Doc - Mary Doria Russell [45]
“The pair of them don’t bear thinking of, now, do they, Kate?” Eddie remarked. “She must ride that bull or risk being squashed flat!”
Kate hooted. Morgan snickered. Alexander choked on his drink.
Eddie clapped his hands and pointed at the priest. “Got you good with that one, now, didn’t I, Father!” Just then, the comedian’s eye was caught by the tall and sparely built young man entering the restaurant. In the voice that filled the Commie-Q twice nightly, Eddie Foy announced, “And here’s himself at last!”
Kate’s face lit up, only to darken in a mixture of wifely concern and fury. Like everyone else in the room, Alexander had turned toward the door.
The newcomer was in his mid-twenties, slim in well-tailored silver-gray. Freshly barbered, with a neatly trimmed imperial mustache, he was also visibly fatigued and leaned on a walking stick that was not merely a fashionable accessory. Shaking hands, murmuring greetings, he occasionally paused in these brief conversations to cough into a square of fine cotton cloth.
When he came even with Mr. and Mrs. Hoover, he learned that they were leaving. His disappointment at this news might have been just a shade too sincere. When he glanced at Kate, one eye twitched ever so slightly in what might have been a wink.
Uncharmed, Kate snarled, “Just look at him! He’s exhausted, goddammit.”
Alexander tried for diplomatic neutrality. “So! This must be your husband at last!”
“That’s Doc,” she confirmed, but her tone implied correction. With drunken hauteur, Kate lifted her head and chose High German. “My husband left me the day that he discovered I was pregnant, Hochwürden. Oh, the baby wasn’t his,” she admitted breezily, speaking now in the language of the brothels, “but the bastard didn’t know that when he left me high and dry.” She looked at the priest, and then at the other two—the Irishman and Bessie’s brother-in-law—and laughed at their dismay. “And that makes my husband a no-good goddam lying sonofabitch! Doesn’t it!”
“Kate, darlin’,” Doc said, now standing just behind her. “What a remarkable line of conversation you have opened!” He leaned over to kiss the back of her neck and spoke into her ear. “Is there any of Kentucky’s finest left? I was hopin’ for a drink myself.”
Slightly breathless, the young gentleman then reached across the table to offer his hand. “Father von Angensperg, I presume. John Holliday. An honor, sir. Johnnie Sanders spoke highly of you.”
Roughing the Edges
Alexander stood. “Dr. Holliday, you have been far too generous, but I am very grateful for your thoughtful—”
“Don’t mention it, sir! It was the least I could do for the man who educated John Horse Sanders.” Doc straightened and glanced toward the noisy crowd. “Would y’all mind, I wonder, if we were to move to a quieter table? I am happy when my guests enjoy themselves, but it has been a longer day than I anticipated. I don’t have a lot of shout left in me.”
Naturally, everyone agreed. Doc nodded to the manager, who hurried off to ready a table that was tucked into an alcove in the back, where the clamor of the party would be muffled.
“Dr. Holliday,” Alexander urged, “please, sit while we are waiting.”
“You are very kind, sir, but if I go down now, you’ll have to winch me out of the chair,” Doc admitted with weary good humor. Kate started to say something tart. Like a man calming a skittish horse with a touch, he ran his fingers lightly down her neck until his palm rested on her bared shoulder. “Miss Kate tells me the Angenspergs are from the Ansfelden region. Bruckner was born there, was he not?”
“Why, yes! I’m astonished that you have heard of him, or of Ansfelden!”
“My mamma insisted that I study some of his work, but Bruckner was one composer upon whom we disagreed.” Doc took the cigarette from between Kate’s lips and brought it to his own. Squinting through smoke, he said, “I hope I will not offend you when I say that I keep waitin’ for that man to get to the point, myself, but he never seems to arrive.”
“Yes,”