"Still awake?" he said fondly. "You shouldn't have stayed up."

"Are you all right?"

"Yes. Yes, of course." He put his hands to his face. "This is a hard business, you know. I didn't expect it to be so difficult."

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

"Some other tune," he said, approaching the door. She took his hands in hers. "What's this?" he said.

She was still holding the egg, but not for long. He had it from her palm with the ease of a pickpocket. She wanted to s.n.a.t.c.h it back, but she fought the instinct and let him study his prize.

"Pretty," he said. Then, less lightly: "Where did it come from?"

Why did she hesitate to answer? Because he looked so weary, and she didn't want to burden him with new mysteries when he had a surfeit of his own? It was that in part; but there was another part that was altogether less clear to her. Something to do with the fact that in her vision she'd seen him far more broken that he was at present, wounded and wretched, and somehow that condition had to remain her secret, at least for a time.

He put the egg to his nose and sniffed it. "I smell you," he said.

"No..."

"Yes, I do. Where have you been keeping it?" He put his empty hand between her legs. "In here?"

The thought was not so preposterous. Indeed she might slip it into that pocket, when she had it back, and enjoy its weight.

"No?" he said. "Well, I'm sure it wishes you would. I think half the world would like to creep up there if it could." He pressed his hand against her. "But it's mine, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"n.o.body goes in there but me."

"No."

She answered mechanically, her thoughts as much on reclaiming the egg as on his proprietorial talk.

"Have you got anything we can get high on?" he said.

"I had some dope..."

"Where is it?"

"I think I smoked the last of it. I'm not sure. Do you want me to look?"

"Yes, please."

She reached up for the egg, but before her fingers could take hold of it he put it to his lips.

"I want to keep it," he said. "Sniff it for a while. You don't mind, do you?"

"I'd like it back."

"You'll have it back," he said, with a faint air of condescension, as though her possessiveness was childish. "But I need a keepsake, something to remind me of you."

"I'll give you some of my underwear," she said.

"It's not quite the same."

He laid the egg against his tongue and turned it, coating it in his spittle. She watched him, and he watched her back. He knew d.a.m.n well she wanted her toy, but she wasn't going to stoop to begging him for it.

"You mentioned dope," he said.

She went back into the bedroom, put on the lamp beside the bed, and searched through the top drawer of her dresser where she'd last stashed her marijuana.

"Where did you go today?" he asked her.

"I went to Oscar's house."

"Oscar?"

"G.o.dolphin."

"And how's Oscar? Alive and kicking?"

"I can't find the dope. I must have smoked it all."

"You were telling me about Oscar."

"He's locked himself up in his house."

"Where does he live? Maybe I should call on him. Rea.s.sure him."

"He won't see you. He won't see anybody. He thinks the world's coming to an end."

"And what do you think?"

She shrugged. She was quietly raging at him, but she wasn't exactly sure why. He'd taken the egg for a while, but that wasn't a capital crime. If the stone afforded him a little protection, why should she be covetous of it? She was being petty, and she wished she could be other, but without the heat of s.e.x shimmering between them he seemed cra.s.s. It was not a flaw she expected to find in him. Lord knows she'd accused him of countless deficiencies in her time, but a lack of finesse had never been one of them. If anything, he'd been too much the polished operator, discreet and suave.

"You were telling me about the end of the world," he said.

"Was I?"

"Did Oscar frighten you?"

"No. But I saw something that did."

She told him, briefly, about the bowl and its prophecies. He listened without comment, then said, "The Fifth's teetering. We both know that. But it won't touch us."

She'd heard the same sentiments from Oscar, or near enough. Both these men, wanting to offer her a haven from the storm. She should have been flattered. Gentle looked at his watch.

"I've got to go out again," he said, "You'll be safe here, won't you?"

"I'll be fine."

"You should sleep. Make yourself strong. There's going to be some dark times before it gets light again, and we're going to find some of that darkness in each other. It's perfectly natural. We're not angels, after all." He chuckled. "At least, you may be, but I'm not."

So saying, he pocketed the egg.

"Go back to bed," he said. "I'll be back in the morning. And don't worry, nothing's going to come near you but me. I swear. I'm with you, Judith, all the time. And that's not love talking."

With that, he smiled at her and headed off, leaving her to wonder what indeed had been talking, if it wasn't love.

47

"And who the f.u.c.k are you?" the filthy, bearded face demanded of the stranger who'd had the misfortune to stumble into its bleary sight.

The man he was questioning, whom he had by the neck, shook his head. Blood had run from a crown of cuts and sc.r.a.pes along his brow, where he'd earlier beaten his skull against a stone wall to try and silence the din of voices that echoed between his temples. It hadn't worked. There were still too many names and faces in there to be sorted out. The only way he could answer his interrogator was with that shaking of his head. Who was he? He didn't know.

"Well, get the f.u.c.k out of here," the man said.

There was a bottle of cheap wine in his hand, and its stench, mingled with a deeper rot, on his breath. He pushed his victim against the concrete wall of this underpa.s.s and closed upon him.

"You can't sleep where you f.u.c.kin' want. If you want to lie down, you f.u.c.kin' ask me first. I say who sleeps here. Isn't that right?"

He swung his bloodshot eyes in the direction of the tribe who'd clambered from their beds of trash and newspapers to watch their leader have his sport. There'd be blood, for certain. There always was when Tolland got riled, and for some reason he was more riled by this trespa.s.ser than by others who'd laid down their homeless heads without his permission.

"Isn't that right?" he said again. "Irish? Tell him! Isn't that right?"

The man he'd addressed muttered something incoherent. The woman beside him, with a bead of hair bleached to near extinction but black at the roots, came within striking distance of Tolland-something only a very few dared to do.

"That's right, Tolly," she said. "That's right." She looked at the victim without pity. "D'you think he's a Jew-boy? He's got a Jew-boy's nose."

Tolland took down a throatful of wine. "Are you a f.u.c.kin' yid?" he said.

Someone in the crowd said they should strip him and see. The woman, who went by a number of names but whom Tolland called Carol when he f.u.c.ked her, made to do just that, but he aimed a blow at her and she retreated.

"You get your f.u.c.kin' hands off him," Tolland said. "He'll tell us, won't you, matey? You'll tell us. Are you a f.u.c.kin' yid or not?"

He took hold of the man by the lapel of his jacket.

"I'm waitin'," he said.

The victim dug for a word, and found: "... Gentle..."

"Gentile?" Tolland said. "Yeah? You a Gentile? Well, I don't give a f.u.c.k what what you are! I don't want you here." you are! I don't want you here."

The other nodded and tried to detach Tolland's fingers, but his captor hadn't finished. He slammed the man against the wall, so hard the breath went out of him.

"Irish? Take the f.u.c.kin' bottle."

The Irishman claimed the bottle from Tolland's hands and stepped back to let him do his worst.

"Don't kill him," the woman said.

"What the f.u.c.k do you care?" Tolland spat and delivered two, three, four punches to the Gentile's solar plexus, followed by a knee jab to his groin. Pinned against the wall by his neck, the man could do little to defend himself, but even that little he failed to do, accepting the punishment even though tears of pain ran from his eyes. He stared through them with a look of bewilderment on his face, small exclamations of pain coming with every blow.

"He's a head case, Tolly," the Irishman said. "Look at him! He's a friggin' head case."

Tolland didn't glance the Irishman's way, or slow his beating, but delivered a new fusillade of punches. The Gentile's body now hung limply from the pinion of his hand, the face above it blanker by the blow.

"You hear me, Tolly?" the Irishman said. "He's a nutter. He's not feeling it."

"You keep the f.u.c.k out of this."

"Why don't you leave him alone?"

"He's on my f.u.c.kin' patch," Tolland said.

He dragged the Gentile away from the wall and swung him around. The small crowd backed off to give their leader room to play. With Irish silenced, there were no objections raised from any quarter. Tolland was left to beat the Gentile to the ground. Then he followed through with a barrage of kicks. His victim put his hands around his head and curled up to protect himself as best he could, whimpering. But Tolland wasn't about to let the man's face go unbroken. He reached down and dragged the hands away, raising his boot to bring it down. Before he could do so, however, Tolland's bottle hit the floor, spattering wine as it smashed. He turned on Irish.

"What the f.u.c.k d'you that for?"

"You shouldn't beat up head cases," the man replied, by his tone already regretting the breakage.

"You goin' to stop me?"

"All I'm sayin'-"

"Are you goin' to try and f.u.c.kin' stop me?"

"He's not right in the head, Tolly."

"So I'll kick some sense into him," Tolland replied.

He dropped his victim's arms, turning all his crazed attention on the dissenter.

"Or do you you want to do it?" he said. want to do it?" he said.

Irish shook his head.

"Go on," said Tolland. "You do it for me." He stepped over the Gentile in the Irishman's direction. "Go on..." he said again. "Go on..."

Irish began to retreat, Tolland bearing down on him. The Gentile had meanwhile turned himself over and was starting to crawl away, blood running from his nose and from the wounds reopened on his brow. n.o.body moved to help him. When Tolland was roused, as now, his fury knew no bounds. Anyone who stepped in his way-whether man, woman, or child-was forfeit. He broke bones and heads without a second thought; had ground a broken bottle into a man's eye once, not twenty yards from this spot, for the crime of looking at him too long. There wasn't a cardboard city north or south of the river where he wasn't known, and prayers said in the hope that he'd not come visiting.