Glimmering

by Elizabeth Hand

  “Mr. Finnegan. Good morning. You received my message?”

  Jack shook his head. “No,” he began, then sighed. “Don’t tell me. Leonard sent yo u—”

  The man frowned.

  “Leonard Thrope,” Jack went on. “He’s a friend. A very bad friend,” he added darkly. “Did he—”

  “Yes. Mr. Thrope. He—”

  “I am sorry. But we don’t—I mean I don’t, the magazine does not, we don’t have visitors. To the office. No interviews, submissions by mail only—”

  “Please.” The young man opened his hands. “I am not a—” Pause, as though steeling himself to pronounce the next word. “—a writer.”

  The man took a step forward.

  “May I?” he asked, tilting his head and peering up through that absurd pompadour.

  Oh why the fuck not, thought Jack. “Of course—please. Come in.”

  His visitor stepped inside. Jack pulled the door shut after him. The room filled with the same musky fragrance that had risen from the pages of The Gaudy Book, and for a moment Jack had the ridiculous fear that he had been cornered by a perfume salesman. Then the man smiled, a disarmingly childlike smile that showed off two dimples in his cherubic face. With his dark eyes and smooth skin he reminded Jack of Leonard in his youth. Despite himself, he smiled wanly back.

  “Larry Muso,” the man said. His brow furrowed. “You are John Finnegan?”

  “Yes—but Jack—please, everyone calls me Jack.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Um—so. Larry. What can I do for you?”

  Larry Muso smiled again. “No—what can I do for you—”

  He shrugged off the rubber satchel. Jack’s heart sank. Oh God. He is a salesman. He watched as Larry Muso opened the bag and pulled out a small parcel.

  “For you,” his guest said.

  Jack took a step backwards. A letter bomb? Delivered by suicide courier? He shook his head—they’d finally caught that guy in New Rochelle, but who knew how many others might be around here? But the young man only stepped forward and slid the package into Jack’s hands. The only way he could have refused it was by dropping it. Even faced with the possibility of receiving a bomb, Jack Finnegan was too polite to do that.

  “It is a gift.” Larry Muso stepped back and dipped his head. “For you…”

  Jack stared at the rectangular parcel, carefully wrapped in green fabric. He drew it to his face, smelled a pleasant, slightly musty scent.

  “Please,” urged Larry Muso. “Open it.”

  He did. Slowly, unfolding the fabric until he found it, nestled within the cloth like a gold ingot.

  A book; a very old book. Its cover looked like watered silk, crocus-colored with an Art Nouveau pattern of acanthus, stippled with gold, and in the center the title in raised gold letters.

  “Wow.” Jack laughed. “I don’t believe it.

  “For your collection,” said Larry Muso.

  Jack opened the book gingerly. The frontispiece showed a Beardsley-esque line drawing of a grotesque mask and the date 1895, opposite the title page.

  THE KING IN YELLOW

  BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

  “The King in Yellow,” said Jack. “This is incredible…” Carefully he turned the pages to the first tale, “The Repairer of Reputations.”

  Now that the Government has determined to establish a Lethal Chamber in every city, town, and village in the country, it remains to be seen whether or not that class of human creatures from whose desponding ranks new victims of self-destruction fall daily will accept the relief thus provided. There a painless death awaits him who can no longer bear the sorrows of life. If death is welcome let him seek it there.

  He closed the book and looked up. Larry Muso was beaming, stray light striking the tip of his pompadour so that he looked like a burning candle.

  “It is very beautiful, isn’t it, Mr. Finnegan? The first edition. Eighteen ninety-five.”

  Jack shook his head. “But—” He started to explain that it had been his grandfather, not him, who collected books, then stopped. “But I don’t understand. Who are you?”

  His visitor slipped a hand inside his velveteen jacket, withdrew a card case embossed with a hologram of the same logo that appeared on his satchel. He opened it and presented Jack with an illurium business card. The iridescent metal was etched with Japanese characters and a skeletal winged creature with grasping claws. When Jack tilted the card, English letters flickered beneath the Japanese. There was the nearly imperceptible sound of bells. A woman’s voice whispered the words as Jack read.

  “Gorita-Folham-Ized: The Golden Family.”

  “Altyn Urik,” Larry Muso offered. “That is our name in the archaic tongue of the Mongol people.” With a soft click he snapped the card case shut and replaced it inside his jacket. “It means ‘The Golden Family.’”

  Jack raised an eyebrow. “And that means… ?”

  “My employer. We are a joint Japanese-American-Mongolian corporate enterprise, engaged in mining and other industrial operations, but also incorporating your ALTCOM and the entire NOREX Telecommunications Group. We are based in Dalandzagad, and of course the Pyramid here is our American headquarters, but our work extends very far, far beyond these places.”

  Jack stared at his visitor with growing despair. He knew all about GFI, of course; but obviously this guy wasn’t from GFI. Some kind of terrorist? He had some vague sense that things were unsettled in Mongolia, but then they were unsettled everywhere. In the wake of the glimmering strange alliances had sprung up across the globe, most especially in those places heretofore ignored because of their very isolation. Places like central Canada and Siberia and Mongolia, now besieged with investors and developers fleeing the flooded coasts, the diseased cities and ruined farmlands.

  “The Golden Family has many interests!” Larry Muso said brightly. “But today I am here on other business—”

  He turned and for the first time seemed to take in the room around him: swaybacked bookshelves, outdated computers, and all. He breathed in sharply, and Jack watched, bemused, as a beatific expression spread across Larry Muso’s face. After a moment he looked back at his host.

  “You have such beautiful things.” Larry Muso’s eyes were moist; his voice soft, almost chastened. “They told me you had very beautiful things, but—to see them, that is a different matter. You see, I studied library engineering, at Oxford—that is why I was chosen to come here. That—”

  He tipped his head in the direction of the book in Jack’s hand. “I myself selected that for you, Mr.—I mean Jack—because, like yourself, I love beautiful things. Like yourself, we—The Golden Family—love beautiful things.”

  Jack nodded. “I see.” He felt more at ease, now that it appeared he was not going to be murdered by an exploding antiquarian volume. “Well then. Won’t you have a seat?”

  Larry Muso followed him to a small sitting area composed of a wicker table and three very old wicker chairs. He settled in one gingerly, turning to stare into the carriage house’s shadowy corners.

  “I’m sorry I can’t offer you anything,” Jack continued. “But we really don’t receive people here. When my grandfather was alive, the magazine’s offices were in the city—”

  “Gramercy Park.”

  “Yes, that’s right. But needless to say we can’t afford offices there anymore—”

  Larry Muso frowned. “But that, too, was your family’s home? Am I correct?”

  “Well, yes, but—we sold that place years ago.” Jack stared at the book in his lap, his fingers tracing the raised gold letters, the smooth ribbony feel of the silk cover. His grandmother would adore it, of course; might not ever forgive him for letting it go.

  So Jack wouldn’t tell her. With a sigh he wrapped The King in Yellow back in its cotton covering and placed it on the table. “Look, Mr. Muso—”

  “Larry—”

  “Mr. Muso,” Jack repeated firmly. “I don’t mean to be rude, but this is a bad time for me, okay? A bad time for The Gaudy
Book—” He stared pointedly at the rows of cartons by the door. “That is probably our last issue, right there—”

  “Yes!” Larry Muso exclaimed. “That is why I am here! The Gaudy Book! We want to buy The Gaudy Book!”

  Jack’s dismay curdled into anger. This was worse than a terrorist.

  “I’m sorry.” He started to his feet, no longer caring how rude he sounded. “This is our editorial office. We don’t handle subscriptions from here, we never handled subscriptions from here, the only reason those magazines are here at all is because, as I just told you, we’re going under, the printer folded, the distributor folded, and now presumably we are going to—”

  Larry Muso waved his hands. “Yes, I know! I am here representing The Golden Family, and we would like to buy The Gaudy Book—the magazine enterprise itself—as an investment. A corporate investment. An aesthetic investment,” he went on quickly, “an artistic investment. You, of course, would retain all artistic control, Mr.—Jack—because we have the greatest respect for you, for your entire family, and the contributions you have made to literature. To literature in English,” he amended, and paused to pull a large silk handkerchief from his pocket.

  Jack stared at him dumbfounded. He’s kind of cute, Jack found himself thinking; in a Japanese Elvis kind of way.

  “You understand this?” Larry touched one corner of the handkerchief to his cheek, a gesture so subtle and affected that Jack wondered if it was some sort of coded message. Permit my multinational corporation to purchase your failing periodical, and I will be your love slave. “We believe in protecting the few beautiful things left in this world, while we can. Your magazine would be very precious to us. And we would, of course, seek to preserve it as a commercial property.”

  Jack thought of Leonard, of his records of human and animal extinction purchased by collectors in Manhattan and Vancouver and Bloemfontein. He sank back into his chair. “Have you—have you ever actually read The Gaudy Book?”

  Larry Muso pursed his lips shook his head. “Myself, personally? No. But Mr. Tatsumi, our CEO—he reads it. He used to travel a great deal. He said that The Gaudy Book was the only thing he could read on an airplane.”

  Jack tried to figure out if this could possibly be a compliment. “Well,” he said at last, “does he still travel much?”

  “Oh no. He has not left the desert in two years.”

  “Probably behind in his reading, then,” Jack said, and was rewarded with a smile.

  He straightened, putting on his best Face the Trustees expression, and stared at The King in Yellow on the table. “I’m afraid I can’t accept this.”

  Larry Muso looked puzzled. “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not in a position to do business with you. The Gaudy Book is no longer a going concern. We’re suspending publication—”

  “I know, Mr. Finnegan.” Larry Muso’s voice sounded less conciliatory; more the voice of a man determined to do business, swiftly and with no interference. Surprised, Jack looked up and saw the other man draw a tiny palmtop from his pocket. “In the first quarter of this year, you showed a loss of—nearly two million dollars.” Larry Muso frowned, tapped once more at the keyboard. “Last year, your friend Leonard Thrope made the magazine the beneficiary of a modest grant—”

  “A loan,” Jack said, but he knew he was losing.

  “—which enabled you to produce the current spring issue.” Larry Muso tilted his head in the direction of the cartons by the wall. “Now you are unable to afford the cost of shipping those to your few remaining subscribers. If—”

  “Did Leonard put you up to this?” Jack broke in angrily. “Because—”

  “If you would let me finish, Mr. Finnegan,” Larry Muso went on, “I would be able to tell you that yes, Mr. Thrope has been in touch with us. We have mutual—friends.”

  In another oddly poised gesture he opened his hand “Friend,” he corrected himself. His soft black eyes gazed searchingly into Jack’s. “Another collector.”

  Jack made a grim little face. “I see.”

  “I hope you do. You must understand, Mr. Tatsumi is not just a collector. He is a collector of Americana. But very eclectic. Mr. Thrope has helped him with many items. An Edward Hopper, some Winslow Homer. Notebooks of Sylvia Plath and Ariza Davis. A drawing by Jeffrey Dahmer. He owns Judy Garland’s dress from The Wizard of Oz. Many letters of Thomas Jefferson—Mr. Tatsumi is very fond of Thomas Jefferson.”

  “As was Mr. Dahmer,” said Jack.

  Larry Muso did not hear him. “As I mentioned, Mr. Tatsumi enjoys reading The Gaudy Book. And he is not insensitive to your plight—”

  “Which he heard about from Leonard.”

  “Which he heard about from Leonard. And so, I am here to deliver a proposal to you—”

  The glossy black palmtop disappeared back into his voluminous jacket, and Larry Muso slid a folder onto the table.

  PROSPECTUS FOR PURCHASE OF

  The Gaudy Book

  19 APRIL 1999

  GORITA-FOLHAM-IZED

  THE GOLDEN FAMILY INTERNATIONAL

  AN UNLIMITED PARTNERSHIP

  In the center of the portfolio, the silvery holographic image of a skeletal gryphon reared and grasped within its claws a spinning orb.

  “I see.” Jack stared at the portfolio, then picked it up. When he opened it, faint bells chimed, and a breathy female voice whispered The Golden Family Welcomes You. He flipped through the pages, incomprehensible sets of numbers, with here and there the small square IT image of an athletic-looking blond man in a conservative dark suit, poised to deliver instructive commentary to arbitrage-impaired readers.

  Like me, thought Jack. He cleared his throat again, tapping the prospectus against his hand. “Well, okay. I’ll have our attorneys take a look at it.”

  “Mr. Thrope suggested that perhaps you use his attorney, rather than Mr. Gardino.”

  “Tell Mr. Thrope I’ll keep my own goddamn counsel.” To Jack’s horror he felt tears pricking at his eyes. He tossed the prospectus onto the table and stood. “Thank you, Mr. Muso—I have some things to do now—”

  Larry Muso jumped to his feet. His knees knocked against the table, sending the prospectus sliding onto the floor. At once he stooped to retrieve it; Jack did the same. The two of them nearly collided, Larry straightening with the portfolio in his hand, his pompadour grazing Jack’s cheek as he stepped backward. At the touch of his hair Jack shivered, felt an involuntary frisson at how soft it was. Not hard and lacquered at all, but silky and fragrant with that expensive perfume. For an instant he imagined them somewhere else; not in bed but sitting side by side in some forever lost and ordinary place, a bookstore perhaps, an espresso bar, knees touching as they turned the pages of a magazine. The Gaudy Book, of course: the special anniversary double issue. He could smell new glossy paper and scalded milk and feel a hand resting upon his…

  Then the vision was gone. He blinked, seeing again those odd whorls of light at the corners of his eyes, and drew back, trying to cover his confusion. When he looked up he saw Larry Muso staring at him: his cheeks were spotted each with a single bright red dot.

  “Excuse me,” Larry Muso said in a low voice. He dropped the portfolio onto the table, where it clattered and whispered to itself.

  “I’m sorry.” Jack shook his head. “I didn’t mean to be rude—”

  “No, no—” Larry smiled, a false bright flash. “It is your decision, of course. Only we were under the impression that the magazine’s demise was—imminent. Perhaps we misunderstood… ?”

  “No, you understood perfectly. God forbid Leonard should ever miss a deathwatch.” Larry stared at him, his expression still frozen in that mask of benign agreement, but his dark eyes held a flicker of unease. “I just—well, even if I did want to sell the magazine, there’s the matter of choosing a successor—another editor.”

  The unease melted into another conciliatory smile. “Mr. Tatsumi would like you to continue as editor.”

  “But I don�
�t want to be editor anymore. I’m sick,” Jack said, and no longer cared if bitterness leached into his voice. “I’ve spent my whole fucking life on this magazine. I’m ready to give it up. Can you give that message to Mr. Tatsumi?”

  He had thought it might be gratifying to insult his visitor. Instead, Jack immediately felt awful. Larry Muso stared at him with such pity and embarrassment that Jack found himself reassuring him.

  “Look, Mr. Muso, maybe I could help you find someone to replace me, someone who—”

  “But your family—the magazine has been in your family—”

  “Well, yes, but it was always just a sideline to the department stores. And it’s been a hundred years. I mean, we’ve had a good long run—”

  “I am certain that Mr. Tatsumi wants the magazine intact.” Larry Muso shook his head; his pompadour waggled furiously. “It is part of the entire aesthetic of the purchase. We will have to discuss this, I think.”

  Jack cast a quick look at the prospectus on the table. “Maybe,” he said, trying to imbue the word with menace. “But right now I really have to get back to work. So—”

  He beckoned at the door. Instead Larry Muso stared at him with an oddly frank sort of interest, neither sexual nor businesslike; as though Jack were wearing some highly unusual item of clothing. After a moment he said, “What are you doing for it?”

  Jack frowned. “Some phone calls—I have a few—”

  “No, no—for your disease. What treatment are you undergoing?”

  “That’s none of your fucking business.” Jack’s face tightened with anger, “I said—”

  “Because you are looking very well.” Larry Muso stepped around Jack, still giving him that appraising stare. “There are some unusual drugs, we have several major pharmaceutical holdings, and I was just—”

  “OUT! ”

  Jack stormed after him, but at the door Muso stopped and made a mocking half bow.