A Matter Of Taste by Fred Saberhagen (best reads .TXT) 📗

be fooled, not after knowing the old man so many years, and after certain other encounters less benign. Of course these two innocent-looking breathers still might be agents of the enemy. But Joe didn’t think so.

      There were about fifty elevators in the building altogether, distributed in several banks, and his wait in this lobby for a descending car was mercifully brief. In another moment he was on his way down. But he hadn’t started to relax yet, and it was just as well, because the elevator stopped at the next floor below, and another well-dressed couple got aboard. The woman was on the small side, age hard to guess, hair blond, eyes gray, face strikingly attractive if not conventionally pretty. The man was big, a little taller than Joe, and perfectly matched Angie’s description of Valentine Kaiser. Even if the match hadn’t been so good, Joe thought he would have known these two at once for what they were. Not that there was anything gross or overt in their appearance to differentiate them from the common run of humanity; with vampires there very seldom was. Corpselike complexions and needle fangs could be considered racial stereotypes, the exception and not the rule.

      Broad daylight or not, being cooped up with two of them in the little space, spending long, long seconds well out of public view, was enough to make Joe sweat. No one said anything, but the couple both looked at Joe, and he was sure they knew he knew what they were.

* * *

      Valentine Kaiser turned away from Joe as soon as the doors closed. Somehow in the next moment he had snapped open the maintenance panel beside the elevator’s long row of buttons. Reaching inside, he did something. The elevator stopped right where it was between floors, then, smoothly, with scarcely a pause, it was going up again.

      Only when they were ascending did Kaiser break the silence. “We ought to have a talk,” he said, smiling at Joe.

      “Okay.”

      “I am Valentine Kaiser. And you—?”

      “Joe Keogh.”

      The other nodded, as if that was the answer he had been expecting. “I’ve heard the name.” He moved his head slightly in the direction of his companion. “This is Lila,” he said. Lila stood by smiling at Joe. There were moments when her smile looked kindly, and others when it seemed utterly vacant.

      Presently Kaiser reached inside the open panel to manipulate the wiring again. The elevator slowed smoothly to a stop on the ninety-seventh floor. As soon as the door opened Joe’s fellow passengers gestured him out. He gave them no argument. They emerged into what looked like some kind of service corridor. Then, with Lila walking ahead at a brisk pace, gesturing for Joe to follow, and Kaiser bringing up the rear, they rounded a corner and passed through an unlocked fire door. Joe, glancing at the door’s lock while it was open, decided that the bolts weren’t working, having been induced somehow to stay retracted.

      The door closed behind them. Now the three people, marching steadily, were treading the concrete steps of a fire stair, going up. Joe wondered how many floors there were above this, but he got no farther than ninety-eight.

      Emerging through another fire door, onto the ninety-eighth floor, Joe found himself surrounded by a muted roar of machinery, in a brightly lit, low-ceilinged cavern. One room, he decided, must occupy all or most of the entire level. The view of its more distant portions was blocked by row after row of metal-paneled cabinets, and by bends and straightaways of massive ductwork. The level of noise was high, compounded from fan blades, rushing air, occasional electronic beeps, and other indistinguishable components of the machinery needed to keep the thousands of occupants comfortable in their stores and offices and dwelling units.

      No other people were in sight. Valentine Kaiser now led the way, in the manner of a man who knew just where he was going.

      Presently, around the corner of an aisle that throbbed with noise, another vampire met Joe and his escort. This one was a young-looking woman, dressed in jeans and sweater like a college student. She acknowledged Kaiser’s arrival with an odd gesture, a nod that was almost a bow, followed by a curious look at Joe.

      “Anything yet?” Kaiser demanded of her.

      The lookout shook her head, looking disgusted. Kaiser muttered words that sounded like swearing, in a language that reminded Joe of Latin, and moved on.

      Lila followed, making sure that Joe came along, as Kaiser led them around another corner. Here some panels had been removed from a bank of metal cabinets, and a figure in coveralls, this one a man and a breather, was at work, with screwdriver, pliers, and some kind of electronic meter.

      Looking over the workman’s shoulder into the exposed machinery, Joe decided from the number of wires visible that this might be the central tie-up for the building’s phone lines.

      Kaiser paused just behind the workman. “Any success?”

      The man turned his face back over his shoulder, looked scared, and mumbled something.

      “You might as well admit it loud and clear, I can hear you anyway. I’m beginning to suspect you’re not as much an expert as you’ve claimed to be.”

      “Sorry,” the workman muttered, not turning around.

      “Are you? I’m not sure you know what the word means.” Kaiser appeared to be considering how best to explain it.

      The man raised his head for a quick look at Joe, as if wondering whether Joe was someone he had to be afraid of too. Then he quickly averted his eyes again.

      Joe, leaning back against another paneled unit with his hands in his coat pockets, was observing other features of the surroundings, near and far. These included a power substation, a large part of the building’s elevator machinery, and provisions for heating and air-conditioning. Also somewhere nearby, he supposed, would be water tanks and pumps, and of course the phone equipment.

      Kaiser gave up staring at his trembling workman and turned to Joe: “I hope you’re more useful than he is.” He grinned.