The Silver Metal Lover(53)

Some of the crowd giggled with affront. I tensed. I’d been given no inkling of this—naturally I’d have argued. A rangey man called out:

“Suppose someone pays you a quarter and doesn’t like the way you do the song, huh?”

Silver fixed him with his fox-colored eyes, cool and tantalizing and playful.

“The quarter,” he said, with graceful maleficence, “is always returnable. As is the coat button you kindly gave us ten minutes ago.”

The man opened his mouth foolishly and the crowd laughed loudly. Somebody prodded the man, yelling, “Pay up, stingy bastard,” but Silver broke in, clearly and sweetly: “The button counts as payment. Even buttons are useful. We only draw the line at fruit pits and dried dog turds. Thank you. First request.”

They surged and muttered, and then a woman called out the name of some dull love-song from a theatrical that had recently won critical acclaim. Silver nodded, tuned the guitar, and played half a bar. The woman threw him a quarter daringly, and Silver caught it, and placed it neatly on the ground where the copper had previously fallen. Then he sang the song, and it became sad and meaningful.

When he finished, there was a long pause, and someone said to the woman, did she want her quarter back, and she came through the crowd and put a bill in Silver’s hand, and walked briskly away and out of the arcade. Her face was pink and her eyes were wet. Obviously the song meant something special to her. Her reaction disturbed me, but I hadn’t got time to concentrate on that, for there was another request, and another.

Some of them put the quarters in my hand, so they knew I was his accomplice. But I grew used to that. My feet were two blocks of ice, solid in my boots, and my back ached from standing. I didn’t know how long we’d been there. I felt dizzy, almost high, as if my body and my mind were engaged in two different occupations.

He must have sung twenty songs. Sometimes bits of the crowd went away. Generally more people accumulated. Then someone tried to catch him, asking for a song I didn’t think existed.

“I never heard of that,” said Silver.

“No one did,” a voice shouted.

“But,” said Silver, “I can improvise a song to fit the title.”

They waited, and he did. It was beautiful. He’d remember it, too. He never forgets any song, copied or invented.

A silver coin hit the wall behind my head and sprang down next to the jar. Excited, the crowd was getting rough.

“Thank you,” Silver said, “but no more missiles, please. If you put out my girlfriend’s eye, she won’t be able to see to count the cash tonight.”

His girlfriend. Stupidly I reddened, feeling their eyes all swarm to me. Then the rangey man who’d apparently given us the coat button, but was still there, called:

“Here’s my request. I want to hear her sing.”

It was so awful I didn’t believe my ears, didn’t even feel afraid. But, “Come on,” said the button man. “She’s got a voice, hasn’t she? When’s she going to sing?”

At which sections of the crowd, enjoying the novelty of it all, began to shout in unison that they wanted me to sing, too.

Silver glanced at me, and then he raised his hand and they ceased making a noise.

“She has a sore throat today,” said Silver, and my blood moved in my veins and arteries again. Then he added, “Maybe tomorrow.”

“You going to be here tomorrow?” demanded the button man.

“Unless asked to move elsewhere.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow then,” said the button man, morosely.

He turned to shoulder out of the crowd, and Silver called dulcetly to him.

“To hear the lady sing costs more than to hear me.”

The button man glared at him.

“Oh, why?”

“Because,” said Silver reasonably, “I think she’s worth more than I am, and I’m setting the prices.”

The button man swore, and the crowd approved Silver’s chivalry. And I stood in a bath of icy sweat, staring at the money on the ground by the jar.

Silver accepted two more requests, and then, to howls of protest, said the session was over for the day. When they asked why, he said he was cold.

When the crowd had filtered away, Silver divided the money between the inner pockets of the cloak and my purse. A muffled clanking came from both of us, like a distant legion on the move, and I said grimly, “We’ll be mugged.”

“We haven’t earned that much.”

“This is a poor area.”

“I know.”

“My policode soon won’t work. And you couldn’t stop anyone if they attacked us.”

He raised an eyebrow at me.

“Oh, why not?”

“You’re not programmed for it. You’re not a Golder.” Why did my voice sound so nasty?

He said, “You might be surprised.”

“You surprise me all the time.”

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“Nothing. Everything. It’s all so easy for you. How you must despise us. Putty in your hands. Your metal hands.” I was crying slightly, again, and didn’t really know what I was saying, or why. “That man will come back. He’s the type. He’ll come back and bully me.”

“He fancies you. If you don’t want to sing, we’ll just ignore him.”