Gene Wolfe - An Evil Guest

“I — Pickens is my name. Brian Pickens. I have the place above yours, and I work at — it doesn’t matter. I got your name from your mailbox. I wanted... I was out earlier today, and I saw you come in. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not. And it won’t happen again, Mr. Pickens, I promise.”

“I’d like you to break that promise. Holy tornado! I’d love for you to break it. I just wanted to say that you’re — well, I’ve seen you now. And I’ve heard you. And there’s nobody like you. Nobody at all.”

For a moment it seemed to Cassie that Brian Pickens was being strangled.

“For the rest of my life I’ll be telling people about somebody I talked to on the phone once. Thanks for that — thank you a million. I mean it.” He hung up.

Very slowly, Cassie hung up, too.

“Miss Casey?”

Feeling dazed, Cassie turned toward Margaret. “Yes?”

“Trouble, Miss Casey?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know. I promised you eight hundred dollars.”

Margaret nodded. “I’d really appreciate it, Miss Casey. I need it pretty badly.”

“I’m going to give you a raise. Nine hundred a week. I’ll advance you the first nine hundred now.” Cassie got out the envelope of checks given her by Barclays Bank. “I opened this account today, and they printed these up for me. The ink’s barely dry and you get check — ” She glanced at it. “Number triple-zero one. It will be good, though.”

Breath sighed in Margaret’s nostrils. “I don’t know what to say, Miss Casey. This is such a relief.”

The telephone rang, and Cassie said, “It’s probably the man upstairs again. Get it, will you?”

Margaret did.

As Cassie signed the check, she heard Margaret say, “I’ll tell her, ma’am.”

Cassie looked up. “A woman? Was it India?”

“She gave me her name, Miss Casey, but I’m not sure I heard it right. She said do you know where he is? I asked who she meant, and it was the man you asked me to find last night. I said I didn’t think so, and she said turn on the vid. She said call her if you knew.”

“This sounds interesting. Here’s the money. Put it away before I lose it.”

Margaret put the check in her purse. “She talked fast, and I could hear people talking behind her. Shirley — Shirley...” A faint tinge of pink crept into Margaret’s cheeks. “Shirley Ladydog? It was something like that.”

Cassie had the remote. “Sharon Bench.”

Pressing a button expanded her living room to include a long desk, a framed map of the forty-seven states, and a wall of books. A young woman at the desk said, “. . . recap all of our top stories, including the shooting of a famous scholar, right after this.”

The remote fell to the floor.

After a moment, Margaret picked it up. “Should I mute these, Miss Casey?” Cassie did not seem to have heard her, so Margaret did.

Silent bottles of ketchup invaded the living room. One opened its own top and emitted a crimson fountain.

“Margaret...”

“Yes, Miss Casey?”

“She wanted to know if I knew where he was. Is that right?”

“Yes, Miss Casey.”

“Then he’s still alive. Still moving around.”

“I think so, Miss Casey.”

“So do I.” Suddenly, Cassie smiled. “If the guy who shot him was the guy I think it might be, I may be out of a job.”

“I hope not, Miss Casey.”

“Well, I do. And that doesn’t mean you’d be out of a job, Margaret. I’d get a new gig.”

“I know, Miss Casey.”

The desk was back. So was the woman behind it; but the map had become a map of the city. “A train has struck a school bus near the intersection of Fifty-eighth and Moore. We’re getting conflicting reports regarding the presence of children on the bus at the time it was struck. Regardless of the presence or absence of children, traffic on Moore is backed up for miles. Use alternate routes.

“In an unrelated story, the Supreme Court has extended the period for post-parturition terminations to one year. Civil rights organizations continue to press for five for defectives.

“Mayor Houlihan has declared the city’s streets safer than ever as a result of the previously announced decline in police violence. Most citizens seem to agree.”

Cassie muttered, “Why can’t they get to it?”

The end of her living room that had been occupied by the map and the books had become a park. In it, a large perspiring man in gym shorts told an interviewer, “I would say the danger’s seriously overrated. Late at night there may be a certain risk, but from dawn to midnight no one’s got anything to worry about.” He mopped his dripping face with a towel that seemed sodden already; his hands and arms were noticeably muscular.

Margaret said, “Maybe you could call that lady who called, Miss Casey.”

A young man with acne and a nascent beard shrugged. “I go out whenever. Everything’s chief.” His shirt, open to the waist, revealed an obscene symbol worked in gold and suspended from his neck by a heavy gold chain.

There was a knock at the door. Cassie opened it far enough to see a middle-aged man in coveralls.

“Come to do your wall, miss,” he said. “Want to let me do now or come back later?”

“It goes clear through,” Cassie told him. “Can’t you fix the other side first?”

“Already done, miss. You hear me in there?”

She shook her head. “We’ve had the vid on.”

“See there, miss? Only takes a moment and doesn’t make much noise.”

On the other side of her living room, the ketchup bottles had been replaced by equally silent beer bottles. Cassie told Margaret to get off the couch, and unchained the door.

“Hear ’bout the bloke got shot in Pine Crest Towers?” the man in coveralls asked as he moved the couch.

Cassie shook her head. The rectangular hole behind her couch was surprisingly small, less than a foot square.

“Gore everywhere, poor devil.” The man in coveralls disappeared into the hall outside and returned pulling a small tool cart. “Board’s cut a’ready, miss. You’ll be shocked how quick it goes in.”

BREAKING NEWS flashed on the erstwhile map.

Margaret pressed a button.

The young woman behind the desk said, “We told you earlier that the internationally famous scholar Gideon Chase had called police to report that he had been shot, that he was told to wait at the scene, and that he was not present when the police ambulance arrived. Now I want to welcome Sharon Bench of the Sun-Tribunal . Sharon’s been looking into the story for us.”

Sharon’s apparition strode into Cassie’s living room and took the chair next to the young woman’s.

The young woman said, “What have you got for us, Sharon?”

Sharon smiled. “A lot, Dorothy. First, Dr. Chase hasn’t been located. He’s not in his apartment and his car’s gone.”

“That suggests that he hasn’t been abducted.”

Sharon nodded. “It does, although abductors might have gotten his keys and taken the car. There’s an all-points bulletin out for it. It’s a café-latte Morris convertible. A bumper sticker reads “Honk If You Love Woldercan.” Anyone who spots it should call the police.”

The erstwhile map flashed a license number.

“Second, my sources in the police department tell me there’s no question now that a shooting occurred. An empty cartridge case has been found at the scene, and a bullet was lodged in the wall.”

“We’d heard that there was a great deal of blood,” the young woman said.

“There was. My sources confirm that. Do you know about the cleaver?”

The young woman shook her head. “Perhaps you should tell our audience exactly what a cleaver is.”