Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Short Story Anthology

"I think that place is out of business."

  "Oh." Nothing moved in her face then. The new blue eyes were still and very deep.

  "It doesn't matter. Bobby's waiting for you. We just pulled down a big score."

  "No. I've got to go. I guess he won't understand, but I've got to go."

  I nodded, watching the arm swing up to take her hand; it didn't seem to be part of me at all, but she held on to it like it was.

  "I've got a one-way ticket to Hollywood. Tiger knows some people I can stay with. Maybe I'll even get to Chiba City."

  She was right about Bobby. I went back with her. He didn't understand. But she'd already served her purpose, for Bobby, and I wanted to tell her not to hurt for him, because I could see that she did. He wouldn't even come out into the hallway after she had packed her bags. I put the bags down and kissed her and messed up the paintstick, and something came up inside me the way the killer program had risen above Chrome's data. A sudden stopping of the breath, in a place where no word is. But she had a plane to catch.

  Bobby was slumped in the swivel chair in front of his monitor, looking at his string of zeros. He had his shades on, and I knew he'd be in the Gentleman Loser by nightfall, checking out the weather, anxious for a sign, someone to tell him what his new life would be like. I couldn't see it being very different. More comfortable, but he'd always be waiting for that next card to fall.

  I tried not to imagine her in the House of Blue Lights, working three-hour shifts in an approximation of REM sleep, while her body and a bundle of conditioned reflexes took care of business. The customers never got to complain that she was faking it, because those were real orgasms. But she felt them, if she felt them at all, as faint silver flares somewhere out on the edge of sleep. Yeah, it's so popular, it's almost legal. The customers are torn between needing someone and wanting to be alone at the same time, which has probably always been the name of that particular game, even before we had the neuroelectronics to enable them to have it both ways.

  I picked up the phone and punched the number for her airline. I gave them her real name, her flight number. "She's changing that," I said, "to Chiba City. That's right. Japan." I thumbed my credit card into the slot and punched my ID code. "First class." Distant hum as they scanned my credit records. "Make that a return ticket."

  But I guess she cashed the return fare, or else she didn't need it, because she hasn't come back. And sometimes late at night I'll pass a window with posters of simstim stars, all those beautiful, identical eyes staring back at me out of faces that are nearly as identical, and sometimes the eyes are hers, but none of them ever are, and I see her far out on the edge of all this sprawl of night and cities, and then she waves goodbye.

  JOHN KESSEL

  John (Joseph Vincent) Kessel (born September 24, 1950 in Buffalo, New York) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. He is a professor of American literature and director of the Creative Writing program at North Carolina State University. He holds a B.A. in English and physics from the University of Rochester and an M.A. and PhD in English from the University of Kansas. His novella "Another Orphan" received the 1982 Nebula Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America, and his short story "Buffalo" won the 1991 Theodore Sturgeon Award and the Locus Poll. His novels include Freedom Beach, written in collaboration with James Patrick Kelly, and Good News from Outer Space, a finalist for the 1989 Nebula. His story collection, Meeting in Infinity, was named a notable book of 1992 by the New York Times Book Review. His play Faustfeathers won the 1994 Paul Green Playwrights' Competition and, with sf writer Bruce Sterling, he plays a small role in the independent film The Delicate Art of the Rifle. His novella "Stories for Men" received the 2002 James Tiptree, Jr. Award. Writer Kim Stanley Robinson has called Kessel's most recent novel,Corrupting Dr. Nice, "the best time-travel novel ever written," and Sci-Fi Weekly has called him "quite possibly the best short-story writer working in science fiction today."

  His criticism has appeared in The Los Angeles Times Book Review,Science Fiction Age, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and other publications. With Mark L. Van Name and Richard Butner, he has run the Sycamore Hill Writers' Conference, which produced the anthologyIntersections. He lives with his wife and daughter in Raleigh, North Carolina.

  It's All True, by John Kessel

  2004 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award-nominated Story

  On the desk in the marina office a black oscillating fan rattled gusts of hot air across the sports page. It was a perfect artifact of the place and time. The fan raised a few strands of the harbor master's hair every time its gaze passed over him. He studied my papers, folded the damp sheets, and handed them back to me.

  "Okay. Mr. Vidor's yacht is at the end of the second row." He pointed out the open window down the crowded pier. "The big black one."

  "Is the rest of the crew aboard?"

  "Beats me," he said, sipping from a glass of iced tea. He set the perspiring glass down on a ring of moisture that ran through the headline: "Cards Shade Dodgers in 12; Cut Lead to 5-1/2." On the floor beside the desk lay the front page: "New Sea-Air Battle Rages in Solomons. Japanese Counterattack on Guadalcanal."

  I stepped out onto the dock, shouldered my bag, and headed toward the yacht. The sun beat down on the crown of my head, and my shirt collar was damp with sweat. I pulled the bandana from my pocket and wiped my brow. For midweek the place was pretty busy, a number of Hollywood types down for the day or a start on a long weekend. Across the waterway tankers were drawn up beside a refinery.

  The Cynara was a 96-foot-long two-masted schooner with a crew of four and compartments for ten. The big yacht was an act of vanity, but King Vidor was one of the most successful directors in Hollywood and, though notorious for his parsimony, still capable of indulging himself. A blond kid who ought to have been drafted by now was polishing the brasswork; he looked up as I stepped aboard. I ducked through the open hatchway into a varnished oak companionway, then up to the pilothouse. The captain was there, bent over the chart table.

  "Mr. Onslow?"

  The man looked up. Mid-fifties, salt-and-pepper hair. "Who are you?" he asked.

  "David Furrow," I said. I handed him the papers. "Mr. Welles sent me down to help out on this cruise."

  "How come I never heard of you?"

  "He was supposed to call you. Maybe he asked Mr. Vidor to contact you?"

  "Nobody has said a word about it."

  "You should call Mr. Welles, then."

  Onslow looked at me, looked at the papers again. There was a forged letter from Welles, identifying me as an able-bodied seaman with three years' experience. Onslow clearly didn't want to call Welles and risk a tirade. "Did he say what he expected you to do?"

  "Help with the meals, mostly."

  "Stow your gear in the crew's compartment aft," he said. "Then come on back."

  I found an empty bunk and put my bag with the portable unit in the locker beneath it. There was no lock, but I would have to take the chance.

  Onslow introduced me to the cook, Manolo, who set me to work bringing aboard the produce, poultry, and case of wine the caterer had sent. When I told him that Welles wanted me to serve, he seemed relieved. About mid-afternoon Charles Koerner, the acting head of production at RKO, arrived with his wife and daughter. They expected to be met by more than just the crew, and Koerner grumbled as he sat at the mahogany table on the afterdeck. Manolo gave me a white jacket and sent me up with drinks. The wife was quiet, fanning herself with a palm fan, and the daughter, an ungainly girl of twelve or thirteen, all elbows and knees, explored the schooner.

  An hour later a maroon Packard pulled up to the dock and Welles got out, accompanied by a slender dark woman whom I recognized from photos as his assistant, Shifra Haran. Welles bounded up onto the deck. "Charles!" he boomed, and engulfed the uncomfortable Koerner in a bear hug. "So good to see you!" He towered over the studio head. Koerner introduced Welles to his wife Mary.

  Welles wore a lightweight suit; his dark
hair was long and he sported a mustache he had grown in Brazil in some misguided attempt at machismo. He was over six feet tall, soft in the belly but with little sign of the monstrous obesity that would haunt his future. A huge head, round cheeks, beautifully molded lips, and almond-shaped Mongol eyes.

  "And who's this?" Welles asked, turning to the daughter. His attention was like a searchlight, and the girl squirmed in the center of it.

  "Our daughter Barbara."

  "Barbara," Welles said with a grin, "do you always carry your house key in your ear?" From the girl's left ear he plucked a shiny brass key and held it in front of her face. His fingers were extraordinarily long, his hands graceful. The girl smiled slyly. "That's not my key," she said.

  "Perhaps it's not a key at all." Welles passed his left hand over his right, and the key became a silver dollar. "Would you like this?"

  "Yes."

  He passed his hand over the coin again, and it vanished. "Look in your pocket."

  She shoved her hand into the pocket of her rolled blue jeans and pulled out the dollar. Her eyes flashed with delight.

  "Just remember," Welles said, "money isn't everything."

  And as quickly as he had given the girl his attention, he turned back to Koerner. He had the manner of a prince among commoners, dispensing his favors like gold yet expecting to be deferred to at any and every moment. Haran hovered around him like a hummingbird. She carried a portfolio, ready to hand him whatever he needed—a pencil, a cigar, a match, a cup of tea, a copy of his RKO contract. Herman Mankiewicz had said about him, "There but for the grace of God—goes God."

  "Shifra!" he bellowed, though she was right next to him. "Get those things out of the car."

  Haran asked me to help her. I followed her to the pier and from the trunk took an octagonal multi-reel film canister and a bulky portable film projector. The label on the canister had The Magnificent Ambersons scrawled in black grease pencil. Haran watched me warily until I stowed the print and projector safely in the salon, then hurried back on deck to look after Welles.

  I spent some time helping Manolo in the galley until Onslow called down to me: it was time to cast off. Onslow started the diesel engine. The blond kid and another crewmember cast off the lines, and Onslow backed the Cynara out of the slip. Once the yacht had left the waterway and entered San Pedro Bay, we raised the main, fore, and staysails. The canvas caught the wind, Onslow turned off the engine, and, in the declining sun, we set sail for Catalina.

  On my way back to the galley I asked the passengers if I could freshen their drinks. Welles had taken off his jacket and was sprawled in one of the deck chairs, regaling the Koerners with stories of voudun rituals he had witnessed in Brazil. At my interruption he gave me a black look, but Koerner took the break as an opportunity to ask for another scotch. I asked Barbara if she wanted a lemonade. Welles's hooded eyes flashed his impatience, and I hurried back below deck.

  It was twilight when I served supper: the western horizon blazed orange and red, and the awning above the afterdeck table snapped in the breeze. I uncorked several bottles of wine. I eavesdropped through the avocado salad, the coq au vin, the strawberry shortcake. The only tough moment came when Onslow stepped out on deck to say goodnight. "I hope your dinner went well." He leaned over and put a hand on Welles's shoulder, nodding toward me. "You know, we don't usually take on extra crew at the last minute."

  "Would anyone like brandy?" I interjected.

  Welles, intent on Koerner, waved a hand at Onslow. "He's done a good job. Very helpful." Onslow retired, and afterward I brought brandy and glasses on a silver tray.

  Welles put to Koerner the need to complete theIt's All True project he had gone to Rio to film. RKO had seen the rushes of hordes of leaping black people at Carnival, gone into shock, and abandoned it. "Three segments," Welles said. "'The Jangladeros,' 'My Friend Bonito,' and the story of the samba. If you develop the rest of the footage I sent back, I can have it done by Thanksgiving; for a small additional investment, the studio will have something to show for the money they've spent, Nelson Rockefeller will have succeeded in the Good Neighbor effort, and I can go on and make the kind of movies RKO brought me out here to make."

  Koerner avoided Welles's eyes, drawing lines on the white tablecloth with a dessert fork. "Orson, with all due respect, I don't think the studio is interested anymore in the kind of movies you were brought out here to make. Kane took a beating, and Ambersons doesn't look like it's going to do any better—worse, probably."

  Welles's smile was a little too quick. "The version of Ambersons that's in the theaters now bears only passing resemblance to what I shot."

  "I've never seen either version. But I saw the report on the preview in Pomona. The audience was bored to tears by your tragedy. 'People want to laugh,' they said. The comment cards were brutal."

  "I saw the cards, Charles. Half the audience thought it was the best movie they had ever seen. The ones who didn't like it spelled 'laugh' l-a-f-f. Are you going to let the movies you release be determined by people who can't spell 'laugh'?"

  "We can't make money on half-full theaters."

  I went back and forth, clearing the table, as they continued to spar. Haran was busy doing something in the salon. After I helped him clean up, Manolo headed for his bunk, and except for the pilot and me, the crew had turned in. I perched on the taffrail in the dark, smoking a twentieth century cigarette and eavesdropping. So far Koerner had proved himself to be an amusingly perfect ancestor of the studio executives I was familiar with. The type had not changed in a hundred years. Barbara, bored, stretched out on a bench with her head in Mary Koerner's lap; Mary stroked Barbara's hair and whispered, "In the morning, when we get to Catalina, you can go swimming off the yacht."

  "Mother!" the girl exclaimed. "Don't you know? These waters are infested with sharks!"

  Mother and daughter squabbled about whether "infested" was proper language for a well-bred young woman to use. They fell silent without reaching a decision. It was full night now, and the moon had risen. Running lights glowed at the top of the masts and at the bowsprit and stern. Aside from the snap of the flag above and the rush of the sea against the hull, there was only the sound of Welles's seductive voice.

  "Charles, listen—I've got the original cut of the movie with me—the print they sent down to Rio before the preview. Shifra!" he called out. "Have you got that projector ready?" Welles finished his brandy. "At least have a look at it. You'll see that it's a work of merit."

  Barbara perked up. "Please, father! Can we see it?"

  Koerner ignored his daughter. "It's not about the merit, Orson. It's about money."

  "Money! How can you know what is going to make money if you never take a chance?" His voice was getting a little too loud. Mrs. Koerner looked worried. "What industry in America doesn't spend some money on experiments? Otherwise the future surprises you, and you're out of business!"

  Haran poked her head out of the doorway. "I have the projector set up, Orson."

  "Orson, I really don't want—" Koerner said.

  "Come, Charles, you owe me the favor of at least seeing what I made. I promise you that's all I'll ask."

  They retired to the salon. I crept up alongside the cabin and peeked in one of the windows. At one end on a teak drop table Haran had set up the projector, at the other a screen. The film canister lay open on the bench seat, and the first reel was mounted on the projector.

  "I'm tired," Mary Koerner said. "If you'll excuse me, I think I'll turn in."

  "Mother, I want to see the movie," Barbara said.

  "I think you should go to bed, Barbara," said Koerner.

  "No, let her see it," Welles said. "It may be a little dark, but there's nothing objectionable."

  "I don't want her to see any dark movies," Koerner said.

  Welles clenched his fists. When he spoke it was in a lower tone. "Life is dark."

  "That's just the point, Orson," said Koerner, oblivious of the thin ice he was treading. "There's
a war on. People don't want to be depressed." As an afterthought, he muttered, "If they ever do."

  "What did you say?"

  Koerner, taking a seat, had his back to Welles. He straightened and turned. "What?"

  Welles stepped past Haran and, with jerky movements, started to remove the reel from the projector. "Forget it, Shifra. Why waste it on a philistine?"

  Barbara broke the charged silence. "What's a philistine?"

  Welles turned to her. "A philistine, my dear girl, is a slightly better-dressed relative of the moron. A philistine wouldn't know a work of art from a hot dog. And you have the bad fortune to have a complete and utter philistine for a father."

  "I've had just about enough—" Koerner sputtered.

  "YOU've had enough?" Welles bellowed. "I am SICK to DEATH of you paltry lot of money-grubbing cheats and liars! When have any of you kept your word to me? When? Traitors!" He lurched forward and pitched the projector off the table. Koerner's wife and daughter flinched at the crash and ducked down the companionway. Haran, who had clearly seen such displays before, did nothing to restrain her boss.

  Koerner's face was red. "That's it," he said. "Whatever possessed me to put my family in the way of a madman like you, I am sure I don't know. If I have anything to say about it, you will never work in Hollywood again."

  "You bastard! I don't need your permission. I'll work—"

  Koerner poked a finger into Welles's heaving chest. "Do you know what they're saying in every clubroom in the city? They're saying, 'All's well that ends Welles.'" He turned to the cowering secretary. "Miss Haran—good night."

  With that he followed his wife and daughter to their room.

  Welles stood motionless. I retreated from the window and went up to the pilothouse. "What was that about?" the man on duty asked.

  "Mr. Welles just hit an iceberg. Don't worry. We're not sinking."

  · · · · ·

  "Rosebud" is the same in German as in English.