Hugo Awards: The Short Stories (Volume 3) Read online

  “How the fuck,” Will said, “can somebody have a three-and-two record when he’s fighting to the death?”

  The ogre grinned. Then he explained.

  Less than an hour later, Will, Salem Toussaint, and Ghostface stood waiting in the shadows outside the city morgue. “Okay,” Ghostface said. “I thought I knew all the racial types from Litvak night-hags to Thai shit demons, but you say this girl is a what? ”

  “A diener. It’s not a type, it’s a job. A diener is a morgue attendant who’s responsible for moving and cleaning the body. She also assists the coroner in the autopsy. I made a few calls and Deianira’s on night duty this week. Though I’m guessing she might take off a little early tonight.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “This is where Bobby Buggane’s body wound up.”

  “I think, boy,” Toussaint said firmly, “you’d best tell us the whole story.”

  “All right,” Will said. “Here’s how I put it together. Buggane and Ice steal a truckload of jewelry-grade jade together and agree to wait six months before trying to fence it. Buggane keeps possession—I’m guessing it’s stashed with his girlfriend, but that’s not really important—and everyone has half a year to reflect on how much bigger Buggane’s share will be if he stiffs Ice. Maybe Ice starts worrying about it out loud.

  So Buggane goes down to the basement to talk it over with his good buddy. They have a couple of drinks, maybe they smoke a little crack.

  Then he breaks out the crystal goon. By this time, your brother’s lost whatever good judgment he had in the first place, and says sure.”

  Ghostface nodded glumly.

  “Ice shoots up first, then Buggane. Only he shoots up pure water.

  That’s easy to pull—what druggie’s going to suspect another druggie of shortchanging himself? Then, when Ice nods off, Buggane goes back to his room, takes down the ward, and flushes it down the toilet.

  That way, when he’s found dead, suspicion’s naturally going to fall on the only individual in the building able to walk through a locked door.

  One who he’s made certain will be easy to find when the police come calling.”

  “So who kills Buggane?”

  “It’s a set-up job. Buggane opens the window halfway and checks to make sure his girlfriend is waiting in the alley. Everything’s ready. Now he stages a fight. He screams, roars, pounds the wall, smashes a chair.

  Then, when the neighbors are all yelling at him to shut up, he goes to the window, takes a deep breath, and rips open his rib cage with his bare hands.”

  “Can he do that?”

  “Boggarts are strong, remember. Plus, if you checked out the syringe on his dresser, I wouldn’t be surprised to find traces not of goon but of morphine. Either way, with or without painkiller, he tears out his own heart. Then he drops it out the window. Deianira catches it in a basket or a sheet, so there’s no blood on the ground. Nothing that will direct the investigators’ attention outside.

  “She leaves with his heart.

  “Now Buggane’s still got a couple of minutes before he collapses.

  He’s smart enough not to close the window—there’d be blood on the outside part of the sill and that would draw attention outward again.

  But his hands are slick with blood and he doesn’t want the detectives to realize he did the deed himself, so he goes to the bathroom sink and washes them. By this time, the concierge is hammering on the door.

  “He dies. Everything is going exactly according to plan.”

  “Hell of a plan,” Toussaint murmured.

  “Yeah. You know the middle part. The cops come, they see, they believe. If it wasn’t for Ghostface kicking up a fuss, we’d never have found all this other stuff.”

  “Me? I didn’t do anything.”

  “Well, it looked hinky to me, but I wasn’t going to meddle in police business until I learned it mattered to you.”

  “You left out the best part,” Toussaint said. “How Buggane manages to turn killing himself to his own advantage.”

  “Yeah, that had me baffled too. But when a boxer picks up a nick-name like ‘the Deathless,’ you have to wonder why. Then the ogre at the gym told me that Buggane had a three-two record pit boxing. That’s to the death, you know. It turns out Buggane’s got a glass heart. Big lump of crystal the size of your fist. No matter how badly he’s injured, the heart can repair him. Even if he’s clinically dead.”

  “So his girlfriend waits for his body to show up and sticks the heart back in?” Ghostface said. “No, that’s just crazy. That wouldn’t really work, would it?”

  “Shhh,” Will said. “I think we’re about to find out. Look.”

  A little door opened in the side of the morgue. Two figures came out.

  The smaller one was helping the larger to stand.

  For the first time all evening, Toussaint smiled. Gold teeth gleamed.

  Then he put a police whistle to his mouth.

  After Buggane and his girlfriend had been arrested, Ghostface gave Will a short, fierce hug and then ran off to arrange his brother’s release. Will and the alderman strolled back to the limousine, parked two blocks away. As they walked, Will worried how he was going to explain to his boss that he couldn’t chauffeur because he didn’t have a license.

  “You done good, boy,” Salem Toussaint said. “I’m proud of you.”

  Something in his voice, or perhaps the amused way he glanced down at Will out of the corner of his eye said more than mere words could have.

  “You knew,” Will said. “You knew all the time.”

  Toussaint chuckled. “Perhaps I did. But I had the advantage of knowing what the city knows. It was still mighty clever of you to figure it out all on your own.”

  “But why should I have had to? Why didn’t you just tell the detectives what you knew?”

  “Let me answer that question with one of my own: Why did you tell Ghostface he was the one who uncovered the crime?”

  They’d reached the limo now. It flickered its lights, glad to see them.

  But they didn’t climb in just yet. “Because I’ve got to live with the guy.

  I don’t want him thinking I think I’m superior to him.”

  “Exactly so! The police liked hearing the story from a solid boy better than they would from me. I’m not quite a buffoon in their eyes, but I’m something close to it. My power has to be respected, and my office too. It would make folks nervous if they had to take me seriously as well.”

  “Alderman, I…”

  “Hush up, boy. I know everything you’re about to say.” The alderman opened a door for Will. “Climb in the back. I’ll drive.”

  DISTANT REPLAY

  Michael Resnick

  The first time I saw her she was jogging in the park. I was sitting on a bench, reading the paper like I do every morning. I didn’t pay much attention to her, except to note the resemblance.

  The next time was in the supermarket. I’d stopped by to replenish my supply of instants—coffee, creamer, sweetener—and this time I got a better look at her. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. At seventy-six, it wouldn’t be the first time that had happened.

  Two nights later I was in Vincenzo’s Ristorante, which has been my favorite Italian joint for maybe forty years—and there she was again. Not only that, but this time she was wearing my favorite blue dress. Oh, the skirt was a little shorter, and there was something different about the sleeves, but it was the dress, all right.

  It didn’t make any sense. She hadn’t looked like this in more than four decades. She’d been dead for seven years, and if she was going to come back from the grave, why the hell hadn’t she come directly to me? After all, we’d spent close to half a century together.

  I walked by her, ostensibly on my way to the men’s room, and the smell hit me while I was still five feet away from her. It was the same perfume she’d worn every day of our lives together.

  But she was sixty-eight when she’d died, and now
she looked exactly the way she looked the very first time I saw her. I tried to smile at her as I passed her table. She looked right through me.

  I got to the men’s room, rinsed my face off, and took a look in the mirror, just to make sure I was still seventy-six years old and hadn’t dreamed the last half century. It was me, all right: not much hair on the top, in need of a trim on the sides, one eye half-shut from the mini-stroke I denied having except in increasingly rare moments of honesty, a tiny scab on my chin where I’d cut myself shaving. (I can’t stand those new-fangled electric razors, though since they’ve been around as long as I have, I guess they’re not really so new-fangled after all.) It wasn’t much of a face on good days, and now it had just seen a woman who was the spitting image of Deirdre.

  When I came out she was still there, sitting alone, picking at her dessert.

  “Excuse me,” I said, walking up to her table. “Do you mind if I join you for a moment?”

  She looked at me as if I was half-crazy. Then she looked around, making sure that the place was crowded in case she had to call for help, decided I looked harmless enough, and finally she nodded tersely.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I just want to say that you look exactly like someone I used to know, even down to the dress and the perfume.”

  She kept staring at me, but didn’t answer.

  “I should introduce myself,” I said, extending my hand. “My name is Walter Silverman.”

  “What do you want?” she asked, ignoring my hand.

  “The truth?” I said. “I just wanted a closer look at you. You remind me so much of this other person.”

  She looked dubious. “It’s not a pick-up line,” I continued. “Hell, I’m old enough to be your grandfather, and the staff will tell you I’ve been coming here for forty years and haven’t molested any customers yet.

  I’m just taken by the resemblance to someone I cared for very much.”

  Her face softened. “I’m sorry if I was rude,” she said, and I was struck by how much the voice sounded like her voice. “My name is Deirdre.”

  It was my turn to stare.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “But the woman you look like was also named Deirdre.”

  Another stare.

  “Let me show you,” I said, pulling out my wallet. I took my Deirdre’s photo out and handed it to her.

  “It’s uncanny,” she said, studying the picture. “We even sort of wear our hair the same way. When was this taken?”

  “Forty-seven years ago.”

  “Is she dead?”

  I nodded.

  “Your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “She was a beautiful woman.” Then, “I hope that doesn’t sound conceited, since we look so much alike.”

  “Not at all. She was beautiful. And like I say, she even used the same perfume.”

  “That’s very weird,” she said. “Now I understand why you wanted to talk to me.”

  “It was like … like I’d suddenly stumbled back half a century in time,” I said. “You’re even wearing Deedee’s favorite color.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That you’re wearing her—”

  “No. I meant what you just called her.”

  “Deedee?” I asked. “That was my pet name for her.”

  “My friends call me Deedee,” she said. “Isn’t that odd?”

  “May I call you that?” I said. “If we ever meet again, I mean?”

  “Sure,” she said with a shrug. “Tell me about yourself, Walter. Are you retired?”

  “For the past dozen years,” I said.

  “Got any kids or grandkids?”

  “No.”

  “If you don’t work and you don’t have family, what do you do with your time?” she asked.

  “I read, I watch DVDs, I take walks, I Google a zillion things of interest on the computer.” I paused awkwardly. “I hope it doesn’t sound crazy, but mostly I just pass the time until I can be with Deedee again.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Forty-five years,” I answered. “That photo was taken a couple of years before we were married. We had long engagements back then.”

  “Did she work?” asked Deirdre. “I know a lot of women didn’t when you were young.”

  “She illustrated children’s books,” I said. “She even won a couple of awards.”

  Suddenly Deirdre frowned. “All right, Walter—how long have you been studying me?”

  “Studying you?” I repeated, puzzled. “I saw you jogging a couple of days ago, and I watched you while I was eating…”

  “Do you really expect me to believe that?”

  “Why wouldn’t you?” I asked.

  “Because I’m an illustrator for children’s magazines.”

  That was too many coincidences. “Say that again?”

  “I illustrate children’s magazines.”

  “What’s your last name?” I asked.

  “Why?” she replied suspiciously.

  “Just tell me,” I said, almost harshly.

  “Aronson.”

  “Thank God!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My Deedee’s maiden name was Kaplan,” I said. “For a minute there I thought I was going crazy. If your name was Kaplan I’d have been sure of it.”

  “I’m sorry I lost my temper,” said Deirdre. “This has been just a little … well … weird.”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” I said. “It was just, I don’t know, like seeing my Deedee all over again, young and beautiful the way I remember her.”

  “Is that the way you always think of her?” she asked curiously. “The way she looked forty-five years ago?”

  I pulled out another photo, taken the year before Deedee died. She was about forty pounds heavier, and her hair was white, and there were wrinkles around her eyes. I stared at it for a minute, then handed it to Deirdre.

  “This is her, too,” I said. “I’d look at her, and I’d see past the pounds and the years. I think every woman is beautiful, each in her own way, and my Deedee was the most beautiful of all.”

  “It’s a shame you’re not fifty years younger,” she said. “I could go for someone who feels that way.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing.

  “What did your wife die of?” she asked at last.

  “She was walking across the street, and some kid who was high on drugs came racing around the corner doing seventy miles an hour. She never knew what hit her.” I paused, remembering that awful day. “The kid got six months’ probation and lost his license. I lost Deedee.”

  “Did you see it happen?”

  “No, I was still inside the store, paying for the groceries. I heard it, though. Sounded like a clap of thunder.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “At least she didn’t feel any pain,” I said. “I suppose there are worse ways to go. Slower ways, anyway.

  Most of my friends are busy discovering them.”

  Now it was her turn to be at a loss for an answer. Finally she looked at her watch. “I have to go, Walter,” she said. “It’s been … interesting.”

  “Perhaps we could meet again?” I suggested hopefully.

  She gave me a look that said all her worst fears were true after all.

  “I’m not asking for a date,” I continued hastily. “I’m an old man. I’d just like to talk to you again. It’d be like being with Deedee again for a few minutes.” I paused, half-expecting her to tell me that it was sick, but she didn’t say anything. “Look, I eat here all the time. What if you came back a week from today, and we just talked during dinner? My treat. I promise not to follow you home, and I’m too arthritic to play footsie under the table.”

  She couldn’t repress a smile at my last remark. “All right, Walter,” she said. “I’ll be your ghost from six to seven.”

  I was as ner
vous as a schoolboy a week later when six o’clock rolled around. I’d even worn a jacket and tie for the first time in months. (I’d also cut myself in three places while shaving, but I hoped she wouldn’t notice.) Six o’clock came and went, and so did six ten. She finally entered the place at a quarter after, in a blouse and slacks I could have sworn belonged to Deedee.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, sitting down opposite me. “I was reading and lost track of the time.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Jane Austen?”

  “How did you know?” she asked, surprised.

  “She was Deedee’s favorite.”

  “I didn’t say she was my favorite,” said Deirdre.

  “But she is, isn’t she?” I persisted.

  There was an uncomfortable pause.

  “Yes,” she said at last.

  We ordered our dinner—of course she had the eggplant parmesan; it was what Deedee always had—and then she pulled a couple of magazines out of her bag, one full-sized, one a digest, and showed me some illustrations she had done.

  “Very good,” I said. “Especially this one of the little blonde girl and the horse. It reminds me—”

  “Of something your wife did?”

  I nodded. “A long time ago. I haven’t thought of it for years. I always liked it, but she felt she’d done many better ones.”

  “I’ve done better, too,” said Deirdre. “But these were handy.”

  We spoke a little more before the meal came. I tried to keep it general, because I could see all these parallels with Deedee were making her uncomfortable. Vincenzo had his walls covered by photos of famous Italians; she knew Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and Joe DiMaggio, but I spent a few minutes explaining what Carmine Basilio and Eddie Arcaro and some of the others had done to deserve such enshrinement.

  “You know,” I said as the salads arrived, “Deedee had a beautiful leatherbound set of Jane Austen’s works. I never read them, and they’re just sitting there gathering dust. I’d be happy to give them to you next week.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” she said. “They must be worth a small fortune.”