The Grand Dark. Richard Kadrey

went to the employee toilet near the loading dock and washed the red ink off his hand with a coarse bar of gray soap.

      With the extra time, Largo was tempted to have another drop of morphia, but he couldn’t afford to be foggy-headed again. He checked an inside pocket of his coat and found the vial of cocaine. It was just small enough that the Sergeant hadn’t found it earlier, especially after he’d been distracted by the morphia. Largo thought it over and decided to use a little powder when he was back at his flat. It would sharpen him up for his afternoon deliveries and still leave enough to share with Remy in the evening.

      With those warm thoughts, the morning was already fading away.

      When he reached Little Shambles, the traveling carnival he’d seen earlier in the butchers’ quarter was there, giving another impromptu performance. Largo hung at the back of the crowd at first, not watching the show but looking at the people, scanning the ragged mob for the police. When he didn’t see any he got closer—but stayed on his bicycle in case he had to get away quickly.

      The performers were the same ones he’d seen in the morning. Keeping with the habits of Little Shambles, the clowns didn’t juggle meat this time but bottles of beer and whiskey. The beautiful acrobats did tumbling runs in the dirty street. There were some contortionists he’d missed earlier, bending themselves in unpleasant ways that reminded Largo of the convulsing man. Not wanting to relive that moment, he went around to the far edge of the crowd, where the chimeras were performing.

      The tiger-suited man was there, barking orders at the small catlike creatures. Now Largo finally got a good look at them. They were hairless and had large, comical ears. The bare skin along their sides and legs changed colors as they went through their routines. At one moment they were striped with purples and at another spotted red. When they ran and jumped, they pulsed with a dozen colors, as if fireworks were going off under their skin. So beautiful, he thought. To be able to create such things.

      He could have spent all afternoon there, but he needed to go to his flat, have lunch, and get back to the office without being late for once. It was heartbreaking to leave such beauty behind for something as mundane as another round of idiotic deliveries, but when he remembered the cocaine in his coat, it wasn’t quite as depressing.

      After pedaling the last few blocks, Largo ran up the filthy stairs to his flat and locked the door. He put the harness and knife on first, got his bag, and then went to the tin box under his mattress and took a few coins for lunch and a Trefle call. Before he left, he laid a short, thick line of cocaine on the back of his hand and sniffed it up. At the bottom of the stairs, the rush and sense of well-being and beauty were overwhelming. Largo took off on his bicycle, thinking of Remy naked in her flat, her skin crawling with light and colors, catlike and perfect.