Gene Wolfe - An Evil Guest

There was an exclamation near the entrance to the room, a murmur of voices and the scuffle of chairs being pushed aside. A gray-black beast that might have been a huge dog was leading a man Cassie had never seen before, pulling him along at the end of an absurdly thin leash.

“Don’t worry.” It was Reis’s rough whisper. “You’re perfectly safe.”

Then the beast’s paws, each as large as a man’s fist, were on Scott’s shoulders. For a moment that Cassie felt would never end, the two stared into each other’s eyes.

Scott rose. As he did, the beast dropped lightly to all fours. Turning with almost feline fluidity, it trotted off through the tables and chairs and staring diners, and out of the coffee shop. The man who held its leash walked after it, his hard face expressionless.

Scott followed him.

“OhmyGod!” Ebony had risen, too. “A woman tried to pet it. Did you see that?” She sat again.

“This needs Russian.” Reis was examining Scott’s sandwich.

At the third try, Cassie managed, “What was that thing? That animal?”

“A wolf. You’ve probably seen them in zoos. Aren’t you going to ask where I came from?”

Cassie shook her head, richly auburn curls bouncing. “I know where you came from, Wally. I figured it out the first time you took me to dinner, remember?”

“I do, and it will save a lot of explanation.”

“Well, I don’t.” Ebony still sounded breathless. “I don’t mean to piss you off, sir, but I don’t know where the holy hell you came from or how you got here.”

“From Melbourne,” Reis told her solemnly, “by hopper.”

Cassie touched his hand. “It’s your wolf, isn’t it? You had it come here.”

“Nobody really owns a wolf.” Reis smiled. “And I certainly don’t own that one. He’s his own wolf. Scott’s going to die for the same reason your friend Norma died. His death will worry you, I know.”

“Is he? I don’t think I’ll cry.”

“That’s good. Your life will be better with him out of the way.”

Reis turned to Ebony. “Scott said in your hearing that the agency he was working for had killed Cassie’s friend Norma — ”

“She was my friend, too, Mr. Rosenquist. She was in your show and I liked her a lot.”

“They shot her so Cassie would know they were serious. The agency that shot her has to learn that some others are serious, too.”

“Mr. Rosenquist, sir, I don’t understand any of this about agencies. When they let me out of jail, I went to Zelda Youmans’s agency. I knew she had a hopper, and I was pretty sure she’d help me.”

“I don’t think it’s that kind of agency,” Cassie said weakly.

“A government agency.” Reis signaled a waitress by holding up his empty cup.

“Are you saying that guy Scott was working for the government?”

Reis shook his head. “He was working for the agency, and it’s part of the government. But it doesn’t actually cooperate with the other parts. Most agencies don’t. A man I know was with the State Department for a while. It did pretty much as it chose, regardless of the president’s policy. That was true even when it knew what his policy was, which it seldom did because he rarely had one. It had rivals, and cooperated with them only under duress.”

As the new waitress filled Reis’s cup, Cassie asked, “Is this the FBI?”

“No.” Reis paused to ask the waitress for Russian dressing.

When she had gone, he said, “This is one of the FBI’s competitors. You met men claiming to be Bernard Martin, an FBI agent.”

Cassie nodded. “I think the second one was really him.”

“You’re right. The first was working for that man I know who used to be with the State Department. I wanted to clear that up before you jumped to the conclusion that the first was one of Scott’s friends. He wasn’t and he isn’t. Now tell me about the bats.”

Cassie swallowed. “I’d almost forgotten them, and they scared the bejabbers out of me. Are they yours?”

“I’m trying to make them mine, if you want to put it that way. I’d like to, and I will. What did they do?”

“Knocked on my window, that’s all. My room’s on the eleventh floor, and they were standing there, eleven floors up. Can they fly?” Cassie hesitated. “Forget that. Of course they can, and I even saw one flying once. I’d just about forgotten. It was before Margaret...”

Reis nodded to the waitress bringing his Russian dressing. “Yes?”

“Did you do that, Wally? Kidnap Margaret like that?”

“No, but I’ve been told about it.” Reis sipped his coffee. “Let me think. You were in a cab with that man you sing with. Margaret was in your agent’s car. Isn’t that right?”

Ebony said, “So was I, Mr. Rosenquist.”

“Of course.” He was spreading Russian dressing. “I had forgotten. That was why you were in jail, Miss White. You were a witness, and you wouldn’t promise to stay in the jurisdiction. Is that right?”

“They let her go,” Cassie told him.

“They just called everything off,” Ebony said. “It was crazy, like there had never been a kidnapping.”

“They warned you to keep quiet about it,” Cassie reminded her.

“I’m not afraid of them!”

“Wally... ?”

He chewed and swallowed. “What is it?”

“At dinner that one time I told you I’d try to keep tabs on Gideon Chase for you.”

“You haven’t done it.”

“Because I didn’t know where he was. Or you either. I can’t tell you things when I don’t know where you are, but I’m going to tell you something now. Dr. Chase phoned me at the theater and told me that Margaret hadn’t been hurt and they’d let her go soon. He didn’t say who had her, but he seemed to know.”

“You’re worried about her. All right. I wasn’t going to get into this, but I will. If the local police acted the way Miss White here says they did, it was because they had found out that your Margaret had been taken — arrested, they’ll say, not kidnapped — by another police agency.”

Slowly, Cassie nodded.

“We can probably assume that it was a higher-ranking agency, the State Police or one higher than they are. Did Scott say anything about his friends having her?”

Cassie shook her head.

“Then they don’t. He’d have made use of her if they did. There’s another police agency involved in this, the one Bernard Martin belongs to.”

Ebony asked, “What do you mean by ‘this,’ Mr. Rosenquist?”

“The shooting of a featured actress of ours, among other things. I can’t tell you with certainty why Cassie’s dresser was arrested, but my guess is that the people who arrested her wanted to question someone who knew a good deal about Cassie. When you want to compel somebody’s cooperation, all sorts of facts can be useful.”

Reluctantly, Cassie nodded. She was spooning up yogurt.

“A rival agency — what was it that fellow called it? Arthur Thomas Franks?”

“Franklin,” Ebony said.

“Thank you. Arthur Thomas Franklin decided to copy their approach — that’s typical of them, by the way — and enlisted Cassie’s ex-husband. Many husbands know a lot about their wives. Was Scott one of them? He didn’t seem the type.”

“You’re right,” Cassie said. “He wasn’t.”

“Having talked to him, they decided they might get what they wanted by stupid brutality and shot one of my employees. I think we can be certain they were the ones, not only because Scott admitted it but because it’s also typical of them. It’s the way they do business.”

After a glance at the potato chips that had escorted Scott’s club sandwich, Reis dismissed the plate. “Cassie, I said once that I’d send a friend who’d lead you to me. Remember that?”