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Valentine looked around the place. A big U of a room, with pillars where he guessed dividing walls once stood, surrounded the bar. Doors to the kitchen were on one side, to the washrooms on another. A stairway at the side had a blue neon arrow zigzagging up and the legend wild blue yonder in cloud-scrolled letters.
"Welcome to the Mezcal", Hornbreed said, pulling out a chair at a table with a good view of the band. "Best liquor and music between the LA Slimepits and Austin Holdout. This is my wife, Louisa".
"I am, jusslike, so grateful to you", the caramel-skinned woman said, her voice oddly nasal.
"That's the sound of California class", Hornbreed said. "But she fell for a dashing pilot and joined me in the wasteland".
"Jusslike the movies", Louisa agreed.
Hornbreed gave her a kiss on the temple. A waitress approached them. "Buy you a drink?"
"Whatever you're having".
"It's milk. I don't drink".
"Milk, then", Valentine said.
"Struth, not another one", Starguide said. "Hey, he needs his wings".
Starguide went to the bar and yanked a piece of plastic off a peg. He returned just as the milks and drinks arrived, set it on Valentine's head, and fixed a thin bungee under his chin. It was a kid's toy hat, spray-painted silver, with wings that swept up and back.
A trio in leather jackets, parked at the end of the bar and chatting with a buxom bartender, whistled and raised their glasses to Valentine.
Valentine, Hornbreed, and Starguide clinked glasses. Valentine's milk slopped out a little.
"Why the milk?" Valentine asked.
"My folks were sort of fitness fanatics", Hornbreed said.
Valentine knew better than to inquire further about their health. One never asked about relatives in the Kurian Zone, especially when the past tense was employed. Instead he watched customers stream in. Some pointed to his funny little silver hat, and a pilot or two broke away from their friends and came up to clap him on the back.
"Kick it, Ge-arge", a bandsman with a guitar said. Ge-arge raised his sticks above his head and clacked them together three times, tchk tchk tchk - Valentine jumped a little. The sound reminded him of the hunter-gatherers.
A fusion of salsa and Western coursed through the bar.
"Place is gonna be full tonight", Louisa predicted. "Everyone's nervous".
Valentine raised an eyebrow at Hornbreed, who shook his head. A few couples left the bar and began to dance. Valentine recognized one of the pilots from the rescue helicopter, stomping away in elaborately stitched pointed-toe boots.
The band took a quick break. Hornbreed used the silence to tell an abbreviated version of the hunter-gatherers story, attracting a small crowd. "I've seen their tracks, on mule patrol up Goner Ridge", a woman put in. "He's not exaggerating".
Hornbreed left out his injury, and embellished a little, saying Valentine had carried him halfway down a mountain, plinking at bugs the whole way.
When the band started up again they were joined by a zebra-haired singer. She performed in a silver mesh bikini and matching strappy cork-heeled sandals, rattlesnake tattoos winding down each arm and a Chinese ideograph on her back. She'd applied makeup with an airbrush, giving her bright, intense eyes wings like a pit viper's:
"Take one take two take three take me
Bled out in an attic so's nobody sees"
The dancers were limp in one another's arms as they moved, shambling like ravies cases about to keel over. The singer's arms waved hypnotically as she passed the microphone first to one hand, then the other. Valentine looked around, a little shocked at the explicit lyrics, but maybe musicians could sing what no one dared say.
"Hiya, cherry", a female voice twanged in his ear.
A girl in fishnets and feathers, a swan-shaped black bottle nestled under one netted breast, put down a shot glass in front of him. "Jolt of Swan Neck? On the house".
"I'm not drinking", Valentine said.
"He's already at half-staff", Louisa said. "No assistance required".
