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. . . the funniest
mortals and the kindest are those who are most aware
of the baffle of being, don't kid themselves our care
is consolable, but believe a laugh is less
heartless than tears.
—W.H. Auden
The bar crowd had been thin that night, and with Mike dead, the band had played a short set. Long after the others had packed up their instruments and finished their drinks and gone home, Joe Dawson stayed on, sitting alone on the stage, playing a wandering aimless tune, and watched.
It had been, for so long, his calling and his consolation—the knife that severed him from his kind, and the solace for that wound—that even now, stood down from the field, he could not let go of the habit of decades. A bartender listens, in his mahogany confessional; a musician sits apart and performs. A Watcher watches, and does not interfere. He sat on the stage, at a remove, and watched.
Watched as minutes and then hours ticked by, as Methos roved restlessly around the dim room, dropping into a chair, then standing, moving to slump over the bar, pouring himself one brandy after another. Watched as MacLeod finally made his appearance in the doorway, defiant, remorseful, theatrical in spite of himself. Watched him stride over to seat himself beside Methos, and, after their brief exchange of cryptic words, watched how the silence deepened and hardened between them. A test, that silence, he knew, and one that Mac was bound to fail. He watched Mac's self-control slowly erode, the restlessness surging and thrumming within him, until finally his restraint fractured and he leaned over, speaking low urgent words into Methos' ear, putting one imperious hand on Methos' arm. Methos made no movement, only spoke one sentence, inaudible to Joe, that sent Mac's head snapping back like he'd been struck.
He watched MacLeod jerk his hand away, and stand and storm out, in a swirl of coattails and wounded feelings. Waited while the electrical seethe that even he, with his blinkered mortality, could feel in the atmosphere had faded out. Only then had he climbed down painfully from the stage, carrying his guitar, and limped over to the small table and sat down alongside Methos, who ignored him. He regarded the glass MacLeod had left sitting on the table, with almost an inch of dark-gold liquid in it.
"Shame to let good Scotch go to waste," he said. "I guess I could polish it off. Don't suppose you guys have any germs to speak of." He lifted the glass to the light, squinted at it, set it back down. "But y'know, I'm really more in the mood for a beer. Ah well. Exercise'll do me good." He sighed and began the laborious process of getting himself upright.
Wordlessly Methos stood, gesturing Joe back into his seat, and strode to the bar, returning with two tall bottles of Fischer dangling from one hand. He thumped them down on the table in front of Joe; with a graceful arc of the other hand he swept MacLeod's abandoned glass to the floor, where it shattered with a dull crash. The smell of whiskey rose into the air, mingling with the fetid pall of cigarette smoke and old beer.
Joe opened his mouth, but before he could speak Methos cut in. "Don't start." His tone was flat and final.
Joe considered for a while, head cocked, picking up a bottle and contemplating the label. He finally said, "I'd just love to know what you said to get Mac out of here that fast. Be a useful piece of knowledge. Y'know, for the next time he comes around with that 'Joe, I need a favor, Joe, I want you to help me out, Joe, you gotta get me some information...'"
Methos stared off into the darkness. "Simple. I told him to get the fuck out and leave me alone. Nothing complicated. I'm not feeling particularly subtle tonight."
Joe nodded. "Just couldn't handle the sight of him right now."
"Oh, the sight of him's never the problem." Methos shifted to face Joe, and then frowned, lifting his feet fastidiously out of the wet litter of broken glass on the floor and propping them on a chair. "I can always manage to tolerate looking at him. If he could just keep his mouth shut sometimes. Y'know, Joe, you ought to get someone to clean up in here."
"Yeah, right. Would you keep your damn feet off the furniture?" He spoke without heat, and was ignored, as he expected.
"But no. Tactful silence is not in his repertoire. And the speeches would be bad enough, but even worse is that he'd want to have this—this conversation. He'd want to wind up the delightful evening by me telling him how right he was, to do what he did, that it was necessary." He paused. "That I approved of what he did. Forgave him."
Joe nodded. He'd shifted the guitar onto his lap, and was softly plucking single notes, a wandering aimless tune. "And you don't want to talk about it. About Byron."
"About any-fucking-bloody-thing. Not just now."
Joe took a swallow of his beer, and went back to the guitar strings, the soft dissonances suddenly resolving into a simple three-chord pattern that plodded along for a few measures before Joe began humming, than singing in a nasal drone very unlike his usual voice:
"And when you want somebody
you don't have to speak to —
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane..."
He lifted a shaggy eyebrow at Methos, who snorted despite himself, and quickly covered by taking another swallow of brandy. "Dylan? Somehow I wouldn't have taken you for a fan of his, Joe."
"I'm not." The strummed chords ceased, and Joe's fingers found a softer, plaintive tune. "I mean, he's good, no question. Never could sing for shit, but a great songwriter. But ... y'know, a while back I saw him on TV. One of those big reunion concerts they're doing these days, for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame or some damn thing. Get all the old geezers together with the new guys and everyone act like they love each other. Bunch of sentimental crap. But anyway, Dylan was on there, and I'll tell ya, that guy has not aged well. He looked like one of those old farts you see sitting on park benches all day, the ones who'll hit you with their cane if you get too close." Joe looked up at Methos. "Guy's a whiner. Always was, and I guess he always will be."
"And you don't like whiners."
"Not much." Joe picked out a slow blues line, gently bending a few notes, letting them fade away. "Byron was on there too." Methos neither spoke nor moved, and Joe went on. "He must've been partying hard. Looked every bit of two hundred years old, and like they'd been a rugged two hundred years to boot. Hell, he looked older than Keith Richards. But he did a number with Clapton and I gotta say, he blew him off the stage." He found a note that slid in between the frets, and let it flatten away. "Shame to lose all that."
When Methos finally spoke, his voice was brittle. "So we are talking about it, I gather."
"Hey, ignore me if you want. I'm just rambling on here. Just flapping my mouth, trying to keep the air currents moving around. 'Cause frankly, man, it's a little—stuffy in here."
Methos did not smile, but something in his face eased a notch.
Joe's tone softened. "But say the word and I'll shut up. I know you're hurtin' right now, and I don't want to add to that."
"No."
Joe pondered the flat monosyllable for a time, and finally said, "No what?"
"No, you need not worry about damaging my tender sensibilities. No, there is no particular need to shut up. I'm fairly confident I can trust you not to pull a MacLeod on me and start the guilt-and-absolution tango." He picked up his glass, looked at it for a moment, took a swallow. "And no, you are not adding to any 'hurting.' I am in no particular pain." Joe gave him a look. "I'm fine."
"Right. You're fine."
"Is there an echo in here?" Methos said irritably.
"OK, OK. You said it. You're fine. Everything's comin' up roses." Joe spent a minute unnecessarily adjusting the tuning on his C string before adding, "You're usually a better liar than that, Methos."
Methos rubbed a thumb slowly over the edge of his glass. "You make assumptions, Joe. You're assuming—what? That I'm grieving over Byron's death? That I'm perturbed with Mac for having killed him? That I'm pissed off at any or all parties involved?" He shook his head slowly. "Byron wanted death, he got what he wanted. Mac wanted to kill him, he got what he wanted. Everyone's happy."
"Yeah, right. You look pretty cheerful over there." Joe took a long swallow of his beer. "So what did you want out of this?"
"What I would like is not to have this conversation. Can we just call it a night, Joe?"
Neither man made any motion to depart. After a long silence, Joe said, "If it's any consolation, I know you tried to stop it from happening. You did everything you could."
Methos stared at him. "God's teeth, Joe, d'you really think so poorly of me? That sweet-talking Mac was my only strategy? Or talking reason to Byron, speaking of pointless endeavors?" He shook his head. "Joe, Joe, you know me better than that. There's a dozen things I could have done to prevent this. I could have phoned in a bomb threat and evacuated the arena. I could have gotten Byron arrested for drug possession and put in a nice secure jail for years to come. I could have shot him. Or shot Mac. Or shot both of them—now that would have been gratifying."
"So why didn't you?"
Methos snorted. "I really thought you knew me better than that. No, the only real question as far as I'm concerned is why the hell I got involved in this farce as much as I did. I try to limit the occasions when I trash my few guiding principles to those where have a least a dim chance of success. So why I went shoving my oar into this particular fiasco I don't comprehend."
"Well, excuse me for stating the obvious, but I'd have to say it was because you didn't want it to happen. You didn't want Byron to die. Or maybe," Joe added shrewdly, "maybe it's just because you didn't want Mac to be the one to take him out."
Methos' mouth twisted. "Which leaves unanswered the question of how I came to be indulging in such stupidity." He took a swallow of his drink. "Imagine, the arrant idiocy, the megalomania, of thinking that I could keep alive a reckless, impulsive, flagrantly self-destructive individual like Byron. Someone who by rights should have been dead almost two hundred years ago." He drank again. "Why, that's almost as idiotic as thinking I could somehow keep Mac from doing whatever it was he'd conceived to be his duty. Whatever he'd taken upon himself as his fucking ... responsibility."
Joe carefully set his guitar aside, propping it on a chair, then turned back to the table and flipped open the second bottle of Fischer, buying time while he sought for comforting words. "Adam—it's human. It's a human failing. You want things to turn out OK. Make things go the way you wanted them to go. That's natural. Nothing wrong with that."
The look that met his went no further than coolly acknowledging and dismissing his effort. "You're not talking to Adam tonight, Joe." After a moment, the measured voice went on. "Nothing wrong with that, you say. Joe, do you know the Buddhist definition of suffering? Of where suffering comes from?"
It's like playing Chutes and Ladders, Joe thought irritably, but after a moment's reflection he said "Attachment, right?"
"Attachment, yes. Desire. Which is to say, wanting things to be one way and not another. Expecting the universe to honor one's preferences. Minding it when it doesn't." He smiled suddenly, sweetly as a child. "I know all this. I should know it better than anyone on the planet, although I must say given my conduct of the past two years I ought to spent a decade or so sitting in Kirigaya-ji staring at a wall, as a refresher."
"So what are you saying here? I thought your line was 'just a guy,' right? That you aren't some kind of enlightened being, some Zen master or whatever. You telling me you don't get to have feelings? You're beyond all that?"
Methos sighed deeply, and for once, Joe thought, without theatricality. "What I'm telling you is it doesn't matter, what I feel. It changes nothing. It's pointless."
"Pointless." Thwarted, Joe's sympathy was curdling to irritation. "It doesn't matter. Yeah, right. It doesn't matter you're sittin' there in a world of pain, and don't you fucking try to lie to me about that, Methos, I may not be any goddam enlightened being but I know you well enough to know how much you're hurting—and you try to tell me it doesn't matter. It matters, pal. It matters to you and it matters to me. And as much as you don't want to go there, you know it matters to Mac too."
"No." Methos' voice was kind but decisive. "You think it does, right now. You think it does because you can't step back far enough to look at it." He went on, gently, inexorably. "You think Byron's death is a big deal. Mac's remorse, the whole silly melodrama. But admit it. For you, and for Mac, it's a passing disturbance, something that will be forgotten soon enough. And as for me ..." He poured the last of the brandy into the glass, filling it almost to the brim, and took a delicate sip. "How many deaths do you think I've seen in five thousand years? One more ... it doesn't even ripple the surface."
"I warn you, Methos, I'm not buyin' this shit—"
"It doesn't really matter that Mike died, does it? Whatever MacLeod may think. He would have been dead so soon anyway...what, maybe sixty more years, tops?"
Joe felt a sudden fury. "It mattered to him! It may seem like nothing to you, you superannuated son of a bitch, but that was his whole life!"
"Oh, I know that." Methos appeared indifferent to Joe's anger. "Even an ant's life matters, to the ant. But a thousand years from now it won't signify in the least whether Mike had twenty years on this planet, or eighty, or none at all."
"So none of it matters." Joe's rage was at a steady simmer now. "My life either, I suppose. Whether I live or die. Alexa, she didn't matter." Methos was silent, motionless, staring into his glass. "Methos, hell, you can't sit there and tell me Alexa didn't matter. I know how bad that hurt you."
When Methos spoke, he sounded wholly detached. "Yes. That did hurt. The pain was surprising. But that's my point exactly, Joe. Did hurt. Past tense. It's over. And she's just as dead now as she would've been if I'd spent that time lying on the sand at Waikiki, drinking mai tais and working on a tan, instead of trundling her around the world and getting my heart shredded."
"And Mac. He doesn't matter either." He watched the lines of Methos' face harden. "That's why you keep putting your ass on the line for him. He's irrelevant to you, right."
"Well." The tone was light. "Clearly I keep making mistakes. Despite knowing better. Mac's my mistake du jour, that's all."
"Would you get serious for a minute!"
"I am serious," Methos said. "I'm dead serious. Mac's a terrible mistake, for me. One that will correct itself in time. Before it gets one of us killed, I hope."
Joe, in a temper, pushed away from the table, stood, almost toppled for a moment, then grabbed his cane and struggled to the bar. Pulling another bottle of Fischer from the cooler, he turned and started back to the table. Then he paused, scowling at Methos for a moment through the dim stale air. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, and then closed it and bent and got another bottle of brandy from under the bar. Resettled in his chair, he pushed it across the table toward the other man, not sure if he was offering a gift, or a appeasement, or an apology.
Methos nodded, took the bottle, but said nothing. Joe let some time pass before he spoke.
"Methos—listen to me. It's not a mistake to care about someone. Even though it's scary as hell. Maybe you think you're the only one who's lost people. You've lost more than the rest of us, sure. I can see how that'd get to be—hard to take, after a while. But you're not alone with that, you know. I've lost people too. I know how it feels."
For a while, he didn't think Methos would reply, and when he did, he seemed to be speaking to his own thoughts rather than Joe's words. "Sometimes .... sometimes I get the feeling that I've lived too long." A pause. "You wouldn't know how thatfeels. You never will."
Joe looked up, took a breath, as if to speak, and then let it out and sat silently, listening.
"You said something before, about human failings. That it's only human to want things." Methos' eyes were deep in shadow, the dim light picking out the bones of his face. "Joe. How human do you think I can be—anyone could be—after five thousand years? D'you really think there's much human left in me?" His voice dropped almost to a whisper. "I don't think that that's a luxury to which I'm entitled any longer."
Joe stared at him. "What in the hell brought this on?" Slowly, he began shaking his head. "We start with Mac whacking an old pal of yours and all of a sudden it's 'Methos doesn't get to be a human being.' What is up with you, man? Out of nowhere you get to be the only person on the planet who knows what it's like to suffer?" Joe glanced down, looked at the bottle he was gripping in his hand with some surprise, as if he were noticing it for the first time, and tipped it to his mouth, taking a deep draught of beer. "You think—" he started again, and then stopped. Took a breath, searching for words, and then let it out. Sat for a few minutes, picking at the label on his bottle. Finally, he began again.
"You think I don't know what it's like, to feel like like you've lived too long." Joe looked up. "You want to know something? Back in my apartment, in the back of a closet, I've got a shoebox. Came across it a few years ago when I was doing some cleaning. I probably should have just tossed it, but..." He paused, then went on. "Stuff in that box came back with me from Nam. Some souvenirs—just junk, nothing valuable. My tags. That Purple Heart they gave me—more junk, s'far as I'm concerned. Letters. And a bunch of photographs."
He took another drink. By now his third beer was almost gone. Methos, slumped deep in his chair, watched him without moving or speaking.
"I looked through 'em, not too long ago. God, was that a strange experience. Can't believe how young we all looked. How geeky. Really ugly haircuts, zits, some of the guys had those stupid-looking Elvis Costello glasses. I don't know why I kept all that other stuff, but I know why I kept those photos. Not because I have to be reminded of how dumb we all looked back then. No. It's because everyone in those photos, every single one, has been dead for twenty-nine years now. All of 'em, except me."
He looked over at Methos, raising his voice in emphasis. "I should have died back there. There's no reason—there's no fucking reason on the planet for me to be anything more than a shoebox full of junk and a name on the wall in D.C. All the rest of 'em died, and there was no reason I should have lived."
He looked briefly at the empty bottle in his hand, set it back down on the table, and, reaching over, picked up Methos' bottle of brandy and took a swig. "You mind?" he asked belatedly, wiping his mouth.
"It's your brandy, Joe."
"Yeah, that's true, I don't remember you paying for it. Although I'm surprised to hear you admit it." He paused, letting silence settle back into the room, gathering his thoughts. "Every day since that mine went off—it all should have ended then. So every day since then's been gravy. Even the worst ones. Even on the worst day of my life, y'know, I can still look up at the sky, talk to a friend, play some music—" He lifted the bottle. "Have a drink. And I shouldn't be here to do any of it. It's gravy, all of it." He looked away, shaking his head. "And it's so—so fucking easy to forget that. To start thinking I've got something to whine about."
Methos stirred, finally. "Joe—"
"You sit there thinking I can't possibly understand you, and maybe you're right. But did you ever stop to wonder if you understand a damn thing about me?" He took another drink from the bottle, and slammed it back down on the table. "Why do you think I hang around with you guys anyway? Breaking the rules, puttin' my neck on the line? Huh? 'Cause I need the aggravation? No way." He shook his head, hard, lips pressed tight. "No. It's because—it helps. It helps to be with people who know what it's like. What it feels like, to have lived too long. To see all the other guys die, and to keep on going. And you know how it feels, Methos?" He aimed a crooked smile across the table. "You know how it feels, right? It feels one hell of a lot better than the alternative."
He waited for some response, but Methos merely sat, staring down at his glass. Joe felt his mouth pulling up into a smile, and then suddenly he began chuckling, and the chuckles turned to laughter. Methos looked up, finally, and glared at him.
"Just what is so funny?"
"The whole thing." Joe laughed hard, coughed, got his voice back. "Imean, think about it. Here you are, getting all maudlin, drinking enough to float a battleship, over some guy who by rights—you said it before, someone who should've died a couple centuries ago? Damn right he should've, he should've at least drowned in the Hellespont back in 18-whatever-it-was. Not to mention Mac, who should've died in some smelly hut in Scotland in 1622. And you! Christ almighty, Methos, you should have been dead so long ago your god-damned bones would've atomized by now." Joe laughed again. "Instead of which, you're sitting here, in Paris, in the springtime for god's sake, drinking a nice glass of brandy, drinking it when you're not crying into it, that is, and when you're done with that you can head out and take a walk through the city, look at the stars, watch the river roll by. Maybe even smell the flowers, hell, there's gotta be some damn flower in bloom somewhere. Or you can go home and read a good book, or boot up your computer and chat with someone in Australia, for god's sake, or stick a CD in and listen to some music. Or you could find some sweet young thing to take you home and screw your brains out, or stop by the market and get a big bowl of soup—" Joe stopped briefly to catch his breath. "That really good onion soup, like you can't get anywhere else—"
"So what exactly are you trying to convey with this little Parisian rhapsody, Joe?" Methos' tone was icy.
"I'm telling you I don't like whiners. I'm telling you you're alive when you should've been dead five thousand years ago, and you damn well better enjoy what you have, which is not gonna happen by sitting around handing yourself some line of bullshit about how you don't get to feel anything anymore. You think you've lived too long? Damn right you've lived too long, so make the most of it." He gave a harsh bark of laughter. "I'm telling you to get the fuck over yourself, Methos!"
"Shit!" In a blur of motion too swift and savage to follow, Methos grabbed an empty bottle from the table and let it fly two inches northwest of Joe's head, so close that Joe felt the breeze of it on his hair at the same moment he heard it shatter against the wall behind him.
A moment of stunned silence, and then Joe started laughing again, harder than before. He hooted, he wept, he put his head down and gently thumped his forehead against the tabletop, gasping. Methos sat silent, impassive, watching him.
"Oh, man. Ohhh, man." Breathless, hiccuping with giggles, Joe wiped his eyes on his sleeve. Finally getting himself composed, he combed his hair back with his fingers, smoothed his beard.
"Man, that really does grind your gizzard, doesn't it. 'Just a guy,' my ass. You think we're so damn different, you and me. Just because you're a hundred times older than I am."
"Well, not just because—"
"Shut up. You think you're so fucking unique, Methos, and it really, really pisses you off if I tell you any different. Poor pitiful you, all alone in the universe. Hey, buddy, let me clue you on something. You've been married. Right? I'm not saying I buy this sixty-whatever times you told Mac, I mean, who knows about that, but you have been married. And you've—so maybe you haven't had kids, but you've raised them. Taken care of 'em, gotten to rock them to sleep and see them grow up—" Joe's voice was suddenly rough, and he had to pause and clear his throat. "And see them have their own kids. Unless you made up every damn thing in the Methos Chronicles, I know that much is true. OK?"
"Joe." Methos' voice was very quiet. "You could have had all that You're a good and a loveable man. Thousands of women would have leapt at the chance."
Joe shook his head, hard. "A Watcher? A musician? You tell me if there're two more unstable occupations on the planet." He sighed. "I know some Watchers do it—get married, have families, the whole deal. It just never seemed ... fair, to me, to do to someone else. Or to the organization. It'd mean selling both sides short. What the hell. You can't have it all."
"You have family." Quiet still, not arguing, gently reminding.
"My family." Joe laughed. "Yeah, well, I did finally make it up with my parents, before they died, enough so we got back on speaking terms. It took 'em a long time to forgive me, though."
"Forgive you? For what?"
"This." Joe picked up an empty bottle and thunked it, hard, against oneleg. It made a dull percussive noise in the still room. "They always figured that if I hadn't dropped out to play in the band, if I'd stayed in college like they wanted me to, I'd've gotten a student deferment. Gotten my degree and all that, and I'd have ended up with a good job and a nice house, family, the whole deal. And my legs." He set the empty bottle on the floor, picked up the brandy, took a swallow. "And as for the rest of my family, well, you can imagine how thrilled my sister was with me, after the whole Horton business. We haven't talked much since then. Big surprise, eh?" He shook his head once, grinning. "And then, of course, there's the whole wonderful Watcher family. Jesus, talk about dysfunctional. Nothin' like having someone hold a gun to your head to make you feel—wanted."
He bent over, rearranging his legs, and then leaned forward, elbows on the table. "No. You guys—you and Mac. You guys are my family, or as near as I'll get. And I am not lettin' you weasel out on your family commitments, pal. You know what that means? Methos? Means you're right in the shit-soup, right along with the rest of us. Just like me. Just like Mac."
Methos looked at him narrowly. "I do believe you're drunk, Joe Dawson."
Joe laughed. "No shit, Sherlock." He picked up the brandy bottle, took a healthy swig, wiped the neck on his sleeve with exaggerated care, and set it back down. "What a bummer, huh? You go through five thousand years' worth of grief, and you don't even get to feel all that damn special. You wanna not be human any more? Wanna rise above the whole thing? Sorry, pal. You're stuck with it. Hurting and all. And you think you can make it all go away by saying it doesn't matter? Yeah, you go ahead and tell yourself that if you want to, Methos. Just don't try it on me. I may be drunk, but I'm not a goddam idiot."
He stared hard across the table for a moment, and then his face sagged, and he thumped his elbows down on the table and put his face in his hands. "Ah, jeez. I wasn't going to lecture you, was I?" He sighed, rubbing his eyes. "I must be hanging around MacLeod too much."
"Definitely an occupational hazard." The tone was dry, ironic, but there was warmth in it as well, and a sharp-edged affection. Joe felt the shakiness of a man who had juggled flaming torches and come out unscathed, and a sudden wave of relief that left him soggy, but he kept his own voice sharp in reply.
"Yeah, well, I notice that somehow you hung around for this—conversation. The one you weren't going to have."
"So I did." Methos stirred then, leaning forward, and took hold of Joe's arm. At the touch, Joe tensed for just a moment, half-fearing, as he always did, even after all this time, to feel a crackling arc of Immortal energy burn him. But all he felt was human warmth, the grip of a human hand on his arm.
The moment passed, and Methos released him and stood, draining his glass, looking around for his coat.
"You taking off?"
Methos nodded, slowly. "I think I'll get out of town for a while. Change of scene."
"Yeah? So where're you headed?"
He'd asked the question with no expectation of a straight answer, and he was surprised when Methos merely replied, "Thought I'd go down to Florence for a week or so. There's some frescos I'd like to see again, before the next flood."
"They predicting floods this spring? I hadn't heard that."
Methos shrugged. "None in the forecast. But they'll happen someday. The frescoes, the sculptures, none of that's going to last forever. No point in acting as if they will." He picked his coat up off the chair.
Tired though he was, Joe felt a sudden, irrational impulse to keep the other man with him just a little longer. "Hey. Methos. You want to get a little action going? Twenty bucks says that by noon tomorrow Mac'll be in here asking for you. 'Joe, have you seen Methos around? I need to talk to him. You need to help me find him, Joe. You know where he went?' " He shook his head. "Should I try that line you used before, what was it? Just get the fuck out? Yeah, right." He looked up at Methos. "So, whadda you say? We on?"
Methos smiled. "I'll see your bet, Joe, and I'll raise you. I'll wager a bottle of Martell cognac that he'll be here, but not until—after 2, I'd say. He'll spend the morning working out and doing his damn running. Get the Quickening settled. And then he'll need a couple of hours to get past himself enough to actually be willing to talk to me. At least a couple of hours for that." Methos tipped his head back, considering. "I say somewhere between two and six, then. You say before noon. And a bottle of Martell to the winner."
Joe sighed. "Damn it, y'know, I think you're right. I think I'm gonna lose this one."
Putting on his coat, Methos said kindly, "I usually win my bets, Joe."
"Yeah, yeah. Remember one thing, though. I expect you to get yourself back up here soon, whoever wins, and split that bottle with me I'll let you help me drink it up—hey, this is a generous offer I'm making here, right?" He spoke over Methos' laughter, laughing himself.
"You think I should let you drink half of my cognac? A prize I won fair and square?"
"You haven't won it yet." Painfully, he turned himself in his chair to face the other man. "OK, Methos? Get back here soon, I mean it. 'Cause Mac can wait, maybe. But I can't."
Methos stood beside him, a slice of blackness in the dim bar, face shadowed. "Sure thing, Joe. I guess I owe you that much."
"You owe me a hell of a lot more than that, my friend."
"Maybe. Maybe so." Methos touched his shoulder, briefly, and turned away. "Take care."
"Methos? Hey, one more thing." Joe waited until the tall figure paused and turned back toward him. "What do you want me to tell him?"
"Tell Mac? Oh, for christ's sake, Joe. Tell him I'm selling encyclopedias door to door. Tell him I ran off to join the Scientologists. Tell him I'm peddling my ass in Bangkok. I don't give a fuck what you tell him."
Joe just sat, staring at him, stubbornly.
"Oh, hell. You're going to tell him anyway, of course." Still no reply. "All right. All right. Fine. You have my blessing." Methos let out an exasperated sigh. "But I'm not going to tell you where I'm staying in Florence. Nosing around will keep him pleasantly occupied."
Joe lifted the brandy bottle in a vague salute. "Thanks, man. I appreciate it."
"If it were me, Joe, mind you, I'd hold out for some really good concessions before coughing up. But then you're not me, are you. At least make him ask three times, politely."
"Damn right I'm not you. Go on, get out of here." But Methos was already gone. A rustle of the velvet curtains in the doorway, and Joe was alone.
He sat for a while, listening to the silence. Watching the empty stage, his brain on idle. He knew he should go home to bed, get some sleep, but the effort seemed huge. Busy day tomorrow, he told himself sternly. Gotta call the coroner about getting Mike's body released and back to London. Gotta put the word out we're looking for a new guitarist. And I guess I could look up the train schedule to Florence. Save Mac the trouble.
Family. He snorted out one more laugh, and then stood, slowly, propping himself on his cane. He took a last look around the mess of the room. Soon enough the janitor would be coming in to clear away, and Maurice'd probably get an earful from him about all the broken glass. Nothing more to watch here, and no point playing his music to an empty room. Turning, he picked up his guitar and hobbled off into the night.