Last Call (Last Call 1)

Snayheever had lost weight; his skull shone through his feverish skin, and Crane could faintly see a red aura flickering around the young man's angular body. The wounded arm was still twitching. Then Snayheever's bright eyes lit on Diana, and he grunted as though he'd been hit and fell to his knees. "Eye of the flamingo," he said, "not the crow. I've found you at last, Mother."

After a moment Diana walked over to him, ignoring Mavranos's bark of warning, and touched Snayheever's greasy hair. "Stand up," she said.

Snayheever got to his feet—awkwardly, for his left leg had started jerking. "The other one will find you and kill you," he said, "if I don't stop him. But I will. It's what I have left to do." He tugged at the lapels of his corduroy coat. "A coat I borrowed from James Dean, and I'll sing there for the two of you, like a bird, like a lovely little stork that wheels in circling flight, right? Hemingway said that. Flight makes right and he'll bite. You could say that. I've got my finger on the pulse, jammed behind the license plate, and it's at the penstocks and spillways and floodgates. And he wants to let the spinning wheel go circling around another twenty years, since he's got a busted nose now—a tweaked beak—and no Queen. He's gonna squawk on the wave band so nobody can hear anything until it's too late, and he'll dirty up the bath water so it's too screwed up for anyone else to use at all. Ray-Joe, it's a sad salvation."

"He's talking about my brother," said Nardie, "and it makes sense."

"Sure, he's got my vote," growled Mavranos, his hand obviously tight on the grip of the gun in the bag. "Diana, will you get away from him?"

Diana stepped back and stood beside Crane.

"He means that my brother is at Hoover Dam," said Nardie tensely, "and that Ray-Joe is going to try to postpone the succession, the coronation, the King's resurrection in the new bodies—let the cycle go around again, with no issue this time. It's what Ray-Joe would do; if I did break his nose, he can't become the King this time around. You've got to be physically perfect to do that, and he'll still have a couple of black eyes and be all puffy, okay? So he's going to … generate some kind of damping psychic noise, to drown out the King's signal, and then I think spiritually pollute the water, and everybody will have to wait another twenty years for all this to be ripe again. By then the old King will probably be dead, not having been able to get into any new bodies, and Ray-Joe will have had time to groom another Queen, probably right from birth—and he'll be able to just step right up to the throne and … sit right down."

"God," said Crane, trying to keep the eager relief out of his voice, "is that so bad? If your brother screws it up so that my father can't do his tricks this year, then I won't lose my body. And we can all just go home, can't we? And I'll have twenty years to think up what to do when finally his … hour comes round at last."

Nardie stared at him. "Yes, that's right," she said. "But you won't have a wife. Ray-Joe will have found Diana and killed her, like this guy says. Ray-Joe would never want somebody like her for his Queen, and just by being alive, she'd be a big problem, okay?"

"The phone is for calling room service," said Snayheever, pointing at the bitten telephone on the bedside table. "You order … foods, your various items from a menu, and you eat them. What you don't do is eat the telephone." He nodded emphatically. "He'll try to eat me, I shouldn't wonder. I always have a dog. For now he barks all night long at the end of his tether."

He looked up at Diana. "This son came here to, as you would say, because he wanted to say good-bye to his mother," he said softly. "We won't meet again."

Diana's eyes were wet as she again ignored Mavranos's shout and crossed to Snayheever and hugged him, and Crane knew she was thinking about Scat and Oliver.

"Good-bye," she said a moment later as she released him and stepped back.

"It's not an easy thing," Snayheever said, "being a son." He turned his hot gaze on Crane. "I forgive you, Dad."

Crane looked at the grimy, stained bandage at the end of the shaking arm, and he nodded, acknowledging that he was grateful to have the forgiveness.

Then Snayheever had turned and limped out into the hall.

Mavranos, his hand still in the canvas bag, crossed to the door and closed it. "Lotta fucked-up people wandering around," he said quietly. He turned to Nardie. "Your brother's at the dam, right? And if he disarms the old man's clock, he's gonna come looking for Diana."

"That's it."

Mavranos sighed and touched the bandanna around his neck. "One more day," he said. "I guess I'm going to the dam. Anybody need a ride south?"

Diana looked at him solemnly. "Thank you, Arky. I wish—"

Mavranos gave her a dismissing wave. "None of us exactly like doing what we're doing. I'll stop at a pet store on the way and get me a goldfish, just for luck. How about the ride?"