Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction 11th Part 4

"Two." And once again came that elfin chuckle, a gurgle of the purest mirth.

And upon the very heels of that chuckle, capping it, echo-ing it, drowning it in thunder, came the crash of a pistol.

The owl-thing's body flew apart in a spray of feathers and black mist.

Moisture splashed Nick's face and arm. The feathery body lay ruined among the crosseyes, one long wing splayed out like a broken umbrella, the delicate feet with their minute hooked claws stretching to the sky.

Nick's father came leaping down the slope, clutching his pistol, his face white. Nick stared up at him, choking, and all he could get out was, "Why-why-?"

His father grabbed him by the shoulder. "Are you all right?" he cried, his voice m.u.f.fled by his mask. Without waiting for an answer, he yanked the boy to his feet. "Are you crazy? Don't you know these things are deadly?

Poor old Doc Mirsky tried to pick one up-the poison from that sting-And you aren't even wearing your mask!"

"It isn't," Nick gasped. "Dad! Why did you-I was talk-ing to it!"

His father shook him impatiently, furiously. "A d.a.m.n good thing I found out where you were," he said. "How long have you been coming outside like this?"

"We do it all the time," Nick sniveled. "Ow! Pa! Quit it!"

"Quit it? I'll quit you! What the h.e.l.l's the matter with you? Running around this place as if it was a backyard ... a nice, safe backyard somewhere in Illinois..."

His voice broke. Tears came into his eyes. He stood for a moment holding Nick's shoulder, and then he gave a long sigh and wiped his eyes with theback of his hand. He took an extra mask from his pouch and handed it to Nick. "Put it on," he said, in a gentler voice.

Nick was crying so hard he could barely see, but he took the mask and clipped it over his face. The sharp smell of disinfectant stung his nostrils.

"I'm sorry, Nicky," his father said. "I was worried about you. There are so few of us. We've got to be careful. We're all that's left."

His fingers tightened on Nick's shoulder. "I didn't mean to scare you, son,"

he said, trying to smile.

Nick stared into his face with blurred and hostile eyes. Deep in his mind where no one could hear him, he said, I hate you. I hate you.

The big man bolstered his pistol. "Come on, son, let's get back to the domes," he said. He reached out for the boy, but Nick cringed away from his hand.

A single feather, golden orange and bordered with red like the color of the fungus trees, clung to the front of Nick's coveralls. He picked it off and clutched it tight in his wet palm. I'll be back again, he said wordlessly. I'll find some way.

Then he went up the hillslope with the stranger, his father.

___________________________.

"I despise cheap symbolism," Anna said, "even in a vampire..."

SOFTLY WHILE YOU'RE SLEEPING.

by Evelyn E. Smith

"Let's not take a cab," Ann proposed, as they came out of the coffee shop.

"Let's walk; it's only ten blocks or so. Or don't you like walking?"

Tom squeezed her arm. "Doll, I'm a country boy. Walked ten miles every day through roaring blizzards and raging hurricanes and all that jazz just to get myself an education. But I never expected to find a city girl who liked to walk. Don't tell me you like to cook, too?" He grinned down at her. "Or am I asking too much?"

"Much too much!" Ann hated cooking, and the truth was she hated walking, too. On a blistering hot night like that, the prospect was-well-not sheer horror, because she knew what that could be like, but bad enough. She wasn't m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic, but it was just after midnight, and, if they walked, they might run into Mr. Varri starting on his nightly rounds. She was desperately anxious to meet him face to face. If Tom was with her, she wouldn't be afraid ... anyhow, she'd be less afraid.

"You must live right by the river," Tom observed, as they pushed further and further east. "One of those big new luxury apartment houses, eh?""I live a block away from the river. But not in a new house."

"They've done a nice job of converting some of those old mansions," he said.

She smiled. When they reached the cobbled street with its two rows of white-trimmed black brick tenements, it was empty, and the incandescent moonlight bathing it only em-phasized its desolation. Mr. Varri must have gone already.

"Cobblestones in New York-can you beat that?" Tom said wonderingly. And he shivered, though perspiration was streak-ing his ruddy face. "They ought to do something, though-plant some trees or something! It looks ... dead.

What kind of people would want to live in a place like this?"

"People like me, for instance," she said, stopping in front of one of the black brick houses.

"Gosh, Ann, I-I'm sorry; I-" And suddenly something swooped down at them from overhead. Tom pushed her violently up the steps and into the tiny vestibule. "Those things can be dangerous!" His voice was shaking.

And her laugh was cracked. "Some country boy-afraid of a bird!"

He glanced over his shoulder, through the protecting gla.s.s of the outer door. "That wasn't a bird," he said. "It was a bat."

She had known, of course, but she had to keep on pre-tending to herself. "I thought bats were really harmless, afraid of people?"

"Normally they are. A bat wouldn't come as close to people as that, not after dark, anyway, unless it was rabid..."

"I don't think it's rabid," Ann said.

A door down the hall creaked open; Mrs. Brumi's moon face glimmered from the shadows. "Sorry if we disturbed you, ma'am," Tom said, giving her the boyish-charm smile full-voltage. She stared at him expressionlessly.

"What on earth was that?" Tom demanded, as they started up the narrow stairs.

Ann waited until they'd climbed two flights before she answered, "My landlady. She worries about my morals, disapproves of my friends, and what can I do? She comes from the same tribe as my father."

"Tribe!" Tom squeaked.

"In Albania, tribe is just a word to-well-group people who come from the same part of the country. And everybody who lives in the same part is likely to be connected some-how." She wasn't being entirely truthful. A tribe was a tribe."Relatives can be h.e.l.l," Tom agreed. "You ought to see my aunt Nonie-a real kook if ever there was one."

Ann lived on the third floor. Her apartment was in almost opulent contrast to the rest of the house, and she had come to expect a gasp of surprise from newcomers, as she switched on the light. "Well," Tom said." "We-ell, you really do have this place fixed up; you'd almost think..."

"...you were in one of the new luxury apartment houses...?" she finished for him.

He flushed. "Ann, I didn't mean-Honestly, I didn't realize-All the fellows said you must be making at least..." His regular-featured face took on an exalted expression; he was posing for a statue-Champion of Women's Rights. "I didn't dream the firm paid women so much less than men. It's a darned shame."

"My salary isn't too bad. I just don't believe in spending money on rent."

Then she smiled. "I'll go make us something cold to drink. First I'll turn on the fans, though; it's stifling here." She had two fans, one at each end of the apartment, but though both sets of wings beat the air energetically, it remained always hot and stagnant.

"Keep on plugging; someday you'll have enough saved up to get an air-conditioner," he laughed, as she went into the kitchen. Then he was embarra.s.sed again. "h.e.l.l, Ann," he called in after her, "I don't make so much money myself." She knew he didn't-less than half of what she herself made.

She started taking out ice, enjoying the cold touch of the cubes on her warm, sticky fingers. He came into the kitchen behind her. "What on earth is that?" he demanded, staring.

"A bathtub," Ann said composedly. "Lots of the old houses have bathtubs in the kitchen. Someday I'll get a stall shower put in." She handed him a gla.s.s. "How are you on plumbing?"

He looked surprised. "I don't know; I never tried."

"No good," she decided.

They went back to the living room. Tom punctiliously waited until she sat on the couch before he seated himself beside her. "I don't want to sound officious, Ann," he said, "but I don't think this is a good place for a girl living alone. Even if a relative of yours does own the house, the street isn't safe."

"Mrs. Brumi is not a relative of mine," she said em-phatically. "And the street's safe enough. This is the East Side. It's over on the West Side that they have the street gangs and the muggings. Here, you hardly ever see anyone late at night.""Oh, it's quiet, all right," he agreed, picking up his drink. His Adam's apple moved up and down contentedly as he swallowed. Then he transferred the drink to his other hand, and, moving closer on the couch, put the liberated hand-and the arm attached to it-around her waist. "Listen, doll, you probably think I have a h.e.l.l of a nerve coming fresh from the hinterlands and starting to tell you how to run your life, but sometimes somebody from the outside can get a more objective look at things, if you know what I mean. I still say this isn't the kind of place a girl like you should be living in, and I don't mean the safety bit. Appearances are pretty im-portant these days; no matter how nicely you've fixed up your apartment, the house is squalid-you can't get away from that. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason you're not making the money a girl in your position ought to is because you're living like this, so the firm feels you don't have the top-executive outlook."

Now the boyish smile was for her alone. "Don't misunder-stand me, doll. It doesn't matter at all about your folks' being Albanian. The only thing is, you've got to work twice as hard to prove you have the real American viewpoint."

He took another swallow of his drink. "You don't have to go out on a financial limb to live decently. If you teamed up with another nice girl, you could move into one of those efficiency apartments a lot of the better buildings are renting. Sure, you'd have less s.p.a.ce, but you'd have modern plumb-ing, air-conditioning, and an address you'd be proud of. The whole deal probably wouldn't run you more than a few extra dollars each week, and you'll find it'll be worth every cent of it..."

Something flopped against the window. "It's the bat!" she shrieked. "It's trying to get in! Do something, Tom!"

"For Pete's sake; it couldn't get through the screens, even if it wanted to."

His arm tightened. "And this is a h.e.l.l of a time to be talking about bats.

How about dousing those lights, doll? They make the place even hotter."

"Look out of the window," she urged. "See if it is the bat."

He sighed, and then laughed. "Okay, little girl, anything to make you feel better." He strolled over to the window. "Must've been the wind," he reported. "Not a thing in sight."

"Not a thing?"

"There's a man out there. But I thought bats were what you were interested in."

"What kind of man?" she insisted.

"Tall, young, good-looking-if you like the Valentino type." He laughed comfortably, sure that she didn't. "He's wearing a T-shirt and slacks. They look white, but it could be the moonlight. Sensible fellow-wish I'd dressed that way myself." He grinned, because you didn't go to the theatre in T-shirt and slacks, not unless you sat in the balcony. "Very clean type," hefinished kindly.

"It must be Mr. Varri."

"Is that so?" Tom flung his thick body heavily beside her. He took his drink in his right hand and her left breast in his left. "Now, where were we...?"

It never gets too hot for them, she thought smoulderingly.

It had been a burningly hot night when she first saw Mr. Varri. She couldn't sleep, and she was sitting by the window, hoping for a breeze from the river. He came walking down the street; in his T-shirt and slacks, he could have been any-body-from one of the tenements on the block or one of the "luxury" houses by the river. His face was pale and sad. He meant nothing to her, and soon after she fell asleep.

She was awakened by whistling outside. She got up and looked out of the window. It wasn't light yet; he was coming back along the cobblestones. He was less immaculate, but still very clean. There was a rosy joy in his face.

Whatever he does, he can't have been working hard. He was either a lover or a criminal; she hoped a criminal and that he would be caught, not because of whatever else he might have done, but because he had robbed her of her sleep; she'd never be able to get back to it again that night. She sat at the win-dow, watching a thick pink dawn spread stickily over the street, trying to remember the name of the tune he had been whistling.

When she came downstairs later that morning, Mrs. Brumi was mopping the front steps. "I want to get finished with this before it gets too hot," she said, wiping sweat from her forehead. "You look tired, Anna; heat getting you?"

Only the middle-aged and the old let themselves be "gotten" by the heat.

"It's because I haven't had enough sleep. Four o'clock in the morning, a man came walking down the street, whistling as if he were the only one in the world!"

"Some people got no consideration!" Mrs. Brumi agreed.

"He was dressed all in white," Ann said, wondering now why this should have seemed sinister to her the night before.

"Sounds like Mr. Varri; he works in one of the hospitals. Lives in Mrs.

Lugat's place." Mrs. Brumi gave Ann a sly look. "A nice boy-clean and polite and quiet. And he comes from the old country, Anna, from the hills like your papa."

Ann wished Mrs. Brumi wouldn't call her Anna. But Mrs. Brumi had known her ever since she was born. Ann's family hadn't lived in Mrs. Brumi's house, but further down the street, in a house that had been torn down later to make room for the luxury apartments Tom admired. Ann had been still quite little when her family moved up to Washington Heights, to a steam-heated apartment with a private bath-room and a refrigerator that made its own ice. "But we canfind all of these things in this neighborhood," Ann's father had complained.

"Why must we move so far away?"

"I want my family to have a nice place to live in," her mother had said.

"Even more, I don't want them to grow up in this neighborhood." Ann's mother had come from Tirana; she didn't like the hill people.

Time pa.s.sed and Anna had gone to college and become Ann. Her parents had died, and she'd come back to the old neighborhood. The law had required Mrs. Brumi to put steam heat in her flats and install private toilets; having gone so far, she had put in electric refrigerators also. Rents were three times as high as they'd been when Anna was little, but they were still less than half that of most other apartments. They were in great demand, but Mrs. Brumi had given Ann preference.

The neighborhood had changed. The old-country people were still there, lurking implacably behind drawn blinds, but new-country people had moved in among them, interest-ing and Bohemian people-artists and actors and musicians and doctors from the nearby hospitals. Mrs. Brumi couldn't seem to get it through her head that Ann was now one of the interesting people and had no more old-country ties. She criticized everything Ann did. "Why do you want to fix up your apartment all arty-smarty? It's like paint on the face of an old lady; no matter how much she puts on, you can still see a hag underneath. When you get yourself a husband who makes a good salary, you'll move to a nice house in Long Island and fix it up. Silly to make this place like a de-partment store, the way those arty-smarty pigs do." The arty-smarty pigs, of course, being the actors and artists and musicians.

She had commented freely and adversely upon the young men who came to help Ann paint walls and put up bookshelves. "They're not the kind of boys I'd like my daughters to go out with ... If they were still looking for husbands, of course," she added smugly. Her daughters had all been old-country-type girls and had made solid old-country-type mar-riages; one had even landed a dentist.

"I'm only saving this for your own good, Anna, but those boy friends of yours look like sc.u.m. They look like the kind that don't have any respect for a young girl. You can do better than them at least, Anna. You're not bad-looking, even if you are too skinny. All right, so maybe you don't have a dowry, but you've got a steady job."

Mrs. Brumi also disapproved of the long stretches when there were no young men at all, and Ann sat home evenings, reading and listening to her hi-fi. "That's no life for a young girl, specially when she isn't so very young any more and hasn't time to sit and wait. Now, I know a nice young man whose folks come from Scutari. He's a widower with a nice little butcher shop of his own. His mama lives with him and she'd be taking care of the two little boys, so he wouldn't stop you if you wanted to keep on working..."

At this point, Ann had exploded, and told Mrs. Brumi firmly to mind her own business. Mrs. Brumi's broad face hadn't changed expression, but shestopped dropping in on Anna with fattening old-country dishes and nauseating old-country advice. Ann supposed she ought to be thankful that the old woman did no more now than call her by her first name. She had a feeling, though, that Mrs. Brumi was only quiescent, and that soon she'd erupt again with another small Albanian businessman.

However, Ann couldn't make herself move away. She'd already put too much into the apartment-not money but lots of time and taste. She'd never be able to get one as cheap anywhere else, and she needed her money for the costly annual winter vacations, the clothes from Bonwit's and Saks', and the warm, comfortable bank account.

Yet evenings, in the drenching heat of her apartment, self-doubts started to come at about the same time as darkness. Maybe the scheme of things she'd worked out for herself wasn't perfect; maybe an air-conditioner would be a better investment than a trip to Bermuda. She hadn't really en-joyed herself in Miami, the winter before, or in Mexico City, before that. She'd met young men, but she couldn't meet them on their own terms. Looks and clothes weren't enough-a girl had to be a s.l.u.t also. Maybe there was something of the old country left in her, she thought.

It was foolish, she knew, not to give up one vacation for an air-conditioner.

That didn't mean giving up the plan of things. She could go to Bermuda the year after. But she was afraid-break one link and the whole chain of dreams would fall apart.

The second night she saw Mr. Varri was even hotter than the first. She hadn't even tried to go to sleep but sat at her window, greedily sucking at an imaginary breeze. He came down the street, pale-faced and sad, his feet almost noiseless on the cobblestones. But the hospitals are all in the other direction, she thought. Not necessarily all, she rea.s.sured her-self; there might be others.