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

      Angie considered, decided to take a chance, and cut into the conversation. “Joe? I just checked on that problem that was mentioned earlier. I’d say that there’s a definite improvement.”

      There was a pause. Then: “Good,” said Joe. “I’d like to hear details, but don’t give me any on the phone. Not now, anyway, okay?”

      “Okay.”

      There wasn’t much more to say on either side. Joe soon concluded his phone call. Angie fought down an impulse to warn him to be careful. If she couldn’t think of anything constructive to say at this point, she was going to keep quiet.

      Hardly had she put down the receiver, and started toward the kitchen to meet John, when there sounded a kind of wooden pounding from the old man’s room.

      She hurried that way, encountering John in the hall, and they rushed into the bedroom together. Uncle Matthew had dragged himself out of bed and was lying on the floor naked, except for the sheet in which his body was half entangled. He had somehow managed to pull a dresser partially away from the wall, and was thumping with his open hand on the wooden panel that formed its back.

      He quieted when John and Angie rushed in, and allowed them to try to help. In a few moments they had their host propped up in a sitting position on the floor, his back against the bed—he refused to cooperate in being put back in bed, and he was too heavy and too strong to be simply handled against his will. He was grunting now, moaning, pointing urgently at the panel he had been beating on.

      “What does he want? What is it, Uncle Matthew?”

      John began to feel around the panel. “There must be something there—does it open? Is it a door?”

      He moved the dresser out farther from the wall, and Angie went to help. Eventually they located the catch, and the panel proved to be a door indeed. Inside was a secret compartment, broad and high though only a few inches deep. The cavity contained some small jars of dark glass, tightly capped, and a few pounds of earth packed snugly in plastic bags.

      Uncle Matthew was grunting in satisfaction, pointing at the bags. Angie opened one, and then stared blankly at the dry, crumbled soil that leaked out on the carpet. “What on earth—?”

      “Earth of his homeland,” John explained tersely. “I suppose he still needs it, from time to time at least.”

      The old man growled at them, impatient and inarticulate. He made swift gestures. It took them a few moments to understand that he wanted them to open the bags of earth, pour out the dirt and scatter it over him, spread it on the carpet so he could roll his body in the stuff.

      They did this, and it seemed to bring him genuine relief.

      Not knowing what else to do, Angie reached into the hidden place for one of the little jars, brought it out, and examined it. Both the jar and its pressed-on metal cap had the slightly irregular look of handmade things. The glass was too dark to let her see what was inside, but the jar was too heavy to be empty. “And what’s this?”

      “I have no idea.” John shook his head.

      The old man saw what she was doing, smiled faintly, shook his head, and made a pushing motion with his hand. Carefully she set the jar back on its shelf.

* * *

      Joe Keogh hung up the receiver of the public phone and stepped out of the downtown booth. He hadn’t called from home, nor was he anywhere near Uncle Matthew’s condo. Joe Keogh’s first effort on completing his morning getaway had been to complete the process already begun of getting Kate and the kids as much out of the way of this horrible situation as possible, into a position of such safety as could be managed under the circumstances.

      Fortunately for Joe’s current relative peace of mind, he’d made preparations for such an emergency a long time ago. It was something you had to take into account when the extended family included a vampire. Like having wooden bullets ready.

      It was late in the lunch hour by now, and the sidewalks were jammed as he started walking back toward north Michigan. He hadn’t thought it wise to discuss plans on the phone, but assuming the crisis wasn’t resolved by evening, he wasn’t sure he ought to go back to Uncle Matthew’s condo to spend the night. Whatever the enemy were up to, he thought he might be able to pose them more problems by staying away. For overnight shelter he had in mind another condominium, in another part of the city. A hotel wouldn’t quite do, or at least Joe wasn’t at all confident about hotels. He wasn’t sure that a room occupied by a succession of uprooted strangers would qualify, when the chips were down, as a genuine dwelling place.

      What Angie had said on the phone strongly suggested that the old man was at least starting to recover. So it was even possible that this evening after sunset, when his powers waxed, Matthew Maule might recover more or less completely from whatever kind of attack had struck him down. Of course the powers of his vampire enemies would also be at their strongest between sunset and dawn.

      Joe kept hiking the crowded Loop sidewalks, moving steadily north and east. He was carrying a briefcase, packed hastily at home, that held a few essentials. Thinking back to his adventures of the late morning, Joe wondered if the enemy were still occupying the apartment with the dead woman in it. Or if they’d managed somehow to get rid of her.

      The dead vampire was already gone, of course, but the gunfire could possibly have left some traces on the scene. And the modifications in the bathroom were bizarre. Still, if the woman was gone, there wouldn’t be a whole lot for cops to look at there. Once the old man had snapped out of it, the cops