Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy by Ellen Datlow (ed. by)

Author:Ellen Datlow (ed. by) [Datlow, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_fantasy_city
ISBN: 9781429983150
Publisher: St Martin's Griffin
Published: 2011-06-01T12:00:00+00:00

* * *

Too bad that Wings Germaine, and not the first tourist he booked, the one with the lovely phone voice, whom he loved on sight at the interview, shows up for the last-ever Weston Walking Tour. While thirteen lucky tourists gather at the subway kiosk on Seventy-second at Broadway, Wings is waiting elsewhere and for unstated reasons—down there.

Weston has no idea what’s ahead. It’s a sunny fall Saturday, light breeze, perfect for the classic Central Park walk, so what could be easier or more convenient? It’s a half block from his house.

All he has to do is collect his group outside the kiosk, where they are milling with vacant smiles. They light up at the sight of his neatly lettered placard. Grinning, he stashes it in the back of his jeans, to be used only when for some unforeseen reason he loses one of them.

A glance tells him this is a Starbucks bunch. With their cameras and sagging fanny packs, they wouldn’t be comfortable at chic old Café des Artistes, which is right around the corner from his house. It’s not their fault their personal styles are, well, a bad match. But they are. He’s one short, which bothers him. Where is that girl he liked so much? Too bad he has to move on, but maybe she’ll catch up. Nice day, nice enough people, he thinks—with the possible exception of the burly tourist in the black warm-up jacket with the Marine Corps emblem picked out in gold, who walks with his shoulders bunched, leaning into a scowl.

Never mind. It’s a beautiful day, and Weston is in charge. Happy and obedient, his tourists trot past the spot where John Lennon died and into the park on a zigzag, heading for the east side, where the Metropolitan Museum bulks above the trees like a mastodon lumbering away. He keeps up a lively patter, spinning stories as his people smile blandly and nod, nod, nod, all except the man with the scowl, who keeps looking at his watch.

Weston looks up: Ooops. Like a cutting horse, his ex-marine has the herd heading into a bad place.

Time to get out of here. He’ll walk them south on Fifth, point out houses owned by people he used to know. “All right,” he says brightly, “time to see how the rich people live.”

“Wait.” The big marine fills the path like a rhino bunched to charge. “You call this the insider tour?”

Smile, Weston. “Didn’t I just…”

He points to a gap in the bushes; Weston knows it too well. “TAKE US THE FUCK INSIDE.”

No! Behind those bushes, a gash in the rocks opens like a mouth. He can’t go back! Weston struggles for that tour-guide tone. “What would you like to see?”

“Tunnels.”

The ground underneath the park is laced with unfinished city projects—tunnels, aborted subway stations, all closed to them; Weston has researched, and he knows. “Oh,” he says, relieved, “then you want City Spelunking Tours. I have their number and…”

“Not those. The ones real people dug. Nam vets.

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