Angry Lead Skies

33

I wasn't seeing double from drugs or concussion anymore. I was doing that from the bite of a pretty good brandy. Suddenly, I spotted a couple of Katie Shavers coming in the front door, dressed to stop the hearts of celibate clerics and to start those of guys who'd taken up layabout duty in the morgue.

I gawked. And muttered, "One for each of us."

Morley said, "Excuse me?"

"What's she doing here?"

"Well... I believe she received a message explaining that you'd been badly mugged on your way over to her place. So make like you've got one foot over the line and she's the only thing holding you back."

"Not to worry. She ain't the only thing but as long as she's here on this side, I'm staying, too. Hello, darling."

Katie just kind of smiled and ate me alive with her eyes. Which is part of what Katie does so well. She doesn't say much, most of the time, but she's great to be with when she does. She has red hair, an all-time crop of freckles, and eyes that are a sort of gray-blue slate instead of the green you might expect. Nor is the red hair that brilliant shade that always comes with a difficult nature.

Conversations stopped while Katie walked the length of The Palms. Women punched or gouged their men. Yet for all that, Katie is not a great beauty—though not even a madman would try to make the claim that she's the least little bit unattractive.

What she has most is tremendous presence and animal intensity. Every minute with Katie is like a minute spent in a cage with a restless panther.

"You are in bad shape," she told me, like she was surprised to encounter the truth. Her voice husked, of course, yet managed to sound like she was going to bust out laughing any second.

I tried to tell her she ought to see the other guys. My mouth wouldn't form the words. The effects of the drug kept coming back.

Katie scooted a chair around beside me, sat down next to me, took my hand, and leaned against me. "Cure for most anything," I croaked in Morley's direction. And all was right with the world.

Morley nodded and drifted away.

After a long time purring I managed to get out words to the effect, "I tried to see you to apologize for getting tied up with my work but your dad wouldn't even tell you I was there."

"That's all right. I tried to see you, too. But Dean said you were out and he wouldn't let me in to wait."

And never mentioned the fact that she'd come around, either. "What time was that?"

"Midmorning."

Ah. I was out. But she wouldn't believe that if I told her because she knows my habits. If I defended Dean at all she'd decide that I must've been with somebody else. Sometimes her mind works in nonsequential directions, disdaining cause and effect. "We need to get those two together."

"Who?"

"Dean and your father."

"That's probably not a good idea. The only thing they'd agree about is that they should keep us away from each other."

"You're right."

"I'm always right, darling. You need to remember that."

"You're right." They all are. All the time. Which means that there're really tens of thousands of realities all around us, happening all at the same time. Has to be, on the face of the evidence.

Which brings to mind a joke first told me by Winger, of all people, and by just about everyone else I know since. If a man speaks in the heart of a forest and no woman is there to hear him, is he still wrong?

Katie asked, "Have you been drinking?"

"Yes I have. A little bit. Medicinal brandy. But the reason I'm goofy is because the ratmen tried to drug me."

Morley returned now, accompanied by Marshall and Curry. The whole gang dragged me upstairs and put me away in a guest room, where Katie did her best to keep me awake while I was suffering a threat of concussion.