Glimmering

At one end of the room a dance floor had been set up. A technician sat behind an array of computers and other equipment. Six black-clad women crossed the dance floor, carrying musical instruments, sat beside him, and began tuning up. Two violins, two kotos, viola, and cello. They started to play, a heartbreakingly plangent melody. Jack stood, listening, turned away as they launched into a more familiar piece.

People were getting seated now. Waiters moved gracefully, pouring wine, setting out decanters of sake and cast-iron teapots. The wall of lights dimmed to a bluish glow as Jack found Table Seven.

The other guests’ names had been painted in gold leaf on porcelain tablets. Jack saw none that he recognized. His own was written in a swooping calligraphic hand—Mr. John Finnegan—on a square of thick handmade paper. He took his seat, leaned over to read the china place card at the setting to his right.

MR. PETER STILLMAN LOOMIS

He was wondering who Peter Stillman Loomis was, when a hand tattooed with death’s-heads and flaming trees plucked the bit of porcelain from its holder and replaced it with another.

MR. LEONARD THROPE

He whirled and saw Leonard step over to the neighboring table. There Leonard shuffled several more place cards, grabbed a bottle of champagne from a silver bucket, and ambled back.

“Hello, Jackie-boy.” He yanked out the chair beside Jack and slid into it, leathers creaking, chains and amulets tinkling. “May I join you?”

“I guess so. I guess you’re invited?”

“Long before you were.” Leonard raised a gold-bedecked eyebrow at Jack’s place card. “Paper and ink. How quaint.” He laughed, baring white sharp teeth like a fox’s, and clapped a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “So! You actually got here. Congratulations. I’m amazed. I didn’t think you’d really come.”

Jack shook his head. “Leonard, listen to me. Julie’s dead. He—he—”

Leonard’s grin tightened into a grimace. “I know.” He stared at his fingers, the network of scars and interlacing coils, reached out and covered Jack’s hand with his own. “Emma called me. To help her with some of the police stuff. They had him pegged as some kind of fucking terrorist or something. Julie. Can you imagine? I called a couple of people, to help her out. To figure out what the hell to do with the body, how to get him back to Westchester. She was going to go to your house, Jackie—we could only get an ambulance to take him that far.”

“To Lazyland?”

“Yeah. I have no idea what’ll happen from there. What a mess. What a goddamn mess.” Leonard sighed. “Christ, Jackie. Just thee and me, now, and I’m not so sure about thee.”

Jack sat in silence. In the background the sextet played, strings chased by the kotos’ plangent notes. The thought of Emma at Lazyland soothed him, despite his grief. Doctor Duck calming Keeley and Mrs. Iverson, tending to Marz even as she laid out her own dead husband…

“Oh God.” He covered his eyes.

“Poor Jackie.” Leonard put an arm around him. “It’s okay, Jackie, it’s okay—”

“Of course it’s not okay.” Jack looked at Leonard. “Nothing’s fucking okay. You know that.”

“Of course I know that. I’ve always known that.” Leonard’s eyes grew hard. He reached for Jack’s champagne and downed it at a gulp. “It’s poor idiots like you, just now catching on—you’re the ones having a bad time.” His placebit glittered as he poured another glassful. “End of the fucking end, Jackie-boy. Might as well whoop it up.”

At the table more people were seating themselves, glancing companionably at each other and making introductions. Leonard ignored them, and for once Jack sided with him. “So. Are you alone?”

Leonard made a rude sound. “Am I ever alone? No. But tonight—you’ll like this, Jackie—tonight I found this poor lost soul, this Xian kid who thinks he’s got a lawsuit or something against Agrippa Music for stealing his intellectual property. Broke my heart, let me tell you. I was going to bring him in, but then I decided, probably not such a great idea. So he’s waiting out in the limo. Otnay ootay ightbray, if you take my meaning.” He tilted back in his chair. “But he’s cute.”

Jack gave him a disgusted look. “Glad I asked.” He lowered his voice. “Something else happened. I met someone, a woman named Nellie Candry—”

“I know Nellie Candry.”

“She’s dead.”

Leonard’s green-flecked eyes closed, after a beat opened again. They would not meet Jack’s gaze. “She’s dead,” Leonard said at last.

Jack nodded. “Blue Antelope,” said Leonard.

“No. She killed herself. Before they could get to her, I guess. Some kind of—I don’t know, a poison capsule.”

Behind them the music soared, Shostakovich’s Fifteenth with kotos. A plate was set before Jack, curls of green and pearl pink, an octopus no bigger than his thumbnail.

“Yummy,” said Leonard. He picked up his chopsticks and pushed desultorily at his plate. “She knew they were going to kill her. They found out she defected.”