A Matter of Taste

Chapter 16

The man who sometimes used the name of Matthew Maule picked up one of the lightweight poolside chairs, a folding construction of thin tubular metal and plastic webbing, and carried it back with him into the sheltered aisle behind the row of tall live plants. Carefully he positioned the chair to face the early night's magnificent play of high fog and distant lights outside the forty-fourth-floor windows. "Sit down and rest for a time, Margot." His tone was all tender consideration. "Presently the giddiness will pass."

Mrs. Hassler's response could have been described as a moan, were it not so filled with the tones of contentment and satisfaction. Obediently and rather gracefully she settled her considerable weight into the chair—the chairs looked very comfortable, her companion thought, given the materials of their construction. Next she allowed him to tuck robe and dry towel around her, her face now looked a trifle pale. The air in the natatorium, even here close to the windows, was comfortably warm, and he saw no cause for concern.

"I feel fine," she remarked, as if she found the fact somewhat surprising. "I don't understand what—what happened just now, but I do feel fine." Then, with a note of faint alarm: "Where are you going? Must you go?"

Standing behind the chair, he patted her shoulders and stroked her hair, with very genuine regard and tenderness. "Alas, I must go. And you must stay here for a time and rest. A restful time." His voice was growing rhythmic, soft, hypnotic. "Sleep now for a time, my love. Stay away from your apartment, and from mine, for an hour at least—there." With a final careful glance at the throat of the already sleeping woman—really nothing to be seen there, at least not without a close examination—the gentleman took his silent, swift departure.

His strength had been restored by feeding, and the last traces of the drug were fading from his circulation. With the onset of night, he was no longer restricted to man-form. In order to avoid being seen by several approaching exercise enthusiasts—the fewer people who saw him anywhere tonight the better—he chose to drift in mist-form to a stairway. Then, leaping on four wolfish feet, he darted upstairs to the level of his own apartment.

Clothed in his native shape of humanity once more, he stalked a corridor. The startling sight of the battered front door of his apartment, which obviously had been broken in, then rather clumsily propped back into place, elicited a silent curse. A moment later he was inside, and a moment after that he had materialized just behind the back of an armed breather, who stood holding John and Angie at gunpoint.

The grip of his two hands, left and right, fell on the gunman's elbows. Bones snapped and crumbled with the pressure. It was done quite silently, and with a minimum of fuss, though so painfully that the breather lost consciousness on the spot.

A moment later, the young couple who had been facing the wrong end of the gun collapsed upon a blood-spattered sofa in relief.

Mr. Maule surveyed them with concern—the ruin that surrounded them could wait. Angie was wearing one of his robes and, to judge from the way she clutched the garment together in the front, most likely nothing else. Both she and John were spattered and stained from head to foot with blood, most of it surely not their own. John was dressed as Maule had seen him last, but he had obviously been through a lot since then.

Maule approached Angie. Her eyes closed and she slumped. Gently he examined her, opening her robe with a physician's brisk impersonality, observing the wounds on throat and thigh. To John, who hovered anxiously, he spoke reassuring words in answer to an unspoken question: "She is in no danger of being changed. Not unless she should be bitten again."

Maule closed the robe with the tenderness of a mother caring for a child. Then he laid his pale hand on Angie's forehead. A moment later her eyes opened wide.

"What's happening?" she asked, and sat up, almost energetically.

Mr. Maule spoke to her, and to her lover, words of further reassurance. Then he listened with sparkling-eyed approval to the tale they stammered out, about their fight with two drugged vampire rapists.

After that he had a couple of gentle questions for his young allies, following which he left the invader's gun with them in the living room, and chose to spare their tender sensibilities by carrying his prize catch, the still-breathing gunman—whose name they said was Stewart—into his bedroom, behind a closed door, for interrogation. In Maule's bedroom the signs of violent disturbance were as bad as in the living room and hall, a discovery that did not soothe his temper in the least.

When he emerged from the bedroom ten minutes later, leaving the door open, he was alone, once more neatly garbed in fresh street clothes, and looking thoughtful. Angie and John, both somewhat recovered by now, met him in the living room, where they had been examining the machine that the attackers had used to break in the front door.

The appearance of this device now suggested to the old man some abandoned relic of the fitness room downstairs. Essentially it was a long lever, which when braced firmly on the floor outside a door could exert terrific force, over a short distance, to force the barrier in. Maule had heard of police, firemen, and several enterprising bandits who used very similar devices.

Maule advised his allies to barricade the door as firmly as possible after he was gone, using whatever furniture they could move. Then they were to rest, and eat. He spoke with peculiar emphasis to Angie, looking steadily into her eyes, once more touching her forehead with his fingers. Under his influence she brightened visibly. A touch of color came to her cheeks, and more life into her voice.

Stony-faced, the old man laconically assured them both that the atrocity of rape was going to be avenged.

They accepted whatever he said, nodding in agreement, not saying much. He could see that they were both almost worn out.

He asked them: "Have you heard from Joseph?"

Angie cleared her throat. "Not since—since before the vampires came in."

"I am concerned about him, and I am going out now to look for him. Where is this Southerland condominium that has been mentioned?"

John told him and handed over a key. "What about you? You're recovered completely?"

"I am."

"Thank God!" said John fervently. Then he looked as if he wanted to ask for details; but in a moment he had thought better of the impulse.

In any event, Mr. Maule, a gentleman to his fingertips, would not have dreamt of revealing his liaison with Mrs. Hassler. Briskly he changed the subject.

"If I understand the position correctly, the only nosferatu allies of Kaiser who have ever been invited into this apartment are now dead. If the breathers should assault your door again, have no hesitation in using the gun you now possess. Or in calling the police. Otherwise—I would prefer they not be called. Not yet, at least."

"We won't call them, then. Unless we have to. Where are you going now?"

"Out. To look for Joseph, to help him if he needs help. It is hard to be more specific."

John nodded as if he understood. "What about—?" He jerked his head in the direction of the bedroom hallway.

"My prisoner? Gone, completely gone. There is no need to concern yourself." And Maule, after pausing to provide himself with a trench coat from the front closet, moved on. Angie saw him, with a sense of wonder that would never be quite the same again, exit by the half-inch gap at the side of the propped-in-place front door.

Well, Maule thought as he progressed in man-form down the corridor, passing his neighbor's door, he would deal with the situation regarding Mrs. Hassler when the time came. Selling his condominium and moving elsewhere was about the least of the problems he could foresee in an interestingly crowded future.

* * *

Angie, a little pale and weak now that the first effects of Mr. Maule's bracing counseling were wearing off, and the last of the draught reasserting itself, thought she could feel herself developing an alarming tendency to faint. Against this she struggled bravely.

"God, I need a bath. But I'll fall asleep in the tub." She giggled lightly, a faint echo of hysteria.

"Try a shower, then. I'll fix you some soup."

"That sounds good. It sounds great. Oh, John? Uncle Matthew recommended iron tablets. He said there're some in our room's medicine cabinet."

On emerging from her shower Angie explored, on a hunch, the farther recesses of the guest bedroom's closet, which was deeper than she had thought at first. The effort turned up a modest collection of women's clothing, all new and discreetly packaged in protective garment bags. Angie found jeans and a pullover that fit.

Then she went to the kitchen, sat down, and ate some soup. John, sitting across from her, related how he had spent some of her shower time fortifying the apartment against a repeat invasion, wrestling and wedging some heavy furniture in place against the broken door. The enemy had left their door-breaking gadget in the living room, so John felt reasonably confident that they were not going to come smashing in quite so suddenly a second time.

Moving in a form invisible to almost everyone he passed. Maule ventured forth to meet the deepening night, night as always in the city slashed with a million wounds of electricity.

Five hundred years of experience as hunter and as hunted assured him that Kaiser's plan was working, up to now, even though Kaiser had decided not to take part in the actual break-in of Maule's apartment. Something else had been important enough to claim his attention instead. But what?

Before saying good-bye to Mr. Stewart, the breather with the mangled elbows, Maule had extracted from him words that tended to confirm his own suspicions—Joseph Keogh had suddenly become a most important target for the enemy.

Certainly Joseph, with his knowledge of vampires, and his wooden bullets, would be a dangerous opponent. But there had to be more to it than that, the old man thought. A matter of revenge, perhaps? A turning aside from the main goal, whose attainment had been and very likely would continue to be frustrated, to catch and crush an impertinent mere breather… or was there more to his opponent's plan than that?

Given the nature of the drug with which he, Maule, had been paralyzed and his young friends' description of the man calling himself Valentine Kaiser, Maule had little doubt what his chief opponent's true name must be. Valentine Kaiser—the name in itself was a kind of pun on the truth, which tended to confirm his insight.

So far, he had communicated his theory of the foe's identity to no one. It could not make any difference to the young couple heroically defending themselves in his apartment. But he intended to tell Joseph when he found him.

If he should not be too late to find him…

Descending from the remoter heights of the skyscraper with the nocturnal rush of an owl or a bat, moving swiftly and all but invisibly, Maule made good time, traveling airborne over a mile or so of city, to the Southerland condominium.

The building was a modern high-rise not unlike his own except for being much smaller. He arrived at the condominium in less than a minute and tapped at the door. A moment later Joseph Keogh, exhibiting great relief, undid the bolts and locks and let him in.

"Man, am I glad to see you!"

"And I to see you alive and well, Joseph, I assure you. Have you been besieged?"

"Since I holed up here? No. Nothing."

"Welcome news, on the face of it. Yet somehow I find it ominous."

"What's going on?"

Maule brought him up-to-date as completely as possible in a few sentences. "And now I think we had better return, swiftly, to my apartment."

Joe was ready in a minute. "What about John and Angie? Are they still coping with all this?"

"As well as can be expected."

"And where the hell is this Valentine Kaiser now?"

"That is what I am trying to find out."

In another minute they had descended to an underground level of the building, a buried garage where a car, belonging to the Southerland company, was available to Joe. Maule, to be on the safe side, conducted a swift search for bombs and other unpleasant surprises before allowing Joe to touch the vehicle.

Then they were on their way. As Joe drove, the two men continued to compare notes.

Joe explained the course of evasive action he'd employed, using taxis and the subway briefly, to get from the Art Institute to the Southerland condominium before nightfall. Since he'd been holed up he'd called the overseas phone numbers that could have put him in contact with Mina Harker, but so far he'd only been able to leave messages.

Maule nodded in approval. In turn he explained to Joe some of the essential facts about the drug with which he and now two other vampires had recently been poisoned: What happened to breathing people when they swallowed the stuff, what happened to vampires when they bit those breathing people, and how he himself had been able to recognize the taste, although it was disguised by garlic, before he had taken enough to disable him for a long time. Luckily he had been able to regurgitate some of the blood he had already swallowed.

Then Maule related how he had induced Angie to take a dose of the same drug when it looked like she was going to be captured.

"Clever move," Joe admitted.

"Yes—because it worked. I myself have tasted the Borgia sugar at least once before, in the year 1492. I must tell you about that sometime. It will be in the next book."

"I'm looking forward," said Joe absently.

"I wonder," Maule murmured thoughtfully, "where the man now calling himself Kaiser obtained his supply? The question opens interesting possibilities, but for the time being we can leave them open."

"You know him under some other name?"

"Indeed I do. As Cesare Borgia. When there is time for leisurely discussion I will speak to you about him."

Vaguely Joe thought he could remember hearing the name of Borgia somewhere. Something in history, something villainous. "I don't suppose it makes any difference to the present situation."

"No, I think not."

Discussion moved on to the enemy's general strength and capabilities. Of course one always had to allow for possible miscalculation in such matters; but by now Maule thought he could be fairly sure that the ranks of Borgia's auxiliaries had been drastically depleted One vampire woman dead, fallen this morning to Joseph's wooden bullets. Two more nosferatu gallantly eliminated by John and Angie in Maule's apartment. One breather, Mr. Stewart, even more recently departed. There was at least one more vampire woman remaining, besides Valentine himself, the lady Joe had seen up on the maintenance floor. And an indeterminate number of breathers also; but Maule thought those would pose no problem once their master had been rendered inactive.

Maule came back to the remaining enemy vampire woman. "From your description, Joseph, I think I know her. There are not that many vampires currently in the world, you know, and most of them I think are known to me in one way or another. I expect she will pose no danger, once her leader has been rendered harmless."

"And how are we going to do that?"

"I am not yet sure. What apartment number is he in?"

Joe provided the information.

They drove into the tall building's underground parking facility, fortunately now emptied of most of its daytime users. Joe had no difficulty in finding a space.

"I must say, Joseph, that the absence of the man you know as Kaiser seems to me increasingly ominous. We had better first look in on John and Angie before we set out to attack the enemy."

"Sounds like a smart idea to me."

Mr. Maule felt a special responsibility for those two young breathers. They had been his guests when hell began to envelop them, and he had plans to hold a strict accounting with the man responsible for that onslaught. Of course, if the villain was who Maule thought he was, that accounting could hardly be as strict as it really ought to be.

They reached Maule's battered door, and Joe tapped on it and called. To his relief, and Maule's, Angie and John were still snugly and safely fortified within. They reported having seen nothing of the enemy since Maule's departure only minutes ago. The hunters urged the breathing couple to stay where they were and hold the fort.

John, when he heard of Maule's and Joe's planned expedition, volunteered at once to come with them.

"You think you're going to leave me here alone?" Angie snapped at him. Red spots showed in her anemic cheeks.

Maule regretfully refused John's request, with an appreciation of what it took to make it.

"You have borne quite enough of the burden of combat, so far." He smiled faintly. "I should feel deprived if I were not allowed to have a turn."

Then Maule and Joe Keogh proceeded to the eighty-ninth floor, the level of Kaiser's apartment.

"I take it you are still suitably armed, Joseph?"

"You waited until now to ask? Damned right I am."

A few moments later, Joe was ringing Kaiser's doorbell, standing squarely in what ought to be the viewer's field of view.

"Who is it?" The suspicious voice on the speaker sounded like that of the young woman in the surplus field jacket.

"Me. Take a look."

"What the fuck d'you want?" Now she sounded outraged.

"Let me in and find out." He could only hope they didn't realize the old man was up and running at full strength again.

A moment later, bolts and locks were being undone.

As soon as the door began to open Joe stepped in and called out in a loud voice words in Latin, words that he'd burned into his memory years ago.

Confronting him in the sparsely furnished living room, gaping at the way he'd yelled, were the young field-jacket woman and an overweight, hairy man, a breather too, who held an automatic weapon ready in both hands.

"What'd you say?" the man with the gun demanded sharply. "Was that a name?"

"It was," said the old man, coming out of thin air to stand some six or eight feet to Joe's right. He ignored the Uzi now suddenly leveled at him and in polite tones posed a couple of questions for the youth who aimed it. "Where is Valentine Kaiser? What orders has he given you?"

The potbellied one stood playing with his weapon, a finger on the trigger. "Up my ass. Ya wanna look?"

As far as Joe could tell, he himself was the first one in the room to start moving. He jumped before anyone else, as soon as the contemptuous vulgarity had registered. Because no one was going to get away with talking like that to the old man, not in this kind of a situation. It just wouldn't work. A photofinish camera would have caught Joe somewhere between a standing position and the floor, just at the moment when the old man, having taken time to think things over, started moving too. But still Joe's reaction, like those of the other breathers in the room, came much too late and in fact he needn't have bothered.

The Uzi, finger on the trigger or not, never fired. Instead it was wrenched out of its owner's hands with a force that might have harvested a finger or two with it and should have produced a yell of pain.

But the potential yell never had time to get started. The automatic weapon came right back to the man who'd lost it, the curved steel bar that formed the stock driving right into his face, thrust at him by the old man's one-handed grip on the barrel. Why bother to use two hands to swat a fly? The sound of the impact, metal gunstock crunching flesh and bone, was to stay with Joe for a long time. The man who had once owned the Uzi went down in his tracks. There would be no need to worry about his getting up.

By now Joe, lying prone, had his own pistol out of the shoulder holster. But he saw no evidence that it was going to be needed.

Mr. Maule cast the Uzi aside disdainfully—when you needed a flyswatter you could always find something that would serve—and dusted the fingers of his right hand lightly against one another, demonstrating grace and distaste at the same time.

He smiled briefly in Joe's direction. Then, with an expression of sorrowful contempt, he turned to regard the young woman in a field jacket, who for the last ten seconds had not moved a muscle, but had turned quite pale.

"Valentine Kaiser?" Maule inquired gently. "His present whereabouts? His most recent orders?"

"I don't know," said the young woman, in equally polite tones. Then she collapsed to the floor in a dead faint.

By this time Joe was on his feet again. He put his gun away. Then he knelt beside the field-jacket lady and searched her for weapons.

The old man had started going through the place. Joe followed. He looked into the bathroom where Liz Wiswell had died, but her body had been removed. The tub and surrounding tile had been scrubbed clean. Only the bolts and fasteners driven into the walls above the tub remained to show that something strange had happened here.

He prowled on, cautiously, joining the old man in a bedroom, where Maule had just discovered some of Valentine Kaiser's—or someone's—home earth.

The old man was murmuring thoughtfully to himself, ripping open plastic bags with fingernails suddenly grown talonlike, running the dried earth through his fingers onto the floor. Then he dropped the stuff, dusted his fingers again, and faced the bedroom windows. "This is on the north side of the building, like my own abode. Joseph, see if one of the windows opens."

Joe went to confirm the fact that here, as in Uncle Matthew's own place, one of the windows had been modified so that it could be opened. No doubt untrammeled access to the night air was a handy thing for any vampire to have. He asked: "How about getting rid of some of this dirt while we're here?"

"An excellent idea."

When Joe turned from emptying the last plastic bag outside, he saw that Maule had left the room. He was back in a moment, carrying one-handed the body of the man who had once owned an Uzi. Hauling the inert figure to the window, Maule pushed it out through the narrow opening, still supporting it in his grip. Then he maneuvered his own arms and shoulders out.

Joe saw Maule's body twist, and heard him grunt with a burst of explosive effort. Then he was standing still. Joe, pushing back a drape and looking down, could see nothing but some moving lights of traffic.

"There," Maule said. "A neat landing, atop the new construction. Beside his fellow, who went down some time ago, from my own window. On this foggy evening, it appears that no one struggling with the traffic in the streets below, or on the building's lower floors, has yet noted anything amiss."

Joe cleared his throat. "I see," he said.

Maule started briskly for the living room once more, this time with Joe right on his heels. They both checked out other rooms on the way. There was no one else in the apartment. When they reached the living room, Joe saw to his relief that the body of the young woman who had fainted was gone, and the front door was standing slightly open.

"I will not pursue her, Joseph." Maule was looking at him with a mixture of sympathy and amusement. "My mind is on bigger game."