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  Ted blinked.

  “Ted? Are you OK?” Alison was beside him.

  “Ah, yeah, yeah.” He looked down at his legs. He moved his arms. He had a sore head but seemed otherwise intact. He drew one leg up experimentally; Benny and Alison stepped back, each of them holding their arms out. Ted offered his in return; they pulled, and Ted was on his feet.

  The paper – the fortunes – continued to fall. They were all over the table and covered the floor. Klaire looked around, her mouth open wide in shock, wider still when Ted smiled at her. She had fortunes in her hair and some stuck with static to her front. Ted turned, and found himself facing a rank of waiters in their white jackets and then another gentlemen in the middle wearing a black one. The manager. He reached out and grabbed Ted’s hands with his own, his face tense with concern. He asked Ted something, but Ted wasn’t listening.

  The paper storm finally came to an end. Ted reached down and picked a fortune from where it clung to his shirt.

  You are the master of every situation.

  Ted frowned. His head was beginning to ache more than a little. He dropped it, rubbed his eyes, and tried another.

  You are the master of every situation.

  And another.

  You are the master of every situation.

  And another.

  You are the master of every situation.

  All of them said it. A single fortune, repeated a thousand times on a thousand strips of paper that couldn’t possibly have fitted inside a fortune cookie. Ted gazed up again, looking for whatever the Chinese equivalent of a piñata was. But he saw only the green paper lanterns spaced at regular intervals, still swaying gently from the impossible paper shower.

  “Four hours.”

  Alison shook her head. “You should still be there. You know that, right?”

  Ted walked into his apartment, rolling his shoulders. Truth be told he did feel a little… woozy. But he hated hospitals.

  “The doctor said I could go. You were there, remember? I’m fine, really,” said Ted, putting a little effort into the act. The apartment had an open-plan living area and kitchen, the counter in a direct line from the front door. He went to it, resting his palms on the cool surface; then he turned around and gave a smile, trying not to let on that he needed the support of the counter against his back just to stay up.

  Alison frowned. “You don’t look well.”

  Ted laughed. “I’ve just spent three and a quarter hours sitting in the emergency room doing nothing, and it’s now – ” he checked over his shoulder, at the large faux-vintage railway clock that was on the wall in the kitchen, “ – three in the morning. Of course I don’t look well. It’s been a hell of a long night.”

  Ted blinked and suddenly Alison’s arms were around his waist. He rocked a little, leaned back against the counter, and then drew into her hug.

  “I’ll stay,” she said, her cheek hard against his chest.

  “You have an early meeting tomorrow.”

  “I’ll cancel.”

  Ted breathed in the scent of her hair. He’d like her to stay, he’d like that a lot, but what he really needed now was sleep, and lots of it. Glorious oblivion, to go swimming in black nothing. It was more than an urge of his body, it was a demand, like there was something pressing down on the back of his mind, someone standing over his shoulder, whispering in his ear.

  He pushed her away and felt bad doing it, but she didn’t seem to notice. She looked up at him and he looked down at her and they stood like that a while, then she nodded.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure,” said Ted, and he chuckled. “You heard what the doctor said. There’s nothing wrong. No head injury. No concussion. Not a scratch. I’m fine, really.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  His smile turned into something else, frustration perhaps, the itch to sleep so great he wanted to pick her up and toss her out the door. And then he felt bad again. Damn, what a night he was having.

  “I just need to sleep.”

  “Make sure you do.”

  “I will,” he said, “and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Come in late if you have to. I’ll cover it with Mazzy.”

  “Great, perfect,” said Ted, and he pushed himself off the kitchen counter. “Now get, otherwise you’ll be useless at your meeting tomorrow.”

  Alison selected her car key, nodded, walked to the door. Ted kept by the kitchen counter, his hands braced against it behind his back. Just in case.

  “OK,” said Alison. She smiled and Ted knew that he loved her and knew that he wanted her to stay, but she couldn’t. The blackness was calling, loud and clear enough that it frightened him a little.

  Then she was gone, the apartment door clicking shut behind her. Ted stood at the kitchen counter, enjoying the first moment of quiet, of solitude, of the whole evening. He smiled, and pushed away from the counter.

  He staggered a little, and stopped on the way to the bedroom. He rubbed his head, turned on his heel. He felt like he’d just heard the mysterious nothing talking over his shoulder again. Then his knees gave way of their own accord and he hit the deck.

  — II —

  SAN FRANCISCO

  TODAY

  The city stretches beneath him like a canvas drawn on by another artist. The work is not his, but is familiar somehow, and if he looks at it, studies it long enough, he can learn it. If he works for long enough he will be able to see the artist’s true intent, his achievement, maybe even his message. If he works for long enough he might even be able to get inside the artist’s head, figure out what makes him tick, how he does what he does. And when that happens then he’ll understand, finally, and then the canvas will be wiped clean, ready for something new. Ready to start again.

  He hasn’t been to this place before, but that doesn’t matter. Cities are the same the world over, only the language and the food and the smell is different. This city is famous, too, which is almost like cheating. From the Golden Gate Bridge to the Coit Tower, from the Painted Ladies to Haight-Ashbury, it feels like he’s been staring at this canvas his whole life. The sea lions on Pier 39. The science fiction bookstore over on Valencia Street. The way the city tour buses depart from Union Square and how Big Alma, immortalized in stone on top of the Dewey Monument in the middle of that same square, had called her husband Adolph her sugar daddy.

  The man crouching on the rooftop has never been in this city before, yet he feels like he’s lived his whole life here. San Francisco feels like home. He knows it isn’t, it can’t be, but the city wraps around him like a warm hug from a favorite relative.

  He shrugs in the cold night air, like he’s trying to disconnect himself, stop himself getting too close. All cities are the same. Seen one, seen them all. He felt the same way in the last place, he’s sure he did. If he could remember what the last place was.

  He doesn’t know how long he’s been here, and he doesn’t know how long he’s going to stay. Keep moving, that’s the ticket. He has a job to do, not that he has a choice in the matter, and then when its done, he’s done, and it’s on to the next one. At least, that’s how he feels it works. He can’t remember before this night. He only knows that he’s here with a purpose. He has skills to be used. He knows that when his task is complete and he moves to the next place, he won’t remember San Francisco. The cycle will begin again. That’s how it works, or at least, that’s how he feels it works. He doesn’t know, because he doesn’t remember.

  So maybe he has been here before. Maybe he does know San Francisco like the back of his hand. Maybe it’s the same wherever he goes; his canvas cleaned, his task begun anew, wherever it is needed, and maybe that means he’s sent again and again and again. And perhaps he goes through this every single time, when he arrives, and…

  He stops and breathes the night air. No, that way lies madness. The only thing he can do is perform the task, do the job for as long as it takes until it is done. He is a tool to be used. And an effective on
e at that.

  There is someone else in the city. Someone else new, someone else who doesn’t belong.

  Someone who needs to be stopped.

  He doesn’t know how he knows this, but he does. It’s all part of it, of how it works. All part of the job.

  And then he jumps.

  The next building is a floor lower, separated by a narrow alley. He pushes off on the balls of his feet and pulls himself into a curl. The city’s horizon spins like the silver band of a gyroscope at full tilt as he rolls in the air. At the top of the curve, above the alley, he stretches out, transforming the roll into a dive. He hits the roof of the other building and rolls along it. The aerobatics are silent, fluid. He is more than just an expert. He has power.

  On the other roof he stands and shakes his hands and rolls his neck, his costume stretching as he flexes. Then he walks to the edge of the building and looks down.

  Chinatown glows in red and green below. His quarry is near.

  Highwire takes a few steps back, holds his arms out straight as he calculates his next jump, and then runs forward, toward the edge.

  — III —

  SHARON MEADOW, SAN FRANCISCO

  TODAY

  “What the fuck is this shit?”

  Jack Newhaven’s voice was high and his accent the broad, flat strokes of New England. To anyone who didn’t know him, or who wasn’t familiar with the dialect peculiar to his tiny native corner of Vermont, his exclamation might have been difficult to decipher, but everyone in earshot on this particular occasion was well used to the accent and his colorful vocabulary. As the Magical Zanaar, ringmaster of The Magical Zanaar’s Traveling Caravan of the Arts and Sciences, he was a showman par excellence, wooing the crowds that gathered each night, welcoming them to his traveling roadshow, and proclaiming the amazing feats of agility they were about to see under the Big Top.

  But when he was regular old Jack Newhaven, he was somewhat less charming company.

  Jack – the Magical Zanaar – stood in his metallic blue top hat, his red tailed jacket shimmering like water as its hundreds of sequins caught the morning sun, his handlebar moustache, long and curled with wax at each end, quivering sympathetically with his rage. Beside him stood a clown in an old-fashioned checkerboard costume, his face hidden behind a black half-mask, and two young women – late teens, early twenties, both blonde – dressed in matching gymnastic leotards, silver with black swirling patterns the mirror image of each other. One of them, Kara, jumped at Jack’s shout. Her partner, Sara, clutched her arms across her chest.

  “Hey!” said Jack, taking the unlit cigar from his mouth. He took a step forward and pointed it at the circus performers and workers gathered in front of him. “Hey!”

  He was ignored for a second time. The fight continued.

  They’d been in the middle of a business meeting, Jack the ringmaster and Nadine, the circus business manager. He in his blue hat and red coat and moustache, and she in a plain gray suit. The circus office was a Winnebago, and through the louvered windows Jack could see Kara and Sara practicing a new part of their ribbon routine in the open air outside their own smaller motorhome.

  Nadine was explaining a spreadsheet. Jack was trying to understand it. Then came the first scream, and financial concerns went out the louvered window.

  Jack looked from the laptop screen, saw Kara and Sara standing stock still, staring in the same direction. Behind them, a clown – David, one of the troupe of six who dressed in full harlequin – appeared in the doorway of another motorhome, mask in situ. Jack saw him look toward the girls. Then Kara looked over her shoulder, into the Winnebago. Jack knew that with the sun bright outside, the interior of the vehicle would be nothing but darkness, but somehow Kara managed to meet his eye.

  There was a second scream, louder than the first, and female this time. Someone shouted “Hey!” and someone shouted something else, but it was muffled.

  Jack swore and moved to the door, throwing it wide. Sara and Kara jumped, and the silence stretched for a few long seconds before the breeze changed and the sounds came drifting from Jack’s left. Scuffles, dirt being kicked, bodies sliding around on the ground.

  It was a fight, on the other side of the Big Top. Another fight. The third in just this week after arriving in San Francisco.

  “Ah, Jesus,” Jack said, taking the cigar from his mouth and licking his lips. He knew who was fighting. He also knew it was a risk, putting himself in the middle of that. It wasn’t that he didn’t have control over his employees, his performers – of course he did. It was just that the disagreement between the two parties under his watch was getting worse and worse, and…

  He clamped his teeth around the end of cigar.

  “Jack?”

  Sara, her arms folded as tightly as Kara’s. The morning was warm but it looked like she was freezing in her silver and black leotard. “You gonna do something about it this time?”

  Jack rolled the cigar between his lips. Over his shoulder, Nadine appeared, breathing hotly on his neck. He turned, and she shook her head.

  “She’s right. This has gone on too long.”

  Another shout, the breeze bringing it so close it sounded like the fight was taking part right outside Jack’s Winnebago. David took off at a sprint, not bothering to remove his Harlequin mask.

  “Right,” said Jack. “Fuck. Whatever.” He jumped off the steps and jogged toward the sounds of the scuffle.

  Jack’s jog was slower than it could have been. They were right, of course, all of them. But maybe he didn’t have quite the control they imagined he had. Perhaps he could assert himself over one side in the conflict. But over the other, he knew he had no chance.

  Jack Newhaven was owned by the man.

  He stopped at the curve of the circus tent and removed the cigar to suck in some air. He was getting old and fat. One day he was going to put his portly, sixty-year old frame in between the two groups and take a blow, accidental or not, that might put him down in a somewhat permanent fashion. Worse, if word got out that all was not well in the Magical Caravan, then not only would they kiss goodbye their fancy permit to set up in Sharon Meadow, in the heart of the city’s famous Golden Gate State Park, they might not make another tour.

  Perhaps, he thought, that was not a bad thing. If he let him, of course. Which would never happen.

  Around the rear of the Big Top was a corridor, a smaller tent itself, which was the performer’s entrance to the main ring. Behind this, acting as an effective barrier for the public, was a blue semi truck, its trailer tall and shiny. Beyond this was the part of the circus not accessible to the public – more trucks and trailers, an assortment of cars and wagons, portable toilets, and small marquees. One truck was an old model, practically vintage; it sat, incongruous, the elaborate hand-painted signage on the side proclaiming the vehicle to be from JIM’S AUTO AND GAS.

  This was home to the troupe as they toured, a big family camp, housing the performers and some of their families who like to travel with them, and the ancillary staff who, on the present tour, came to two lighting techs and one AV guy.

  The trailers, trucks, and tents were arranged in a circle around a large patch of empty ground, the dirt grassless, bare and brown save for a blackened, charred center where the nightly bonfire was set. On this burned disk, one big man in a leather waistcoat, bare arms bulging, punched a smaller man, thin, in a black suit already covered in dirt. Nearby a battered top hat sat on the ashen ground.

  The big man held the other by the lapels of his jacket. He punched him again, with force Jack was sure was lethal, and then let go. The man in the black suit hit the ground, and immediately scrambled blindly, his hands and feet kicking up a cloud of gray and black ash, enough for the crowd of people gathered around to turn away for a moment.

  Just like before. Just like all the times before.

  “What the fuck is this shit?” Jack took the cigar from his mouth and threw it, not onto the ground but straight at his two sparring employees. It b
ounced off the back of the big man and fell to the ground. That got his attention. The big man straightened up, flexing the muscles of his back before turning around to face the ringmaster.

  “Not your business, Jack,” said the man. He was a pillar of muscle, built like a heavyweight boxer, the skin of his chest shaved smooth and glistening with sweat over the top of an intricate tattoo in a deep green ink. The design was of concentric circles, bisected apparently at random by crosses and curved tangent lines, and continued under his waistcoat and down his arms. The pattern was Celtic, matching the swirls of the silver studs on leather bands that circled the man’s wrists and waist. Bearded, bald, he was surrounded by companions similarly attired, similarly tattooed. Men and women alike, leather-bound and sweating in the Californian sun. Most were smiling, some even cruelly, as the man in the black suit sat himself up on the burnt ground.

  “Not my problem, Malcolm?” Jack’s mouth hung open as though the cigar rolling away on the ground would be magically sucked back into place, like a film in reverse. “Jack shit it isn’t my problem!”

  Jack took a step forward, peering up at Malcolm from a foot and a half closer to the ground. Malcolm folded his arms and the two stared at each other. Jack held his ground, wondering if today was the day he was going to get thumped. Then Malcolm bared his teeth and hissed, spit onto the ashy ground, and walked away. As he did so, he caught the ash on the ground with one toe and kicked a cloud over his opponent. The man sitting on the ground flinched and coughed, and as the circle of Malcolm’s companions broke up, some laughed.

  “Hey!” Nadine walked toward the retreating group, waved an arm. “Hey! Dipshit, I’m talking to you!”

  Kara and Sara moved to help the man on the ground.

  Malcolm stopped and turned around. “This doesn’t concern any of you.”

  “The fuck it doesn’t,” said Nadine. “This concerns all of us. Keep this up and there’s not going to be a circus anymore. You got that?”