New Memphis Blues-Part 2

Part 2

A whistle sounded from down one of the alleys then, a particular pattern familiar to anyone; “shave-and-a-haircut” but with no ending to it. It sounded again as the jackals to my forward left parted, admitting one of their own to the fore who repeated the jaunty yet unfinished whistle. Bright steel flashed in the new arrival’s hand before being hidden again, the blade of a straight-razor flipping out before slipping back into its ivory cover in a steady rhythm.

“’Ello my lovelies. Funny runnin’ into you lot together all neat like. Almost like an ‘ungry dog comin’ across a cat that’s chewin’ on a bird,” said the new arrival in a cheery voice. While Adofo’s accent came from a dismal education and a worse set of teeth, this jackal’s lilt was not often heard this side of the ocean. Lingo straight from the beating heart of the Empire had come from between those pale lips stretched in a broad grin. Every eye and nearly every gun was on the newcomer, taking in the mop of straw-blond hair spilling out from beneath the angled cap, the boyish scattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose and his cheeks and the watery blue eyes that hadn’t blinked since he arrived. Realization began to settle in, harsh whispers circulated amongst the men behind me, whispers of a name that made chills run down the spines of stone cold killers.

That’s Billy Swell…

A name that made people like Adofo take swig of something strong and curse under their breath.

..gonna kill all of us…

And a name that made even gods grow tense.

..what are we gonna do?

A man that was a boogeyman to boogeymen, a man who, if urban legend told it even half-right, had killed fifty-three people in the Downside before he started climbing his way up the towers.

Just keeps flipping that damn blade out…

Flick-shctk

It was only when he made it past The Grey that the jackals were forced to take action, sectioning off three whole floors to trap him.

Shave-and-a-haircut

Found wearing a coat made of scalps.

Flick-shctk

Killed a dozen cops before they gunned him down, and twice that will bear ugly scars for the rest of their days.

....oh man this can’t be happening…

Anubis took him as his own, transfusing raw dayshine into his veins from seized shipments to bring him back, to make him the tool of his vengeance against the other gods.

Shave-and-a-haircut

Flick-shctk

Why doesn’t he blink?!

A man that the street urchins had made a rhyme about.

Bloody, bloody Billy Swell,
Killed a lot and went to Hell.

Flick-shctk

The Devil, the Devil, dressed in black,
Gave Billy a look and sent him back.

Flick-shctk

Why doesn’t he fucking blink!

“Hope you lot don’t mind me an’ the boys poppin’ ’round to visit unannounced,” Billy continued, examining the edge of his gleaming weapon, “but me ol’ boss is havin’ a row with his boss. Seems Osiris is gettin’ a might lonely down there all by his onesy self and has decided to give Big Dog a time limit. Says to him; ‘Big Dog, you gets me one of  them struttin’ gods who think they’s too clever to ever come visit me, and do it by the first new moon o’ winter, or it’ll be you keepin’ me company’ he says.
“So naturally, Big Dog comes to me and tells me the whole story, and says ‘do what you gotta to make this happen’. I thunk on it for a bit, and finally came round to the idea of catching the cream o’ the crop of two of his most hated enemies havin’ a scrap and just kill whoever’s still standin’ at the end. Clean, posh, and very entertainin’…course then I get all antsy wantin’ to see the blood start to flow and I go and spoil me own plan. So, which one of you fancy’s a little off the top?” he offered, making a horizontal sweep with his razor.

Somebody fired his gun, one of Silver’s men judging by the angle, my nerves so tightly wound I could watch the slug fly towards Billy’s unblinking face at the pace of an ambling bumblebee. I continued to watch as it neared the grinning man, watched his watery blue eyes track its progress before, mere feet from his face, his straight razor sweeps up in a gleaming arc and neatly cuts the slug in two. This has the effect of sending the two pieces into the chest of the jackal on either side of him who promptly crumple to the ground clutching their wounds. Billy either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care about the downed men, his rictus grin firmly in place.

“We ‘ave a volunteer,” the head jackal hissed, leaning forward.

Chaos ensued, two dozen guns roared at once from all sides as shouts and screams of anger and pain filled my ears. I tucked and rolled, several slugs passed through where I had been and burrowing their way into the flesh of some of Adofo’s goons behind me. Five jackals had already dropped from a bullet right between their eyes; Mattie’s work no doubt but I wasn’t prepared to discount Adofo’s aim entirely. Me, I had to cut an escape route out of this shooting gallery, and the four badges blocking the alley I had taken to get here fit the bill.

Here was the thing about dayshine; there was so much of it coursing through my body to make something like a flying bullet look like you could reach out and pluck them out of the air. For most people they were just in it for the short hallucinations and the immortality, but for those of us born and raised on it, given a portion of it as part of our pay in the service of the gods that harvest it, we skip merrily past the ordinary human limits and become something more. I’d wager not a one of these deputized goons had looked at dayshine for longer than a minute, let alone had a sip of even the most diluted of concoctions, and that meant when the shooting started Mattie, Adofo and I had become blurs of motion, with a blue-shaded blur headed right for them.

I spread my Wings, letting the gleaming edges of the hooked swords cut, slice and sever what they will, slipping past the gouts of crimson erupting from the floundering jackals as they toppled like dolls onto a bloody, angular pile that had been their limbs and weapons. “Quartet! Mattie!” I yelled while deflecting a shot headed my way with the flat of my left blade. The middle of the alley is a confused scrum of tumbling bodies and barking automatics, all around it a black smear like an ink brush drawn across the canvas of reality zipped this way and that, cutting whatever it pleased. By Horus’s balls Billy is a fast son-of-a-bitch.

Mattie had been doing an admirable job in the first five seconds of this melee in keeping the Quartet alive, putting down any threat to them and their precious cargo. The fake musicians themselves, long serving men, ducked and wove like prize fighters, slipping past fist and bullet while keeping Adofo’s men dodging swings and shots of their own.

Seeing the number of men he has with him dwindling and his own survival at risk from that whistling devil Adofo did the most sensible thing I could attribute to one of his narrow thinking; he bailed, but not before dismissing one of his Lugers, grabbing the cello case from my fellow enforcer and giving him a solid kick to the side of his knee as a parting gift. The cellist’s leg snaps like a week-old breadstick and no amount of dayshine could blot out that pain he went down screaming. The case slipped from his fingers and Adofo was airborne with it, vaulting off of a fire escape and reaching the nearby rooftops. Mattie sees this and moves to intervene but only by some subtle cue does she deflect one of Billy’s attacks, the slide of one of her automatics kept the razor from her throat. An icicle of genuine fear lanced through me at the sight of her close call, not many people in New Memphis could get than close to her without getting shot down first.

In a blink of an eye I was there. My swords led the way as I stabbed at the dark shape looming over her but only struck a phantom. The real Billy cradled the head of a member of Set's ka like a cello's fingerboard while he applied his razor-bow to the neck to open the jugular. Safe from Billy's blade for the moment, Mattie took off after Adofo. I watched her ricochet between buildings before she cart-wheeled to the roof where she sent down a barrage of hot lead that stitched a tapestry of crimson threads along the wall of jackals threatening me and our comrades.

Ducking and weaving my upper body to avoid the murderous crossfire sent my way I was beginning to think Adofo had the right idea in running, but no sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I was defending myself against Billy’s lashing blade, seeming like he’s attacking from five different directions at once. Gold struck steel faster than a jackhammer, each parry sending a shiver up my arms from the sheer power behind that tiny blade as my world narrowed into flashing metal and the blond maniac’s leering face. We weave and dance in amongst the criss-crossing slugs, over the prone forms of the dead and the dying and I start to get a chill in my gut when I realize I can’t win this. My defense was frantic, driven purely by instinct but Billy is drawing this out, those dead, doll-like eyes lighting up when he saw that I have realized this as well.

His razor whips out faster than even I can track and cuts a notch into the brim of my hat while a second lateral swipe passes close enough to my eyes I can read the maker’s stamp on the blade. I always suspected I’d go down like this, fighting incredible odds on some nameless street but despite this I get up every day thinking I’ll see the next. I forgot to water my fern this morning, too busy fussing with the toaster; Mrs. Feldman from the flat across the hall has been looking haggard of late, wonder if that pneumonia she finally shook off is coming back; that red-head I held the door open for yesterday had muttered something under her breath as she passed by, what was it? All of this slipped through my mind as the Reaper’s scythe descended, my limbs dragging like I was trying to swim through tar.
Impossibly, a reprieve. Billy is taken off-balance as the fallen cellist wraps his arms around one of the head jackal’s legs and yells something to me.

Getoutofhere!

For the time it takes for both eyelids to meet each other I stand dumbfounded, utterly shocked by the turn of events.

“GET OUT OF HERE! GO AFTER THE DAYSHINE!”

And then I’m airborne, legs kicking off the ground like a falcon alighting from perch, Wings at my sides as I ascend out of that tumult of gun smoke and murderers, hitting the rooftops in two bounds and my legs already in full stride when they once more hit something solid.

So it wasn’t my time yet. This time, someone else was paying the butcher’s bill. My heart is pounding so hard it feels like a boxer’s punching the inside of my ribcage but I push it all down, all the guilt, all the fear and I follow the running battle that’s now two blocks ahead of me, Adofo and Mattie spitting shots and curses along the rooftops. Bullets zip and fly as the pair weave an erratic path, no doubt Sliver with some destination in mind and Mattie trying to fill him so full of lead he’d sink through pavement.

I catch up relatively quickly as the dusk sky pulls on a violet shawl and the moon peeks her sleepy head between the cold glass towers filled with rich immortals sipping a dayshine martini after a hard day of getting richer. I watch as Mattie, at a full run, squeezes off a shot that sends Adofo’s hat spinning off of his head while we juke in different directions to avoid the return shot. Adofo is running with his left hand over the shoulder of the same side, the cello case covering most of his back as a sort of shield. He knows we won’t risk puncturing the cask inside, though Mattie’s shots continue to threaten the entire reason we are out here tonight, the entire reason the Quartet is still back in that slaughterhouse of an alley.

“Check your fire!” I demanded as I saw her line up another shot.

“Fuck you! I can shoot the fleas off of a mutt at twenty paces!” she growled, loosing another round and succeeding in punching a hole through where the fingerboard of the cello would have been.

“We left the Quartet back there dying by Billy’s hand and it’ll all be for nothing if you spill the dayshine all over the damned block! We’ll be hitting Oryx street in two blocks and it’s too far to jump to Ibis so he’ll have to slow down and turn. We’ll get him then, just be ready,” I explained hastily, veering off to the right in preparation of heading our quarry off.

We cover the distance in moments, running as fast as an automobile in third gear, Adofo giving up shooting at us and instead focusing on staying ahead of us. I don’t know what his play is yet, he’s not the sort to panic and run blindly where he will become trapped so I remain alert, ready for some last-second reversal. I gape as I watch the green-suited ka actually pour on a little more speed and leap into the void I know is there…except a moment later he’s in view again, standing atop the balloon of a large luxury zeff that rises into view like a breaching whale with steel ribs and red canvas skin.

Mattie grunts loudly in effort and clears the distance as well, scrambling up the side of the rigid air bag with a skill that was a credit to her feline features. The zeff is just disembarking, peeling away from the row of buildings at a leisurely pace as its occupants find their seats and talk about whatever the well-heeled talk about, but the gap between it and the buildings grows with every second and I almost balk, my hesitation stealing momentum from me as I leap, the side of the zeff coming at me at a angle altogether not to my liking. I plunge my swords into the envelope, the preternaturally sharp blades easily piercing the canvas but leave me dangling over the abyss. Against all reason my eyes plummet to the street ten floors below and then to the roiling blackness that The Grey becomes at night. I had ducked Death’s hand once tonight but I could feel him down there, just beneath the veil of smog waiting for me to come back, to dip so much as a toe back into that tartarean realm so he could finish what he started five decades ago.

Mattie yelling my name and fresh gunfire snap my focus back and I dismiss my left sword, grasping the ragged edge of the hole and then dismissing the other. Through a series of graceless struggles I finally manage to get my foot in the tear and jump the rest of the way up, landing on top of the zeff panting and with a fresh coat of paint on my fear of heights.

Mattie and Adofo trade shots, the former Kat acrobatically dodging the rounds sent her way while Adofo clutches the case to his chest like a hostage, his silver Luger barking madly.

“It’s over Adofo! You’re outnumbered and there’s nowhere to run. Just hand over the dayshine and we’ll call it a fucking draw,” I call out, re-summoning my weapons and crossing them before me as I advance, my twisted and strained nerves dragging an uncharacteristic profanity to my lips. 

The way his eyes twitch I can see he’s considering his situation, assessing his odds as the high winds whip past us, threatening to pitch us all over the side.

“Not from where I’m standing, mongrel. Set said to bring the dayshine back to him…if possible,” he explains, holding the case rigidly away from his body, where a mere twitch of his fingers could send it tumbling over the side. Mattie and I advance slowly towards him, weapons up and ready, wondering just how desperate we’ve made him.

“A draw? I don’t think so,” Adofo laughed, beginning to walk backwards, keeping his distance while he subtly cast his gaze from side-to-side, looking for any escape, any advantage. “I just have to drop this and you lose, no matter what happens to me. How does it feel, half-breed, to have failed your patron so spectacularly when he needed you the most?”

“A lot like getting your hands chopped off and pitched over the side of a zeff, I’d wager,” I growled, dragging the edges of my blades against one another in a harmonious ring.

“It’s cute when you try and talk mean, like a puppy threatening the mailman. Well, my friends,” Adofo said slowly, glancing over to the right, “it’s been a right pleasure fucking you over. Let’s do it again someday soon.”

I dashed forward as I watched Adofo’s fingers slip away from the cello case’s handle, watched the heavy object bounce as it struck the zeff’s envelope before beginning its tumble over the sloping edge. Mattie unleashed a leonine roar and opened up with her twin automatics, Adofo ducking low and sprinting to the right. I heard him grunt as a couple of slugs found their targets but with a pained yelp he hurled himself from the side, sailing down in an arc to land upon the top of a taxi zeff puttering along. I was sprinting too, watching in growing horror as the case built up momentum, wobbling as it raced over the steel supports. Releasing my right sword I threw myself forward, the case’s handle tauntingly close to my questing fingers, my ring finger grazing the leather loop…and then it was gone, pitching over the side to be swallowed up by the roiling blackness below. I scarcely had the presence of mind to stick my sword into the zeff’s skin to stop my own demise as I dangled there like a hanged man, searching the clouds like somehow I expected the case to sprout wings and soar majestically back into view.

“Rex! You down there?!” Mattie called from somewhere above me, her voice scarcely cutting through the fog in my mind. I take several attempts to speak before I give up, doggedly stabbing my way up the side of the sky yacht before coming to a stop resting on my knees.

“It’s…gone,” I say unhelpfully, numb to little else but my own grief, the profound sense of loss washing over me until I feel like I’m treading water in an ocean of it. Mattie says nothing for a long time before finally uttering; “We need to phone it in. Maybe the boss will have a play up his sleeve,” she says without much conviction.

All the gunfire and stabbing of the zeff’s envelope hadn’t gone unnoticed and it was easy to leap onto the roof of a nearby building at the expensive yacht sidles up against an embarking bridge. My feet drag and my eyes remain fixed on the pavement inches in front of my toes. Mattie walks beside me hands in her pockets and mute as a statue, studying the contents of the store windows as we pass without really looking.

We make it to a phone and exchange glances before I retrieve a quarter and slot it thinking about what to say. The receiver feels strangely heavy in my hand as I lift it to my head and wait for the operator. A few phrases and some clicks later and I’m talking to our dispatcher. ”Let me talk to him,”
A phone rings twice and the receiver picks up, no greeting on the other side, just a sense of expectation.

“We…failed, my lord. Set’s men intercepted the Quartet, and then Billy Swell and his jackals came and…the dayshine is gone,” I explain, the words leaving my mouth like I was spitting out broken glass.
A dreadful pause comes from the other side of the line, the sort of anticipation like the hammer of a gun being pulled back but it’s not a shout, not a curse that nearly floors me, it’s a confirmation.

“I know the case is gone, but the dayshine was delivered whole and intact to Mr. Abadi half an hour ago. I know this because I delivered it to him in person, a gesture he found most flattering,” Horus said over the line.

“What? But the Quartet, the mission to follow them,” I protest, confused as I look to Mattie whose expression mirrored my own.

“You and the Quartet were a diversion, a necessary one. Set and Anubis had to believe I had put all my, what is the term? ‘Eggs in one basket’? The cask was filled with water,” my boss explains calmly.
“But the Quartet’s dead! We got ambushed by half the New Memphis police force and a murderer from the pits of Duat, barely escaped with our lives and it was all for nothing?!” I retort hotly, my dismay from before melting into anger at Horus’s deception.

“Listen to me very carefully, Mr. Deliquia, because I am only going to explain this to you once,” the god’s voice changing, growing as hard and ancient as the side of a pyramid, “what the Quartet and yourselves did this night was not for nothing. As far as everybody needed to be concerned, I was sending the shipment with them. You needed to behave like this thing you were guarding was worth more than your lives, you needed to violently dissuade anyone from taking it because if you hadn’t, then eyes would have begun to search elsewhere, looking for an angle they hadn’t considered. I needed a distraction and you performed that duty admirably.”

“Why not even tell us, then? Mattie and I would have fought just as hard even if we had known the case was a decoy,” I hiss, now more just hurt than angry.

“I will admit to being confused by your reaction, Mr. Deliquia. I would have thought you would be relieved that you had not, in fact, failed me so monumentally, or are you simply just hurt that I did not feel the need to explain my every action to a subordinate? We have won a victory tonight, Mr. Deliquia, despite our losses. It is, as you said, a well-deserved change in fortune. I expect a full report on tonight’s happenings, including the arrival of Mr. Swell, by nine tomorrow morning so be ready for the call.”

The phone then hung up, leaving me speaking half-uttered protests to the dial tone. I hang the receiver up with a slam, knowing Horus can’t hear it but secretly wishing he could. Mattie looks at me, scowling, hungry for answers.

“It was a ploy, all of it. We were protecting water the whole time, the real shipment was delivered while we were chasing Adofo all across the city,” I explained briefly, sagging against the phone booth wall like someone had burgled a few vertebrae.

“Fuck. Figures,” Mattie responds eloquently as always, spitting on the ground. The silence in light of the revelations begins to grow painful and I stand abruptly upright, reaching up to loosen my tie.
“I need several rather large and disreputable drinks to wash this down.”

“Indigo Room?” my partner suggests.

“Yeah,” I said with a nod, beginning to walk.

The Indigo Room was a confusing, wonderful jumble of classes and professions, where high-paid triggermen could rub elbows with rich socialites looking for a wild evening, where dayshine-infused drinks can be purchased alongside some of the most potent whiskey still-brewers could concoct in their backwoods shacks. The décor was clean and elegant, unlike some of the clientele, with floors of sun-bleached oak, tables of gleaming steel and smoked glass, and pure white walls set with tastefully sparse geometric molding. It got its name from the few touches of color found in the velvet chair cushions and jackets of the staff, the metal paneled ceiling and the tiny flowers set in porcelain vases at each table, all drenched in that rich, brooding shade of purple.

I had no eye for the décor tonight, doffing my damaged hat and scarcely nodding to the maître d’ as he approached with the easy silence of a professional killer. Roman was a fixture at the Indigo Room, and a perfect reflection of its dual nature; impeccably dressed with eyes like chips of flint, slicked hair and a waxed moustache of snowy white and a pale, thin scar below his left eye. He was fit, tanned and genial, the perfect gentleman if you could ignore the prison ink on his knuckles or the nickel-plated gat tucked discreetly behind his back under his jacket.

“Good evening, Mr. Deliquia, Ms. Oliver,” he began with an incline of his head, drawing a ‘tsk’ from Mattie upon hearing her formal name once more. Roman’s eyes quickly swept over us, noting my hat, the smell of cordite, the set of our shoulders and hardness in our eyes. “Or rather, I wish you a better evening. Your usual?” he inquired with an arched eyebrow and a twitch of his moustache.

“Yeah, Roman, that’d be great, but add a bottle of Ramesses Black Label to it,” I reply wearily.
“Of course, sir. Please, avail yourselves to the table of your choice and if there is anything else we can do to make your stay more soothing, do not hesitate to ask,” the head waiter offered with a gesture of his white-gloved hand.

Mattie and I clomped our way to our table and sank into the firm cushions of the chairs while the band, almost invisible in their white attire and instruments, began another soft number that melted into the rest of room’s ambiance. We passed the interim in silence, me slumped in my chair and drumming my fingers on my thigh while Mattie carefully studied the lineup of liquors standing in neat rows atop glass shelves over the bar.

With admirable speed our meal and whiskey was delivered; Mattie with her prodigious appetite tucking into a quarter of a roast ostrich with baby potatoes, apple quinoa salad and a basket of rosemary-flecked pita bread. My fare was substantially less, a bowl each of toasted cashews and honeyed dates with a tall glass mug of mint tea on the side. Mattie preferred a pint of lager to wash her feast down and tonight was no exception. I picked at my food, eating with little appetite while looking up to see hunks of roasted flesh torn off by her sharp teeth and devoured with gusto.

I cracked the seal on the whiskey and poured a shot for the both of us, the scent of the pale amber liquid cutting past all the other smells as we raise our glasses in a somber toast. “To the Rusty Quartet; Tom, Ed, Nathan and Charles; may they rise as the moon above date palms and be counted among the stars.”

“Give them air to breathe and a strong sailing wind when they rise from the underworld,” Mattie added before we downed the fiery whiskey, then refilled them and repeated the gesture, the spice lingering on my tongue like the sharp pang of regret. A raucous peal of laughter spoiled the somber mood as a nearby table filled with some men in flashy suits and a trio of tipsy roundheels in too much make-up and too little clothing. The dames were regulars, clinging onto whomever they figured had money to burn, which, in the Indigo Room, was just about everybody, but I couldn’t put a finger on the other mugs. Likely just some ka with a pocketful of kale and a thirst for the sweet life.

Another piercing squeal of laughter and my face screws up in anger. I’ve got nothing against having a good time, but my dander’s already up and maybe I’m looking for a target. I glance over to Mattie and see her eating had reduced to a slow, deliberate chew, her eyes like ice. I’m halfway out of my seat when I see Roman already approaching the table, his face, as always, a carefully controlled mask of subdued civility. I sit back down and wait, always happy to watch a professional at work.

As stiff as a soldier on parade the maître d’ stops before the table and angles his upper body forward so he can converse with the party quietly. I see his mouth move but don’t catch the words, but what I do see is the devil-may-care grins drop from the men and the chicks go white as sheets. Standing back up straight Roman glances our way and I give a nod of thanks, both for putting a lid on the noise or for keeping me from doing something I might regret. Mattie and I were regulars here and always paid our tab, but if there were going to be any violence it was going to be perpetuated by the staff, not the guests, and our continued patronage did not exempt us from the rules.

We completed our meal in silence and, when every vestige had been efficiently whisked away by the staff Mattie and I sat with our glasses and continued to drain the whiskey bottle with every intention of finishing it. What I had drunk previous had already smoothed over the sharp edges of guilt and unease I felt mulling over the evening’s happenings so I reduced my intake to sips as I gazed into the dark glass of the table top at my own ghostly reflection while memory danced a slow, somber waltz through my mind. I could almost picture the glass parting like clouds to reveal a winged silhouette set against a frosty moon clutching silver fire in its talons, an image indelibly burned into my psyche, the night of my reprieve.

So lost was I in my reverie that I hadn’t noticed the house lights being turned down, really heard the announcement made or the piano player begin to pluck out a slow nocturne. Her voice, though, seized me right out of the dark waters of my reminiscence and carried me aloft in talons of purest melody. I swiveled around and glanced up to the modest stage set to the middle rear of the room, eyes instantly riveted on the carnelian canary standing in the pool of light upon it.

Her skin was the color of coffee with just the right amount of cream in it, her hair a profusion of tight curls that suggested both demure control and unbounded wildness while a dress of deep red silk flowed like water over her slim body. Her eyes though, scanning the room but seeing no one, those dark pearls as distant and sad as a picture of a departed love were what draw my attention the most. Her song had already begun and I sat, my whiskey forgotten as I followed along with the silken lyrics.

Watch the moon for me,
The smoke has gotten into my eyes.
Watch the moon for me,
And cherish those starry skies.
I’ve taken the stairs on up,
But this elevator’s only going down
I’ve clawed and lied and bled,
But in the dark I’ll have to make my bed.
No more golden delays and silvery dreams,
No more bone-white smiles and blood-soaked schemes.
Watch the moon for me, my beloved, my amore,
And let your thoughts linger on me no more.
But if you must, if my memory makes a reprise,
Think of me instead up there with you,
Among those starry skies.

“She’s from there,” I announce quietly, my eyes not moving from the slowly undulating singer as she continued to hum the tune into the chrome microphone.

“There? Where’s there?” Mattie asked, a little puzzled by my enraptured state and my obscure reference.

“There,” I say more forcefully, looking meaningfully at my partner. Mattie nods, knowing of the one place I am reluctant to speak of, the one place that fills my nights with half-remembered nightmares of choking fog, hungry teeth and helpless despair. I sip my whiskey and continue to watch her, my sad siren. Tonight I drink and mourn the fallen, tomorrow I wait for the call…and thank Amon for that glorious ringing.