Howling laughter rumbled through the building as they squeezed their way through the rowdy crush of bodies. Most of the people in Casa Grande were slurping from metal cups.
"What are they drinking?" Tracy asked Blackjack. "Smells like gasoline."
"Close," Blackjack said. "A home-brew that BeBop cooks up himself. I once saw him drink a quart of it, then pour the rest into an empty motorcycle and drive it around the courtyard. I wouldn't give two cents for any of their livers a year from now."
A drunken woman wearing a Padres' baseball cap leaned over Tracy's shoulder and laughed. "Man, who cares what happens a year from now." She drained the contents of her cup and sprayed it through her lips straight up into the air. It rained back down in her face and she laughed again before disappearing into the boiling crowd.
"This is a little like some fraternity parties I've attended," Tracy said. A stricken look crumpled her face. "Oh no. Look at that." She pointed to a couple standing by an ornate doorway. The man was carving a big heart in the column with his knife. The girl giggled coyly, flipping a curtain of long, greasy hair over her shoulder. "Jesus, stop him. That doorway is solid marble, created by Andrea Sansovino, a sixteenth-century Florentine sculptor." They watched as the man continued to jab his knife at the marble, chipping and scratching his crude heart with wobbly initials.
"It's too late to try to save this place," Eric said softly.
"Yeah, you're right," she said, forcing a smile. "But I'll bet you're impressed by what I know for a change, huh?"
"I am," Blackjack said.
Eric winked at her and she smiled broadly as she limped ahead, pleased. The information wasn't medicine or survival, just the most useless of fields in this crazy world: art. But still, it was all hers. Something she knew that they didn't. Something she could be proud of.
As they pushed their way closer to the Main Vestibule, the pounding beat of music wafted to them.
"Somebody's beating that guitar within an inch of its life," Blackjack said.
"Do you play?" Tracy asked him, shouting to be heard above the noise.
"I know three chords. Enough to play twenty-three verses of 'Louie, Louie.'"
"That sounds like two more chords than whoever's playing knows," Eric said.
Finally they wedged through the arms and legs of the multipede blob of stinking bodies into the Main Vestibule. Standing in front of a magnificently carved fireplace mantel, his leg up on a squat black table, stood a bony man of about thirty. He wore a poncho made from a large American flag, a slit cut in the middle for his head, the field of stars flapping against his blue-jeaned shins. His feet were bare. He was whacking the guitar with broad strokes, singing loudly, a mouthful of braces reflecting light.
"I don't care what people say, rock 'n' roll is here to stay." Behind him a kid about thirteen banged on a set of drums in a haphazard rhythm that ignored the song they were both singing.
"That's BeBop on guitar," Blackjack explained. "The kid on the drums is his, uh, protйgй. Calls him Tsetse, like the fly."
Eric nodded, then directed their attention to the corner of the room, where Rhino and Angel were standing, flanked on all sides by some of their crew from The Centurion. A couple of crew members were slurping from metal cups. Rhino tugged restlessly on the rubber band around his wrist. Angel watched BeBop's performance with piercing eyes, like a chef studying a pheasant it was about to carve. It was the only look she had.
Abruptly, BeBop stopped hammering the guitar and waved a hand at the drummer to stop too. Everyone applauded dutifully, whistling and yelling. BeBop took a deep bow, turned his back to the crowd a moment, flipped up his poncho, and began pissing into the fireplace.
Tracy shook her head. "That sixteen-foot high fireplace he's pissing into is from the French Renaissance. The marble busts surmounting it are by, uh…"
"Francois Duquesnoy," Eric finished.
She looked up at him, trying not to show her annoyance. "Figures. It goddamn figures."
He slipped an arm around her waist and felt her lean into him, shifting weight from her bad hip. She felt good there.
When BeBop had finished zipping his pants and turned around, everyone applauded again even louder. He flashed his mouthful of braces.
"Hey, lookie, lookie," he said, pointing over the heads of the crowd. "It's my old buddy, Black Jack."
"That's Blackjack, man. One word, like the card game."
"Right, man. I didn't mean anything of a racist nature by it. After all, you're the guy who helped me concoct my world famous BeBop's Brew." He hoisted a metal cup and took a deep swig. Everyone cheered and did the same.
Eric and Tracy turned curious eyes on Blackjack, who shrugged. "A little medicinal consultation. For a fee, of course."
"Of course," Eric said.
"What'd you come for this time?" BeBop asked. "Buying or selling?"
"A little bit of both, maybe. Brought some customers."
"Well, bring 'em on out here where I can get a look at them."
Eric and Tracy stepped away from the crowd. Blackjack hovered behind them, his hand resting idly on the hilt of his saber.
"Who are you?" BeBop asked, his pale blue eyes out of place in his dark-featured face.
Blackjack answered for them. "Eric Raven-smith and Tracy Ammes. They're with my crew now," he said, turning to face the whole crowd, "so I don't want anybody to try to cheat them."
"Ravensmith, huh?" BeBop said. "I've heard something about you. Can't remember what."
"Savvytown," Rhino said from his corner. His face was contorted with anger, his one black eye shimmering under the overhang of twisted flesh.
"Right, right. You're the dude that went in there and smashed the joint up. Yeah, I remember now. Slick piece of work. You don't plan to try that here, do you?" BeBop was grinning around his braces, but the cold look in his eyes was unmistakable.
"No," Eric assured him. "That was personal."
"Okay, then let me lay out the rules here at Liar's Cove. They're my rules and they aren't up for negotiation. You follow them, fine. You break them, you're dead. No exceptions. With me so far?"
"Go on."
"Any business transaction that takes place anywhere on the premises is taxable. That means I get ten percent for providing the place. You can only buy food here from my kitchen. You can stay at my hotel over at Casa del Mar or you can visit my whorehouse at Casa del Sol. We got men, women, children, or any combination you can think of. And before you get the wrong idea, I don't run them. They rent the rooms from me and give a percentage. Nobody's forcing them to do anything. They want to leave, they can walk out of here today." He grinned, his mouth twinkling metal. "Hell, I've got a fucking waiting list over there anyway. That should give you plenty of room to conduct whatever business you came here for. My security force is here to keep the violence at a minimum. I don't make any money if you people end up killing each other, so unnecessary violence will not be tolerated. You have to think of this place as a new concept in the shopping mall. The only restriction is in this building, Casa Grande." He gestured grandly as if to encompass the whole building. "It's got some one hundred rooms, including basements, vaults, thirty-seven bedrooms, and forty-one bathrooms. Put the whole thing together and you got seventy-three thousand five hundred ten square feet, almost one and a half times the size of a football field. And it's all mine. Other than the first floor, the rest of this house is off limits, man. This is where I do my Orson Welles impression. Dig?"
Eric nodded.
"Too bad my mom couldn't be around to see me now," he said, addressing the crowd. He'd gotten used to speaking to large groups and seemed to prefer it rather than one-on-one conversations. "After all, it's thanks to her I'm here. She used to be head tour guide here for years." He pointed at the Hearst Castle T-shirt one of his security guards was wearing. "We had five boxes of those T-shirts in our garage. Factory seconds the gift shop couldn't sell. We had a Hearst Castle clock in the living room, Hearst Castle dishes in the kitchen." He sat on the edge of the squat black table, absently strumming the guitar. "This place supported both of us while I played soft rock in Holiday Inns on weekends. John Denver shit. 'Play "Rocky Mountain High," ' written in lipstick on cocktail napkins with a dollar bill attached. Same old shit." He leaned the guitar against the table, waved the young drummer over. "Bring the medicine bag, Kid," he said.
The young boy grabbed a child's lunch bucket with cartoon figures of Donnie and Marie Osmond painted on the lid. In his other hand he carried a thin pole. He wore a fisherman's hat that was stuck through with dozens of what looked like hat pins. He handed the lunch pail to BeBop, who opened it, dabbed some white powder on the tip of his thumbnail, and snorted it up his nostril. Then he closed the pail and handed it back. He turned to Eric with a crooked grin. "Hey, Ravensmith, you or your chick wouldn't happen to be a dentist, would you? I can't seem to get these damn braces off."
"Sorry, can't help you," Eric said.
"Well, that's what I get, trying to straighten my teeth at my age. Show business, you know?"
"Listen, BeBop," Rhino suddenly said, stomping forward from his group. Angel tried to stop him, but he shrugged her off.
Eric saw Griffin follow Rhino forward; he was carrying Eric's crossbow.
Rhino shook a delicate finger at BeBop. "I want this Ravensmith and Blackjack. They've caused me considerable business setbacks."
"How so?" BeBop asked.
"Well, they tried to destroy my ship, killed several of my crew."
BeBop smiled. "Since that forced you to come here for supplies and repairs and to recruit more crew members, they actually did me a favor. I'm turning a profit on the deal."
"I don't give a damn about your profit," Rhino bellowed, snapping the rubber band against his thick wrist. "I want them. So if it's profit you want, I'll buy them from you."
BeBop arched his eyebrows in surprise. "Now there's an offer I haven't had before. Pirates buying other pirates. What should I say to that, Ravensmith?"
Eric smiled. "I'd ask him how much he's offering."
BeBop laughed and the crowd joined in, toasting Eric. "Okay, then, Rhino, what's your offer. How much for the three of them?"
"I'll give you their ship and all its contents."
"I could take that myself if I wanted to. But then how many customers would come here to do business if they didn't feel safe. No, Rhino, I'm afraid whatever conflict you have with the doctor and his friends will have to wait until you leave Liar's Cove."
"I want him!" Rhino yelled, his lumpish body trembling with energy and rage.
One of Rhino's crew snatched an arrow up and laid it into his bow, pivoting toward Eric.
BeBop nodded at his young sidekick, who immediately plucked one of the hat pins from his fishing cap, thumbed it into the end of the hollow tube he was carrying, pointed it at Rhino's man, and blew sharply into the end. The hat pin launched out of the end of the tube and dove into the neck of the crewman. The man dropped his bow with a howl and grabbed his neck. Blood braided down his throat as he swooned to the floor.
The crowd watched silently.
"I warned you that violence wouldn't be tolerated. It's bad for business. Nothing personal, Rhino."
Angel quickly nudged Rhino's elbow, guiding him through the crowd. "Of course we understand," she said politely. "We apologize for our friend's rashness."
"No problem," BeBop said. "Tsetse needed the practice anyway."
Angel led Rhino out of the room, stepping over the twitching body of their wounded crew member. Kelly Furst, the black ex-army nurse, and Rilke stopped to pick up their fallen comrade.
"I wouldn't bother," BeBop smiled. "Tsetse dips those suckers in something nasty that Blackjack helped him cook up. That guy'll be dead meat in a couple minutes. We can use the body to feed the hogs."
Kelly Furst and Rilke exchanged looks, dropped the body, and quickly trotted after the others.
When they were gone and the crowd was loudly discussing the events just past, BeBop waved Eric, Tracy, and Blackjack over. "That Rhino's getting worse and worse, man. Acts like a junkie speed freak on Angel Dust. I don't know what your beef is, but I know he's out for your asses. Personally, I don't care one way or the other who does what to who, but I don't want it done here. You know the rules, folks. I'd hate to end up feeding you guys to the hogs too. Blackjack and me done too much business together for that." He paused, let the light flicker off his braces. "And he knows me well enough to know I'll kill all three of you if I have to."