The Metrognome And Other Stories Part 6

PIPE DREAM.

"Where do you get your ideas?" is the question most frequently asked of writers of fiction and of science fiction writers in particular. The usual response is a joking one, particularly if the author is in a hurry. If he has time, he may reply thoughtfully.

Sometimes the response can be precise.

Too many years ago I found myself attending a science-fiction convention in downtown Los Angeles. The con was run by a wonderful gentleman name of Bill Crawford and featured s mix of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. In some ways it was a precursor of today's multimedia-oriented conventions. Bill was an old timer, but he had a finger on the future's pulse.

One of the guests and a good friend of Bill's was a charming, lanky gentleman who strolled through the con with cool demeanor and well used pipe. Walt Daugherty was among other things a photographer of some of film dom's greatest horror stars, Karlof and Chaney included. He had a mischievous sense of humor and genial nature that, when functioning in tandem, reminded one of Hitchc.o.c.k's introductions to the stories on his television show.

The greatest problem one faces at such conventions is how to greet people one doesn't know well but repeatedly encounters in halls and function rooms. After a while "h.e.l.lo," "howyadoin?" and "what's new?" begin to pall. So it happened as I ran into Walt hour after hour.

The afternoon of the second day I entered the dealer's room only to b.u.mp into him again, this time in the process of lighting his pipe. Desperate not to appear either ba.n.a.l or impolite, I searched for a salutation and finally said, "Hi, Walt. What're you smoking?"

Barely removin the pipe stem from his lips, he glanced down at me out of his left eye and declaimed with a properly Lugosian air, "Ah, it's not what. It's whom. "

And that's where you get your ideas. Thanks, Walt.

It was the aroma of tobacco that first attracted her.

Delicate enough to demand notice, distinctive enough to bludgeon aside the mundane odor of cigarette and cigar, it was the first different thing she'd encountered all evening.

She'd hoped to meet someone at least slightly interesting at Norma's little get together. Thus far, though, Norma's guest list had unswervingly reflected Norma's tastes. Emma'd only been fooling herself in hopes it would be otherwise.

There, there it was again. Open wood fires and honeysuckle. Really different, not bitter or sharp at all.

The vacuity of her excuse as she slipped away was matched only by the vacuousness of the young man she left, holding his half drained martini and third or fourth proposition. But the tall football player didn't need sympathy. He shrugged off the brush off, immediately corralled another of Norma's friends. Soon he was plying her with the same draglines, blunt hooked, presenting the first line like an uncirculated coin, newly minted. Option call at the line of scrimmage.

The owner of the pipe was surprise number two. He looked as out of place at the party as a Mozart concerto. Instead of a girl on his lap, he cradled a fat book. He'd isolated himself in a nearly empty corner of the sunken living room.

She put a hand on the back of his high backed easy chair.

"Hi," she said. He looked up.

"h.e.l.lo." Absently spoken, then back to the book.

Her interest grew. Might be playing indifferent deliberately . . . but she didn't think so. If he was interested, he sure faked otherwise well. And men did not usually dismiss Emma with an unconcerned h.e.l.lo. Nor did they pa.s.s over her face with a casual glance and totally avoid the interesting subcranial territory completely. She was piqued.

There was an unclaimed footstool nearby. She pulled it up next to the bookcase, sat down facing him. He didn't look up.

Well tanned, no beard or mustache (another anomaly). Dark wavy hair tinged with gray at the sharp bottom of modest sideburns. Might even be over forty. Sharp, blunt jaw, but otherwise his features were small, almost childlike. Even so, there was something just a little frightening about him.

She didn't scare easily.

"I couldn't help noticing your tobacco."

"Hmmm?" He glanced up again.

"Your tobacco. Noticing it."

"Oh, really?" He looked pleased, took the pipe out of his mouth, and admired it. "It's a special blend. Made for me. I'm glad you like it." He peered at her with evident amus.e.m.e.nt. "I suppose next you're going to tell me you love the smell of a man's pipe."

"As a matter of fact, usually I can't stand it. That's what makes yours nice. Sweet."

"Thanks again." Was that a faint accent, professionally concealed?

He almost seemed prepared to return to his book. A moment's hesitation, then he shut it with a snap of displaced air. Back it slipped into its notch in the bookcase. She eyed the spine.

"Durer. You like Durer, then?"

"Not as art. But I do like the feel of a new book." He gestured negligently at the bookcase. "These are all new books." A little smile turned up the corners of his mouth.

"It says '1962' on the spine of that one," she observed.

"Well, not new, then. Say 'unused.' No, I'm not crazy about Durer as an artist. But his work has some real value from a medical history standpoint."

Emma sat back on the footstool and clasped a knee with both hands. This had the intended effect of raising her skirt provocatively. He took no notice of the regions thus revealed.

"What do you specialize in?"

"How marvelous!" he said. "She does not say, 'Are you a doctor?' But immediately goes on to 'What do you specialize in?' a.s.suming the obvious. It occurs to me, young lady, that behind that starlet facade and comic-book body, there may be a brain."

"Please, good sir," she mock pleaded, "you flatter me unmercifully. And I am not a 'starlet.' I'm an actress. To forestall your next riposte, I'm currently playing in a small theater to very good reviews and very small audiences. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, and it's not a rock musical."

He was nodding. "Good, good."

"Do I get a gold star on my test, teacher?" she pouted.

"Two. To answer your question, if you're really curious, I happen to specialize in endocrinology. You," he continued comfortably, "do not appear to be adversely affected where my field is concerned. Please don't go and make an idiot of me by telling me about your thyroid problems since the age of five."

She laughed. "I won't."

"Isn't this a delightful party?"

"Oh, yes," she deadpanned. "Delightful."

He really smiled then, a wide, honest grin a white crescent cracking the tan.

"If you're interested in art, I have a few pieces you might appreciate. Oils, pen and ink, no etchings." Grin. "The people in them don't move, but they're more full of life than this bunch."

"I think I'd like that." She smiled back.

It was a longer drive than she'd expected. In Los Angeles that means something. A good twenty minutes north of Sunset, up the Pacific Coast Highway, then down a short, b.u.mpy road.

The house was built on pilings out from a low cliff, to the edge of the ocean. The sea hammered the wood incessantly, December songs boiling up from the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Like something to drink?" he asked. She was examining the den. Cozy like mittens, masculine as mahogany. Hatch cover table; old, very unmod, supremely comfortable chairs; a big fat brown elephant of a couch you could vanish in.

"Can you make a ginger snap?"

His eyebrows rose. "With or without pinching her?"

"With."

"I think so. A minute."

Behind the couch the wide picture window opened onto a narrow porch overhanging a black sea. The crescent of lights from Santa Monica Bay had the look of a flattened-out Rio de Janeiro, unblinking in the clear winter night. Northward, the hunchback of Point Dume thrust out of the water.

The opposite wall was one huge bookcase. Most of the volumes were medical tomes and had t.i.tles stuffed with Latin nouns. There were several shelves of t.i.tles in German, a single one in French, yet another in what seemed like some sort of Scandanavian language.

Crowded in a small corner of the north wail, almost in embarra.s.sment, was a group of plaqued diplomas from several eastern inst.i.tutions and, to match the books, one in German and another in French.

The art, of which there wasn't much, consisted mostly of small pieces. Pica.s.so she expected but not the original Dali, or the Winslow Homer, the charming Wyeth sketches, some English things she didn't recognize, and the framed anatomic drawings of da Vinci . . .not originals, of course. And over the fireplace, in a ma.s.sive oak frame, a big Sierra Nevada glowing landscape by Bierstadt.

A distinctive collection, just like its owner, she mused.

"With pinch."

She whirled, missed a breath. "You startled me!"

"Fair play. You've already done the same to me tonight. "

She took the gla.s.s, walked over to the couch, sat, and sipped.

"Very slight pinch," she murmured appreciatively.

He walked over and sat down next to her.

"I wouldn't expect you to be the sort to go to many of Norma's parties."

"Was that the name of our charming hostess?" he queried. "No, I don't." There was a long rack holding twenty odd pipes on the table. A lazy Susan full of different tobaccos rested at one end. He selected a new pipe, began stuffing it.

"If you believe it, I was invited by one of my patients. "

She giggled. The drink was perfect.

"I'm afraid it's true." He smiled. "She was concerned for my supposed monastic existence. Poor Mrs. Marden." He put pipe to lips and took out a box of matches.

"Let me," she said, the lighter from her purse already out.

"Huh uh. Not with that." He gently pushed her hand away. The wrist tingled after he removed his hand.

"Gas flame, spoil the flavor. Not every smoker notices it, but I do."

She reached out, took the box of Italian wax matches. She struck one and leaned forward. As he puffed the tobacco alight, one hand slipped into her decolletage.

"I didn't think you were wearing a foundation garment."

"Oh, come on!" She blew out the match. His hand was moving gently now. "You sound like a construction engineer!"

"I apologize. You know, you're very fortunate."

She was beginning to breathe unevenly. "How . . . so?"

"Well," he began in a professorial tone, "the undercurve of a woman's breast is more sensitive than the top. Many aren't sufficiently well endowed to experience the difference. Not a problem you have to face."

"What," she husked, brus.h.i.+ng his cheek, "does the book say about the bottom lip versus the top?"

"As to that " He put the pipe on the table and leaned much, much closer. " opinion is still somewhat divided."

New Year's Day came and went, as usual utterly the same as an old year's day.

It wasn't an affair, of course. More like a fair. A continuing,wonderful, slightly mad fair. Like the fair at Sorochinsk in Petroushka, but no puppets here. Walt never shouted at her, never had a mean word. He was unfailingly gentle, polite, considerate, with just the slightest hint of devilry to keep things spicy.

He had fewer personal idiosyncrasies than any man she'd ever met. The only thing that really seemed to bother him was any hint of nosiness on her part. A small problem, since he'd been quite candid about his background without being asked, and about his work.

She'd been a little surprised to learn about the two previous marriages. But since there were no children, nothing tying him to the past, her concern quickly vanished.

And next Tuesday was his birthday. She was determined to surprise him.

But with what? Clothes? He had plenty of clothes and was no fas.h.i.+on plate to begin with. She couldn't afford a painting of any quality. Besides, choosing art for someone was an impossible job. Electronic gadgetry, the modern adult male's equivalent of Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs, didn't excite him.

Then she thought of the tobacco.

Of course! She'd have some of his special blend prepared. Whenever he lit a pipe, he'd think of her.

Now, she considered, looking around the sun dappled den, where would I hide if I were a tin of special tobacco? There must be large tins around somewhere. The lazy Susan didn't hold much, and it was always full . . . though she never saw him replenis.h.i.+ng it. Of course she couldn't ask him. That would spoil the surprise.

It wasn't hidden, as it turned out. Just inconspicuous, in a place she'd had no reason to go. There was a small storage room, a second bedroom, really, in the front of the beach house. It held still more books and a.s.sorted knickknacks, including an expensive and unused set of golf clubs.

The tobacco tins were in an old gla.s.s cabinet off in one dark, cool corner. The case was locked; but the key was on top of the cabinet. Standing on tiptoe, she could just reach it.

Hunt as she did, though, giving each tin a thorough inspection, there was nothing she could call a special blend. There were American brands, and Turkish, and Arabic, and Brazilian, and even a small, bent tin from some African country that had changed its name three times in the past ten years.

But no special blends.

She closed the cabinet and put the key back. In semi-frustration she gave the old highboy a soft kick. There was a click. The bottom foot or so of the cabinet looked like solid maple. It wasn't, because a front panel swung out an inch or so.

She knelt, opened it all the way.

There were eight large tins inside sitting on two shelves. Each was wrapped in what looked like brown rice paper or thin leather but was neither. In fine, bold script across the front of each someone had written: SPECIAL BLEND, Prepared Especially For DR. WALTER SCOTT Under this were the various blend names: Liz Granger, Virginia Violet, and so on.

She pulled one tin out, examined it patiently. That was all. No address, no telephone number, nothing. She went over each tin carefully, with identical results. Just SPECIAL BLEND, Prepared Especially for . . . and the blend name. Nothing to indicate who prepared it, where it came from.