When she stopped herself, blinking rapidly in realization, he waited a moment before nodding. "I know. It didn't hit me right away either." He passed a finger lightly over his cheek. "So how does he know about the dragon?" A sweep of his hand to the street. "We're the only ones. Maybe not even all of them. You guys anyway."

Too quickly he turned to face her, and she started, automatically reaching for the latch. When she realized what she had done, she let the hand fall as she lifted a shoulder in an apologetic shrug. Habit. Flight was a habit, and not one she was about to break any time soon.

He had seen the face behind the veil only once, when a gust had caught it and flapped it up over her eyes and it clung to her hair. No matter how little she thought of how he made ends meet, he had become someone special when he hadn't blinked, hadn't flinched, hadn't made a sound. All he had done, before she could duck away, was brush the veil off her head to let it fall back into place.

She had changed it since then, weighted it, so the wind could ruffle it but never lift it.

"How does he know?" he wondered softly, looking back at the empty street rippling with cloud shadows. "How the hell does he know?"

"Wait around until he comes back, and find out."

"Can't."

Again she kept her silence.

"Anyway, if he wants me all that badly, he can damn well find me."

Nothing.

He lowered his sunglasses just enough and met her gaze over the tops, steady, without emotion. His thumb pushed the glasses up again, and he stepped off the porch.

"You're leaving, aren't you."

He didn't move, didn't look back.

"That's what this is all about, isn't it? Last night, all day today? You're getting ready to leave again, aren't you?"

Finally he shook his head, glanced over his shoulder. "Can't, Jude."

"Of course you can," she snapped as she yanked open the door. "You do it all the time."

"Nope. Not now. Can't."

A hesitation. Doubt. A painful clearing of her throat.

He half turned this time, a hand up to stop her from speaking, to save her voice. He opened his mouth, caught himself, and closed it. You don't know, he wanted to tell her; you don't know what it's like * * * *

when you step into your backyard a few days after you first rent the house almost four years ago, no plans to do anything with it, no grass or garden or even a chair and umbrella table. You just want to see what it's like back there with its tufts of grass that look more like spikes, and cacti whose names you'll eventually learn from a book one afternoon because you're monumentally bored, and a pair of half-dead Joshua trees way in the back.

You don't see the rattlesnake.

When you hear it, it's too late.

There's not much you remember because it happens too damn fast. One minute you're crouched by a cactus, wondering if those spines are really as sharp as they say, the next you're staring into this obscene, terrifying face, listening to rattles like thunder. You forget you're in a crouch when you start to back away, and you fall on your rump.

A frozen eternal second before you panic and scrabble backward as fast as you can, feet pushing and hands pulling, and the snake strikes and there's a sharp pain just above the top of your right boot and the panic trebles, you roll over, get to your feet, race back to the door, explode into the kitchen, slam the door, drop into the chair, and prop your leg on the table. Breathing so hard you almost pass out. Sweat blinding you, hands trembling violently, fingers scratching at your jeans to pull the leg up. You're dying; you know you're dying, and you can't remember what to do next, scenes from a million movies flash through your mind-cutting the wound, sucking out the poison-and it takes you a while before you notice there's only a small scratch on your calf, before you look closer and see the burr that latched onto your leg and stabbed you when you panicked.

Release and relief in a single yell, and it isn't until months later that you admit to yourself that the burr wasn't there until you retreated; and you retreated because the rattler bit you, and no one-will ever know because you don't know yet yourself that * * * *

there's something about the city she'll never understand, and if you try to tell her, she'll think you're crazy.

"Trey?"

"Nothing," he said wearily. "Nothing. You're right. Not enough sleep." Then he straightened and gave her his best smile. "And I'm not leaving, Jude. Just racking up a few shekels for a rainy day."

A pointed look at the sky. "By then you'll be at least a billionaire."

"I wish."

She cleared her throat again, tilted her head to tell him she couldn't talk much longer. He gave her a hey that's okay wave and started across the yard.

"Be careful of the hedge," she said, actually giggling.

He stopped, turned his head slowly, and said, "What?"

"The girls decided we had to have a hedge, too."

Then, surprisingly, she blew him a quick kiss and ducked inside, the white of her dress fading behind the screen, another ghost.

That the girls weren't around didn't matter; he made a show of returning to what would have been the front walk if the builders or Jude had bothered to put one in, and went into the street, feeling inordinately giddy. A big grin on his face. For the hedge or the blown kiss he couldn't be sure, but that too didn't matter.

His mood had lifted, and he whistled his way back to his house, two-stepped inside, and took a quick and cool shower. Put on the uniform, laughed aloud when he was halfway to the door before remembering his jacket, and decided that if he ran into the old man, he wouldn't slug him first for upsetting his friends.

He would have sung, very loudly and very badly, several bars of the chariot song if he hadn't paused at the front door to make sure he had his keys, looked up, and saw Eula Korrey.

2.

Green.

In the midst of the drab sand and drab houses, the lifeless grass and cacti waiting for one lousy drop of rain, me first thing Trey had noticed about her, the first thing anybody had noticed about her, was the green.

There had been other colors surely, but no one remembered them with any clarity.

It was green; always green.

Today was no exception.

The temperature, an hour shy of noon, had already begun to flirt with ninety, and Eula wore a green, light coat that reached to her knees, exposing the matching green dress beneath. A green felt hat, its brim rolled up, its crown low and round. A dark green purse whose strap was hooked over the arm she held beneath her breasts. Green shoes with solid low heels. Green linen gloves with dark green lace trim at the cuffs.

Freneau once called her the emerald in Emerald City.

She wasn't terribly short, but her bulk made her seem so, and she was the first one to let people know that she knew full well she was fat. Yet the way she walked, the way she held herself, the weight she carried seemed the perfect weight for her.

Trey stepped back from the open door, just in case she looked in his direction. Down at the end of the street a taxi waited. It was the way she always traveled, never asking for rides, never asking to borrow someone's car.

She certainly never asked him.

It was always a taxi, and it always waited at the end of the street.

And she always sang softly to herself as she walked to her ride. He could hear her now, words indistinct, hanging in the heat, but the rhythm and verve were there, her head bobbing slightly, her stride keeping time. As always. Practicing, no doubt, for her next engagement.

The driver scrambled out to open her door, and she nodded to him gratefully, graciously, giving him a huge broad smile. She paused before she got in and looked back suddenly. Trey started; although he knew she couldn't see him through the screen, he would have sworn she knew he was there. The smile broadened, she nodded absently at something the driver said, and backed in, green shoes last to disappear into the car.

The driver slammed the door shut, looked around, shook his head as if to wonder why a woman like that could live in a neighborhood like this, and took his place behind the wheel. He drove away slowly but dust rose anyway. Without a breeze to stir it, it just floated there.

Hanging in the heat.

When the sound of the engine faded, Trey stirred, reminding himself that he had more important things to concern himself with today than an old fat woman's inexplicable animosity. There was a stash to be added to- big time, if he could manage it-and the more immediate mystery of the old man and his companion.

Suddenly he laughed aloud.

"You know," he said as he hurried to the truck, "you drop dead today, you sure can't say your life has been dull."

She had moved in at the end of last summer, and for a while, everyone stepped lightly. She had certainly been friendly enough, always a smile and a pleasant greeting nod, yet only the kids didn't seem nervous around her. It never occurred to them to attempt to find out if she was militant or sensitive or political or apprehensive; all they cared about was the hard candy she kept in her purse, an endless supply always shared with a deep-throated laugh.

Finally, one afternoon in late September, Steph and a reluctant Cable threw a welcome to Emerald City, front yard barbecue which everyone attended. After a lot of milling around and trading well-worn gossip about the fate of their street, Steph, being Steph, asked her quite innocently how it was, growing up an African-American in the South.

Eula looked up at her, head slightly cocked, before lifting a hand in a dismissive wave. "Shoo, girl," she said, grinning, showing her teeth, "there's this little place in Alabama, you ain't never heard of it, a lot of old shacks and cabins, and that's where this old fat woman's from. Been through nigger and Negro, colored and black, I guess those politic boys mean well but I been here longer than God and a few angels." She shook her head, still grinning, and took Steph's arm. "Ebony is black, honey, and I'm damn sure tougher than that."

Her laughter coasted across the desert on the late afternoon's slow wind, and once she had been persuaded to sing them all a song, no one ever noticed the color again.

Except the green.

Jude thought it wonderful, all God's children living together and getting along.

Trey didn't pay her much mind since he wasn't around all that much, until shortly after they realized she had become, in finger-snap time, a star on the gospel radio circuit. Concerts in churches, auditoriums, high schools, wherever a sound system, a choir, and at least a solid piano could be found.

He had been on the porch, watching her head down the street toward the taxi, when a gust slammed the hat off her head. It arced like a boomerang, and without thinking he lunged into the yard and grabbed it before it hit the ground, stumbled a few steps, and came up grinning.

"Haven't moved like that since I was a kid," he said, handing it over.

She fussed with her hair, mostly white, then dusted off the hat and set it in place.

"Maybe you ought to tie it down," he had said, miming it flying loose again.

When she was done, everything in place, she looked up at him. Not smiling. Lips tight. Hands clasping her purse snug against her stomach. "I think," she said at last, "I got nothing to say to you."

And walked away.

Leaving him in the street, watching her back, wondering what in hell line he had crossed.

That was no Big Star talking to a Little Person.

That was pure and simple personal.

A few questions to his neighbors over the next several days gave him no answers. Everybody loved her, and she loved everybody. Trey had obviously insulted her somehow, it was his fault, he was the one who had to make it up to her.

He never did because he never tried. Her problem, not his, and they never spoke again.

Jude, in December, had tried to intervene, but he didn't want any part of it. It was, he told her, no skin off his nose. She thought that a particularly cruel and cold sentiment, but the only response he could give her was a whatever shrug.

So the animosity remained.

Hanging in the heat.

3.

The plan was simple: even though it was too early for O'Cleary's shift, he would avoid the Excalibur, in fact stay away from all the hotels at the bottom of the Strip just in case Dodger went wandering. The last thing he wanted today was a confrontation with a man who was almost a friend.

Instead, he would start midway along, either with Caesar's, or the much smaller Barbary Coast across Las Vegas Boulevard, and work his way up. Taking his time. No hurry at all. If the slots were well-disposed toward him, he might even visit the older casinos, the ones that hadn't been given over to families and fads, where the only themes were gambling and dining.

Usually he wouldn't do so much in one day; usually Jude didn't throw him a kiss.

Had the gesture been more studied, more elaborate, more grand, he would have known it to be mocking, almost scolding. It hadn't been. It had been quick, without thought. Not much to base a surprise on, but for him, for the time being, it was enough.

If the cherries, the bars, the sevens lined up right, it wouldn't be long before Moonbow would have more than a necklace for her birthday.

Then it wouldn't make a difference if queens didn't take to men like him.

4.

His stomach betrayed him.