*Spoilers*
*Profanity*
*Ruthless Humour*
---This story takes place AFTER my other two fanfics, i.e. in this order:

‘Wait Till Helene Comes’ (Not yet posted! Heh. I’m savin’ it for Hallowe’en.)
‘The New Orleans Patient’
‘Raised On Robbery’ (I was writing this one before I started on Helene, but I finished Helene first. Go figure!)

Again, I don’t own Pendy. Mr. Preston and Mr. Child do. They made him what he is. But, as far as I know, I wrote the poem first. However, Joni Mitchell wrote ‘Raised On Robbery’, which is in italics. And this is my first songfic, well, it’s sort of one. It’s not as good as TNOP, but y’all ought to have fun, regardless! I seriously recommend getting the cd – joni mitchell hits- if only to listen to the song...er, all of them, really. Especially the first and fifth. Heh. (album: Court and Sparks)

Also, while I’m at it, those of you who dislike Viola (sorry, I don’t –so far-, though it is somewhat entertaining to make light of her) might look up the word VERJUICE for a bit of inspirational humour. For even more fun, check out these three gems, all of which are recent purchases of mine. Jeffrey Kacirk’s ‘The Word Museum’ and Susan Keltz Sperling’s ‘Poplollies and Bellibones/Tenderfeet and Ladyfingers.’ P.P.S. – Rick Steve’s ‘French Phrase Book and Dictionary’. It’s small, cheap (under ten bucks, like the other two books) and survival/travel-oriented, but it works if you don’t have a job to enable acquisition of bigger, shinier things, like the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary. Or a certain Blue Police Box with scruffy Time Lord equipped. Ooooh....

I just bought the above books last month! Sooooo, if anything’s not accurate, well, blame someone. Heh.



(1)

He was sitting in the lounge of the
Empire Hotel
He was drinking for diversion
He was thinking for himself
A little money riding on the Maple Leaves
Along comes a lady in lacy sleeves
She says...
“Let me sit down here
You know I’m drinking alone
It’s a shame, it’s a shame, it’s a crying shame
Look at those jokers
Glued to that d*mn hockey game
Hey honey-you’ve got lot’s of cash
Bring us round a bottle
And we’ll have some laughs
Gin’s what I’m drinking
I was raised on robbery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Well, now...” The tall man said, balancing a forkful of pecan pie between thumb and forefinger, halfway from his plate. “...why’d you have to go and do a thing like that?” He didn’t move, yet his murmured reply sliced through the tension in the All-Night Diner like a hot knife through honey-butter, thick and slow and dizzy with careful menace.

Marly Stevens scratched her chin at him, then reached up and tugged at her ski mask as if the cheap black ribbing could possibly stretch any further. It was more for show than anything, really. “So what, Mr. Black Suit? What do I care if your dessert’s screwed to hell? My life’s screwed to hell, so you can just take that pie and shove it where the sun don’t shine! Or maybe you scared! Eh? You scared, Whitey?” Annoyed, she poked her gun in his ribs and felt a certain sense of satisfaction when the other patrons gasped. But he didn’t react the way she’d thought he would. He only smiled and popped that last dainty bit of pie into his mouth and chewed. Slowly. Deliberately. Then he had his bad self a lazy sip of milk to wash it down, as though a giant monster could have been playing Sink the Ferry with the cars clogging the crowded four-lane street outside and he wouldn’t have given a crap. Odd how suddenly her whole attention was on him instead of the other losers...

Suddenly the empty fork settled back down in the white plate with a sweet little clack of satisfaction. “Not at all. You are the one who sounds confused. I was merely trying to enjoy a slice of this pie before I was interrupted by your rather obvious entrance. Indeed, you seem to have interrupted everyone here. Now why might that be?” He was a beanpole, a frigging white-*ss beanpole in a black suit. And he’d made her. Heh.

Marly smiled. Now the jerk was talking. Maybe she could get a rise out him if she poked hard enough. Maybe...she leaned toward him, rammed herself down into the torn, faded orange-vinyl swivel stool beside his and b*tched at him. “I just shot at you, Snowman! Where the f*ck do you get off ignoring me?”

He turned to look at her then, silver eyes drinking her in, a slight figure concealed in a flattering cinnamon hoodie, brimming with casual fixation like a cat eyeing a caged bird. “You haven’t shot me yet. And you aren’t angry. Why don’t we both stop stalling? I’m feeling charitable this morning...so, I’ll tell you why I’m here, if you’ll tell me why you are.”

She laughed at him then, slamming her gun-hand down on the too-clean counter. She never even saw his hand twist aside from his face, slip around the gun barrel and slide it out of her unresisting hand. He’d been that fast.

The sheer shock of it loosened every muscle in her face. Now she really felt like laughing, and still his silver-blue cat-eyes had never left hers. The gun, however, had disappeared in a flick of white on black, and reappeared just as quickly in the small glass of milk to the right of his plate, ruined and wet. “You were saying, my dear?” Words seemed to drizzle off this one’s tongue like fresh molasses, when he chose to speak, and Marly sensed a certain steel behind the smooth New Orleans drawl. His voice tasted...ooooh, like fluffy, steaming hoecakes soaked in creamed butter and sopping with fresh maple syrup. She lapped him up, savoring the flavor in her memory like a starving bum.

“Are you quite done? I’m afraid I have somewhere to be.”

“Not yet, Whitey. Howzit a rich-as-sh*t alby like you taste just like my grandmama’s hoecakes? And don’t be smiling at me like ‘at. You jes sit yo’ *ss right there on that seat and keep jawin’. Otherwise I might be inclined to pull my backup piece, yo?”


With an uneasy sigh he settled on the seat, slumping a little, and his gaze turned to the window. “As you wish. Shall I go first then? I am here waiting for news of my adoptive daughter. She’s due to give birth today, and I only stopped in here to wait until the hospital opened, and, of course, to see if the pie was as decent as the nurse yesterday seemed to claim, but it seems that I might be staying a bit longer than I intended. Still...” His brows knitted vaguely, and his voice grew pained. “I should very much like to be there with her through the...difficulties. She is very important to me. Your turn.” He slipped his fingers through the air in a waggling gesture, smoothly offering her a seat as if she wasn’t sitting right next to him.

“Right.” Marly stared, pretending to be unimpressed. “You can’t be tellin’ me you ain’t gonna pass out the minute you see blood. You’re already a freakin’ vampire as is! Hell, you’re Alby the Snowman! Jes look at yo’self. My turn, you said? Well...after Hurricane Katrina kicked me out on my *ss I came up here, hopin’ fo’ some work or sumthin. You see how that turned out, yeah? Well, I have this heah boyfriend, see? He’s got this job at the hospital, but he ain’t showed up at my place for a while now. And well, confronted wit’ that, it got me thinkin’ maybe he’s gone and done hisself, or left me high and dry. He was burned awhile back, some freak thing overseas, and he only got that job at the hospital cuz’ he was, you know, overqualified? I think they hired him just to keep his mouth shut. He had the prettiest ginger hair, what was left of it...and his eyes were...different, plus he was twice as annoyin’as you are. In a certain light, he almost look handsome, if it
weren’t for them burns. What’s it to you, anyway? I got a schedule to keep.”

Whitey perked up at this, the grey-blue eyes going so far as to widen a fraction. They slid over to her without a hitch, taking her in again as if for the first time. Then he spoke, and the words teased from his mouth in what, for him, must have been a flood of pent-up anxiety. “His eyes...one was milky-blue, the other hazel, correct?” He asked her, staring intently into her own liquid brown ones.

“Yeah, that’s Digi. What’s it to you?” Marly replied with a yawn.

The albino in a black suit paused before he answered, blinking only once as if considering something. Then he shrugged, almost to himself, and his lips moved apart. “The man taking care of you was my brother, Diogenes. Knowing him as I dare, he must have meant for us to speak. Therefore, I should like to know your name, if you would be so kind as to offer.”

Marly nodded, confused by this weirdo, but with a big ole splittin’ grin on her face. Digi used to confuse her too, much like this one did. He couldn’t be all bad, she decided, so she opened her mouth and chewed her name before spitting it out in bits like old gum. “Miss Marly Stevens. Digi always called me that, that and mia poco gelato. My little gelato. Seemed like he had a different nickname for me every day of the week. Strange how he didn’t seem the type to care for the ladies...but he was always good to me, ever since I found him and nursed him up.” She stopped, suddenly reflective in the before-morning hours. Her bottomless gaze drifted aimless about the room, taking in the scattering of Diner patrons who were probably enjoying the little breakfast show playing out at the counter. “He’s really gone and blown it now. What’s he think he done, runnin out jes’ when I was gettin’ to like him real good? He was teaching me things, Latin and French. He said he secretly loved French, and the Latin-that was obvious. He also said you was an idiot in half a dozen languages. Said he was gonna teach’em all to me...but where’s he gone?” She trailed off, slumping against the counter and looking off. “Digi...where’d you get to?”

The man straightened, eyes flicking over the back of her waistband where the .9 mm was tucked behind the bottom hem of her hoodie. “And my name is Pendergast. Let me have that handgun, Miss Stevens, and I’ll tell you what happened to my brother.”

Marly’s pale latte skin went a shade grayer at that, but under his gaze she found that she no longer wanted it near her, so she reached behind and handed it up, then settled in for the story, careful to keep her slim hands flat and tight against the counter.

“...and finally, if I may add... he wormed his way into my ward’s affections as it were and got her with child, then tossed her viciously aside like so much refuse. He then told her she meant nothing to him, whereupon she proceeded to follow him to his hideaway in Italy and pushed him into a volcano. I have no idea how he survived, though recalling his miraculous aptitude for ingenuity, it isn’t surprising.” He paused, as if waiting for some explanation. Marly merely nodded, fingering the dark chocolate meatballs of hair on either side of her head, pursing her coffee-colored lips, secure in the knowledge they were referring to the same man. “Sonofa-now that does sound like Digi.”

“Indeed. Regardless,” He added, with a small twist of the mouth that seemed half-smile, half-frown. “She’s going to deliver that child some time today, and I should like very much to be there with her for the ordeal. Of course, now that I have these...” He fished the first gun out of his milk glass, dried it off, then stuck them both in his waistband. His hand snuck back up with a familiar-looking wallet, swung the badge with a gold FBI shield around the room and flipped it shut again before sticking it back in his suit. “...I can take you into custody and end this little affair, much to the relief of the paying patrons. Shall I?” He looked around the room at their silent audience, grinning like a cat with a mouthful of canary. Abruptly his silver cat-eyes lurched back to her, waiting.

Marly Stevens shrugged and started to hold out her hands, but then she stopped, staring at him, suddenly close to boiling without knowing the reason. “FBI. And I would have bought a slice of cream pie, too-but you haven’t answered me. Where’s Digi? You said you knew...s’il vous plaît! S’il vous plaît, monsieur! S’il vous plaît!”

The man looked at her kindly, reaching up to her face to brush away tears she hadn’t known were falling. “Du calme, Mademoiselle! Du calme! As odd as this seems, I do see how he must have loved you, in his way. ” Then he murmured something, almost to himself. “La Sciara must have scorched away his carapace, just as mine was burned away at sea...”

“What?”

“Désolé, mademoiselle. Ça m’est égal.”

“But...je ne comprends pas. Je ne comprends pas!”

“Your grandmother used to speak French, did she not? It shows. You understand more than you realize. Don’t you see it, Marly? I do. He must have believed in something other than himself, with you. I don’t think you truly grasp the gravity of that.”

She glared at him through tear-reddened eyes stung from too much rubbing. “He told me you’d say that. You keep talking about him in the past tense, like he’s dead or sumthin. Tell me what happened to Digi, or I’ll...”

He held a long white finger to her lips. “I will on one condition. You must be in my custody.”

She felt him reach around her slim waist, take her hands and...clink! A handcuff key promptly disappeared into his suit, and he grinned that cat-and-canary grin again, his silver eyes two shiny scuffs of a Susan B. beneath his thin, pale brows. “Might you accompany me to the hospital? My ward is doubtless becoming concerned, for a variety of reasons. It isn’t...wise...to agitate Constance, especially now that her nerves are in such a delicate, eh, state.”

What you afraid of? You think she gonna come up off that bed and rip you a new one? Well, that’s what Marly wanted to say. Instead, she settled for- “Can...can I get my pie, first? I was hoping for a nice banana cream before I had to fast-track the hold-up...”

He cocked his head, eyes narrowing in sarcasm, and swept that gaze about the room again, asking another silent favor of the patrons. But all were transfixed by the drama of the current family discussion. The waitress, Janice, nodded dumbly as she took down Marly’s order. Soon the ice-cold slice of pie, a thin slab of pale, flaky crust covered with a couple inches worth of taut banana pudding made with real bananas, smothered in fresh, puffy mounds of whipped cream, was boxed up in a stiff paper carry-out box, and then they were heading out the door. The man held it, and Marly walked beneath his arm. The crisp, airy, cloud-touched scent of him wasn’t quite like Digi’s sensual, sugary, otherworldly musk with its slightly-burnt tinge, but it would do she decided, as long as he kept his part of their deal. And then there was this other thing, that somehow he must have known Digi had taught her how to slip cuffs and cuffed her anyway. ‘Course, he WAS Digi’s brother.

“Ah, yes. Du calme, Marly dear. You have until we reach Constance’s hospital room to tell me everything you loved about my brother. And, as I promised, I shall relate to you the circumstances surrounding his demise, although my wife and my ward could no doubt inform you much better than I as to his...recent doings.”

At that word, Demise, Marly began meticulously winding the drawstring of her hoodie around her left hand, wrapping and unwrapping, twisting and tightening her grip on the tautly-pulled cord. “Did you jes’ say Digi bit the big one?” She thought for a moment, seriously, almost fondly, about sniping the .9 mm from where she knew he’d hidden it and whacking him. Instead, she merely frowned in his direction, playful, like some feral cat about to spring a pounce on some stupid bird. The effort was not unlike the agent’s bevy of stares and grins, actually, if she did say so herself. She did say it. Out loud. “You stupid alby! Did you think you could pull one over on me, the Hold-Up Queen of Ninth Street? I knew as soon as you stepped through that door who you were. And that Digi was dead. He said if you popped up he probably would be toast. Literally and figuratively. His words. He told me his plans the night before he...”

Another narrowing of those silvery eyes. “And?”

“He told me how to get you to take me outside. He told me where, when, what. The usual dish for you two, I’m guessing. What was up with you, anyhow? Pushing your brother into a crazy lantern-show like that and then forgetting to fess up?”

The alby actually seemed startled by that one. But he sucked up and just stared at her calmly while they both watched cars spilling down the street. It was going to be a while before the rainbow traffic gods would cut them a big enough break so they could cross.
Almost in afterthought, he scrubbed his hand through his white-blonde hair. It was a windy day, but the bleach-blonde strands stayed locked in the breeze like they were nailed down. It would take more than a worm and a pole with this one, but she already knew that. Silently, she thanked Digi for his patience in teaching her how to ‘fish’, wishing for all the world that he could have seen her curb the agent’s ‘tude with those two-color eyes of his.

“It isn’t often I get taken for a ride.” He murmured softly, looking at her sideways without moving his face. “I can indeed see why he chose you. However, his choosing anyone for any reason piques my interest. Tell me...” He mused, coolly continuing on in what Marly had learned through trial and error with Digi was a certain vein of action and reaction. He was trying to psych her out, she thought. But she knew his tricks, knew them well, as they had been a gift from Digi. She would not let Digi’s brother talk her out of what she planned, something she already knew he would try. She still had her knife...

Digi had loved her. She knew that too, because Digi had let her live. For that she would follow him anywhere. That was why...the coups de gras had to be perfect. She would kill herself in front of this man, like some ancient Greek virgin sacrificed to the gods. Yeah! Maybe she’d get a Cool Spirit Body like a certain old man with a light-blade.
“...do you even know why? Do you truly think he told you everything?” He paused then, regarding her with the barest, the gentlest of smiles before he took a breath and moved to speak again. Perhaps he knew she planned to...leave New York? “And Miss Stevens, I will know instantly if you are lying to me. I have that knack, as it were.”

She could almost hear Digi snicker then. He certainly would have. “You know, Whitey... Digi talked about her. He called me his albis munis, but her...she was his Proserpine.”

“You were his white mouse, and she his Queen of the Underworld. Yes...something of a...joke...between us. How enlightening. Do you realize the significance of it all, I wonder? Of you and he, of them, of us, our interactions all conjoining in this moment? This dance we have danced so blindly? Now there is a thought, my dear, that could prove most nutritious.”

“I’ll bet. And don’ you ‘my dear’ me, white boy. I ain’t admittin’ nuthin!”

Silver-blue eyes flashing, he smiled. Then he stepped off the curb into the street, turned and took her hand, seemingly set on being a gentleman. “Really? Are you certain of that?”

(2)

I’m a pretty good cook
I’m sitting on my groceries
Come up to my kitchen
I’ll show you my best recipe
I try and I try but I can’t save a cent
I’m up after midnight cooking
Trying to make my rent
I’m rough but I’m pleasin’
I was raised on robbery

Walking quickly now they made their way across the street to the Emergency Room Entrance of St. Lukes-Roosevelt, passing a couple of ambulances and a paramedic on her way out to a call in Manhattan. The agent snagged a security guard and whipped out his badge, shoving both of Marly’s weapons in his face. “I, ah, appropriated these from this young woman, just now. If you would be so kind as to hold them for me till I get back down here? I have no time to take her in at present, as my daughter is registered upstairs and probably giving birth as we speak. Ordinarily I would never do this, but Miss Stevens here isn’t a threat, so just be sure and keep these safe for me, would you? Thank you ever so much!”

Marly smiled warmly at the guard, like a honey-haired child about to pull the wings off a fly. “You hear that, rent-a-cop? I’m not dangerous. So best you jes-oof!”

Quick as a snake the agent had his hand clasped over her mouth, dragging her away and shaking his head apologetically as they made for the elevator. “Do excuse her, officer.” He called back jovially. “You know how it is with Tourrett’s...”

Agent and quarry oriented themselves in the little metal box and settled in. As the thick doors closed with a slight, shaky jerk before them, the group of ratty gangbangers that had followed them from the diner were easing their way up the wide white hallway under the bright red and white Emergency Room sign.

Pendergast’s slender brows furrowed minutely at this. Then he spoke. “...associates of yours, Miss Stevens?”

She could have bothered to get mad, but he was right...she did know them. Called theyselves the Ninth Street Turks, like in the video game. More like the Ninth Street Motards. There was Buzzy, Ink, Hong, and Tortilla...he was the worst of them. The other three were just wannabe’s. But Tortilla...he’d done time...gotten that nickname ‘cause one day he’d just up and stuck an M-80 in a Pocho’s Pollo bag with some burritos and lobbed it in some cop’s ride. Dang. That had been seriously Messed. Up. The coked-up wad really appreciated his...firepower...maybe even more than Digi had liked that d*mn sugary green slosh he would always yammer about.

Before Digi had shown, they’d been at her to join up. She’d laughed it off, thinking they’d just be pulling small jobs, gettin’ res-pect and putting the squeeze on the neighbors for some pocket change. But once Tortilla’d crawled out’ the woodwork, they’d started shootin’ heroin and cookin’ meth in Buzzy’s run-down apartment. She didn’t go for that sh*t. Marly Stevens had better things to do with her time than facilitate those losers so they could hang theyself, er themselves. Sorry Digi...I’m not that good yet. If only you’d stayed. Then, maybe we could have left all this beh-

“We’ve arrived, Miss Stevens.” The agent said softly, his silver-blue eyes fixing on her as if they’d been there all along. “If I was interrupting something, I apologize.”

She looked up, startled. “N-no. Thas’ okay...Whitey.”

He nodded, a barely-noticeable tilt of his ivory head, and swept his hand out toward the hallway. The sign above the nurse’s station said: Maternity Ward. “As you wish. After you, Marly dear. Constance’s room is 204, right down here. Watch your step.” He took her hand again, led her down the hallway. “And by the way...” He murmured, just as they reached the door of his ward’s private room. “I see you slipped the trick cuffs. Bravo, my dear. Of course now I’ll just have to use the real ones.” A devilish glint grew in his eyes as he glanced down the hall, and vanished just as suddenly when he stiffened.

He retraced his footsteps to the nurses’ station in three bounding strides and fell against the counter, his silver-blue eyes sliding open as if for the first time, his lips moving apart, working, the once-pleasing line of his mouth grim and set as if he were two seconds away from demonstrating the delicate intricacies of arguing in Italian. “Where? When? And why was I not informed?” After receiving his answer, he spun, face flushed with frustration, and Marly recoiled instinctively.

“What? What happened, Whitey? Is your daughter okay? What is it?”

Abruptly he halted in his rapid advance down the hallway and stared at her, breathless with angst. “Miss Stevens...my ward is...” He started moving again, more rapidly then before, heading back toward the elevators with all the care of a rampaging beast. “She’s...”

“What? What’s wrong?”

Something about the way he just quit moving, that and the sheer audacity in the boyish grin on his face made Marly want to sucker-punch him.

“Now see? You can speak without reverting to that horrid street dialect! If you continue to do so until I tell you to stop, we may get somewhere.”

“C’est nécessaire?” She stared at him, realizing she’d left her pie sitting at the nurse’s station. “Fine, you got me. But, I left my banana cream back at the desk...could I?”

“Certainly. But at this rate, everyone else will see my, ah...grandchild...before I do. Do make haste.”

Marly bolted from his side, aiming herself at the inset white block of the nurse’s station. She could see the phone cords dangling over the desk, the battalion of computers and clipboards, the kamikaze ballpoint-pens beside them half-empty, sitting, waiting to be swiped by some kid, or maybe an absent-minded church-lady distracted by the lily pin on her crocheted shawl.

As she spun to catch up with the agent, she caught the glint of a semi-automatic poking its ugly nose through the elevator doors.

Snowman had stopped cold, staring in the direction of the elevators. He had seen it, perhaps even heard it before she had, she realized. For a moment though, his silver eyes were on her, bright as blue dwarfs against the drift of bodies shuffling past them. “Miss Stevens! Everyone, get down!”

He crossed in front of her, eyes fixed on the thick metal doors as they slid apart. Time seemed to stop, reality to disappear, and abruptly there was nothing, save him, the emerging pistol, and the man in the elevator who was holding it. That man, bleary-eyed and scrappy and high as a kite, was Tortilla, bloodied and feral from his ‘obvious’ entrance. The others must have gotten it from the guards...or Tortilla. He was like that, sometimes. It wouldn’t surprise her if he’d planned this in adva-

Two shots rang out, reverberating harshly through the hallway. As she ducked down, bright jets of red streaked across the soft cinnamon of her hoodie, splashing her with drops. When she held her hand up to look at the deep red spatter dotting her latte skin, in a flash she remembered. She hadn’t been holding the carry-out box at the nurse’s station.

(3)

We had a little money once
They were pushing through a
Four-lane highway
Government gave us three
Thousand dollars
You should have seen it fly away
First he bought a ’57 Biscayne
He put it in the ditch
He drunk up all the rest
That son of a b*tch
His blood’s bad whiskey
I was raised on Robbery


“You stupid alby!” Marly cried, flinging the cardboard pie box away from her. It struck floor. “You got a Kenshin complex, you know that?” Marly ran then, feet screaming past the onlookers toward the agent, who was standing so still, like a scarecrow. People were leaning out of the rooms, looking at them. Yet the door they’d been headed for remained closed.

He slipped his hand from his ribs and smiled as he held it up for her to see. His fingers were drenched with blood. It seemed more like red ink, wet and vivid and soaking into dry, cold chalk. The contrast was striking, almost beautiful. As she reached him, staring, the red dampness stole across the crisp white of his shirt like rain eating through a paper bag.

“All of this...” He held his bloody hand, then swept it toward the elevator. “...can wait until I’ve seen to my ward.” Nurses and doctors were creeping up on him, some with hypos, some with restraints, others with gauze and bags of saline, but he suddenly turned and flashed them such a look they stepped back, all their faces paling at once. “No touching till then. Are we clear?”

He slid his eyes toward Marly. “The bullet bounced off a rib and lodged in my spleen. Wouldn’t be the first time. I’m not especially worried, at the moment. Still, we ought to get moving!” His far from casual smile was thin, almost obnoxiously calm in light of all the blood flushing from his punctured flesh, coming now in jagged spurts. He gestured to the limp body blocking the elevator. Tortilla was lying dead in a pool of his own blood, sticking out from the elevator’s claustrophobic vestibule, the hole from the agent’s bullet peering squarely from his forehead like some ghastly third eye.

The albino rose, stiffly, carefully, and proceeded to busy himself with the buttons of his suit jacket. He offered his arm. Tossing a glare at his wound, she slipped her arm beneath his anyway to take the stress off the injury, and when they had reached the room, he positioned himself between the side of the door and the doorframe, making sure that whoever was inside wouldn’t have a good view of the neat little wreck the semi-auto round had made of his side. “Preparation is everything, Marly dear!” He said with a weak little flourish.

Then the door opened, and a tan, willowy englishwoman with long red-brown hair vining over her taut arms emerged, carrying an exquisite, hand-dried bouquet of Bougainvillea and Sweet Anne. The aroma that still wafted from the mixed sprays and the Wormwood was lofty, soothing. Marly felt the man hesitate, pausing to inhale the sweet scent, and not just from the congratulatory flowers.

“Oh Aloysius! You’re bleeding again. I was peeking.” The woman said after a moment, quickly taking his other arm to support him and smiling when he couldn’t stop looking at her. “And it looks as though you’ve made another friend. Hello to you!” She nodded to Marly. “When I heard the shooting outside, I knew it must be him. We ought to tie my husband to a chair and make sure they sedate him. Otherwise he’ll just slip the knots. Want to help?”

Marly looked at him, then at her, then at him again, a grin spreading across her face. “Do I!” Then they both looked at him, calling his bluff as a pair, their faces darting back and forth toward Constance’s room. Thoroughly reprimanded by the threat in their respective gazes, he shrugged and slipped inside, secretly grateful for the chair he found vacant near the door, which he drew shut behind him. He sat down gingerly, trying not to jar the wound in his side while he eased his slim body into the sparsely-cushioned seatback. After catching his breath he cast his eyes about, taking in the details of the light, airy space, then considered the figure of his ward, sleeping soundly in her bed.

Taking another measured, cautious breath he pushed himself up, then walked to the side of the length of mattress, reached down and swept back her brown hair, damp with sweat. She moaned in her sleep, and he whispered to her in French, murmuring sweetnesses in singsong.

“Sleep well
Oh apple of my eye
And dream your
Dreams
Soon the night
Will be eaten
But I shall remain
To comfort thee
Soon you will wake
To watch your
Little bird play
With your doll’s eyes
Oh my little one
Dream on, though
The dawn is
Approaching
Sleep well”

Then, after he had rested in the chair for a minute or so, a knock came at the door.

“Aloysius? They’ve brought a gurney for you.” Viola stopped, long, calloused fingers poised above the door handle as it turned beneath her hand. The metal was a smooth, cold orb in her grasp. It moved outward and suddenly he was there, one white hand grasping the doorframe the other smeared in the deep crimson fluid leaking copiously from the untreated gunshot wound.

His silver-blue eyes, dull from the excessive bloodloss, flirted with her for a few breaths.
Then, far too slowly he began to resign himself to the frenzied ministrations of the hospital staff, letting the nurses fuss with the black suit-jacket and tie and the sopping white shirt soaked through with his own wet blood.

Viola smiled warmly down at him as he rested there, held his hand as she walked beside the gurney down to Surgery, all of them sprinting down the hall, a knot of anxious hands and faces. Already an iv drip of saline and another of mild anesthetic had been stealthily slipped into his arm. Even still, he was beginning to lose color again. Quite probably the bloodloss was finally beginning to affect him. Surely the saline and the drugs were working by now. If he lost any more, he’d need a transfusion...not to mention a more powerful anesthetic. That, she knew he probably wouldn’t appreciate.

“If for some reason you should expire,” She said, reaching down to caress his cheek. “Know that I shall raise your corpse and harass you, for I have intimate knowledge of the Sacred Heka, Poet of mine.”

The silver-blue meres glinted a fraction, peering from their alabaster slots like pallid, watery sapphires set in silver. “Doubtless you would, my Bellibones. I take it the two of you overheard me?”

“We did.” Marly said, looking from his bloody side to Viola and back again. “What if I slip these cuffs? What’re you going to do about it? You look deader than some of Grandmama’s best clients. And, oh GEEZ!” She cried, feeling realization smack her in the face again, and not caring if it did. “With all your pretty words, you made me forget...what I wanted to do today...you made me forget...d*mn you, alby!”

“And what is this, mon fille?” The man on the bed managed soothingly, his soft voice faint and breathless. “It was obvious. Did you truly believe, upon learning who and what kind of a man I was, that I would let you kill yourself in front of me? Surely you mustn’t think my brother truly wanted you to expire, not after all that...quality time...you spent together! Don’t be so rash. You are, after all, his creature. That very reason must be why he wrote what he did in his last letter to me...he wanted to tell you...” Almost conveniently he drifted off, his eyelids slipping down like white blinds as the anesthetic pulled him under.

“You knew? YOU KNEW? Snowman! Don’t you die on that table or I swear I’m gonna help her Zombify your sorry *ss!”

Abruptly, Viola Maskelene’s strong hand was tight on Marly’s shoulder, drawing her back before she could run screaming down the hall after the agent’s gurney and its swarming throng of attendants.

“We ought to see to Constance.” The woman said, pulling at her earlobe and smiling broadly. “ I’ll make sure they put him in with her. He’ll want that.” She sighed then, absently sniffing the flowers she’d been holding as though she’d just received them. “Don’t worry. With luck, he might get out of surgery in time for tea!”

(4)

You know you ain’t bad-looking
I like the way you hold your drinks
Come home with me honey
I ain’t asking for no full-length mink
Hey, where you going...
Don’t go yet...
Your glass ain’t empty and we just met
You’re mean when you’re loaded-
I was raised on robbery”

Another sharp intake of breath, timed and deafening, pervaded the little room. Soon, a low murmuring followed, rising above the interrupt like a bright flag flying through the thick haze of war. “Steady now, Constance. That’s it! Tighten the muscles, release them. Tighten, release. Tighten, release...let your whole body flow in and out with your breathing. Ah, yes. But you must remember the knot. Yes, that’s right...concentrate on undoing the...the knot. There! That’s-that’s it. Very good! Very...good, Constance! Extraordinary!” The owner of the voice halted, pausing only briefly to steal a breath for himself before he leaned forward in his seat, one hand white-knuckled and tight on the armrest, the other held fast in a woman’s taut fist.

The woman, his ward Constance, regarded him with pain-dulled eyes, having gained a short reprieve before the need to shove once more gripped her throbbing loins. Then she was pushing again, crushing his long white fingers in a desperate grasp while her swollen womb strained to expel its’ gurgling issue.

Biting back a groan, she jerked him out of the chair in a fit of strain as she drove upward, striving hard against the icy bars of the bedrails. Dimly the man felt the stitches of his wound pull loose with the movement, as the carefully-sewn edges ripped open with the impact of flesh against metal. Soon a warm gush of blood trickled in warning across his tightly-muscled waist, and a building weakness threatened. He hooked an arm through the freezing bars, heaving silently as he struggled to keep himself in the chair. No time to...

All at once, a great gush of thick red fluid spilled from her, and then a pale grey orb of slick flesh, white and blue-veined as an aged cheese, squeezed forth into someone’s blue-papered arms, one of the doctors. Two little hands came next, grey and sweet and flinching with unfocused desire. Lastly, the translucent arms, the pleasing, plump torso, the rounded legs with wrinkled feet no larger than a man’s thumb, came plopping free, and with them came the precious umbilical, that moist, opaque twist of tangled organic cable, then, with finality, the last of the birth-waters saw fit to stain the blue disposables obscuring the whole happy spectacle.

“Your baby, Ms. Green...” Someone said as they cleared the ears and mouth of the scrabbling, cheese-like thing, scrubbing it gingerly with a towel. “...seems to take after its grandfather.”

“Ah, so! Not another quacksalver, I hope!” A soft chuckle issued from the man on the floor, who rested for a moment before he rose, swaying slightly, to regain his seat. “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?”

Constance Green ignored them all, seemingly content to let the squirming newborn gum her fingers until she could offer up her teat. Her taut, swollen breasts, plump and teeming with milk, were firm and warm beneath the child’s pale, tiny body, but the baby seemed happy curling toes against her chin. Already the little thing was worn out, a fact very much in evidence as she was soon snuggling the infant into the crook of her slender arm for a nap. “Aloysius?” She asked, stopping in her languid motions. “Do you want to hold the baby?”

“My dear, you are perfection!” Pendergast cried smoothly as he gazed at them both, limbs heavy with fatigue. “Naturally, the dotard grand-père would like nothing more, but alas! He cannot.”

Everyone stopped moving for a moment, all eyes fixing on the agent where he sat holding to the arm of the chair as though he were a hunted rabbit ready to bolt.

Constance stared hard at his face, taking in every flawless, unlined plane, as though searching for some sort of wickedness, some bleak, vestigial shadow of indifference, some fragment of malice. But blessed absence was in his eyes, and so she reached up to touch his abnormally flushed face, clasping his cool, gaunt cheek with gentle fingers. He was sweating, and... “You don’t look well. Is the gunshot wound troubling you?”

Pendergast smiled wanly in acknowledgement, then drew back the hem of his black dressing gown to reveal the wound, which had torn open and was bleeding a little. “While it’s certainly not nothing, compared to your great feat, it might as well be. I’m fine.” He winced, grinning as he looked at her. “It happened when I struck the bars. A bit of carelessness. I would laugh, but...” He murmured, casting mournful silver slits toward her bunting dreamer. “...as you can see, I’m no longer in stitches.”

Marly, calm and quiet in the corner, nearly choked on a bite of pie. “Ha ha. Stupid alby.” She said, as she came close enough to smell the blood on his skin. The red stuff reeked of new pennies, a warm, deep, greenish scent, reminding her of Digi and all his crazy babble-talk about colors. “Mother! Yo’ face be whiter’n the Betty Whip on my banana cream! Now what’s up with that? Huh? You ought to get yo bleach- *ss butt back in that bed, or sumthin. Don’ make me come up in yo’ face.”

Pendergast winced, half from pain and half from Marly’s willful mangling of the language.

“I’m sorry, beloved, but I’m inclined to agree with her. You really shouldn’t be moving about so much after surgery.” Viola said, smiling sympathetically as she settled her hands on her hips in a decidedly unsympathetic manner.

Constance merely held up the call button and pushed it so he could see. “A nurse should be here shortly to mend your stitching, Aloysius. Do have a care toward how irritable they can be when you don’t comply. You do remember the incident with Miss Swanson some months back? I believe you likened it to your brief sojourn at Herkmore. And yet, you keep returning...”

“Ah, yes. The staff here are somewhat reminiscent of my short incarceration...which, I gather, is the point. Very well. Bonne nuit!” With a languid sigh he pushed himself up from his chair, swaying a little, then slowly walked the ten or so steps to his side of the room and lay down in bed, eyes closed, body slack, feet crossed at the ankles.

Three minutes later, when the nurse came to redress the wound, he seemed asleep, and remained so long after she had gone.

Drawing the curtain part-way between the two sections of room, Viola let her hand slip over his hair, briefly so as not to waken him, but eager just the same to feel his living warmth beneath her fingers. That reassurance was enough to make her weep. She could have, except...But the sleeping man stirred then, shifting slightly on the thick, comfortable mattress as if reacting to the thoughts of those around him. And indeed he could have been, for he opened his eyes a fraction, just enough to catch a glimpse of her as she sat at the edge of the bed, smiling down at him. Almost in unison they turned their attentions to the two women on the other side of the curtain, listening.

Marly looked at the child with its mother, both lying on the bed closest to where she sat. “I know Digi done you wrong, but man! You can’t let him get to you. Sure he’s dead, but he still knows how to rile a sister. He was just...really...Aw, shoo! You got any names picked out yet? Snowman’s playing dead and Lady M’s pulling a Juliet at his bedside, so no help there. You got me though. What say we try to nail down some good ones after you and the sproglet get some sleep?”

“Well, I...I suppose I am still considering, Miss Stevens.” Constance said with the faintest of smiles, settling her child at her breast as if there were no one else in the room. “In any case, it seems you and I have much to discuss, so-I don’t see why not.” Moderate and yet commanding, her tone distinctly reminded Marly of a certain butter-tongued Fed...

Hidden by the shadow of the curtain, the agent’s thin white lips arched in the faintest of smiles as he gazed at his wife. “My! After this day, one should recall the opening scene of Macbeth with a special fondness...” He whispered, grateful for Viola’s hot hand as it lay over his newly-dressed wound, which had begun to ache.

“You’re an abysmal terror, Aloysius. Really and truly. A wicked, wicked man.”

“Yes, but I’m Your terror. And please, don’t say abysmal. The abyss and I have no wish to maintain relations. Besides, I can’t be wicked-I have a grandchild! Of sorts.”

“Oh what rubbish! What unpregnant vaniloquence, and from a twychild, a propinquitous quacksalver! By rights I ought should kiss the smirk from your face, but you’re hardly fit to object...”

“Unfortunately, my dearest, I have to agree with you. A sterile tomb such as this is no place for any sort of dalliance. Ah, woe...as such endearments I’d have gained, but for accubitus refrain!” He placed his hand over hers, tracing her fingers with his own in sympathy. “Viola.” He whispered, eyes holding her own, affixed on their shared yearning. “There could be all of time for us, if you so wished...” She stared at him, drinking in the mystery of this new admission as though its enigmatic charisma were the sweetest of wines.

But suddenly, a swoosh displaced them from their captured moment, namely the sound of the privacy curtain shooting back into its recess. Marly stood in the gap, glowering at them.

“Dang you two! Get a room.”

But Pendergast’s eyes were closed, and Viola Maskelene was sitting sedately on the side of the bed, arms folded casually across her lap.

“You can’t tell me Alby’s asleep! Not after all that...verbal smooching. Y’all are actin’ the fool.”

Viola turned, checked his pulse with two fingers against his wrist. “This churl? Hardly...look at him, sleeping there as if he hadn’t just been shot a few hours ago! I can tell he’s exhausted, though.”

“Yeah...your marito’s a real whack-job.”

The woman grinned then, and with a last look at her husband sleeping on the bed beside her, she held out her hand in greeting. “Yes, but...would we have him any other way?”

Marly took the hand, shook it with a sigh, maneuvering the carry-out box in spite of the handcuffs. “I guess not. After all, I did love Digi. Y’all are my kind of people, even if ya are touched in tha head. Here’s to ya’ll.” She raised her first two fingers in a V, for Venus...or maybe just for the three of them having found each other. Then she glanced over at Constance, who was watching them wordlessly. “Hey, Baby-Girl! You be wantin some pie, ‘cause seriously! We be like Marly’s Angels up in the house, heah.”

“Very well.” Constance said flatly, lips parting in vague amusement as her mouth barely eased into a smile. “Just don’t wake the child.” Then her eyes lowered, sliding over the calm, quiescent form of her guardian, who was resting fitfully in the nearby bed. “...either of them.”

While the three women fought to stifle their snickering, the odd one out found occasion to open one eye, barely a sliver of silver, and cast a brief, fond glance their way before slipping back into the meditations meant to disengage pain from flesh so he could sleep. “Double, double, toil and trouble, fires burn and cauldrons bubble, indeed.” He murmured inwardly, as peaceful darkness once again encircled the bridge match he’d been playing in his head. “Was the girl nothing more than your rather roundabout way of showing disapproval –or was it approval- of Viola, Frater Minor?” He asked himself, alone in the dark with the visage of a boy of seven. “Pish. I am no Macbeth, and thusly do not agree with your assessment of our situation. In any case, I really ought to settle in for a doze somewhen. So Vale, Frater...Vale, Ave, Vale.” And with that, the man on the bed truly did sleep well, perhaps for the first time in years...

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