Gene Wolfe - An Evil Guest

“You’re solid, naturally. My guess is that Vince and Gil are solid, too. Probably Tiny. The rest of us are on the bubble, and I was hoping — ”

That was as far as Norma got before the bullet doubled her over.

HOURS later, back in her room with the door locked and the hotel operator under strict orders to block incoming calls, Cassie reflected that hoping had been the last word Norma (who had spoken so many lines flawlessly) had ever said. Had Norma heard the sound of the shot? Could she have guessed, before the shot... ?

No. Norma had bent forward, her knees buckling, and the sound had come after that, as if the intention to kill had killed.

POLICEWOMAN: “What do you know about rifles, Miss Casey?”

Cassie: “Nothing really. I shot a twenty-two one time.”

Policewoman: “I’m glad you’re feeling better now.”

SIGHING, Cassie unlocked her next-to-largest suitcase and took out the small pistol she sometimes strapped to her thigh. There was nothing reassuring about it tonight; she returned it to the suitcase and turned the key in the lock.

Dialing Zelda got a recorded voice: “You have reached the Youmans Theatrical Agency. Our staff is otherwise engaged. Please leave a message at the tone, and we’ll get back to you as soon — ”

Cassie was cradling the hotel telephone when her cell phone played “Pigs in Paradise.” Wearily, she pressed the incomprehensible symbol that let her answer. “Hello.”

“Cassie? This’s Sharon. There must be a couple dozen reporters trying to get hold of you. Have you talked to any of them?”

“No. I don’t want to.”

“Will you talk to me? Please? We’ve been friends for years. An exclusive? Please?”

“I have to talk to somebody.” Cassie sighed, and felt the sigh turn into a sob. “I’ll talk, if you don’t ask me questions.”

“Fine! I won’t. Girl Scout’s honor.”

“When I got back here, I called the hotel operator and asked her to block calls. She said she would. After that I cried. After that I took a shower and cried some more. I know you don’t want to hear all this, but I’ve got to say it to somebody.”

“I do want to hear it. Trust me, Cassie. I really do. Go on.”

“After that I thought, ‘Thank God! I don’t have to talk to anybody.’ Only as soon as I thought it, I knew I wanted to talk to somebody.”

“I’m here for you, Cassie. I’m listening.”

“So I tried to talk to God, but I got his answering machine. You know what I mean?”

“Sure. Go on.”

“Gid says there’s no good and no evil, and it took me a long time to understand what he meant by it. Mariah believes in God. That’s who I am in the show — Mariah.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Mariah believes in God, but we don’t. Add nothing to God and you get good. Does it make sense to you, Sharon?”

“It does to you, and that’s what’s important.”

“Wally isn’t here. He’s supposed to be, but he isn’t. I thought of talking to him, even if he was in South Africa or someplace. I tried and tried, but I couldn’t find him. It was like everybody in the world that I know had died with Norma.”

“That must have been awful.”

“I couldn’t think of anybody else. My mom’s dead, and my father wouldn’t care. Somebody stole Margaret and there didn’t seem to be anybody left for me. I thought of Gid, but I don’t have any way to get hold of him. His phone’s turned off and I don’t know where he is. So I thought of Gil Corby. He wasn’t in the theater and he wasn’t at the diner where he used to work. I tried to call India, but she didn’t answer.”

“She’s probably talking to the police. I don’t know who Gil Corby is, but I’ll help you get hold of him if I can.”

“He plays Mr. Sharpy. I don’t know him, but I like him. Can you like somebody you don’t know?”

“Sure. I’ll try to find him for you.”

“Then I cried again, and after that I tried to talk to Zelda. I got her answering machine, too.”

“You’ve got me,” Sharon said. “I’m right here.”

“Yes.” Cassie swallowed. “Norma’s dead. Do you know about that?”

“I heard. Norma Peiper.”

“She was my Aunt Jane in the show, and she was walking next to me when they sh-sh-shot — Excuse me.”

When Cassie picked up the cell phone again, she said, “I had to go into the bathroom to get — it doesn’t matter. My nose was running. It still is.”

Sharon said, “No problem.”

“Thanks. I remember the shot. How it sounded when it hit her and the bang right after that. I was beside her on the wet sidewalk, on my knees yelling and yelling. After that I was in a police car and Norma was gone. The woman said I was hysterical and I wanted to say I wasn’t, but I couldn’t stop crying. I...

“Sniveling. Isn’t that what you call this? What I’m doing now? I’m sniveling. You’d probably like to kick me for it and I don’t blame you, but I feel all hollow inside. No grit, no grit at all. I’m terribly, horribly scared.”

“Anybody would be, and I’d like to hug you. I wish I could.”

“A rifle can kill somebody three hundred yards away. Did you know that? A woman told me. A cop. They think he was on the roof of a building almost three hundred yards away, with a digital scope on his rifle. He shot her the way you’d shoot something on vid, and she was dead, and he went down in an elevator and out to the street. Wouldn’t people see his gun, Sharon?”

“He didn’t leave it behind?”

“I don’t think so. They said they found an empty case — that’s the brass part that holds the gunpowder. She explained it to me, and — ” Cassie thought of her own gun, the silver-tipped bullets she could count through the clear window in its neat plastic magazine, and the brass cases that contained them. Those brass cases were tarnished again, although she had taken them out and polished them once. Aloud she said, “Oh, never mind.”

“Then he hid it some way.” Sharon sounded confident. “He might have put in one of those long cardboard boxes, for instance.”

“Norma was from Maine. She’d grown up there, I mean. Some little town in Maine. She could do the accent, too. I talked to her a few times, and I wish we’d talked a lot more. She took me out to lunch before we left town, but I never took her back and now I feel terrible about it. She was from Maine and she did stand-up comedy in clubs when she couldn’t get a real part, stand-up comedy with drunks yelling and trying to ruin her act. And that’s everything I can remember about her, every last bit. One more thing — India thought she smiled too much, and I r-remember th-th-that.”

Sharon said, “Don’t start crying again.”

“I w-wish I could. Crying would make me feel better. Norma died for me. She died in my place. I know it, and it’s tearing me up inside. Someone paid that man with the rifle. We were walking side by side, two women about the same size, and he shot the r-r-wrong w-w-one.”

“Who’d want to kill you, Cassie?”

SHE had said, “Nobody! Nobody at all,” but now, as she prepared for bed, she wondered whether that answer had been the right one. Bill Reis was a murderer and Wally Rosenquist was Bill Reis. But her? Did you give diamond bracelets to women you meant to murder?

Someone had tried to murder Gideon Chase, and she was working for him, supposedly. And for Wally, who was really Bill.

Did the police kill people? That lieutenant — she could not recall his name — had seemed capable of any number of murders.

Berg? It had been something like that...

SHE was sitting in a hard wooden chair with a writing arm. Before her, the teacher rapped her desk with a ruler. The teacher was frowning, her frown was deeply disturbing, and the tapping never ended.