A Whisper of Blood Read online

  Karl Edward Wagner

  Here is a rather harsh view of those who interrupt the artist at work—I wouldn’t even want to speculate as to how close this story is to the author’s heart. …

  Martine was hammering away to the accompaniment of Lou Reed, tapedeck set at stun, and at first didn’t hear the knocking at her studio door. She set aside hammer and chisel, put Lou Reed on hold, and opened the door to discover Keenan Bauduret seated on her deck rail, leaning forward to pound determinedly at her door. The morning sun shone bright and cheery through the veil of pines, and Keenan was shit-faced drunk.

  “Martine!” He lurched toward her. “I need a drink!”

  “What you need is some coffee.” Martine stood her ground. At six feet and change she was three inches taller than Keenan and in far better shape.

  “Please! I’ve got to talk to someone.” Keenan’s soft brown eyes implored. He was disheveled and unshaven in baggy clothes that once had fit him, and Martine thought of a stray spaniel, damp and dirty, begging to be let in. And Keenan said: “I’ve just killed someone. I mean, some thing.”

  Martine stepped inside. “I can offer gin and orange juice.”

  “Just the gin.”

  Keenan Bauduret collapsed onto her wooden rocking chair and mopped at his face with a crumpled linen handkerchief, although the morning was not yet warm. Now he reminded her of Bruce Dern playing a dissolute southern lawyer, complete with out-of-fashion and rumpled suit; but in fact Keenan was a writer, although dissolute and southern to be sure. He was part of that sort of artist/writer colony that the sort of small university town such as Pine Hill attracts. Originally he was from New Orleans, and he was marking time writing mystery novels while he completed work on the Great Southern Novel. At times he taught creative writing for the university’s evening college.

  Martine had installed a wet bar complete with refrigerator and microwave in a corner of her studio to save the walk back into her house when she entertained here. She sculpted in stone, and the noise and dust were better kept away from her single-bedroom cottage. While Keenan sweated, she looked for glasses and ice.

  “Just what was it you said that you’d killed?”

  “A slug. A gross, obscene, mammoth, and predatory slug.”

  “Sounds rather like a job for Orkin. Did you want your gin neat?”

  “Just the naked gin.”

  Martine made herself a very light gin screwdriver and poured a double shot of Tanqueray into Keenan’s glass. Her last name was still McFerran, and she had her father’s red hair, which she wore in a long ponytail, and his Irish blue eyes and freckled complexion. Her mother was Scottish and claimed that her side of the family was responsible for her daughter’s unexpected height. Born in Belfast, Martine 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 non-threatening 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 was 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 without visible comprehension through various of Keenan’s books, soaking up coffee, and intermittently clearing his throat and swallowing horribly. Keenan no longer felt like working after his guest had finally left. Instead he made himself a fifth rum and Coke and fell asleep watching I Love Lucy.

  At ten the following morning, Keenan had almost reworked his first sentence of the day when Casper phoned.

  “Do you know why a tomcat licks his balls?”

  Keenan admitted ignorance.

  “Because he can!”

  Casper chuckled with enormous relish at his own joke, while Keenan scowled at the phone. “How about going out to get some barbecue for lunch?” Casper then suggested.

  “I’m afraid I’m
really very busy just now.”

  “In that case,” Casper persisted, “I’ll just pick us up some sandwiches and bring them on over.”

  And he did. And Casper sat on Keenan’s couch, wolfing down barbecue sandwiches with the precision of a garbage disposal, dribbling gobbets of sauce and cole slaw down his beard and belly and onto the upholstery. Keenan munched his soggy sandwich, reflecting upon the distinction between the German verbs, essen (to eat) and fressen (to devour). When Casper at last left, it was late afternoon, and Keenan took a nap that lasted past his usual dinnertime. By then the day had long since slipped away.

  He awoke feeling bloated and lethargic the next morning, but he was resolved to make up for lost time. At ten-thirty Casper appeared on his doorstep, carrying a bag of chocolate-covered raspberry jelly doughnuts.

  “Do you know how many mice it takes to screw in a light bulb?” Casper asked, helping himself to coffee.

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Two—but they have to be real small!” Jelly spurted down Casper’s beard as he guffawed. Keenan had never before heard someone actually guffaw; he’d always assumed it was an exaggerated figure of speech.

  Casper left after about two in the afternoon, unsuccessful in his efforts to coax Keenan into sharing a pizza with him. Keenan returned to his desk, but inspiration was dead.

  And so the daily routine began.

  “Why didn’t you just tell him to stay away and let you work?” Martine interrupted.

  “Easy enough to say,” Keenan groaned. “At first I just felt sorry for him. OK, the guy is lonely—right? Anyway, I really was going to tell him to stop bugging me every day—and then I had my accident.”

  A rain-slick curve, a telephone pole, and Keenan’s venerable VW Beetle was grist for the crusher. Keenan fared rather better, although his left foot would wear a plaster sock for some weeks after.

  Casper came over daily with groceries and bottles of beer and rum. “Glad to be of help,” he assured Keenan as he engulfed most of a slice of pepperoni-and-mushroom pizza. Sauce obscured his beard. “Must be tough having to hobble around day after day. Still, I’ll bet you’re getting a lot of writing done.”

  “Very little,” Keenan grudgingly admitted. “Just haven’t felt up to it lately.”

  “Guess you haven’t. Hey, do you know what the difference is between a circus and a group of sorority girls out jogging?”

  “I give up”.

  “Well, one is a cunning array of stunts!” Casper chortled and wiped red sauce from his mouth. “Guess I better have another beer after that one!”

  Keenan missed one deadline, and then he missed another. He made excuses owing to his accident. Deadlines came around again. The one novel he did manage to finish came back with requests for major revisions. Keenan worked hard at the rewrite, but each new effort was only for the worse. He supposed he ought to cut down on his drinking, but the stress was keeping him awake nights, and he kept having nightmares wherein Casper crouched on his chest and snickered bad jokes and dribbled salsa. His agent sounded concerned, and his editors were losing patience.

  “Me,” said Casper, “I never have trouble writing. I’ve always got lots of ideas.”

  Keenan resisted screaming at the obese hulk who had camped on his sofa throughout the morning. Instead he asked civilly: “Oh? And what are you working on now?”

  “A follow-up to my last book—by the way, my publisher really went ape-shit over that one, wants another like it. This time I’m writing one that traces the rise of Nazi Germany to the Druidic rites at Stonehenge.”

  “You seem to be well versed in the occult,” observed Keenan, repressing an urge to vomit.

  “I do a lot of research,” Casper explained. “Besides, it’s in my blood. Did I ever tell you that I’m related to Aleister Crowley?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I am.” Casper beamed with secret pride.

  “I should have guessed.”

  “Well, the name, of course.”

  Keenan had been thinking of other similarities. “Well, I really do need to get some work done now.”

  “Sure you don’t need me to run you somewhere?”

  “No, thank you. The ankle is a little sore, but I can get around well enough.”

  At the door, Casper persisted: “Sure you don’t, want to go get some barbecue?”

  “Very sure.”

  Casper pointed toward the rusted-out Chevy wagon in Keenan’s driveway. “Well, if that heap won’t start again, just give me a call.”

  “I put in a new battery,” Keenan said, remembering that the mechanic had warned him about the starter motor. Keenan had bought the clunker for three hundred bucks—from a student. He needed wheels, and wheels were about all that did work on the rust-bucket. His insurance hadn’t covered replacement for his antique Beetle.

  “Heard you had to return your advance on that Zenith contract.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” Keenan wanted to use his fists.

  “My editor—your old editor—brought it up when we were talking contract on my new book the other day. She said for me to check out how you were getting along. Sounded concerned. But I told her you were doing great, despite all the talk.”

  “Thanks for that much.”

  “Hey, you know the difference between a sorority girl and a bowling ball?”

  Keenan did not trust himself to speak.

  “No? Well, you can’t stuff a sorority girl into a bowling ball!”

  After the university informed Mr. Bauduret that his services would no longer be required as instructor of creative writing at the evening college, Keenan began to sell off his books and a few antiques. It kept the wolves at arm’s length, and it paid for six-packs. Editors no longer phoned, and his agent no longer answered his calls.

  Casper was sympathetic, and he regularly carried over doughnuts and instant coffee, which he consumed while drinking Keenan’s beer.

  “Zenith gobbled up Nazi Druids,” he told Keenan. “They can’t wait for more.”

  The light in Keenan’s eyes was not the look of a sane man. “So, what’s next?”

  “I got an idea. I’ve discovered a tie-in between flying saucers and the Salem witch burnings.”

  “They hanged them. Or pressed them. No burnings in this country.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, I bought a bunch of your old books on the subject at the Book Barn the other day. Guess I won’t need to borrow them now.”

  “Guess not.”

  “Hey, you want some Mexican for lunch? I’ll pay.”

  “Thank you, but I have some work to do.”

  “Good to see you’re still slugging away.”

  “Not finished yet.”

  “Guess some guys don’t know when they’re licked.”

  “Guess not.”

  “Hey”—Casper chugged his beer—“you know what the mating cry of a sorority girl is?”

  Keenan gritted his teeth in a hideous grin.

  Continued Casper in girlish falsetto: “Oh, I’m so-o-o drunk!” His belly shook with laughter, although he wasn’t Santa. “Better have another beer on that one!”

  And he sat there on the couch, methodically working his way through Keenan’s stock of beer, as slowly mobile and slimy gross as a huge slug feasting its way across the garden. Keenan listened to his snorts and belches, to his puerile and obscene jokes, to his pointless and inane conversation, too drained and too weak to beg him to leave. Instead he swallowed his beer and his bile, and fires of loathing stirred beneath the ashes of his despair.

  That night Keenan found the last bottle of rum he’d hidden away against when the shakes came at dawn, and he dug out the vast file of typed pages, containing all the fits and starts and notes and revisions and disconnected chapters that were the entirety of his years’efforts toward the Great Southern Novel.

  He had a small patio, surrounded by a neglected rock garden and close-shouldering oak trees, and he heaped an entire bag of charcoal into the
barbecue grill that rusted there. Then Keenan sipped from the bottle of Myers’s, waiting for the coals to take light. When the coals had reached their peak, Keenan Bauduret fed his manuscript, page by crumpled page, onto the fire; watched each page flame and char, rise in dying ashes into the night.

  “That was when I knew I had to kill Casper Crowley.”

  Martine wasn’t certain whether she was meant to laugh now. “Kill Casper? But he was only trying to be your friend! I’m sure you can find a way to ask him to give you your space without hurting his feelings.”

  Keenan laughed instead. He poured out the last of her gin. “A friend? Casper was a giant grotesque slug! He was a gross leech that sucked out my creative energy! He fed off me and watched over me with secret delight as I wasted away!”

  “That’s rather strong.”

  “From the first day the slug showed up on my doorstep, I could never concentrate on my work. When I did manage to write, all I could squeeze out was dead, boring, lifeless drivel. I don’t blame my publishers for sending it back!”

  Martine sighed, wondering how to express herself. She did rather like Keenan; she certainly felt pity for him now. “Keenan, I don’t want to get you upset, but you have been drinking an awful lot this past year or so. …”

  “Upset?” Keenan broke into a wild grin and a worse laugh, then suddenly regained his composure. “No need for me to be upset now. I’ve killed him.”

  “And how did you manage that?” Martine was beginning to feel uneasy.

  “How do you kill a slug?”

  “I thought you said he was a leech.”

  “They’re one and the same.”

  “No they’re not.”

  “Yes they are. Gross, bloated, slimy things. Anyway, the remedy is the same.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

  “Salt.” Keenan seemed in complete control now. “They can’t stand salt.”

  “I see.” Martine relaxed and prepared herself for the joke.

  Keenan became very matter-of-fact. “Of course, I didn’t forget the beer. Slugs are drawn to beer. I bought many six-packs of imported beer. Then I prepared an enormous barbecue feast—chickens, ribs, pork loin. Casper couldn’t hold himself back.”