the bar, where he could put his back right up against the wall and see the whole room. It was Sascha's night off, and Lupo was tending bar. "What'll it be, Walrus?" he asked, long red tongue lolling from one corner of his mouth.
"Piiia colada," Jube said. "Double rum."
Lupo nodded and went off to mix it. Jube looked around carefully. He had an uneasy feeling, as if he were being watched. But who? The taproom was full of strangers, and Chrysalis was nowhere in sight. Three stools away, a big man in a lion mask was lighting a cigarette for a young girl whose low-cut evening gown displayed ample cleavage from three full breasts. Further down the bar a huddled shape in a gray shroud stared into his drink. A slender, vivacious green woman made eye contact when Jube glanced at her, and slid the tip of a pink tongue provocatively across her lower lip (at least it might have been provocative to a human male), but she was obviously a hooker, and he ignored her. Elsewhere in the room, he saw Yin-Yang, whose two heads were having a spirited argument, and Old Mister Cricket too. The Floater had passed out and was drifting about near the ceiling again. But there were so many faces and masks Jube did not recognize. Any one of them might be Jay Ackroyd. Chrysalis had never said what the man looked like, only that he was an ace. He might even be the man in lion mask, who-Jube noted with a glance-had now slipped an arm around the threebreasted girl and was brushing his fingertips lightly along the top of the breast on the right.
Lupo mopped the bar, spun down a coaster, and put the pina colada on top of it. Jube had just taken his first sip when a stranger slid onto the barstool beside him. "Are you selling those newspapers?"
"Sure am."
"Good." The voice was muffled by his mask, a bone-white death's head. He wore a black cowled cape over a threadbare suit that did very little for his skinny, hollow-chested body. "I'll take a Cry, then."
Jube thought there was something unpleasant about his eyes. He looked away, found a copy of the Cry, handed it over. The cowled man gave him a coin. "What's this?" Jube said. "A penny," the man replied.
The penny was larger than it should have been, and a vivid red against Jube's blue-black palm. He'd never seen anything like it. "I don't know if-"
"Never mind," the man interrupted. He took the penny out of Jube's hand, and gave him a Susan B. Anthony dollar instead. "Where's my change, Walrus?" he demanded. Jube gave him back three quarters. "You shortchanged me," the man said nastily when he'd pocketed the coins.
"I did not," Jube told him with indignation.
"Look me in the eye and say that, you two-bit jerk." Behind the skull-faced man, the door opened and Troll ducked through into the taproom, followed by a short redhaired man in a lime-green suit. "Tachyon," Jube said with apprehension, suddenly reminded of the Takisian warship up in orbit.
Jube's unpleasant companion twisted his head around so sharply that his cowl flopped down, revealing thin brown hair and a bad case of dandruff. He jerked to his feet, hesitated, and rushed for the door as soon as Tachyon and Troll had moved toward the back. "Hey!" Jube called after him, "hey, mister, your paper!" He'd left; the Cry on the bar. The man went out so quickly he almost caught the end of his long black cape in the door. Jube shrugged and went back to his pina colada.
Several hours and a dozen drinks later, Chrysalis had still not made an appearance, nor had Jube spotted anyone who looked like he imagined this Popinjay might look. When Lupo announced last call, Jube beckoned him over. "Where is she?" he asked.
"Chrysalis?" Lupo asked. Deep red eyes sparkled on either side of his long, hairy snout. "Is she expecting you?"
Jube nodded. "Got stuff to tell her."
"Okay," Lupo said. "In the red room, third booth from the left. She's with a friend." He grinned. "Pretend you don't see him, if you hear what I'm saying."
"Whatever she wants." Jube thought the friend had to be Popinjay, but he didn't say anything. He lowered himself carefully off the stool and went to the red room, off to the right of the main taproom. Inside, it was dim and smoky. The lights were red, the thick shag carpeting was red,