He pointed. “Kerouac wrote
Cadence nodded, recalling greasy, juvenile delinquent rockers on stage. She pointed at the note again. “Well, I think the JRRT initials are Tolkien’s, you know, the
“Huh, sure, but never heard anyone say he’d been here.”
“But he has to have been, don’t you think, from the writing on the menu?”
“Yeah, yeah … Hey! You may be right. The bartender that retired from here, Vincent, once talked about how some famous English writer, I think it was Tolkien or Tidwell, was in here. The guy said the place reminded him of his pub back home. Had a regular thing there with a group of writers, I guess. The Inkspots, I think it was.”
“That’s a singing group. How about the Inklings?”
“Dunno. If you say so. I just remember the part about the pub. Which means he probably came in here several times. Vincent always kept track of the quasi-famous types who wandered in here.”
“So, any thoughts how to pick up a trail on this?”
“Colder than that well digger’s ass in Montana. Or a … oh well you get it. Let me think on it.” He drifted away, doing a turn at his job.
Cadence looked around, observing people moving here and there. There was something odd about the place, and the next moment she noticed a dark shadow in the corner that made her neck hairs stiffen.
A sliver of light from the swinging kitchen door played on and off the crumpled figure. He wore a ratty ski hat and old coat. His head was oriented like he was looking out at her. In truth, she realized, he looked to be a homeless person who had come in for coffee. The bartender brought him a glass of water and a cup of coffee, saying a few words. Cadence gazed out the window at a taxi pulled curbside, its hazard lights blinking madly in the rain.
“Ma’am?” She jerked, surprised that the bartender was suddenly back.
“Coats says he can help.”
“Who’s that?”
“You were just looking at him.”
She looked over there again. Same mysterious, neck-hair-raising gaze from a pool of shadow.
“So what’d he say?”
“For you to quit talking so loud and come over there.”
As she slowly got up from the bar stool, she was watched by another.
Since his release from Riker’s Island, Barren’s search for her had taken the remainder of the day and into the night, until this very moment.
Arriving outside a few minutes ago, he knew it was an inn from the mingled smells of alcohol, smoke, and the urine of human woe that swirled at the rain-sotted threshold. He pretty much understood the words inscribed above the door: WEST END BAR. He went in.
He had no need of weapons — not yet, as he was armed with passing command of their language and knowledge of their vanities. His hair was cut short except for the crude ruff striping front to back, like one of the guys in Rikers. He sat down at one end of the bar.
Just as a stag in Mirkwood will twist its ears and raise its antlered head above the oak brush to satisfy its curiosity at an interloper, so did these people twitch before the threat of his very presence.
The young black-haired woman at the end of the bar fidgeted and looked behind her anxiously. She was in all likelihood the one. She talked to a scarred innkeeper and then they both looked at a bearded figure hidden at a table in a dark corner. He was different, not one of the moon-faces, but no threat.
Barren bent his head slightly to eavesdrop on their discussion. Satisfied, he got up and went back out in the rain and entered a waiting taxi. It was time to learn to drive.
As Cadence approached the booth in the corner, the fragrant derelict reached out and literally yanked her into the seat beside him.
“Understand that you will be watched!”
Whether it was the words he whispered or the overwhelming stink that startled her, she kept her composure. She could see his face better now, even with the ski hat pulled down. He was a caricature of the Big Apple Homeless Man — unshaven, his face deeply fissured, hiding within layers of dank old coats — with barely enough money rattling in his pockets to get by, even if the city shelters were his home every night.
“I …”
“I know what you seek.” He quickly leaned to the side, peering at her from tabletop level. “Acoustics. Sitting here I can listen to every conversation in this room. That’s why this is my spot!”
She nodded in vague understanding, following his darting, conspiratorial eyes.
“Your grandfather I knew. Tolkien I knew. Not since those days of chaos and revolution have I spoken of this.”
“Yes?”
“Listen carefully, for if you have come here with this clue, you are no doubt in possession of a tale that will stretch and entangle with its root and branch. Beware of this: there are things evoked by lost stories, by words even, that have a life and a will of their own. Seek out a tale’s origin and you are likely to find another. Keep searching and you may stumble upon that realm where the word and the beast mingle as one.”
She was torn between the crackpot ramblings and the rational look in the man’s eyes. She decided to sit for just one more minute.
“The Eye and the Shadow may have been vanquished, or like the swirl of smoke that enwreathed all ere it passed, may have diffused into new form. Like the banal evil that accumulates in our time. But other eyes remain, many with places and powers that have not yet come into focus. I perhaps know something of these documents you possess, and I know also that their rediscovery, even after so long a time, will not go unnoticed.”
Now she was surprised. “But how could you know?”
“Quiet! You know so little, you will bring them here again just by your blundering questions! Be still and learn! Your grandfather was but an errand keeper picked at random. He was sent away with it, precisely because even he didn’t know where he was going. He was, however, a respecter of both ancient lore and secrets of his times. Thus he was entrusted with the last remnants of the tale. Perhaps only by chance, he came to play a role far beyond his natural destiny. Beyond that I can say little of his path, save that your presence here tells me much. Perhaps not enough, however. Tell me why you have come here.”
“I …” She paused to swallow; her mouth had suddenly gone dry. “I want to know where he is, and whether some documents he left, sort of a missing account of a famous heroine, are authentic.”
“Authentic? You mean real? If it’s a tale, it has a truth of its own. We are all sent down paths and live in worlds that we can only know as ‘real’ by what our heart says. We can’t exist except by believing. What you mean by your question is, I fear, something more … base. Something smelling, perchance, of profit?”
He stopped and stared at Cadence. His insinuation made her even more uneasy than his lunatic ramblings.
“Perhaps you have these documents? Are they in your possession?”
Her guardian senses were up. She felt, could smell, the low-grade fear that was enveloping him.
He went on, “Time works against us. You must trust me this much. Go out of here now. Do not walk around. Come to the library at Columbia tomorrow at the second bell. It is my day house. Then I will tell you more. Nights of swift rain and lightening claws are no place to risk encounters with the creatures of this realm or any other. Now go!”
Cadence got up. She glanced briefly at the bartender. He nodded knowingly, and she walked out to face the hawk, the swooping wet wind.
The rain and whipping gale had gotten worse. Luckily — amazingly, she thought — a taxi still waited at the curb, its hazard lights blinking, its wheels resting hubcap-deep in water that threatened to flood the sidewalk. She ran to it, opened the door, and piled in.
With a lurch, the taxi took off. It surged into southbound traffic, heading for midtown. No questions, no
