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“Wouldn’t dream of it. Don’t you think you should carry a radio or something?”
“What for? So folks would quit looking for my headphones?
Ain’t my fault they can’t hear the real music. They too busy covering it up with their own noises.“
Wizard nodded and threw another handful of popcorn. Rasputin’s hand danced lazily on the back of the bench. Muscles played smoothly under his sleek skin, sunlight played smoothly over it. The day arched above them, and Wizard could have dreamed with his eyes open. Instead, he asked, “So what brings you to Pioneer Square?”
“My feet, mostly.” Rasputin gri
Wizard nodded sagely. He knew Cassie collected jump rope songs and clapping rhymes. “Let’s hear it.”
Rasputin shook his head slowly in a graceful counterpoint to the dance of his hand. A passerby slowed down to watch him, then scurried on. “No way, man. Not going to repeat it here. Sounded new, and real potent in a way I don’t like. Go
“See her? Walking like rain trickling down a window glass?
She makes loves in a waltz rhythm.“ A black hand waltzed on its fingertips on the bench between them. Wizard glanced from it to the tall, graceful woman crossing the square.
“That doesn’t seem possible,” he observed after a perusal of her swinging stride.
“The best things in this life are the ones that aren’t possible, my friend. ‘Sides, would I lie to you? You don’t believe me, you just go ask her. Just walk right on up and say, ’My friend Rasputin says you can make a man’s eyes roll back in his head while your thighs play the Rippling River Waltz.‘ You go ask her.”
“No thanks,” Wizard chuckled softly. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Don’t have to, man. She’s one generous lady. Picked me up off the bus one rainy night, took me home and taught me to waltz horizontal. Kept me all night, fed me breakfast, and put me out with her cat when she left for work. Best night of my life.”
“You never went back?”
“Some things don’t play well the second time around; only a fool takes a chance at ruining a perfect memory. ‘Sides, I wasn’t invited. Kinda lady she is, she does all the asking. All a man can say to her is ’yes, please and ‘thank you kindly.’
That’s all.“
Wizard shifted uncomfortably on the bench. This kind of talk made him uneasy, stirring places in him better left dormant.
“So you’re looking for Cassie,” he commented inanely, looking for a safer topic.
Rasputin gave a brief snort of laughter. “Did I say that?
Stupid way to put it. No sense looking for her. No, I’m just waiting to be found. She’ll know I got something for her, and she’ll come to find me. Don’t you know that about her by now?
Think on it. You ever been looking for Cassie and found her?
No. Just about the time you give up looking and sit down someplace, who finds you? Cassie. Ain’t that right?“
“Yeah.” He chuckled slightly at the truth of it. “So what you been doing lately?”
“I just told you. Getting laid, and listening to jump rope songs in the park- How ‘bout you?”
Wizard shrugged. “Not much of anything. Little magics, mostly. Told a crying kid where he’d lost his lunch money.
Went to visit Sylvester. Saw an old man hurting on a street corner. Asked him the time, the way to Pike Place Market, and talked about the weather until he had changed his mind about stepping in front of the next bus. Was standing in front of the Salvation Army Store and a man drove up and handed me a trenchcoat and a pair of boots. Boots didn’t fit, so I donated them. Trenchcoat did, so I kept it. Listened to a battered woman on the public dock until she talked herself into going to a shelter instead of going home. Listened to an old man whose daughter wanted him to put his sixteen-year-old dog to sleep. Told him ‘Bullshit!’ Old dog sat and wagged his tail at me all through it. That’s about all.“
Rasputin was gri
“I don’t know,” the other man replied in a soft, naive voice, and they both laughed together as at an old joke.
“I mean,” Rasputin’s voice was thick and mellow as warm honey, “how you keep going? Look how ski
Wizard shot Rasputin a suddenly chill look. “I don’t sleep with Cassie.”
The big man wasn’t taking any hints. “No, I wouldn’t either.
No time for sleeping with something that warm and soft up against you. You don’t know how many times Euripides and I sat howling at the moon for her. Then you come along, and she falls into your lap. Her eyes get all warm when they touch you. First time she brought you to me, I saw it. Oh, oh, I say to myself, here come Cassie, mixing business with pleasure.
Now you telling me, oh, no. ain’t really nothing between us.
You sure you wouldn’t be tolling me a lie?“ An easy, teasing question.
“I don’t do that.” Wizard’s voice was ham.
“Don’t do what?” Rasputin teased i
“I tell lies only to stay alive. I tell the Troth when it’s on me.” Ice and fire in his voice, warning the black wizard.
“Say what?” Rasputin sat up straight on the bench, and his fingers suddenly beat a dangerous staccato rhythm on the bench back. Wizard felt his strength gather in his shoulders and watched the play of muscles in the black hand and wrist on the bench back. He felt the edge and dragged himself back from it. This man was his friend. He forced his voice into a casual scale.
“Remember who you’re talking to, Rasputin. I’m the man who knows the Truth about people, and when they ask me, I’ve got to tell them. I have my own balancing points for my magic. One of them is that I don’t touch women. I don’t touch anyone.”
“That so?” the black wizard asked skeptically. Wizard looked at him stony-eyed, “You poor, stupid bastard,” Rasputin said softly, more to himself than to his friend. “Drawing the circle that shuts it out.” He flopped back into his earlier, careless pose, but his dancing fingers jigged on the bench back, and Wizard felt his awareness digging at him.
The pigeons roared up suddenly around them, their frantically beating wings swishing harshly against Wizard’s very face. Cassie stood before them, slender and smiling. She was very plain today, dressed all in dove gray from her shoes to the softly draped cloth of her dress. Her hair was an unremarkable brown, her features small and regular. But when she flashed Wizard her smile, the blue voltage of her eyes stu
She bent suddenly to wipe a smudge from her shoe. and Rasputin grabbed Wizard’s eyes over her bent back. “Stupid shit!” he mouthed silently at Wizard, but composed his face quickly as Cassie sat up between them. She gave her brown bobbed hair a shake, and the scent of wisteria engulfed Wizard and threatened to sweep him away. But she had fixed those eyes on Rasputin and pi