An Evil Guest

THE MAGIC MOUNTAINAND BEYOND

Gideon Chase got out of the car. Cassie Casey watched him talking to somebody who might have been a Mounty and to somebody else who might have been a customs officer. After speaking with Gideon for a minute or two, the Mounty came to her window and tapped on the glass. She lowered it, admitting night air that held a spring chill.

“Are you a U.S. citizen, ma’am?”

She nodded.

“Talk out loud, ma’am. I need to hear your voice.”

“I’m not,” she told him. “My position is a great deal higher. I’ll have you know I’m an undocumented national of indefinite residential status. Our government cherishes me, so if you mess with me you’d better look out.”

“Mexican?”

“Russian.”

“You don’t sound Russian.” The Mounty himself sounded impatient.

“I ’aff lied.” Cassie’s eyes were cast down demurely. “I am uf Byeloruss. Een my own country vimen such as I are calt belles. Here you tsay dingdongs.”

The Mounty heaved a sigh. “Let’s see some ID.”

“I haf a tattoo.” Looking up at him, she licked her lips. “Ees var’ preety. Tzum private place, da?”

The Mounty reached into the car and grabbed her purse.

“That’s twice tonight I’ve had my purse snatched,” she told him. “It was an American cop the first time.”

The Mounty nodded. “He has my sympathy.” After glancing at her driver’s license, he returned her purse.

Smiling, Gideon slid back into his seat and shut the door. As their car glided silently away from the checkpoint he said, “Any questions I haven’t answered?”

“Five or six hundred. Will bringing out my star quality make me a star?”

“Yes.”

Cassie felt a sudden pang of sympathy for the Mounty. “Enlarge on that a bit, will you?”

“If you were...” Gideon waved his hand vaguely. “A factory worker. In that case it wouldn’t, and I’d have to bring you to the attention of the right people. I could do it, but it might take a week. As it is, I don’t have to. You’re an actress already. That will be sufficient.”

“My show is closing — what time is it?”

“Two fifteen.”

“Ummm... You didn’t look at your wrist. Or at the clock in front of me, either. I see it now.”

Gideon said nothing.

“All right, I’ll let that alone. Our show is closing tonight. Just a tiny bit under twenty-four hours from now I’ll be unemployed.”

“You will be my partner in a difficult and dangerous enterprise that will make us rich.”

“I haven’t said yes yet.”

He shrugged.

“I see. It doesn’t matter. Are we going to Toronto?”

He shook his head.

“Well, that’s what the sign said.”

“We’ll turn off. Another five miles or so.”

“There was a question I was going to ask you before we stopped. Only I know the answer now. I’m going to ask it anyway, to see how honest you really are. Why did the cop who brought me to this car say ultra-natural ash rose would put me to sleep?”

“I can’t say. When you were talking to your friend Sharon you mentioned lipstick, then you said your news would wake her up. I suppose the implication was that lipstick was dull and so induced sleep.”

“You heard us, too. You must have planted a bug in my apartment.”

He shook his head.

“I heard you leave, Dr. Chase.”

“You did not. You heard your door open and close, and assumed I had gone.”

“You were in there all the time.”

“If you mean all the time that you yourself were, yes. I was. I came in before you did and left after you had gone.”

“Taking nothing. Right?”

“Wrong. I took away knowledge I didn’t have when I arrived. I know you’re wearing a gun on your right thigh, for example.”

Cassie stared. “You — you watched me dress...”

“I did not. I can explain later.”

“You can explain now!”

“As you like. Before you came home, I had found your gun in the night-stand. Under it was what’s called an ankle holster. The straps on those things have to be long enough to circle the calf of a powerfully built man, so they would presumably circle your thigh. When you left, your gun and holster left with you.”

“I could have had it in my purse.”

“You could have, but it didn’t seem likely since you had taken the ankle holster, too. It was much more likely that your gun was strapped to your leg. To your calf if you were wearing slacks. When I joined you in this car, I saw that you were wearing a skirt. Besides, that Canadian officer poked through your purse. If your gun had been in there he would have found it.”

“The cop you had pick me up looked in my purse, too.”

“Did he?” Gideon’s shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t suppose he found anything.”

“No, but he’d tapped my phone. He knew about Sharon naming lipsticks to get to sleep.”

“Or he had tapped Sharon’s.” Gideon sounded bored. “Or your talk was broadcast at some point. If the number you called was that of a cell phone, it had to be. Or he spoke to Sharon afterward. I could go on.”

“You want me to go partners with you. If I do, you’ll have to trust me.”

“Exactly.” Gideon nodded. “And this sort of thing is the only way I can do it. Suppose you’d called Bill Reis instead of Sharon. Reis is the man we’re going after.”

“I don’t even know him.”

“You will.”

“I... see.” Cassie looked thoughtful.

“So I hope.”

“We’ll become friends. Reis and I. Is that your idea? But all the time I’ll be feeding information to you, maybe even setting him up for a neat little murder.”

Gideon touched the brake pedal. “No. I don’t do murders.”

“Comforting.”

“Bill Reis does, however. Haven’t you noticed that I haven’t objected to your gun?”

“Yeah. Did you mess with it? Take out the bullets or the firing pin?”

“No. Why should I?”

“Darned if I know.”

The black car slowed again and swung off onto a side road.

“Where are we going, Dr. Chase?”

“To a certain mountain. There’s a road for most of the way up. Beyond that, we’ll have to hike to the summit. When we reach the summit, you’ll become a star. That will take another hour or two, I’m afraid. After that, we’ll return. It’s important that you make the final performance of that play.”

“I’m going to name a price.”

“Are you?” His teeth shone in the dark.

“I am. A firm, hard price, the amount I want for going along with this from this point on.”

“If you want cash now, it had better not exceed five hundred dollars. I don’t have much more than that with me.”

“I want your word that I’ll get this much if I play ball. Your word of honor.”

“You’d trust me to that extent? I — well, Miss Casey, it’s flattering.”

“Yes, I would. Besides, I have to.” For a second or more, Cassie wrestled with her thoughts. “I would anyway. I don’t know why, but I would. You’re a wizard. Sharon said that, and she was right. But you’re a good wizard.”

“Famous,” Gideon remarked dryly, “for saying there is no good.”

Cassie nodded. “I think I understand that now. You mean it’s extinct. I never did before. When I saw you on vid, I mean. Now I’ve got it. Or I think I do. Is this supposed to bring my price down?”

“I suppose not.”

“You suppose right.” Cassie drew breath. “Have I said this is firm? It is. One hundred thousand. I’ll keep on with this — be your Rose O’Neal — for one hundred thousand dollars. Payable on demand, in cash.”

Gideon chuckled. “I asked the president for fifty million. I haven’t told you about that.”

“The president?”

Gideon braked, swinging his strange black car around a sharp curve. “Yes.”

“You saw him? Face-to-face?”

“Right.”

“I don’t like him. Did you?”

“More than I expected to, yes.” The black car slowed again. “I don’t believe he can have many friends, but he’s probably loyal to those he has. In general, I think he’s as honest as he can afford to be.”

“Which isn’t very,” Cassie said.

“Is it ever?”

“And you?”

Gideon grinned. “A man of shining integrity wherever there’s a dollar to be made. Or an honor to be gained, for that matter. They offered a full professorship at Harvard. Or Yale. Princeton. Wherever I wanted to go.”

“To hell with that. Did you get the fifty million?”

“No. I didn’t expect to, either. Though I’d have taken it if they had surprised me. I wanted to see how they reacted.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“The president and an advisor of his. He’s a federal agent named John Ferguson. I’m not supposed to know that, but I’ve researched him since.”

“How much did you get? Will you tell me, honestly?”

“Yes. I got nothing. My shining honesty is very much in evidence in that statement. No professorship, no money. Nothing.”

“If you can’t afford a hundred thou — but you can. I know you can.”

“You’re right. I can.”

The road angled up sharply. Cassie could sense no downshift of the transmission.

“Since I’m being honest,” Gideon said, “I should tell you that John’s called me twice since. Seventeen million the first time. Fifty the second time, but with strings. I refused both offers.”

“No wonder you researched him.”

Gideon nodded. “There’s a great deal of money to be had. I don’t know how much, and it may be that no one does. Still, it’s very large indeed. Billions, almost certainly.”

“This Bill Reis will be my assignment?”

Gideon nodded again.

“Tell me about him.”

Gideon handed her two photographs. “Put these in your purse, and have a good look at them when you’ve a better light.”

“This is him?” Cassie was peering at the photographs.

“Supposedly, yes. My guess is that they’re good. We don’t have much time, so I’ll just cover the most important points. The first is that he’s terribly dangerous. You’d have asked for more than a hundred thousand dollars if you’d known how dangerous. The second is that I suggested the obvious course — that they pick up Reis and sweat the information they wanted out of him. My suggestion was ignored. It wasn’t rejected. It wasn’t even discussed. What does that tell you?”

Cassie thought. “That they don’t think they could make him talk? Like maybe he’d kill himself instead?”

“I don’t believe so. I have the advantage, obviously, of having been there — of having sensed the atmosphere. It means that it’s been tried and failed. That they can’t pick him up, although they seemed to know something about his past movements.”

“Huh!”

“Indeed.” Gideon’s hand touched hers. “It’s just possible that they have picked him up, only to have him escape before they could learn anything. Possible, but unlikely. I believe my first supposition is correct. He’s as slippery as an eel, either way.”

“They can’t hold on to him?”

“Exactly.”

A yellow sign loomed in their headlights. Gideon stopped the car. “Leave those shoes behind.”

“All right, but you may have to carry me.”

“I will if I must.” He opened his door and stepped out into the moonlight. “Come along. We’ve got to walk from here, and walk fast.” He opened a rear door and pulled out a small canvas carryall.

“This is where you’re going to magnify my star quality?”

“I can’t. It’s innate. Most people have little or none. You have a lot, but it’s not active. This is where I energize it.”

“If you can do that, I don’t understand why you didn’t do it back in the city. Why bring me here?”

“Do you ask why your surgeon wants to operate in a hospital? If he can do it, he could do it in your flat, couldn’t he?”

“So this is better.”

“It is. There are mountains, and then there are mountains. Have you been to Africa?”

“No.” She was hurrying after him.

“I have. To Egypt and the Sahara, and to the semidesert edges of the Sahara. Once I looked across a wide, dry landscape and saw bushes.”

“And?”

“Some of those bushes were bushes and some were ostriches. All mountains are stone. Most have no life. This one is alive. You won’t believe that, and I’m not going to prove it to you. But it is.”

“Wait up! Just a minute. Please!”

He did. “It is alive and sentient. It can speak, though it rarely does. It has a wife who lives in one of its many caves. She is — a laundress. Let’s leave it at that. She isn’t important, but he is. Important to us, here, tonight.”

“I’m starting to think you’re crazy, Dr. Chase. I — ”

“What is it?”

“I’m barefoot, and you’re not.”

“Yes. What are you getting at?” He had set down his canvas bag; as he spoke, he picked it up again.

“I felt the ground tremble. Not a lot, just a tiny tremor. They, do they have earthquakes up here?”

“You were born on this planet.” Gideon sounded angry. “You live on it, yet you know nothing about it. Antarctica is the only continent wholly free of earthquakes.”

“The mountain...”

“Didn’t like what you said. Correct. Have I told you that his wife is not the only thing that makes its home in his caves? She is not. Not by any means.”

Cassie gulped, still shaken. “Got it. I’ll shut up for now.”

“There’s an inn sign, the Silent Woman. Maybe I’ll take you there sometime.” Gideon looked back at her, smiling, and began to walk again.

Ten minutes later (or it may have been fifteen) she asked, “Does this get steeper?”

“Yes. Quite a bit steeper just before the summit. If you like, we’ll turn around and go back to the car.”

She shook her head. “I’m game if you are.”

“Barefoot.”

“Barefoot and bleeding. You can walk faster than I am, but you won’t walk farther.” She pointed. “Up there. Is that the top?”

“It is.”

“I — ” She gasped for breath. “Tell me about that flat rock.”

A dozen more steps carried Gideon to it. “It’s an altar. Are you afraid I’m about to sacrifice you on it? I’m not.”

Cassie caught up to him. “I can see where something’s been burned on it.” She sounded as if she were choking.

“Exactly.” Gideon zipped open his canvas bag and took out what appeared to be a bundle of pale sticks. He turned his back to her as he laid it on the altar. When he faced her again, a small fire blazed there.

“I don’t — I don’t even pray to God, Dr. Chase.”

“That is none of my affair.” Taking a jar from his bag he poured the thick liquid it contained on one side of the fire, letting the last drops fall into the fire itself.

Cassie sniffed and sniffed again. “I know that smell. Is it — ”

“It’s wild honey. You think I’m about to worship pagan deities. I am not, but there are certain persons with whom I wish to communicate. I’m preparing to do it. Now sit down — that high stone over there. I’ll sit on the low one facing you.” He sprinkled a powder on the flames, and the odor of honey was replaced by a new one, an odor pungent and sweet.

“Perfume?” Cassie had not yet taken her seat.

“Or incense. As you like.”

“I...” She coughed. “I wouldn’t want to wear that. It’s, well...”

“Sit down.” Gideon sat on a smaller stone facing hers.

“Dark.” She found that she was seated, although she had not intended to sit. “There’s a bitter undercurrent.”

“Correct. Be silent now and look at the moon, which is very beautiful indeed. I have a great deal to explain, and very little time in which to explain it.”

For a few seconds that might have been much longer, there was only the sighing of the night wind.

“The first thing I must explain is how badly you need sleep. Tonight you’ll have to take your part in the final performance of The Red Spot, and yours must be the greatest performance of your life. You’ve had very little sleep, and I’m sure you must be exhausted. I want you to sleep in the car as we drive home. You should sleep all morning, if you can. I know you must be very, very tired...” Behind him: great, dark wings.

The moonlight, Cassie reflected, streamed down upon this barren mountaintop as upon no place else on Earth.

CASSIE woke in her own bed, in her apartment. For a time that seemed terribly short, that fact did not trouble her in the least. She had returned from the theater, gone to bed, and had a strange dream.

Sometimes she had strange dreams. Didn’t everybody?

Dreams, in her experience, faded quickly. They became less real, less and less compelling, as she thought about them. This one seemed to solidify, like a jinni coalescing from lamp smoke. Before she finished brushing her teeth, her hands were trembling.

Her door was closed and locked, bolted and chained. Her windows were locked as well. The alarm was on. The dress she had worn home from the theater hung neatly in her closet. The warmer dress she had put on for the short walk to Baskin-Robbins hung neatly beside it. Its loden wool held a sweet and smoky aroma, with a bitter undercurrent.

Her white bra was in the clothes hamper. So, somewhat oddly, was a pair of taupe panty hose she recognized as her own; oddly because the feet hung in shreds.

The pictures! Suddenly, vividly, she remembered that the dark slender figure in her dream had handed her two photographs. She had peered at them in a bad light for a second or two, and put them in her purse.

They were there. She lay them on her coffee table: image-onlys of a middle-aged, clean-shaven man who wore glasses only in the full-length shot. “Soft face,” Cassie murmured. “Hard eyes. Big shoulders? Thick neck.”

She turned one over; someone had written on the back.

On the back of the other:

She tapped Reis’s image, but heard only silence.

Sharon might be anywhere now, and was most likely out of the office on some assignment. Cassie dialed her cell phone.

“You have Sharon Bench.”

“It’s Cassie, Sharon. Can you talk?”

“Absolutely! How was Dr. Chase?”

Cassie paused, wrestling her uncertainty. “Weird. Much weirder than I expected. Sexy, and I hadn’t expected that either.”

“Did you... ?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, Cassie. Come clean. I won’t print it.”

“I don’t know. There’s a — a vacancy, I mean. A blank spot. Things must have happened last night that I don’t remember. I thought it was all a dream at first.”

“Is this really Cassie? You don’t quite sound like her. Your voice is... I don’t know. Maybe you’re getting a cold.”

“Maybe I talked a lot last night and don’t remember it.”

“Like that, huh? Booze?”

“No. I had nothing to drink. Nothing to eat, either. I — I stuck a little pink plastic spoon in some sherbet once. I remember that. But it never made it to my mouth. Right now I’m hungry enough to bite off my own fingers.”

“Well, fix yourself something.”

“I’m going to Walker’s as soon as we hang up. I’m going to order everything.”

“Not the apple thing. It would feed an army.”

“Dessert,” Cassie said firmly. She licked her lips. “Listen, Sharon. Can you meet me there? I’ll buy your lunch.”

“Maybe. When?”

“I’ll need forty minutes to get dressed and get there. Get a table if you get there first?”

“Maybe. Listen, Cassie. Do you remember my mother? You met her when she flew up from Florida.”

“Sure.”

“What’s her name?”

“First name? Martha. Martha Grossman.”

There was a long pause before Sharon said, “See you at Walker’s.”

WALKER’S served the world’s best omelets but made Cassie think of a cuckoo clock. Its windows were stained glass, and its roof was spiky with turrets. Its walls were, to be charitable, busy.

None of which were actually bad. That was left to the people waiting on chairs and benches. There were twenty at least, and some appeared to have been waiting there for quite a while.

Cassie approached the frazzled girl at the reception desk. “My friend may have gotten here first and gotten a table for us. Okay if I look?”

The girl’s mouth opened, then shut again.

“My age? Small, brown hair, big purse? Her name’s Sharon.”

“I — I know you,” the frazzled girl whispered. She sounded as if she had lost a lot of blood. “Only I c-can’t think of your name.”

Cassie gave it, although the frazzled girl did not seem to hear her.

“I’d better tell Ben.” She seemed to have come to some sort of decision. “I’ll go get him. May I have your autograph? While I’m gone, I mean.” She fumbled below the counter, at last producing a paper napkin. “It’s not for me! It’s for — for my sister.” She whirled and was gone.

Cassie borrowed a pen from a disconsolate man on a folding chair and wrote Cassie Casey, with all good wishes.

She had just returned the pen when the frazzled girl reappeared with a youngish man who wore a blue tie with a purple shirt.

“A pleasure, madam,” the youngish man said. “Your friend’s expecting you. Drinking coffee, you know. Said he wouldn’t order until you arrived. Please follow me.”

He? Cassie followed anyway, through one noisy room crowded with tables and redolent of good food and into another, this one equally redolent though smaller and not quite so crowded and noisy.

A slender, olive-skinned man sitting alone at a table set for three looked up from his menu as they approached. It was Gideon Chase.