999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [117]
“Yes,” I said. “That’s just what it is. Heavenly.” Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead and upper Up. “Lily—”
She turned her eyes on me. “Yes?”
“I love you.”
“I know, Billy. I know.”
I put my head on her stomach and we held each other for a long time. Then, very weakly, she said my name. I could feel the vibrations go through my entire body.
“Don’t wish for Donnatella to love you any more than she does,” Lily whispered. “Don’t regret what you had with her.”
“But it’s over.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “It’s over. But look to what lies ahead.”
“I don’t know what lies ahead.”
“Yes,” she whispered in a voice that had become all but insubstantial, “but that’s the point, isn’t it?”
I wept then, for her and for me—but also for us, for what we had had so briefly that was now gone. Gone without my being with her at the end. How I envied Donnatella! How I appreciated her anew for the good and loyal friend she had been to Lily!
When I opened my eyes I saw that I was in the alley behind Helicon. In my hand was a lotus flower of the purest white. As I touched its delicate petals, I knew this was what Lily had left me as proof that our time together had been no bizarre hallucination brought on by temporary madness or the mescal.
I suddenly thought of Mike. I jerked open the back door and rushed inside, ready to call 911.
“Hey, buddy,” Mike said from his accustomed place behind the bar, “that was a helluva piss you took.”
Stupefied, I merely blinked at him. “What?” Where were the smashed bottles and mirror, the bullet holes and the blood? Mike’s blood.
“But, goddamn— You’re okay—” I was trying not to stammer.
“Except for a shitload of bills I have to pay, of course I am,” Mike said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you were dead, that’s why!” I looked around wildly. “Where’s the crazy black guy with the machine pistol?”
“The only crazy guy I see is you. You’re the only one’s been in here this morning.” Mike gave me the fish-eye. “You know, you’ve already had two mescals. Maybe that’s enough till you get some breakfast in you. I’ll fry you up some eggs.”
I peered into my favorite booth, looking for the empty glass I’d left there, but there was nothing on the table save liquor rings, reminders of binges past. “But I’ve already had three drinks.”
“Yeah?” Mike shoveled grease to the back of the griddle with a blackened spatula. He cracked open a couple of eggs and they started to sizzle. “Then you started drinking at home, my son, ‘cause you’ve only had two here.”
“Wait a minute.” I was turning the lotus flower around and around, thinking about Lily and what the power of her mind had been able to achieve. “What time is it?”
Mike, still with a puzzled look on his face, glanced at his watch. “Ten twenty-eight.”
“It’s Monday morning, right?”
Poor Mike looked as if he didn’t know whether to tend the eggs or call the boys at Bellevue. “Yeah, right. Why?”
“I don’t know,” I told him. But possibly I did. The call from Herman had come at ten-thirty. It seemed as if I was back at the moment before it all began. Could this have been the final extraordinary act Lily had performed with her mind, to give us both a chance to be together one last time before she died? “But I’ve got a funny feeling the phone is going to ring.”
“Yeah, right,” he guffawed. “And my name’s Rudolph W. Giuliani.
The phone rang, and Mike started. “Jesus Christ,” he said, staring at me.
“Maybe I ought to answer it.” I reached for the phone and heard Herman’s voice. Yep, that’s exactly what she had done. I looked at Mike and winked. “It’s for me.”
Tim Powers
ITINERARY
I consider Tim Powers a new friend, since I made his acquaintance only through my pursuit of his work for this book. We hit it off immediately, and his editor at Avon only hates me a