A Saucer of Loneliness (32 page)

“Oh dear no,” he said, and I think if he had not been looking at his watch and worrying, he would never have said what came out. “Some people are immune.”

The cab stopped and he got out. “I’ll take it,” I said when his hand went for his pocket. “You better run.” I hung my head out the window, watching him, waiting, wondering if it would come, even after all this. And it came.

From fifty feet away he called over his shoulder, “See you Saturday, Tom!”

“Kelly’s,” I told the cabbie, and settled back.

So. I couldn’t make Beck so mad he’d exclude me from one of his parties—and somehow or other the rich and dumb and smart and stupid and ugly and big and famous and nowhere people who came there became prone to making fools of themselves—and Beck got something out of it when they did—and what did he want out of me? And what did he mean by “some people are immune”? Immune … that was a peculiar word to use. Immune. There was something in that house—in that room—that made people do things that—Wait a minute. Hank and Miss Falsehaven and, if you wanted to be broad about it, Opie—they had indeed made fools of themselves. But the guy who killed the preacher with Beck’s poker—and Klaus the spy—that wasn’t what you’d call foolishness. And then Willy Simms. Is the creation of a hit song foolishness?

Lowest common denominator …

I paid off the cab and went in to Kelly’s to double the drink I’d missed because Beck had been in such a hurry. I was drinking the second one when some simple facts fell into place.

The next best thing to knowing what the answer is is to know where it is. Beck was on his way out of town.

There was only one single thing that connected all these crazy facts: Beck’s rumpus room.

A good thing I have credit at Kelly’s. I flew out of there so fast I forgot to leave anything on the bar. Except a half shot of rye.

It wasn’t quite dark when I reached Beck’s, but that didn’t matter. The house was set well back in its mid-city three acres. High board fences guarded the sides, and a thick English privet hid it from the street. Once I’d slipped through the gate and onto the lawn, I might as well have been underground. The house was one of those turn-of-the-century horrors, not quite chalet, not quite manse, with a little more gingerbread than the moderns like and a little less than the Victorians drooled about. It had gables and turrets and rooms scattered on slightly different levels, so that the windows looked like the holes on an IBM card.

I hefted the package I’d picked up at the hardware store on the way and, sticking close to the north hedge, worked my way cautiously around to the back.

One glance told me I couldn’t do business there. The house was built at the very back of its property, and behind it ran a small street or a large alley, whichever you like. The back of the house hung over it like a cliff, and there was traffic and neighbors across the way. No, it would have to be a side. I cursed, because I knew the rumpus room faced the back with its huge picture windows of one-way glass; then I remembered that the room was air-conditioned; the windows wouldn’t open and couldn’t be cut because they were certainly double-pane jobs.

I tried two ground-floor windows, but they were locked. Another was open, but barred. Then nothing but a bare, windowless stretch. On a hunch I approached it, through the flowerbed at its base. And sure enough, just at chest-height, hidden behind a phalanx of hollyhocks, was a small window.

I got out the pen-lite flash I’d just bought and peered in. The window was locked with one of those burglarproof cast-steel locks that screws a rubber ferrule up against the frame. I was pleased. I got out the can of aquarium cement and worked the stuff into a cone, which I placed against the glass. Then I got out the glass cutter and scribed around the cone. I rapped the cut circle once, and with a snap it broke out, with the cone of putty holding it. I reached down and laid putty and glass on the window sill, unscrewed the burglarproof lock, opened the window and climbed in. With my putty-knife I carefully
removed the broken pane, and cracked it and the circle into small enough pieces to wrap up in the brown paper from the parcel I carried. I measured the frame and cut the one spare piece of window glass I’d brought along, and installed it using the aquarium cement. The stuff’s black and doesn’t glare at you the way clean, new putty does. I cleaned the new pane inside and out, shut and locked the window, and carefully swept the sill and the floor under it. I dumped the sweepings into my jacket pocket and stowed the tools here and there in my jacket and pants. So now nobody ever had to know I’d been here.

I was in a large storage closet which turned out to belong to the butler’s pantry. That led to the kitchen, and that to the dining room, and now I knew where I was. I went into the front hall and down toward the back of the house. The door to the rumpus room was closed. On this side it was all crudded up with carven wainscoting; golden oak and Ionic columns. It was a sliding door; I rolled it back and on the other side it was a flat slab of birch to match the shocking modern of the rumpus room. Again I had that strange feeling of wonderment about Beck and his single peculiarity.

I shut the door and crossed the dim room to the picture windows. There I touched the button that closed the heavy drapes. There was a faint hum and they began to move. As they did, all but sourceless light began to grow in the room, until when they met the room was filled with a pervasive golden glow.

And standing in the middle of the rug which I had just crossed, standing yards away from any door and a long way from any furniture, was a girl.

The shock of it was almost physical. And for a split second I thought my eyes registered a dazzle, like the subjective afterglow of a lightning flash. Then I got hold of myself and met her long, level, green-eyed gaze.

If a woman can be strong and elfin at once, she was. Her hair was blue-black with a strange reddish light in it. Her skin was too flawless, like something in a wax museum, but for all that it was real and warm-looking. She was smiling, and I could see how her teeth met edge to edge in that rarity, the perfect bite. Her low-cut dress was of
a heavy gold and purple brocade, and she must have had a dozen petticoats under it. Sixteenth century—seventeenth century? In
this
room?

“That was nice,” she said.

“It was?” I said stupidly.

“Yes, but it didn’t last. I suppose you’re immune.”

“Depends,” I said, looking at the neckline of her dress. Then I remembered Beck’s strange remark.

She said, “You’re not supposed to be here. Not all alone.”

“I could say the same for you. But since we’re both here, we’re not alone.”

“I’m not,” she said. “But you are.” And she laughed. “You’re Conway.”

“Oh. He told you about me, did he? Well, he never said a word about you.”

“Of course not. He wouldn’t dare.”

“Do you live here?”

She nodded. “I’ve always lived here.”

“What do you mean always? Beck’s been here three—yes, it’s four years now. And you’ve been here all this time?”

She nodded. “Since before that.”

“I’ll be damned,” I said. “Good for Beck. I thought he didn’t like women.”

“He doesn’t need to.” I saw her gaze stray over my shoulder and fix on something behind me. I whirled. Clinging to the drape was a spider as big as a Stetson hat. I didn’t know whether it was going to jump or what. With the same motion which began when I turned, I snatched up a heavy ash stand made of links of chain welded together. Before I could heave it the girl was beside me, holding it with both hands. “Don’t,” she said. “You’ll break the window and people will come. I want you to stay here for a while.”

“But the—”

“It isn’t real,” she said. I looked and the spider was gone. I turned back to her. “What the hell goes on here?”

She sighed. “That wasn’t so good,” she said. “You were supposed to be frightened. But you just got angry at it. Why weren’t you frightened?”

“I am now,” I said, glancing at the drapes. “I guess I get mad first and scared later. What’s the idea? You put that thing there, didn’t you?”

She nodded.

“What for?”

“I was hungry.”

“I don’t get you.”

“I know.”

She moved to the divan, rustling wonderfully as she walked. She subsided into the foam rubber, patted the seat next to her. I crossed slowly. You don’t have to know what a thing’s all about to like it. I sat beside her.

She cast her eyes down and smoothed her skirt. It was as if she were waiting for something.

I didn’t give her long to wait. I pulled her to me and clawed at the back of her dress. It slipped downward easily just as my cheek encountered the heavy stubble on hers.

The heavy—

With a shout I sprang back, goggle-eyed. There on the couch sprawled a heavy-set man with bad teeth and a four-day beard. He roared with rich baritone laughter.

You don’t have to understand a situation to dislike it. I stepped forward and let loose with my Sunday punch. It travels from my lower rib to straight ahead, and by the time it gets where it’s going it has all of me behind it. But this time it didn’t get anywhere. My elbow crackled from the strain as my fist connected with nothing at all. But from the seat of the divan came a large black cat. It leaped to the floor and streaked across the room. I fell heavily onto the divan, bounced off, and rushed the animal. It doubled back at the end of the room, eluded my grasping fingers easily, and the next thing I knew it was climbing the drapes, hand over hand.

Yes, hands; the cat had three-fingered hands and an opposed thumb.

When it got up about fifteen feet it tucked itself into a round ball and—I think
spun
is the word for it. I shook my head to clear it and looked again. There was no sign of the animal; there was only a
speaker baffle I had not noticed before.

Speaker baffle?

Anyone who knows ultramodern knows there’s a convention against speakers or lights showing. Everything has to be concealed or to look like something else.

“That,” said the speaker in a sexless, toneless voice, “was more like it.”

I backed away and sank down on the divan, where I could watch the baffle.

“Even if you are immune, I can get something out of you.”

I said, “How do you mean immune?”

“There is nothing you wouldn’t do,” said the impersonal voice. “Now, when I make somebody do something he
can’t
do—then I feed. All I can do with you is make you mad. Even then, you’re not mad at yourself at all. Just the girl or the spider or whatever else.”

I suddenly realized the speaker wasn’t there any more. However, a large spotted snake was on the rug near my feet. I dived on it, found in my hand the ankle of the girl I had seen before. I backed off and sat down again. “See?” she said in her velvet voice. “You don’t even scare much now.”

“I won’t scare at all,” I said positively.

“I suppose not,” she said regretfully. Then she brightened. “But it’s almost Saturday.
Then
I’ll feed.”

“What are you, anyhow?”

She shrugged. “You haven’t a name for it. How could a thing like me have a name anyhow? I can be anything I like.”

“Stay this way for a while.” I looked her up and down. “I like you fine this way. Why don’t you come over here and be friendly?”

She stepped back a pace, shaking her head.

“Why not? It wouldn’t matter to you.”

“That’s right. I won’t though. You see, it wouldn’t matter to you.”

“I don’t get you.”

She said patiently, “In your position, some men wouldn’t want me. Some would in spite of themselves, and when they found out what I was—or what I
wasn’t
—they’d hate themselves for it. That I could use,” she crooned, and licked her full lips. “But you—you
want me the way I am right now, and it doesn’t matter in the least to you that I might be reptile, insect, or just plain hypocrite, as long as you got what you want.”

“Wait a minute—this feeding. You feed on—hate?”

“Oh, no. Look, when a human being does something he’s incapable of, like—oh, that old biddy who clawed the pretty actress—there’s a glandular reaction set up that’s unlike any other. All humans have a drive to live and a drive to die—a drive to build and a drive to destroy. In most people they’re shaken down pretty well. But what I do is to give them a big charge of one or the other, so the two parts are thrown into conflict. That conflict creates a—call it a field, an aura. That’s what feeds me. Now do you see?”

“Sort of like the way a mosquito injects a dilutant into the blood.” I looked at her. “You’re a parasite.”

“If you like,” she said detachedly. “So are you, if you define parasitism as sustaining oneself from other life-forms.”

“Now tell me about the immunity.”

“Oh, that. Very annoying. Like being hungry and finding you have nothing but canned food and no opener. You know it’s there but you can’t get to it. It’s quite simple. You’re immune because you’re capable of anything—anything at all.”

“Like Superman?”

She curled her lip. “You? No, I’m sorry.”

“What then?”

She was thoughtful. “Do you remember asking me what I was? Well, down through your history there have been a lot of names for such as I. All wrong, of course. But the one that’s used most often is
conscience
. A man’s natural conscience tells him when he’s done wrong. But any time you see a case of a man’s conscience working on him, trying to destroy him—you can bet one of us has been around. Any time you see a man doing something utterly outside all his background and conditioning—you can be sure one of us is there with him.”

I was beginning to understand a whole lot of things. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“Why not? I like to talk, same as you do. It can’t do any harm. No one would believe you. After a while you yourself won’t believe
anything I’ve told you. Humans
can’t
believe in things that have no set size or shape or weight or behavior. If an extra fly buzzes around your table; if your morning-glory vine has a new shoot it lacked ten minutes ago—you wouldn’t believe it. These things happen around all humans all the time, and they never notice. They explain everything in terms of what they already believe. Since they never believe in anything remotely resembling us, we are free to pass and repass in front of their silly eyes, feeding when and where we want.…”