Song of Susannah

“I don’t care!”

“You’re all confused, girl, between what you want to happen and what will happen. How do you know they aren’t gonna kill him before he can cry out his first breath, and grind him up and feed him to these Breaker bastards?”

“Shut… up!”

“Kind of a super-food? Finish the job all at once?”

“Shut up, I said, shut UP!”

“Point is, you don’t know. You don’t know anything. You just the babysitter, just the au pair. You know they lie, you know they trick and never treat, and yet you go on. And you want me to shut up.”

“Yes! Yes!”

“I won’t,” Susannah told her grimly, and seized Mia’s shoulders. They were amazingly bony under the dress, but hot, as if the woman were running a fever. “I won’t because it’s really mine and you know it. Cat can have kittens in the oven, girl, but that won’t ever make em muffins.”

All right, they had made it back to all-out fury after all. Mia’s face twisted into something both horrible and unhappy. In Mia’s eyes, Susannah thought she could see the endless, craving, grieving creature this woman once had been. And something else. A spark that might be blown into belief. If there was time.

“I’ll shut you up,” Mia said, and suddenly Fedic’s main street tore open, just as the allure had. Behind it was a kind of bulging darkness. But not empty. Oh no, not empty, Susannah felt that very clearly.

They fell toward it. Mia propelled them toward it. Susannah tried to hold them back with no success at all. As they tumbled into the dark, she heard a singsong thought running through her head, running in an endless worry-circle: Oh Susannah-Mio, divided girl of mine, Done parked her RIG

FIFTEEN

in the DIXIE PIG, In the year of-

Before this annoying (but ever so important) jingle could finish its latest circuit through Susannah-Mio’s head, the head in question struck something, and hard enough to send a galaxy of bright stars exploding across her field of vision. When they cleared, she saw, very large, in front of her eyes:

NK AWA

She pulled back and saw bango skank awaits the king! It was the graffito written on the inside of the toilet stall’s door. Her life was haunted by doors-had been, it seemed, ever since the door of her cell had clanged closed behind her in Oxford, Mississippi-but this one was shut. Good. She was coming to believe that shut doors presented fewer problems. Soon enough this one would open and the problems would start again.

Mia: Itold you all I know. Now are you going to help me get to the Dixie Pig, or do I have to do it on my own? I can if I have to, especially with the turtle to help me.

Susannah: I’ll help.

Although how much or how little help Mia got from her sort of depended on what time it was right now. How long had they been in here? Her legs felt completely numb from the knees down-her butt, too-and she thought that was a good sign, but under these fluorescent lights, Susannah supposed it was always half-past anytime.

What does it matter to you? Mia asked, suspicious. What does it matter to you what time it is?

Susannah scrambled for an explanation.

The baby. You know that what I did will keep it from coming only for so long, don’t you?

Of course I do. That’s why I want to get moving.

All right. Let’s see the cash our old pal Mats left us.

Mia took out the little wad of bills and looked at them uncomprehendingly.

Take the one that says Jackson.

I… Embarrassment. Ican’t read.

Let me come forward. I’ll read it.

No!

All right, all right, calm down. It’s the guy with the long white hair combed back kind of like Elvis…

Idon’t know this Elvis-

Never mind, it’s that one right on top. Good. Now put the rest of the cash back in your pocket, nice and safe. Hold the twenty in the palm of your hand. Okay, we’re blowing this pop- stand.

What’s a pop-stand?

Mia, shut up.

SIXTEEN

When they re-entered the lobby-walking slowly, on legs that tingled with pins and needles-Susannah was marginally encouraged to see that it was dusk outside. She hadn’t succeeded in burning up the entire day, it seemed, but she’d gotten rid of most of it.

The lobby was busy but no longer frantic. The beautiful Eurasian girl who’d checked her/them in was gone, her shift finished. Under the canopy, two new men in green monkeysuits were whistling up cabs for folks, many of whom were wearing tuxedos or long sparkly dresses.

Going out to parties, Susannah said. Or maybe the theater.

Susannah, I care not. Do we need to get one of the yellow vehicles from one of the men in the green suits?

No. We’ll get a cab on the corner…

Do you say so?

Oh, quit with the suspicion. You’re taking your kid to either its death or yours, I’m sure of that, but I recognize your intention to do well and I’ll keep my promise. Yes, I do say so.

All right.

Without another word-certainly none of apology-Mia left the hotel, turned right, and began walking back toward Second Avenue, 2 Hammarskjold Plaza, and the beautiful song of the rose.

SEVENTEEN

On the corner of Second and Forty-sixth, a metal waggon of faded red was parked at the curb. The curb was yellow at this point, and a man in a blue suit-a Guard o’ the Watch, by his sidearm- seemed to be discussing that fact with a tall, white-bearded man.

Inside of her, Mia felt a flurry of startled movement.

Susannah? What is it?

That man!

The Guard o’ the Watch? Him?

No, the one with the beard! He looks almost exactly like Henchick! Henchick of the Manni! Do you not see?

Mia neither saw nor cared. She gathered that although parking waggons along the yellow curb was forbidden, and the man with the beard seemed to understand this, he still would not move. He went on setting up easels and then putting pictures on them. Mia sensed this was an old argument between the two men.

“I’m gonna have to give you a ticket, Rev.”

“Do what you need to do, Officer Benzyck. God loves you.”

“Good. Delighted to hear it. As for the ticket, you’ll tear it up. Right?”

“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; render unto God those things that are God’s. So says the Bible, and blessed be the Lord’s Holy Book.”

“I can get behind that,” said Benzyck o’ the Watch. He pulled a thick pad of paper from his back pocket and began to scribble on it. This also had the feel of an old ritual. “But let me tell you something, Harrigan-sooner or later City Hall is gonna catch up to your action, and they’re gonna render unto your scofflaw holy-rollin’ ass. I only hope I’m there when it happens.”

He tore a sheet from his pad, went over to the metal waggon, and slipped the paper beneath a black window-slider resting on the waggon’s glass front.

Susannah, amused: He’s gettin a ticket. Not the first one, either, from the sound.

Mia, momentarily diverted in spite of herself: What does it say on the side of his waggon, Susannah?

There was a slight shift as Susanna came partway forward, and the sense of a squint. It was a strange sensation for Mia, like having a tickle deep in her head.

Susannah, still sounding amused: It says church of the holy god-bomb, Rev. Earl Harrigan. It also says your contributions WILL BE REWARDED IN HEAVEN.