An Evil Guest

by Gene Wolfe

  Cassie did not hear the rest. She had the bracelet off and was handing it to Margaret. “Keep this for me. I’m leaving now, but I want you to stay right here. Stay here for at least another hour. Understand?”

  Margaret nodded. She was looking at the bracelet.

  “You can go to the restroom or change tables, but that’s it. Have you got a pen?”

  Margaret did, taking the pen from her purse and putting the bracelet into it.

  “Here.” Cassie scribbled her cell phone number on a napkin. “Call me tomorrow afternoon.”

  She was gone before Margaret could reply.

  Ebony stopped her on the way out. “You look like death warmed over.”

  “I had a scare, that’s all. Well, no, it isn’t. Not really. Have you heard about Jimmy?”

  “Sure. Heart attack or something. It’s a damned shame.”

  Cassie nodded. “I liked him, and two people sprung it on me fast. I was shaky already, and now — well, I’m going home.”

  “You’re going down to the bar with me,” Ebony said firmly. “You need a drink and some quiet talk.”

  “I’ve had two drinks, and the second one would peel paint. I think I drank about half, and my head’s swimming. So no.”

  “So yes.” Ebony followed her. “You can have a Coke or something. I need to talk to you.”

  Cassie stopped abruptly. “God knows I need to talk to somebody. Listen, Ebony. I promised someone — a man I like a lot — that I’d do him a little favor. It — well, it was easy to promise then. Now I’m...”

  “Afraid.”

  Mutely, Cassie nodded.

  “You need to talk it out, that’s all. You need — ”

  A deep, hoarse voice interrupted. “What she needs,” Bill Reis said firmly, “is a strong friend, an intelligent and resourceful friend. She has one. Come with me, Miss Casey. I’ve a limousine outside.”

  The night had turned cool. Rusterman’s white and gold canopy sheltered them from the light rain, but not from the wind. “Fall soon,” Cassie muttered.

  “Our show won’t be ready for this season,” Reis told her. “We’ll need scenery.”

  A uniformed chauffeur opened the limousine’s wide rear door.

  “And rehearsals.” Thinking of things she had heard the night before, Cassie shuddered.

  “You’re cold. Have you a fur coat? Mink? Ermine, perhaps?”

  “Wool. But it’s real wool and looks nice on me. I like it.”

  “Get in, please. I’ll go around.”

  She did, and the chauffeur closed the door with the merest whisper of sound.

  At once, or so it seemed, Reis was sitting beside her. “Blue mink, I would say. I hopped here today to meet you. You cannot have known that, Cassie, but I did. One hour from Berlin in a friend’s hopper. Have you been into space yet?”

  She shuddered again and shook her head.

  “I should be getting you a drink.” Reis gestured. “This little cabinet opens into a bar. You must’ve seen that from the glasses. Brandy?”

  “Nothing, please.”

  “This will be a very ordinary cognac, I’m afraid. Our Earth’s a small place, Cassie. You see that clearly from out in space. I could have hopped from Berlin to Beijing just as easily. We weren’t ready for space travel when science gave it to us.” He poured three fingers of amber fluid into a pony glass and handed it to her.

  “I’ve heard people say that.”

  “It’s true. A hundred years ago, men dreamed of it. They thought there’d be a world government long before it came, that ignorance and poverty would’ve been eliminated.”

  “It’ll never happen,” Cassie whispered. She pretended to sip.

  “No world government?”

  She shook her head. “I was thinking of poverty and ignorance.”

  Reis poured for himself. “When I show you Earth from space, when you see how beautiful it is, you’ll realize how easily it might be put right.” Reis appeared to hesitate. “Poverty and ignorance... they’re relative terms. Let’s see that everybody has enough to eat and a place to sleep. That everyone can read well enough to enjoy reading.”

  “That would satisfy me. May I ask why you wanted to meet me? Wanted to so much that you hopped from Berlin?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Reis seemed oddly embarrassed.

  “Not to me.”

  “I want you for Mariah. You haven’t read the script, I realize. Mariah Brownlea’s our star, the woman who dates the Volcano God. A year from now, Cassie, you’ll be ready to open on Broadway. There’ll be a film, a year or two after that. You’ll star in the film, too. I won’t have to insist on you because everybody will insist on you.”

  Cassie’s purse played the first three bars of “Pigs in Paradise.” She opened it, found her cell phone, and said, “Hello?”

  “Cassie?” The voice (a pleasant voice that she found she remembered very well) sounded concerned. “It’s me. I just learned that Reis is in town. Are you someplace where you can use my name?”

  She glanced at her watch. “No,” she said, “and you’re about six hours late.”

  As she spoke, she felt the limousine glide away from the curb.

  TOO DEARE

  They met for breakfast at the International House of Toast, a plastic-cum-Formica palace less crowded and noisy than Walker’s. Gideon ordered the Renaissance French Toast, and Cassie the Fontina Toast aux des Raisins Secs.

  “If there’s something you don’t want to talk about,” Gideon said, “give me an idea of what I ought to stay away from. I’m going to have a lot of questions.”

  Cassie nodded. “So am I.”

  “But you don’t want to talk about... ?”

  “How scared I was. What a coward I am.”

  He shook his head. “I doubt it. But fine, we won’t talk about that. Or at least, I won’t.”

  “I had my gun on my leg in that holster thing you saw. Left leg, inside, just high enough that a long skirt still covered it when I sat down. I kept thinking I ought to get it out and stick it in his face. Stay away or I’ll shoot! Only I never had the guts.”

  “You didn’t want to talk about this.”

  “I didn’t want you to talk about it. I still don’t. I felt like my insides were going to run out and soak the backseat. I was afraid I was going to fall when I got out. My knees were that weak.”

  “Our friend would have picked you up.”

  “Right. And helped me to my apartment and wanted to come inside for a drink, and Cassie, I’ve done you some big favors already and I’m going to do you a lot more. I’d like just one little one from you. Take off that dress.”

  Gideon, who had been toying with his fork, put it down. “I doubt it. He’s not that crude.”

  “He wanted to know about the bracelet. He’d given me a bracelet — this was in public, when I couldn’t turn it down without losing every friend I had.”

  “Including me,” Gideon said.

  “Right. Because you want me to play footsie with a tiger and find out exactly how he bites their necks. Well, I didn’t turn it down. Happy?”

  “Very. What was it he wanted to know about it?”

  “Where it was, and why I wasn’t wearing it. I told him half the truth, that I didn’t want him to think he owned me. The other half is that I hate the damned thing. He has lousy taste.”

  As a waitress in a frilly lace cap brought coffee, Gideon said, “I’ve never thought so, but perhaps I have poor taste myself. You said he wanted to know where it was. Where was it?”

  “I gave it to Margaret and told her to keep it for me. Margaret’s my dresser. A dresser is someone who helps you with your costumes.” Cassie paused. “I’m talking like I’ve had her for years, but I only hired her yesterday.”

  Gideon sipped. “Could she be working for Reis?”

  “I doubt it. She was working for Alexis Cabana when The Red Spot opened. Alexis let her go when it closed, I assume because she doesn’t have anything lined up. You sai
d you had lots of questions for me. Can I ask you one?”

  “Certainly. Go ahead.”

  “You and I had breakfast yesterday. Sharon came in and took pictures. That afternoon one was on vid, and she talked about us. You know she did, because we caught her part of the show. That evening — I’d be shouting here, if I were onstage — you-know-who was in the audience.”

  Gideon nodded.

  “Last night he said he’d had lunch with India, so he got onto us awfully, awfully fast. How did he do that?”

  “I don’t know, and I wish I did. I can offer two speculations. No, three. Do you want to hear them?”

  “You bet I do.”

  “All right. He’s attracted to glamorous women. I’ve looked into his background, and it shows very clearly. I’m certain you recall what Sharon told her audience on trivid, and while we were at Walker’s there was a good deal said about your beauty and desirability. About your being a star, and so forth. An online edition of her paper could have had her story as soon as she wrote it. Suppose Reis had software searching for news items in which those words were used.”

  “I don’t believe it. I know any good programmer could do the computer stuff, but he wouldn’t hop halfway ’round the world because of something Sharon wrote.”

  “He’d have seen you. Perhaps even heard you speak.”

  “Thanks, but I still don’t buy it. What are the other two?”

  “That first one, the one you’re dismissing so easily, is my favorite. I don’t like this one as much. It’s that he’s done at least one search using my rather distinctive name, having realized at some point that I was looking into his operations. I’ve tried to be careful, of course; but it’s entirely possible that I haven’t been careful enough. He wants you as a way of getting to me.”

  “I like that one better,” Cassie said.

  “In which case you should like the last, too. He has people watching me.”

  “Ouch!”

  “Indeed. I’ve been acutely aware of the possibility ever since I talked with the president. Did I tell you about John’s call, by the way?”

  Their food arrived.

  “If they’re watching you, would they have followed us up north?”

  “I doubt it.” Gideon was spreading whipped butter on his French toast. “Why do you ask?”

  “If you had said yes, I’d have asked how they could do it.”

  “Because of the car, you mean?”

  “Because you drove so fast. You burned up the roads and we never got stopped. I’ve been wondering how you got away with that.”

  “Nothing complicated. We went late at night in a black car that’s invisible to radar.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Certainly not, and your toast is getting cold.”

  Obediently, Cassie cut a small triangle from the uppermost slice and conveyed it to her mouth.

  “When one feels one may be watched,” Gideon murmured, “one is constantly eyeing strangers.”

  “How in the world did you get hold of a thing like that?”

  “As a bonus, that’s all. I did a little work for a company that builds military hoppers. They wanted to give me some sort of gift, so I asked for the car.”

  “As easy as that.”

  “Yes. We’ve gotten far off the track with all this. I’d like to get back on it. Margaret has that bracelet. Positioning devices and listening devices can be made smaller than you would believe.”

  “Then it would be easy to put them in there. It’s a great big clunky thing. Did I say so?”

  “I don’t believe you did.” Gideon took another bite of French toast.

  “Well, it is. You know who’d wear something like that? The Volcano God, that’s who. It’s — it’s barbaric. He’s got volcano gods on the brain, and where did he get that show anyway?”

  “What show?”

  “Didn’t I tell you about it?”

  “No. You’ve actually told me very little. Tell me about the show.”

  “It’s a musical laid in the Pacific in sailing-ship times. I’m Mariah, a missionary’s daughter. I date the Volcano God, and that’s all I know about it. Reis says he’s got the book — that’s the spoken lines — but not the songs. There’ll be singing and dancing, costumes and big sets, all the stuff they’ll need for New York and London.”

  Cassie paused, looking thoughtful. “You know, that bracelet really does look like something the Volcano God might give a girl. Primitive.”

  “A diamond bracelet? I doubt it.”

  “It isn’t. There aren’t any stones at all. Just a lot of gold.” Cassie’s fork halted halfway to her mouth. “I said something, didn’t I? What was it?”

  “You may have. I don’t know. You don’t have the bracelet now? You gave it to Alexis’s dresser?”

  “I didn’t give it to her.” The morsel of toast on her fork attained its fated destination, and Cassie chewed and swallowed. “All right, I gave it to her to keep for me, but she’s not Alexis’s dresser anymore. She’s mine.”

  “She still has it?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Do you have a number for her? When will you see her again?”

  “Her business card should be in my purse.” Cassie opened it and began to search. “I said for her to call me... When was it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I don’t think I was very specific about it. Just call me this afternoon. What time is it?”

  “Twelve thirty.”

  “Why do you wear a watch? You never look at it.”

  When Gideon said nothing, Cassie added, “How’s the French toast?”

  “Delicious. First, I wear this particular watch because it once belonged to someone I admire. Second, I wear a watch — a watch in the abstract — to keep people like you from asking why I don’t. Third, I wear a watch because there are times when I wouldn’t know the time if I didn’t have a watch. Satisfied?”

  “Yep. Can I see it?”

  “You may.” Gideon took off his watch and handed it to her.

  “You don’t wear it when you sunbathe. Or climb into a tanning cabinet. Or whatever it is you do.”

  “I don’t do those things. This is the way I was born; I would have thought my eye color and hair would make that clear. Aren’t you interested in my watch?”

  “Yes, but I’m a lot more interested in you.” Cassie turned the watch over. Its back read: RC from his friend HPL. “This is a man’s watch,” she said. “Its face is twice as big as the one on my watch, and it has a big heavy gold-plated band. Are you following me?”

  Gideon said, “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, this watch is a lot smaller, and a whole lot lighter than the bracelet our angel Wally Rosenquist gave me.”

  “Wally Rosenquist?” Gideon raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s what I have to call him. Mr. Rosenquist. Same initials, assuming Bill’s short for William. He’s probably got monogrammed stuff.”

  “I imagine. Cassie, I want that bracelet. You let Margaret keep it for you. Would you be willing to let me borrow it for a few days? I won’t damage it.”

  “Too bad. I was hoping you would. Yes, I will — with bells on. I’ll have Margaret meet us wherever, and hand it over to you as soon as I get it back.”

  “Fine. You were talking about dating the Volcano God, and you seem to have shared a cab with — ”

  “A limousine. Huge. Built-in vid. Built-in bar. All that stuff.”

  “I stand corrected. What I want to know is whether you dated our friend W.R.”

  “Not yet.”

  “What did you do, in that case?”

  “Went home. I had said I wanted to go home. Ebony wanted to talk to me in the bar instead. This was at the cast party — have I said that?”

  Gideon shook his head.

  “Well, it was. Wally got me away from her and into his limo. We talked a little, and drank some stuff that tasted like lighter fluid. Then he took me back to my apart
ment. I told him he didn’t have to come upstairs with me, but he said he wanted to see me safely to my door. So he did. I kept telling myself that if he tried to force his way in I was going to pull my gun and shoot him. I was tight by then, and I might have done it.”

  “But he didn’t?”

  “No. He’s not like you. How did you get into my apartment, anyway?”

  “I meant to show you,” Gideon said, “and I’d rather show you than tell you, so I’ll try to make this brief. The apartment next to yours is the mirror image of yours. That arrangement simplifies plumbing and wiring, including the trivid connection; so it’s very common. Specifically, the living room mirrors yours. Thus there’s a couch with its back to your own, on the other side of the wall.”

  Cassie nodded.

  “I entered that apartment without difficulty after having learned that the family wasn’t home. There’s a hole in your wall now, behind your couch. I made it, pushed your couch aside, crawled through, cleaned up a little wall-board dust, and put your couch back before you returned from the theater.” He looked apologetic. “Now tell me more about last night.”

  “Just like that? You broke into my place.”

  “You’re right, I did. I apologize, but I strongly suspected I was being watched and the matter was urgent. Our friend frightened you. If I’d simply arranged to meet you they might have gotten to you first. Do I have to say these things, Cassie?”

  “I guess not.” She sipped coffee. “Last night I was still scared, even after I’d shut the door and bolted and chained it, and turned on the alarm. I went to the balcony windows and looked down at his limo. It was white and as big as they come. The driver was standing by the open door in back waiting for Wally to come out, and I wanted to see him leave my building and get into his limo and go away. I never did, but he must have because the driver closed the door and got in front.”

  “He drove away then?”

  Cassie nodded.

  “But you didn’t see our friend come out... ?”

  “No. But I don’t think he got into my apartment. He didn’t toss me notes or mess with my computer or anything.”

  “Unlike some others.”

  Cassie smiled. “Hey, you got it.”

  “I did indeed. Did you do anything in back of the limousine besides talking and drinking?”