F O U R

But I couldn't run fast enough, I couldn't run far enough. There wasn't any safe place, no escape. A couple of times during the trial, Allen Frank's friends and associates had tried to do me permanent. They hadn't been able to pull it off. Then Allen had been found guilty and sentenced away. Me, too, for what it was worth. Parked away in detention, I'd got to thinking we were quits, that it was over.

Fat chance. Looked like Allen was going to carry this grudge to the grave, preferably mine. There was a reward out on my head. That was news but not good.

I told Mama Rose about it while she was taping me up after I crawled into Strumpet City that night. Mama Rose had clashed with Allen before, way back when Toby and I had been cruising together.

See, one night, Toby and me got stuck in a fire hotter than we were able to handle so we lit out. Ran. Dived for a bolt-hole — any bolt-hole — which had turned out to be Mama Rose's Strumpet City. When Allen came after us, he crashed into the great lady herself. Rose was a transvestite who'd found her inspiration in Rosalind Russell's Mama Rose from Gypsy — except she looked more like Clint Eastwood in drag which was unfortunate. Rose stood over six-foot-four in her spikes, fashionably slender but curvy in the right places, very feminine until she got pissed. Then she transformed into Dirty Harry on a homicidal bender. It was the only time I'd ever seen Allen Frank back down. There is nothing more deadly on two legs than a drag queen on a rampage. You do not want to mix with her because by the time the dust settles, only one person will be left standing and that person will be wearing heels.

"That trash rapes little boys and thinks he's one of us," she spat out after Allen had left. I'd hardly ever seen anybody that pissed before. Like Hitler had just waltzed in and announced to Golda Meyer he would be joining the family for Hanukkah. Toby was out of it but I took note of how quick Allen had trucked out. For a little while after, Mama Rose stalked around the room like a big, caged cat, snarling and muttering to herself and smacking things up against the wall. What I caught out of what she said blistered my ears.

She was the reason I lasted four years working with Allen Frank. Mama Rose had her connections, too. She did what she could for us, me and Toby. Would have done more if she could, she would have taken us in permanent. But citizens will always believe any human reptile decked out in a three-piece suit over some other guy wearing Maybelline. (No offense to the reptiles.) Allen held that over her head like a club whenever he could.

That night, which had long ago turned into morning, Mama Rose told me she hadn't heard anything about Allen Frank placing a bounty on my head but she'd check it out and get back to me. Meanwhile, she recommended I stay low. Real low. So I did.

Still, you can only stay buried for so long. Hiding out at Strumpet City was not the best idea. I would have looked for me there, quicker than I would have checked out Sharkey's. Reckoned Allen's mates could figure that out for themselves.

So I went back to business — but not like usual. I nightmared too much, in my sleep and on the streets. Dark, beautiful, dead Touraine ghosted my trail like a second shadow. He followed me everywhere, just a glimpse now and a whisper there — and that was while I was up and about. When I slept, he was with me in ways I tried not to remember. Big Rex was around, too, like a voice I heard from the next room, a very definite presence. That was almost worse, feeling but not quite seeing.

One early night, I dreamed Rex was with me. He was standing by the end of my bed, talking to me in his own language, very conversational. Sleep had been especially bad. I was trying to disremember something about razor wire and Touraine's teeth when Rex showed up. I figured his appearance was only an intermission between horror shows so I wasn't glad to see him. He cruised over and sat down beside me. In the way of dreams, I could understand everything he said and I was talking back with him.

"You have had too many nightmares," Rex began. "It is time they stopped." He put his hand on my face and said, "You gave us good hunting at the Blood Moon."

"Go away."

"You don't actually believe I'm here, do you?"

"No."

But I thrashed about, seeking escape. Rex touched me again, smoothing the hair back from my face. His hands were cool and soothing, his voice carried the comfort of good music. It must have been his odd language, the words sounded like singing.

Rex held out a small silver bottle, the filigree so encrusted with tarnish it looked like a chunk of solid black velvet. He opened it and held it to my mouth. I wanted to knock it away, but all I could feel was the pressure of his hand against the back of my head and the ice chip of silver on my lips. All I could see were his lynx eyes blazing into mine. He emptied the vial into my mouth and I swallowed.

"I'm sorry," Rex said. "We must use another poison to void that which you've already taken. You will feel very badly for a while."

"What poison?" I said, scared. "What are you talking about?"

"When you took Touraine's flesh, that was bane enough. I don't think we need one of your talents wandering the Noirlight ... unclaimed or unsupervised. Not now. Not yet."

I didn't understand too much of that but I said, "I don't want your help."

"Too late now," Rex assured me — and it was.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because this isn't your time. Don't you ever think about the future, Tony? Do you know what it means to be fated?"

"I know what it means to be fucked," I said and he laughed, but I wasn't trying to be funny.

"So," he said. "You think that's what I want from you?"

"I don't care what you want." I was trying to let anger take the fear. Rage was making a big fist in my stomach, roiling around, and I ran to it. "You're just like Touraine."

"No. I am not like Touraine. Look again, boy. Tell me what you see."

But I wouldn't do that.

"What do you want?" he persisted. "Have you ever thought about that, Tony?"

He had no right talking to me like that, asking questions I'd never even asked myself. The angry fist in my stomach clenched up and started punching around. Except now it wasn't much of a fist, it was more like claws tearing around inside my guts. I choked and tried to gag up what I'd swallowed down. But it wouldn't happen. I knew what was going on. I'd seen what Rex had done with Touraine. This was just his way of tidying up loose ends and collecting Allen's pay-off.

I felt his hands on me again, on my shoulders, holding me. I tried to tear away, tried to hit him — anything. But I only doubled up instead.

"Be strong," Rex said. "This is the worse. It won't kill you."

"That's what you say."

It hurt too much to talk more. I closed my eyes, shuddered and held on. When I looked in his yellow eyes again, I could see pictures moving in his head — pale men and women made of moonlight, their eyes like bright, red blood. Touraine's brothers, Touraine's sisters ... so beautiful. And terrible, too. Sad. I felt their grief like tears on my skin. But the more I reached towards them, the more I tried to catch-it-stop-it-end-it, the more there was. Their fury rolled over me, wave after midnight wave until I was drowning in it. Until there was nothing but blood, dark and treacherous, rich and wonderful.

I closed my eyes but the pictures wouldn't go away. That's when I started beating at him. I hit Rex again and again until he had to let go. He dropped me back into sweat-stiff sheets and stepped away. I clenched my fists on the mattress the way some half-drowned people hang onto a life raft.

After a while, Rex leaned down close again. I wanted to look away but I didn't. I couldn't. I noticed how he was still wearing his fat, gold earring. I also noticed how he had pushed his long black hair back over his ears — which, now that I looked, were long and slim and very pointed.

I reached between the mattresses and grabbed the knife buried there, twisted back around and slashed up at him. Snarled out, "Mr. Spock, I presume?"

But I was alone. Rex was gone as if he'd never been there. After a few heart-pounding seconds, I collapsed again.

So what was it? A dream? I hoped I'd been dreaming. It was too scary to think of some phantom muscle-man breezing in and out of your most private sanctuary without even a lock-pick or a crow bar to help him in.

The only thing that was absolutely genuine about that visit was that I was sick, just like Rex had promised. Nausea, cramps and fever became my steady companions until I couldn't imagine what life had been like without them. Some days — and nights — were worse than others. Then it seemed to go away for a while.

All of this affected my concentration, as you can imagine, and my income. Kept telling myself, Get a grip — let it pass! That seemed to work ... some. Eventually, the nightmares got a little better. Touraine kept his distance. Rex, himself, took a powder.

Winter rolled in again and I stalked the night streets alone, close by to Sharkey's place but I couldn't work up enough enthusiasm to wander in and see who was playing. There had been more bad luck. Cody Blue had walked the wrong street and got caught in the crossfire. Word had it was two dealers fighting over territories. They weren't especially distressed about eliminating one of their regular customers. There was plenty more where Cody Blue come from.

But there wasn't ever going to be another voice like that. That sound was gone — along with Cody's Fender that was ripped off while the cops were waiting for the clean up crew.

That bit of street-mean frosted my cake. I was feeling bad again and hoped it would pass. I had hardly ever been sick in the past. Wasn't sure what to do about it when it happened. There were times when you had to go to the clinic but, like Angelo, I avoided it whenever possible.

At the corner, a maverick cab jogged home leaving a splash of Boomtown Rats snarling about how they didn't like Mondays. I was inclined to agree and, focusing on that, was startled to find I couldn't remember what day it was. Not that it made any difference. I didn't like Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays any better. However, I did think it might be time to head home and turned around to start back but — surprise, surprise — I couldn't remember which way to turn.

That had never happened before. I never got lost. My stomach sort of leaped up and turned over, like it had been doing since the day before, and I took a stand over by a burnt-out street light to get my bearings.

It started to rain. What a thrill.

Debating possible directions, I looked down a narrow street. On either side of the pavement, walls shot up and disappeared. You only get that in New York, buildings like steep, sudden mountains disappearing into clouds and stars. There are sky scrapers in lots of big cities but nothing like what you see in New York. In the City, buildings bite the sky, like great, long teeth. They hang on. Sometimes tourists aren't the only ones gawking up from Park Avenue (or wherever they happen to be). Sometimes, you just got to look.

I looked, sweating, in the rain. Trying to recall where I was supposed to be and thinking that it didn't make a whole lot of difference which was truly crazy. You can work the streets but you don't want to live on them. You've got to have a safe place, a bolt-hole. Something told me that I'd made a Big Mistake and, lost in that revelation, I started walking toward Broadway but part-way down the avenue, there was a sound from one of the alleys. It was dumb to stop but I did. A shadow shifted across bricks and piled rubble, then braked smooth.

You can feel eyes move on you even when you don't see the face. A third eye, a fallen star, winked deep in the alley-black with the glint of light on metal.

So he'd brought a knife this time, Touraine of the razor teeth and blazing eyes. Had to wonder what he needed it for. I tried to laugh — but that wasn't the sound coming out of my mouth.

All my instincts were telling me to move in a loud, shrill shriek but I stared and stared, fascinated. The rain made everything look like glass, brittle and ready to shatter. When a hand fastened around my arm, I started up like I'd been hit with a live wire. But I still wasn't scared. Much.

I whirled about and looked into a new face belonging to a tall brunet, nice-looking in his mid-to-late twenties. He was dressed in creative camouflage, a combination of glitter gear they sell down in the Village and Saint Marks to those with too much money to generate bona fide glad rags. Very artistic. Completely unreal. Looking back, that should have been the tip-off.

I didn't catch what the newcomer was saying at first but his lips kept moving and finally I understand he's asking, "Are you all right?"

God — of all the approaches, I hated the "concerned stranger" most.

"I saw you under the streetlight a block back," he says. "You didn't look so good. I called out but you didn't stop. Guess you didn't hear me, so I ran over and caught up with you. Are you all right?"

"Fuck off," I said and meant it.

"Hey —"

I shoved past him to move on and a big rush of heat blazed up over my neck and face. It should have steamed the rain that was turning my skin to slick-ice.

"Wait a minute." The guy grabbed hold of me again, suspending options. "Listen. My name is Danny Miller. I'm an artist. Well, I study over at the University. I'd like you to sit for me. You see, I —"

"Sit — is that what you call it?"

"No, that's not what I want," Miller persisted. "I'm serious. I don't have any money, not much anyway but maybe we could work something out? Maybe some kind of trade?"

"I'll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours-trade? Right. No deal and no sale. Not tonight."

Something about people who won't take "fuck off" for an answer makes me defensive, even now. I balled up my fist with the intention using it. Miller took my wrist like he would keep some feeble thing from falling over. I was too shocked to jerk away. Looked at my hand like it had turned traitor.

The action in the alley caught our attention, sliding closer.

"Let's get out of here," Miller hissed. His breath was close to my face.

That was interesting. He saw it, too. Maybe there was something really there this time.

Miller pulled me along the sidewalk beside him. "You don't look so good," he said again. "You look sick. I think you better come with me."

"No."

"It's all right. There's plenty of room."

Miller smiled, his face dissolving into a boyish grin — a real charmer. You could tell he was used to that charm getting results. I shuddered. I knew too many boyish men, watched them clip pigeons' wings and turn them loose in traffic, pour gasoline on dogs, set them off. Other stuff.

"I'll take care of you," Miller promised.

I was afraid he would.

But there was no resisting Danny Miller's good will. He turned out to be right, I was sick. Not the picturesque kind of sick where one lays around semi-conscious, moaning in attractive delirium. No, it was the kind of sick where one spends most of the time sitting on a toilet crapping one's insides out at one end and heaving one's guts out into a bucket at the other.

But Danny was as good as his word. He took care of me, forcing fluids into me, V-8 juice, water milk, tea, yogurt, soup — anything I could keep down — and cleaning up after me when it wouldn't stay. I wasn't a good patient. I felt as bad as it was possible to feel without dying and my disposition reflected that. My fever skyrocketed and with it came the nightmares in full force. I fought with Touraine, Rex, Allen, Angelo — faces and bodies I had no names for. I drowned, again and again, in a sea of blood where black sharks and stranger creatures with long, white teeth swam and ripped and dove. There were times when my fists struck solid flesh. Obviously, I wasn't smacking into any of my phantoms — but Danny Miller still took care of me.

At one point, Danny's pharmacy student-friend procured antibiotics and since the pills didn't kill me out-right, they may have contributed to my cure. You can't win them all.

After a while, I got mad. It pissed me off being sick and helpless. I struggled up on my own some time later while Danny was in class. Wrapped up on one of his old sweatshirts and a quilt, I was still shaking, whether from chill or weakness, I couldn't tell. Standing alone was a major accomplishment but I was already arranging departure strategies. I had thought of little else from the first sign of recovery. Except for Mama Rose, no one had taken care of me before who hadn't expected a reward, the literal pound of flesh, sometimes blood. There was no reason to suspect Danny Miller was going to be any different. I put water on to boil and looked around, had a grin over Danny's idea of "not much" money. His idea of poverty and mine were worlds apart. Leaving would require cash and there were quite a few portable and salable objects lying about. I wasn't being callous, just practical. Compassion costs.

Danny had stashed a portfolio so carefully behind a cabinet, behind the drafting table, I knew it was important. So I put the tea bag in the cup, poured the water in and settled down for a look. That's how come Danny found me surrounded by pages and pages of stark, charcoaled scenes and hazy water colors when he came home. We stared at each other.

"So — you're an artist," I said.

"Where'd you get those?" he asked, beginning to look stormy.

"Where you hid them." Truth always puts people off a pace. I pointed at the pictures piled around me. "I know these places."

"I didn't say you could look at them."

"You weren't here to ask."

"That would have made a difference?"

"Maybe."

Danny didn't take off his coat before he began to gather them up. Central Park, Canal, Broadway, Times Square, the Bowery fell into a flat heap. Washington Square floated out onto the floor. I scooted down from the stool to pick it up and walked with it over to the window seat. (Ha — check it out. He was living in a Village brownstone-turret all by his lonesome and this was poor. There was no elevator and it was six flights to the apartment. In the Village, you pay extra for that kind of artistic ambience.)

Holding the drawing, I glared at Danny from my corner.

"This is me in here," I said.

The Washington Square piece was one of Danny's early works but in that one, like all the others, it was easy to spot the continuing theme. Especially when it was in color. Red hair is an eye-grabber.

He'd captured the whole carnival crowd on that scrap of paper, all the outlaws and citizens, all the cops and children, the old ones jawing together, the killer pigeons, the balloon guy. The park itself was old ground and stone dotted off with spring flowers and grass. And there was me, boogying down in the left hand corner with a bunch of kids and a radio.

"I didn't say you could draw me." I felt my own face going storm-cloud. "You didn't ask."

"You don't like it?"

"I don't look like that."

He looked puzzled, then said, "You mean beautiful?"

"Yes."

"Ever look in a mirror?"

"Not if I can help it."

"I thought so." Danny stepped over and took the picture. "Anyway, now you know I wasn't lying when I asked you to sit for me."

"You're weird."

"Yes. Of course. I'm an artist."

The truth-game works both ways and I could see Danny knew how to play it, too. He was an artist, his pictures were real — like music. I'd seen plenty of people trying to draw the City perched about in the parks and streets with all their crazy art-gear. I'd seen their results. Danny's art moved, the lines and colors pulsed on the page, pulled you in. You know that old story about Indians who don't like tourists taking their pictures because they think the film captures their soul? Well, that's mostly crap. But Danny's drawings were real, like he had captured a part of the City's soul. And I was in each and every one of them.

He amazed me but I didn't want to give in so easy.

"You still should have asked before you did it," I growled.

"Tony," he said, very quiet. "I could have drawn other pictures."

That floored me. That turned me to ice. I pulled the quilt tight around my shoulders, finally asked, straight-out, "What do you want?"

"Go to bed," he said, and, this time, there was a real edge in his voice.

I did what he told me, laid down and waited. I chewed on the wreck of my hands and fell asleep listening to him stash his hoard. He didn't touch me. Later, I woke up and saw him sleeping on the couch like he'd done since the first night. Thought to myself, this guy really is weird but went back to sleep.

What I didn't think about (and probably should have) was why or how Danny Miller had followed me. My spring, summer and most of fall was laid out like a cinema story-board drawn by a virtuoso the kind of which you'd expect to see sporting about on a museum wall somewhere. It was neither flattering or disturbing. The only peculiarity I'd felt had come in re-living my year through Danny's observations. He saw so much.

Now I had other things to think about besides leaving.

Once my fever burned itself out completely, Danny let me stay. Well, that had been his goal all along, and frankly, I had no big, overwhelming urge to return to the life. I knew I'd received my non-walking papers, at least for the time being. What was really okay was Touraine seemed to have disappeared with the fever. Days and nights crawled by with numbing predictability. It was easier to accept the refuge Danny offered than go to war with it.

So that was how I became a permanent fixture in Danny Miller's Greenwich apartment. During the day, Danny went to class or worked. At night he painted, obsessively. I found out he came from new-but-big money and his parents were split over his career choice. He didn't talk about it. Danny never talked much at all which was, in my experience, unusual.

Eventually, I agreed to sit for him and found it was no big deal. Though Danny may have been the silent-man while he painted, he encouraged me to talk and I did. I'd become used to questions during the investigation so when Danny asked, I answered. It didn't mean anything to me. A lot of the time, I felt like I was talking to myself but whenever I'd trail off into quiet, Danny would say something to get me started up again.

When I got restless, we went to the clubs and the bars, places I knew that he'd only guessed at. He wanted a Bohemian lifestyle so badly and couldn't connect at any point. The people he got interested in were almost never interested back. I felt bad (a little) because I didn't like him any more than I did and there was no reason not to. Without his help, I would have died. He gave me a place to stay and, in return, I sat still for his paintings and talked to him. Through me, he made connections in the world he wanted to explore. I didn't have to trick for cash when I was with him. Boy, I could tell he didn't like that right off. Danny did his thing to pay for drinks and stuff with his drawings, usually with sketches of yours truly. He really got off on that.

One night, I tried to explain about the pictures and how we'd met to Mama Rose. She wasn't enthused. Her advice was to take off — fast. I didn't understand why. Danny was odd — yes — but I had known lots of legitimate crazies. I had danced with the super-freaks. To me, Danny was harmless. Even after he took what I'd sold to so many others.

I'd had a feeling that was coming and when it did, it wasn't so bad. His tastes weren't all that exotic and he was quick. Like posing for him, it was no big deal. It was okay. I didn't mind so much and, well... I owed him.

That probably seems strange and it is hard to explain. But back then, whatever I did with my body had nothing to do with my brain or what people call "feelings." I didn't feel.

Hustlers and hookers don't party with a client to have a good time. Why else would the customers be called tricks, johns or worse? You wouldn't do that to someone you cared about. The rules are always the same: Get the money, get them off, get away. At best, it's a job. At worst, it's something else. Being beat-up isn't the worst. Death isn't the worst.

I found out about that later.

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