It was Will’s turn to be taken aback. This was a thought he had often had about Hart. Relax and enjoy your friends, he told himself, and stop worrying about Hartley Dynamite-for-Brains Quince.
Bernadette started getting dinner out of the hotbox. Johnny got up at once and joined her. “You’re still tired from running,” he said, “I know you’d like to shower. Let me start this.”
“You don’t mind? Thanks.” And she brushed the hair out of her eyes with a weary gesture.
Bernadette hated to be in sweaty clothes, Will thought. Her fiance hadn’t noticed, but Johnny had.
As she crossed to the other room and Johnny bent over the hotbox, she pulled Will aside. ‘Talk to him,” she said, pointing to Johnny.
“Why, what’s the matter?”
She shook her head.
“Verx? You said he’d stopped.”
She shook her head again, tiredly.
“Okay, go shower.” Will gave her a peck and a smack on the ramp as she left (why is it the aristos never seem to touch each other? asked a part of his mind) and turned back to the table. “Let me help you, Johnny.”
Beneath the clatter of dishes he said, “You have anything for a headache?”
Johnny’s eyes met his. The pupils were dilated.
“Really?” he said tentatively.
“Sure.”
Johnny turned toward the sink and pulled a small bottle from his pocket. He started to open it, but Will took it from him, and Johnny made no effort to stop him. Will removed one of the thin white pills and touched it to his tongue, where it immediately began to dissolve in sourness. He made a face.
‘This is pure aspirin, Johnny.”
“Absolutely pure,” said his friend.
“You know the penalties for trafficking in pain relievers? The EPs will have you up on charges of tampering with God’s will.”
“I don’t traffic, exactly. I just sell it to people I trust. Old folks with aches, and people just off the radiation levels.”
Will looked over to where Jack had gone to stand by the door, apparently very interested in the wall design. Jack couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was clearly private and he would let them have what privacy a Sangaree compartment afforded. Jack wasn’t a bad person, Will thought. Bemie could have done a lot worse.
“I need the money,” said Johnny.
Of course he did. Looking into his face, Will could see he was playing with vert-reves again, he should have seen it the second he walked through the door. “Johnny,” he began. Johnny, you believe everything people tell you. Someday you’re gong to sell aspirin to a nice guy who’ll be from the Ecclesiastical Police. Johnny, whoever’s selling the stuff to you is shortchanging you, because you’re too far down the pole not to shortchange. Johnny, don be an idiot and live this way, because I’ll be very upset if you die young.
“Johnny,” he said again, and stopped.
His friend looked at him with a quizzical smile. “Want a beer?” he asked. “Bemie has some on hand.”
Hell. At least Johnny was snorting it as verx instead of injecting pure vert-reves. Of that they were all sure, because as Bemie once put it when she stopped laughing, “Johnny’s too big a wimp to use needles.”
“Yeah,” he said, “why don’t you get me one.” Anyone else Will would seriously have considered turning in. Officers were sent to the radiation levels for looking the other way. But it never would have entered Will’s head to turn in Johnny—he was Sangaree.
As Johnny fetched the beer, Will examined the pill bottle. “You know what they say,” he commented. “It’s a short, straight line between aspirin and vert-reves.”
“Is that what they say? I wouldn’t know, I never tried aspirin.”
Then they both started to laugh because, being Sangaree, Will and Johnny considered “what they said” of drugs to be about on a par with what they said about everything else. Life below the letterdecks encouraged skepticism, if nothing else.
“No, but listen,” said Will. He hesitated.
Johnny looked at him, saying nothing.
Will said, “You’re going to get killed one day doing that.”
“I’m careful.”
“I know you’re carefulsaid Will, as he punched Johnny’s shoulder affectionately and Johnny ducked his head the way he always did, embarrassed.
Then he looked up at Will. “You think Jack knows?”
“How do I know what Jack knows?” Then Will said, “I don’t think so.” He raised his voice. “Jack, care for a beer?”
“Not for me, thanks. Go ahead if you want to.” Johnny said, “As if I needed an invitation.” He was shutting the cooler when there was a knock at the door.
“We expecting anybody?” said Will. The other two shook their heads. Will hated the lack of security in a mechanical lock; there was no way to check the identity of who was outside.
Bernadette came out of the other room, wrapped in a robe. “Did I hear—”
“Yeah. Want me to open it?”
She nodded.
Will’s hand was on his pistol as he opened the door. Teams of people—even ghosts, sometimes—broke into compartments for everything they could steal.
It was an elderly and stooped man, well-dressed in secondhand clothes that did not quite fit. He held a chrome cane.
“Yes?” said Will, a little ashamed of the suspicion in his voice.
“Mr. Teksa!” said Bernadette, coming forward. She put out her hands and drew him inside. “Will, you remember Mr. Teksa.”
Will did, from years past, but he certainly didn’t remember him this frail and uncertain. And didn’t he have the vague impression that the Teksas weren’t living around here anymore? “Sure I do. You moved back to the neighborhood, Mr. Teksa? And how …” He was going to say, how is Mrs. Teksa? But his ingrained knowledge of Sangaree lifespans made him hesitate, and seeing Bemie’s slight headshake he finished, “are you doing these days?”
“Very well, thank you. How tall you are, Willie! But I just stopped by to ask if you could help me. I’m expecting a message from the link-boy, but I have to go out—”
“Say no more, sir,” said Bernadette.
