“Yeah. Dad?”

“Good-bye, Son.”

The bright sunlight through the window woke Wizard. Even in his sleep, it had been making his eyes water. He rolled silently from his bed, cursing the hangover and the weariness that had made him sleep in. He surveyed the damage. The den was a wreck. He dressed slowly, in silence, trying to move his head as little as possible. He wanted to lie down again, but forced himself to set his room to rights. He walked very carefully, setting his feet where the floorboards creaked the least.

Black Thomas watched him as he shook and smoothed the blankets. They smelled like Lynda. She had left her mark everywhere. Thomas noticed it when he came over to lie on the mattress. He sniffed and growled softly before he settled. his raw stump hovering away from his body. When he had arranged himself. Wizard lowered himself carefully beside the cat and inspected the wound.

“Looks like it will heal, my friend.” Wizard touched it with his eyes only, moving his pounding head to see it from all angles. “That was a foolish move you made, and I’m afraid you’ve paid dearly for it.”

Black Thomas opened his red mouth wide in a meow of disdain. Wizard was forced to nod, humiliated. “I didn’t say you were the only one who did stupid things. I’ll have to pay for mine as well. I’ve got to find Cassie today. I’ve got to get this whole mess straightened out.”

Moving with ponderous care, he tidied the rest of the room, taking no satisfaction in it. There was more shabbiness than he had ever noticed before. What Lynda’s eyes had touched seemed to have changed overnight. The coziness of his retreat had turned to squalor, the privacy to isolation. He picked up the little pipe from me floor and dropped it into the footlocker on top of the bag of weed. He stared for a long time at me other things she had stacked on the floor. Daylight made them all real. Finally he brought himself to touch them, to stack them back inside the footlocker. But when he tried to drop the lid, he found the hinges racked. There was no shutting them away anymore.

He ate bread sticks and packages of crackers from his food supply. He thought of a cup of hot sweet coffee to wash them down. His hangover vetoed it. Why had he gone drinking with her? How could he have ever forgotten what the mornings after were inevitably like? He straightened the books on his shelves, moving always with a sleepy caution. He shook and refolded his clothes- He set the wizard bag carefully atop the folded garments, not daring to look inside the bag. He had betrayed them. He wouldn’t look at them and wonder what he had lost.

When he had done and redone his small chores, he lay down on his mattress. by the cat and stared around his tiny room. The pigeons had all left for the day. This time of year no young ones shrilled from the nests. No babies to handle, no setting parents to feed. The well worn paperbacks on the shelves were stale. He flipped through a Zane Grey, remembering every line of dialogue. It wouldn’t do. He rolled over. staring out the sunstricken window. That was one thing he hadn’t done yet. He didn’t think it prudent to take up his cardboard and blanket again. Not yet. Wait until night when movement in a darkened upper story would not be noticed. He wondered vaguely why Lynda had taken them down. Or if she had. It-must have happened after he passed out.

His body stank. Sitting still, trying not to think, he became aware of his own smell. Cleaning up was something to do, a chore to keep his mind busy- There was fresh rainwater in the coffee can on the fire escape. He scanned the alley before reaching out the window for it. He made a ritual out of his sponge bath, occupying himself with it for as long as he could.

He heated the water over his Stemo can and slowly sponged his body as he shivered standing on a threadbare towel. He was thinner than he remembered being. He rubbed at a spot on his chest for some moments before recognizing the hickey she had left. He re-dressed slowly.

The events of the night before came back to him slowly, as elusive as last week’s fragmentary dreams. He moved back through them slowly, flinching at every stop. But when he came to the image of Booth crumpling down the wall, it was more than he could stand. He rose to pace his room with catsoft steps. Twice he went to the window. On the mild trip, he took his boots with him. He surveyed the alley, then slid up the window and stepped out onto the fire escape. Black Thomas raised a sleepy head from where he sunbathed on the mattress.

He gave a warning growl and lay back to sleep.

Wizard had given up all pretense at blending. Shaving in the minors of the stainless steel restroom near the fire station was something he did for his own comfort. He still didn’t recognize the man in me mirror. He wondered what to do with himself today. He refused to try buying coffee again. He could no longer feed the pigeons. If he went to Occidental Paric, Lynda would find him. At the market he would have to face Euripides, at the Seattle Center he would have to deal with Rasputin. For long moments it seemed as if his future was made up solely of the things he could not do. Then he thought of the Waterfall Gardens.

It was just across the street. It was a walled and private place, an oasis of shade trees and flowing water in the middle of the city. This time of year, it was usually empty. The gardens were a tiny, waited-off area, no larger than a vacant building site. In summer, people enjoyed its cool shade and the rising mist off the splashing water. In Seattle’s winter, shade and rising mist were in the public domain. No one went seeking them. Wizard sat at a little round table, watching the running water and trying to comfort himself with facts. The park was a memorial to the original headquarters of the United Parcel Service, which had been built on this site in 1907, convenient to Occidental Avenue and the whorehouses. That was how it had begun, with a handful of messengers whose chief customers were the brothels. He tried to picture it, and smiled vaguely at the running water.

“Does every little thing have to be spelled out for you?”

Wizard jumped at the woman’s voice and spun, expecting to find Lynda rampant. Instead, it was a stout little black woman, her hair lacquered into an unnatural set of waves. Her dress was too long, but her very old shoes were well cared for. She had on a blue cloth coat, not long enough to cover her dress.

She sniffed disgustedly as she stared at Wizard. As she sat down at his table, he immediately rose.

“Where are you going? Don’t walk out on me, you dummy!

We’ve got things to say. Hey! Don’t try to run away from it, because it won’t work. It’s right on your heels now!“

He moved off rapidly, routed from the Waterfall Gardens.

He had no magic to comfort them; why wouldn’t they leave — him alone? Away from the protective walls, the wind blew cold and stiff. It crept up his sleeve to chill his wrists, it stiffened his spine with achings. He coughed and it made his head pound.

He had to find shelter, warm shelter, away from strange people talking to him. The bus.

The driver glared at him, but had to let him board. It was the Ride Free area. Wizard shivered his way to a seat in the rear, away from the doors that opened and closed to admit a gust of wind at every stop. He would ride it clear to Battery Street, then jump off and get back on a southbound one. He sat rubbing his hands and staring at his raw knuckles. For a moment he couldn’t remember how he had skinned them. Booth.

Oh, God! His mind teetered dizzily between Wizard and Mitchell.

The bus jerked and swayed from stop to stop. It had begun to rain, at first gently, then determinedly. The passengers on the bus increased, most of them damp, a few shaking drops from umbrellas as they boarded. Yet the bus was not full when a young man came down the aisle and took a seat beside him.