Rudolph Wurlitzer - The Drop Edge of Yonder

The crowd broke into hysterical foot-stomping approval: "Hurrah for Admiral Doom!" they shouted. "Doom! Doom! Doom!"

For his efforts, Zebulon received twenty-five dollars and a clean towel to wipe off the blood.

He pushed his way to a side room where drinks were served from thin rubber tubes that allowed each customer to suck out all the booze he could handle until he ran out of breath or passed out. As the liquor trickled down his throat he heard a song drift over the raucous din, a voice that entered his heart like the pointed end of a stake:

Delilah stood on a wooden platform at the back of the room wearing a low-cut red dress. Her eyes were half-closed, her face caked with thick makeup. The newcomers in the room had never seen anyone like her or experienced a voice so penetrating and melancholy. As she sang, two fiddlers and an accordion player provided enough rhythm to keep her on course:

Zebulon noticed Stebbins sitting alone at a table, rocking back and forth as she repeated the last line to wild applause.

His eyes narrowed as Zebulon sat down opposite him.

"I heard you been writing lies about me," Zebulon said.

Stebbins filled up his glass and pushed it towards Zebulon. "It's why I'm here: to satisfy the public's insatiable hunger and curiosity for frontier lore. And you, my friend, rank with the very best, thanks to my adventurously inflated prose."

He looked over at Delilah. "Lucky for me that she has contributed more intimate details about you than any scribbler could wish for. How you forget to take off your boots when engaging in the act of love, how you become violent when you lose at cards or billiards, or how you obsessively invent your past. All touching human fallibilities which help make a story appealing and accessible."

Zebulon walked over to Stebbins and lifted him off his chair.

"Extry! Extry!" Stebbins shouted, struggling to free himself. "Read all about it! Deranged mountain man goes berserk! Kills reporter for spilling the beans about his outlaw past! Read about his squalid love affair with an Abyssinian courtesan and a Russian count!"

Zebulon dropped him into his chair and sat down as Delilah launched into another song:

"A word of advice," Stebbins said, pouring a drink. "Choose an alias. Especially in San Francisco. Anything but Admiral Doom. Admiral Death has more punch. Think about it. After all, death is what people out here know about. Death and gold. Never Doom. Doom is the last thing they want to hear about."

They both turned to watch Delilah as she looked over at their table and began another song:

She sang the next verse in Portuguese, or maybe it was another song altogether, stretching out the vowels and ending each verse with a melancholy wail that traveled slowly up from her belly to her throat. By the time she finished, several men were openly weeping, unable to control their buried longings and fears. One man shot his pistol at the ceiling. Others stood on their chairs and cheered, throwing coins and nuggets on the platform, which were scooped up by the musicians, who took half for themselves before they handed the rest to Delilah.

Zebulon watched her weave slowly through the crowd, as if her fragile and weary body was struggling against a strong wind.

"How amazing!" she said to Zebulon as she sat down. "You've Joined the German navy And become an officer as well. Although your uniform does need some repair." She poured herself a drink. "Is it true that the Germans have plans to take over California and Oregon, as well as Mexico and Alaska? Or is that the English?"

He stared at her, shocked by how much weight she had lost and the deep lines around her mouth and eyes.

"I know," she sighed. "I don't bear close inspection. A girl's joie de vivre can so easily vanish when she has to sing for her supper." She shook her head. "And what about you? You don't look so well yourself."

She looked across the room where a waiter, no more than four feet tall, was maneuvering his way towards them, holding a tray over his black gnome-like head.

"I was hoping someone had stepped on him," she said wearily as the dwarf placed a bottle of whiskey and two glasses on the table.

Nodding at Zebulon, the strange dwarf spoke to Delilah in Portuguese.

"Toku is confused about you," she said to Zebulon. "I don't know why. Why don't you tell us, Toku? We have no secrets at this table. Very few, anyway"

The dwarf pointed at Zebulon.

"Tell your friend to stay away from games of chance," he said with a clipped English accent, "or he'll end up in a ditch. If you know what I mean."

"I don't know what you mean," she said.

He shrugged and picked up his tray. "You know very well what I mean."

"Do you plan to keep our appointment?" Delilah asked.

"When I am ready. Not before. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find three guinea pigs? And not just any three guinea pigs. They all have to be the same age and color. And then there's the state of the moon, and various other elements that you have no knowledge of. If you ask me once more, or even look at me in the wrong way, you will find yourself talking to a stone wall."

He turned and walked back across the room like a drunken sailor navigating his way across a rolling deck.

"A friend of yours?" Zebulon asked.

"He used to be some kind of pet or court jester for the Captain of an English ship," she explained. "When everyone went off to the gold fields, he stayed behind. When he heard me sing, he told me that he had known me in a past life. He's African. Every time I ask him what tribe he's from, he tells me something different — Baule, Bwiti, Pygmy. Whatever he is, he has strange powers and sees things other people can't. I suppose I have an addiction for second-sighted people."