too quickly for my taste, a gap in the line of glistening Model T’s making it easy to wing across the cobbles. I can’t smell sweet hay and dry manure without conjuring the rotting penny aroma of death. But the old girl gathers herself. The men mucking the stalls pay Wednesday Joe no mind, so I figure he’s left fruit offerings at this particular altar before. And the horse really is a picture, snow pale and a regular apple enthusiast.
Not a jolly enough sight to keep me in a stable, however. So I cut the ritual short.
We’re back in the dew-dappled world again and I’m loading more verbal ammo to fire at the unsuspecting youth when he gives a loud squawk. Whirling, I encounter an unexpected but not remotely unwelcome sight.
“What you’re gonna do now, Mr. Kiona, is deliver the straight dope on what you think you’re doing outta the hotel.” Maximilian Burton has Wednesday Joe by the ear. “Don’t give me any guff about being with Miss James here and that making it kosher. Christ knows she ain’t exactly the ideal escort. Well?”
“We had to fix the luck!” Joe protests. “Honest, we’re not looking for trouble!”
“Trouble arrived, kid.”
“I know that, don’t I? I’m not allowed to search for Davy, but I’ve got to try and help! Even Jenny’s working, writing all those letters to politicians and pieces for The Advocate. You want me to go crazy, or what?”
Sighing, Max releases his catch. “Okay. Yeah, I figured. It’s jake, kid, but run along home. That guy what you told to man the elevator? He’s chewing gum and buttering up the ladies, and I ain’t standing between you and Mavereen when she wakes up.”
Wednesday Joe mutters a scrambled farewell as he heads for the hills. Leaving me on a silver-lit downtown street with Max, who regards me as an object of distaste.
No, interest.
No . . . concern?
I can’t make sense of the expression. There’s no formula. But I’m dying to don coat and turn chemist.
“I need words with the likes of you,” he grates.
“Do they include good morning?”
“Not here.”
“Is there a better morning somewhere else? By all means, let’s chase it down.”
He quick-marches off, one fist thrust angrily in his pocket while the other swings, and I chase him back into the forested park. I need a machete for this. It’s a jungle, so much saturated color that I’m dizzy, and the air has shifted from a soft breath of cloud to a swarm of tiny silver needles. It’s too much, the tinsel falling and the sweet dank leaves, and then unexpectedly we break through the thicket.
We’re in a tiny circular clearing ringed with yellow rosebushes. They’re crowned with scores of tightly packed buds waiting to peel open, spread themselves wide, and burst. A pretty bronze sundial presides in the center of the secluded grove, which is ridiculous. Might as well put a birdbath in the Sahara.
Max and I are about as alone as we’ve ever been. Considering.
“Blossom woke up asking for you.” Max settles hands on hips. “Then she lit off to check on Mrs. Vaughan. I take it you pair was pretty much in the frying pan last night.”
Oh.
He’s worried about his friend Blossom.
Carry on, old girl, he might be unsentimental about your corpus, but here he stands in front of it, yes?
“And subsequently leaped into the fire, correct. We were at the Rose’s Thorn. Blossom asked me to keep it mum from all saving yourself. Not the safest of excursions, I grant. And I’m dreadfully sorry about the firearms business. But if you suppose I intentionally signed up for ravishment by Officer Overton—”
“Cut that shit out,” Max snaps.
This is unexpected. “Excuse me?”
“If you think I figure as a girl getting dolled up to paint the town means she deserves a tussle with that pig, you’re cracked.” Max looks furious. “I done heard about Mavereen, that she was real sore, and she’s already sorry. I made sure of that. Ain’t a pretty skirt what ever deserved that sorta treatment just by being in the wrong place. I was in France, when plenty of ’em was in the wrong place. So don’t kid me about it.”
My heart patters rain fast and almost as lightly. “I’ll refrain.”
“Last night, that there was Overton all over. He’s scum.”
“Think lower. Less prepossessing.”
“But you and Blossom being in his sights and the son of a bitch getting that close, don’t make me play some kinda charades as says it sits right with me. It don’t.”