beginning to believe no one ever slept with the bass player anyway. Then there was the scaly chrysalia which had suddenly broken out all over his genitals and which was shaping up to be the only lasting legacy of his now-former relationship. And, oh, yes, he had just been demoted from catering to front desk. So one might forgive Eugene for being less attentive than usual when the shimmery-haired stranger – the selfsame guest who had sized up the Solari, now having made his way to the front desk – checked in. He (Eugene) was too caught up in wondering whether you slashed your wrists parallel or perpendicular to your palm and whether, since your palm was more or less square, this was even the right question to ask.
—Do you have any rooms available?
Eugene peeled back the skin from a hangnail on his thumb. The strip pulled off all the way back to the first joint. It bled and it hurt like hell, but it was also kind of impressive in its own macabre sort of way. Though he was unaware of it, Eugene cracked a smile.
—Now why would you want to go ahead and do a thing like that?
Eugene teleported back from his languor and at last noticed the man standing before him.
—Can I help you?
—I might very well ask you the same thing, my good fellow.
The man was dressed entirely in black, incredible given that Hennington was in the thick of summer, when Hilke’s Winds blew off the Brown Desert, turning the city into a humidity-free place of chapped lips, bloody noses and queer tempers, where the heat rarely dipped below forty during the day despite the best efforts of a calm, cool ocean that seemed as intimidated by the heat as those unfortunate Hennington residents without air conditioning, which, oh yeah, was another of Eugene’s problems. The man in black looked like he was either approaching or leaving behind fifty, but he exuded health like a pheromone. His skin was bronzed almost to the tan of Eugene’s own Rumour hue, but this man was no Rumour. His nearly black hair was clipped short and neat and contained, Eugene was surprised to find himself thinking, a well-nigh dazzlingly handsome sprinkling of gray. The man’s eyes were a green so light it neared pastel, contrasting, even highlighting, his long black coat, black shirt, black pants, black belt and black boots. All in all, a preposterous outfit in this weather. There was another thing. This man had, what was it?, an aspect about him, a warm calmness, a smile that invited, a glance that seemed to show patience as well as an invitation. Maybe it was something as simple as charisma. Maybe he was just an exceptionally good-looking man. Whatever it was, the result was this: Eugene liked fucking girls (a lot); nevertheless, he was aware of the erection pressing against the crotch of his uniform, causing the chrysalia to itch all the more.
—Let’s start again. I’d like a room.
The spell dissipated. Eugene’s confusing hardness faded. Something lingered, though, and Eugene’s mind, in its own ham-fisted way, toyed with the something that hovered around this man. If it hadn’t been for a single red pimple near the bridge of the man’s nose, Eugene might have convinced himself he was seeing a vision. Or even a god, maybe.
—How long will you be staying?
—I’m not sure. Just got off the train and I’m here. A week. A month. I’m not sure. What’s your name?
—Eugene.
—Tybalt Noth.
Tybalt Noth offered a hand. Eugene, surprised again, accepted the shake.
—Unusual first name.
—A ridiculous name given by ridiculous, if loving, parents. I go by Jon.
—So an open-ended stay is what you’re looking for?
—You have summed up the matter admirably.
Jon né Tybalt smiled.
—I’m visiting an old friend, you see. I don’t know when I’ll be leaving.
—An open-ended reservation ought to be fine. We’re not that crowded.
—Because it’s so damned hot.
The man betrayed not one drop of sweat, despite having recently arrived from the oven outside. Eugene took his identification and credit card and entered them into the computer.
—You might want to change clothes, sir. The heat doesn’t look to let up anytime soon.
—Call me Jon, please, and I know about the weather. I’m from here. I can remember many a pressure-cooker summer.
—Really?
Why was it so surprising that this man was a Hennington native? Yet it was, most definitely.
—I just haven’t been back in a long time. These are my traveling clothes. Trust me, Mr Eugene, I brought appropriate attire.
He took the card key Eugene offered him.
—Room 402.
—Thank you, Eugene.
—And my name’s Eugene if you need anything else.
Jon blinked.
—Thank you again. I’ll remember that. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for, Eugene.
He grabbed his bag, hitherto out of Eugene’s sight below the rolling back of the sperm whale. Eugene started making sounds about getting a bellhop, but Jon waved them off.
—I like to carry my own bag.
He smiled again, warmly and, it struck Eugene, incongruously for being dressed like a fallen angel. He turned and walked to the elevators. He seemed shorter than at first sight, but he moved with a sense of balance so sure and smooth that he seemed to glide. At the elevators, he turned.
—Is The Crash still hovering about town?
—Of course. They never change.
—Ah, that’ll be something to see again.
The elevator arrived. Jon disappeared into it. Eugene looked back at his computer screen. Jon Tybalt Noth’s return address was in the Fifty Shores, which meant that he had traveled three and a half thousand miles across the widest expanse of the Brown, by train, dressed in black. Eugene entered a note reminding the evening staff to check if Jon needed any other cooling amenities. He thought for a minute, erased the note, and decided to ask Jon himself at the end of his own shift.
Poor Eugene. He never knew what hit him.
Many years before she became the Cora Larsson, legendary Mayor of Hennington and remembered in a generation of matronymics, Cora Trygvesdottir went sunbathing in the nude and met the man who would become her husband. The scene: infamous Conchulatta Beach, that prime piece of land hooking its way over the southern entrance to Hennington Harbor, its crescent stretching from calm harbor to violent strait to calm ocean. Cora went alone, a not uncommon occurrence during a final year at college spent fleeing the daily catastrophes of two flatmates. Her natural inclination for serenity left her unable to really enjoy the boom crash of college life. That she excelled at it and later at law and still later at politics seemed to Cora to be the same sort of infuriating fate joke as penguins being such great swimmers: you did what you were good at and tried to ignore the fact that your flippers were really handicapped wings.
And so here was Cora, hatless and tanned, humming to herself, marching down to the beach, having parked her hasty in the last available slot. She carried a law coursebook, but even she knew that it was more or less a pretext. Henningtonians were not an especially beach-worshipping bunch, but neither were they beach-foolish. There were rules. The beach was a place where she could expect quiet and calm, especially if she read from an unattractive book of laws and even more so if she removed her bathing suit, de rigueur as the beach edged west. A naked sunbather was a serious sunbather, and Cora could wear her nudity as a shield against bothersome, over-friendly beachwalkers.
Along