Wizard of the Pigeons (13 page)

‘Drop it!' Wizard commanded in the same voice he might tell a dog to sit. ‘Drop it!'

But the swarthy man believed in the knife too strongly to surrender it. He gripped its hilt firmly, the blade pointed toward Wizard as he began a desperate roll that would take him back to his feet. But Wizard did not cringe from that shining point as all his other victims had. Nor did he try to fight the blade as a few desperate ones had. His attention was focused on the man behind the weapon. He stepped into the man's range and shot out a kick that smashed into his shoulder, numbing his arm and sending the knife clattering onto the worn paving stones.

With an incoherent roar halfway between outrage and terror, the man staggered to his feet. Cold-eyed and gaunt as Death, Wizard stepped over the knife, ready to close with him again. Expert eyes searching for openings. The man's eyes flickered from the fallen blade to his opponent, making a swift evaluation. He feinted at Wizard, then spun on his heel and fled from the alley, cradling his injured arm as he ran.

Two strides Wizard took after him and then halted, swaying on his feet. The winds of Mir's triumphant laughter blasted him. Knifing realization ripped through him, disembowelling his strength so that he would have gone to his knees but for his frantic clutch at a dumpster. He leaned against its sticky side, breathing its foulness and trying to come to terms with his loss. He was emptied. What magic he had left after his loss of his popcorn bag had been burned away. He was a stick man now, flimsy and impotent. Gutted by his own anger. He stared at the fallen knife on the pavement, trying to tell himself that it was a fair trade. But the knife was nothing, and he knew it now. The knife was just an ordinary knife, such as could be found in the kitchenware section of any supermarket. The
killer could replace it in less than an hour. Would replace it. For an instant he Knew it, but then that power faded, too. All systems down, he told himself, feeling the blackout in his soul. It was only half a step short of dying.

He rubbed at his eyes, and the terrible ache behind them was worse than any tears. ‘I've lived through this before,' he told himself sternly. ‘And I can do it again.' But he could not quite recall what loss had ever so grieved him. There was only the hopeless sense of déjà vu, and the press of the Now, cold against his back. There were things he had to do. Best do them. He drew closer to the knife and stared at it.

Evil had soaked into its wood and honed its metal. It was a fearsome thing, possessed of its own wicked lusts. He had sensed that on the bus. He knew it was true, he could remember the loathsome touch of its nastiness against his bare mind. But now he stooped and picked it up by its thong without a shudder. Like a photograph in the hands of a blind man, its secrets were safe from him. Best give it to others less blind than he.

The alley dumpster yielded all he needed. He tore free a section of brown paper sack and wrapped the knife securely, folding in the ends of the paper to make a package. With a broken bit of crayon, he wrote POLICE as firmly as his shaking hands could manage. Composing himself, he ventured out upon the sidewalk once more. He dropped the package into the first mailbox he came to. There. It was gone, on its way to tattle on the killer, if he had left more prosaic traces of himself upon it. Wizard walked quickly on.

The sidewalks and streets were busier now, with the cafés and restaurants in the throes of the breakfast rush.
He should have felt confident and brash; this was the best time of day to cadge a meal. But that other emptiness inside him had engulfed his hunger and made it trivial. Coffee, he tried to lure himself. There was always coffee to think of; his shaking hands would feel steadier wrapped around a steaming mug. Waves of giddiness assailed him. He touched his own face and throat surreptitiously, trying to remember if he had taken the fever pills today. The thought swirled away from him, and he was annoyed to find himself patting at his face. What had he been needing? Coffee.

At the door of the next café, he composed himself, running his hands over his wind-tousled hair and tucking in his shirt a little tighter. He pushed the door open and strolled in. As he stood in line, he scanned tables hopefully, looking for someone with food on a plate and showing signs of leaving. Luckily it was crowded enough that people were already sharing tables. No one would fuss about a stranger sitting down. He fingered the coins in his pocket and studied the menu printed high on the wall.

‘You.' He felt a hand on his arm and someone eased him out of his place in line. Wizard looked up at the man in trepidation. He didn't know him. He was big and stern and determined.

‘Sir?' Wizard managed with cold courtesy.

‘Try one of the missions on Second. Or the Bread of Life on Main. They do a coffee and doughnut thing there at noon.' Wizard found he was being walked to the door. He knew his mouth was open, but he couldn't get words out. He tried to pull the coins from his pocket, in a childish show of cash, but the man had too firm a grip on his arm. The grip tightened when he thought Wizard was trying to
struggle. ‘Look. Don't make a scene. I can't have your kind in here, or I lose my regular trade. Here's some change. Go get yourself some wine or whatever. But don't come back here, and don't try to panhandle my customers. Next time there won't be a handout, just a cop. You'd better believe me.'

The man gave him a firm pat on the back that propelled him out the door. Wizard found himself back on the morning streets with a handful of pennies and three nickles, but no coffee. Worse, no confidence. His hands shook worse than ever as he stuffed the telltale coins into his pockets.

Two cafés later, he was still coffeeless. In one a hostess had refused to seat him. In the other, the manager had come from behind the till and suggested they had a little chat outside. He'd given Wizard another quarter. He was carrying more money now than he ever had before, and he still couldn't get a cup of coffee.

He dragged himself along the street. He felt colder and emptier than a lack of coffee could account for. Giddiness came and went, washing over him in surges. He hoped he wasn't coming down with something; what if last night's fish had been spoiled? His body had begun a headache to protest caffeine withdrawal. He ignored it and walked, his hands pushed deep into his pockets, his fist gripping the money there. Money. He had withdrawn from the major economic system of this country a long time ago. He didn't need their official federal confetti, or their Social Security, or their welfare, or their lousy Veterans' Administration. Hell, that screwed-up Vets' Ad was strictly a place for old men to get their prostate glands fixed or their ingrown toenails dug out. Go to them with a real problem and
they shit on you. They were just a part of the whole shitty system. Well, they'd had all they were going to get out of this boy. Six years of his life shot to hell, not to mention. Not to mention.

Wizard had lost his train of thought. He looked about himself in some alarm as he came out of his brown study. How had he gotten off the main drag? There were no bus stops on this street. No cafés, either, just business offices: lawyers, accountants, and brokers. He had even lost his orientation. He walked for three more blocks before he figured out where he was. At the next intersection, he turned and headed back toward Western Avenue. His headache throbbed. He had to stop it so he could think. There were things he had best admit to himself and accept, but not without a cup of coffee.

He found a diner that consisted of a long counter and a row of stools. The windows were dirty, with old tape marks on them. Inside it smelled of grease. As he approached the counter he dragged his money from his pocket and held it before him like a talisman. He made it to the counter and claimed a stool. A waitress grudgingly paused before him. She was forty and bursting from an aqua uniform with a line of grease dirt at the collar. She looked at the money in his hand and demanded, ‘What do you want?'

‘Coffee.'

She nodded, clanked a saucer and empty cup onto the counter in front of him and hurried away. He stared after her, feeling old. So this was what he had come to. The magic had turned its back on him. Here he sat, no character, no hopes of breakfast, just coins for a cup of coffee. He felt dirty.

On her next trip past, the waitress dumped coffee into
his cup, wrote his slip, took his money, gave him change and told him, ‘You get three refills. And I do keep track.' The whole transaction took her less than a minute. He gave a defeated nod. The coffee was old and black and acid. The cream in the little tin dispenser came out stringy and yellow. The sugar dispenser was stuck shut and she hadn't given him a spoon. The magic was gone. The top of the cup tasted bitter and the dregs were a sugary syrup in his mouth. She refilled his cup with more of the same and didn't hear his request for a spoon. A heavyset man on the stool next to him gave him a supercilious smile. ‘Going to sober up, huh? Well, her coffee would sober up Jack Daniels himself.'

‘I haven't been drunk.' Wizard spoke softly but clearly.

‘No, me neither. Haven't been sober, either.' The man laughed at his own witticism and went back to shovelling scrambled eggs. Wizard watched him fork a mound of egg onto a piece of toast and bite the whole thing off at once. The smell of the eggs and the sound of his mastication made Wizard's stomach roll over. He took a deep drink of the bitter black coffee.

By his fourth cup, his headache had changed to a standard migraine. He drank down the last of the coffee, left a nickel tip and headed for the restroom. No mirror. No hot water, and the cold stayed on only if you held it. A blower instead of paper towels. Wizard patted his face lightly with wet fingertips and stared at the chipped plaster over the sink. On the wall was a condom vending machine. Someone had written on it, ‘Don't buy this gum, it tastes like rubber.' He wanted to find that funny but couldn't dredge up a smile. The magic was gone. He headed for the streets.

He didn't know where to go. The more he thought about it, the more he hurt. He wandered into an alley and squatted beside a dumpster, out of the wind. If he had no magic, he wasn't Wizard. If he wasn't Wizard…A terrible combination of anger, bitter hurt, and bewilderment churned through his guts on a tide of acid coffee. Like a man helplessly slapping his pockets for a lost wallet, Wizard searched within himself for the subtle signs of the magic.

But all was silent inside him. Nothing. It was gone. Stubbornly, frantically, he tried to think of ways to test it. Nothing came to him. He stepped away from the dumpster, feeling a bit shaky in the legs. He was hollow now, light as a man made of straw. The wind off the bay nearly pushed him down. He hit Western Avenue and tromped down it, feeling the sidewalks slap back against his feet until his arches ached. He could hear the gulls crying on the bay like abandoned babies in bombed out places. The city stinks choked him. What the hell was he doing in a city anyway? He had always hated cities. He walked too fast, feeling his shirt stick to him with sweat even as his ears stung with cold. He didn't pause as he passed the market. He didn't want to face Euripides today. Cassie he could not even think of. He turned up Marion, driving himself on.

It was steep going. The first block or two didn't bother him. He distracted himself by watching the cars with manual shifts struggle to advance through the changing lights without rolling backwards into the cars behind them. There were stoplights at the lip of each rise, and the cars clung there, snorting and then roaring forward when the lights changed. Wizard was glad he was on foot. The buildings along here were old, with ornate decorations,
some weathered to near obscurity, but some preserved proudly. Past Third, past Fourth, past Fifth he climbed, his calves aching. On Sixth he was stopped by the great gash of Interstate 5. He leaned against a building, panting. For a moment he closed his eyes and let his head loll back against the wall. His throat was dry, his legs ached. He had to stop fleeing. He needed shelter, quiet, and a moment of thought without fear. He twitched his eyes open and stared around.

Across the roaring interstate in its bed, towers rose tall in the leaden sky. They were tipped with blue one shade deeper than aqua. He shivered in their grip, feeling their attraction. Then he turned left and jogged down a block to the overpass on Madison. He turned right on Ninth, trotting on, unmindful of the stares of the passing drivers. His throat and mouth were parched from panting. The buildings here emanated cold pride. He ignored them and moved on, drawn without thought.

On the sidewalk before the fortress he stopped. His breath cracked in his dry throat. The blue towers soared above him. Concrete steps draped in trailing ivy rose before him. His eyes ascended first. On the front of the building, gold branches twined on a shining black backdrop around a benign figure. I AM THE VINE it said, AND YOU ARE THE BRANCHES. St James Cathedral. He crept up the steps, heart thundering. The cathedral doors were of plain brown wood. Sanctuary. For him? They looked locked. He dared himself to push one, and it yielded to his cautious touch. He went in, out of the wind.

Silence and warmth filled the foyer, but it was a barren place. Posted notices of scheduled meetings said nothing
to him. This was but a limbo between the outside world and that which lay beyond the inner doors. They were upholstered in leather with brass studs and prophesied wonders beyond. He coughed and pushed his way in.

It took his breath away. Had he been some European peasant viewing for the first time Christopher Wren's cathedral the impact could not have been greater. There was too much to behold and all of it shimmered with majesty. He groped his way to the back pew and found himself genuflecting in a reaction that went beyond his memories. He entered the pew and knelt, too humbled to sit. Before and beside and above him the cathedral opened out in swelling glory. Fat pillars of red marble held up the lofty ceiling. The green carpet and brown wood of the pews yet managed to give a sylvan air to the vastness. Marching forward on either side of him were stained glass windows set high in the walls, and below them small shrines to individual saints. Little votive candles burned before the saints in many-hued holders like shining gems offered to God's holy ones for their aid. His eyes followed the line of shrines forward to the front of the cathedral, where angels decked the main altar and hovered over it.