“Look see!” A tight roll of paper unwound to reveal the sketched figure of a man, half life-size. “For burn on grave. Then got good servant next place.” The Chinese grinned again. “You die real soon?”
“I hope not.”
“Then no need. Later, maybe. How ’bout horse?” It was a stocky, tough-looking animal sketched in bold strokes.
“I’ve never ridden one,” he confessed.
“Next place learn. Plenty time.”
His eyes caught a thick sheaf of fifty-dollar bills banded with brown paper. “You shouldn’t leave these lying around, Mr. Sheng.”
The Chinese laughed. “Toy money! On grave burn, next place plenty rich! You like?”
He carried them to a dusty little window. They were real bills, nearly new. When he slid back the paper band, Grant’s face was sharp and bright.
“You like?”
The band read PUROLATOR SECURITY. Beside the words was a Chinese character in black ink, and the figure 10 cents.
“Yes,” he said. “I like this very much. But you have to let me pay for it.” He produced a dime, feeling very much like a thief. The Chinese accepted the coin without looking at it, and he put the sheaf of bills into the topcoat pocket opposite the map.
The street outside was not the one from which he had fled down the alley; but though it was smaller and narrower, lined with parked cars and sooty brick buildings, there was a parade. Drum majorettes strutted and twirled, bare legs shaded blue by the winter wind. Soldiers in brilliant green jackets shouldered and unshouldered short rifles; politicians grinned and waved, presenting one another with candy and cigars. Trumpets brayed. Towering floats crept forward like so many colorful juggernauts, clearly unstable, swaying like jonquils while lovely girls in flowers, feathers, and sequined gowns danced alone or with each other.
A bass drum thudded in rhythm with his heart.
A little crowd of men and boys, with a few women, followed the final float, possibly a division of the parade in their own minds. It struck him that if the police were still looking for him—though it seemed unlikely they were—this straggling group offered the best means of evading them. He joined it, pressing toward the middle and front until he was walking so close to the float that no one on either sidewalk could have had a clear look at him.
A skater in a pink tutu twirled almost at the edge. When she saw him, she stopped and smiled, pointing toward three iron steps that descended the back of the float.
He thought she was inviting him to join her and called,
She nodded, still smiling, and indicated a door wreathed with roses.
For a moment he hesitated. If he climbed up the steps, he would be exposed until he had passed through the doorway. Once inside the float, however, he would be completely screened from view.
The skater smiled again and beckoned. She was blond and blue-eyed, apple-cheeked in the cutting wind.
As he mounted the steps, the crowd he had left behind him whistled, clapped, and cheered. The watchers on the sidewalks cheered as well, and one of the dancers ignited the fuse of a firework. It erupted in a glory of golden sparks just as the skater opened the rose-wreathed door for him.
“In a second,” she said. “I have to take my skates off.”
He found himself in the back of a camper. There were two wide bunks, one above the other, swiveling seats, a small sink, and a bureau with a washbasin set into its top. The driver, a middle-aged woman, did not turn her head to look at him; but he saw her eyes in the rearview mirror—eyes that watched him, so it seemed to him, far longer than was safe.
The ceiling was uncomfortably close to his head. He sat down and tried to look around him, but the sides of the float darkened all the windows. He could still hear the cheering of the crowd outside and the booming of the fireworks.
The door opened. The skater came in softly on stockinged feet. Her fingers brushed his face, lingering upon a cheekbone. “I’m not one of those people who put a gun to your head,” she said. “If you should change your mind …”
He said, “I like it here.”
“Good. So do I.” She wore a blue silk pullover trimmed with white fur at the cuffs and collar; it slid over her head with one smooth motion, revealing a narrow bra of peach lace. “Would you like me to undress you? I know that some of them—whatever you want. Whatever you’ve been thinking of all these years.”
As he rose from his seat, he listened to his own voice as he might have heard someone else speak. “I’ve been thinking about Lara.”
She paused, hands at the buttons of his topcoat. “Lara?”
“I love her,” he said; and then, “But you’re not her, and I really didn’t know it was going to be like this.” He took a step backward.
Her mouth fell open. For a moment her face was a tormented mask of disbelief and disappointment. Hate burned them away as fire scours a forest; her blue eyes blazed and flashed.
“I’d better go,” he said.
A drawer under the sink rattled; she lunged at him with a kitchen knife. He stumbled to one side, and it stuck in the flimsy inner wall. Without thinking, he hit her wrist with one hand and pushed her away with the other.
The door opened easily, and by merciful miracle it opened outward. He fled, oblivious of the circle of ice that
