Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [166]
"That's enough gloomy thinking," he told himself firmly as he reached the tavern door. "In an hour I'll be snuggled up with Daphne, all the better for a brisk stroll in the night air." He adjusted a look of amused complacency on his face, shook out his cloak, and stepped into the warmth and beery aroma of the Axe and Dragon.
2
A bed of coals glowing in the ox-sized fireplace dimly illuminated the long, low room, the plank tables ranked along one side, the wine and ale kegs along the other. But for the silent bartender behind the trestle bar, the place seemed deserted, until a large figure rose among the shadows at the rear.
"Over dis way, bub!" a hearty voice growled. "Take a load off duh dogs, an' we'll hoist a few in membry o' duh old days!"
"Red Bull!" Lafayette exclaimed, ducking his head under the low, age-blackened beams. "I thought it would be you!" He clasped the calloused hand of the big man who beamed at him, his little red-rimmed eyes agleam in his lumped, scarred face. There was a little gray now, Lafayette noticed, in the bristly red thatch above the cauliflowered ears. Otherwise the soft life hadn't changed the former outlaw.
"Where've you been keeping yourself?" Lafayette demanded as he took the proffered chair. "I haven't seen you in a year or more."
"Take a tip from a pal," the Red Bull said sadly as he poured wine into O'Leary's glass. "Stay away from dem hick jails."
"You haven't been up to your old tricks?" Lafayette demanded in a severe tone. "I thought you'd reformed, Red Bull."
"Naw—dey nabs me on account of I was astride a nag which it had some udder mug's brand on. But, geeze, youse know how all dese bay mares look alike on duh parking lot."
"I warned you about your casual view of property rights," Lafayette said. "The first night we met—right here at this very table."
"Yeah—I picked duh spot for duh sentimental associations," the big man acknowledged. He sighed. "Youse had duh right idear, chum: youse give up duh cutpurse racket and went straight, and now—"
"Are you back on that old idea?" Lafayette said sharply. "I was never a cutpurse. I don't know how you got that impression—"
"Dat's right, pal, don't admit nothing." The Red Bull winked, a grotesque twisting of battered features. "It'll be our little secret dat youse used to be duh Phantom Highwayman, duh dream spector o' duh moors."
"That's a lot of rubbish, Red Bull," Lafayette said, sampling his wine. "Just because the first time you saw me I was wearing a coat of claret velvet and breeches of brown doeskin—"
"Yeah, an' dey fitted wit' never a wrinkle, right? An' dey come up to your thigh. An' yuh had a French cocked hat on your forehead, and a bunch of lace at your chin—"
"That doesn't mean a thing! It just happened to be what I conjured up—I mean," he corrected, seeing that he was about to complicate matters: the Red Bull would never understand the Focusing of the Psychic Energies. "I mean, I actually intended to wear a gray suit and a Homburg, but something went a little awry, and—"
"Sure, sure, I heard all dat sweet jazz before, pal. Anyways, I seen by duh papers dis would be a night when duh moon would be like a ghostly galleon, and duh wind would be a torrent o' darkness, an' all, so I sez—"
"Will you come to the point?" Lafayette snapped. "It's actually long after my bedtime, and—"
"Sure, chum. Drink your wine whilst I fill youse in. It's like dis, see? I'm ankling along duh pike, on my way back from duh burg where dey hung duh frame on me, an' I'm overtook by nightfall. So I seeks