by Fritz Leiber
The reason the duplicate would have been able to put on a convincing strip act was that this was an accomplishment of all the femmequins. Harry Chernik’s cams for this were wonders of intricacy, and Rita Bruhl worked with him closely in styling the clothing of the femmequins—the more expensive came with elaborate trousseaus, like costly dolls—just as she styled every other particular of their equipment and behavior.
And like Harry Chernik, Rita derived intense secret satisfaction from her work—giving herself to many men in many guises, without the unpleasantness of physical, or the responsibility of emotional contact. High priestess of the cult of her own beauty, she was preoccupied with the preliminary stages of sexual attraction. The later stages were quite repulsive to her.
Naturally, her work permitted Rita to satisfy completely her obsession with nubile female beauty; it was as if she ran a charm school with the added incalculable privilege of creating her pupils from the toes up. But she always put something wholly of herself into her creations—some phrase or gesture or expression that was hers alone. It was for this reason that she so often impressed her own voice on the wires and that she so frequently modeled emotions and postures for Harry Chernik. And she felt a stab of shivery excitement whenever a femmequin was shipped off in its coffin. Coffins were really used for shipping femmequins. It permitted the shipment to be accompanied by a personal representative of the firm, militating against detection. Also, modern coffins, with their rosily quilted interiors, were appropriate and pleasantly expensive jewel-cases for the robot girls.
The little signatures that Rita inscribed on the femmequins were not always unmalicious. She frequently had interviews with men ordering femmequins and during these interviews (when she always behaved with the impersonality of a lawyer or architect) she was able to spot the chinks in the armor around the client’s ego—the things that would be most apt to shake his self-confidence. Then, if anything about the client annoyed her (and it generally did), she would insert into the femmequin’s voice wires some seemingly innocuous remarks calculated to give the client a bad moment or two. But she was careful never to carry this practice so far that complaints came back to Mr. Bissel; in fact, it probably added to the life-likeness and success of the femmequins.
Also, like Harry Chernik, Rita Bruhl had her private reasons for finding her life’s satisfactions in a peculiar occupation, and they were concerned with the same man—John Gottschalk, and the same woman—his wife Louise. John had been one of the very few men, almost the only one, with whom Rita had contemplated falling in love. She sensed in him enough hidden weaknesses, especially a great need to be admired. Rita had definitely decided to say “Yes”—eventually—when he would begin asking her to marry him.
It therefore came to her as a tremendous shock when John shifted his attention to an insignificant, merely pretty girl like Louise and then, monstrously, went on to propose. She could only conceive that he had done it to be revenged on her, because she had not instantly thrown herself into his arms.
The passing years brought no obvious change to Rita. At forty-five her beauty seemed as fresh and unwrinkled as at twenty-five. She became a trifle slimmer—that was the only difference. It was almost as if she herself were one of her metal protégées, immune to age. Occasionally even Mr. Bissel sensed this and almost shuddered—though oddly enough, John, smiling at her across the luncheon table, never seemed to notice.
But there was change in Rita. Deep inside the perpetual youth of her maidenhood, a worm gnawed. And it was the worm that shaped her words and licked her lips as she patted Harry Chernik’s trembling shoulder, down by the work-rack and said, “Don’t worry so, Harry dear. You’ve put all sorts of other special features into femmequins. This one you’re working on has seven fingers on each hand, hasn’t she? And that one there in the coffin is over six feet tall. So why not one with stronger motors and cables, and with a specially armed gadget, and with only my voice on its wires? Come on, Harry.”
But Harry pulled away from her reluctantly, until he was half in the shadows. “I can’t do it, Rita,” he mumbled. “If Mr. Bissel ever found out I had broken the safety rules…”
“He won’t find out, I’ll take care of that,” Rita assured him.
“And what is this… arming, you call it, for the central gadget?”
“I’ll tell you when the time comes to install it.”
“But if something should happen to the customer…” Chernik whined desperately.
Rita laughed. “I don’t think you’d mind having anything happen to this customer, Harry,” she told him. “You see, Femmequin 973 is for John Gottschalk.”
John Gottschalk’s secret was that he was afraid of women, far more so than Harry Chernik. That was why he married Louise; he could be certain she would never desert him or taunt him in any fashion. She would be an unfailing refuge to which he could return…
For of course there were other women, but his ego became more insecure with each new conquest—he had that much more to lose.
He continued to be a thoughtful husband to Louise, within reasonable limits. It did not occur to him that, as regards himself, anyone could object to reasonable limits and demand everything.
With Rita Bruhl he maintained a luncheon-relationship, nothing more. She showed toward him a dispassionate yet untiring interest deeper, it sometimes seemed, even than love.
John always laughed appreciatively at the bits of information Rita let slip about her unusual job. Gradually he inferred the true nature of Mr. Bissel’s femmequins and maintained an attitude of slightly contemptuous interest. Though when Rita told him about Harry Chernik’s employment in the same business and about Harry’s increasing eccentricity and withdrawal, John would merely smile and shrug.
With the passage of years, John Gottschalk’s curiosity about Mr. Bissel’s femmequins became by imperceptible degrees more marked. Inevitably so, since John’s nervous single-mindedness in his affairs made him look more and more on mental and emotional qualities as merely troublesome.
So it happened that John and Rita began to talk jokingly about what qualities he would like in a femmequin.
When he finally did come to place the order, he felt a sudden twinge of uneasiness, but this was dispelled by Rita’s impersonal but approving manner—like a Jeeves when his master has decided to order just the proper wardrobe.
And so, since Harry Chernik was a faithful and inspired workman, since Rita Bruhl was a stern and much-interested task-mistress—and since Mr. Bissel was not an overly-inquisitive boss, the femmequin for John Gottschalk got delivered in its canvas-covered coffin.
But John was out. It was his wife Louise who timidly opened the door and showed the two delivery men to John’s bedroom. The delivery man, who was Mr. Bissel’s representative, never for a moment thought that Louise was Mr. Gottschalk’s wife; her manner and her clothes convinced him that she was a servant. He even had his assistant strip the canvas from the coffin, and he smiled knowingly at Louise as he departed.
Afterwards, Louise went back to the bedroom and sat looking at the coffin.
Louise Gottschalk had never thought of herself as an attractive woman and could never understand why John had chosen her; she adored him, made a god of him, and found that the hallmark of a god is that he demands sacrifices. John’s affairs sharpened her sense of inadequacy.
And now she sat looking at the strange box shaped so much like a coffin. She wondered if John had taken up an interest in statuary or model spaceships. After looking at the box for a long while, she touched its side.
It opened at once.
A slim, beautiful woman whom Louise knew sat up stiffly and looked at her. The woman was dressed delectably from the male viewpoint, plunging neckline and all.
“Miss Bruhl… Rita,” Louise said astoundedly, edging back.
“My little timid one, my frightened darling,” Femmequin 973 exclaimed, suddenly standing up in the coffin. “You see, I know you are frightened, for I know you’re afraid
of all women, and of me especially.”
Louise shrank away. “Please, Rita, please don’t be silly,” she croaked faintly.
Femmequin 973 leaned forward, so that the plunging neckline plunged farther. “Don’t run, darling. I know you’re very surprised and very frightened, but you can’t get away from me now.” The femmequin suddenly jumped out of the coffin and slowly advanced.
Louise tried to shrink away farther, but the wall was at her back. “Rita, Rita, this is terrible,” she gasped.
The slim hands of Femmequin 973 went to its waist and the plunging neckline plunged. “Look at me,” she commanded. “I’m very beautiful, aren’t I, and even more frightening. I’m afraid this is going to scare you very much; and it’s going to hurt you, too.” And the arms of Femmequin 973 stretched out and suddenly clasped tight around Louise.
Then Louise finally screamed and fought and shouted, “Stop, Rita, stop!” but Femmequin 973 did not stop. It clasped and loosed and clasped again, for what seemed to be hours of torture, all the while murmuring in Louise’s ear. Finally, clutching her tighter yet, Femmequin 973 drew back its exquisite triumphant face and said, “This is what scares you the most, isn’t it? This is what you’re afraid women will do to you, you…”
Fainting in the steel and suede-rubber embrace, Louise hardly heard the faint clashing and grinding sound, as Femmequin 973 breathed, “… you eunuch.”
NIGHT PASSAGE
The large gold coin rang and settled on the green felt where the newly arriving young lady crying out “Eight!” had pitched it and the ivory marble clicked against the diamond-shaped silvery point in the darkly gleaming mahogany bowl while a voice called, “No more bets. Game closed.” The golden coin’s worn face faintly revealed to my glance a circle that was horned and had a pendant cross. Then the ivory ball clattered into a slowly revolving metal square.
“Eight. Black,” the croupier called and the banker’s large, meaty, well-manicured white hand with wiry black hairs sprouting from its back closed on the coin and lifted it off the eight square.
“That bet came too late. Sorry,” he said and tossed it back.
The young lady did not pick it up, but stared across the table at the house.
The banker and the croupier stared back—and the pit boss too, come up opportunely behind them.
For a moment they made an arresting tableau of challenge. The young lady very slender and standing tall, dark hair piled high, profile neat as one on a coin, wearing a thin, thigh-length cotton dress (snug but not tight around the narrow waist) of black and carnation red, both colors harmoniously faded. The three men oldish young, gone beefy around the necks like tomcats, leaning a little toward her aggressively. All three in evening dress with the blank, stupid faces of athletes and ward politicians, but with a diamond glint deep in their eyes.
Beside me, the thin old man who looked like a bad-tempered high school physics teacher volunteered, “I heard the ball click out before the bet landed. It was too late.”
The banker started a smile, then changed it tentatively to a frown as I said, “I heard it the other way. First the bet landed. Then the ball clicked out.”
Immediately two ladies across the table, who looked the sort who are always eager to back up authority, said together, “No, the bet was too late. We were watching,” and three other players nodded.
The banker’s smile blossomed after all. “Sorry,” he repeated.
The young lady snatched up her coin, turned her back, and walked away swiftly.
I had won a small wager split between eight and eleven. I cashed in my violet roulette chips and shoved the general house chips I got in return into the right-hand side pocket of my jacket, which I needed—the air conditioning made the Zodiac’s casino almost frigid despite the moderate crowd and the furious Mojave heat outside; early that morning I’d opened my bedroom door, which faced the east and let onto an outside balcony, and the radiance of the new risen sun had been like a physical blow—as if it had been trying to knock me over with one sneaky shot.
I asked the old man beside me (he seemed sharp eyed at least), “Did you notice what kind of coin that was she bet?”
“That was no coin,” he told me as if I were one of his poorer students. “That was a yellow ten-dollar chip.”
I wandered up and down the luxurious aisles, wondering whether to have a go at blackjack, or rest a bit while making a few keno bets, or even more sensibly take a long nap before my night-long drive. I glanced at my wrist, but I’d left my watch in my room. I started to look around before I remembered that there are no clocks in Vegas, at least anywhere in the casinos.
They keep it a timeless place so one won’t be reminded of appointments that should be kept, whether for business or food or sleep or work or love, and so be tempted to cut short a winning streak before it turns into a losing one, or the latter ever, but I like to fancy it makes time travel possible—enter the timeless world from anywhen and later exit at any time future or past one chooses.
Off in a shadowy corner I saw a slender patch of harmoniously faded black and carnation red. They’d put a small bar there. I eased myself onto the stool beside her and ordered a scotch and water.
She turned dark eyes on me. “Thank you for your support,” she said and smiled.
“It didn’t help,” I reminded her with a shrug. “Tell me, isn’t a horned circle with a cross below—a horned ankh, one could almost say—a sign of Mercury?”
“I think so,” she replied, wrinkling her neat, straight, rather short nose a little as the dark eyes studied me. “But that’s not so strange. We’re on the edge of Astrological Territory.” She said it with capitals just like that, as one would say Western Reserve or Hopi Reservation… or Eldorado.”
“Right in the middle of the Zodiac,” I agreed. “I thought of the planet Mercury this morning when the sun looked in my bedroom door as I opened it and almost floored me—how the people on Mercury must live in capsules of chilliness to make the heat endurable.”
“Yes, the sun’s glance can be deadly, his diamond eye,” she said oddly. “So you’re not surprised at the idea of planet people?”
“I can’t afford to be,” I told her. “I write science fiction stories for a living.”
“And you think the Zodiac Hotel is like a Mercurian capsule, only bigger?”
“Exactly. Aren’t you chilly?” I asked, looking down at her thin dress. Although it was completely opaque, she seemed to be wearing little under it.
She picked up the pony of brandy in front of her and drained it, the tip of her tongue slipping out to capture the last drop.
“Not after that,” she said.
There was nothing else in front of her on the bar and she wasn’t carrying a purse. In fact, she was clean from her small flat ears fully revealed by her unswept, high-piled hair to her toes looking out of the ends of her flimsy shoes through finely textured dark stockings. I wondered where she kept the gold piece.
“Would you have dinner with me?” I asked.
“I’m sorry,” she said pleasantly, “but I’m driving south tonight soon as I take a nap.”
“That’s a coincidence,” I said. “So am I too, as far as Lordsburg. Perhaps we could combine—”
Her dark eyes (they were blue) which had been smiling at mine looked past me and grew serious. I looked around.
The pit boss from the roulette table was looking serious too in his beefy way. I thought he was going to speak to her, but instead he took a small green notebook out of his pocket and handed it to me.
“You left it at the table,” he told me.
It was mine, all right, though I’d have sworn I hadn’t taken it out of my left-hand jacket pocket. “Thanks,” I said.
“No trouble,” he assured me and walked on. It occurred to me it might have been lifted off me—God knows why, maybe to check on my antecedents. In that case they’d found nothing suspicious except the behavior of two Martians when confronted by an emissary from Galaxy Cente
r. The notebook was for story notes as they occurred to me.
I looked back. The young lady was gone, nowhere in sight, but by the pony glass was a curled-up green bill.
“That was funny,” the bartender observed to me as he spread it open. It was a two. “She had it in her hair.”
Oh well, not everyone wants to know you better, I philosophized grumpily, but why does it always have to be svelte, long-limbed young ladies with gold pieces tucked away in their high-piled dark hair?
I went and put my wristwatch on and had my nap. When I woke it was fully dark outside, but still oven hot and my car had no refrigeration—one of the reasons that I drove at night. I dressed in brown cotton pyjamas that almost looked like slacks and shirt, but were a lot cooler, then checked out. Dunkirk (my little Datsun station wagon) was like a furnace. I opened her up and gave her a chance to get less hot before I got in.
Over the parking lot, despite the upward glare of the casinos along the Strip, the desert night showed some bright stars: the triangle of Vega, Deneb, and Altair, and to the south red Mars in Sagittarius. Vega from Vegas? The asphalt under my feet was baking hot.
On a slightly higher section of the parking lot near its exit, beyond an intervening row of cars, light spilling sideways from the Zodiac showed two white roadsters with tops down parked next to each other. Beside one was a slender figure with head held as if in thought or meditation. Even at the distance there was no mistaking that profile and she was still wearing the harmoniously faded red and black cotton dress.