Chill of Night

48

“It’s a mob,” Nola said.

Beam said, “Not quite yet.”

He estimated there were about a hundred people. They streamed silently into the park from Central Park West. They were flanked and followed by news vans and media types on foot, some of them lugging cameras. Many in the crowd were carrying signs, but from this distance, and in the failing light, Beam couldn’t make out what the lettering said. A few had flashlights, even what looked like lighted candles, which they waved around or held high.

The crowd was led by a man and a woman who strode out about twenty feet ahead of everyone, maintaining their distance. There was a businesslike eagerness about these people. Beam thought that if everyone had rifles and uniforms, they would have looked like those Civil War reenactors who replicate famous battles-the advance and silence before the shouting and shooting. They seemed to know exactly where they were going.

Their destination was the wide area of windblown grass Beam had been admiring. In the approximate center of the field, the two leaders stopped and waved their arms, gathering people closer together, bringing in stragglers. The media vans and personnel took up position, quickly set up equipment, and suddenly the area was brighter than noon. So much for flashlights and candles.

The crowd began to chant. Beam and Nola couldn’t make out what they were saying, so they moved in closer.

Beam wasn’t surprised that the chant repeated what most of the signs said: “Free Adelaide!” Other signs declared that the city didn’t care about its citizens, and that cops were the tools of fascists. The lettering was neat and all of the same type; obviously the placards had been turned out by a sign shop or similar printing facility. Of course, computers these days…

“Are you really a tool of fascists?” Nola asked.

“Have been for years,” Beam said.

The chants were getting louder, the crowd more raucous. Television cameras did that to people.

Someone had clued in the police. Two radio cars arrived, their flashing roof-bar lights creating red and blue ghosts everywhere. Beam heard sirens in the distance, getting closer.

“Time for us to leave,” Beam said. “I don’t want any media to recognize me.”

They wandered into the gathering dusk, an anonymous couple in the most anonymous of cities. The chanting had grown in volume and intensity: “Free Adelaide! Free Adelaide!” Beam tried to block it out as he and Nola angled toward the low stone wall running along Central Park West.

He climbed over the wide stones, then helped Nola.

They were out of the park now, suddenly among tall buildings, and bright, heavy traffic flowing along a busy avenue. Most of the vehicles had their lights on. The scent of leaves and grass had given way to that of exhaust fumes.

A bus rumbled past, accelerating to beat the traffic signal. When the sound of its engine had faded, Beam and Nola could still hear the chanting wafting from the park.

“A hundred or so people,” Beam said, “but on cable news tonight they’ll look like a thousand.”

“That young woman’s got this city under her thumb,” Nola said. She sounded secretly pleased.

Maybe not so secretly.

They crossed the street, moving away from the park, and strolled toward the corner. A man and woman holding hands walked toward them. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt; she had on red shorts, a white blouse, and sandals. They walked as if they were in no kind of hurry. The woman smiled and nodded as they passed. Beam thought the man looked a little like Harry Lima, but he didn’t mention it.

Without breaking stride, Nola moved closer to Beam.

“I think it’s time,” she said.

Her tone was matter of fact, but that was Nola.

He knew what she meant and didn’t ask if she was sure.

They made love in Nola’s apartment, in Nola’s bed beneath a cracked ceiling and the creaking sounds of the upstairs tenant pacing. Nola was tentative at first, but when he entered her she moaned and bucked upward and upward beneath him. Then she met his gaze and very calmly dug her nails into his back, marking him, making him hers alone. And she gave herself back to him in ways that made it clear she was his.

They lay quietly together afterward, each aware that the world had changed. Both hoped the change was for the better. Both knew that now what they thought made little difference; there was no going back for either of them.

A powerful current held them and would keep them. The fascist tool and his lover.