Kit paused a moment, shot glass steady in his hand. "You and I haven't had much love for one another over the years, Skeeter. The way you make your living, what you tried to do to my granddaughter ..." He shook his head. "Believe me, I understand all too well the fear behind your eyes, Skeeter Jackson. But four weeks ago you did something so out of character, it shook me up. Badly. You tried to save Marcus from that bastard Farley, or whatever his real name is. Word is, you suffered some pretty rough treatment downtime before both of you escaped."
Skeeter felt heat in his cheeks. He shrugged. "Gladiator school wasn't so bad, if you didn't piss off the slave master enough for him to rake your hide with the whip. And I beat Lupus, hands down, in the Circus. No big deal."
Kit said quietly, "Yes, very big deal. Remember, I've fought for my life in that arena, too." Skeeter had forgotten in his anger. "So far as I can tell, that fight was an important first in your life. First time you put somebody else's life ahead of your own."
Skeeter felt uncomfortable again.
Kit lifted his glass. Clumsily, Skeeter took hold of his.
"To honor," Kit said quietly.
Skeeter's throat closed. An 'eighty-sixer had finally understood. He gulped the bourbon, astonished by the smooth flavor of it. Where, he wondered, had Kit acquired it? And why share it with Skeeter?
Kit set his shot glass upside-down on the desk; Skeeter did the same.
"I offered to pay the hospital bill," Kit finally said, "because you acquired those injuries in a desperate fight to get Marcus back where he belonged-with his wife and children. And I know exactly how much money you don't have."
"There's the wager money Brian's holding-hey, what about that wager Do you know anything?
A smile came and went. "Goldie screamed and kicked for a whole week when Brian put the wager on hold until you returned. It's still on hold until you officially visit Brian in the library."
Skeeter thought that one out. The wager seemed almost irrelevant, now. But he could use the money Brian was holding. He did rather enjoy the mental image of Goldie purple-faced enraged. Then he sighed and startled himself, admitting, "Wish I'd never made that goddamned wager."
Kit nodded slowly. "Good. That's one of the reasons for the bourbon." He chuckled. "It's illegal, you know. Brought a few bottles back with me from a scouting trip."
Skeeter couldn't believe it. Not only was the Kit Carson speaking to him man-to-man, but he'd shared a chink in his squeaky clean honor, shared it knowing it made him vulnerable.
He rose slowly to leave. "Thanks, Kit. More than you know. And thanks for the `vodka,' too. It was bracing and I needed that." It was the only way Skeeter knew to tell Kit he would keep his mouth shut about the wonderful, illegal bourbon.
Kit's lips twitched and a wicked gleam touched his eyes, but he said only, "Any time. I think Brian's waiting for you."
Skeeter nodded, headed for the door, then turned and said, "Sorry about the shoes. Won't happen again." Provided, that was, if Skeeter were ever invited back to Kit's sanctuary, which he deemed improbable at best. He closed the door, stood in the corridor for a moment, a little unsure just what he felt, then he sighed, found the elevator, and left the Neo Edo, heading toward the library. The few coins left from his victory lap jangled in his pocket. If the wager was still on, he was still in very hot water. Any tiny bit of coin he could scrape up would help.
When he entered the library, Brian Hendrickson looked up and said in his impossible accent, "Ah, heard you were up and about again. Glad to see rumor true, for once. I've been waiting, you know, for a month."
Skeeter, his mind and blood cooled by the time spent in Kit's office, pulled the coins out of his pocket and set them on the counter.
"Mmm ... very, very nice. And a gold aura amongst the lot." Brian looked up. "However did you come into possession of these?"
Skeeter wanted to tell him they'd come from the purses he'd stolen; but that wasn't the truth. He'd spent every last copper uncia of that money getting Marcus and him through the gate. All that remained were a few coins from the arena sands. So he said, very quietly, "I snatched them from the sand when the crowd. at the Circus Maximus started throwing coins to me on my victory lap. I'd, uh, beaten the favorite champion in Rome, and, uh, things got pretty wild for a few minutes."
Curiously, "Did you kill him?"
"No," Skeeter bit out. "But I beat the hell out of him and Claudius spared him."
Brian Hendrickson gazed at nothing for a moment. `That," he said, "would have been something to witness. Claudius spared very few" Then he shook himself slightly an a mournful look appeared on his face. "I'm afraid these cannot count toward your wager, Skeeter. You earned them honestly."
He'd half expected that answer, anyway, so he just nodded and scooped up the coins.
"Going to exchange them somewhere"
"No." They represented a pivotal moment in his life, when-for just a few minutes-the crowd really had treated him as the god Yesukai the Valiant had once called him. He stuffed the coins back into his pocket. Some god. All the years he'd spent fooling himself into thinking that what he did was correct was simply time wasted from his life, on delusions and fantasies that kept him from seeing what he was and where he was inevitably headed with genuine clarity. Thank God for Marcus. Without him, Skeeter might never have woken up.
"Thanks, Brian."
He stalked out of the library, unsure what to do next, or where to go. Surprisingly, he ended up at Dr. Mundy's door. A few minutes later, relaxed in a deep, easy-on-the-back chair with the whir of a tape recorder in the background, Skeeter started spilling all of it out, every single thing he could recall about Yesukai, Temujin, and the yurt he'd lived in as bogda and then as uncle of the Khan's firstborn son. Then, under Dr. Mundy's gentle persuasion, he let out the rest of it, as well. When he'd finished, he knew the hurt and fear weren't gone, but much of it now inhabited that whirring strand of metallic recording tape rather than Skeeter's belly and nightmares.
He refused the usual payment, startling Mundy into stutters, then left quietly and closed the door on that part of his life forever.
Margo and Malcolm got word from Primary just about the time Skeeter Jackson was punching Mike Benson into the ground. A sealed letter with official letterhead and stamps arrived for them.
"Open it!" Margo demanded.
"Patience," Malcolm laughed.
"You know I haven't got any!"
"Ah, yet another lesson to explore."
The Irish alley-cat glare, at least, had not changed since she'd begun college. Malcolm carefully slit the envelope with his pocketknife, replaced the little folder in his pocket, then slid out a crisp, official reply.
"Re: William Hunter, a.k.a. Charles Farley. Above was apprehended while digging up an illegal hoard of downtime artwork from Denver. Your recordings were most helpful in getting his cooperation and should serve very nicely at trial. I know you're wondering, and ordinarily I wouldn't commit words to paper before a trial, but you are, after all, on TT-86, many, many years in `our' past. He was, indeed an agent, collecting unusual pieces of art from the past and returning with them to his employer." Malcolm's eyes bugged when he saw that employer's world-famous name.
"We'll have a separate trial for him, of course. Seems he and another rich gentleman, on whom we have not a shred of evidence beyond Mr. Hunter's statements, had several years ago engaged in a little wager as to which of them could smuggle uptime for their private collections the most, ah, aforementioned artwork We've already seized one collection and will be turning it over to an IFARTS office as soon as the trials are completed. No one expects either trial to be long. I thought you should know, as you went far beyond the extra mile, and citizens, not law enforcement, at that-to bring this temporal criminal to justice. Good luck to you and thank you most sincerely for your incalculable help in cracking this illegal wager wide open."