Smoke Ghost & Other Apparitions

by Fritz Leiber

  "You have," Driscoll said heavily.

  "Enough of that now," Cappy said with the air of an orchestra leader dropping his baton to bring a movement to a close. "We're agreed Wilmer was the dirtiest man going. I often told him so myself. Now I want to say–"

  "I've got it!" George interrupted. "The key to Wilmer's character was ambition. He knew he could never reach the top in any other line, so he decided to become the dirtiest man in the world."

  "We've closed that topic," Cappy said impatiently, collecting his brown bottle of beer from the new round of drinks Ed was preparing. "Now I want to make the statement that Wilmer was also the most disgusting drunk I ever knew. We all get a little glassy-eyed from time to time, but Wilmer would get as polluted as a pig day after day. He really craved his liquor."

  "That's right, Cappy, that's right," George agreed, easily taking fire again. "Remember how every day at four-thirty, regular as clockwork, we'd watch him come through that back door in his green drinking coat with that oh-so-eager look in his eyes?"

  The bank carillon jangled out the quarter hour and for a bit no one said anything. The floor creaked as Driscoll reached for his second bourbon and water.

  "Otto would generally be with him," George went on, "because he quit work at the same time. But we'd hardly notice Otto. All we could see would be Wilmer's face as he stuck it ahead of him through the door – Wilmer's face and that longing in it."

  "Otto wasn't at the funeral," Driscoll remarked.

  "He's having to janitor Wilmer's buildings along with his own until they get a replacement," Ed explained. The owner of the Amity had drawn himself a small glass of beer along with Skeeter's large one and was temporarily part of the group.

  "I noticed Otto's drinking coat back on the hatrack," Skeeter put in. "Not Wilmer's green one, though. I wonder what became of it?"

  "Stop all that useless chatter," Cappy commanded. "George was describing something I want to hear."

  With a quick smile and nod to Cappy, George continued, "That look of longing on Wilmer's face would be so powerful and so touching that time and again we'd all offer to buy him a drink."

  "Yes, and he's take them, too," Cappy said curtly. "Wilmer cadged more drinks than most men. He'd accept them and he'd drink them, sometimes two or three at a time, and pretty soon he'd be so polluted I'd get disgusted with him."

  "I bet Wilmer left a pretty big tab behind," George said with an inquiring look at Ed. The latter shook his head. "Just eighty-five," he said. "His mother came in and paid it this morning."

  "It's strange to think of a big dirty souse like Wilmer still having a mother," George said, puckering his forehead. "I know he roomed with Otto and the old lady would hardly let him in her house, but he depended on her a lot just the same. You could tell."

  "You're out of order," Cappy reproved him. "We haven't got to Wilmer's psychology yet. We're still on his drinking."

  "Wilmer cadged drinks, all right," Skeeter said. "I bought him a glass of muscatel not two weeks ago. Maybe it was the last drink he ever had. No, I guess not."

  "Wilmer was getting to be a wino the last two years," Driscoll said. "He was shifting over. I suppose it was the easiest thing to drink on the job."

  "Oh, but there was nothing in the world like Wilmer polluted," George launched out again, the faraway twinkle back in his eyes. "He'd grow a bigger moon face, he'd get stupid-sillier, and he'd even fall on his face with more finality than another man. Remember how he'd always want to pass out and sleep in the back room here and you wouldn't let him, Ed? You'd say, 'No' and chase him out front and ten minutes later he'd be back there and we'd hear empty cartons crunch as he flopped on them."

  "I couldn't let him sleep in here by himself," Ed said with a grin. "Imagine what would have happened if he'd waked up alone at four a.m."

  Skeeter chortled. "Many's the time," he said, "I helped drag Wilmer out in the alley on a summer night when you'd closed up and we'd leave him snoozing there. Or help Otto get him home, though that didn't happen so often."

  "Wilmer's drinking always heavied up in the summer," Driscoll observed, "which isn't the way of a normal man who shifts from whisky to beer then. I suppose he knew he didn't have to worry about freezing to death."

  George said, "Right now I can hear Wilmer's snores. I can visualize the dirty green glow of his drinking coat when he was sleeping in the alley with the moon coming over the water tower."

  "That's enough about Wilmer's drinking," Cappy said decisively. "I've got one more thing to say about him and then we'll quit. Wilmer was undoubtedly the stupidest man I ever knew in my life."

  "Oh, but that's right," George said swiftly. "'How do I get a woman, George?' 'George, how do I get a white-collar job?' 'Why do they hold elections, George, on the days when the bars are closed?' 'George, how do people know if their kids are left-handed?'"

  Skeeter boasted, "Once I actually got Wilmer to ask for a left-handed monkey-wrench at Tanner's hardware."

  "Wilmer couldn't even do simple arithmetic," Driscoll asserted. "I don't believe he could count on his fingers."

  Ed nodded at that. "Sometimes he'd question his tab," he said, "and I'd add it over for him very slowly. It was pitiful how he'd pretend to follow me."

  George said, "Remember how for two whole months he thought I was a Communist, because I came in here carrying a book? He even got Otto believing it."

  "Yes," Skeeter pressed, "and remember the day you brought a girl in here who was a model – a dress model – and Wilmer asked her how much she'd charge to undress in the back room?"

  "That wasn't stupidity," George contradicted, "that was tactlessness. Wilmer never knew how to go about anything."

  "All right, all right, we've talked enough about Wilmer now," Cappy commanded loudly, getting his next bottle of beer.

  "I guess you're right, Cappy," Skeeter said in a hushed voice. "I forgot we'd just been to his funeral."

  "That's not the point," Cappy told him disgustedly, "you're being stupid again, Skeeter. We haven't said anything but the truth and Wilmer can't hear us anyhow. It's just that we've heard enough about him for today. I'm sick of the subject. Somebody talk about something else. Go ahead."

  There was a long silence.

  George was the first to look around at the others. An odd smile began to switch at his lips.

  "You know," he said, "we're going to have a hard time finding something to talk about, now that Wilmer's gone. Something real juicy we can all get together on, I mean."

  Driscoll nodded slowly and said, "I guess we talked about him more than we realized."

  "Oh, we can keep coming back to Wilmer for a while," George went on, "but there'll be nothing new to add and after a bit the whole topic will be so dead we won't want to touch it at all. You know what? We're going to have to find a replacement for Wilmer."

  "How do you mean, a replacement?" Driscoll asked.

  "You know," George said, "somebody to talk about, somebody to be the stupidest and dirtiest and drunkenest. If we don't find a replacement, Wilmer will ... well, haunt us, you might say."

  "Now you're talking like a superstitious lunkhead, George," Cappy said sharply. "Wilmer's dead and a dead man can't affect anybody."

  George looked at him quizzically.

  Cappy continued, "But you may have something in that replacement idea." The gray-sweatered man began to look thoughtfully at Skeeter.

  "Hey, quit that, Cappy," Skeeter said uneasily, almost knocking his glass off the shelf as he reached for it. "I'm not going to be any replacement for Wilmer."

  Cappy frowned. "I wouldn't be too sure of that, Skeeter," he said. "You're stupid enough sometimes – I've told you twice today – and I've seen you rubber-legged drunk pretty often and I know you don't wash behind those ears more than once a month."

  "Better watch out, Skeeter," Ed warned with a chuckle.

  "Hey, quit it, you guys," Skeeter protested. "Quit looking at me, Cappy."

  Skeeter was watching Cappy appre
hensively. All the others were grinning at Skeeter delightedly except George, who was smiling at the ceiling abstractedly and saying, "You know, it's a very funny thing how we really need Wilmer. Here we've been talking for half an hour as if we were glad to be rid of him, when actually nothing would please us more than if he'd push through the door right now."

  A sudden gust of wind in the street outside raised thin swirls of dust, momentarily plastered a sheet of newspaper against the water-marked display window, and since it blew from the direction of the bank, it swelled the volume of the computerized carillon jangling out four-thirty.

  A man with his head ducked low against the dust and wearing a dirty green coat with stains down the front pushed in through the door.

  The five men in the Amity saw him and turned pale. Skeeter's beer glass crashed on the floor. Then the newcomer looked up.

  George was the first to recover.

  "Otto, you old son-of-a-gun!" he cried. "What are you doing wearing Wilmer's drinking coat?"

  "Mein Gott, I didn't know it," the newcomer protested, looking down again and then raising his eyes guiltily. "The two coats always hung each other beside. I thought I was putting on mine. Here, I take it off."

  "That's all right, Otto, forget it," George said heartily, stopping him with an arm around the shoulders. "Here, have a shot of gin."

  "Have a drink on me, too, you crazy Dutchman," Cappy bellowed, getting two of his brown bottles and uncapping them.

  "And on me," Skeeter squeaked, darting behind the counter to get a washed glass and draw the beer himself.

  "A drink on each one of us," Driscoll put in, reaching for the whisky bottle. "Finish that gin, I'll pour you a snort of real liquor."

  "And when you're ready for it, a peppermint brandy on the house," Ed finished, smiling broadly.

  "Shee, fellows, thanks," Otto said a little wonderingly, "but first I better–"

  Cappy thrust a hairy finger at him, "You forget that coat for now," he commanded, "and drink your drinks."

  "Okay, Cappity, you win," Otto surrendered. "Shee, fellows, I'm sorry not to be at the funeral, but it went against my heart. That Wilmer, I liked him. Nobody's ever going to take his place."

  "Forget funerals," George directed. "How's life been treating you, Otto?"

  "Shee, Gay-org, I wouldn't know. Say, not too many drinks, fellow."

  About ten minutes later they let Otto go back to exchange the green coat for his own. The loud boil of conversation simmered down.

  Cappy said in a gruff undertone, wrinkling his big nose, "You know, that Otto stinks. I never noticed it before because he was always with Wilmer."

  "He sure snatched at those drinks when he got going," Skeeter put in, a little ruefully.

  "And he's stupid," Cappy said decisively. "Only a very stupid man would accidentally put on a dead man's coat."

  "What do you think is happening, Driscoll?" George asked lightly.

  "How do you mean?" Driscoll asked, frowning. Then his brow cleared and he nodded. "I get you."

  At that moment Otto came in from the back wearing his own coat and they all fell silent. The off-duty janitor was staggering a little, but as he surveyed them a momentary flicker of distrust crossed his eyes.

  "Say, fellows, what were you all talking about?" he asked.

  Cappy answered for them.

  "Why, Otto," he said innocently, "we were just all wondering who would ever take the place of poor old Wilmer."

  MS. FOUND IN A MAELSTROM

  ON JUNE 4, two large boxes without return addresses were delivered at the Manhattan offices of the American Psychological Congress. On examination, they were found to be filled with sheets and scraps of paper tied in packets and covered with a roughly-estimated automatic writing, a veritable maelstrom of verbiage sometimes rhyming and occasionally forming phrases but otherwise incoherent, as far as a sampling showed.

  The boxes were turned over to the Creighton Wagram Study of the Psychopathology of Creativity, where their contents were eventually used by Helen Crumly Barnes, graduate student, as raw material for a statistical investigation of rhythm and patterns of word-choice in schizophrenic thought. During the third week of her tabulations Miss Barnes discovered the following narrative in the welter of words. It appeared abruptly, like a deadly rock in a dubious sea. At the time Miss Barnes was being recompensed at the rate of ninety-three cents an hour from a grant made by the General Motors Foundation.

  ...WRONG WRONG right right write write write without sight without light in the night it'll bite and I write in the grave like a slave but I'm brave as a knave from the grave I arose and I pose without clothes but with prose just suppose suppose suppose Suppose someone very close to you whom you had every reason to trust and even love -wife, husband, mother, brother, childhood chum – really hated you insanely and always had hated you far too keenly to grant you the kindness of a quick death.

  Suppose this person – apparently normal, having no obvious motive for wishing you ill, at least as clever as yourself, and infinitely more patient and with a medieval taste for long-drawn revenges and a matchless talent for creating alibis and diverting suspicion – suppose this person were plotting spider-like every free instant of his or her life to achieve your ultimate destruction after exquisite torture.

  A nightmarish fancy? I agree.

  But do not be sure there is not such a person for you. I am such a person for Richard Slade.

  I am certain that the seeds of my hatred for Slade were sowed before the beginning of conscious memory. I sometimes think I simply was born hating the type. However, the first incident that comes to my mind when I recall my lifelong persecution of Richard Slade happened in middle boyhood. We were aimlessly loitering through a small town's summer dusk, sucking in the lovely odors of rotted leaves and damp wood.

  That morning Dickie Slade had received from a mail-order house a small telescope for which he had saved allowance and errand money for months. He had been showing it off to me all day, dragging it out of his pocket and its case at every opportunity and brandishing it like a royal scepter.

  I pretended to admire it, but actually I loathed Dickie's infatuation with the cheap thing and his intention to use it equally for observing the stars, the squirrels in the trees, and the bedroom window of young Mrs. Cloudsley across the street – just as I generally loathed his cowardice, his stupidity, his sneakiness, his gullibility, the intolerable dullness of his spirit.

  But my time would come. In fact, it had. We had just reached a weed-walled path – now, in the evening, a dark trench – treading to Dickie's house across an empty lot and past a big hunk of concrete and a dead dwarfed tree that took on eerie shapes when the light failed.

  Without warning I said in an anxious voice, "Better hurry, Dickie. You'll be late for supper."

  This simple remark, as I had known it would, instantly switched Dickie's mood from dreamy ecstasy to formless dread. He took off down the path like a scared rabbit. At exactly the point where I'd known it would happen, he caught sight of the crouching evil tree. It lent wings to his feet and blinkers to his eyes, though considering the darkness of the path the blinkers were merely one of my artistic touches.

  Hardly a second later he tripped over the dead branch I had that morning kicked casually but with infinite precision across the path, so that it was lying just two yards this side of the block of concrete.

  The wind was knocked out of him. Far more important, the concrete smashed the object lens of the telescope and drove the other end against his cheek just beside his eye. He would soon have a fine shiner. Of course I would have liked to see him lose the eye eye eye aye aye ai ai ai I I I die and I sigh and I cry by and by but don't lie never lie yet I lie in the rye and my eye sees an eye in the sky why why why in the sky there's an eye there's an eye eye eye but I and the eye could wait. There'd always be another chance at the eye.

  As I listened to his retching gasps turn to sobs, as I enjoyed his anguish over the damage to the telescope �
�� his dawning realization that the stars would remain unmagnified and Mrs. Cloudsley cloaked with distance even when she forgot the bedroom shade – I realized for the first time with absolute certainty that this was what I wanted to do all my life. I had found my vocation.

  I also knew I had been far too clever for Dickie ever to realize I had engineered the whole thing. He would always think it had been an accident.

  However, even then I didn't make the mistake of underestimating my enemy. As Dickie finally got his wind back and limped home, I remember deciding that in the future I would avoid such direct attacks. A wonderful idea came to me. Karswell.

  He was a venomous old teacher who was outrageously unfair to us boys. After a particularly nasty session, I egged on Dick to persuade the other boys to neglect their homework for the following day and refuse to recite when called on. I knew Dick had already completed the next assignment.

  So the act of revolt was agreed upon, in the far corner of the cindered schoolyard, with all the tribal solemnity of boyhood. The group broke up and Dick and I started home. The walk led us past the police station and the yellow brick courthouse. Casually, as if it meant nothing to my young life, I reminded Dick that what we were going to do was a serious thing. After all, behind the teacher stood the principal, and behind the principal the policeman. Dick tucked his head when genial Officer Mason said hello to him. By the time we got to his house he was very unhappy.

  I prudently waited while he went in to his mother – she never did like my looks and I detested her. She had a bad headache and was lying in the darkened parlor. She said something like, "...and always be a good boy." When he tiptoed out I said to him, as if impulsively, "Gee, Dick, I didn't know your mother was as sick as that. I bet if you got in any trouble she'd be awful worried and maybe something would happen to her."