Song of Susannah

Because she wasshy.

And my goodness, things in the lobby of the Plaza—Park had changed while the hijacking mommy-bitch had been upstairs waiting for her phone call. They had changed alot.

Susa

This might be interesting.

Mia stepped out of the elevator, then attempted to step right back in. She thumped against the doors instead, and hard enough to make her teeth come together with a little ivory click. She looked around, bewildered, at first not sure how it was that the little descending room had disappeared.

Susa

No answer from the dark-ski

She looked toward those doors with the sort of lip-biting dismay which may escalate into panic at a single rough word or angry look.

She’d been upstairs for a little over an hour, and during that time the lobby’s early-afternoon lull had ended. Half a dozen taxis from La Guardia and Ke

Mia cringed back, wondering what to do.

“Front!” yelled a desk clerk, and banged a bell. The sound seemed to shoot across Mia’s confused thoughts like a silver arrow. “Front, please!”

A gri

“Ah-yoo takea pickcha me and my wife?”

Offering her the flash-thing. Wanting her to take it from him. Mia cringed away, wondering if it ran on radiation, if the flashes might hurt her baby.

Susa

No answer. Of course not, she really couldn’t expect Susa

The gri

“No,” Mia said. “No, cry pardon…no.” The panic was very close now and very bright, whirling and gibbering right in front of her

(yooo take-ah pickcha, we kill-ah baby)

and Mia’s impulse was to drop the oblong flasher on the floor. That might break it, however, and release the deviltry that powered the flashes.

She put it down carefully instead, smiling apologetically at the astonished Japanese couple (the man still had his arm around his wife), and hurried across the lobby in the direction of the little shop. Even the piano music had changed; instead of the former soothing melodies, it was pounding out something jagged and dissonant, a kind of musical headache.

I need a shirt because there’s blood on this one. I’ll get the shirt and then I’ll go to the Dixie Pig, Sixty-first and Lexingworth…Lexington,I mean, Lexing ton…and then I’ll have my baby. I’ll have my baby and all this confusion will end. I’ll think of how I was afraid and I’ll laugh.

But the shop was also full. Japanese women examined souvenirs and twittered to each other in their bird-language while they waited for their husbands to get them checked in. Mia could see a counter stacked with shirts, but there were women all around it, examining them. And there was another line at the counter.

Susa

No answer. She was in there, Mia could feel her, but she would not help.And really, she thought,would I, if I were in her position?

Well, perhaps she would. Someone would have to offer her the right inducement, of course, but—

The only inducement I want from you is the truth,Susa

Someone brushed against Mia as she stood in the door to the shop and she turned, her hands coming up. If it was an enemy, or some enemy of her chap, she would claw his eyes out.

“Solly,” said a smiling black-haired woman. Like the man, she was holding out one of the oblong flash-things. In the middle was a circular glass eye that stared at Mia. She could see her own face in it, small and dark and bewildered.

“You take pickcha, preese? Take pickcha me and my fliend?”

Mia had no idea what the woman was saying or what she wanted or what the flash-makers were supposed to do. She only knew that there were too many people, they were everywhere, this was a madhouse. Through the shop window she could see that the front of the hotel was likewise thronged. There were yellow cars and long black cars with windows you couldn’t look into (although the people inside could doubtless look out), and a huge silver conveyance that sat rumbling at the curb. Two men in green uniforms were in the street, blowing silver whistles. Somewhere close by something began to rattle loudly. To Mia, who had never heard a jackhammer, it sounded like a speed-shooter gun, but no one outside was throwing himself to the sidewalk; no one even looked alarmed.

How was she supposed to get to the Dixie Pig on her own? Richard P. Sayre had said he was sure Susa

Then Susa

If I help you a little now—get you to a quiet place where you can catch your breath and at least do something about your shirt—will you give me some straight answers?

About what?

About the baby, Mia. And about the mother. About you.

I did!

I don’t think so. I don’t think you’re any more elemental than…well, than I am. I want the truth.

Why?

I want the truth,Susa

(Fedic)

(Discordia)

(the Castle on the Abyss)

to be among so many people made her feel like screaming. And after all, why not tell the dark-ski

All right,she said.I’ll do as you ask, Susa