Fred Saberhagen After the Fact

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unnatural she sounded.
Jerry started to reply, then simply nodded. Now was not the time for him to
take a drink; but he could certainly use a moment to himself, away from
Colleen at least, to try to regroup.
The intermission was evidently going to be a long one, for the men outside in
front of the theater, and in Taltavul's next door, gave no sign of drifting
back to the theater.
On entering the bar, Jerry recognized among the crowd the guard
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Saberhagen, Fred - After the Fact who had been sitting outside of Lincoln's
box. Was the man really in on the conspiracy, then?
While Jerry was wondering if he should take a short beer after all, a couple
of gulps just to heal the dryness in his throat, a name was called nearby in a
familiar voice. Turning, responding more to the voice than to the name which
had been Smith Jerry with relief saw John Wilkes Booth, dressed in dark gray,
standing at the bar with a bottle of whiskey and a glass in front of him.
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Booths dark eyes were almost twinkling, as if with a great secret.
"Mr. Smith will you have a drink with me?"
Jerry, filled with a vast relief, accepted. "Gladly, Mr. Booth, gladly."
Relief was short lived. Jerry wondered if Booth might now have given up his
murderous plan, and decided to spend the evening getting sloshed instead.
Would that, could that, possibly satisfy Pilgrim? Jerry didn't know, but he
felt grave doubts. Pilgrim had, after all, specifically enjoined him against
merely warning Lincoln.
"Are you enjoying the show?" Booth asked. Having obtained a glass for Jerry by
gestures, he was pouring delicately to fill it.
"Oh yes." Jerry couldn't think of anything better to say. He lifted his glass
and sipped at it as delicately as it had been poured.
"Be sure to see the rest," Booth was gazing now into the mirror behind the
bar. "There is going to be some rare fine acting."
Someone down the bar, six or eight customers distant, was calling the actor's
name, trying to get his attention. Booth and Jerry looked, to see a man
evidently trying to drink a toast.
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Saberhagen, Fred - After the Fact
" to the late Junius Booth. Wilkes, you are a good actor, yes. But you'll
never be the man your father was."
Booth drank to his father without hesitation. But for a moment a small smile
seemed to play under his mustache. He shook his head in disagreement: "When I
leave the stage, I will be the most famous man in America."
A few moments later, Jerry took his leave of the people in the bar.
Colleen appeared actually surprised when he came back into the lobby. She
said: "This one time I
expected you to disappear and you did not."
"No, I did not. Shall we go back to our seats? The play will be starting
soon."
Silently she took his arm. Her face was turned toward him, her eyes studying
his face, as they climbed the stairs from the lobby.
Soon they were back in the dress circle. She was not smiling now, nor
pretending. When she spoke her voice was still so low that the people around
them would have trouble hearing it; but it was no longer the voice of a lady
who had come to watch a play.
"Damn you. Damn you, man. Do you still think you can brazen this out, whatever
it is? Do you know how far I've stuck out my neck for you already? I had
convinced myself that what happened between us on the train was& is it that
you're ready to die to be rid of me, or what?"
"Colleen." He could feel and hear the sheer hopelessness in his own voice. "It
meant something to me, what happened between us. But I
can't argue about it& not now. How did you know that I was here?"
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Saberhagen, Fred - After the Fact
Her voice sank further. "One of the girls in the brothel reports to me too.
She went through your pockets while you were there." She stared at him in
anger a moment longer; then she walked briskly away, not looking back.
The gaslights had brightened again when the intermission began.
When Colleen left Jerry got out of his seat again to pace back and forth in
the aisle, stretching and soothing muscles that cried for either rest or
action. He kept watching the white door. Would the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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