Short Fiction Complete

by Fred Saberhagen

  In a short passage connecting the garage with an underground level of the Rizzo home, a pair of non-uniformed guards were stationed. They looked meaner than the Jamisons’ Jove, though neither of them was quite as large.

  “Who’s your pal, Doc?” one of them asked.

  “A man I know.” Young Rizzo smiled wryly. “A man with a problem, I expect my father will be able to help him, if he wants to help.”

  “Maybe you shoulda just phoned,” said the other guard. “The Magnifico’s sorta been lying low for the past few days.”

  The what? thought Art.

  “You know how my father likes to do business face to face.”

  The pair of gate-blockers looked doubtfully at Art. He could place them now. They were the ones who had sat on him in the brothel. Not the same men, but the type. Rizzo, Rizzo, he almost had it.

  “Well, let’s see if you’re carryin’ anything. Doc, the boss is in his study now, if you wanna go up.”

  “I’ll be back in a minute, Rodney,” said Raoul, and went on ahead. The two guards began to pat Art’s pockets and bulges, searching him. Rizzo. Little old Alfie in the slumburb tavern, saying Vic Rizzo’s town-house was bombed. Oh, great stargazing quadruplets.

  Rizzo Jr. was soon back from his filial visit. His face was flushed, but seemingly not with joy. “He says I can bring him up.”

  “Awright.”

  Art rode up with Raoul in a large and fancily paneled elevator, which disgorged them into a room like the entry hall of a small art museum. Marble columns supported a high, vaulted ceiling, and across one end of the room there burbled a complex of waterfalls and fountains and pools, complete with fish. For all its size the hall was almost crowded with paintings and statuary. On the wall opposite the elevator, in a place of dominance over the other objects d’art, was an ancient life-sized crucifix of wood, done in a realistically gory Spanish style. Its paint, once red and brown, had aged into a grayish dullness that with the cracks and holes gave the figure a look of frighteningly patient endurance.

  Raoul led Art across the museum hall and opened a massive wooden door. “In here,” he ordered tersely.

  The room behind the door was also quite large, with a beamed ceiling and woodpaneled walls. Might it all be real, virgin, tree-segment wood? Anyone whose house had fountains and waterfalls—Art-caught one breath-tripping glimpse of a girl, heavily garmented, even her face veiled, before she moved out of sight behind some opaque woven draperies. And there, almost as startling as the girl and the paneled walls, was a huge genuine fireplace that appeared to be consuming genuine logs.

  At least four chess sets, of stone or wood or metal, all large and ornately carved, were visible on tables or in display cases. A suit of armor stood at Art’s right hand. What appeared to be medieval torches standing in brackets on the wall bore warm and writhing electric flames. Upon one paneled wall there hung a crossed pair of long, pointed weapons, pikes or lances of some kind; on the opposite wall a brace of submachine guns were mounted in the same way. Walls and furniture bore many framed photographs evidently reproduced from twentieth century newspapers or films, showing men in the obscenely heavy garb of that time. The men smiled unpleasantly and many of them were carrying firearms. From the upper walls there looked down at least a dozen paintings of a more distant time, mostly of men in archaic costume wearing swords and accompanied by crouching dogs. These paintings looked old and dim enough to be originals. The Magnifico, the guard had said.

  The Magnifico came forward amid his treasures. His small torso was plump beneath his shimmering, partially translucent dressing gown, but his face still showed some of the leanness of his son’s.

  His flat voice came out around a cigar. “So, you’re the man with the troubles. I was curious to see you, I wondered what kinda man my son would bring here to get his troubles fixed.”

  Art made himself look straight into the Magnifico’s direct and seldom-blinking eyes. The reality of power before him was as apparent as the hardness of the suit of armor at his right. Art could feel the world and all its probabilities shifting again, crazily and unpredictably beneath his feet.

  Art cleared his throat. “My trouble is a fairly simple one.”

  “So. I guess my son can only fix the high-priced troubles in his office. The simple ones he still has to bring to me. What’s yours?”

  “My wife is in a birth-mill, here in Chicago.” Facing the reality of power in Rizzo’s eyes, Art had a moment of weakness, of indecision. But now his choice was clear-cut, inescapable. “I want to stop her from going through with it.”

  “So, who says I know anything about birth-mills?”

  THE fireplace roared and seemed to make the room too hot. Somewhere behind Art, Raoul fidgeted. Art said the next thing that came into his head: “I see you’re a chessplayer.” Every time he glanced around the crowded room he spotted another set somewhere.

  Rizzo removed his cigar from his mouth and raised his eyebrows. “You play?”

  Art smiled faintly. “I’m a master.”

  “No! You are?” The cigar went flipping into the fireplace. Rizzo almost bowed. “Come in here—whazza name? Mr. Rodney? You come in here, there’s somethin’ I want you t’ look at.”

  He held open for Art the drapes behind which the veiled girl had vanished. At the same time he raised his eyes to stare coldly over Art’s shoulder. “Hey Raoul, go fix yourself a drink or something. Or get out. Hey, if you see Penny around maybe she’ll wanna screw. She’s been sublimatin’ her urges quite a bit lately.”

  The only answer was the sound of the heavy wooden door softly closing; probably, Art thought, it could not be slammed. He went on through the drapes and Rizzo followed, into a smaller adjunct of the study. The girl was not in sight.

  “You say you’re a rated master, Mr. Rodney?”

  “Yes. However not in this state. In California.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d take a look at this position I got set up here. Tell me what you think about it.”

  On a board on an antique table were ebony and ivory men arranged in an intricate early middle game or late opening position. At first glance Art took it for one of the new computer-discovered variations of the neo-Shapiro defense, but one of White’s knights was oddly placed, changing the whole complexion of the game.

  “Interesting,” said Art. It really was. “One of your games?”

  “Nah, not a real game. Oh, Mr. Rodney, meet Penny.”

  The veiled girl had returned from somewhere amid velvet hangings, moving on soft silent feet. Under the Magnifico’s smiling but watchful eye, Art kissed Penny hello with a fervent show of lust, and pushed a fondling hand inside the innermost of her voluminous garments.

  Rizzo chuckled benevolently. “Now run along, little lady.”

  Penny paused to blow an openmouthed kiss to Art before she let the drapes fall into place behind her.

  Rizzo, staring at the place where she had vanished, released a small sigh. “That son of mine just don’t know how to keep a woman.” Then he brightened. “That reminds me. You hear the one about this traveling salesgirl, she stops at a lamasery to sell blankets?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Evidently he was not going to hear it now. Rizzo was still looking after the girl. “That Penny, though. She’s been livin’ with me here almost a year now, and I’ve never touched her. Imagine.” He sighed again. “I hardly seen a centimeter of her skin in all that time. I did see her ankle once, when she was walkin’ upstairs, and I nearly went dizzy. I tell you, when I finally get rid of that girl she’ll prob’ly take a lot of loot along, but she’s been worth it, everything a man could want. Whaddya think about this opening setup, now?”

  “Interesting.” With some relief Art turned back to the board.

  “Y’see, I’m foolin’ around with a little analysis here. I like to take the book theory, you know, and try t’ find improvements in it. The fellas who write them chess books sometimes don’t know much about the practical si
de of the game. Chastity, I’d like t’ get out and play in some tournaments. But I got too much business to think about.” Rizzo glanced up from the board. “I’m a investment counselor.”

  “I see. I was hoping to play in a big tournament myself, but then this trouble came up involving my wife. That makes it very hard to concentrate on chess.”

  “Oh, yeah. She’s in some birth-mill, you said. Tell me about that.”

  Art recited his story. By now he had it down pat, like some politician’s standard speech, that could be edited a little here and there to suit the day’s audience even as it was being delivered. “Possibly it’s too late and the operation’s already over. But if at all possible I want to stop her from going through with it. For her own good.”

  “And you say you talked to this doctor who’s gonna do it, but you don’t know his name?”

  “Right. He’s one of these Christian priests, I know that much. Tall fellow, kind of narrow-shouldered, with a sandy beard.”

  Rizzo nodded thoughtfully and started to pace the room. For the time being chess was forgotten. He lit a fresh cigar and squinted through the smoke of it, studying Art’s face.

  “Whatever people she’s paid, or promised to pay, can have their money,” said Art, as free with George’s substance as with his own. “But my idea is this: the pregnancy can just be terminated legally, and as far as my wife will know, something just went wrong. The fetus turned out not to be viable, or whatever the medical term is. That’s simple, and there’s no trouble in it for anyone.”

  Rizzo smiled faintly. “I kinda taken a liking to you, Mr. Rodney. Course you understand I don’t know nothin’ about midwifers—but what did you say your wife’s name is, what does she look like?”

  Art told him, and ran through the standard speech again, going into greater detail. His tongue stumbled reluctantly at times. He felt afraid to start hoping again.

  Rizzo heard him out, then nodded decisively. “Yeah, I see. Too bad. Any day now she’s gonna have the operation, huh?”

  “I got the impression it might be at any hour.”

  “Uh-huh. Some of these priests don’t stick to religion, they’re real cultists and mix into things where they don’t belong. Excuse me a minute, I got a phone call to make. Look over this position here meanwhile, hey? Tell me how do you like White’s chances.”

  LEFT alone, Art heaved a tremendous silent sigh. He sat down at the chess table and leaned his head forward into his hands, letting his eyes close. A great exhaustion was coming down upon him. It came with a disturbing sense of permanence, as if he might never be able to rest long enough to recover. But his feelings didn’t matter, if Rita could be saved. Someday he would be able to tell her what he had done, and someday she would understand and thank him for it.

  Art opened his eyes and found the chessmen waiting. Rizzo would expect a masterly evaluation of the position, and that was little enough for him to ask.

  Four or five minutes of Art’s flawed attention sufficed to convince him that the Rizzo Variation was a bust. Rizzo evidently thought that White’s advanced knight could not be readily dislodged from its fine post, but Rizzo had overlooked a thing or two, and White was going to have to retreat and waste a tempo, and stand poorly in the middle game. These were the facts, but they had better be conveyed diplomatically.

  In a few minutes the Magnrfieo was back. His mood had brightened into something like joviality. “Like I said, I know nothin’ about any birth-mills. Still, I got a hunch that things are gonna work out okay from your point of view. Just a feeling. Well, should we have a little game? How about a drink, somethin’ to eat?”

  “Certainly.” Art got off another sigh, like a man dropping a weight. But there was the weight still clinging to his shoulders.

  He began to rearrange the chessmen to begin a game. Someday she would understand.

  XIII

  LYING CHASTELY beside Marjorie in the dark bed between their darkened hotel rooms, Fred was pouring out his heart.

  “Ah, who’m I kidding. I’m not ready for even a brown belt yet. I could be, if I settled down and worked at it. I dunno, though, if it’s really worth the effort. All the lumps and bruises, and you never get rich. Karate just gets you flunky jobs, like this part-time bodyguard thing I got going now with this Dr. Hammad. Ivor, he’s the regular bodyguard, says the pay never amounts to much.

  “George does all right, though, running his own dojo. He must, you should see his house. I don’t know what he charges for private lessons. If I could only get myself a set up someplace like he’s got. And his brother-in-law does all right too. Ann, that’s my sister, says Art holds down an electronics job and wins prizes. He must have bread comin’ out of his ears. He wins his prizes playing chess, real good at it I guess.”

  “You, know something I was good at, though, besides karate, was woodcarving. I won a couple prizes when I was a kid. My folks showed off the trophies, but they never paid any attention to the stuff I carved. Finally I didn’t carve any more. Maybe if I’d kept up with that I could set myself up handcarving chess sets. Art would probably give me some clues on what sizes and shapes the players like and where to sell them. You know, I carved a nice religious cross once for Ann, when she got baptized. I did it from pictures in books. That was after she left home and married George. She still has it on the wall in her kids’ room. George don’t go for that religious stuff himself, but he don’t care what Ann does.”

  Fred raised himself on one elbow in the bed, making his plastic glad-rag cloak crackle faintly all around him. Marjorie’s form, similarly draped, lay still and straight beside him. The room was too dark for him to read her face but still he could perceive the tenseness of her body. A tinny, tiny sound, so faint that he could hear it only intermittently, leaked out into the room from the earplugs of her pocket hifi. Fred could not make out any of the words but he thought it was Orlando, one of the season’s top recording stars, reciting his own verse. Marj had said she liked to have Orlando on for background music whenever she got started outward to the stars.

  “Anyway,” Fred went on, “the carving business is not bad in some ways if you can get a reputation as an artist, but there are certain drawbacks. You have to have the right wood. And when you go to sell your work, it’s hard to prove it’s really handcarved unless they’ve actually seen you do it. I mean there are woodworking machines that can be set to take off little irregular chips and leave little marks just like a hand knife, and the machines do the job a hundred times faster. It’s like man in the modern world has to contend with machines at every turn, you know what I mean?”

  Marjorie was nodding, nodding gently. She could understand, she could understand it all and heal him of the pain of it. Above Orlando’s tinny moans Fred now could hear another little moan, but in his girl’s warm breathing voice. Could it be that she was weeping for him? He reached to chastely touch her hand, and tried to think of words to tell her how much it meant to him to have her here tonight.

  MARJORIE’S little moan swelled quickly into an exasperated snarl. She sat up in her crackling cloak, and with the hand he had touched she reached up to pull her earplugs out. “You twin!” she stage-whispered angrily at Fred. “What’s the matter with you? I’ve run into some horny stallions in my time, but . . . what do you think I am, your shrink? If you can’t talk it chill any better than you do, just fall back in your plastic and let me listen to someone who can.” She flopped her head back on the pillow and turned up the volume on the hifi slightly.

  Into the silence, Orlando’s peculiar, almost metallic voice recited:

  . . . up on gladrag hilll

  you left me so chilll . . .

  Fred almost hit her. Why didn’t he? Only because he was afraid she wouldn’t be hurt by his blows at all, wouldn’t cry out or fold up or bleed, but would just ignore his efforts the way his dream-opponents usually did.

  Hands shaking with the urge to hit, he got up slowly on his own side of the bed, and pulled the stiff opaque plastic p
oncho off over his head and threw it down. He turned away from the bed and pulled his clothes on and went on out of the room without once looking back.

  Outside the sky was darkening and the streetlights coming on. In the Megiddo Coffee House Fred spotted Lewandowski and the Wolf sitting at a table together, teetering restlessly in their chairs. Making sure that his own face was hard, he walked to their table amid the baby-crying music that at least was not Orlando’s, and amid the smoke, and saw their faces harden, challenging and welcoming him.

  “Let’s go cruise, men,” he said, standing beside their table. Wolfs pelt turned to look at him, with the movement of Wolfs own head and shoulders turning, and the two sets of teeth showing Fred their grins.

  “Quads and quints, I’m with ya,” said Lewandowski, stretching to his feet. “I been sitting here five hours now, let’s go find some live fun.”

  They cruised out of the Megiddo and right away Wolf began talking about how to organize a street gang and establish a territory of streets and blocks. Fred heard without listening, without caring. As they passed some parking meters Fred tried to smash one with a kick, but it was too strongly built and he only hurt his foot. He thought he managed to keep the pain in his foot from showing in his face, as he was still managing to keep a lot of other things from showing, but it was all coming to a head.

  They cruised the narrower, dimmer slidewalks. “Hey,” Lewandowski whispered, stopping the other two, “here comes fun.”

  It was a young couple walking alone. They slowed timidly as they drew near, but that only made their fate a certainty. Fred and Wolf and Lewandowski crowded them right off the walk onto the well-manicured grass.