Walk on the Wild Side - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,59

had grown up in Pine Hill as a faculty brat after her parents took university posts here to escape the troubles in Northern Ireland. Approaching the further reaches of thirty, Martine was content with her bachelorhood and her sculpture and had no desire to return to Belfast.

“Sure you don’t want orange juice?” She handed the glass to Keenan.

Keenan shook his head. “To your very good health.” He swallowed half the gin, closed his eyes, leaned back in the rocker and sighed. He did not, as Martine had expected, tip over.

Martine sat down carefully in her prized Windsor chair. She was wearing scuffed Reeboks, faded blue jeans, and a naturally torn university sweatshirt, and she pushed back her sleeves before tasting her drink.

“Now, then,” she said, “tell me what really happened.”

Keenan studied his gin with the eye of a man who is balancing his need to bolt the rest of it against the impropriety of asking for an immediate refill. Need won.

“Don’t get up.” He smiled graciously. “I know the way.”

Martine watched him slosh another few ounces of gin into his glass, her own mood somewhere between annoyance and concern. She’d known Keenan Bauduret casually for years, well before he’d hit the skids. He was a few years older than she, well read and intelligent, and usually fun to be around. They’d never actually dated, but there were the inevitable meetings at parties and university town cultural events, lunches and dinners and a few drinks after. Keenan had never slept over, nor had she at his cluttered little house. It was that sort of respectful friendship that arises between two lonely people who are content within their self-isolation, venturing forth for nonthreatening companionship without ever sensing the need.

“I’ve cantaloupe in the fridge,” Martine prompted.

“Thanks. I’m all right.” Keenan returned to the rocker. He sipped his gin this time. His hands were no longer shaking. “How well do you know Casper Crowley?”

“Casper the Friendly Ghost?” Martine almost giggled. “Hardly at all. That is, I’ve met him at parties, but he never has anything to say to anyone. Just stands stuffing himself with chips and hors d’oeuvres—I’ve even seen him pocket a few beers as he’s left. I’m told he’s in a family business, but no one seems to know what that business is—and he writes books that no one I know has ever read for publishers no one has heard of. He’s so dead dull boring that I always wonder why anyone ever invites him.”

“I’ve seen him at your little gatherings,” Keenan accused.

“Well, yes. It’s just that I feel sorry for poor boring Casper.”

“Exactly.” Keenan stabbed a finger and rested his case. “That’s what happened to me. You won’t mind if I have another drink while I tell you about it?”

Martine sighed mentally and tried not to glance at her watch. His greatest mistake, said Keenan, was ever to have invited Casper Crowley to drop by in the first place.

It began about two years ago. Keenan was punishing the beer keg at Greg Lafollette’s annual birthday bash and pig-picking. He was by no means sober, or he never would have attempted to draw Casper into conversation. It was just that Casper stood there, wrapped in his customary loneliness, mechanically feeding his face with corn chips and salsa, washing it down with great gulps of beer, as expressionless as a carp taking bread crumbs from atop a pool.

“How’s it going, Casper?” Keenan asked harmlessly.

Casper shaved his scalp but not his face, and he had bits of salsa in his bushy orange beard. He was wearing a tailored tweed suit whose vest strained desperately to contain his enormous beer gut. He turned his round, bland eyes toward Keenan and replied, “Do you know much about Aztec gods?”

“Not really, I suppose.”

“In this book I’m working on,” Casper pursued, “I’m trying to establish a link between the Aztecs and Nordic mythology.”

“Well, I do have a few of the usual sagas stuck away on my shelves.” Keenan w as struggling to imagine any such link.

“Then would it be all right if I dropped by your place to look them over?”

And Casper appeared at ten the following morning, while Keenan was drying off from his shower, and he helped himself to coffee and doughnuts while Keenan dressed.

“Hope I’m not in your way.” Casper was making a fresh pot of coffee.

“Not at all.” Keenan normally worked mornings through the afternoon, and he had a pressing deadline.

But Casper plopped down on his couch and spent the next few hours leafing