The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fifth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  HALLEY’S PASSING

  Michael McDowell

  “Would you like to keep that on your credit card?” asked the woman on the desk. Her name was Donna and she was dressed like Snow White because it was Halloween.

  “No,” said Mr. Farley, “I think I’ll pay cash.” Mr. Farley counted out twelve ten-dollar bills and laid them on the counter. Donna made sure there were twelve, then gave Mr. Farley change of three dollars and twenty-six cents. He watched to make certain she tore up the charge slips he had filled out two days before. She ripped them into thirds. Original copy, Customer’s Receipt, Bank Copy, two intervening carbons—all bearing the impress of Mr. Farley’s Visa card and his signature—they went into a trash basket that was invisible beneath the counter.

  “Good-bye,” said Mr. Farley. He took up his one small suitcase and walked out the front door of the hotel. His suitcase was light blue Samsonite with an X of tape underneath the handle to make it recognizable at an airport baggage claim.

  It was seven o’clock. Mr. Farley took a taxi from the hotel to the airport. In the back of the taxi, he opened his case and took out a black loose-leaf notebook and wrote in it:

  10385 Double Tree Inn

  Dallas, Texas

  Checkout 1900/$116.74/

  Donna

  The taxi took Mr. Farley to the airport and cost him $12.50 with a tip that was generous but not too generous.

  Mr. Farley went to the PSA counter and picked up an airline schedule and put it into the pocket of his jacket. Then he went to the Eastern counter and picked up another schedule. In a bar called the Range Room he sat at a small round table. He ordered a vodka martini from a waitress named Alyce. When she had brought it to him, and he had paid her and she had gone away, he opened his suitcase, pulled out his black loose-leaf notebook and added the notations:

  Taxi $10.20 + 2.30/#1718

  Drink at Airport Bar

  $2.75 + .75/Alyce

  He leafed backwards through the notebook and discovered that he had flown PSA three times in the past two months. Therefore he looked into the Eastern Schedule first. He looked on page 23 first because $2.30 had been the amount of the tip to the taxi driver. On page 23 of the Eastern airline schedule were flights from Dallas to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Mobile, Alabama. All of the flights to Milwaukee changed in Cincinnati or St. Louis. A direct flight to Mobile left at 9:10 p.m. arriving 10:50 p.m. Mr. Farley returned the black loose-leaf notebook to his case and got up from the table, spilling his drink in the process.

  “I’m very sorry,” he said to Alyce, and left another dollar bill for her inconvenience.

  “That’s all right,” said Alyce.

  Mr. Farley went to the Eastern ticket counter and bought a coach ticket to Mobile, Alabama. He asked for an aisle seat in the nonsmoking section. He paid in cash and after taking out his black loose-leaf notebook, he checked his blue Samsonite bag. He went through security, momentarily surrendering a ringful of keys. The flight to Mobile departed Gate 15 but Mr. Farley sat in the seats allotted to Gate 13, directly across the way. He read through a copy of USA Today and he gave a Snickers bar to a child in a pumpkin costume who trick-or-treated him. He smiled at the child, not because he liked costumes or Halloween or children, but because he was pleased with himself for having been foresightful enough to buy three Snickers bars just in case he ran into trick-or-treating children on Halloween night. He opened his black loose-leaf notebook and amended the notation of his most recent bar tab:

  Drink at Airport Bar

  $2.75 + 1.75/Alyce

  The flight for Mobile began boarding at 8:55. As the announcement was made for the early accommodation of those with young children or other difficulties, Mr. Farley went into the men’s room.

  A Latino man in his twenties with a blue shirt and a lock of hair dangling down his neck stood at a urinal, looking at the ceiling and softly farting. His urine splashed against the porcelain wall of the urinal. Mr. Farley went past the urinals and stood in front of the two stalls and peered under them. He saw no legs or feet or shoes but he took the precaution of opening the doors. The stalls were empty, as he suspected, but Mr. Farley did not like to leave such matters to chance. The Latino man, looking downwards, flushed the urinal, zipping his trousers and backing away at the same time. Mr. Farley leaned down and took the Latino man by the waist. He swung the Latino man around so that he was facing the mirrors and the two sinks in the restroom and could see Mr. Farley’s face.

  “Man—” protested the Latino man.

  Mr. Farley rolled his left arm around the Latino man’s belt and put his right hand on the Latino man’s head. Mr. Farley pushed forward very swiftly with his right hand. The Latino man’s head went straight down towards the sink in such a way that the cold-water faucet, shaped like a Maltese Cross, shattered the bone above the Latino man’s right eye. Mr. Farley had gauged the strength of his attack so that the single blow served to press the Latino’s head all the way down to the porcelain. The chilled aluminum faucet was buried deeply in the Latino man’s brain. Mr. Farley took the Latino man’s wallet from his back pocket, removed the cash and his Social Security card. He gently dropped the wallet into the sink beneath the Latino man’s head and turned on the hot water. Mr. Farley peered into the sink, and saw blood, blackish and brackish swirling into the rusting drain. Retrieving his black loose-leaf notebook from the edge of the left-hand sink where he’d left it, Mr. Farley walked out of the rest room. The Eastern flight to Mobile was boarding all seats and Mr. Farley walked on directly behind a young woman with brown hair and a green scarf and directly in front of a young woman with slightly darker brown hair in a yellow sweater-dress. Mr. Farley sat in Seat 4-C and next to him, in Seat 4-A, was a bearded man in a blue corduroy jacket who fell asleep before take-off. Mr. Farley reached into his pocket and pulled out the bills he’d taken from the Latino man’s wallet. There were five five-dollar bills and nine one-dollar bills. Mr. Farley pulled out his own wallet and interleaved the Latino man’s bills with his own, mixing them up. Mr. Farley reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the Latino man’s Social Security card, cupping it from sight and slipping it into the Eastern Airlines In-Flight Magazine. He turned on the reading light and opened the magazine. The Social Security card read:

  IGNAZIOS LAZO

  424-70-4063

  Mr. Farley slipped the Social Security card back into his shirt pocket. He exchanged the in-flight magazine for the black loose-leaf notebook in the seat back pocket. He held the notebook in his lap for several minutes while he watched the man in the blue corduroy jacket next to him, timing his breaths by the sweep second hand on his watch. The man seemed genuinely to be asleep. Mr. Farley declined a beverage from the stewardess, who did not wear a name tag, and put his finger to his lips with a smile to indicate that the man in the blue corduroy jacket was sleeping and probably wouldn’t want to be disturbed. When the beverage cart was one row behind and conveniently blocking the aisle so that no one could look over his shoulder as he wrote, Mr. Farley opened the black loose-leaf notebook on his lap, and completed the entry for Halloween:

  2155/Ignazios Lazo/c

  27/Dallas Texas/ Airport/

  RR/38/Head onto Faucet

  RR meant Rest Room, and Mr. Farley stared at the abbreviation for a few moments, wondering whether he shouldn’t write out the words. There was a time when he had been a good deal given to abbreviations, but once, in looking over his book for a distant year, he had come across the notation CRB, and had had no idea what that stood for. Mr. Farley since that time had been careful about his notations. It didn’t do to forget things. If you forgot things, you might repeat them. And if you inadvertently fell into a repetitious pattern—well then, you just might get into trouble.

  Mr. Farley got up and went into the rest room at the forward end of the passenger cabin. He burned Ignazios Lazo’s Social Security card, igniting it with a match torn from a book he had picked up at the casino at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. He waited i
n the rest room till he could no longer smell the nitrate in the air from the burned match, then flushed the toilet, washed his hands, and returned to his seat.

  The flight arrived in Mobile at three minutes past eleven. While waiting for his blue Samsonite bag, Mr. Farley went to a Yellow Pages telephone directory for Mobile. His flight from Dallas had been Eastern Flight No. 71, but Mr. Farley was not certain there would be that many hotels and motels in Mobile, Alabama, so he decided on number 36, which was half of 72 (the closest even number to 71). Mr. Farley turned to the pages advertising hotels and counted down thirty-six to the Oasis Hotel. He telephoned and found a room was available for fifty-six dollars. He asked what the cab fare from the airport would be and discovered it would be about twelve dollars, with tip. The reservations clerk asked for Mr. Farley’s name, and Mr. Farley, looking down at the credit card in his hand, said, “Mr. T.L. Rachman.” He spelled it for the clerk.

  Mr. Rachman claimed his bag, and went outside for a taxi. He was first in line, and by 11:30 he had arrived at the Oasis Hotel, downtown in Mobile. In the hotel’s Shore Room Lounge, a band was playing in Halloween costume. The clerk on the hotel desk was made up to look like a mummy.

  “You go to a lot of trouble here for holidays, I guess,” said Mr. Rachman pleasantly.

  “Anything for a little change,” said the clerk as he pressed Mr. Rachman’s MasterCard against three copies of a voucher. Mr. Rachman signed his name on the topmost voucher and took back the card. Clerks never checked signatures at this point, and they never checked them later either, but Mr. Rachman had a practiced hand, at least when it came to imitating a signature.

  Mr. Rachman’s room was on the fifth and topmost floor, and enjoyed a view down to the street. Mr. Rachman unpacked his small bag, carefully hanging his extra pair of trousers and his extra jacket. He set his extra pair of shoes, with trees inside, into the closet beneath the trousers and jacket. He placed his two laundered shirts inside the topmost bureau drawer, set his little carved box containing an extra watch and two pairs of cufflinks and a tie clip and extra pairs of brown and black shoelaces on top of the bureau, and set his toiletries case next to the sink in the bathroom. He opened his black loose-leaf notebook and though it was not yet midnight, he began the entry for 110185, beneath which he noted:

  110185 Eastern 71 Dallas-Mobile

  Taxi $9.80 + 1.70

  Oasis Hotel/4th St

  T.L. Rachman

  In the bathroom, Mr. Rachman took scissors and cut up the Visa card bearing the name Thomas Farley, and flushed away the pieces. He went down to the lobby and went into the Shore Room Lounge and sat at the bar. He ordered a vodka martini and listened to the band. When the bartender went away to the rest room, Mr. Rachman poured his vodka martini into a basin of ice behind the bar. When the bartender returned, Mr. Rachman ordered another vodka martini.

  The cocktail lounge—and every other bar in Mobile—closed at 1 a.m. Mr. Rachman returned to his room, and without ever turning on the light, he sat at his window and looked out into the street. After the laundry truck had arrived, unloaded, and driven off from the service entrance of the Hotel Oasis, Mr. Rachman retreated from the window. It was 4:37 on the morning of the first of November, 1985. Mr. Rachman pulled the shade and drew the curtains. Towards noon, when the maid came to make up the room, Mr. Rachman called out from the bathroom, “I’m taking a bath.”

  “I’ll come back later,” the maid called back.

  “That’s all right,” Mr. Rachman said loudly. “Just leave a couple of fresh towels on the bed.” He sat on the tile floor and ran his unsleeved arm up and down through the filled tub, making splashing noises.

  * * *

  Mr. Rachman counted his money at sundown. He had four hundred fifty-eight dollars in cash. With all of it in his pocket, Mr. Rachman walked around the block to get his bearings. He had been in Mobile before, but he didn’t remember exactly when. Mr. Rachman had his shoes shined in the lobby of a hotel that wasn’t the one he was staying in. When he was done, he paid the shoeshine boy seventy-five cents and a quarter tip, and got into the elevator behind a businessman who was carrying a briefcase. The businessman with the briefcase got off on the fourth floor, and just as the doors of the elevator were closing Mr. Rachman startled and said, “Oh this is my floor, too,” and jumped off behind the businessman with the briefcase. Mr. Rachman put his hand into his pocket, and jingled his loose change as if he were looking for his room key. The businessman with the briefcase put down his briefcase beside Room 419 and fumbled in his pocket for his own room key. Mr. Rachman stopped and patted all the pockets of his jacket and trousers. “Did I leave it at the desk?” he murmured to himself. The businessman with the briefcase put the key into the lock of Room 419, and smiled a smile that said to Mr. Rachman, It happens to me all the time, too. Mr. Rachman smiled a small embarrassed smile, and said, “I sure hope I left it at the desk,” and turned and started back down the hall past the businessman with the briefcase.

  The businessman and his briefcase were already inside of Room 419 and the door was beginning to shut when Mr. Rachman suddenly changed direction in the hallway and pushed the door open.

  “Hey,” said the businessman. He held his briefcase up protectively before him. Mr. Rachman shut the door quietly behind him. Room 419 was a much nicer room than his own, though he didn’t care for the painting above the bed. Mr. Rachman smiled, though, for the businessman was alone and that was always easier. Mr. Rachman pushed the businessman down on the bed and grabbed the briefcase away from him. The businessman reached for the telephone. The red light was blinking on the telephone telling the businessman he had a message at the desk. Mr. Rachman held the briefcase high above his head and then brought it down hard, giving a little twist to his wrist just at the last so that a corner of the rugged leather case smashed against the bridge of the businessman’s nose, breaking it. The businessman gaped, and fell sideways on the bed. Mr. Rachman raised the case again and brought the side of it down against the businessman’s cheek with such force that the handle of the case broke off in his hand and the businessman’s cheekbones were splintered and shoved up into his right eye. Mr. Rachman took the case in both hands and swung it hard along the length of the businessman’s body and caught him square beneath his chin in the midst of a choking scream so that the businessman’s lower jaw was shattered, detached, and then embedded in the roof of his mouth. In the businessman’s remaining eye was one second more of consciousness and then he was dead. Mr. Rachman turned over the businessman’s corpse and took out his wallet, discovering that his name was Edward P. Maguire, and that he was from Sudbury, Massachusetts. He had one hundred and thirty-three dollars in cash, which Mr. Rachman put into his pocket. Mr. Rachman glanced through the credit cards, but took only the New England Bell telephone credit card. Mr. Maguire’s briefcase, though battered and bloody, had remained locked, secured by an unknown combination. Mr. Rachman would have taken the time to break it open and examine its contents but the telephone on the bedside table rang. The hotel desk might not have noticed Mr. Maguire’s entrance into the hotel, but Mr. Rachman did not want to take a chance that Mr. Maguire’s failure to answer the telephone would lead to an investigation. Mr. Rachman went quickly through the dead man’s pockets, spilling his change onto the bedspread. He found the key of a Hertz rental car with the tag number indicated on a plastic ring. Mr. Rachman pocketed it. He turned the dead man over once more and pried open his shattered mouth. A thick broth of clotting blood and broken teeth spilled out over the knot of Mr. Maguire’s tie. With the tips of two fingers, Mr. Rachman picked out a pointed fragment of incisor, and put it into his mouth, licking the blood from his fingers as he did so. As he peered out into the hallway, Mr. Rachman rolled the broken tooth around the roof of his mouth, and then pressed it there with his tongue till its jagged edge drew blood and he could taste it. No one was in the hall, and Mr. Rachman walked out of Room 419, drawing it closed behind him. He took the elevator down to the basement gar
age, and walked slowly about till he found Mr. Maguire’s rented car. He drove out of the hotel garage and slowly circled several streets till he found a stationery store that was still open. Inside he bought a detailed street map of Mobile. He studied it by the interior roof light of the rented car. For two hours he drove through the outlying suburbs of the city, stopping now and then before a likely house, and noting its number on the map with a black felt-tip marker. At half-past eleven he returned to the Oasis Hotel and parked the rental car so that it would be visible from his window. He went up to his room, and noted in his diary, under 110185:

  1910/Edward P Maguire/c

  43/Mobile Alabama/Hotel

  Palafox 419/1133/Jaw and

  Briefcase

  On a separate page in the back of the loose-leaf notebook, he added:

  Edward P Maguire

  (110185)/9 Farmer’s

  Road/Sudbury MA 01776/

  617 392 3690

  That was just in case. Sometimes Mr. Rachman liked to visit widows. It added to the complexity of the pattern, and so far as Mr. Rachman was concerned, the one important thing was to maintain a pattern that couldn’t be analyzed, that was arbitrary in every point. That was why he sometimes made use of the page of notations in the back of the book—because too much randomness was a pattern in itself. If he sometimes visited a widow after he had met her husband, he broke up the pattern of entirely unconnected deaths. Mr. Rachman, who was methodical to the very core of his being, spent a great percentage of his waking time in devising methods to make each night’s work seem entirely apart from the last’s. Mr. Rachman, when he was young, had lived in a great city and had simply thought that its very size would hide him. But even in a great city, his very pattern of randomness had become apparent, and he had very nearly been uncovered. Mr. Rachman judged that he would have to do better, and he began to travel. In the time since then, he had merely refined his technique. He varied the length of his stays, he varied his acquaintance. That’s what he called them, and it wasn’t a euphemism—he simply had no other word for them, and really, they were the people he got to know best, if only for a short time. He varied his methods, he varied the time of the evening, and he even varied his variety. Sometimes he would arrange to meet three old woman in a row, three old women who lived in similar circumstances in a small geographical area, and then he would move on, and his next acquaintance would be a young man who exchanged his favors for cash. Mr. Rachman imagined a perfect pursuer, and expended a great deal of energy in evading and tricking this imaginary hound. Increasingly, over the years Mr. Rachman’s greatest satisfaction lay in evading this nonexistent, dogged detective. His only fear was that there was a pattern in the carpet he wove which was invisible to him, but perfectly apparent to anyone who looked at it from a certain angle.