Dreamsongs 2-Book Bundle

by George R. R. Martin

  “Yes,” Peter said. “Kathy, this is Steve Delmario. Steve, Kathy.” Delmario came over and pumped her hand enthusiastically, after clapping Peter roundly on the back. Peter found himself staring. If E.C. had scarcely changed at all in the past ten years, Steve had made up for it. Peter would never have recognized his old teammate on the street.

  The old Steve Delmario had lived for chess and electronics. He was a fierce competitor, and he loved to tinker things together, but he was frustratingly uninterested in anything outside his narrow passions. He had been a tall, gaunt youth with incredibly intense eyes held captive behind Coke-bottle lenses in heavy black frames. His black hair had always been either ruffled and unkempt or—when he treated himself to one of his do-it-yourself haircuts—grotesquely butchered. He was equally careless about his clothing, most of which was Salvation Army chic minus the chic: baggy brown pants with cuffs, ten-year-old shirts with frayed collars, a zippered and shapeless gray sweater he wore everywhere. Once E.C. had observed that Steve Delmario looked like the last man left alive on earth after a nuclear holocaust, and for almost a semester thereafter the whole club had called Delmario, “the last man on earth.” He took it with good humor. For all his quirks, Delmario had been well-liked.

  The years had been cruel to him, however. The Coke-bottle glasses in the black frames were the same, and the clothes were equally haphazard—shabby brown cords, a short-sleeved white shirt with three felt-tip pens in the pocket, a faded sweater-vest with every button buttoned, scuffed Hush Puppies—but the rest had all changed. Steve had gained about fifty pounds, and he had a bloated, puffy look about him. He was almost entirely bald, nothing left of the wild black hair but a few sickly strands around his ears. And his eyes had lost their feverish intensity, and were filled instead with a fuzziness that Peter found terribly disturbing. Most shocking of all was the smell of alcohol on his breath. E.C. had hinted at it, but Peter still found it difficult to accept. In college, Steve Delmario had never touched anything but an infrequent beer.

  “It is good to see you again,” Peter said, though he was no longer quite sure that was true. “Shall we go on downstairs? E.C. is waiting.”

  Delmario nodded. “Sure, sure, let’s do it.” He clapped Peter on the back again. “Have you seen Bunnish yet? Damn, this is some place he’s got, isn’t it? You seen those message screens? Clever, real clever. Never would have figured Bunnish to go as far as this, not our old Funny Bunny, eh?” He chuckled. “I’ve looked at some of his patents over the years, you know. Real ingenious. Real fine work. And from Bunnish. I guess you just never know, do you?”

  The living room was awash with classical music when they descended the spiral stair. Peter didn’t recognize the composition; his own tastes had always run to rock. But classical music had been one of E.C.’s passions, and he was sitting in an armchair now, eyes closed, listening.

  “Drinks,” Delmario was saying. “I’ll fix us all some drinks. You folks must be thirsty. Bunny’s got a wet bar right behind the stair here. What do you want?”

  “What are the choices?” Kathy asked.

  “Hell, he’s got anything you could think of,” said Delmario.

  “A Beefeater martini, then,” she said. “Very dry.”

  Delmario nodded. “Pete?”

  “Oh,” said Peter. He shrugged. “A beer, I guess.”

  Delmario went behind the stair to fix up their drinks, and Kathy arched her eyebrows at him. “Such refined tastes,” she said. “A beer!”

  Peter ignored her and went over to sit beside E.C. Stuart. “How the hell did you find the stereo?” he asked. “I don’t see it anywhere.” The music seemed to be coming right out of the walls.

  E.C. opened his eyes, gave a quirkish little smile, and brushed one end of his mustache with a finger. “The message screen blabbed the secret to me,” he said. “The controls are built into the wall back over there,” nodding, “and the whole system is concealed. It’s voice-activated, too. Computerized. I told it what album I wanted to hear.”

  “Impressive,” Peter admitted. He scratched his head. “Didn’t Steve put together a voice-activated stereo back in college?”

  “Your beer,” Delmario said. He was standing over them, holding out a cold bottle of Heineken. Peter took it, and Delmario—with a drink in hand—seated himself on the ornate tiled coffee table. “I had a system,” he said. “Real crude, though. Remember, you guys used to kid me about it.”

  “You bought a good cartridge, as I recall,” E.C. said, “but you had it held by a tone-arm you made out of a bent coat hanger.”

  “It worked,” Delmario protested. “It was voice-activated too, like you said, but real primitive. Just on and off, that’s all, and you had to speak real loud. I figured I could improve on it after I got out of school, but I never did.” He shrugged. “Nothing like this. This is real sophisticated.”

  “I’ve noticed,” E.C. said. He craned up his head slightly and said, in a very loud clear voice, “I’ve had enough music now, thank you.” The silence that followed was briefly startling. Peter couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  Finally E.C. turned to him and said, all seriously, “How did Bunnish get you here, Peter?”

  Peter was puzzled. “Get me here? He just invited us. What do you mean?”

  “He paid Steve’s way, you know,” E.C. said. “As for me, I turned down this invitation. Brucie was never one of my favorite people, you know that. He pulled strings to change my mind. I’m with an ad agency in New York. He dangled a big account in front of them, and I was told to come here or lose my job. Interesting, eh?”

  Kathy had been sitting on the sofa, sipping her martini and looking bored. “It sounds as though this reunion is important to him,” she observed.

  E.C. stood up. “Come here,” he said. “I want to show you something.” The rest of them rose obediently, and followed him across the room. In a shadowy corner surrounded by bookcases, a chessboard had been set up, with a game in progress. The board was made of squares of light and dark wood, painstakingly inlaid into a gorgeous Victorian table. The pieces were ivory and onyx. “Take a look at that,” E.C. said.

  “That’s a beautiful set,” Peter said, admiringly. He reached down to lift the Black queen for a closer inspection, and grunted in surprise. The piece wouldn’t move.

  “Tug away,” E.C. said. “It won’t do you any good. I’ve tried. The pieces are glued into position. Every one of them.”

  Steve Delmario moved around the board, his eyes blinking behind his thick glasses. He set his drink on the table and sank into the chair behind the White pieces. “The position,” he said, his voice a bit blurry with drink. “I know it.”

  E.C. Stuart smiled thinly and brushed his mustache. “Peter,” he said, nodding toward the chessboard. “Take a good look.”

  Peter stared, and all of a sudden it came clear to him, the position on the board became as familiar as his own features in a mirror. “The game,” he said. “From the nationals. This is the critical position from Bunnish’s game with Vesselere.”

  E.C. nodded. “I thought so. I wasn’t sure.”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” Delmario said loudly. “How the hell could I not be sure? This is right where Bunny blew it, remember? He played king to knight one, instead of the sac. Cost us the match. Me, I was sitting right next to him, playing the best damned game of chess I ever played. Beat a Master, and what good did it do? Not a damn bit of good, thanks to Bunnish.” He looked at the board and glowered. “Knight takes pawn, that’s all he’s got to play, busts Vesselere wide open. Check, check, check, check, got to be a mate there somewhere.”

  “You were never able to find it, though, Delmario,” Bruce Bunnish said from behind them.

  None of them had heard him enter. Peter started like a burglar surprised while copping the family silver.

  Their host stood in the doorway a few yards distant. Bunnish had changed, too. He had lost weight since college, and his body looked hard and fit now, though he still
had the big round cheeks that Peter remembered. His crew cut had grown out into a healthy head of brown hair, carefully styled and blow-dried. He wore large, tinted glasses and expensive clothes. But he was still Bunnish. His voice was loud and grating, just as Peter remembered it.

  Bunnish strolled over to the chessboard almost casually. “You analyzed that position for weeks afterward, Delmario,” he said. “You never found the mate.”

  Delmario stood up. “I found a dozen mates,” he said.

  “Yes,” Bunnish said, “but none of them were forced. Vesselere was a Master. He wouldn’t have played into any of your so-called mating lines.”

  Delmario frowned and took a drink. He was going to say something else—Peter could see him fumbling for the words—but E.C. stood up and took away his chance. “Bruce,” he said, holding out his hand. “Good to see you again. How long has it been?”

  Bunnish turned and smiled superciliously. “Is that another of your jokes, E.C.? You know how long it has been, and I know how long it has been, so why do you ask? Norten knows, and Delmario knows. Maybe you’re asking for Mrs. Norten.” He looked at Kathy. “Do you know how long it has been?”

  She laughed. “I’ve heard.”

  “Ah,” said Bunnish. He swung back to face E.C. “Then we all know, so it must be another of your jokes, and I’m not going to answer. Do you remember how you used to phone me at three in the morning, and ask me what time it was? Then I’d tell you, and you’d ask me what I was doing calling you at that hour?”

  E.C. frowned and lowered his hand.

  “Well,” said Bunnish, into the awkward silence that followed, “no sense standing here around this stupid chessboard. Why don’t we all go sit down by the fireplace, and talk.” He gestured. “Please.”

  But when they were seated, the silence fell again. Peter took a swallow of beer and realized that he was more than just ill at ease. A palpable tension hung in the air. “Nice place you’ve got here, Bruce,” he said, hoping to lighten the atmosphere.

  Bunnish looked around smugly. “I know,” he said. “I’ve done awfully well, you know. Awfully well. You wouldn’t believe how much money I have. I hardly know what to do with it all.” He smiled broadly and fatuously. “And how about you, my friends? Here I am boasting once again, when I ought to be listening to all of you recount your own triumphs.” Bunnish looked at Peter. “You first, Norten. You’re the captain, after all. How have you done?”

  “All right,” Peter said, uncomfortably. “I’ve done fine. I own a bookstore.”

  “A bookstore! How wonderful! I recall that you always wanted to be in publishing, though I rather thought you’d be writing books instead of selling them. Whatever happened to those novels you were going to write, Peter? Your literary career?”

  Peter’s mouth was very dry. “I … things change, Bruce. I haven’t had much time for writing.” It sounded so feeble, Peter thought. All at once, he was desperately wishing he was elsewhere.

  “No time for writing,” echoed Bunnish. “A pity, Norten. You had such promise.”

  “He’s still promising,” Kathy put in sharply. “You ought to hear him promise. He’s been promising as long as I’ve known him. He never writes, but he does promise.”

  Bunnish laughed. “Your wife is very witty,” he said to Peter. “She’s almost as funny as E.C. was, back in college. You must enjoy being married to her a great deal. I recall how fond you were of E.C.’s little jokes.” He looked at E.C. “Are you still a funny man, Stuart?”

  E.C. looked annoyed. “I’m hysterical,” he said, in a flat voice.

  “Good,” said Bunnish. He turned to Kathy and said, “I don’t know if Peter has told you all the stories about old E.C., but he really played some amazing pranks. Hilarious man, that’s our E.C. Stuart. Once, when our chess team had won the city championship, he had a girlfriend of his call up Peter and pretend to be an AP reporter. She interviewed him for an hour before he caught on.”

  Kathy laughed. “Peter is sometimes a bit slow,” she said.

  “Oh, that was nothing. Normally I was the one E.C. liked to play tricks on. I didn’t go out much, you know. Deathly afraid of girls. But E.C. had a hundred girlfriends, all of them gorgeous. One time he took pity on me and offered to fix me up on a blind date. I accepted eagerly, and when the girl arrived on the corner where we were supposed to meet, she was wearing dark glasses and carrying a cane. Tapping. You know.”

  Steve Delmario guffawed, tried to stifle his laughter, and nearly choked on his drink. “Sorry,” he wheezed, “sorry.”

  Bunnish waved casually. “Oh, go ahead, laugh. It was funny. The girl wasn’t really blind, you know, she was a drama student who was rehearsing a part in a play. But it took me all night to find that out. I was such a fool. And that was only one joke. There were hundreds of others.”

  E.C. looked somber. “That was a long time ago. We were kids. It’s all behind us now, Bruce.”

  “Bruce?” Bunnish sounded surprised. “Why, Stuart, that’s the first time you’ve ever called me Bruce. You have changed. You were the one who started calling me Brucie. God, how I hated that name! Brucie, Brucie, Brucie, I loathed it. How many times did I ask you to call me Bruce? How many times? Why, I don’t recall. I do recall, though, that after three years you finally came up to me at one meeting and said that you’d thought it over, and now you agreed that I was right, that Brucie was not an appropriate name for a Class A chess player, a twenty-year-old, an officer in ROTC. Your exact words. I remember the whole speech, E.C. It took me so by surprise that I didn’t know what to say, so I said, ‘Good, it’s about time!’ And then you grinned, and said that Brucie was out, that you’d never call me Brucie again. From now on, you said, you’d call me Bunny.”

  Kathy laughed, and Delmario choked down an explosive outburst, but Peter only felt cold all over. Bunnish’s smile was genial enough, but his tone was pure iced venom as he recounted the incident. E.C. did not look amused either. Peter took a swallow of his beer, casting about for some ploy to get the conversation onto a different track. “Do any of you still play?” he heard himself blurt out.

  They all looked at him. Delmario seemed almost befuddled. “Play?” he said. He blinked down at his empty glass.

  “Help yourself to a refill,” Bunnish told him. “You know where it is.” He smiled at Peter as Delmario moved off to the bar. “You mean chess, of course.”

  “Chess,” Peter said. “You remember chess. Odd little pastime played with black and white pieces and lots of two-faced clocks.” He looked around. “Don’t tell me we’ve all given it up?”

  E.C. shrugged. “I’m too busy. I haven’t played a rated game since college.”

  Delmario had returned, ice cubes clinking softly in a tumbler full of bourbon. “I played a little after college,” he said, “but not for the last five years.” He sat down heavily, and stared into the cold fireplace. “Those were my bad years. Wife left me, I lost a couple jobs. Bunny here was way ahead of me. Every goddamn idea I came up with, he had a patent on it already. Got so I was useless. That was when I started to drink.” He smiled, and took a sip. “Yeah,” he said. “Just then. And I stopped playing chess. It all comes out, you know, it all comes out over the board. I was losing, losing lots. To all these fish, God, I tell you, I couldn’t take it. Rating went down to Class B.” Delmario took another drink, and looked at Peter. “You need something to play good chess, you know what I’m saying? A kind of … hell, I don’t know … a kind of arrogance. Self-confidence. It’s all wrapped up with ego, that kind of stuff, and I didn’t have it anymore, whatever it was. I used to have it, but I lost it all. I had bad luck, and I looked around one day and it was gone, and my chess was gone with it. So I quit.” He lifted the tumbler to his lips, hesitated, and drained it all. Then he smiled for them. “Quit,” he repeated. “Gave it up. Chucked it away. Bailed out.” He chuckled, and stood up, and went off to the bar again.

  “I play,” Bunnish said forcefully. “I’m a Master now.”<
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  Delmario stopped in midstride, and fixed Bunnish with such a look of total loathing that it could have killed. Peter saw that Steve’s hand was shaking.

  “I’m very happy for you, Bruce,” E.C. Stuart said. “Please do enjoy your Mastership, and your money, and Bunnishland.” He stood and straightened his vest, frowning. “Meanwhile, I’m going to be going.”

  “Going?” said Bunnish. “Really, E.C., so soon? Must you?”

  “Bunnish,” E.C. said, “you can spend the next four days playing your little ego games with Steve and Peter, if you like, but I’m afraid I am not amused. You always were a pimple-brain, and I have better things to do with my life than to sit here and watch you squeeze out ten-year-old pus. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Oh, perfectly,” Bunnish said.

  “Good,” said E.C. He looked at the others. “Kathy, it was nice meeting you. I’m sorry it wasn’t under better circumstances. Peter, Steve, if either of you comes to New York in the near future, I hope you’ll look me up. I’m in the book.”

  “E.C., don’t you …” Peter began, but he knew it was useless. Even in the old days, E.C. Stuart was headstrong. You could never talk him into or out of anything.

  “Good-bye,” he said, interrupting Peter. He went briskly to the elevator, and they watched the wood-paneled doors close on him.

  “He’ll be back,” Bunnish said after the elevator had gone.

  “I don’t think so,” Peter replied.

  Bunnish got up, smiling broadly. Deep dimples appeared in his large, round cheeks. “Oh, but he will, Norten. You see, it’s my turn to play the little jokes now, and E.C. will soon find that out.”

  “What?” Delmario said.

  “Don’t you fret about it, you’ll understand soon enough,” Bunnish said. “Meanwhile, please do excuse me. I have to see about dinner. You all must be ravenous. I’m making dinner myself, you know. I sent my servants away, so we could have a nice private reunion.” He looked at his watch, a heavy gold Swiss. “Let’s all meet in the dining room in, say, an hour. Everything should be ready by then. We can talk some more. About life. About chess.” He smiled, and left.