The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  Theda slapped the “Lest We Forget” chip into her tunic pocket and replaced the tray in the trunk. Keiko left the “Transfiguration” clinging to the mirror by two gumdots and quickly eased the trunk lid shut. They both jumped into the closet and slid the door closed on themselves. It was a walk-in closet, but still half full of Solly’s things, pushed together waiting to be taken away; and one side was crowded anyway by the way the wall slanted in beneath the eaves. They had plenty of room to stand and wait, but none to hide from anybody who might open the closet door.

  “It’s somebody going to his own room for a nap, I hope,” Theda breathed in Keiko’s ear.

  “I don’t really care,” Keiko breathed back, trying to make it the truth.

  The footsteps came all the way down the corridor, paused, proceeded into Clement’s and Solly’s empty room, and paused again. Keiko held her breath, sensed that Theda was doing the same.

  Sounding loud as a puzzled elephant, the footsteps started again, straight for the closet door. Keiko tried holding it from her side, hoping to make whoever was out there think it was locked. But it gave a jerk, her fingertips slipped on the smooth dimple, and roomlight flowed in on them, only partially blocked by the man in the doorway.

  “Hey!” said Spuds Struwwelpeter. “What the heck are you two doing up here?”

  Keiko guessed she wasn’t going to get her chance to see the Pi Rho basement today.

  XII

  (From the Memoirs of Sylvia Tomlinson Marlene)

  Clement Czarny’s cousin Donna was a healthy young woman with a nearly perfect figure, a pretty good face, pale blond hair, and eyes of a shade that I guessed would look green, blue, or gray depending on what she wore, though I can’t be sure about that, since we saw her only in blue—a workout suit. She came straight from her home exercise room to let us in, greeted us as if she was sincerely delighted to meet us, led us into her living room, and left us alone almost at once in order to go into the kitchen and get something to go with my tea and Cagey’s coffee.

  Donna Hartline Gambol—no relation, despite the “Hart-,” to the Lance H. Hartwick we were later to meet—had graduated the previous spring and come straight from Hodag Crossing to Eau Claire to be trained for manager of the new Northern Wisconsin branch of the Nostalgic Transport Corporation. We could have phoned her, but Cagey always preferred face to face interviews when possible, to fit in with her cops-and-robbers world at the same time they prevented any chance of sensitive material being overheard on the phonewaves. M. Gambol’s address was in an Eau Claire suburb only about forty-five minutes from Hodag Crossing.

  Looking at the home she had bought, furnished, and lived in about four months, I deduced that she wanted a job more for hobby than livelihood. “Wealthy family,” I remarked to Cagey in a quiet voice.

  “Mmm?” my friend replied, glancing up from a book she was examining on the coffee table. She took another look around and nodded. Remembering my comfortable months in Warrington House, I understood that to Cagey, M. Gambol’s home might appear middleclass. Still, she acknowledged my judgment with another nod, saying only, “Then why do I have this impression of Czarny as a struggling artist?”

  “A scholarship student,” I reminded her. “And he got his fraternity ring in silver instead of gold, though that was at least partly for symbolic purposes.”

  “Right.” Cagey tapped her forehead. “It’s all up here fermenting in the old organic PC, it’s just that individual bytes don’t always retrieve the instant you want ’em. Makes you wonder, though. Does he have more money than for some reason he’s letting on?”

  “M. Gambol’s only a cousin,” I said. “She could belong to the wealthy branch of the family.”

  “Hmmm. The Protestant branch, too.” Cagey held up the book, which had a black cover with traces of gilt lettering, looked very old, and was almost too large and thick to balance in one hand. It wambled perilously in Cagey’s fingers. “King James Bible,” she explained. “Family names and dates going back to 1882, and some of the pages still uncut, mainly in the slower parts of the O.T., as nearly as I can make out. Czarny as a poor but proud relation? That hardly fits the dracula image either, does it?”

  I said, “I can’t remember that any of the famous draculas ever seemed to have money problems, no. Rather the reverse. The original count must have been almost as rich as Scrooge McDuck.”

  “The vampire hunters never seemed to have any money problems, either. Not Van Helsing, anyway.” Cagey looked at me, chuckled, began to ask, “Tommi, are we van—” and lost her grip on the bible. It started to do a flip-flop. Jerking her other arm forward to catch it, she knocked over a tall basalt figurine that stood on the coffee table. It fell with an unpleasant crack that took attention away from the thump of the bible. “Oh, helsing!” said Cagey.

  “Don’t worry about that,” said our hostess, who had just come back in with a tray. “It’s a copy.”

  “One of Alistaire Copacek’s handout copies of the Bast of Bubastis,” Cagey replied, not touching it again.

  “Metropolitan Museum of Art,” M. Gambol assured her lightly. “It can be replaced.”

  Thinking how much M. Gambol’s behavior resembled Cagey’s own under similar circumstances, I picked the Egyptian cat goddess up from the cracked glass top of the coffee table and examined her carefully. “Bast seems to have come through uninjured,” I pronounced. “As far as I can see, your table top sustained all the damage.”

  “There shouldn’t be any problem about replacing that, anyway,” Cagey said, leaning back in the couch, starting to cross one leg over the other, and stopping when her shoe met the table. Returning her foot to the floor before it could cause another accident, she went on, “We’ll pay, of course. Just voucher it to travel expenses.”

  “I was thinking about a new tabletop anyway. Maybe something in green marblesim. How do you think that would work in here?” Setting her tray of mixed nuts, snack cakes, and cracker sandwiches down over the crack in the table, she got our coffee and tea from the room’s beverage server, which was tastefully camouflaged as a piece of earthtone sculpture, while we all agreed how well green marblesim would blend in with the decor—sounding, for a few moments, very much like three Home Beautiful matrons, with Bast presiding over us benignly from her new position on a lamp table.

  Eventually, after complimenting our hostess on her beverage server’s coffee, Cagey Warrington turned back into Lieutenant Thursday, coughed to clear her throat, and said, “But I guess you must be wondering why we looked you up, M. Gambol.”

  “Yes, I would have been asking very soon. Especially since ...” M. Gambol checked herself, put several nutmeats in her mouth, and waited, chewing.

  “It’s about Clement Batory Czarny,” my lieutenant began. “A cousin of yours, we understand.”

  Our hostess swallowed her mouthful and took a sip of coffee. “Yes. One of my favorite cousins.” She emphasized “favorite” slightly. “Then was I right in thinking I overheard you say something about Van Helsing when I came in? Because I’d better warn you, Lieutenant Thursday, if you meant the famous Dr. Van Helsing, we’re all very much on the other side of the fence, here in Clement’s family.”

  Cagey nodded. “Then before we go any farther, I’d better tell you that we aren’t after him because he thinks he’s a dracula.”

  As Cagey had visibly relaxed when I pronounced the figurine unbroken, so our hostess relaxed now. “That’s good. He can be very convincing, you see. As only someone can be whose own psyche is deeply, genuinely, and thoroughly convinced of the truth of the personal perception. What makes it all the more believable is that in everything except his vampirism, Clem is an excellent reality perceiver. Even with the dracula quirk, he could register as a realizer, if he chose. He takes the Test every other year, just out of curiosity, and every time he scores in the nineties.”

  “When you say, ‘he’s very convin
cing,’” Cagey clarified, “do you mean as in the fireside ghost-story tradition?”

  “No! Certainly not! I mean in the ‘friendly vampire’ tradition. It went through quite a vogue sometime last century, I think. Clement could tell you more about that. He has a dozen examples at his fingertips, from Barnabas somebody to Count Chocolate.”

  “Chocula,” Cagey replied. “Children’s breakfast cereal. I happen to know because it was popular right about the time of my own chosen era.”

  “Then you know what I mean. But we still have the occasional bit of trouble with vampire hunters. There was one nasty little boy who even tried to stake Clem in his sleep a few Christmases ago. That’s why we don’t like van helsings.”

  “Naturally not,” Cagey agreed. “Your cousin observes Christmas?”

  “Of course. Why shouldn’t he?”

  We already knew that he wore crosses and went to church, but Cagey was using the technique of trying to make this witness feel like our primary source of data. “I see,” my lieutenant qualified. “He observes it the way most of us did back in the Twenties, as a strictly secular and overcommercialized party time.”

  “Clement’s one of the least commercialized celebrators I know. You should hear him sing ‘Ave Maria’ or ‘The Carol of the Candle.’ His voice is operatic quality, light baritone.”

  Playing to Cagey’s lead, I put in, “But isn’t it a dracula tradition to shy away from anything religious?”

  “No, it’s a dracula necessity—but only for wicked ones, according to Clement. He tried an experiment or two when he was a kid, just the odd childhood naughtiness—nothing really hurtful, you understand. He never bit anyone’s neck or any such thing as that, I doubt that he’s ever even hit anyone unless they hit first. He stuck to just the kind of petty nonbodily crimes any kid might try. I remember one time ... I didn’t actually see it, but I wish I had. He went into church intending to tell a lie in the Reconciliation Room, and I gather that his reaction to the big cross above the altar would have looked slapstick if he hadn’t been in genuine pain from it.”

  “What did it do?” Cagey inquired. “Fall on him?”

  “No, only its shadow or the sight of it or some such thing. I don’t believe in any of that nonsense, Lieutenant, but he does. I think he was simply reacting to his own bad conscience. As for pain, if your brain tells you that you ought to feel it, you do, and that kind can be as genuine as if there were an actual physical cause.”

  “You don’t have to give us a lesson in basic med theory,” said Cagey, at the same time I was saying,

  “The way people sometimes don’t feel pain at the moment of impact because in the excitement their brains don’t immediately notice the injury?”

  Cagey grinned. “I thought that was adrenalin. How did your cousin develop into a dracula, M. Gambol?”

  Our hostess delicately picked three or four pecan halves out of the mixed nuts before looking up at Cagey again and replying, sounding a little suspicious, “For someone who claims not to be interested in my cousin’s vampirism, you seem to be asking a lot of questions about it.”

  “It’s an interesting subject,” my lieutenant responded. “All the other dracs I ever met developed that way—those who weren’t just consciously playacting from the square ‘Go’—out of some deepseated desire to be scary. Sometimes even a desire to hurt people, though more often just a fancy put-on to cause thrills and shivers. I’ve never come across a friendly full-time drac before. Naturally I’m curious how he got that way. What’s in it for him? Why not develop into, say, a schweitzer or saint francis instead?”

  “As I think I already said, with Clement it isn’t a mere fancy-class personal world, consciously or semiconsciously recognized as more or less voluntary self-delusion. He sincerely believes that he is a real vampire. Being open about it is the best way he can get the blood he’s absolutely convinced he needs to live. And before you ask, it’s animal blood, usually beef, chicken, or rabbit.”

  I asked, “Isn’t even animal blood difficult to get, what with the food safety guiderules?”

  “We drain a lot of our meat into bowls for him before cooking it for ourselves. But as a matter of fact, he can be fooled. Not with coffee, tea, soda, or anything like that. And he always perceives solid food for exactly what it really is. But give him milk, fruit or vegetable juice, soup or bullion, any liquid with enough actual food value, and about seven out of ten times he’ll perceive it as raw animal blood. Now, don’t you think that it’s time you let me in on whatever you really came to ask me about him? About him as a person, not as a dracula?”

  Cagey blinked, then gazed off into space as if struck by a new thought. After a heartbeat or two, she shook her head slightly, took another swallow of coffee, and said, “Sorry, M. Gambol. We came to you hoping you might be able to tell us your cousin’s current whereabouts.”

  “The Pi Rho fraternity house at New Millennium University, Hodag Crossing. It’s about sixty klicks—”

  “Sorry again, M.,” Cagey interrupted, and filled her in on what we had learned about Czarny’s disappearance.

  She listened with eyes darting. “No!” she exclaimed when Cagey had finished. “That isn’t like Clem at all. He’s one of the most responsible people you could ask for. Of course he’d have filed his new address with Dr. Fairchild. If Fairchild told you he hadn’t, then Fairchild is lying!”

  “We understand that Dr. Fairchild serves more or less as faculty advisor for both Pi branches—the Rose and the Sighs,” Cagey remarked. “Don’t you trust your own former faculty father?”

  “Not if it’s his word against my cousin Clement’s. Not very far in any case. Dr. Fairchild can be a real crackbrain, and Mother Becky always kept him out of Sigh affairs as much as she could. She got along much better with the Rose’s old advisor, Pater Wandervogel.”

  “Wandervogel, Wandervogel ... We’ve heard the name before,” Cagey said as if meditating aloud. “When, exactly, did the changeover come?”

  “Let me see ... Why, it must have been the year before I joined! Possibly two years before, but the older sisters talked so much about Pater Wandervogel, I almost felt as if ... Well, in a way, he was still around. We used to try to slip around to him informally from time to time, even though he never welcomed it. He always said that he didn’t want to encroach on the new advisor’s territory. I’m sorry it took me so long to see what a crackcase Fairchild can be outside the world of mathematics, or I don’t think I would have helped get Clement into the Rose, no matter how hard he begged me. But I only knew Fairchild from one overview math course—he was charming in the classroom before he retired from teaching—and, as I say, most of the time we sisters avoided him and stuck with Mother Becky.”

  “Did you have much trouble getting your cousin into the Purple Rose? I mean, was there much social resistance to him as a vampire?” I asked, sensing that Cagey would want to know but might not want to ask the question herself so soon after raising M. Gambol’s hackles on the subject.

  “So we’re back to that, are we?” Our hostess turned from Cagey to me with a weary expression that made me regret asking. “Well,” she replied, “I didn’t think so at first, but afterward ... Yes, now I think there may have been a little of that involved. Not from all the brothers. From only a few of them, and if there were any, I’d bet that Fairchild was in on it. A potential van helsing if I ever met one. Maybe I shouldn’t say, I only heard him spout off once, some crazy theory about the secret of eternal life and youth having been rediscovered in the Last Great War, and then he added something about ‘an esoteric few having known it throughout the centuries.’ But he looked straight at Clement when he said that. Or maybe he didn’t—it could have been my own imagination. Clem never noticed anything. All he ever said to me about Fairchild was that there are occasional strange streaks in the best of us, and we have to respect one another’s peculiarities. But I could never tru
st that man after that.”

  As our hostess paused, Cagey asked, “How long have you known your cousin?”

  “Since we were both children!” M. Gambol flashed back. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you all about his babyhood, but I was only a couple of years old then myself. Maybe you’d like to check it out with Aunt Cecilia. She midwifed his birth!”

  Cagey spread her hands, dangerously tilting the coffee mug in one of them. “Sorry, M. Gambol, I didn’t mean that the way it may have sounded, coming right on top of your comments about Doc Fairchild’s eternal-youth fixation. I was just trying to get a better handle on the closeness of your family relationship. Isn’t it possible that your cousin didn’t give Fairchild his new address because he’s finally spotted the same potential van helsing you have, and he just hasn’t gotten around yet to notifying you of the move? He only disappeared last night. Assuming everything’s okay, as it most likely is, chances are that he isn’t even aware anybody might be worried about him already. He may plan to drive down here and see you himself, or send you an envelope letter, to avoid the possibility of phone or computer links being patched into. Can he perceive phones and computers, by the way? I only ask because some draculas I’ve known are out of period for it.”

  “Except for the way he costumes himself, Clement lives in today’s world. I told you, he’s a reality perceiver except about his one little quirk. He’s completely computer literate and can be quite voluble on any kind of phone. The only reason he doesn’t wear one is because he doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s studying or praying. He doesn’t drive, but not because he can’t perceive cars as cars. Simply because he chooses not to drive. His parents were killed in a car accident when he was six.”

  I think Cagey and I both gave a start. “What kind of accident?” said Cagey.

  “A speeding UPS truck sideswiped their car passing on a bridge and knocked them over the guardrail into the Mississippi River at Taylors Falls. They had been on a tenth anniversary honeymoon. Clement was staying with his grandparents—my great-aunt and -uncle Tormquist—at the time. It was a heavy trauma for a six-year-old, suddenly finding out that his parents were never coming home.” She closed her eyes. “I’m glad I never had anything like that happen to me. It’s probably one of the things that drew him to April Greenhill, the fact that she’d lost both parents in an accident, too.”