the table and his eyes lost their sharp focus as, for

the first time in three years, he began planning one more redemption. "You should have come to

me right away," he said, "and not wasted time trying to undermine my job here and sending that

clown in here this evening. Still, it's a good sign that it was a single eastbound wagon; that

implies the shepherd wanted to recruit at least another one or two people before returning to his

caravan camp. They might still be in the area, camped in one of the neglected districts outside the

wall."

"Can you find out tonight?"

Rivas smiled at the naive question. "No way. You don't just ask the nearest Jaybird where one

of their wagons went. And even if they are right outside—even if there were a full moon out

tonight, instead of this rainy overcast—do you know how many square miles of ruins there are

out there?"

"Tomorrow morning, then. Now as Montecruz evidently started to explain to you, all you'll

have to do is—"

"—Locate her. Yeah, he did say that, but that's not how it's going to be. I'll do the kidnap and

breaking too."

Barrow's eyes narrowed and his face assumed the stony cast Rivas remembered so well. "No,"

he said firmly. "That is simply but of the question."

Rivas pushed his chair back and stood up. "Frake MeAn lives over Mister Lou's on Sandoval

Street. Don't tell him I sent you—it'll only prejudice him against you. And don't waste time," he

added, poking a finger at Barrows. "Some of those recruiting caravans go directly to the Holy

City." He picked up his beer glass and reached for the door latch.

Barrows raised a frail hand. "All right," he said tiredly, "wait, sit down, you can have it. The

whole thing, like you say."

Rivas opened the door and leaned out. "Mojo!" he called. "Another beer here!" He closed it and

resumed his seat. "Then I guess we've got a deal, Barrows." Unconsciously he ran his fingers

through his hair, disarranging it. "Ten thousand fifths of your Currency brandy; a bank draft for

five thousand now, and another of the same when and if I can bring Urania back inside the Ellay

walls."

"You misunderstood. Five thousand is the total price."

"Montecruz went up to ten."

"Montecruz must have got carried away in his anxiety. I think that's understandable. But there's

no—"

"That's something you can take up with him later," Rivas said. "I'm taking the offer that was

made to me."

"The price I'm offering," said Barrows angrily, "is still much more than you've ever been paid

before."

The door was pulled open from the outside and Mojo hobbled in, set the fresh beer on the table,

took the old glasses and exited.

"Evidently she's worth five to you," Rivas remarked matter-of-factly, "but not quite ten. Did

you catch McAn's address? Over Mister Lou's on—"

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DINNERATDEVIANT'SPALACETimPowersCopyright©1985byTimPowersCoverartbyJohnBerkeyISBN:0-441-14879-4e-bookver.1.0TOTHETHURSDAYNIGHTGANG:ChrisArena,GregArena,BillBailey,JimBlaylock,JennyBunn,PeteDevries,PhilDick,JeffFontanesi,DonGoudie,ChrisGourlay,DashiellHamster,RickHarding,K.W.Jeter,TomKenyon,DaveLamen...

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Tim Powers - Dinner at Deviant's Palace

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