Tales of Old Earth by Michael Swanwick Page A

no tomorrow had pulled out all the stops. They were whooping and laughing, talking that big talk, and slapping down paper money by the fistful. Nobody cared that it was a crooked game. It was their last chance to show a little style.
    Billy Bones was in his element, his skull-face grinning with avarice. He spun the wheel with one hand and rested the other on the haunch of a honey in smoke-grey stockings and a skirt so short you could see all the way to Cincinnati. She had one hand on Billy’s shoulder and a martini and a clove cigarette both in the other, and you could see she was game for anything he might happen to have in mind. But so far as Billy was concerned, she was just a prop, a flash bit of glamour to help keep the money rolling in.
    LaBelle, Afreya, and Sally breezed by with their trays of cigarettes, heroin, and hors d’oeuvres . They were all good girls, and how they got here was—well, I guess we all know how good girls get in trouble. They fall for the wrong man. They wore white gloves and their uniforms were tight-cut but austere, for they none of them were exactly eager to be confused with the damned. Sally gave me a bit of a smile, sympathetic but guarded.
    We had some good musicians died for this trip, and they were putting in some hot licks. Maybe they sensed that with the caliber of competition Down Below, they were going to be a long time between gigs. But they sure were cooking.
    Everybody was having a high old time.
    This was the jolly part of the trip, and normally I enjoyed it. Not today.
    Sugar stood by the rear door, surrounded by a bevy of the finest honeys imaginable. This was nothing new. It was always a sight how they flocked to him on the southbound platform at Grand Central Station, elegantly dressed women who weren’t even dead yet, rolling their eyes and wriggling their behinds something outrageous. Sooner or later one would ask, “You ever seen … him?” and then, when he squinted at her like he couldn’t quite make out what she was getting at, “You know—Lucifer? The Devil.”
    At which point Sugar would say, “Seen him? Why, just this last run, I had a private audience with His Satanic Majesty. Sugar, he says to me, You been talking mighty big of late, I guess it’s time to remind you who’s boss.”
    â€œWhat did you say?” They would all hold their breaths and bend close.
    â€œI said, Drop your pants and bend over, motherfucker. I’m driving now.”
    They’d shriek then, scandalized and delighted. And when Sugar opened his arms, two of the honeys would slide in under them neat as you please.
    Business was brisk at the bar. I tried not to let my thoughts show, but I must’ve made a bad job of it, for I was just thrusting one of those little paper umbrellas into a frozen daiquiri when a hand closed upon my shoulder.
    I whirled around, right into the most knowing smile I’d ever seen. It was a smart-dressed lady, all in red. She had on a bowler hat and she smoked a cigar. Her skirt went all the way to the ground, but there was a slit up one side and you could see the silver derringer stuck into her garter.
    â€œYou look worried,” she said. “I wouldn’t think the crew had much of anything to worry about.”
    â€œWe’re human, ma’am. Subject to the thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to.” I sighed. “And I will confess that if I weren’t obliged to be here behind the bar—well. What’s your pleasure?”
    For a long moment she studied me.
    â€œYou interest me,” she said at last, and vanished into the crowd.
    Not much later she was back, steering a shy little porcelain doll of a girl by the elbow. “Missy can tend bar,” she said. She slipped one hand between the girl’s legs and the other behind her shoulder blades and hoisted her clear over the bar. It was an astonishing display of strength and she did it with no special