First published in The Coyote Road, ed. by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, published by Viking.
by Will Shetterly
1
He’s running above the sun-splashed ocean, leaping from cloud to rainbow and back again, grinning because no one can catch him, when someone walks up beside him, smiles in the smuggest way, and says, “Wakey-wakey.”
He says, “G’way,” and pulls the sleeping bag over his head.
The smug walker is a beautiful young woman with skin the color of the deepest sea and hair the color of the darkest night. She’s naked. Street would like that if her smile wasn’t so annoying. She says, “Time to wake up, trickster.”
He sits up fast, thinking something’s terribly wrong if he has a visitor in his hideaway, but at least the smug walker from his dream will be gone.
Only she’s not. She’s in his room. Or, to be precise, she’s in a storage room at the back of the Dupree Building that’s full of cartons of Hi-John’s Good Luck Lawn and Garden Spray. She’s wearing a blood-red jacket and purple jeans and low gray boots, and her head has been shaved and her skin is only as dark as a plum, but her smile is at least as annoying in reality as it was in the dream. She looks remarkably familiar for someone he’s never seen. Maybe it’s just that her smile reminds him of someone, but he can’t remember who. He wants to say something clever. What falls from his lips is, “Hunh?”
Her smile gets even more annoying. “Yes. You were always loveliest in the morning.”
He blinks three times. She refuses to disappear like the dream, so he says, “Wha-- Who’re you?
She shakes her head. “Now, that’d be telling, wouldn’t it?”
He wants to get out of his sleeping bag because he doesn’t like looking up at her. But when he found this room, he arranged the cardboard boxes so six formed a bed and two made a table and four made a chair with a back and a footstool. His clothes are on top of the remaining stacks across the room. “What do you want?”
“And that’d be telling, too.”
He frowns, then sees that this poor girl is trying to play the player. He grins and stretches. “What’d you call me?”
Her smile falters. She says, “All right. You get one. Trickster.”
His grin is so wide he has to crank it down for fear of hurting his face. “Well, now and then, I s’pose.” He points at his clothes. “I’m putting those on.” He points at the door. “A lady would wait outside.”
She points at the window. “While a two-bit grifter takes the back door? My thought is not.”
He stands and tries not to shiver as he walks across the cold concrete floor. “O ye of little trust.”
She taps the side of her head. “O me of much smart.”
He tugs on gray silk boxers, but leaves his socks off because there’s no way to put them on without the annoying girl seeing the holes in the heels. “They call me Street.”
“Unless they’re looking for a light-fingered fool or a punk to run a cheap-ass scam. Then they ask for Trickster.”
“And when they ask for you?”
She hesitates, then shrugs and says, “Oh.”
“Mystery woman.”
She smiles. “That, too.”
“Oh!” He has to laugh. “They call you O!”
“Now I’ve given you two.”
He nods. “O’Riley. Odegaard. Oprah. Eau Claire. Open Sesame. Oh, what a pain.”
O shakes her head. “Wasting time, T.”
Street frowns as he buttons up a black guayabara. “So, O, how’d you find—” Her smile makes him hear himself, and he gets the grin back to say in time with her, “That’d be telling, wouldn’t it?” He puts one leg into his tan chinos. “You didn’t tell the cops—”
“Of course not.”
He pauses with the chinos half on. “You’re all right, O. Y’know, if you snuck in hoping for some quality time with a fine young fellow like myself—”
“I told Bossman Sevenday.”
With one leg halfway into the chinos, Street looks at her instead of what he’s doing and falls, landing hard on his hands. “What the—” As she laughs, he pushes himself up, jerks up his pants, and glares at her. “Why would you—”
“Things’ve been too easy, T. You need some spice in your life.”
He yanks his belt tight, grabs a turquoise silk jacket, and steps into dark red loafers. “What’d I ever do to you?”
She smiles cooly.
He gives her a mocking smile in return and says, “That’d be telling, wouldn’t it?”
O nods. “They’ll be here in two minutes. We better take the fire esc—”
Street frowns. “We?”
Which is when the storage room door swings in as if it was kicked by a mule. The mule is a huge man so tall that he has to duck when he steps inside. His T-shirt says, “Looking for someone to hurt.”
O says, “They would be early.”
Street wrenches open the storage room window. “Come on! If—”
A little man in a dark red suit drops onto the fire escape with a friendly smile and a large pistol. “Tut, tut, my tricksy. A gent pays his bills afore making his departure. And it’s true you’ll be making the big departure soon, but Bossman Sevenday’ll have what’s his first, now, won’t he?”
2
Mr. Big and Mr. Small don’t offer answers, so Street doesn’t ask questions. They drive from the Dupree Building in Flashtown to the country homes of Hillside while Big and Small sing Tin Pan Alley songs in perfect harmony. O follows the black limousine in a small silver roadster with the top down. Street thinks she must be working with his captors, but he can’t figure out why she was acting more like audience than actor, and he doesn’t like thinking about her. So he joins Big and Small on the choruses, and he smiles as they wince whenever he goes off key.
They pass many walled homes before Mr. Big turns toward a high gate like gleaming ivory. It swings back at their approach. The limousine rolls over a long white cobblestone driveway and stops beside a bone-white mansion. Small leaps out to open Street’s door, saying, “If you’d be so kind, my tricksy.” Street feels safer staying where he is, until Small nods at Big and adds, “The kindness is for my compatriot. He must clean the car if a guest is reluctant to leave it.”
Big grins sheepishly, and Street leaps out.
O parks her roadster beside the limousine and walks over to them. For the drive, she added racing goggles and a white scarf. She pushes the goggles up on her forehead. Street thinks she’s the finest thing he’s ever seen, then wishes he hadn’t thought that.
“On with the show!” O calls, waving the others toward the back of the mansion.
Street asks, “Do I get paid?”
Big says in a very gentle voice, “Oh, you should hope you don’t, Mr. Trickster.”
O leads, and Big and Small follow, and Street sees no choice but to be escorted around the mansion. In the back, a man lounges by an enormous pool, drinking a pina colada. He wears a black top hat, smoky round glasses, a black Hawaiian shirt printed with silver skulls, gray pinstriped surfer shorts, and black flip-flops. He looks up and laughs. “Trickster! O! So very good to see you!”
Street, knowing who this must be, says, “And I couldn’t imagine anyone better to see me, Mr. Bossman Sevenday, sir. I’m just afraid there’s a teensy misunderstanding—”
“A misunderstanding?” says Bossman Sevenday. “When Trickster is involved? Oh, no. How could that be?”
As Bossman Sevenday and Big laugh heartily, Small whispers, “He’s not happy, my tricksy. You should make him happy.”
Street desperately wants to do precisely that, and has no idea how. He looks at the swimming pool, an elongated hexagon, then looks closer. It’s the shape of a coffin.
Bossman Sevenday laughs harder and says, “You like my pool, Trickster? You may swim in it anytime. Some people like it so much, they go in and never want to leave.”
Street swallows and says, “I love your pool, Mr. Bossman Sevenday, sir. But I was thinking how happy I would be if I could do something for you. Whatever you liked. All you’d have to do is tell me what you wanted, and I’d be on my way to do that this very second, Mr. Bossman Sevenday, sir.”
Bossman Sevenday stops laughing and says, “The rock.”
“The rock?” Street says.
Bossman Sevenday nods.
“That’s it?” says Street.
Bossman Sevenday nods again.
Street looks at O. She says, “He wants the rock.”
Street says, “Of course he wants the rock! I’ll go get it now.” He begins to back out of the yard. “Mr. Bossman Sevenday, sir, I’m very, very grateful for the chance to get you a rock. I mean, the rock.”
Bossman Sevenday begins laughing again. “Of course you are, Trickster. You have twenty-four hours.”
Street says, “I might need a little—”
Bossman Sevenday frowns.
Street says quickly, “—less time than that. You never know. Twenty-four hours, that’s plenty. You’ll have it in a day, at the very latest.”
“Good Trickster,” says Bossman Sevenday. And, as he laughs and Street backs away, the flesh from Bossman Sevenday’s face drips like candle wax from his skull.
Street trips and leaps up and runs. Bossman Sevenday’s laughter follows him around the bone-white mansion and down the cobblestone drive. The cobblestones sound hollow like drums beneath Street’s feet. As he reaches the front gate, he thinks the cobblestones are skulls and imagines people buried together, packed as tightly as cigarettes. He leaps onto the gleaming ivory gate to climb it, but it swings inward. He drops from it, runs into the road, then hears a car racing down the driveway.
3
The silver roadster pulls up beside him. O says, “Faster if you ride with me.”
Street doesn’t slow down. “No,” he puffs. “Way.”
O says, “I’m not about to take you back. Not without the rock. If you want to get away from here—”
Street jumps over the side of the roadster and buckles himself into the passenger seat. “Go!” O puts the speedometer exactly at the posted speed limit. Street says, “Faster!”
O says, “If a cop stops us, we’ll go a lot slower.”
Street nods. “Right. Good thinking. I’m cool with that.” But Street breathes fast and sweats profusely. He knows he doesn’t smell like he’s cool with anything. He says, “Back there. Did you see anything odd?”
“Odd?”: O grins. “Nope.”
The melting face must’ve been a freak of the sunlight. The cobblestones must’ve only sounded hollow. Street says, “Me, neither. Just wanted to show the Bossman I’m dedicated to finding his rock.”
O says, “I think he knows that.”
“Except I don’t know what it is,” Street admits. “Or who took it. Or why he expects me to find it.”
O says, “Why doesn’t matter as much as the fact he expects it.”
“True. You know where it is?”
O shakes her head. “If you were looking for something that people wanted, where would you go?”
Street frowns, then grins.
4
Street leads O through Meandering Market. Today, it’s in a freight lot near the docks. His grin is back, because people are nodding and smiling, saying, “Howzit, T-man!” and “Yo, the Streetdog!” and “Tricks baby, lookin’ so fine!” The impromptu aisles are thick with people who like bargains and don’t care about sales slips. Street usually moves through the Market like a prince, perusing each dealer’s wares, looking over clothes, tunes, shows, tech, gems, and all the sweet distracting things of the world. Now he’s moving just fast enough not to make anyone wonder why he’s moving fast.
The crowd is full of people who want to be seen in their bright colors and careful hair. Picking any of them out would be a challenge, but Street’s challenge is greater. He looks where he thinks no one is, in shadows and quiet places. He spots the little brown man at the tent and aluminum trailer called Pele’s Cafe. Mouse sits on a stool near the back, nursing a cup of the house java.
Mouse spots Street just as quickly. He sets the coffee cup down, looks around, and Street knows Mouse is doing the math, distance to aisles and number of obstacles and the length of Street’s stride and the speed of Mouse’s. Then Mouse smiles at Street, telling Street two things: Mouse figures he can’t get away, and Mouse would really, really like to get away.
Mouse says, “How ya, Tricks? You and the lady seeking a seat? You can have mine in half a mo, if you fancy.”
Street says, “Ah, Mouse! How long has it been?”
Mouse shrugs. “There’s just dead time between deals. You looking for a ride? I know someone with a lead on a silver Zephyr, good as new—”
O says, “If it’s parked by Dingo’s newsstand, you don’t.”
Mouse says, “Or a bulletproof vest? Only one hole in it.”
Street says as if he knows exactly what he’s talking about. “I’m after the rock.”
Mouse’s eyes don’t change at all, meaning he’s much more guilty than if he looked scared. Mouse says, “The actor? Plymouth? The Hope Diamond? Not my speed, Tricks. You know me. Sweet and small, nothing memorable. I so hate trouble.”
Street says, “Mouse, you got to know yourself. Take me, for example. I am a very smooth liar.”
O snorts, but if it might have turned into a laugh, she stifles it when Street glances at her.
He tells Mouse, “You’re a smooth facilitator. Someone wants to sell and someone wants to buy, no one’s better than you at making it happen. But you’re not a smooth liar. No shame there. Perfection in all things is a gift given to few of us.”
“Very few,” O agrees. “Very, very few.” Street glances at her again. She says, “So very few—”
Street tells her, “Should I need your help, you’ll know because I’ll have ripped out my tongue and used it to hang myself to spare me from asking you.”
O says, “Ooh! Looking forward to that!”
Street puts a hand on Mouse’s shoulder to keep him from sidling away. “So. The rock.”
Mouse says, “Haven’t seen it.”
Street says, “And if you had, what would you have seen?”
Mouse shrugs. “A black rock. I don’t know. I just hear what you do.”
“And if you were looking for the black rock, where would you go?”
“You got me confused with the library reference desk, Tricks.”
“Fair enough. Should I receive anything of value, you take ten percent.”
Mouse shrugs. “But I don’t know anything.”
Street nods.
Mouse says, “And I take fifteen.”
Street nods again.
Mouse says, “Mama Sky.”
O’s mouth opens as if she’s going to say her nickname, but she closes it.
Mouse says, “See you in better times,” and slips away, a faint shadow that dissolves in the surging sea of Market shoppers.
5
As the Zephyr speeds up Sunset, Street says, “You got to admit that went well.”
O keeps her eyes on the road. “True. If there’s one thing you know, it’s how to deal with scumbags.”
Street glares at her, but she’s not looking, so he laughs. “Got us a name, didn’t I?”
“A name’s not the rock.”
“Anyone else get this far?”
O says grudgingly, “No.”
Street laughs.
O says, “How’re you going to find Mama Sky?”
Street smiles. “I’m not.”
O glances at him as a truck comes around the corner. O takes the shoulder of the road, spraying dirt, then swings back onto the road, and says, perfectly calmly, “You’re not.”
Street shakes his head. “Saw your face when Mouse said the name. You know her.”
“True.”
“I’m thinking we’re heading there now.”
“You’re thinking right.”
“So. Who is she?”
“My mother.” O’s voice says it would be a good idea not to ask more questions, which makes Street want to ask a lot more. Then he looks at her face and decides that while she’s probably twice as annoying as any annoying person could be, he can wait until she’s ready to talk again.
6
O slows at the top of Sunset, then speeds along High Road and parks. For a moment, Street thinks they’ve stopped at a garden with a view of the city and the ocean. Then he sees they’re in front of a small house that’s the same blue as the sky. A large woman in a loose house dress of the same blue comes out of the front door to stand perfectly still with a perfectly calm expression. Her skin is as dark as O’s. Her white hair billows from her round face like clouds.
Street looks at O and the large woman. The light dims, and he glances up. Heavy clouds are gathering in front of the sun. As the sky darkens, so does the color of the house and the woman’s robes.
Street says, “If it’s about to rain, it’d sure be nice to go inside or put up the top.”
A drop of rain hits him, then another, and water begins to fall more heavily.
O says, “Mother.”
Mama Sky says, “Daughter.”
O says, “Is this necessary?”
Mama Sky says, “Am I happy?”
O says, “You have the rock.”
Mama Sky says, “Why would I have the rock?”
O says, “You never tell me what I want to know.”
Mama Sky says, “I always tell you what you need to know.”
O says, “How do you know what I need to know?”
Mama Sky says, “Because I’m your mother.”
O says, “I don’t know why I came here!” and reaches to start the car.
Street catches her hand. “Because of the rock.”
“I don’t care about the rock!”
Street says, “I wish I could say that.” The rain is a cold torrent. He’s soaked, like O and the roadster. He gets out, splashing through deep puddles to stand at the bottom of the porch. “Mama Sky, ma’am? I’m—”
She says coldly, “I know who you are.”
Street says, “Oh. Well, I’m powerful sorry you don’t like what you’ve heard. I hate the notion that a fine looking woman like yourself isn’t glad to see me.”
Mama Sky squints at him, then laughs. “You are a most foolish young man who thinks that flattery excuses most of his faults.”
As the rain slackens, Street says, “When a fine looking woman with a laugh as big as the world thinks a man has faults, he hopes telling her the truth will excuse all of them.”
Mama Sky shakes her head. “What my daughter sees in you, I’ll never know.”
O says, “Mama!”
Mama Sky smiles again, and the rain stops. Street thinks that Mama Sky knows what a young woman might see in him. Then he wonders if that means O sees something in him that isn’t as annoying as what he sees in her. He glances at her and only sees annoyance.
Mama Sky says, “You children come in.”
The return of bright sunlight feels good on Street’s skin, but he says, “Thank you, ma’am,” quickly to keep O from saying anything. He grins at O, then heads inside.
The living room is small and comfortable and filled with furniture in every shade of dawn and dusk and clouds and rainbows.
Mama Sky says, “Let me get you some tea,” and O says almost as quickly, “We can’t stay,” and Street says just as quickly, “Tea would be lovely.”
O glares at him. Mama Sky beams and goes into the kitchen. Street circles the living room, ignoring O and looking for anything that might be called a black rock. The only things in the room as dark as an overcast midnight are a pillow and a plate stand and the bindings of some books.
Mama Sky returns with a blue tray, a blue teapot, and a blue plate heaped high with macaroons and meringues. Street says, “Allow me,” and hurries to help her.
She smiles and shakes her head and sets the tray on a coffee table painted with children flying kites and sailing in boats. “I’m not so helpless.” She pours a cup of tea for each of them.
Street’s afraid that O will refuse hers, but she accepts it and says quietly, “Thank you, Mother.”
Street takes a deep drink. It’s green tea with ginger, and he doesn’t have to lie when he says, “Delicious!” He crams a meringue into his mouth, swallows, sips tea, crams a macaroon, swallows, sips tea, and then notices the women staring at him.
Mama Sky says, “When did you last eat?”
Street opens his mouth to answer. When he thinks about the past, he remembers playing tricks, sometimes for money, sometimes for fun. He remembers running and hiding because few people have as finely developed a sense of humor as he. He remembers eating and drinking things that had to be consumed quickly because they tasted terrible or he had to get someplace quickly. But he can’t remember when he last sat still and ate. “I’ve been kind of busy today.” He eats six more cookies, but more slowly, savoring each bite.
Mama Sky says, “Let me fix you a sandwich.”
Street says, “I’d surely love that some other time, but I’m under a deadline. With the emphasis on dead.”
Mama Sky frowns. “Whose deadline?”
Street says, “Bossman Sevenday’s.”
The room darkens. Street thinks it will rain again. Then everything lightens, and Mama Sky says, “You’re trying to find this rock for Bossman Sevenday?”
Street says, “Yes, ma’am.”
Mama Sky says, “I wouldn’t have anything belonging to that, that—” She spits into a flowerpot. “But Ms. Brigitte’s a fine lady, and I’d help you for her sake, if I could. But I can’t.”
O stands. “Dead end, T. Let’s go.”
Street asks Mama Sky, “Do you ever shop at the Meandering Market?”
Mama Sky says, “Why would I? I have my garden. Visitors bring me things. I have much more than I need.”
O says, “See, T? All done here. Let’s go.”
Street says, “Did anyone bring anything like a rock? Maybe something for your garden?”
Mama Sky says, “No, I assure you, that is not the case.”
O says, “Wasting time, T. You got free food. Time to move.”
Mama Sky says, “But you know, someone did bring me something last week. That Stormboy.” She looks at O. “He’s quite proper, and dependable, too.” She looks at Street, then laughs. “All kinds of dependable, though. Sometimes dependable fun is best.”
O says, “Stormboy isn’t dependable fun. He’s dependable un-fun.”
Mama Sky says, “Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed you to take up with him.”
“Maybe not,” O agrees.
“Trickster’s not so bad,” Mama Sky says. Then she looks at Street and says, “But I’ll count my silver when you leave.” Then she laughs.
Street says, “I wouldn’t take anything from you, Mama Sky.”
Mama Sky says, “You know, I believe you, which proves I have some foolishness in me. But you took something from Bossman Sevenday.”
Street shrugs. “I don’t like him.” Then he frowns. “But I didn’t take anything from him.”
Mama Sky says, “Why does he want you to find his rock?”
Street says proudly, “Because I can.” Then he frowns. “Bossman Sevenday seems to think I’m responsible. But I’d remember—”
O says, “What?”
Street says, “That’s mad.”
O says, “What is?”
Street says, “I remember everything I did for the last six days. I don’t remember a thing before. It’s like the world started then.”
Mama Sky smiles. “World’s much, much older than that, Trickster.”
Street shakes his head, then says, “What did Stormboy bring you?”
Mama Sky goes to a shelf covered with little things like white twigs and seashells and porcelain statues of white and black pugs. She picks up a blue cloth bag tied with blue string and says, “Stormboy said this brings luck in love. So long as I don’t look in it, there’s hope for him to court my O. But if I think he’s not the one to encourage, I might as well open it and keep what’s in it.” Mama Sky looks at O. “And since you’re so set on not having him—” She starts to pull the end of the string that’s tied around the bag.
Street and O yell together, “No!”
Mama Sky looks at them. “Don’t you want to know if it’s this black rock?”
Street says, “If I was playing a trick, I’d set up something like that.” As the women frown at him, he adds, “Only it’d be a subtler, smarter, and much kinder trick than I’d expect someone like Stormboy to play.”
O says, “Yours are hardly ever subtle, smart, or kind.” Then she adds, “But Stormboy’s idea of subtle is a mudslide or a lightning strike.” She holds her hand out to Mama Sky. Mama Sky sets the blue bag in O’s palm. O traces the shape of the thing in the bag, then nods. “It’s the rock.”
Street says, “And it’s a trick?”
O nods. “Stormboy is an even more despicable weasel than you.”
Street grins. “You like someone less than me?”
O says, “Now you only have to move higher in my opinion than everyone else in the world.”
Street laughs. “A start is a start.”
7
As O drives down Cigarillo Canyon, Street lifts the blue bag off the console. The rock inside is the size of a small chicken egg. It feels familiar in his hand.
O says, “Put it back.”
“I was thinking I’d take a little peek.”
“You were not.”
“Okay, I was thinking I’d pretend to take a little peek to trick some information from you.”
“Like?”
“Like what would happen if I took a little peek.”
“Why would I know?”
“Because you stopped your mother as fast as I did. Maybe faster.”
“Maybe I had the same thought you did.”
Street tugs the string to untie the bag.
O says, “No!” and reaches for it.
Street dangles it just beyond her reach. “Here’s what I think. I think there’s all kinds of things you’re not telling.”
“As if that’s hard to figure out.”
“And something stole my memories six days ago. This rock.”
O laughs. “A rock takes people’s memories. Yeah, right.”
“Last, I think if I take the rock out, I’ll lose six more days, but you’ll lose everything up to this moment. And we’ll be equal.”
O glances from the road to him. “That’d be a dirty trick.”
Street nods. “Yeah.” He ties the bag up and sets it back on the console.
At the end of Cigarillo, O turns onto Tree Lizard. Street can’t read what’s going on behind her smooth expression. He thinks that she’s her mother’s daughter, then wonders why he likes knowing that. He says, “I don’t know if it means anything to say you’re sorry for something you don’t remember, but I am sorry.”
O flicks her cool eyes to him, then back to the road. They’re driving through Flamingoville, a neighborhood that’s nice for nothing special except being nice: bright little houses, friendly shops, good cheap restaurants, sidewalks filled with lazy, happy people.
Street says, “I think I did something stupid, and you tracked me down, and now you’re trying to help and punish me at the same time.”
“What do you think you did?”
“Since you’re too fine for me to have gone chasing someone else, um, I stole the black rock from Bossman Sevenday?”
O nods. “You’re such an idiot.”
Street hits the glove compartment with the flat of his hand. “Oh, man! I am such an idiot!”
“I told you that.”
“I was hoping you’d say someone framed me. I really stole it?”
“They say you were drunk at the Talon with a little box, telling our crowd you were the best thief ever because you could steal the black rock from Bossman Sevenday and put it back before he noticed. And you had the rock to prove it.”
“He caught me putting it back?”
O shakes her head. “Everyone laughed and said anything could be in that box. How could you know what you had in it? So you got angry and looked inside—”
“Am I that stupid?”
O nods. “Then you wandered off looking twice as drunk. No one knew what happened after that. So I started asking for the word on Trickster, and I heard about a kid called Street who went by that handle. The rest is history.”
Street grins. “So, um, does that mean you and I are—?”
O says, “Were.”
Street grins wider. “I may be stupid, but I do have great taste.”
“Did you hear the past tense?”
Street keeps grinning. “I still have great taste.”
O shakes her head sadly. “I still have terrible taste.” Then she finally smiles at him. The wait was worth it
When O turns the smile back to the road, Street says, “What bothers me is why a man would have a rock that makes people forget everything?”
O says, “Who said a man had a rock like that?”
Street swallows. “So, Bossman Sevenday is—?”
O says, “Who would you steal from to prove you’re the best thief ever?”
“Not the All One. No way it’s the All One. Tell me I’m not that stupid.”
O says,”You’re not that stupid.”
Street stares ahead, and feels his eyes stretching wide, and he wants to scream. He closes his mouth and says quietly, “Death. I’m stupid enough to steal from Death.”
O nods. “All the newly dead still have their memories, thanks to you. Bossman says they’re making quite the ruckus. He’ll be glad to get the rock back.”
Street looks at the blue bag. “He’s getting it back. He’ll be glad.” Street laughs. “Nothing to be worried about, then.”
O says, “He’s Death.”
Street says, “Is there someplace else we can go?”
“Where Death can’t find you?”
Street tries to swallow again, but his throat is dry. He says in a rough whisper, “Then let’s take him the rock.”
“Good,” says O, and she turns off Memorial into the big ivory gates to Bossman Sevenday’s home.
8
As they walk up the white marble steps, the door is opened by an elegant dark woman in a dress as black as the heart of a cave. She says, “You’re early.”
O says, “Yes, ma’am.”
Street says, “You’re Ms. Brigitte? I’m—”
“Trickster,” says the dark woman. “Indeed, you are. I shall tell my husband—”
Bossman Sevenday’s voice booms from deep within the mansion. “Trickster! Oya! So good of you to return so soon!”
Ms. Brigitte steps back, opening the door wide. A pale hall with many closed doors along its sides stretches into murky shadows. Street’s focus is on Bossman Sevenday, striding toward them in impeccable evening wear. Even the near end of the long hall is dim. There’s a reddish glow to the west, though Street was sure he came into the house from midafternoon.
Ms. Brigitte says, “Business tires me,” and leaves the hall, closing a pair of white doors behind her. The air smells of cigarettes and perfume and oranges and peanut butter and all the other smells that Street has ever known, but muted. He hears music and laughter and crying and gasps that are the sound of loving or dying, equally muted. He looks at O. “Oya?”
She nods.
He says, “A good name. I’m sorry I forgot it.”
She smiles, and he thinks that if nothing is good after this moment, he could be content. And then he thinks that’s the stupidest thought he has ever had, because he wants everything to be even better. He calls, “Mr. Bossman Sevenday, sir? I’ve got your rock.” He holds out the cloth bag.
As Bossman Sevenday reaches for it, Street thinks about jerking the stone out. But it belongs to Bossman Sevenday, who must know how to show it to the dead without forgetting who he is. Maybe his dark glasses let him look on the stone. Street could knock off the glasses. The idea is tempting, but it doesn’t seem like a good idea to risk making Death like him even less. Letting Bossman take the bag, Street says, “I’m glad to have this straightened out. Taking something from Bossman Sevenday! You know only a fool would do that.”
“Yes, I do,” says Bossman Sevenday, laughing as he takes Street’s arm. “Walk with me.”
O says, “The gem’s back. Everything is back the way it should be now.”
Bossman Sevenday says, “Not quite. Someone stole from me.”
Street almost smiles in pride, then stops himself. “Not really, Mr. Bossman Sevenday, sir. You’ve got the rock back. And if you’ve got it, it’s like it was never gone, so no one could say anything was taken. Not really. If you see what I mean.”
Bossman Sevenday laughs. “They’ll talk, Trickster. Which is why you must come with me now.”
Street says, “Oya, want to wait outside for me? I shouldn’t be long.”
Bossman Sevenday shakes his head and laughs louder. “Ah, Trickster, don’t ask her to be that patient.”
Street says, “You’re taking me now?”
Bossman Sevenday nods.
“And I’m not coming back?”
Bossman Sevenday nods again.
“I didn’t expect this.”
Bossman Sevenday says, “Expecting things is not one of your gifts, Trickster.”
O says, “Bossman, I’m asking—”
Bossman Sevenday shakes his head. “Some things I must do with no thought of others.”
Street says, “I can’t believe it. No one’ll believe it at first.”
Bossman Sevenday says, “Believe what?”
Street drops to his knees. “Oya! See me here before the Bossman!”
As O squints at him, Bossman Sevenday says, “Begging won’t save you.”
“I’m not begging.” Street clasps his hands together.
Bossman Sevenday says, “Sure looks like—”
Street cries, “Thank you, Mr. Bossman Sevenday, sir! Thank you!”
Bossman Sevenday frowns.
Street glances at O, “You see how happy I am? You tell everyone of Bossman Sevenday’s kindness! You tell ‘em to stop fearing him, because he’s the most forgiving gentleman there could be!”
O nods hesitantly.
Street looks back up at Bossman Sevenday. “I was terrified you’d kick me out in the world without my memories, and folks would laugh at me for the rest of my life as the poor fool who tried to steal from you. I thought I’d suffer and suffer as the proof that no one should mess with you.”
Bossman Sevenday says, “You will—”
Street cries louder, “Now Oya’s seen how you’ll even forgive a trickster who was fool enough to steal from you. People will come up to you and say you’re the gentlest gentleman of all!” Street leans forward and kisses Bossman’s cold shoes. “See, Oya! Tell ‘em how grateful I was when you left me!” He kisses Bossman’s shoes again. The leather is even colder against his lips. “Bless you, Bossman Sevenday! Bless you!”
Bossman Sevenday looks at O, then at Street. Smoke comes from behind his round sunglasses, and they begin to glow red, and he says, “Get. Up.”
Street says, “Are we going now, Bossman?” He scrambles to his feet and grins. “I can’t wait!”
Bossman Sevenday’s face is a flaming skull as he screams, “Get out! You get out of here this instant!”
Street says, “But Bossman, haven’t you forgiven—”
O grabs his wrist and jerks him toward the door.
Street says, “No, O! I beg you! Don’t make me go back!”
They stumble down the long hall. The tiles rock beneath them as the earth quakes. Doors blow open. Harsh winds like arctic storms and scorching desert gales buffet them from each door that they pass, and they hear screams and wails of despair. And as they run, Street shouts, “Let me go back, O! Please!”
Ms. Brigitte stands at the front door. She glares at them, then throws the doors wide and shouts, “You deserve no less!”
“No! Please, no!” cries Street. He and O plunge down the steps and leap into the Zephyr and race away from Bossman Sevenday’s home.
And, as they go, Street is not sure whether the sound that he hears is Bossman’s rage or his laughter.
9
Street stretches in the car as they cruise into the city. O looks at him and says, “I don’t think you know the meaning of subtlety.”
Street nods. “I’m not the only one.”
O says, “You don’t have your memories.”
Street says, “I know life’s good, and you’re the best there is. What else do I need to know?”
O laughs. “Not one thing at all.”
Street says, “So everyone in our crowd has a purpose?”
O nods. “More or less. And duties with the purpose.”
Street says, “What about me?”
O shakes her head.
Street laughs. “So my only purpose—” He smiles smugly at O. “—is to be.”
O smiles back. “A pain.”
He shrugs. “Well, yes. Everyone’s good at something.”