had lost the gray hat somewhere; he could not remember where.
The stage had changed. The man in uniform lay on a cot covered with a thin blanket. “And so you see.”
“I’ve seen it before,” North said.
He wanted to look for Lara in the audience, for Klamm in his box, but the lights blinded him. He felt that his first impression had been correct, that they were in a basement room, that it was the theater that was illusion, not the play. I’ve been an actor in a play all my life, he thought, and not known my lines. The only difference is that I know it now.
North asked the fat man, “How long?”
The fat man shrugged. “Today, sir. Tomorrow perhaps, at the very latest. The immunological system goes, and after that it’s just a question of what gets there first.”
One of the men in suits asked, “Why, Nick? Why did you do it?”
“I’m sorry, David,” the man in the cot answered. “I simply couldn’t help myself.”
North turned away. “And there was nobody to help him.”
His eyes had adjusted to the bright stage lights. He could see the audience now, oblique lines of pale, blurred faces that stretched into the darkness, here and there broken by an empty seat. Standing (as always) at North’s shoulder and pretending to watch the man in the cot, he studied the faces in the hope of seeing Lara’s; and when he did not see her, he thought to look for Klamm in his box, though he could not recall whether the man in shirtsleeves had said it was to the right or to the left, or whether the directions had been given from the point of view of the actors or the audience.
Klamm was there, the only occupant of a box, a crag-faced old man with long, pointed mustaches dyed jet black and cheeks pulled flaccidly downward by the weight of years. The great man wore a dinner jacket with a white dress shirt and a white tie, and seemed to be sleeping with open eyes, staring straight ahead as if content to wait, cigar in hand, for taller actors or more lofty themes, though they might be never so long in coming.
“Salmon die after they’ve spawned,” the fat man was saying. “Drones when they’ve fertilized the queen. In many species, the male spiders are devoured by their mates. At least we’re spared that.”
He had looked to one side for a moment, and in that moment Lara had entered Klamm’s box; now she stood with a hand upon the old man’s shoulder. She wore a gown of shimmering material that wrapped one breast in a prismatic highlight, a double rainbow—violet, blue, green, and gold. Yet he thought her own glorious hair more beautiful, a part of her person that in transfiguring her transfigured itself.
He took a step toward the wings, and because he had, he saw the men with guns before anyone else did.
Children of the Dragon
After passing through his topcoat at hip level, the first shot killed the man who had been dying on the cot. North was firing at once, a gun in each hand. More police—if they were police—were coming from the other side of the stage. He saw a dot of blood appear on the fat man’s yellow pajama leg and rapidly grow larger. The fat man stared down at it open-mouthed, clutched the leg in fat, neatly manicured hands, and fell slowly until the crash of his gross body shook the stage.
“This way,” North yelled, and went straight back, smashing the concrete wall like so much painted canvas. Dodging to stay out of North’s line of fire, he found himself face-to-face with a magician in immaculate evening clothes. With practiced grace, the magician threw open the door of a crimson and gold cabinet.
North darted in. He followed, feeling rather than hearing the door slammed after him. They fell through darkness, sliding down something too steep and too slick to hold. Later he would remember that he had been afraid one of North’s pistols would go off when the slide ended.
Neither did, but he could hear shots and screams above, and running feet. There was a scratch and a flare of light; North held a silver cigarette-lighter. Like the visiting princess who must feel a single pea, they lay upon a pile of mattresses. All about them stood a shadowy crowd of barrels, shelves, and boxes.
With strong teeth, North was tearing the cellophane from a cigar. “Know where we are?”
He nodded. He had seen a paper lantern and recognized the place. “In the basement of the Chinese shop.”
North bit the end from the cigar and spat it out. “Close enough. We’re in the basement of the theater. That magic act was supposed to follow us, so he was setting up in back of our scenery. He makes stooges from the audience disappear in that cabinet.”
He shook his head and climbed from the mattresses, which were grimy with dust.
“It’s probably better to lie low for a while,” North told him, lighting the cigar.
He already had a foot on the stair. “Go ahead and shoot,” he said. “They’ll hear it, and they’ll know where you are. Or you can start a fight. I’ll yell, and they’ll hear that.” He took Sheng’s matches out of his pocket and struck one, just as Sheng himself had struck a match upon an earlier occasion that now seemed forlorn beneath an infinite drift of calendar leaves. A dragon of red and yellow fire appeared, emitting black smoke, illuminating their corner of the dusty basement. It appeared to wink at him, then vanished.
“God DAMN!” North said, picking up the cigar and swatting at sparks. “How’d you do that?”
“Have fun.” He waved good-bye.
He went up the stairs and into Sheng’s shop. Sheng and Dr. Pille were sitting in Sheng’s back room drinking tea. “Nice see you again,” Sheng said. “This sister’s son. Doctor. Fine man. Like tea? Want buy something?”
Dr. Pille extended a hand. “We’ve met, more or less. You were only semiconscious at the time, though. Later I saw you in the moopsball game. You were extremely impressive.”
“And now you’ll take me back. Or try to.” He pulled out the remaining chair and sat down.
“Not really.” Dr. Pille paused. “That is, not unless you want me to.”
