Marji and Karin had disposed of the food and cleaned up the papers and were ready to go. We went down to Jake's car. Marji got in front with Jake automatically, so I sat with Karin in the back. We looked at each other a bit warily across the expanse of bench seat. I didn't quite trust her, and I was pretty sure that she didn't trust me, either.
Jake stopped to chat with the guard at the gate, asked him how his cousin's baby was doing, and when he handed back the visitor badges the guard just hung them up automatically without seeming to notice that Jake had three visitors but only returned two badges.
The car was silent as Jake pulled onto the Seawall expressway and headed down the coast. An uncomfortable silence. After a mile or so Marji turned on the radio. Days Of The Founders was playing, and while it wasn't a program I followed it didn't take long to get up to speed.
The notorious outlaw, Black Ivan, had broken out of jail and was heading for the open range, with heroic Sheriff Isaiah in hot pursuit. Their paths were bound to cross at the homestead of the widow Ellen, who was herding her Gentle farmhands into the barn to keep them safe while she kept watch for the rest of Black Ivan's gang from the roof, with her trusty crossbow by her side.
Isaiah reached the widow's homestead first and joined the widow on the room for a long conversation in whispers while waiting for the bad men to show up.
I was actually paying more attention to the musical cues than the dialogue. They had a good band working on the show, and I knew a few people who did music for radio—they said it was boring work, but the money is good.
“Oh, honey,” Karin suddenly said, sounding exasperated, “just fuck him already and get it over with.”
From the front seat Marji gave out a bray of laughter.
“I'm serious,” Karin continued. “This has been going on for six months. 'Oh, that Sheriff is such a devilishly handsome brute, but I must remain loyal to the memory of my darling husband!' Lady, your husband got et by a kraken. He ain't coming back. Go ahead and give Ike a little sugar before the bartender in town gets her hooks in him.”
“I think they're a little busy right now,” Jake observed dryly.
“Oh, nuts, Ivan won't show up until just before the end. They've got to have their cliffhanger. Ellie and Ike can get a good twenty minutes of screwing in.”
I laughed.
Encouraged, Karin continued with her commentary as the scene shifted to Black Ivan's gang.
“And these guys,” she said. “Sooner or later they have to figure out that they don't do anything except break the boss out of jail. That's got to get old. I've been listening for, oh, three years now? Something like that. In all that time they have pulled one caper that made any real jack, when they hit the payroll for the copper mine. And then, what they do with the money? The used to hire a bunch of Sea Folk to wreck a prison ship—guess why—to rescue Black Ivan again.”
We were all laughing now.
“Somebody has to sit down with Ivan and explain the facts of life,” Karin went on. “Just tell him, 'Look, buddy, maybe you need to go straight because you're just not cut out to be an outlaw.' I mean, okay, breaking out of jail is a crime, but it's not the kind you can make money at. Who knows what these toughs have been using to buy groceries all this time.”
She kept us entertained all the way out to Summerisle, which isn't an island, but might as well be. It's a peninsula, and the single road leading to the township has gatehouse where a pair of Summerisle police check all cars for “RESIDENT” stickers. Deliveries and visitors have to vouched for by a resident.
We parked on the big curving drive above the house. From the driveway all you could see was the front entry hall, which looked like the concrete base of a lighthouse without the lighthouse. The Karnes house was a collection of boxes spilling down the bluffs above the shore. I'd never liked it much. It felt unsafe, although I knew that Jake would never have bought a house without first thoroughly investigating the structural integrity, personally surveying the foundation, and probably having the architect investigated for Theosophist sympathies.
Jake unlocked the door and Marji went to the work on the control panel beside the door, which looked like it belonged in the power plant lab. In a few moments the sconce lights were on, I heard the coal-gas fireplace a downstairs sparking into life, and music was playing from someplace lower in the house. They didn't have stories like an ordinary house, instead nearly every room was on a slightly different level. From the front hall you took three steps down to formal sitting room, for brushed aluminum and gray leather values of formal. No one ever sat in there, it was just a place to cross to get to the three steps down that led to the living room, where the fireplace was. It was too warm for an ordinary fire, of course, but this one didn't give out much heat, it was mostly decorative. I wandered past it to the bar.
“Anyone want a drink?” I asked.
“Please,” Marji said, flopping down on one end of a freeform leather couch.
“Please,” Karin echoed, sitting on the other end.
“I'll get them,” Jake said, a bit testily. Fair enough, it was his house.
I took the big egg chair and curled up, tucking my legs under me. My red jumpsuit probably clashed with the orange fabric, but I didn't care.
Jake made drinks for Marji and Karin first, then turned to me. “No absinthe, I'm afraid. Whiskey?”
“Sure, that's fine. Neat.” I told him.
Marji spoke up. “I never did see how you could drink that vile stuff.”
“It's because I'm a demon,” I said, keeping a straight face.
Marji gave me a hard look. “You're joking,” she announced. Then, “You are joking, right?”
I nodded. “Lots of ordinary people drink absinthe,” I pointed out.
Jake took a big chair beside the couch, close enough that Marji could reach out and put her hand on his knee. We sipped our drinks and relaxed and listened to the music.
The music was soothing. It was a tape I'd given Marji, a live recording of J W Ketter at the Thomist Arena. Ketter was jamming “On Green Dolphin Street”.
“You know, I played with Ketter once,” I said.
Jake and Marji had already heard this story, but Karin's eyes got big. “You know J W Ketter?”
I shrugged. “I don't really know him, but I sat in on a set with him once. We were opening up for him at the Terminal Lounge at the downtown station. A friend of a friend invited me to play with him—the Mo Breckinridge Trio. Only we were a quartet that night, because they invited me along. Anyway, we finished up our set and were clearing the stage when J W Ketter walks up to me and he says,” I tried to imitate the famous sax player's bass growl, “'What the blazes is that thing, son?' talking about my theremin. So I tell him and I show him how it works and he says, 'I like how that thing sounds. You wouldn't want to maybe stick around for a set, would you?' And of course I say, 'Yes, sir, I'd be honored.' He smiles at me and says, 'You know “Three Coins Inna Fountain”?' I tell him yes and he says, 'Let's start off with “Three Coins Inna Fountain” and see what happens after that.'”
I smiled at the memory. “I played the whole first set with him. At the break he says, 'Well, I don't mean to take up your whole evening, son. I do appreciate the assistance.' So I faded and went out in the audience.”
Karin flashed me a grin. “I bet you didn't go home alone that night.”
I grinned back at her, although I had gone home alone that night. No need to explain my peculiar requirements in that department. There had been enough uncomfortable revelations for one night.
Jake yawned. He looked over at Marji. “I'm beat,” he admitted.
Marji nodded to him. “You go on to bed. I'll get Karin set up and be right in.”
Jake looked over at me. “The couch do you for tonight?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Sure,” then pointed out, “I don't sleep.”
“Oh, right,” Jake shook his head. “That must be nice.”
I shrugged. “I'll keep an eye out,” I said. “I don't think they'll try anything tonight, but if they do I'll be watching.”
Jake stood and stretched. “Summerisle's warded,” he said. “Dunno how good they are, but it's part of the security package.”
I hadn't known that. “Interesting,” I said.
Marji stood, too, and looked over to Karin. “Ready to hit the sack?”
Karin gave Jake a quick glance, then back to Marji. “Sure,” she said and got to her feet.
I stayed where I was. Took another sip of whiskey.
They left and I sat and listened to them navigating the various half-floor staircases from box to box. The guest bedroom was all the way down, it had a door that led directly out to the beach. Marji would take Karin down there and tuck her in before going back to her husband.
There was a bookcase in a corner of the room. I got up and checked it out. Jake and Marji both like mysteries, I found something hardboiled with screaming blonde on the cover. It would do to pass the time until dawn.
The hero had just been jumped by some thugs in an alleyway when I heard soft footsteps coming up the stairs. I looked up and Karin came into the room, wrapped in a fuzzy red robe that was too big for her. Marji's obviously.
I nodded to her. “Couldn't sleep?”
She went to the bar and started poking through bottles. “I've been asleep for three days.”
She fixed herself a drink and settled down on the couch, legs stretched out and modestly covered by her robe. She was quiet long enough that I was starting to wonder if it would be rude to go back to the book and then she said, with a laugh, “Why do we put up with that greedy minx?”
“Marji?” I guessed.
“This has got to be a dream come true for her,” Karin went on, not looking at me. “Three of us in one house for the night.”
I frowned. “It's a little awkward,” I admitted.
Karin laughed, and I could hear the alcohol in that laugh. She wasn't really drunk, but she was getting there. “Awkward? She's loving this. Everybody wants Marjina. That's all she wants, you know. Just for everybody in the whole world to be in love with her.”
“And what do you want?” I asked her.
“Coffee and blintzes for breakfast,” she said. “Snapdragons in a window-box. Pretty dresses and stockings in shocking colors. Paper, big sheets of thick paper with a nice tooth to it. Ten thousand charcoal pencils. Somebody to kiss the side of my neck when we're dancing and make me giggle. Steaks with grilled peppers, well done, but not too well done. Rum and fruit juice in a cold glass and a little paper umbrella.”
“Music?” I suggested.
“Yeah,” she nodded. “The kind of music that comes in through an open window along with the smell of bouillabaisse bubbling over a bonfire and the laughter of strangers. Chocolates in little wax paper wrappers and a place to put them were nobody will eat them except me.”
“Sounds like a good life,” I told her.
She looked down at her feet. “Now I just need to know who to kill to get it.”
“I don't think it's as bad as all that,” I said. “Jake told me your art is starting to sell.”
“Oh, sure,” she said bitterly, “a couple of Marji's society buddies bought a couple of pieces so she'd owe them a favor.”
“What about that law firm? Sturm?” I asked. “Jake said he bought several for the office.”
Karin made a rude noise. “Yeah. Right before he held that fundraiser for Castor Tak. 'Lookit me! I gots art! See how hip I am?' I'm surprised he didn't return it all after the party.”
“But he didn't, did he?” I replied.
“No,” she admitted.
“Look,” I said, “it doesn't matter why somebody buys your stuff, as long as their money's good. When I'm playing a club, maybe one person in ten is there to hear the music. The rest are there to be seen, or to make deals, or to get laid, or just because they couldn't stand to look at their own walls anymore. But you know something? They all pay the cover and the two drink minimum.”
She digested this for a moment. Then, “Fuck it. What do you know?”
“I know you've got talent,” I said. “Your landscapes are amazing. If you can't sell them here, you could sell them in Nightmare. You could set up a stall in the Bazaar in Hunger City. Morauxe love human made art.”
“I told you, man, I'm out of the shade trade,” Karin said firmly. “I'm an artist, not a mage.”
I shrugged. “No reason that you can't be both.”
“Sure there is,” she shot back. “Do you know what it costs to get legit in the craft?”
“Not really,” I admitted. “I know it's not cheap.”
“To start with,” she said, “you can't just walk in off the street, pay the fee, and take the test. You have to be sponsored, which means you need be somebody's apprentice first. That's three years—some places, two—working full time, and most of these jokers don't pay apprentices, or you get what they call a minimal stipend, which might as well be working for free. Or, if you're really desperate, you can sign a contract for advance against future earnings, which means they pay you about what you'd make waiting tables and in exchange you can only work for them for ten years and they get half of what you make. And that's assuming you even pass the damn test because they don't have to teach you anything. You do all the shit work in the lab, mobbing the floor, emptying the trashcans, and study on your own time.”
I frowned. “What about the Academy?”
A bitter bark of laughter. “A great idea. If you're rich. And you're well-connected. And your mom is blowing someone on the board of directors. Every year they get over a thousand applicants. They take thirty.”
I chewed all that over. I knew that magecraft was heavily regulated in the Midworld, but it seemed ridiculous to think that someone with as much native talent as Karin would be unable to work legally. Jake hadn't been rich—not at first, anyway—but the power plant needed magical engineers and he was a bright kid so they taught him and sponsored him and paid his annual license fees.
I didn't see that kind of thing working for Karin, though. Her talent was too wild and too personal. She was a creative artist, not an engineer. While someone like Jake calculated the workings of a spell like a math problem, Karin felt her way to a solution. She just knew how it would work, and couldn't explain how or why.
“Mr. Vetch didn't teach me much of the theory,” she said. “I looked through some of Jake's books, but... man, what's he's got around here are reference books that are way too advanced to me. And the library is no help at all.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “they don't like to give out any information on magic.”
“Bastards,” she said with sudden bitterness. “They want to make sure that only their special schools teach anything worth knowing.”
I shrugged. “It can be dangerous.”
“What about you,” she asked. “Don't they care that you're unlicensed?”
“I'm not a magician,” I pointed out. “I'm just magic. There's nothing they can do about that.”
She cocked her head to the side, disbelieving. “They just let you run around loose?”
“They keep a close eye on me,” I admitted, “But that's Office of External Affairs, not the Professional Licensing Board. Technically I'm an agent of an allied alien power, but that's not something that I like to advertise.”
“No,” she said thoughtfully, “I guess not.”
We talked for another couple of hours. I don't think she noticed when she fell asleep and I slid out of my body to join her in spirit and keep the conversation going. Jake and Marji were right, Karin was fun to be around, full of life and the ironclad opinions of the very bright and very young. She had an opinion on everything, from the troubles in the Northeast (let them secede and then build a wall to keep them from coming back) to the Parliamentary elections (throw all the bums out) to modern theater (too much talking, not enough dancing).
I kept an eye out in case Grandmother Wolf felt like taking another shot at Karin, but it was quiet and still. I could see the wards that Jake had mentioned, shimmering walls in the distance, enclosing all of the Summerisle development. They weren't as solid as the serious wards around Government House, but would be hard for someone to get through without generating a lot of sound and fury in the process.
Around dawn I shook her to wake her up and sent her back down to the guest room. I read another couple chapters of the book—I had figured out whodunit, but I wanted to see how the detective figured it out.
Then I went down to the kitchen and figured out how to work Jake's coffee maker and started breakfast. It was likely to be a busy day.
I liked the 'ironclad opinions' and am going to use it in real life.
Being elderly is not the way young people think it is. I do not spend the day feeling old; I just spend it feeling me - not in that way, I meant, feeling I am me, the person who has lived from day to day. My face is mostly sensed as being what it was when I was in my twenties, so, when I come across a pretty young woman, I am attracted.
I am not attracted to having to deal with their ironclad opinions, so I regretfully walk by without giving myself the opportunity to be a dirty old man.
Nicely put.