"The waiters will take care of it," he said. "They're used to it. Just make sure you leave a good tip."
Croyd hung back as they moved toward the park. Two figures were seated on a bench within, and even from the distance it was apparent that one man's face was bright red.
"Well?" Devil John asked.
"I'll give it a shot," Croyd said. "Pretend we're not together. I'll keep walking and you go on in and give them your spiel. I'll double back in a minute and cut through the park. I'll try to give them the business as soon as I get near. But you be ready. If it doesn't work this time we may have to resort to something more physical."
"Got you. Okay."
Croyd slowed his pace and Darlingfoot moved on ahead, crossing the street and entering upon a gravel walk leading to the bench. Croyd moved on to the corner, crossed slowly, and turned back.
He could hear their voices raised, as if in argument, when he drew nearer. He turned onto the trail and strolled toward the bench, his parcel at his side.
"...crock of shit!" he overheard Matthias say.
The man glanced in his direction, and Croyd realized that it was indeed the policeman he had encountered earlier. There was no sign of recognition on the man's face, but Croyd was certain that his talent must be telling him that an ace was approaching. So . . .
"Gentlemen," he said, focusing his thoughts, "everything that Devil John Darlingfoot has told you is correct. The body was destroyed by dogs. There is nothing for him to deliver. You will have to write this one off. You will forget me as soon as I have-"
He saw Darlingfoot turn his head suddenly, to glance past him. Croyd turned and looked in the same direction.
A young, plain-looking oriental woman was approaching, hands in the pockets of her coat, collar raised against the wind.
The wind shifted, blowing directly toward him now.
Something about the lady . . .
Croyd continued to stare. How could he have thought her plain? It must have been a trick of the light. She was breathtakingly lovely. In fact- He wanted her to smile at him.
He wanted to hold her. He wanted to run his hands all over her. He wanted to stroke her hair, to kiss her, to make love to her. She was the most gorgeous woman he had ever laid eyes on.
He heard Devil John whistle softly.
"Look at her, will you?"
"Hard not to," he replied.
He grinned at her, and she smiled back at him. He wanted to grab her. Instead, he said, "Hello."
"I'd like you to meet my wife, Kim Toy," he heard the red man say.
Kim Toy! Even her name was like music...
"Tell me what you want and I'll get it for you," he heard Devil John say to her.
"You're so special it hurts."
She laughed.
"How gallant," she stated. "No, nothing. Not just now. Wait a moment, though, and perhaps I'll think of something."
"Do you have it?" she asked her husband.
"No. It was taken by dogs," he replied.
She cocked her head, quirked an eyebrow.
"Amazing fate," she said. "And how do you know this?"
"These gentlemen have told us about it."
"Really?" she observed. "That is so? That is what you told him?"
Devil John nodded.
"That's what we told him," Croyd said. "But-"
"And the bag you dropped when you saw me approaching," she said. "What might it contain? Open it, please, and show me."
"Of course," said Croyd.
"Anything you say," Devil John agreed.
Both men dropped to their knees before her and fumbled unsuccessfully for long seconds before they were able to begin unrolling the top of the bag.
Croyd wanted to kiss her feet while he was in position to do so, but she had asked to see the inside of the bag and that should really come first. Perhaps she might feel inclined to reward him afterward, and--He opened the bag and a cloud of vapor swirled about them. Kim Toy drew back immediately, choking. As his stomach tightened, Croyd realized that the lady was no longer beautiful, and no more desirable than a hundred others he had passed this day. From the corner of his eye he saw Devil John shift his position and begin to rise and at that moment Croyd realized the nature of his attitude adjustment.
As the smell dissipated, something of the initial wave of glamour rose again from her person. Croyd clenched his teeth and lowered his head near to the mouth of the bag. He took a deep breath.
Her beauty died in that instant, and he extended his power.
Yes, as I was saying, the body is lost. It was destroyed by dogs. Devil John did his best for you, but he has nothing to deliver. We are going now. You will forget that I was with him.
"Come on!" he said to Darlingfoot as he rose to his feet.
Devil John shook his head.
"I can't leave this lady, Croyd," he answered. "She asked me for-"
Croyd waved the opened bag in front of his face.
Darlingfoot's eyes widened. He choked. He shook his head.
"Come on!" Croyd repeated as he slung the bag over his shoulder and broke into a sprint.
With one enormous leap Devil John landed ten feet ahead of him.
"Weird, Croyd! Weird!" he announced as they crossed the street.
"Now you know all about pheromones," Croyd told him.
The sky had become completely overcast again, and a few flurries of snow drifted past him. Croyd had parted with Darlingfoot outside another bar and had begun walking, down and across town. He scanned the streets regularly for a taxi but none came into view. He was loath to trust his burden to the crush and press of bus or subway.
The snowfall increased in intensity as he walked the next several blocks, and gusts of wind came now to swirl the flakes and drive them among the buildings.
Passing vehicles began switching on their headlights, and Croyd realized as the visibility diminished that he would be unable to distinguish a taxi even if one passed right beside him. Cursing, he trudged on, scrutinizing the nearest buildings, hoping for a diner or restaurant where he could drink a cup of coffee, and wait for the storm to blow over, or call for a cab. Everything he passed seemed to be an office, however.
Several minutes later the flakes became smaller and harder. Croyd raised his free hand to shield his eyes. While the sudden drop in temperature did not bother him, the icy pellets did. He ducked into the next opening he came to-an alleyway-and he sighed and lowered his shoulders as the force of the wind was broken.
Better. The snow descended here in a more leisurely fashion. He brushed it off his jacket, out of his hair; he stamped his feet. He looked about. There was a recess in the building to his left, several paces back, several steps above street level. It looked completely sheltered, dry. He headed for it.
He had already set his foot upon the first step when he realized that one corner of the boxlike area before a closed metal door was already occupied. A pale, stringy-haired woman, dumpy-looking beneath unguessable layers of clothing, sat between a pair of shopping bags, staring past him. ". So Gladys tells Marty she knows he's been seeing that waitress down at Jensen's . . ." the woman muttered.
"Excuse me," Croyd said. "Mind if I share the doorway with you? It's coming down kind of hard."
". . . I told her she could still get pregnant when she was nursing, but she just laughed at me...."
Croyd shrugged and entered the alcove, moving to the opposite corner.
"When she finds another one's on the way she's really upset," the woman continued, "especially with Marty having moved in with his waitress now. . .
..."
Croyd remembered his mother's breakdown following his father's death, and a touch of sadness at this obvious case of senile dementia stirred within his breast. But- He wondered. Could his new power, his ability to influence the thought patterns of others, have some therapeutic effect on a person such as this? He had a little time to pass here. Perhaps . .
"Listen," he said to the woman, thinking clearly and simply, focusing images.
"You are here, now, in the present. You are sitting in a doorway, watching it snow-"
"You bastard!" the woman screamed at him, her face no longer pale, her hands darting toward one of the bags. "Mind your own business! I don't want now and snow! It hurts!"
She opened the bag, and the darkness inside expanded even as Croyd watched-rushing toward him, filling his entire field of vision, tugging him suddenly in several directions, twisting him and--The woman, alone now in the doorway, closed her bag, stared at the snow for a moment, then said, ". . . So I say to her, 'Men aren't good about support payments. Sometimes you've got to get the law on them. That nice young man at Legal Aid will tell you what to do.' And then Charlie, who was working at the pizza parlor . . ."
Croyd's head hurt and he was not used to the feeling. He never had hangovers, because he metabolized alcohol too quickly, but this felt like what he imagined a hangover to be.
Then he became aware that his back, legs, and buttocks were wet; also, the backs of his arms. He was sprawled someplace cold and moist. He decided to open his eyes.
The sky was clear and twilit between the buildings, with a few bright stars already in sight. It had been snowing. It had also been afternoon. He sat up.
What had become of the past several hours, and--He saw a dumpster. He saw a lot of empty whiskey and wine bottles. He was in an alley, but . .
This was not the same alley. The buildings were lower, there had been no dumpster in the other one, and he could not locate the doorway he had occupied thethe old woman.
He massaged his temples, felt the throbbing begin to recede. The old woman. . .
. What the hell was that black thing she'd hit him with when he'd tried to help her? She had taken it out of one of her bags and Bags! He cast about frantically for his own bag, with the carefully parceled remains of the diminutive John Doe. He saw then that he still held it in his right hand, and that it had been turned inside out and torn.
He rose to his feet and looked about in the dim glow from a distant streetlight.
He saw the doggie bags scattered about him, and he counted quickly. Nine. Yes.
All nine of them were in sight, and he now saw the limbs, the head, and the thoraxthough the thorax had now been broken into four pieces and the head looked much shinier than it had earlier. From the dampness, perhaps. The jar! Where was it? The liquid might be very important to whoever wanted the remains. If the jar had been broken . ..
He uttered a brief cry when he saw it standing upright in the shadows near the wall to his left. The top was missing and so was an inch or so of glass from beneath it. He crossed to it, and from the odor he knew it to be the real thing and not just . rainwater.
He gathered up the doggie bags, which seemed surprisingly dry, and he placed-them on the sheltered ledge of a barred basement window. Then he collected the pieces of chitin into a heap nearby. When he recovered the legs he noted that they were both broken, but he reflected that that could make for easier packing. Then he turned his attention to the jag-topped pickle jar, and he smiled. How simple. The answer lay all about him, provided by the derelicts who frequented the area.
He gathered an armful of empty bottles and bore them over to the side, where he set them down and began uncorking and uncapping them. When he had finished he decanted the dark liquid.
It took eight bottles of various sizes, and he set them on the ledge with the doggie bags above the small mound of shattered exoskel' and cartilage. It seemed as if there were a little bit less of the guy each time he got unwrapped. Maybe it had something to do with the way he was divided now. Maybe it took algebra to understand it.
Croyd moved then to the dumpster and opened its side hatch. He smiled almost immediately, for there were long strands of Christmas ribbon near at hand. He withdrew several of these and stuffed them into a side pocket. He leaned forward. If there were ribbon, then--The sound of rapid footfalls came and went. He spun, raising his hands to defend himself, but there was no one near.
Then he spotted him. A small man in a coat several times too large for him had halted briefly at the windowsill, where he snatched one of the larger bottles and two of the doggie bags. He ran off immediately then, toward the far end of the alley where two other shabby figures waited.
"Hey!" Croyd yelled. "Stop!" and he reached with his power but the man was out of range.
All that he heard was laughter, and a cry of, "Tonight we party, boys!"
Sighing, Croyd withdrew a large wad of red and green Christmas paper from the dumpster and returned to the window to repackage the remainder of the remains.
After he had walked several blocks, his bright parcel beneath his arm, he passed a bar called The Dugout and realized he was in the Village. His brow furrowed for a moment, but then he saw a taxi and waved, and the car pulled over.
Everything was okay. Even the headache was gone.
Jube looked up, saw Croyd smiling at him. "How- How did it go?" he asked.
"Mission accomplished," Croyd answered, passing him the key.
"You got it? There was something on the news about Darlingfoot "
"I got it."
"And the possessions?"
"There weren't any."
"You sure of that, fella?"
"Absolutely. Nothing there but him, and he's in the bathtub."
"What?"
"It's okay, because I closed the drain."
"What do you mean?"
"My cab was involved in an accident on the way over and some of the bottles broke. So watch out for glass when you unwrap it."
"Bottles? Broken glass?"
"He was kind of-reduced. But I got you everything that was left."
"Left?"
"Available. He sort of came apart and melted a bit. But I saved most of him.
He's all wrapped up in shiny paper with a red ribbon around him. I hope that's okay."
"Yeah. . . . That's fine, Croyd. Sounds like you did your best. "
Jube passed him an envelope.
"I'll buy you dinner at Aces High," Croyd said, "as soon as I shower and change."
"No, thanks. I-I've got things to do."
"Take along some disinfectant if you're stopping by the apartment. "
"Yeah. . . . I gather there were some problems?"
"Naw, it was a piece of cake."
Croyd walked off whistling, hands in his pockets. Jube stared at the key as a distant clock began to chime the hour.