The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fifth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “I’m Dr. Kraftt, I guess you’re Maggie.”

  “Is he really dying? What’s wrong with him?”

  “Take your pick. The man’s got everything. A person can’t live like that and expect their organs to behave.”

  Maggie went upstairs. Uncle Ned looked dead already. There were green oxygen tanks and plastic tubes.

  “I’m real glad you came. This is nice.”

  “Uncle Ned, where’d you get all this stuff?”

  “That all you got to say? You don’t want to hear how I am?”

  “I can see how you are.”

  “You’re entitled to bad feelings. I deserve whatever you want to dish out. I want to settle things up before I go to damnation and meet your aunt. Your father had an employee stock plan at Montgomery Wards. Left your mother well off and that woman was too cheap to spend it. We got the money when she died and you came to us. We sort of took these little vacations. Nothing big.”

  “Oh Lord.”

  “I guess we wronged you some.”

  “I guess I grew up on peanut butter and Campbell’s soup is what happened.”

  “I’ve got a lot to answer for. There are certain character flaws.”

  “That’s no big news to me.”

  “I can see a lot clearer from the unique position I got at the moment. Poised between one plane of being and the next. When your aunt died weakness began to thrive. I didn’t mean to buy so much stuff.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s anything left.”

  “Not to speak of I wouldn’t think. All that junk out there’s on credit. It’ll have to go back. The bank’s got the house. There’s forty-nine dollars in a Maxwell House can in the closet. I want you to have it.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “I wish you and me’d been closer. I hope you’ll give me a kiss.”

  “I’d rather eat a toad,” said Maggie.

  * * *

  Maggie saw Jimmy Gerder at the funeral. He still had a limp and kept his distance. She walked along the river to see Oral. It was fall, or as close as fall gets in that end of Texas. Dry leaves rattled and the Colorado was low. The log where she used to watch turtles was aground, trailing tangles of fishing line. The water was the color of chocolate milk and the turtles were gone. Oral was gone too. Brush had sprung up under the big native pecan. The place looked empty without the multi-blue pickup and the extraterrestrial trailer. Maggie wondered if he’d gotten things to work or just left. She asked around town, and no one seemed to remember seeing him go. After a Coke and a bacon and tomato at the cafe she figured she had enough to get back to New York if she sold a couple of things before Sears learned Uncle Ned was dead. Put that with her forty-nine dollar inheritance and she could do it. There was fifteen dollars left from the ticket. Even dying, Uncle Ned had remembered to pay for only one way.

  * * *

  Winter in New York was bad. The Chinese restaurant became an outlet for video tapes. Sherry and Jeannie and Eva helped all they could. They carried Maggie on the rent and ran copies of “Blue Sun Rising” down at the insurance company. The Velottas tried to help, but Maggie wouldn’t have it. She got part-time work at a pizza place on East 52nd. After work she walked bone-tired to the theatre district and looked at the lights. She read the names on the posters and watched people get out of cabs. There was a cold wet drizzle every night, but Maggie didn’t mind. The streets reflected the magic and made it better. When the first snow fell she sewed a blanket in her coat. The coat smelled like anchovies and Sherry said she looked like a Chinese pilot. “For God’s sake, baby, let me loan you a coat.”

  “I can manage,” said Maggie, “you’ve done enough.”

  She could no longer afford subways or buses so she walked every day from her room. She lost weight and coughed most of the time. The owner asked her to leave. He said customers didn’t like people coughing on their pizza. She didn’t tell the girls she’d lost her job. They’d want to give her money. She looked, but there weren’t any jobs to be had. Especially for girls who looked like bag ladies and sounded like Camille. She kept going out every day and coming back at night. Hunger wasn’t a problem. She felt too sick to eat. One night she simply didn’t go home. “What’s the point? What’s the use pretending? No one wants to look at ‘Blue Sun Rising.’ I can’t get a job. I can’t do anything at all.”

  The snow began to fall in slow motion, flakes the size of lemons. Broadway looked like a big Christmas tree someone had tossed out and forgot to take the lights.

  “Look at the blues,” said Maggie. “Oral liked the blues so much.”

  A man selling food gave her a pretzel and some mustard. The pretzel came up at once. A coughing fit hit her. She couldn’t stop. First nighters hurried quickly by. Maggie pulled her coat up close and looked in the steamy windows of Times Square. Radios and German bayonets were half-off. There was a pre-Christmas sale on marital aids. She could still taste the mustard and the pretzel. A black man in sunglasses approached.

  “You hurtin’ bad, mama. You need something, I can maybe get it.”

  “No thank you,” said Maggie.

  I can’t just stand here, she thought. I’ve got to do something. She couldn’t feel her feet. Lights were jumping about. There was a paper box in the alley. The thing to do was to sit down and try to figure things out. She thought of a good line for “Diesel and Roses” and then forgot it. A cat looked in and sniffed; there were anchovies somewhere about. Maggie dreamed of daddy when he took her to the zoo. She dreamed of Oral under a tree and riding high with Billy Mace. The cab was toasty warm and Billy had burgers from McDonald’s. She dreamed she heard applause. The cat started chewing on her coat. Oh Lord, I love New York, thought Maggie. If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere …

  * * *

  Carla looked ethereal, computer-enhanced.

  “I guess I’m dying,” said Maggie. “I’m sorry to get you out in this weather.”

  “Oh baby,” said Carla, “hang on. Just hang on, Maggie.”

  Everything was fuzzy. The tubes hurt her nose. The walls were dark and needed painting. Sherry and Eva and Jeannie were there and all the Velottas. They bobbed about like balloons. Everyone had rings around their eyes.

  “I want you to have ‘Blue Sun Rising,’” said Maggie. “All of you. Equal shares. I’ve been thinking about off-Broadway lately. That might not be so hard. Don’t see a man named Marty Wilde.”

  “All right, Maggie.”

  “She’s going,” someone said.

  “Goodbye, Daddy. Goodbye, Oral,” said Maggie.

  * * *

  The room looked nice. There was a big window with sun coming in. The doctor leaned down close. He smelled like good cologne. He smiled at Maggie and wrote something and left. A nice-looking man got up from a chair and stood by the bed.

  “Hello. You feeling like something to drink? You want anything just ask.”

  “I’d like a Dr Pepper if you have one.”

  “You got it.”

  The man left and Maggie tried to stay awake. When she opened her eyes again it was late afternoon. The man was still there. A nurse came in and propped her up. The man brought her a fresh Dr Pepper.

  “You look a lot like Tony,” said Maggie. He did. The same crispy hair and dark eyes. A nice black suit and a gray tie. Maybe a couple of years older. “You know Tony and Carla?”

  “They ask about you every day. You can see them real soon. Everybody’s been pretty worried about you.”

  “I guess I ’bout died.”

  “Yeah, I guess you did.”

  “This place looks awful expensive. I don’t want the Velottas or anyone spending a bundle on me.”

  “They won’t. No problem.”

  “Hey, I know a swell place like this isn’t free.”

  “We’ll talk about it. Don’t worry.” The man smiled at Maggie and went away.

  Maggie slept and got her appetite back and wondered where she was. The next afternoon the man was back. He helped her
in a wheelchair and rolled her down the hall to a glassed-in room full of plants. There were cars outside in a circular drive. A fountain turned off for the winter. A snow-covered lawn and a dark line of trees. Far in the distance, pale blue hills against a cold and leaden sky. Men in sunglasses and overcoats walked around in the snow.

  “I guess you’re going to tell me where I am sometime,” said Maggie. “I guess you’re going to tell me who you are and what I’m doing in this place I can’t afford.”

  “I’m Johnny Lucata,” the man said. “Call me Johnny, Maggie. And this house belongs to a friend.”

  “He must be a friend of yours, then. I don’t remember any friends with a house like this.”

  “You don’t know him. But he’s a friend of yours too.” He seemed to hesitate. He straightened his tie. “Look, I got things to tell you. Things you need to know. You want we can talk when you feel a little better.”

  “I feel okay right now.”

  “Maybe. Only this is kinda nutsy stuff, you know? I don’t want to put you back in bed or nothing.”

  “Mr. Lucata, whatever it is, I think I’ll feel a lot better when I know what’s going on.”

  “Right. Why not? So what do you know about olives?”

  “What?”

  “Olives. They got olives over in Italy. There’s a place where the toe’s kicking Sicily in the face. Calabria. Something like a state, only different. The man lives here, he’s got a lot of the olive oil business in Calabria. Been in his family maybe four, five hundred years. You sure you want to do this now?”

  “I’m sure, Mr. Lucata.”

  “Okay. There’s this city called Reggio di Calabria right on the water. You can look and see Sicily real good. A couple of miles out of town is this castle. Been there forever, only now it’s a place for monks. So what happens is a couple of months back this monk’s digging around and finds this parchment in a box. It’s real old and the monk reads it. What he sees shakes him up real bad. He’s not going to go to the head monk because Catholics got this thing about stuff that even starts to get weird. But he’s a monk, right? He can’t just toss this thing away. He’s got a sister knows a guy who’s family to the man who lives here. So the box gets to Reggio and then it gets to him.” Johnny Lucata looked at Maggie. “Here’s the part I said gets spooky. What this parchment says, Maggie, is that the old duke who started up the family left all the olive business to you.”

  Maggie looked blank. “Now that doesn’t make sense at all, Mr. Lucata.”

  “Yeah, tell me. It’s the straight stuff. The experts been over it. I got a copy I can show you. It’s all in Latin, but you can read the part that says Maggie McKenna of Marble Creek, Texas. We got the word out and we been looking all over trying to find you. But your uncle died and you came back to New York. We didn’t know where to take it after that. Then someone in Tony’s family mentions your name and it gets to us. The thing is now, the man lives here, he doesn’t know what to make of all this, and he don’t want to think about it a lot. He sure don’t want to ask some cardinal or the Pope. What he wants to do is make it right for you, Maggie. This duke is his ancestor and he figures it’s a matter of honor. I mean, he doesn’t see you ought to get it all, but you ought to be in for a couple of points. He wants me to tell you he’d like to work it where you get maybe three, four mill a year out of this. He thinks that’s fair and he knows you’re pressed for cash.”

  Maggie sat up straight. “Are you by any chance talking about dollars? Three or four million dollars?”

  “Five. I think we ought to say five. He kind of left that up to me. Don’t worry about the taxes. We’ll work a little off-tackle Panama reverse through a Liechtenstein bank. You’ll get the bread through a Daffy Duck Christmas Club account.”

  “I just can’t hardly believe this, Mr. Lucata. It’s like a dream or something. No one even knew I was going to be back then. Why, there wasn’t even a Texas!”

  “You got it.”

  “This castle. There’s just these monks living there now?”

  “Palazzo Azzuro. Means blue palace. I been there, it’s nice. Painted blue all over. Inside and out. Every kind of blue you ever saw.”

  “Blue? Oh my goodness!”

  “You okay?”

  “Oral,” said Maggie, “Oh Oral, you’re the finest and dearest friend I ever had!”

  * * *

  When she was feeling like getting up and around, Johnny Lucata helped her find a relatively modest apartment off Fifth Avenue. Five mill or not, Maggie had been poor too long to start tossing money around. She did make sure there were always Dr Peppers and Baby Ruths in the fridge. And steaks and fresh fruit and nearly everything but Chinese food and pizza. Carla helped her find Bloomingdale’s and Saks. Maggie picked out a new cloth coat. She sent nice perfume to Jeannie and Sherry and Eva, and paid them back triple what they’d spent to help her out. She gave presents to the Velottas and had everyone over for dinner. Johnny Lucata dropped by a lot. Just to see how she was doing. Sometimes he came in a cab. Sometimes he came in a black car with tinted windows and men wearing black suits and shades. He took her out to dinner and walks in the park. Sometimes Maggie made coffee, and they talked into the night. She read him “Blue Sun Rising” and he liked it.

  “You don’t have to say that, just because it’s me.”

  “I mean it. I go to plays all the time. It’s real, Maggie. You don’t have to wonder what everybody’s thinking, they just say it. I want you to talk to Whitney Hess.”

  “Whitney Hess the producer? Do you know him?”

  “Yeah, sure I know him.”

  “I don’t want to do that, Johnny. I don’t want to get help from somebody just because he’s a friend of yours. That’s not right. I want ‘Blue Sun Rising’ to stand on its own.”

  “Are you kidding?” said Johnny. “Whitney Hess wouldn’t buy a bad play from his dying mother. Besides, I want five points of this up front. You’re not going to cut me out of a winner.”

  * * *

  Tony and Carla and Tony’s brothers and his sister and Mama and Papa Velotta dressed up for opening night. Johnny Lucata sent a limo to pick them up, and another to get Jeannie and Sherry and Eva. Tony got out the word, and the truckers found Billy Mace and Henry Black Bear and Quincy Pride. They all had seventh row center seats.

  Maggie thought sure she was dreaming. Her name up in lights at the Shubert Theatre. Ladies in furs and jewels dressed up for opening night. Spotlights and TV cameras and people she’d only seen in the movies. She stayed outside a long time. Standing in the very same spot where she’d thrown up pretzels in the street. Not far from the alley where she’d curled up in a box and nearly died. You just never know, she told herself. You just don’t.

  There was no need to wait for the reviews. After the first act, Whitney Hess said they had a smash on their hands. After the third act curtain, even Maggie believed it was true. The audience came to its feet and shouted, “author! author!” and someone told Maggie they meant her.

  Johnny hurried her out of the Shubert by the side door. He wouldn’t say where they were going. A black car was by the curb around the corner. There were men in overcoats and shades.

  “I want you to meet somebody,” said Johnny, and opened the rear door. “This is Maggie McKenna,” he said. “Maggie, I’d like you to meet my father.”

  Maggie caught the proper respect in his voice. She looked inside and saw an old man sitting in the corner. He was lost in a black suit, a man no more substantial than a cut-rate chicken in a sack.

  “That was a nice play,” he said. “I like it a lot. I like plays with a story you can’t guess what’s going to happen all the time. There’s nothing on the television but dirt. The Reds got people in the business. They built this place in Chelyabinsk looks just like Twentieth Century Fox. Writers, directors, the works. They teach ’em how to do stuff rots out your head then they send them over here. This is a great country. You keep writing nice plays.”

  “Thank you,�
� said Maggie, “I’m very glad you liked it.”

  “Here. A little present from me. Your big night. You remember where you got it.”

  “I’m very grateful,” said Maggie. “For everything.” She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

  “That’s very nice. You’re a nice girl. She’s a nice girl, Johnny.”

  Johnny took her back inside, and on the way home after the big party Whitney Hess gave at the Plaza, Maggie opened her present. It was a pendant shaped like an olive. Pale emeralds formed the olive and a ruby sat on top for the pimiento.

  “It’s just lovely,” said Maggie.

  “The old man’s got a lot of class.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that was your father’s house, Johnny? I kinda guessed later but I didn’t know for sure.”

  “Wasn’t the right time.”

  “And it’s the right time now?”

  “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  “Whitney Hess wants to go into rehearsal on ‘Diesel and Roses’ next month. I’m going to ask Billy Mace and Henry Black Bear and Quincy Pride to come on as technical advisors. There’s not a thing for them to do, but I’d like to have them around.”

  “That’s nice. It’s a good idea.”

  “Whitney says everyone wants the movie rights to ‘Blue Sun Rising.’ Which means we’ll get a picture deal up front for ‘Diesel and Roses.’ Oh Lordy, I can’t believe all this is really happening. Everything in my life’s been either awful or as good as it can be.”

  “It’s going to stay good now, Maggie.” He leaned over and kissed her quickly. Maggie stared at the tinted glass.

  “You’ve never done that before.”

  “Well, I have now.”

  Maggie wondered what was happening inside. She felt funny all over. She was dizzy from the kiss. She liked Johnny a lot but she’d never liked him quite like this. She wanted him to kiss her again and again, but not now. Not wearing Oral’s protective device, which she’d worn since her very first day in New York. It was something she’d never thought about before. What if you really wanted someone to do something to you? Would the wire and the black stone know that it wasn’t Jimmy Gerder or Marty Wilde? She certainly couldn’t take the chance of finding out.