The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “Always,” Cagey agreed with a straight face. “What, exactly, did they do to him when they pledged him?”

  “All I can tell you is what I saw and what he told ... No, he told me in confidence. All I can tell you is what I saw for myself, then. We were studying together that night, his room.”

  “Good for you,” said Cagey.

  “Naw, nothing like that,” Keiko replied, with a glance—I couldn’t help suspecting—at the few little wrinkles that marked my friend and me as belonging to an earlier and wilder generation. “Nothing twenty-twentyish. Just a couple of buddies studying together. Anyhow, the Rose came out like a mob of angry villagers from some old Reeltime movie and treated him like a real dracula. Stake and all. Not a real stake. A stage prop, two-part thing that slid together. I wouldn’t have let them anywhere near him with a real stake. Too dangerous, too doggone much chance of accidents. Only he didn’t know ahead of time it wasn’t real. If I’d known how much it was going to scare him, I’d have said something out loud and to Elvis with their stupid scenario. Anyway, they all let on he’d crumbled to dust, and then bundled him up and took him over to their ‘dungeons’—the basement below their dumb house, nobody ever allowed down there except members and pledges, and the pledges only when they’re being ceremonied and then not again until they get to be full members. And then they did a bunch more stuff to him down there. He didn’t get back till oh one thirty next morning. Me, they wouldn’t even let wait upstairs in the living room.”

  “What kind of other stuff?” said Cagey.

  “Can’t tell you. He wasn’t supposed to tell anyone outside the Rose. Except maybe the Purple Sigh, I’m not sure about them.”

  “Hmmm. What kind of state was he in at oh one thirty hours? Sounds as if that’s something you saw for yourself.”

  “He was shaky. Sore. Worn out. Hurting. Happy as a little kid on Christmas morning.”

  “Any sign of booze, controlled substances, or otherwise impaired ability to, say, operate a vehicle?”

  “Nope. Nothing like that. Clement doesn’t drink booze, just blood. And you can’t ever fool him about alcoholic content. And I don’t mean he was happy because of any masochistic streak, either! The same kind of high you get out of being through at the doctor’s. No, more than that. He was high on the thought that he was going to get to be a Pi Rho. You’re trying to tie this in with Tony Tallpines and Solly Goldfein, aren’t you?”

  “Like I said before, M. Ko-Ko,” Cagey complimented her, “you know how to tune in the picture.”

  “Like I said before, thanks. But you’re keying the wrong program if you’re trying to patch Clement into what happened to Solly and Tony. For the love of Elvis, Solly was Clement’s best friend in the Rose! And they never had Clement out in their hunting cabin the night they pledged him, at all.”

  “Their hunting cabin?” I put in.

  Cagey followed up with, “But they did have M.’s Tallpines and Goldfein out there?”

  She eyed us as if surprised at the thought that she might have given something away. “Yeah. You mean you didn’t know? My guess is that it must’ve happened on the way back, both times. Just because Clement came home sober doesn’t mean he’d have been in any condition to drive a car, even if he had a license, which he doesn’t. Shaky-tired and needing a handful of Asprik, like I said. I’m glad he was one of the guys they pledged right here in town. They took Tony out to the woods for the last part of his pledging. With Solly—he was already a full brother, of course—I guess he must’ve gotten soused at their latest pledge’s hocus-pocus—what’s his name? The one who looks like that screenstar ...”

  “Valentino Saladin,” Cagey supplied. “They pledged Saladin in their hunting cabin in the woods, too?”

  Keiko shrugged. “I guess so. They were having some kind of party out there that night, anyway. Clement wasn’t in on it.”

  Cagey said, “But he was in on Tony Tallpines’ pledging?”

  “Yeah.” Keiko looked at us with an expression that said, Wanta Make Something Out Of It? She went on aloud, “It’s part of being a brother. You’ve got to help out with some of the rites and rituals sometimes. He was out of there long before it ended. Hours before Tony started home. Or he’d never have let him try to drive himself back to town alone. I don’t know what the heck was on those other gunzhos’ minds to let Tony do that. They must’ve been stoned silly themselves. Lucky—for them, anyway—they didn’t all end up dead.”

  I asked, “This initiation ceremony isn’t the same for everybody?”

  “You mean the pledging ceremony, the—’induction,’ is it?” said Keiko. “Not with the Purple Rose, it isn’t. Those good ol’ boys pride themselves on custom-cutting that little ritual to the pledge. Then when they’ve finally got their pledge class full for the semester, they do their darndest to mold them all into good, identical little gingerbread society men. The actual initiation is a Sacred Brotherhood Secret, but they can let their individualities shine out again once they’re full brothers. Clement did. But of course he never really lost his, except maybe inside the house during the ‘Pledge School’ weeks. I wouldn’t know every detail about that.”

  Cagey turned to me and explained, “Step one, Sergeant Tomlinson: ‘Rushing.’ Students and Greek houses start looking one another over to decide who wants whom. Step two: ‘Pledging.’ Something like getting engaged, usually involving some kind of formal ceremony. The Sapphos gathered all the chosen rushees and pledged them together, but it varies. The Pi Rhos obviously make every pledge a special case. Step three: ‘Pledge training.’ In the Sapphos it involved mainly tea parties and friendly oral quizzes about house traditions and general etiquette, but with some houses it can be an extended period of semi-official heavy hazing, a kind of boot camp.” She sounded wistfully envious about that. “Step four: the actual initiation, usually at the end of a ‘Greek Week’ of stepped-up testing, quizzing, and, when applicable, hazing.”

  I said, “Oh.”

  “Hey, that’s a pretty good synopsis,” said Keiko. “As far as I understand it, anyhow. You mean you were Greek yourself, Lieutenant?”

  “In a weak moment.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you. Some of my best friends are Greeks, and most of them still seem human enough.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Cagey, “who are those worst Pi Rho lunkers on campus?”

  “Cripes, I shouldn’t have said anything. Clement would call it a sin to name names. Gossip at the very least, and breaking the Eighth Commandment at worst.”

  “‘You shall not commit adultery’?” I asked, puzzled.

  Keiko shook her head. “Catholic numbering of the Decalogue. ‘See to it that you don’t bear false witness.’ In my opinion, that doesn’t apply if the witness isn’t false. Okay, then ...” She paused and studied us closely. “Okay, but first, who are you two, anyway?”

  Cagey always rather enjoyed running up against people who weren’t aware of her reputation; but for once I took it on myself to say, “You can call up Lieutenant Thursday’s files from any North American newsbank. ‘Sunvale’ would be a good index word to start with.”

  “Sunvale, Sunvale, Sunnn ...” Keiko shut her eyes. “More Nazi hunters, are you?”

  “I’m a firm believer, M. Ko-Ko,” said Cagey, “in the theory that the Nazis all died off years ago.”

  “Tell that to these floaters who are out rounding up defendants for the big War Crimes Centenary Trial they want to hold a couple of years from now.”

  “NeoNazis are another problem,” Cagey said cheerfully. “But no, I don’t even hunt Neos until and unless they break actual, existing laws.”

  “We aren’t just talking Neos here. Sure, Volsung happens to be a White Klanner, but ... Look, ladies. Every group—ethnic, religious, you name it—that has any history at all, sometime or other tried to wipe some other group out, and some ot
her time had some other group try to wipe them out. Darn it, with the Inquisition on our Catholic heads, who the heck are we to ... That’s why I say shit on the whole damn War Crimes smear!” Her voice was going a little shrill. “That’s why I say shit on the whole rotten ‘pureblood’ ethos, too! Shit, shit, shit!”

  I said gently, if without much originality, “But there are so many good things about ethnicity. The world would be a much poorer place without the great patchwork of—”

  “Blow it out your piccolo, Sergeant. Yeah, I happen to be Pureblood Japanese, and I hate it! And I’m going to make darn good and sure my kids don’t get saddled with it, and I don’t care what anybody tells me about Purebloods going to be in big demand in a generation or two! Mongrelization of the whole bloody human race can’t come a nanosecond too soon! ... That vampire, now,” she went on in a voice that was suddenly much calmer. “There’s a mongrel for you! Sure, he’s pretty pure Slavic on his mother’s side, just a little bit of Magyar and Hun mixed in; but on his father’s side, wow! Almost the whole United Nations plus Amerind, walking around in one lovely, lovely genepool.”

  “Good for him,” said Cagey. “And all his ancestors. Anyway, we aren’t Nazi hunters. Cross my heart.”

  Keiko stared at her another moment, and grinned. “That sounds just flippant enough that I might believe you. Okay, why are you here?”

  “Running a doublecheck on the deaths of M.’s Goldfein and Tallpines, and that’s all.”

  “Um. And you say now Clement’s disappeared, too, and his fratty brothers won’t tell you where?”

  “They say they can’t tell us where,” I amended.

  “So they sent you to me?” She sounded a little nervous, but flattered.

  Cagey thought a moment and confessed, “Not exactly. We got your name from another source.”

  “Not Big Daddy Fairsquare?”

  Cagey shook her head.

  “April Greenhill?”

  Cagey nodded. “We might have preferred keeping it confidential, M. Ko-Ko, just as we’ll be keeping you confidential as a source. But as long as you guessed ...”

  “April, huh? And she doesn’t know where he is, either? All right, confidentially, because now you’ve got me kind of worried ... The worst lunker of that whole Purple lot is Stallion Clearwater Drinkwater. And the Triple F.—Frederick F. Fletcher—is pretty bad, too, in a sneakier kind of way. And then there’s poor old Struwwie—Spuds Bartlett Struwwelpeter—he’s fine by himself, a good decent guy, but don’t trust him when he’s with Fletcher and/or ‘Stale’ Clearwater. All together, they make up Poppa Fairchild’s Three Musketeers. I think they had their beady little eyes on Clement for a while, to be their D’Artagnan, but at least he didn’t swallow that hook inside a hook, thank God!”

  I was taking their names down in my notecom. Cagey said, “Drinkwater, Fletcher, and Struwwelpeter. I’ll have to confess some surprise that you didn’t say anything about one Ramon Mendoza y Mendoza.”

  “The Aloof One? Why bother? Mendoza is as good as out of it. I think he’s just sticking around at the Pi Rho house because it’s easier than breaking in a new hacienda while he writes his postdoctoral dissertation or whatever. The last active part he took in any Purple Rose stuff, except open social parties where they even let me in once or twice, was pledging Clement, and I think they just roped him into doing that for his stage presence. I understand he was quite the school dramatics star in his undergrad days. He tried out for the lead in one of last year’s all-school plays, but Clement said he didn’t act too debunked about not getting it. He was Clement’s ‘big brother’ during pledge school, too, for which we can only be grateful because otherwise it might have been Stale or the Triple F., and that doesn’t bear thinking about.”

  “Would that play have been ‘Dracula’?” I asked, easily picturing Mendoza in the title role.

  “Oh, you already heard about it, huh? You should have seen it. Clement was terrific. Naturally. ... Look, I really am getting worried. It may be breaking confidence, but ... Oh, Elvis! I’m going to tell you what else I know about his pledge ceremony. Only if you ever, ever let on where you got it ...” She paused. “Blank that. I think I’m probably the only one who could tell you.”

  “Except for himself or his frat brothers,” Cagey pointed out. “If it should ever become absolutely essential to use the information, we can let it be assumed that one of them squealed.”

  “Um. You catch on, too. Okay. When they got him down in their basement, they ‘resurrected’ him, stripped him to the waist, tied him to an upright cross, and started branding him with little silver crosses and crescents and stars of David and things.”

  “But that’s torture!” I interjected, appalled. I’d heard some rather grisly rumors about Greek hazings before, but ...

  “No, not really,” Keiko explained. “Not as far as I’ve already told you. They left his feet on the floor, and the little crosses and things weren’t heated. They could hold ’em in their own naked fingers. Most kinds of religious symbols don’t hurt Clement so long as he’s in a state of grace, and he’d just been to Reconciliation and Eucharist a few hours earlier—they did it on a Saturday night—”

  “Reconciliation and Eucharist?” I asked.

  “‘Confession’ and ‘Mass,’ like the rest of the world and some really, really oldstyle Catholics still say. Most of us’ns in the Inner Brotherhood have been using the ‘new’ names since before my mom can remember. Anyway, like I said, most of the common symbols don’t bother Clement any worse than they’d bother you and me, unless he thinks he’s got sins on his conscience, and he didn’t that night at all. But there are a couple of the less common ones that bother him a little any time. Ankhs—probably because of that really sick group that got so big back in the ’twenties—upside-down crosses if it’s obvious they’re meant to be upside down, not just accidentally out of position—you tune in the picture. He thinks it isn’t so much those symbols themselves as the bad social overtones that have gotten attached to them. The worst one of all is the swastika, the ‘twisted cross.’ That one really hurts him. And as soon as the Rose figured it out, they…the cruds—not Solly, and not Mendoza—the Aloof One was long out of there—and not Struwwie, but a lot of the others—they got silver paint and painted swastikas all over his chest and arms and sides until they had him begging for mercy.” By now Keiko’s voice was quivering with suppressed outrage.

  “Hurts him how?” Cagey asked curiously.

  Our informant shook her head. “Pain is pain. It’s hard enough to describe your own. From what he says, I guess it starts out like a kind of crawliness and can get as bad as a burn or a hard electric shock that keeps going on and on and on. The big one they painted on his chest raised a blister right over his sternum, where the lines crossed. Unless it was the stake that did that earlier,” she added reluctantly. “It had a rubber tip, and it worked very easily, but I understand the stage actor who gets it puts on padding beneath the costume. The way they staged ‘Dracula’ last year, they didn’t need anything like that—Clement wasn’t even in the coffin when they supposedly staked him, thank goodness.”

  Cagey said, “We understand that he wears silver crucifix jewelry as a general habit.”

  “Yeah,” Keiko confirmed. “He started right after that pledge ceremony. Got out the old cross necklace next day. It’s one his cousin Donna gave him years ago, he just hadn’t worn it as an everyday thing before. And he bought the white gold crucifix earring and got his ear pierced for it the following Monday.”

  “White gold?” I asked. “Not silver?”

  “He has more trouble—when he has trouble—with gold. He got white gold because it looks like silver, fits in with other people’s stereotypes. The same reason he ordered his frat ring in silver instead of gold. Handy for his budget, but the stereotype was the main reason. That ring wouldn’t be much of a conscience guard for him at all if he
hadn’t gotten a jeweler to engrave little symbols inside the band.”

  Cagey thought for a moment, and asked, “Can you tell us any more about it?”

  “Not without giving you a folklore dissertation. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Hmmm.” Cagey rubbed her nose musingly. “M. Ko-Ko, have you ever heard anything about Dr. Fairchild’s theories of prolonging life and renewing youth?”

  Keiko snorted. “I guess the Fairsquare may know what he’s talking about when it comes to mathematics, but outside his own field, he’s a loony. Mad scientist material from the word ‘go.’” She swiveled to her screen and turned it back on. “Look, let me give you the names and numbers of some of Clement’s family. The one who lives closest is his cousin Donna, down in Eau Claire. She’s the one who used to be a Pi Sigh before she graduated and turned into a useful member of society with a real job. And, look, we folks had better trade numbers so we can phone each other right away as soon as we find out anything about where he is.”

  * * * *

  As we came back through the lobby, armed with the printout of names and phone numbers Keiko had given us, Cagey said, “What was different about that interview?”

  I replied, “She was the only one so far who seemed concerned about M. Czarny himself.”

  “Who seemed worried about whether he might be in personal danger,” Cagey added. “Not just about whether he is or isn’t the cause of danger to anybody else.”

  “Or at least a contributing factor to the danger, if there is any. Cagey!” I said suddenly. “Arlie was right!”

  “He is pretty often. I’ve noticed that. About what in particular this time?”