19. Fly By Night

I offered to escort Sam home, but she said she was going to swing by the office because she had things to do. 'Like what?' I asked. She didn't answer - just rolled her eyes. So we walked together to the door of the 7-11 and I said goodnight before she walked up the fire-escape to do whatever she had to do. There was a strip mall about a half-mile away and I unfurled behind an abandoned luncheonette and wished her kiss was on my lips.

Flying over the city-lights at night, thinking about the million stories of the over-dressed city, could give a guy a certain feeling of omnipotence. The Greeks had a word for that. So, the Great I Am, that is, yours truly, didn't even see them coming. At least two hard-bodies took me out from behind and I plummeted like a wax-winged Athenian before something broke my fall before I broke my halo and cranium into a million shimmering fragments.

By the time I got upright, they had gone, faster than smoke on the wind. They had to have been angels. What else could they have been? I was in a poorly lit alley alongside a dumpster. Something among the condoms and cigarette butts on the cracked tar-macadam caught the dim light. I bent down, stiff as a white man at the disco. It was a ring. A knurling of brass and iron. The kind of thing a kid might win at the grab-machine on the boardwalk. There was some kind of design on it, but the alley was too dark and the ring to dirty to see what it was. I jammed it in my pants pocket, as if it were a clue or something.

The street lamps shone brightly once I had cleared the mouth of the alley. The south bank of the Washington Channel was lit with neon. The restaurants and bars were enjoying the frenzied hour before closing that every bartender and waiter knows will bring tips for the diligent and dyspepsia for the lazy. Over to the south less garish lights lit up the perimeter of Fort McNair. I checked out the sign above the nearest bar. It read 'Parallel Heaven' and that was good enough for me.

The place looked like the set of that stupid TV show where everyone knew your name. I nearly walked out but the woman behind the bar looked more like the brunette than the blonde from the TV bar. Alongside me on the high stools were high-functioning alcoholics and resting hookers. I felt right at home and ordered a scotch. The tall woman gave me a smirk like whoever the actress was and I decided to make a night of it – at least until the bar closed.

On the wooden surface of the bar the ring looked less a piece of boardwalk junk than something found on an archaelogical dig. It was heavy. I rubbed it on my sleeve, the brass shone and the iron remained dull as a raincloud. The more I looked at it, the more I was convinced it was some kind of puzzle ring. Scratching with a nail at the bezel I saw that it was engraved with a hexagram. I smelled the beery breath of the man on the neighbouring barstool,

'Nice piece,' it came out peesh, but I couldn't say that surprised me.

'Yeah, peesha junk.' I said.

He shook his head with the careful delicacy of the extremely drunk, as if his head would fall off if he didn't.

'No. Sha real ole artefact. Got one like it in the Sm-Shmi... In the Museum.'

He held out a hand and above it I saw a hunch-shouldered man whose last shave had been a half-hearted job at best.

I took his hand and he said, 'Perfesser Rotschild.'

'Like Rothschild?'

'Not quite sho rich, and one lesh Aitch, but jusht azh Jewish.'

I laughed, it was only polite.

The old drunk pointed at the ring on the bar.

'Thass Jewish too... Ver' special ring, ver' special.'

He moved his hand towards it. 'May I?'

He picked it up, made some dexterous twist of the ring between the forefingers and thumbs of both hands and suddenly had a ring of brass and a ring of iron. Each had a bezel. The brass one was completely different from that of the iron. Tiny zodiacal signs ringed the perimeter, in the centre were a square and compasses. There was a stylised letter 'h' and the symbol for male with a dot in the centre of the circle. It looked very familiar.

The old man began to cackle. He carried on until he started to cough. When he fell from the stool, I was surprised at how easily he got back up for a little person. Something must have shown in my face for he smiled,

'Dwarf. That's what I prefer. I'd fight you over midget, but don't you call me a little person either. I'd knife you for that.'

The most surprising thing about his outburst was that he didn't slur once.

'So, Professor of what? Antiquities?'

'It's Perfesser, dummy. I play trad jazz in a band. We have a gig over on K Street tomorrow night. He reached into several pockets and eventually found a crumpled flyer.

'Come along. We're good.'

There was an old picture of The Perfessor with a better shave and newer clothes blowing on a saxophone almost as big as he was. 'Perfessor Rotschild and the Pardoners. Live at Moffat's, K Street. Fridays at 8.'

He skipped off the stool and tossed a wave over his shoulder, walking pretty straight for a drunk guy.