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

I’m cutting out before it gets dark. If I don’t see him today, I’ll come back in the morning. If he absolutely can’t make it either time, tell him to send someone with a message. If he wants to name another place and time, I’ll consider it, provided it meets my conditions, broad daylight and very public.”

      She looked at him with narrowed eyes. She had come out here really hating him. “The old man send you to try to make a deal?”

      “I’ll talk to Kaiser about that.”

      “Wait here, I’ll see what he says.”

      Joe waited where he was, stamping his feet in the chill wind, aware of how the dull daylight was sliding almost perceptibly away, while the emissary trotted across the street and ducked into another building. She might be going to phone from there, to pass along his message. Or Kaiser himself might be in there. It didn’t matter; Joe could wait.

      In less than five minutes the young woman was back. In the tones of a stern boss, she ordered him: “Be where you said, in the Art Institute, at the time you said.”

      “The time I said this afternoon, within an hour, or tomorrow?”

      “He’s going to try to make it this afternoon. If he doesn’t, he’ll be there in the morning. Val says he don’t think you’ll need any warnings, about certain things you shouldn’t do.”

      “I’ll be there, alone. I guess Val has some sense anyway.”

      The young woman glared at him, turned, and walked away. If his revolver barrel had left a wound, it was hidden beneath her dirty hair. Her fatigue jacket was rumpled in the back.

      Joe looked at his watch, and decided to phone the apartment once more, tell them the time and place of the meeting he’d set up. Then he’d catch a cab, not wanting to waste any time. The Art Institute was a little over a mile south on Michigan, and there was an old German proverb the old man had once repeated for him, something about the dead traveling fast.

* * *

      Joe reached the indoor spot he’d chosen for the meeting well ahead of time, and settled down to wait, finding a spot on a padded bench, amid a bustle of art enthusiasts passing to and fro. It was great to be out of the cold and wind, and he had a little time to prepare himself. Not that there was much to prepare. This time Kaiser would have to take him seriously; beyond that Joe could only estimate what might be going to happen.

      He couldn’t see a lot of art, just a handful of massive statues, from the spot he’d chosen. Some of this stuff around him was doubtless older than the man he was going to meet. Joe thought about that. He thought about a great many things that ordinarily he tried to avoid considering. He looked at his watch frequently. At four o’clock, no matter what, he was leaving. He’d take no chances on not being locked up safely, behind private doors and walls, before today’s invisible sun went down. He might be a little stupid, setting up a conference with a murderous vampire, but he wasn’t completely crazy.

      At about a quarter to four Valentine Kaiser showed up. The vampire had changed his suit since this morning. He looked jaunty and very handsome this afternoon, extremely youthful in appearance. That was often a sign of recent heavy feeding, thought Joe, and felt an inward shudder. He hoped it didn’t show.

      He’d chosen his corner bench so he had a wall at his back, and whoever sat down to talk to him would be on his left. It would be easier that way for Joe to reach for the holster under his left arm, pull a gun and aim, or to shoot from the holster through his own coat if it came to that. The revolver snuggled against his ribs was vastly comforting, freshly reloaded now, all six rounds tipped with lead-cored lignum vitae bullets. Hard wood, so heavy that it wouldn’t float in water. Someone—probably the old man himself—had told Joe that the Latin name of the stuff meant “wood of life.” But he knew that it was far from certain protection.

      And then suddenly the vampire had arrived, and with a nod and a smile was sitting down beside him. Sitting too close for comfort, considering how fast one of them could move.

      Joe shifted openly away, positioning his body with his back against one wall, right shoulder against another. People observing his retreat might get the idea that Kaiser, for all his snappy clothes, didn’t smell too good.

      “What do you want?” Joe asked.

      Kaiser smiled faintly at Joe’s maneuvers to increase the distance between them. But when he spoke he sounded genuinely sympathetic. “Tell me, how’s the old man doing?”

      “Great. He was up early this morning and went out jogging.”

      The other nodded, almost as if he had taken the answer seriously and was considering the implications. “Good. I hope he did. And I hope you’ll believe me when I say this is all very much a misunderstanding.”

      “There’s already two people dead that I know about. If it’s all a misunderstanding maybe we better stop it before it really turns serious.”

      Kaiser looked innocently hopeful. “You do count us as people, then. Even when you kill us.”

      “Oh, I know you’re people. I know that. But I kill people when I have to.”

      The other looked at him as if he found it sad and disheartening that Joe could have such a reckless attitude. “I was trying to frighten your two young friends, nothing more. We wouldn’t have done them any harm if they’d let us in.”

      “What about Elizabeth Wiswell?”

      The handsome, young-looking man frowned. “I didn’t know she was a friend of yours. Actually I don’t see how she could have been.”

      “I’m interested anyway.”

      Friendliness disappeared, as if a little switch had been turned off somewhere behind the vampire’s dark eyes. “One of my friends was alive this morning but she isn’t now. Lila was