shoes, and a black leather doctor's bag. Behind the suit he found a pale-tan trenchcoat, with the full complement of buckles and buttons, and up top a matching snap-brim hat.
On the desk was a pocket watch on a chain, and a leather sack of coins. Danny had read that paper money wasn't worth much in the Shadow; it was barter, or metal.
It was crazy. It was all plain crazy. He moved to check out his own bags, then decided why bother? What did he have worth this crowd's stealing?
The bathroom cabinet had shaving stuff, aspirin and cold pills, a box of rubbers, and some of those sponges girls used. He showered again, shaved carefully, dressed in the new outfit. It all fit nicely, and felt good, crisp and sharp and good. The shirt collar was a little tight, and Danny had never been able to manage a tie knot, but he didn't care. There was a full-length mirror in the bedroom: he looked at himself for a long while, jacket off and on, coat and hat off and on. He experimented with the hat angle. Even his hopeless red hair seemed to look right. The freckles-well.
He hung the coat and jacket up and went downstairs. In the dining room, he found a short, thin man with gray hair, in a perfectly creased navy-blue suit and a red scarf at this throat-ascot, that was it. The man turned.
'Good day to you, Mr. Hallownight. I am Boris Liczyk.' It came out Lizzik. 'Did you sleep well?'
'Yes, thanks.' Danny began to wonder if there was a way to turn off the solicitude.
The man looked Danny up and down. 'It's not bad, not bad- is that how you usually stand, sir?'
'I guess so. Would you call me, uh, Doc?'
'Certainly, Doc. I'm Boris. Now, if you'll just hold still-' Liczyk adjusted Danny's suspenders, pulling the waistband way up. He pinched a seam of the shirt sleeve, and Danny felt a chill down his arm. It passed in a moment. 'Don't move, now.' Liczyk did the same to the other sleeve. Then he put his hands on the collar, and at once the collar wasn't tight any more. Another touch smoothed the tie knot. 'Yes, that's better. Do have me show you how to knot a tie. Do the shoes fit?'
'Fine.'
'Mm-hmm. You didn't bring the jacket down.'
'No, but it fit just fine.'
Liczyk gave a blink of a smile. 'Do you expect to be wearing a shoulder holster?'
'I-uh-well, no.'
'Good. They're intractable. I'm sorry, I'm probably keeping you from breakfast.'
'No, it's okay. I guess I'm having dinner in a couple of hours.'
'True. Some juice? Some coffee?'
'Yeah, coffee. And maybe a glass of orange juice.'
'Why don't you take them in the north garden? And I'll let Mr. McCain know you're awake.'
It was pleasant in the garden; the sun was about to disappear below a building, but the still air was warm. The plants were still surprisingly green, with dashes of color from late-season flowers. There was no view. Brick walls twenty feet high, topped with iron points, enclosed it completely.
McCain entered. 'Not bad,' he said. 'Boris always likes having a new body to work on. You know you're in for a full custom fit-ting.'
'Did he use magic on this?' Danny described the work on the shirt seams.
'That's his Touch. All he works with is fabric. Seams, cigarette burns in the carpet… He's a wizard with drapes, he is.' McCain grinned. 'What, did you think it was all throwin' lightning bolts? Come with me. Bring your coffee.'
They went down to the garage. The TR3 was there, hood propped open. Jesse the mechanic was leaning over the engine.
'You tune this thing yourself, ki-Doc?' Jesse said.
'When I can get the parts.'
'Yeah, that's always the trouble.' He pointed at the engine block, at places where the metal looked unnaturally shiny, or glowed a deep cobalt blue. 'Wasn't any way to go dual-fuel-space, mass, architecture-and you needed new lifters anyway, so I put in sensitives, and bound a desire to the fuel pump. That should get you through any short-term tech failure.' Jesse closed the lid. 'She's a pretty car, Doc. I wouldn't do her wrong. Turn her over yourself.'
Danny slid in. He noticed that a couple of familiar dings were out of the panel, and the rips in the soft top had all been mended.
He started the car. It caught on the first try, and sounded slick as iced snot.
'Take her 'round the block,' McCain said. He held out two slabs of plastic: a driver's license and paramedic's card, new ones with his new name. Danny tucked them away, saluted, and put the Triumph into gear.
He got up the ramp, turned onto the street, upshifted. She liked it.
The low sun bronzed the corridors of glass and brick and the stumps of broken skyscrapers. The near buildings were mostly clean and cared for, with here and there a notch of fallen stone. Beyond, there were walls holed with empty windows, holding up nothing, and bare metal frames, twisted like dust devils petrified. Above the near rooflines, Danny could see the tops of skyscrapers: they were dull, and dark, and looked ravaged. Not one seemed to be intact.
A cluster of five motorcycles went by the other way. The riders had this-and-that leathers, not a helmet among them, streaming long hair and tassels and bits of chain. One was a bare-legged barefoot girl. They revved, popped wheelies, split to flow around the Triumph, hooting and hollering. Something bounced off the soft top and crashed against the pavement. Danny drove on, checked the mirror: they gave no sign of doubling back.
He saw the lake then, across a band of highway and a line of wrecked buildings. It roiled, green and whitecapped, more like pictures of the ocean than any lake Danny knew. It faded out into darkness to the east.
He stopped on a bridge, got out of the car for a look around. The river was low, with sludgy banks littered with broken concrete and old metal. There had been a whole series of bridges toward the west; about half of them looked intact, the others just pilings, or collapsed and partially cleared. One looked as if something had bitten out and swallowed its span. Somewhere upstream-no, downstream; the water was, illogically, flowing out of the lake-a cargo ship was beached and rusting along the waterside, tilted twenty degrees over.
To the southeast there was a green park, little smokes eurling up from among the trees. At least it seemed like something people were doing. He couldn't tell how far the park went; beyond a certain point, maybe a mile and a half away, the world got vague, like a running watercolor. A long way off to the southeast the sky was just a long smudge of smoky color. Danny had been to the Paint Pots at Yellowstone Park once, all steam and sulfur and colors; it was like that, but stretching for miles.
A breeze whistled through the bridge ironwork. It was the only sound there was. There was nobody here. The emptiness, the loneliness was awful.
A dull metallic sound came from beneath the road. Contraction? Loose bolts? Trolls?
He got back into the car. Up ahead was more iron, framing the street. He took a right, and the sun went out: the street was framed and roofed by metal lacework, big riveted girders. The elevated railroad, Danny realized. There didn't seem to be any trains running, though he saw a couple of station signs, and a stairway with people sitting on the steps.
Danny drove as straight as he could back to the house, down into the garage. McCain and Jesse were playing cards.
'The stuff you put in,' Danny said, 'does it work, outside? I mean, where there isn't magic?'
'Sure,' Jesse said. 'Not so well, but better'n spit 'n' baling wire.' He put a card down.
McCain picked it up. 'You know what-'
'Yeah, I know what baling wire is!' Danny shouted.
Both men were looking at him. Neither had any kind of meaningful expression.
Danny said, 'I'm sorry.'
'For what?' McCain said. 'Now, Jesse, he's gonna be sorry. Gin' He tossed his cards down. 'What do you say we go down to the club now? You'll have a better look before the crowd gets there, and we can get a head start on the evening's serious purposes.'
'Without Mr. Patrise?'
