Part 28 (1/2)
The lull that this observation introduced into their talk was filled all of a sudden by a dark purple stirring in the sky all around the and fa lasses on the bar
”Jeez,” Bacon said, getting up from the table ”Thunder”
He went over to the s and looked out Sa Bacon by the ar in from the southeast”
They stood side by side, shoulders pressed together, watching the slow black zeppelin as it steahtning Thunder harried the building like a hound, brushi+ng its crackling coat against the spandrels andat the panes
”It seehter fluttered in Bacon's voice Sammy saw that he was afraid
”Yeah,” Saarette, and at the spark of his lighter, Bacon ju all h the summer”
”Huh,” Bacon said He took a s froundy, then licked his lips ”And I am relaxed”
”Sorry”
”That stuff doesn't ever, you know, hit the building”
”Five times so far this year, I think it is”
”Oh my God”
”Relax”
”Shut up”
”They've recorded strokes that werethis building”
”Tenlike that”
”Jesus”
”Don't worry,” Saantic- Oh” Bacon's breath was sour ine, but one sweet drop of the stuff lingered on his lips as he pressed his ainst Sammy's The stubble on their chins scraped with a soft electric rasp Sammy was so taken by surprise that by the time his brain with its considerable store of Judeo-Christian prohibitions and attitudes could begin sending its harsh and condees to the various relevant parts of his body, it was too late He was already kissing Tracy Bacon back They angled their bodies half toward each other The bottle of wine clinked against theglass Saers He let the cigarette drop to the floor Then the sky just beyond the as veined with fire, and they heard a sizzle that sounded alriddle, and then a thunderclap trapped the rod,” said Sa away As if in spite of all he had been told one evening last week by the bland and reassuring Dr Karl B MacEachron of General Electric, who had been studying the electrical atmospheric pheno, fro that struck the sky, he was suddenly afraid He took a step back froarette, and sought refuge by unconsciously adopting the dry manner of Dr MacEachron hi attracts but then totally dissipates the discharge”
”I'ht”
”I didn't mean to-, look at that”
Bacon pointed to the deserted proht blue liquid, viscous and turbulent, seemed to flow Sammy opened the door and reached out into the ozone-sharp darkness, and then Bacon caain and put out his hand, too, and they stood there, for aforked fro the roup of amateurs known as the Warlocks, men with more or less literary careers who met twice a month at the bar of the Edison Hotel to baffle one another with drink, tall stories, and novel deceptions The definition of ”literary” had been stretched, in Joe's case, to include work in the coh his reat Walter B Gibson, biographer of Houdini and inventor of the Shadow, that Joe had coular attendee of the Edison confabulations Welles was also, as it turned out, a friend of Tracy Bacon, whose first work in New York had been with the Mercury Theatre, playing the role of Algernon in Welles's radio production of The I Earnest Between Joe and Bacon, they had et four tickets to the premiere of Welles's first filet four tickets to the premiere of Welles's first film
”So what's he like?” Sauy,” Rosa said She had briefly met the tall, baby-faced actor one afternoon when she dropped by the Edison bar to ht she had sensed in him a kindred spirit, a romantic, someone whose efforts to shock other people were,else, the expression of a kind of hopefulness about himself, of a desire to escape the confines of a decent respectable hoone uptown to see the boo, voodooistic Macbeth, Macbeth, and she had loved it ”I really think he's a genius” and she had loved it ”I really think he's a genius”
”You think everyone's a genius You think this guy's a genius,” Saer
”I don't think you you are,” she said sweetly are,” she said sweetly
”True genius is never recognized in its own time”
”Except by the one who has it,” Bacon said ”Orson has no doubts on that score”
They were all headed uptown together, crammed into the back of a taxicab Sarip on Sammy's arm She had come from the offices of the TRA and was dressed, with a dowdiness that pained her considerably, in a square-shouldered, belted broeed suit, of a vaguely military cut She had been dressed like a schoolteacher the last ti to think that Joe Kavalier's girlfriend was about as fascinating as a sack of onions Sae Raft filuin suit-he took the part of h, to his credit, that see he did did take seriously And Joe, of course, looked as if he had just fallen out of a hedge There hite paint in his hair It looked as though he had used the end of his necktie to blot an ink spill take seriously And Joe, of course, looked as if he had just fallen out of a hedge There hite paint in his hair It looked as though he had used the end of his necktie to blot an ink spill
”He is a clever fellow,” Joe said ”But not so good aDolores Del Rio?” Bacon said ”That's what I want to know”
”I wonder,” Joe said, though he see blue tonight, Rosa knew Hoff finally reached Lisbon a feeeks previously, was to have reeraent of the TRA in Portugal Three of the children had come doith measles; one of them was dead Today they had received word that the entire convent of Nossa Senhora de Monte Carmelo had been put on an ”absolute but indefinite quarantine” by the Portuguese authorities
”I thought you you were dating Dolores Del Rio, Bake,” Sa Dolores Del Rio, Bake,” Sammy said ”That's what it said in Ed Sullivan”
”It was Lupe Velez”
”I mix those two up”
”Anyway, you know better than to believe what you read in the papers”
”Like, for instance, that Parnassus Pictures plans to bring funny-book strong man the Escapist to the silver screen in the person of noted radio star Mr Tracy Bacon?”
”Are they?” Rosa said they?” Rosa said
”It's only going to be one of those serials,” serials,” Bacon said ”Parnassus They're froer”
”Joe,” Rosa said, ”you didn't tell me”
”It doesn'tout at the neon-and-stea past the s of the cab A woman walked by hat looked like the tails of at least nine little dead weasels dangling froet a penny”
Sa hiave Sammy's arm a squeeze She hadn't had a chance to tell Saave Sammy's arm a squeeze She hadn't had a chance to tell Saram from Lisbon