R. MacAvoy - Tea with the Black Dragon

“Acrobatics may not be necessary,” repeated Mr. Long.

“But they may. I may make a little bit of difference. Maybe the difference between saving a life and… and not. I may be very important.” The young blond clutched at the door. His pale hair gleamed under the streetlight.

“You are very important, Fred,” whispered Mayland Long. “And that is why I will not take you any further into this.”

With a slow, irresistible pressure, he forced Frisch out into the street.

Martha Macnamara’s universe was compassed by the groan and creak of wood, and by the chill of wet air. Had she been able to think, her very sickness might have convinced her she was still alive. She was denied that comfort, being barely conscious, and her thoughts were bound up with a rhythmic rise and sinking. The beat was molto lento, and she should be doing something in time with it. What?

That question gnawed at her. She tried breathing in time with the measure—no go. You can’t force your breathing, she reminded herself. What then—sing? She couldn’t remember a song as ponderous as the rhythm the world now kept, and she couldn’t find her mouth anyway.

Neither could she find her hands, so she couldn’t play the fiddle.

The staccato beat of footsteps superimposed itself over the slow rocking. She attended to the footsteps. Good.

Percussion rounded out the work nicely. Someone was taking care of things. Martha was content.

He was driving on the reserve tank. That was unfortunate, but not to be helped, at this hour of the morning. Perhaps he could siphon gas from Elizabeth Macnamara’s car.

As he had told Fred, he was feeling much better. This hideous night was falling behind him.

Something else, too, was falling behind: a danger or misery he could feel but to which he could put no name.

Perhaps it was despair.

He had partially fulfilled his promises, but promises were no longer the only things keeping him alive.

He felt the pressure of the sun’s approach, as it ate up the night to the east. In two hours it would rise over California. The sun had always been a great source of comfort to him.

Yet he owed his increase in strength not to the slow roll of time, but to the spontaneous kindness of Fred Frisch. Except for the young engineer, he would probably not have survived. He felt the wonder of that charity shimmering within his mind.

Long could be compassionate, in his dry, reserved fashion. He had once or twice donated his varied and considerable strengths to the service of others. But he had rarely been subject to the compassion of mankind. He had rarely needed it.

And Frisch’s response to a man who was almost a stranger went beyond casual kindness. He had given up sleep and ruined his furniture. Long injured the mans arm, and still he continued to help him. He risked jail. He offered to risk his life. How could Long comprehend such kindness, let alone pay it back? Like music, Frisch’s gift to him could not be translated into terms of gain or loss. Nor was it subject to reason. It had no meaning but that of its own existence.

Idly, because he was a methodical creature who did think in terms of gain and loss. Long began to tally the losses and gains of the last few days: loss of power. Loss of blood. Loss of new hope.

Loss of certainty.

On the credit side was only this encounter with an absurd young man who gave up a night’s rest for Mayland Long. Who performed the onerous duties of a nurse. Who lent him a shirt.

Who dared place his hand on Longs head, and tell him it was all okay.

With a ledger like this, Mr. Long wondered, why did he feel so much stronger, now, driving toward the dawn?

The Citroen darted onto the freeway and he was pressed against the back of the seat. This was the last short step of the nights journey—to Elizabeth Macnamara’s apartment. It would be profoundly anticlimactic if he ran out of gas.

The chill of the air prophesied fog later, but now, in the last hours of night, the sky was sharp and clear. He shifted in the seat, and his flannel shirt stuck to the leather upholstery, glued with drying blood.

At least this shirt was the right color.

He left the freeway and zagged right onto Middlefield. His arm was numb to the turn. Passing by Liz’s condominium he noticed a single light shone yellow. He turned the corner and parked along a side street. He wondered if the car would start again. No matter. He would not be driving again soon.

A stone tower obscured the light of the stars. He had parked in front of a church. He was a connoisseur of all stone architecture, and churches in particular were his passion, but this edifice was disappointing. It was obviously new, and the stone was merely veneer. TRINITY PARIS read the signboard. A pale phantom H in the varnish at the end of the word marked where the brass letter had been lost.

He stood on the cold grass and yawned. “De profundis clamor ad te,” he growled to the cross on the empty tower—,”Out of the depths a call to you.” He was not certain to whom he was speaking. The effort made him cough. He moved away from the street, crossing through the churchyard.

The direction of his progress was against the clock, or widdershins. To cross a churchyard widdershins is not auspicious, as he knew, but in the churchyard of Trinity Parish no one was buried. All the ground was paved over by concrete.

Behind the church lot stood a hedge of yew. He passed through the omen of its furry branches and found himself beside a noise of waters. The fountain was lit from below, and its shower sprang up in an arcing circle to fall again with silver lights upon the backs of sleeping seagulls.

Cold spray beaded on his face. He stepped among the gulls, who stood on one leg or with head under wing, and they did not stir. He circled the fountain, avoiding light, and reached the white stone walk which wound between the gleaming buildings. No sound came from within the condominiums, not even the mumble of television. He came to Liz Macnamara’s residence and stood beneath the window he had climbed through earlier in the evening.

Had it been just this evening?

The window was still open. Good. Had Elizabeth closed it he would not have been able to make the ascent. Not with one arm.

Drink, sleep or pray, he had said. According to your nature. What was Elizabeth’s nature? He would discover something of it soon.

He leaped lightly against the wall, wedging his left foot into the crack between two foundation blocks. Before his impetus failed he kicked upwards and grabbed the window sill with his good hand. The off center support disturbed his balance and his left side struck the wall with a dull thump. Pain tightened rather than loosened his grip, and he swung up through the window. He rolled head first into the room, favoring his wounded shoulder, and came to rest flat on his back on the plush carpet.

Liz Macnamara was awake. She sat curled on the sofa, as he had seen her before, and her face was white and frightened, again as before.

But her hands and feet were bound with tape and her mouth covered with a length of it. The terror in her eyes was immediate and deadly, for Floyd Rasmussen had one hand wound into her yellow hair and a squat black pistol pressed against the side other head. His small, colorless eyes regarded Long. The wounded man lay still as a bronze statue.

“You shook my confidence earlier tonight, fella,” remarked Rasmussen. “But at this distance I think I can’t miss. Her, that is.”

Long’s eyes met Elizabeth’s, and found within them an endless apology.

“Why? What is the purpose of this?” asked Long. His seemingly casual attempt to rise was checked by a movement of the gun. “I know about your financial enterprises, but between theft and murder there is a certain difference… They are crimes of different quality.”