Roadmarks

Red rose and advanced, covering the fallen man.

....lack trousers, a black jacket with a leaking hole drilled through its lower right quadrant. It was the man he had seen in the dining room earlier, with his back to the wall. Red put an arm about his shoulders, supported his head, raised him.

Pinkish bubbles had formed about the man's lips. He gasped as he was raised. His eyes flickered open.

"Why?" Red asked. "Why were you trying to shoot me?"

The man smiled weakly.

"I'd rather leave you—with something to think about," he said.

"It won't do you any good," Red said.

"Nothing will," replied the other. "So the devil with you!"

Red slapped him across the mouth, smearing the bloody spittle. He heard a gasp of protest from behind him as he did. A crowd was forming.

"Talk, you son of a bitch! Or I'll make it harder than it's going to be!"

He jabbed him in the upper abdomen with stiff fingers, near the wound. "Here! Stop that!" said a voice from behind him.

"Talk!"

But the man followed a sharp gasp with a long sigh and stopped breathing. Red began hammering at his chest beneath the sternum.

"Come back, you miserable bastard!"

He felt a hand on his shoulder and shook it off. The gunman was not responding. He let him fall and began going through his pockets.

"I don't think you should be doing that," came another voice from behind. Finding nothing of interest. Red rose. "What car was this guy driving?" he asked. Silence, then murmurs. Finally, "He was a hitchhiker," the Victorian gentleman stated.

Red turned. The man was staring at the body, smiling faintly.

"How do you know that?" Red asked. The man withdrew a silk handkerchief, unfolded it, touched it several times to his brow.

"I saw him being dropped off here earlier," he replied.

"From what sort of vehicle?"

"Black, C Twenty, a Cadillac."

"Did you get a look at anyone else in the car?"

The man looked back at the body, licked his lips, smiled again. "No."

Johnson came up with a piece of sailcloth and covered the body. He picked up the fallen pistol and stuck it behind his belt. Rising, he placed a hand on Red's shoulder.

"I'm setting out a bleeper," he said, "but there's no telling how long it will take to call us a cop. You should stay to give a report you know."

"Yeah, I'll wait."

"Let's get back then. I'll get you a room and a drink."

"Okay. Just a minute."

Red returned to the parking area and retrieved his book.

"That bullet damaged my thpeaker," came its sibilant voice.

"I know. I'll get you a new one, the best they make. Thanks for stopping it. And thanks for distracting him."

"I hope it wath worth it. Why wath he thooting at you?"

"I don't know, Flowers. I've got the impression that he was what is known in some places as a hit man. Possibly Syndicate. If so, there is no co

He slipped the volume into his pocket, then followed Johnson back inside.

Two

Randy spotted the blue pickup pulling out, and nosed into the parking place.

"This is the place?" he said, looking toward Spiro's.

Leila nodded, not looking up from her reading of Leaves of Grass.

"It was, at the time I was seeing, back in Africa," she said. "Now that we're in real time here, I don't know how close to synch it is."

"Translate."

"He might not have arrived yet, or he might already have departed."

Randy pulled on the emergency brake.

"Wait here and I'll go check," she said, opening the door, tossing the book onto the rear seat, and stepping out.

'Okay."

'Randy?"

'Yeah, Leaves?"

'She's a very vital woman, isn't she?"

'I'd say so."

'Is she attractive?"

'Yes."

'Domineering, though."

"She knows how to go about what we're doing. I don't."

"True, true... Who's that?"

An old man, a crusader's cross on his dirty tunic, shuffled up, humming to himself. He produced a grimy rag from his sash and began wiping the headlights, the windshield. He spat on a splattered butterfly, scraped it off with his thumbnail, ran the rag across it. Finally he came up on Randy's side, smiled and nodded.

"Nice day," he said.

"It is."

Randy fished around in his pocket, found a quarter, passed it to him. The man palmed it and nodded again.

"Thank you, sir."

"You look like a—crusader."

"Am. Or was," he said in foretalk lingo. "Took a wrong turn somewhere and never found my way back. Can't hold it against a man if he gets lost, can you? Besides, someone told me the Crusade's over and we won. Then another traveler told me it's over and we lost. Either way, it'd be kind of silly to go on—and I like it here. One of these days a bishop'll drive up in his Cadillac and I'll get him to release me from my vow. In the meantime, they let me sleep around back, and the cook feeds me." He winked. "And I make enough out here to get pickled every night in the taproom. Softest life I've ever had. No sense in looking for a fight when the war's over, is there?"

Randy shook his head.

"You wouldn't know for sure, would you?"

"Know what?"

"Who won."

"The Crusades?"

The other nodded.

Randy rubbed his nose.

"Well... According to my history books, there were four big ones and a number of so-so ones. As to who won, that's not an easy question to answer—"

"That many!"

"Yeah. Sometimes you guys came off ahead and sometimes the other guys did. There were all sorts of reversals and intrigues. Betrayals ... A lot of good cultural transmission went on. It opened the way for restoring Greek philosophy to the West. It—"

"The hell with all that, lad! In your day, who has the Holy Land, them or us?"

"Them, mostly—"

"... And what about our lands? Have we got them or do they?"

"We do, but—"

The old soldier chuckled.

"Then nobody won."

"It's not that cut-and-dried. Nobody really lost, either. You've got to look at the larger picture. You see—"

"Balls! It's all right for you to read about larger pictures, son. I don't feel like going back and getting a scimitar up the bunghole for your larger picture, though. Louis can keep his Crusade. I feel a lot better about wiping the glass in your Devil's chariot and staying soused right here, now that I know nobody won."

"Of course I see your point, even if you do lack a sense of history about it. But it's not right to say—"

"Damn right! And if you're lucky, someone from up the Road will come along and do you the same favor one day. Tell him about history if he does." He flipped the quarter into the air and caught it "Keep the faith, kid." He turned and limped away.

Randy nodded and located one of Leila's cigars.

"Interesting..." he muttered.

On the seat in back. Leaves began to hum softly. Then, "You are unhappy about something?" she asked.

"Perhaps. I don't know. What makes you ask?"

"I have been observing your heartbeat, your metabolism, your blood pressure, your breathing. Everything seems elevated. That's all."

"Then I can't hide much from you, can I? I was

thinking how the passions of a Crusade—or a broken love affair—are but moments in geological time."

"True. But since you are not a rock or a glacier, what difference does that make?" Then, "You have terminated such a relationship recently?"

"I guess that's one way of putting it, yes."

"Sad, perhaps. Or not, as the case may be. You—"

"Not," he said. "Not really. It was something not meant to go on. Yet there is a feeling of loss... Why am I telling you this?"

"Everyone finds someone to tell things to. At a time like this you must be careful. Following a loss, one often seeks to fill that place with something new. One chooses in haste, rather than wisely. One—"