McCain and Stagger Lee had come with Patrise, Carmen, and Phasia, but not Ginny or Cloudhunter. Doc wondered if Ginny was alone. He wondered what he would do about it if she were.
Carmen came onstage, in a tight gold blouse that showed one shoulder and a triangle of midriff, a trailing black skirt.
Say how you cut it
You'11 never get it so thin
An edge of softness
To turn the hardness within
When will your face fall
After the long masquerade
The razors open
Come out and dance on the blade
So here's a tip of the hat
To all the melancholy people
So uncertain what they 're ready to feel
(Waitin' all night)
Diamond cut diamond
Silk cut steel
During the second verse Matt and Gloss came out, doing a sharp turn around the floor timed to the lyrics. It wasn't really interpretive. Doc supposed that might have made people nervous.
So here's a tip of the glove To all the solitary people Undercover in the world of the real (Hidin all night)
Diamond cut diamond Silk cut steel
Pavel was standing in the doorway, making a hand signal. Pa-trise nodded and looked away. Pavel stared, then went back into the foyer.
So here's a tip of the shoe To all the predatory people Overeager for the whip and the heel (Playin' all night) Diamond cut diamond Silk cut steel
Carmen and the dancers took their bows, disappeared through the curtains. The room lights came up.
Everybody turned around.
Two new people were standing just inside the door. One was a tall, dark-skinned woman with black-and-white hair. She had mirrored sunglasses above lips like a surgical incision. She was wearing a long trenchcoat of silver-gray leather over a loose white cotton suit; no shirt, a thin strip of metallic silver cloth around her long throat. Her hands were thrust into the coat pockets, not casually.
The other was the shortest elf Doc had ever seen, a man built like a bull, his white hair cut down to fuzz on his skull. He had sunglasses as well, heavy-framed black ones. Doc had to check again that he was really Trueblood, and not an albino human, but the ears were definite, as were the weirdly delicate hands-really weird, on those piston forearms. He wore a black team jacket for the Topanga Toons, heavy gray trousers bloused into cycle boots. His wide belt had a bunch of pouches and clips; a white rod, thin as a pencil and eighteen inches long, rode in a sleeve, and there were handcuffs hanging on the other side.
They were eops. They didn't look like any eops Doe had e\er seen before, but he knew anyway.
Someone at another table said, in an awful fake British accent, "I say, Patrise, we're nor being bally raided are we?"
"Relax, Nigel," Patrise said, with complete unconcern. "The
Mirada is not raided. Have another brandy." He stood up. "Officers. We haven't had the pleasure: my name is Patrise, and this is my establishment. Won't you please share our hospitality?"
The two cops came to the table. The tension level dropped a hairsbreadth.
"I'm Lieutenant Rico," the woman said. "This is my partner, Lieutenant Linn." The words might have been steel blanks rolling out of the mill.
Patrise said, "Newly arrived."
"Special assignment. For the Shadow Cabinet."
"Yes, who else. Do sit down. Is there something I can offer you? Coffee?"
Linn put his fingertips together. Rico said "Coffee would be nice of you." They sat down. Alvah played "A Nightingale Sang," and couples came out to dance. The club settled back.
Lieutenant Rico didn't talk much. Lieutenant Linn made an appreciative gesture when his coffee was served, but didn't talk at all.
Patrise said, "You're on special assignment here, you say."
"I did."
"Not voluntary? I think I should be insulted for my city."
"Is it your city, sir?"
"People make cities theirs. Robert Moses and Richard Daley in their ways, Samuel Johnson and Colette in theirs. Excuse me: and Robert Peel, Eugene Vidocq, and Eliot Ness in theirs."
Rico said, "And Capone and O'Banion and Moran?"
"Bugs or Colonel Sebastian?"
Rico turned her head. The silver glasses hid anything that might have been called expression. She said, "You have a reputation as well, Mr. Patrise."
"You're not looking to change employers."
"The Cabinet wants the situation here dealt with."
"Do you mean Whisper Who Dares?"
"I mean the situation."
"That's an admirable desire of the Cabinet."