Part 16 (1/2)

”No tricks,” I answered. ”I have too much to lose.”

Odin got more for his eye than I did. But I got more than I deserved.

I lifted my eye patch up.

He didn't recoil. I guess Eli Powers had seen worse things than a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He leaned forward, staring into my eye socket.

I saw him doubled, Martin's face overlaid by the ghost-visage of Eli in my otherwise sight. He reached out and laid fingertips against the side of my face like Mr. Spock setting up for a mind meld. Branka pulled back, two wobbling steps, and I think Stewart would have grabbed Powers's wrist if I hadn't stopped him with an upraised hand.

”Take it,” I said, and waited to see what would follow.

There was no sensation, except where manicured fingernails scratched my cheek and the orbit of my eye. He squinted at me, and as he did so, I thought of Eli Powers, everything I knew about him, the names of his wives and children and casinos, the racketeering charges against Martin, the rumors of infidelity and Mafia involvement, the newspaper articles and photographs, the dog he had back in the sixties with the one lop ear.

The dog.

The dog with the white patch on his head.

Whose dog was that, anyway?

And then the churn and bubble, and I felt something else slip out of me. Jeff Soble, what was left of him, jumped between us like a bridging spark. When he hit, I saw Powers jerk, start for half a second before he recovered himself and gagged Soble down. The Babylon Casino. And then unrelated things. The Mirage tigers. The Zane Floyd shooting. Endless construction. Airplanes stacked twelve deep across a fight-night sky. A Sting concert with three-hundred-dollar tickets. What's-her-name, the one who sang the theme from t.i.tanic.

I fed him everything, everything I was, everything I knew. Everything about Las Vegas, city at the bottom a dead Ordovician sea. More than he could withstand. More than anything mortal could withstand, knowledge I had to die to contain. A kind of metaphysical judo, using his own strength against him, until I felt him try to pull away and fail, thrash like a gaffed fish.

Eli Powers was not used to fighting anything as old and deep and nasty as himself. But holding the deed to a dragon's cave is not the same as owning the dragon. I clutched him and fed him my city until he choked on it. I made him Las Vegas. I made him me.

I fed him more and more-a kind of spiral, sc.r.a.ping, dizzying-and then when he could swallow no more, I reached down into him and made a fist and dragged it all back out again.

Stewart grabbed Powers by the hair and shoved him away.

”Stewart-” I moved to jump in front of him, to get my body between the men with the bullets and Stewart's body. Suicide by gunman might be far enough from the intent of his gift to kill him outright. And I'm the one with the faultless luck. If one of us was going to be shot, I wanted it to be me.

He grabbed my shoulder and held me still. ”Shh,” he said. ”Look.”

I looked.

There was a man I didn't recognize, pus.h.i.+ng himself off the expensive carpeting with rug burns on his hands. Branka, arms wrapped over her cardigan, was still swaying side to side.

And a whole bunch of security guys, standing in a huddle, one gesticulating while the others listened. The quarterback glanced up, cut himself off, and at his gesture, the rest broke away. They approached sternly, but a little sideways, and I realized that they didn't know where we had come from.

”I'm sorry, sir,” the one in front of me said, ”but you can't be here.”

Another man picked the strange guy up, stared at him with furrowed brow for a moment, and said, ”Excuse me, may I see some identification, please?”

We caught a taxi in the horseshoe in front of Babylon. Security escorted us out but were nice enough not to toss us so we bounced. Branka sat in the front seat beside the driver, and Stewart let me rest my head on his shoulder while the palm trees lining the driveway scrolled past on both sides like a green-screen effect. We stopped at the light at the bottom of the driveway while a flock of tourists stampeded across, and Stewart said, ”You forgot about him.”

”Stewart? Forgot about who?”

He shook his head. ”Never mind. I think I'd rather you didn't remember.” He bent down and kissed the top of my head.

I wondered if I was drunk. I didn't like the way I felt. The taxicab was spinning.

Stewart, at least, was warm and solid, even if he was raving. ”I wish you were making sense.”

”I know,” he said. ”I was just wondering, what do you think happens to the stuff we forget? You and me. The bits of Las Vegas even we don't remember.”

”I've been forgetting things lately,” I said.

”That's over with.”

”Does it not exist anymore, if I've forgotten it? Or is it still there, just n.o.body notices?”

He shrugged. ”I bet it's still there.”

Some guy lurched up the sidewalk outside, looking roughed up. His suit had been expensive; his tie was silk. They were both ripped now. I wondered if he'd gotten mugged, or bounced by casino security.

n.o.body but me seemed to notice him.

I turned away. Not my job. Not my job to notice him or rescue him. You cannot save everyone; you'll go mad trying. And anyway, it's not what cities do.

I said, ”Why is it that we get so invested in our history, anyway? Why do we fight to preserve those old photographs and ancient keepsakes, just so our children can throw them away when they clear the house? We could just let go, blow wide. Be clean.”

”Jackie-”

I turned my face into Stewart's shoulder and said, ”I killed myself.”

He nodded. ”I know.”

I closed my eyes. ”It was nice not to remember it for a little while.”

He rearranged us to put an arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into the embrace. ”Memory is all we are,” Stewart said softly, and reached up to stroke my hair.

Seven Dragons.

Mountains.

”Ming-feng says she saw a dragon over the bay when she went for tea three nights ago.”

”Ming-feng.” Chueh-hsin pressed fingertips into velvety dough and did not look at his honored customer. Tacky-surfaced circles took shape under his caress; they would soon be stuffed with aromatic ginger, with green onion and tiny shrimp and fat pork. ”Your Ming-feng, Mr. Long? Her master sends her all the way around the bay for his special blend?”

”He does.” The honored customer sipped his tea and smiled, bending his long neck to watch his lunch prepared. ”All the way to the tea-shop by the English Governor's palace on the other side of the island. Still, the walking keeps her legs pretty.”

Chueh-hsin laughed, tasting the scent of peanut and sesame oil and the tang of roasted chilies. He stopped himself from looking into the kitchen to call for a fresh pot of tea. There was no one but himself to serve the customers in the small restaurant now, and so he sighed and patted the last dumpling wrapper flat. He glanced past the honored customer, beyond the row of long-necked ducks hung dried along the edge of the awning. Chueh-hsin squinted into the light as if his gaze might pierce the soaring steel, marble, and gla.s.s towers and cross the bay to the rolling green backs of the auspicious Seven Dragons Mountains, and he might glimpse a dragon of his own.

The canyon of the street darkened, but it was no sacred animal's pa.s.sing that he noted: only the shadow of one of the ever-present dirigibles. The fountain in the restaurant behind the honored customer splashed; Chueh-hsin leaned forward, and caught a glimpse of a k.n.o.bby, jade-dark serpentine head slipping back below the surface.

Mr. Long lifted his cup on five k.n.o.bby fingers and noticed the angle of his gaze. ”Are you saving that turtle for soup?”