The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(41)

The door was open. A light in the hall. After a while she pushed herself up. Her head hurt. The cauterized horts in their charred and blackened rags stood smoking at her bedfoot. Dusted with ash but faintly luminous for that. They looked dispirited, sullen, angry. The Kid was pacing up and back. His face was black with soot. The wispy hairs on his head were singed to a stubble and his cloak was smoking. She put one hand to her mouth.

Cute, he said. Really fucking cute.

I’m sorry.

You think this is funny?

No.

What the fuck were you thinking of?

I dont know.

Look at this shit. Is this your idea of a good time?

I’m really sorry.

We got people in the fucking burn unit for Christ sake. Not to mention the smell.

I didnt know.

You should have asked. Christ. He turned away and spat an ashy spittle and looked at her and shook his head. The clutch of blackened chimeras listed and seethed in the hallway light.

I’m sorry, she said. I really am.

Oh that’s good. You get that, guys? She’s sorry? Well shit. Sorry? Why didnt you say so? Well fuck it. What the hell.





John Sheddan hit the bricks on a cool Friday afternoon and made his way down to the old town of Knoxville to see if he could cadge a pilsner. In the ensuing hours he would borrow two hundred dollars and with it he would buy two hundred dollars’ worth of prescription drugs off the street and take them to Morristown and resell them for three hundred. From there he would go to Bill Lee’s poker game and win seven hundred dollars and have sex with a female minor in the back seat of a friend’s car. From here he would make his way back to Knoxville and board a plane at McGhee Tyson Airport and be in New Orleans well before midnight. Western came upon him almost by chance. Passing the Absinthe House he saw his hat on a table at the window. He turned in and stood watching him until Sheddan lowered his paper and looked up. Lord Wartburg, he said.

Mossy Creek.

I thought I felt myself under observation. Come sit. You dont read the news.

No. What’s happened?

Nothing. Just my ongoing work on your profile.

Western tipped back the other chair and sat at the small wooden table. When did you get here?

Sheddan folded the paper and looked at his watch. About ten hours ago. I just got up. I love this town. I just havent figured out how to make a living here.

Tough town.

Yes. You cant trust people, Squire. Honor among thieves is a thing of the past.

You’re joshing me.

Not a bit of it. Where’s the bloody waiter? Have you had your lunch? No, of course not. It’s odd the people who show up in this place.

Me for instance.

No. Not you. Let me just settle up here. We’ll go someplace congenial and have a bite of lunch.

They lunched at Arnaud’s. Sheddan perused the winelist, shaking his head. Impressive. Who pays these prices, Squire? God. Well, should be something here of interest. An unpretentious Beaujolais. Stay clear of the Villages variety and you’ll be well ahead of the game.

You’re not having fish then.

I am having fish. It’s what they have here. One is not therefore perforce required to drink something insipid. Lobster an exception of course. No reds there. I’ve always liked this place. It’s like a fucking movie set. And it never changes. There are a couple of restaurants in Mexico City it would remind you of. Brat says it’s like dining in a barbershop.

Sheddan had turned his waterglass upside down on the linen but the waiter came in a few minutes and righted it and poured it full and then poured Western’s.

Excuse me, said John.

Yessir.

Would you take this away, please?

You wouldnt care for water?

I would not.

The waiter carried off the glass on his tray and John bent to the winelist again. Within minutes another waiter appeared and poured another glass of water and set it on the table. Sheddan looked up. Excuse me, he said.

Yessir.

I’ve no brief with any of the help here. You are all equally free to pour water endlessly. My problem is that I dont want any water. Is there some way that we could at least arrive at a moratorium? Perhaps negotiate? I’d be willing to come to the kitchen and meet with everyone.

Sir?

I dont want any water.

The waiter nodded and took the glass. Sheddan shook his head. God’s piles, he said. What is it with the endless pouring of the waters in this country? If you actually needed something—such as a drink—you couldnt get them to the table with a naval flare. It used to drive Churchill crazy.

He folded the winebook away and looked about. Good to be here early. People forget that this town is a port. Overrun with tourists as it is. You get oddities of every stripe. Streets filled with disturbed persons. I saw in the Absinthe House a while back sitting at the bar in illfitting clothes what I feel fairly certain to have been a hairy-eared dwarf lemur from the Madagascar highlands. Tethered to a stool alongside a seaman and drinking beer from a bowl. And it occurred to me that this exotic creature enjoyed small advantage in its singularity when compared to the average tourist—who to my mind comes more and more to resemble something out of an infelicitous drug trip. There are elegant restaurants in this town—unchanged in a century or more—where waiters in formal livery serve an upscale cuisine to bloated oafs who’ve chosen to dine in their gymclothes if not in their actual undergarments. No one even seems to find this odd. What are you having? Did you want a cocktail?