Alan Foster - The Metrognome and Other Stories

PIPE DREAM

"Where do you get your ideas?" is the question most frequently asked of writers of fiction and of science-fiction writers in particular. The usual response is a joking one, particularly if the author is in a hurry. If he has time, he may reply thoughtfully.

Sometimes the response can be precise.

Too many years ago I found myself attending a science-fiction convention in downtown Los Angeles. The con was run by a wonderful gentleman name of Bill Crawford and featured s mix of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. In some ways it was a precursor of today's multimedia-oriented conventions. Bill was an old-timer, but he had a finger on the future's pulse.

One of the guests and a good friend of Bill's was a charming, lanky gentleman who strolled through the con with cool demeanor and well-used pipe. Walt Daugherty was among other things a photographer of some of film dom's greatest horror stars, Karlof and Chaney included. He had a mischievous sense of humor and genial nature that, when functioning in tandem, reminded one of Hitchcock's introductions to the stories on his television show.

The greatest problem one faces at such conventions is how to greet people one doesn't know well but repeatedly encounters in halls and function rooms. After a while "hello," "howyadoin?" and "what's new?" begin to pall. So it happened as I ran into Walt hour after hour.

The afternoon of the second day I entered the dealer's room only to bump into him again, this time in the process of lighting his pipe. Desperate not to appear either banal or impolite, I searched for a salutation and finally said, "Hi, Walt. What're you smoking?"

Barely removin the pipe stem from his lips, he glanced down at me out of his left eye and declaimed with a properly Lugosian air, "Ah, it's not what. It's whom. "

And that's where you get your ideas. Thanks, Walt.

It was the aroma of tobacco that first attracted her.

Delicate enough to demand notice, distinctive enough to bludgeon aside the mundane odor of cigarette and cigar, it was the first different thing she'd encountered all evening.

She'd hoped to meet someone at least slightly interesting at Norma's little get-together. Thus far, though, Norma's guest list had unswervingly reflected Norma's tastes. Emma'd only been fooling herself in hopes it would be otherwise.

There, there it was again. Open wood fires and honeysuckle. Really different, not bitter or sharp at all.

The vacuity of her excuse as she slipped away was matched only by the vacuousness of the young man she left, holding his half-drained martini and third or fourth proposition. But the tall football player didn't need sympathy. He shrugged off the brush-off, immediately corralled another of Norma's friends. Soon he was plying her with the same draglines, blunt-hooked, presenting the first line like an uncirculated coin, newly minted. Option call at the line of scrimmage.

The owner of the pipe was surprise number two. He looked as out of place at the party as a Mozart concerto. Instead of a girl on his lap, he cradled a fat book. He'd isolated himself in a nearly-empty corner of the sunken living room.

She put a hand on the back of his high-backed easy chair.

"Hi," she said. He looked up.

"Hello." Absently spoken, then back to the book.

Her interest grew. Might be playing indifferent deliberately . . . but she didn't think so. If he was interested, he sure faked otherwise well. And men did not usually dismiss Emma with an unconcerned hello. Nor did they pass over her face with a casual glance and totally avoid the interesting subcranial territory completely. She was piqued.

There was an unclaimed footstool nearby. She pulled it up next to the bookcase, sat down facing him. He didn't look up.

Well tanned, no beard or mustache (another anomaly). Dark wavy hair tinged with gray at the sharp bottom of modest sideburns. Might even be over forty. Sharp, blunt jaw, but otherwise his features were small, almost childlike. Even so, there was something just a little frightening about him.

She didn't scare easily.

"I couldn't help noticing your tobacco."

"Hmmm?" He glanced up again.

"Your tobacco. Noticing it."

"Oh, really?" He looked pleased, took the pipe out of his mouth, and admired it. "It's a special blend. Made for me. I'm glad you like it." He peered at her with evident amusement. "I suppose next you're going to tell me you love the smell of a man's pipe."

"As a matter of fact, usually I can't stand it. That's what makes yours nice. Sweet."

"Thanks again." Was that a faint accent, professionally concealed?

He almost seemed prepared to return to his book. A moment's hesitation, then he shut it with a snap of displaced air. Back it slipped into its notch in the bookcase. She eyed the spine.

"Dьrer. You like Dьrer, then?"

"Not as art. But I do like the feel of a new book." He gestured negligently at the bookcase. "These are all new books." A little smile turned up the corners of his mouth.

"It says '1962' on the spine of that one," she observed.

"Well, not new, then. Say 'unused.' No, I'm not crazy about Dьrer as an artist. But his work has some real value from a medical history standpoint."

Emma sat back on the footstool and clasped a knee with both hands. This had the intended effect of raising her skirt provocatively. He took no notice of the regions thus revealed.

"What do you specialize in?"

"How marvelous!" he said. "She does not say, 'Are you a doctor?' But immediately goes on to 'What do you specialize in?' assuming the obvious. It occurs to me, young lady, that behind that starlet facade and comic-book body, there may be a brain."

"Please, good sir," she mock pleaded, "you flatter me unmercifully. And I am not a 'starlet.' I'm an actress. To forestall your next riposte, I'm currently playing in a small theater to very good reviews and very small audiences. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, and it's not a rock musical."

He was nodding. "Good, good."

"Do I get a gold star on my test, teacher?" she pouted.

"Two. To answer your question, if you're really curious, I happen to specialize in endocrinology. You," he continued comfortably, "do not appear to be adversely affected where my field is concerned. Please don't go and make an idiot of me by telling me about your thyroid problems since the age of five."

She laughed. "I won't."

"Isn't this a delightful party?"

"Oh, yes," she deadpanned. "Delightful."

He really smiled then, a wide, honest grin-a white crescent cracking the tan.

"If you're interested in art, I have a few pieces you might appreciate. Oils, pen and ink, no etchings." Grin. "The people in them don't move, but they're more full of life than this bunch."

"I think I'd like that." She smiled back.

It was a longer drive than she'd expected. In Los Angeles that means something. A good twenty minutes north of Sunset, up the Pacific Coast Highway, then down a short, bumpy road.

The house was built on pilings out from a low cliff, to the edge of the ocean. The sea hammered the wood incessantly, December songs boiling up from the basement.

"Like something to drink?" he asked. She was examining the den. Cozy like mittens, masculine as mahogany. Hatch-cover table; old, very unmod, supremely comfortable chairs; a big fat brown elephant of a couch you could vanish in.

"Can you make a ginger snap?"

His eyebrows rose. "With or without pinching her?"

"With."

"I think so. A minute."

Behind the couch the wide picture window opened onto a narrow porch overhanging a black sea. The crescent of lights from Santa Monica Bay had the look of a flattened-out Rio de Janeiro, unblinking in the clear winter night. Northward, the hunchback of Point Dume thrust out of the water.