Read The Last Hot Time for Free Online Page A

." Danny muttered.
    "Don't mind if I do, Doc," said Lucius Birdsong, sitting at the end of the bar.
    McCain said, "Later, Doc," and moved off.
    Danny said, "I heard you wrote about me?"
    "Shaker," Birdsong said.
    "What's your pleasure, Mr. Birdsong?" the bartender said. He had pointed elf ears, and pale, not pure-white, skin, black hair with patches of steel-blue at the temples. Danny had heard that elves and humans could interbreed.
    Birdsong said, "Another one for me, and—is the doctor on duty?"
    "Beer, please."
    "And a Chi-Cent, Shaker. Unless you've used them all as bar towels."
    "Wouldn't think of it, Mr. Birdsong." Shaker reached under the bar and produced a paper.
    The paper had the feel of industrial toweling. Danny's thumb smudged the ink, which had a distinct chemical smell. The CHICAGO CENTURION— For This Price, You Don't Expect a Tribune banner, with pictures of eagles and trumpets, was a coarse linoleum or wood cut.
    "As your fellow doctor Sam Johnson put it," Birdsong said, grinning, "it's not that the puppy tap-dances like Honi Coles, but that it has any rhythm in the first place. That's how / heard it, anyway."
    THE CONTRARIAN FLOW
    by Lucius Birdsong
    I'm sure every devotee of this pillow-stuffing remembers what Mark Twain said about newspaper obit-

    uaries and exaggeration, so I shall merely note for the record that when that well-known gentleman Patrise entered the La Mirada nitery in the small hours of this morning, he was accompanied neither by the sound of clanking chains nor by cherubim strumming six-string Rickenbacker harps.
    Witnesses report that an innocent bystander (or rather bysitter—whatever has happened to the standards of marksmanship in Our Fair Levee?) was seriously injured in the incident that inspired all those campfire stories, but was ministered to by an able young man known as Doc Hallownight, of whom Our Fair may expect to hear more anon.
    Personal to the Lousy Shots: Mind how you treat Doc. He did you a big favor.
    "Sing ho, for the Fourth Estate," Birdsong said, and tapped his glass against Danny's.
    The beer he'd been given was a medium brown color, with thick foam. Danny tasted it carefully; it was slightly heavy, a little sweet. He thought he could actually get to like beer like this.
    Birdsong finished his drink. "Good night to you, friend."
    "Where are you headed?"
    "They're showing His Girl Friday at the Biograph. Miss it and they revoke your press card." He paused, looked Danny in the eye. "Circulate, Doc, circulate! Everybody here wants to meet you, and those that don't aren't worth meeting anyway." He tapped the newspaper. "Thank me later."
    Danny looked around for McCain, Cloudhunter, someone he'd met last night. The piano was playing something jazzy but slow. He turned to Shaker, saw that the bartender was wearing a lapel button that read HALF THE BLOOD, ALL THE CIVIL RIGHTS.
    "Does Mr. Fountain take requests?"
    "Sure does, sir."
    "No sirs. I'm ... Doc."
    "You got it, Doc. Just tell Alvah what von want."
    Danny went down the steps to the glossy, cmpt\ dance floor. "Evening, man," Fountain said without missing a note.

    "Could you play something . . . that, you know, rocks out a little?"
    "Nothin' easier, man. You got yourself a girl to dance with?"
    "No."
    "Well, maybe by the second chorus."
    "Yeah, maybe. Thanks."
    "Cool runnings, Doc."
    Danny walked back to the bar, hands in his pockets. Halfway there, he could see Shaker setting up another beer for him. As the glass touched the bar, hammer chords came down like thunder, and everything stopped. Fountain had kicked into "Great Balls of Fire" like the world was gonna end in three minutes five.
    Couples were pulling each other away from their tables. A woman with a tenor sax came out of nowhere and swung in. High heels banged and elflocks shook. Even the waiters were twirling.
    "Good Golly Miss Molly" followed hot, and "Roll Over, Beethoven." Some of the dancers were spending more time airborne than on the floor.