"Yeah." He opened his hands and looked down at his palms. "Just looked that way to me."
"Well, then..." I put my hand on the plaid bundle between us. "If she wanted to throw it out, it's not like we stole it."
He stared at me.
"What?" I said. "You want to take it back and toss it on the pile?"
He shook his head. "No. Someone else would take it. And they'd carry it around unprotected, pretend they were playing it." He shuddered.
"Exactly!" I smiled. "What's your name anyway?"
"Moz."
I must have made an uncomprehending expression.
"Short for 'Mosquito,'" the guy said.
"Oh, of course." He was kind of small, like I am. Have you ever noticed that small people are cuter? Like dolls. "My name's Pearl. Not short for anything, despite its shortness."
Moz pulled his serious face. "So, Pearl, don't you think she might want her guitar back after she..." His voice drifted off.
"Comes back from wherever they lock her up?"
He nodded, and I wondered if he knew I didn't mean the generic "they" who lock crazy people up, but the two angels we'd seen on the fire escape. Did he understand what was happening to the world? Most people seemed to know even less than I did - all they saw were the garbage piling up and the extra rats, didn't even notice the rumbling underfoot. But this guy talked like he could sense things, at least.
"We could find out who she is," he said. "Maybe ask someone in her building."
"And hang on to it for her?"
"Yeah. I mean, if it was just some crappy guitar it wouldn't matter, but this..." His eyes got sparkly again, like the thought of a homeless Strat was going to make him cry.
And right then I had my brain-flash: the realization that had been screaming for my attention since I'd seen Moz running to catch the Stratocaster bare-handed. Maybe this was the guy I needed, a guy with raw heart, ready to throw himself under a falling Fender because it was vintage and irreplaceable.
Maybe Moz was what I'd been waiting for since Nervous System had exploded.
"Okay," I said. "We'll keep it for her. But at my place." I put my arm around the bundle.
"Your place?"
"Sure. After all, why should I trust you? You might go and pawn it. Three or four thousand dollars for you, when it was my idea to use the bedspread."
"But I'm the one who wants to give it back," he sputtered cutely. "A second ago you were all, 'It's not stealing.'"
"Maybe that's what you want me to think." I pushed my glasses up my nose. "Maybe that was just a cover for your devious plans." It hurt to see his wounded expression, because I was being totally unfair. Moz might have been lateral, but I could already tell that he was nine kinds of nondevious.
"But... you were just..." He made a strangled noise.
I hugged the Strat closer. "Of course, you could come over and play it anytime. We could play together. Are you in a band?"
"Yeah." His wary eyes didn't leave the bedspread. "Half a band anyway."
"Half a band?" I smiled, knowing now that my brain-flash had been right on target. "A band in need of completion? Maybe this is fate."
He shook his head. "We've already got two guitarists."
"What else?"
"Um, just two guitarists."
I laughed. "Listen, a drummer and a bass player is half a band. Two guitarists is just a..." He frowned, so I didn't finish. "Anyway, I play keyboards."
"You do?" He shook his head. "So how do you know so much about guitars? I mean, you called the year on that Strat when it was still in the air!"
"Lucky guess." And, of course, I do play guitar. And keyboards too, and flute and xylophone and a wicked-mean harmonica - there's practically nothing I don't play. But I figured out a while back not to say that out loud; everyone thinks we nonspecialists are amateurs. (Tell that to the nonspecialist currently known as Prince.) I also never show off my perfect pitch or mention the name of my high school.
His dark and gorgeous eyes narrowed. "Are you sure you don't play guitar?"
I laughed. "I never said that. But trust me, I absolutely play keyboards. How's tomorrow?"
"But, um, how do you even know we'd..." He took a breath. "I mean, like, what are your - ?"
"Uh!" I interrupted. "Not that word!" If he asked me what my influences were, the whole thing was off.
He shrugged. "You know what I mean."
I sighed through clenched teeth. How was I supposed to explain that I was in too much of a hurry to give a damn? That there were more important things to worry about? That the world didn't have time for labels anymore?
"Look, let's say you hated graves, okay?"
"Hated graves?"
"Yeah, detested tombs. Loathed sepulchers. Abhorred anyplace anyone was buried. Understand?"
"Why would I do that?"
I let out a groan. Mozzy was being very nonlateral all of a sudden. "Hypothetically hated graves."
"Um, okay. I hate graves." He put on a grave-hating face.
"Excellent. Perfect. But you'd still go to the Taj Mahal, wouldn't you?" I spread my hands in explanatory triumph.
"Um, I'd go where?"
"The Taj Mahal! The most beautiful building in the world! You know all those Indian restaurants around the corner, the murals on the walls?"
He nodded slowly. "Yeah, I know the one you mean: lots of arches, a pond out front, with kind of an onion on top?"
"Exactly. And gorgeous."
"I guess. And somebody's buried there?"
"Yeah, Moz, some old queen. It's a total tomb. But you don't suddenly think it's ugly, just because of its category, do you?"
His expression changed from tomb-hating to lateral-thinking. "So, in other words..." Brief pause. "You don't mind if you're in a band that plays alternative death-metal< cypherfunk, as long as it's the Taj Mahal of alternative death-metal cypherfunk. Right?"
"Exactly!" I cried. "You guys can worry about the category. All the death metal you want. Just be good at it." I picked up the Stratocaster, wrapped it tighter. "How's tomorrow? Two o'clock."