210
JUDSON JEROME
sion of rotating motion-a tavern, The Stone Wheel. He would stop
in there, ask directions, call home, perhaps have a pint . . . though
that was silly, he realized. He could not he more than five minutes
from home, where he imagined the martini pitcher chilling in the
freezer-and if he hurried he might catch the news on TV.
The bartender was bare to the waist, which was odd, consider–
ing the season, and black, which was odd, considering the neighbor–
hood. He wore a black felt beret and a large soft gold serpent ring,
spiraling his finger in fat coils. Everett rested a moment in the door–
way fighting off a wave of vertigo, using the time efficiently to look
around the bar, half hoping to find television so that he wouldn't
have to hurry--or at least a public telephone in a booth so that the
endearments he expected to exchange with his wife would not echo
foolishly in the quiet room. He straightened his tie and gave the
bartender a consciously ingratiating smile.
"The Left is for penetration," the bartender said with sullen
belligerence. He was standing with his great arms folded comfortably
across his chest, staring straight at Everett, but Everett realized with–
in a few minutes that the remark was not
directe~
at him.
Out on the gallery, beyond the half-opened Dutch door, sat an
old man cradling a pewter mug which gleamed coolly in the last light.
The man did not glance back at the bartender, but seemed to be
crooning to the sea as he answered, lifting his chin with a tremble, his
voice velvety, lyrical, "What has become of love? What has become
of tradition?" He said the last word more with the sound of
s
than of
sh,
causing Everett to speculate that he was probably unmarried–
the sort one found in hars.
"Have you a telephone?" Everett asked the bartender, mildly.
"Terms of enslavement," snarled the bartender, still standing
grandly impassive as a Gurkha guard behind the long teak bar,
his
eyes on Everett. "The Right is in decay," he said. "Even now, as we
speak, the future is crossing the sands of Africa like the edge of night,
like a wave. We are gathering strength, like the ooze of oil crushed."
Everett gave
him
a kind of winking smile, intended to conciliate
for a moment the wave of the future. · He was not one to lose
his
footing in a hotbed, he knew. He couldn't afford to be, in
his
line.
He hitched his holster and strode to the bar, put
his
foot on the
rail,
and looked vaguely around the cash register for Sal Hepatica. "Let
me have a pint," he said at least.
