The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  The doors were equipped with proximity panels to show which door somebody inside was nearest. One more gimmick that had been going through cycles of popularity and public distaste for a long time. None of Kurandasra’s proximity panels was glowing. Either she’d had them disconnected or she wasn’t at home. Could easily be at work. Lestrade went on walking. Might as well see the entire layout before trying Kurandasra’s doorchime.

  Besides the doors at stairs and elevator, each condo turned out to have a door midway along the corridor, opposite the thin orange line that marked the emergency fallaway in the windowall. On Apex’s midway door, the proximity panel was glowing aquamarine.

  Chapter

  “As a general guideline,” said M. Magadance, “we leave a newcomer several hours of strict personal privacy between lunch and before-dinner drinks the first day. Your lordship’s stated world gives us the chance to vary that a little, but if you’d rather have your hours alone, just name me the precedent.”

  Corwin replied, “A lord of Worminglass is at the mercy of his Master or Mistress of Ritual in such matters.”

  Nodding, she opened one of her tomes as though to consult it.

  They stood in the gazebo overlooking the miniature cascade and pool, whither M. Magadance had guided him after luncheon. Just the two of them, away from everybody else, the Mistress of Ritual explaining such a consultation to be the nature of the afternoon’s observance.

  Luncheon, served in the main dining room (which Corwin perceived as an Italianate banquet hall and described aloud as a venerable cavern of crumbling masonry and flaking murals) had been superb in the culinary sense. It was humbling to reflect how far the simple assuagement of physical hunger with excellent foodstuffs tastefully prepared should reconcile the psyche, at least temporarily, to other conditions.

  He had been placed at the head of a long table, with M. Magadance at his right hand and the genially crusty Dr. Macumber at his left; Lady Larghetta, M. Klipspringer, Adrian Withycombe, Chief Running Stag, and M. Paul Jefferson Of The Light most immediately beyond them; and the less dignity-conscious members of the community—M.’s Bluehair, Logefeil, and Stock—at Manager Parkinson’s end.

  At that distance, it had been less than convenient to pay those three the special attention M. Magadance had earlier recommended. He had noticed their jollity when the Mistress of Ritual explained that she must be private with his lordship for the rest of the afternoon. M. Bluehair had actually waggled her forefinger with a throaty chuckle. Yet of the four lady guests, Bluehair herself was the only one who had so far thrown any pheromenes of flirtation at the newcomer. With M. Magadance, he felt perfectly safe from that quarter.

  “Your lordship,” said she, still as though consulting her books, “is to descend by those steps to the bank of the pool, find three pebbles, and cast them one at a time into the water, the first farthest, the second nearer, and the third almost at your feet. As you prepare to cast each, I shall give you the words you must repeat while so doing.”

  He obeyed her instructions to the letter, repeating after her, as the time came to cast each pebble:

  “I, Elegius, Seventy-First Earl Moan and Lord of Worminglass, being ardently and intrenchably returned from out of the cold and congealed outer wildernesses back unto the warm and weeping stones that witnessed the beginning of my first year ...”

  Plunk! went the farthest pebble.

  “... do hereby seal once again my solemn ancient vow ...”

  Plunk! the middle pebble.

  “... to hold my faith forevermore with all this hallowed ground.”

  Plunk! the last pebble, almost at his feet. M. Magadance’s ceremonial phrases hardly measured up to their model, but Corwin admired the way in which her shortening of the preambles to the second and third castings allowed all three sets of widening rings to touch and converge.

  “Come up now!” she called as the ripples smoothed and the pool became once more a mirror everywhere save at the end where the miniature cascade fell into it.

  He climbed the rough-hewn stone steps, half choked with overgrown weeds, and re-entered the gazebo, which seemed to him a partially ruined marble shrine that dropped its reflection upon the sunlit surface of a tarn roiling with murky depths. His initial perception of this spot might fit Peake’s world or Poe’s almost equally well.

  “I confess to some mild surprise,” he remarked, “that each newcomer is not given a first-day tour of the buildings and grounds of this my vast ancestral estate.”

  “We’re more merciful than that. In fact, we recommend that you explore the place not only at your own leisure, but at your very slow leisure. With a little self-control, you can still have some new area to see ten years from now. Dr. Macumber puts a few places off limits to himself every year, on a rotating basis, so as to see them with fresh eyes when he gets back to them. He says it gives him something to live for in addition to hitting the century mark.”

  “His own century mark, or the year 2100?”

  “We aren’t quite sure. Probably the latter. M. Logefeil insisted on a complete tour his first week here, saying that he’d soon be out on his appeals and wouldn’t be back.”

  As M. Magadance paused, Corwin supplied the statistic she might be too polite to mention to a new prisoner with his own first appeal pending. “Only two or three appeals in a hundred prove successful.”

  She smiled. “We have a standing joke that it used to be three in fifty, before M. Logefeil started peppering the courts with all his own unsuccessful appeals.”

  “I daresay it keeps him harmlessly occupied. But—forgive me if I overstep the bounds—you could hardly have been here to give him that guided tour when first he came.”

  “No, but Lady Larghetta and M. Walker were, and our traditions are strong. The oldtimers’ stories come to seem like everybody else’s own memories, too.”

  “As befits such an estate as Worminglass. Was not the doctor here, too?”

  She shook her head. “Dr. Macumber’s been with us only five years. He transfers from house to house. It gives him something the value of a medieval troubadour. He’s already choosing the site for his next transfer request, probably five years from now. We’ll be sorry to lose him. But I’m talking to you as if you were going to be here forever yourself.”

  He felt a chill. “Where else should I be forever? What place more fitting to make one’s home, than one’s home?” Hands resting on the impossibly ancient marble of the shrine, he gazed resolutely across the tarn, aware of M. Magadance’s gaze. He hoped that his refusal to meet it looked of a piece with the hauteur of his role.

  She persisted, “You aren’t really one of us, are you?”

  But what sign could show it? Senior Sergeant Lestrade had called him an innocent, but the mark of Cain was visible on none of these people’s brows, not even that of John Stock nor “mad Dr. Macumber.” M. Bluehair might stand out anywhere as an enthusiastic wanton, but not as a murderess. Put any of them down in any social gathering, and what would there be in face or attitude to set them apart as perpetrators of the ultimate crime? What could they perceive in his face or attitude to set him apart as an innocent?

  Then he remembered that, happily, in his own reading of the part, Elegius Moan was innocent, at least of murder. Dropping his gaze to the marble ledge so as to watch his fingers crumbling away at it in contained agitation of spirits, he said, “What can I expect more of justice and perspicaciousness from the second jury, than from the first?”

  “Very true, if you were the real Lord Moan.”

  His fingers convulsed around a crumb of old rock. Turning his head, he stared at her with what he hoped was a frown of well counterfeited anger. “You, of all my household, to call my identity into question!”

  “Come on. You’re good. You’ve been playing it to the teeth, even with just the two of us here alone. But we are alone here and now, for the time be
ing. Perfectly alone. I’ve been watching, and I’d know the signs of anyone trying to spy on us two. And you don’t have to worry about bugging devices anywhere in here. We may all be murderers, but we know how to respect one another’s privacy, and we insist on the same respect from the staff. You can trust me. After all, I’m the one who sent out the cry for help. Lestrade sent you in, didn’t she?”

  “Lestrade!” He attempted to bark a bitter laugh.

  “Under the convenient cover of Lord Moan, who is probably still on trial, or else off to some other ‘security hotel,’ or possibly in a holding suite somewhere pending your return to the outside world.”

  Was she that shrewd, or had they somehow slipped? And if M. Magadance could guess, for whatever reason, how many others? True, she had been the one who sent that letter, a copy of which Click had shown Corwin, and on those grounds he might have trusted her—the thought had its appeal—but she might be playing some complex multilayered game. Or, for all he knew, the entire community might have conspired to send that letter with a single name sighed. To get hold of some police representative on whom they could wreak vicarious vengeance for their incarceration?

  “You insult me grievously,” he said at last, “but I think I begin to see your error. It is true that Lestrade requested me, as one about to come here in any event, to look into the matter to which I presume you allude. Though despising her as a minion of the world’s unfeeling and all-too-blind law, I agreed, as much to cut off her wearisome solicitations as for any other reason. It had all but slipped my mind until you mentioned it, for which I thank you. Having given my word, I am under some obligation to keep it, insofar as the duties of a lord of Worminglass in his own realm may allow me the leisure. But that you, my own Mistress of Ritual, should suppose me to be any other than the true Elegius Moan, Seventy-First Earl of Worminglass—this insults me most egregiously.”

  Aware that she was studying his face, he continued giving her no more of it than his profile, frowning out across the water.

  At length she said, “Very good, your lordship. You have one more short ceremony this afternoon, and then the ritual prescribes rest and leisure for you until the preprandial hour. If your lordship would follow me to what we whimsically call the Purgatory Pavilion ...”

  Chapter

  Lestrade studied Apex’s glowing proximity panel for a second, then took a closer look at the rest of his door. It wasn’t quite flush in its frame. Just a crack ajar.

  All right, get over the occupational hazard of police work—looking for the most suspicious interpretation first. She tabbed the chime. Its echo competed briefly with the birdsongs in the corridor. Apex had his doorchime programmed to play the long first measure of Toraguchi’s Eighth Symphoria.

  She counted. Five seconds, and the door started opening inward. It stopped halfway. Either it was operated by remote control, or whoever had opened it was keeping out of sight behind it.

  “All right, M. Hammersmith,” she said, “stop playing Dungeon Chess.”

  He stepped into sight, ostentatiously returning his stunner to its shoulder holster. “Hey, Dragon Lady, great guessing.”

  “Guessing had very little to do with it. If Apex had felt any need of excessive caution, he’d either have had peepholes drilled in his doors, or used the echobox to ask who it was tabbing his doorchime.”

  “Could have been a friend of his, down using the pad by invite. Or a shy little sobuddy. Or somebody else with good and sufficient cause to give this place the once-over.”

  “Could have been, but the chances were pretty high against. I suppose I should thank you for having the manners to ask for police sanction and a master key before going ahead on your own.”

  “Yeah. Very big of me. I thought so, too. Of course, I already knew from my first visit here how low-security the joint is. A baby with a pocket voice synthesizer could get past these locks.”

  “And you think Apex would risk leaving any incriminating evidence around?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Sergeant Lestrade. He could always be using the old purloined letter gag. Installing any extra security gadgets would be leaving signposts that there’s something inside worth hiding. This neighborhood is a low crime risk area anyway, so better to look like Mr. Innocence.”

  “Whereas if he really was innocent, he’d have installed special security devices first thing?”

  “I thought you were the one who was so eager to nail this joker.” The private detective stepped to one side. “Coming in, now you’re in the neighborhood? Or still afraid of breaking too many eggs?”

  “You’ve got a real turn for cliche’, M. Hammersmith.” But she strode on in, shutting the door behind her with a click. Stepping on into a billiard lounge, she looked around. Elegant simplicity in browns and creams. The building might have been designed and furnished for reality perceivers, but Apex was keeping his own piece of it in true fancy-class decor.

  “Either you haven’t done this room yet,” she observed, “or else you search very neatly.”

  “I search very neatly. When I want to. That is, when I don’t want the party in question to catch on.” He gestured at a drink on the bookshelves near the billiard table. “Coaster and all. No chance of water rings. A quick wash-up before I go, and the only way our bird will ever guess anybody was here in his absence is if he keeps an inventory of the level of booze in his bottles.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Actually, I’ve pretty well finished finecombing the joint,” Hammersmith went on. “But I figured you’d be along sooner or later this afternoon. I was just about to fill in the time shooting a little pool.”

  “Don’t forget to wipe your prints off everything.”

  He gave her an insulted grimace. That was primary-school stuff.

  She went on, “I suppose leaving the door ajar was a little welcoming trick you did on purpose.”

  “On the nose, lady! Thought you’d rather play it out at the middle door than right next to the stairs or the elevator. Drink?”

  She shook her head. “Do I take it from your silly grin that you found anything worth finding?”

  “I found out that our bird Apex really ought to get down here more often. Either that, or keep the P.O. better posted on his forwarding dates.” Still grinning, Hammersmith stepped over to the bar and picked up a thin stack of paper correspondence. “Here. Maybe about a month’s buildup, from beneath the maildrop in the front door. Take a sift-through, Sergeant. If you don’t think it’ll compromise your rulebook principles.”

  She crossed the room, took her stand at the other side of the bar, put on her search gloves, and held out her palm. He dropped the correspondence into it.

  An undated foldover advising homeowners to tab the code “XGAB2LY” on their home computers for a valuable moneysaving message—the kind of oversell come-on that usually meant a very expensive product. Lestrade remembered tabbing some “XGAB” code two or three weeks ago and getting an animated promo about a hydroponic greenhouse complete with robogardener that did everything except choose what you wanted it to plant and then cut up the harvested vegetables for salad.

  Three envelopes from the Nostalgia City branch of the First Bank of Indiana. So Apex was the type who liked his banking transactions confirmed in hardcopy.

  Two scenic holocards from “Charley,” who was apparently cruising the California coast in the NTC luxury liner Dolly Madison. If “Charley” was Charles White, the assistant cook who had been pounding the drums in Apex’s suite the night of Westerman’s death, these cards could be more interesting than their “Weather fine” messages would indicate.

  One invitation to a barbecue party in the inner courtyard, to be held for all Elmgrovers and hosted by the building and grounds maintenance manager, Tessy O’Banahan. The party had been last weekend, and the invitation card obviously slipped in the maildrop slot without passing through any regular postal servic
es.

  And, on the bottom, one envelope letter, addressed in plain block typeface. There was no return address on the outside, but the postmark was one code Lestrade knew by sight: the code for the apartment complex that Hilton-Maracott kept within walking distance of Hummingbird Hill for any guards and daystaffers who preferred to keep their commuting distance as short as they could.

  Presumably not mailed by the same floater who had smuggled out Magadance’s letters. That one had used a city dropbox.

  “Go ahead and read it, Sergeant,” said Hammersmith. “You’ll notice the envelope isn’t sealed.”

  “Tampering with mail is a federal offence, Hammersmith.”

  “Yeah? And what’s drug dealing? Or murder? Besides, that’s the way I found it. Whoever slotted it musta forgot to seal it. Or maybe didn’t want to lick it because of the germ factor.”

  Just about as likely as that Magnum Hammersmith had left the contents unread. Lestrade slipped out the single sheet of folded paper. Which was better quality than the envelope. Even through her plastifilm gloves, it had the feel of vellumsim. She unfolded it. Handwritten, undated, no inside address.

  Dear Hector,

  The anonymous author of Nielsen’s ‘Whispers about Town’ reports you as having been seen with a young personality in the penthouse life of 27 Beatles Street, New York.

  As a gossip column unworthy the aegis of any organ that ventures to dignify itself as a news service, ‘Whispers about Town’ is of course beneath contempt. Nor is it necessary to repeat the name of the person with whom you were seen, and to whom I trust you have made such amends as may alleviate the harm to health or reputation. Nevertheless, for all the infamy attaching to the profession of an anonymous purveyor of scandal, I can find no reason why even such a parasite should have lied about the locale of the incident or alleged incident.

  A year and a half is more than sufficient time to have fulfilled the condition you took your solemn oath to carry out within a year.

  Yours in sorrow,

  Adrian”