The Playboy Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy

by Edited by The Playboy Editors

  He felt peak-ed, definitely. He imagined his head was peak-ed and pointy and begging for dunce caps. He stared with disenchantment at the page in his typewriter and forced his eyes to follow the words again:

  quarles (lazily): What makes you think I’m your man, sheriff?

  sheriff slate (readying hands at holsters): Scar over right eye. Third finger of left hand missing down to second knuckle. You’re the one gunned down Farrow, all right. I’d know you anywheres.

  quarles (placidly downing drink in shot glass): You can get in a whole mess of trouble going round making big accusations like that.

  sheriff slate (fingers stiffening near holsters): You’re the one’s in trouble, now, Quarles. Either you come along quiet . . .

  quarles (putting shot glass down deliberately): Now, you couldn’t rightly expect me to do that, sheriff. I don’t do things quiet. I’m a loud man. I do everything real loud . . .

  Daisy-Dear reading today’s immortal prose over his shoulder. Projecting the editorial lower lip, beaklike. Inanely reporting, “He was saying he’s a loud man this morning at eleven. It’s three in the afternoon now.”

  “I’ve asked you roughly a hundred times not to come in here when I’m working, Daisy. I’ve asked you maybe two hundred times not to read over my shoulder when you do come in, Daisy.”

  Eyes slotting now. Two Daisies bereft of their honeying and kissy Dears. She knew when she’d been slapped in the face twice in two sentences.

  “Walter. Really. You know I can’t go all day without peeking in to see how Jonnikins is.”

  “And how my script isn’t?”

  “Now, Walter. You know you’re just grumpy because it isn’t going well. Two pages in five hours . . .”

  A double accusation behind that. It was her theory that his study was the best place for Jonnikins because the sound of typing gave him something to think about and generally soothed him. When there was this sound: It was her further theory that her son-in-law was a no-good lazy bum who sat all day counting his fingers and thinking about strip-teasers, and that the lack of busy noises was what made Jonnikins feel neglected and got him under the weather and peak-ed, definitely.

  “Five hours is right,” he said. “Five full hours of Feathers over there concertizing in my ear. He’s in fine, phlegmy voice today.”

  The thing was that the longer Walter sat, trying to get Killer Quarles to put that shot glass all the way down and draw on Sheriff Slate to force the shoot-out, the more the goddamn prosecuting attorney of a black bird kept throwing the book at him. This sheeny black mess of a black hoppy animal was conviction-happy D. A., rigged jury, hanging judge, and firing and blackballing story editor in one dirty, black ball.

  Walter was terrified of getting fired from Yucca Yancy and blackballed from the industry as a deadline misser. He was already three days overdue on this assignment and Quarles was still so disinclined to draw that Sheriff Slate’s fingers were-going stiff with neuralgia there by his holsters.

  “Write, Walter,” Daisy-Dear said. “It’ll be good for your nerves and for Boy-Boy’s, too. Get them six-shooters a-shootin’ like sixty!”

  She padded out on her sloshing mules.

  Gurree, gruh-greeg, admonished the scummy bum of a blackhearted bird.

  Bop, bop-bop, went his fingers.

  Bump, bump-bump?

  What?

  Duh, duh-duh?

  That little fairy with the celluloid letter opener for a nose? Mm?

  ~ * ~

  Soon as he heard the station wagon hit the gravel he headed down to the carport. Immediately he was leading her over to a safe conference spot near the hibachi patio grill, close by the vermiform aquamarine swimming pool, saying too fast, “She’s your mother and my nemesis. She was in every hour on the hour today, making time with that undernourished vulture and cracks about my work. Get Daisy-Dour for a mother-in-law and you don’t need any Romanians. Chris, I swear, if she’s going to keep busting into my room with blue pencils going counterclockwise in her eyes . . .”

  Chris put her shopping bags on the barbecuing machine and said, “Wally. Honey. She’s been giving you a workout, I know.” She raised up to kiss him on the cheek. “I’ll have one last talk with her. If it doesn’t do any good, she doesn’t live here anymore, that’s it. She carried me for nine months, but that doesn’t give her any call to needle you for nine years. You forget about it, hon. If I’ve got to choose between her and you, it’s no contest. I know what side of my bread the jam’s on.”

  She kissed him on the neck, over to the left, near the scar where the carbuncle had been cauterized off. Daisy-Dear had insisted on the carbuncle going, because she saw potentialities for cancer in all unusual blooms except her own bloating tongue.

  Chris was his one ally. He knew he could count on her against all the editor-eye vultures. Immediately he felt better.

  “You’re a girl and a half,” he said, and meant it.

  “I’d better make tracks and a half. Six-fifteen. Oo, oo. Mix the onion dip and get martoonis in the fridge. How’re you doing with the Yancy?”

  “Nnnh. Quarles’s an old chimney. Not drawing properly.”

  “Ho, ho. Never you mind, hon. You’re the A-one chimney sweep in these parts.”

  His eyes followed with approval as she gathered up the groceries and went off toward the all-electric kitchen, haunch-high, ample, still a curvy and superior bundle. If at times he felt he was a prisoner in the enemy camp, she at least was there with him, tapping out messages of solidarity on the cell wall.

  ~ * ~

  He thought of Henny Juris. While Chris and her mums were off doing last-minute things in the kitchen, Walter Jack Commice adjusted his legs on the leather hassock, sipped at his panatela, and thought about Henny Juris, wondering why. He had not seen or considered Henny for 16 years, since the Navy. His fingers were making rhythms on the martini glass. He let his eyes go to the glass patio doors, to the well-lit landscaping beyond. In this town you paid high for your red and blue banana trees. But, he told himself, he did not mind. Nothing comes free of charge. Even when you jump for joy you’re using up your legs some. All of which did not tell him why his mind was suddenly going back to Henny Juris. Or his fingers jumping on the martini glass, not for joy. He was now on his third martini, not for joy.

  The ladies came out to announce that dinner was ready and in a minute they were seated and the maid was serving.

  “Chris,” Walter said over the jellied madrilene, “you majored in psych. Stimulus-response, reflexes, things of that order. Tell me, do you think animals, the higher animals below humans, are capable of hate?”

  “There’s the danger of anthropomorphism,” Chris said. “Attributing to them specifically human qualities, like being vain about your figure and liking to see your name in the papers and wanting to be at the head of the class. But, yes, I’d give them hate. When the hippopotamus is dismembering the white hunter I don’t think his head’s full of rosy Christian thoughts.”

  “You speak of the hippopotamus. What about, specifically, birds?” He kept his eyes carefully away from Daisy-Dear, but he saw the alerted look Chris gave him across the table. “You suppose birds, domesticated birds, can hate other creatures—people?”

  “Well, we don’t know too much about birds.” Chris tasted her Chablis and grimaced approval. “Birds are descended from the reptiles. We don’t know a damned thing about what goes on in a snake’s head. They’re too cold-blooded. Where do your hostilities and resentments trend when your blood stream’s down to seventy degrees Fahrenheit?”

  “I don’t know about snakes, but I can tell you when birds hate you,” Daisy-Dear said. Now Chris was giving her warning looks, but she paid no attention. “It’s when you hate them. You can’t blame them. They’re sensitive little fellows and they feel things.”

  “Listen, Daisy.” Walter was not inclined to dapple his talk with falsifying Dearies. He knew he should not have had that third martini, but there was no stopping now. �
��I’ll tell you something about that sensitive little chum-buddy of yours. He hates me and everything about me. He even makes fun of my writing, if anybody took the trouble to decipher his stenchy warbles. Exactly like his feeder and fancier. You don’t need deciphering. Come clean, now. Don’t you make fun of my writing?”

  “I think it would be better not to go into literary matters,” Chris said cautioningly. Her words were meant for her mother, but Daisy-Dear was too interested in rising to the occasion, the beam of battle was in her eye.

  “Since you ask me, Walter,” she said happily, full of anticipation, “since you seem to want my opinion, I’m no critic, but I can tell you this, I think it’s a shame and a disgrace for a grown man to be spending his life trying to get strutty little outlaws and sheriffs to shoot bullets into each other. There are other things in life besides guns and gore and men with two-year-olds’ itches talking tough and with barks at each other. Besides, you can’t even get your itchy men to reach for their guns. You get them talking tougher and tougher and longer and longer and-”

  No telling how far she would have gone if the maid had not just then come in with the steaming roast beef on a platter. They sat with petrified eyes until the maid was gone. Then Chris looked directly at her mother and said, “Mother, let’s understand one thing. Walter is my husband. I love him and love and approve of everything he does, and if anybody feels differently about it, there’s no room for such a person in this house. Is that clear?”

  Before the old lady could open her mouth Walter said, “I’m glad you said what you did, Daisy, very glad. It’s good to get these things out in the open. Let me just inform you, for your information, that by writing about people who talk tough and itchily reach for their guns, as you so choicely put it, I make over thirty thousand dollars each year after taxes. Some people may have very highly developed critical minds and see what’s less than perfect in everything, but if you look at their tax returns-”

  “Thank you very much, Walter,” Daisy-Dear said. “Thank you for reminding me that I’m a helpless old woman who can’t earn her keep anymore and has to depend on the charity of people who don’t want her around. I’m well aware of the fact that I’m a pauper and have to live where I’m not wanted. For your information, your toughies with all their itches aren’t reaching so much for their guns lately. You’re days late with this Yancy and you still can’t get Mr. Quarles to stop talking long enough to take a gun to Mr. Slate.”

  “All right, Mother,” Chris said with the firmness of ultimatum. “I think that does it. I think that’s just about it. You’ve been making life miserable for Walter long enough, and my first loyalty is to my husband. You won’t be a pauper, Daisy-Dear. We’ll see to it that you never want for anything, but you can’t stay here. I suggest you go to your room and start packing. We’ll make the necessary arrangements in the morning.”

  “I’ll be happy to leave this house,” Daisy-Dear said. She stood up with dignity. “I don’t care to be in a place where a soul can’t speak her mind.” She left the room without a look back.

  Walter called exultantly after her, “And Daisy-Dear, take iddums Jonnikins with you! Tell him about Dostoievsky!”

  He was feeling taken care of and vindicated. The feeling increased when Chris came over and kissed him on the head, saying, “It’ll be all right now, darling. This was coming for a long time. I just had to handle it my own way and in my own time.”

  He patted her hand with all affection. “Thanks, honey. I really mean it. These are the moments that count, when you’re tapping strong on the cell wall.”

  Chris went back to her seat as he said with all heartiness, “Mothers-in-law should be hurried and not seen. You know.” But Chris didn’t laugh, and Walter couldn’t bring himself to laugh either. He knew damned well he was no fairy, but here he was making one of those misogynistic mother-in-law jokes that had fairy overtones. He said as he bent to carve the rib, holding the tools before him like lances, suddenly gloomy, “Damn it. I swear, by midnight Quarles’s going to be letting loose at Slate with both barrels.” Then his fingers were throbbing obscure semaphors and he was exclaiming, “Henny Juris! Of course! Hon, what we were saying about animals and hate, listen, I just came in mind of a proof! Rumpy! The scratcher, the chuckler, Rumpy!”

  “Translate, please,” Chris said.

  It was all back in Walter’s mind: “My God, yes. The squirrel.” Around the edges of the memory he was aware of his fingers going faster against the tabletop. “This was a little beast one of the lieutenant jg.s in Newport News had. Lieutenant Quarles, come to think of it, that was his name. I guess I never told you. This Rumpy was, generally speaking, an affectionate little bugger, he really liked people, all kinds, he was forever nuzzling and making up to everybody. The only one he wouldn’t kiss and mush up to was Henny Juris. Oh, how that little so-and-so hated Henny’s insides. He made Henny’s life miserable, I’m telling you. Henny’s got scars from where that animal bit his fingers to the bone. Once they had to tear Rumpy off Henny because he was trying to scratch Henny’s eyes out. He saw red whenever Henny was in the neighborhood. Spitting and clawing was his one hello. What Rumpy felt for that man wasn’t anything as soft as hate. It was homicide, pure and simple.”

  His fingers were on the speed-up. He was sitting straight, aware of how his breathing had speeded up, too.

  “Right!” he said. “Absolutely! Not a word of exaggeration in that! How that squirrel went out of his mind and screamed like a banshee every time Henny came near! You know what his favorite trick was, Chris? He used to go to the bathroom on Henny’s desk, on his bedclothes, his shoes, his head, even. He would scamper about, and go to the bathroom all over poor Hen!” Walter moved his hands from the table to his knees, but the fingers went on working. “Henny had a theory about that squirrel. It had to do with the little bugger’s owner, Lieutenant Quarles. Quarles loathed and abominated the sight of Henny. It was Henny’s thought that he represented everything that went against Quarles’ grain and tastes. Henny outdid this guy in officers’ training, talked louder and faster, was bigger and stronger, his parents had the standing Quarles’ didn’t, there were a whole lot of things. What Quarles felt for Henny was one headful of murder!”

  “Do I understand you?” Chris said slowly. “You’re saying when a human feels something very strongly it can get communicated to an animal?”

  “Can and does!” Walter said excitedly. “And it’s for the precise same reason that Jonnikins has that baleful look when I’m around that he’d like to do me in! That kind of concentrated venom and bad feeling has to come from somewhere! We know its source!”

  “Well,” Chris said, “be that as it may. I don’t think we know enough about animals to get that detailed about what they feel or don’t feel. Anyhow, you won’t be bothered by Jonnikins anymore. Or Daisy-Dear. Whatever the ESP between them. We’re going to have a life of our own around here, a little peace and quiet once more, thank the Lord. I’ve been meaning to ask you, hon, why do you keep drumming with your fingers that way?” Walter’s hands were back on the table.

  “Oh, I guess it just comes from working at the typewriter all day,” Walter said neutrally. “Writer’s tic, or something. Writer’s tock. Let me ask you something, Chris. They gave you Morse-code training in the WAVES. You make anything of this?” He repeated the beat with his fingers, dup, dup, dup-dup.

  “Search me,” she said. “I don’t remember my dots and dashes. It’s been a long time.”

  “Eighteen years,” Walter said, drumming. “A lot goes. Sounds to me like there’s a pattern there, but I can’t get it. I’ll have to look it up.”

  “Where’s it from?” Chris said. “The way Daisy-Dear slaps around in her slippers or clears her throat? In that case, maybe you better not do any looking up. What you don’t know can’t go to the bathroom on you. You know.” She said “Ha, ha” at him hopefully, but he ignored the call to lightness.

  “It’s from an animal,” Walter said. “A col
d-blooded reptilian bird of my acquaintance. I think he’s trying to say something to me, but I’m not sure.”

  When Chris went to the bedroom to undress, Walter followed her here and there.

  “Tell me the truth, hon,” he said after a time. “Do you agree with any of the things Daisy was saying about me, I mean, really? Don’t you ever get any secret sour thoughts about me because I’ve given up my ideas of writing novels and just bat out these Yancys and drivel like that? I wouldn’t blame you if you had some reservations, sweets, but I’d like to know. We’ve never really talked about it.”

  “Oh, dear, darling, dotable Walt, of course I don’t have any reservations. Whatever you do is what I want you to do. Walt, I’ll tell you this one last time. I think you’re a marvelous writer, a beautiful writer, and I think everything you write is perfect. And I’m glad we finally had the blowup with Daisy-Dear. You’ll see. Once she’s gone the atmosphere around this house is going to get very clear and friendly. Very, very friendly.”