An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe Read Free Book Online Page A

name?”
    “First name? Martha. Martha Grossman.”
    There was a long pause before Sharon said, “See you at Walker’s.”
    W ALKER’S served the world’s best omelets but made Cassie think of a cuckoo clock. Its windows were stained glass, and its roof was spiky with turrets. Its walls were, to be charitable, busy.
    None of which were actually bad. That was left to the people waiting on chairs and benches. There were twenty at least, and some appeared to have been waiting there for quite a while.
    Cassie approached the frazzled girl at the reception desk. “My friend may have gotten here first and gotten a table for us. Okay if I look?”
    The girl’s mouth opened, then shut again.
    “My age? Small, brown hair, big purse? Her name’s Sharon.”
    “I—I know you,” the frazzled girl whispered. She sounded as if she had lost a lot of blood. “Only I c-can’t think of your name.”
    Cassie gave it, although the frazzled girl did not seem to hear her.
    “I’d better tell Ben.” She seemed to have come to some sort of decision. “I’ll go get him. May I have your autograph? While I’m gone, I mean.” She fumbled below the counter, at last producing a paper napkin. “It’s not for me! It’s for—for my sister.” She whirled and was gone.
    Cassie borrowed a pen from a disconsolate man on a folding chair and wrote
Cassie Casey, with all good wishes
.
    She had just returned the pen when the frazzled girl reappeared with a youngish man who wore a blue tie with a purple shirt.
    “A pleasure, madam,” the youngish man said. “Your friend’s expecting you. Drinking coffee, you know. Said he wouldn’t order until you arrived. Please follow me.”
    He?
Cassie followed anyway, through one noisy room crowded with tables and redolent of good food and into another, this one equally redolent though smaller and not quite so crowded and noisy.
    A slender, olive-skinned man sitting alone at a table set for three looked up from his menu as they approached. It was Gideon Chase.

FOUR

THE UNSEEN AUDIENCE
    “I’ve got just one question.” Cassie lowered her voice. “Who the hell gave you permission to tap my phone?”
    Gideon almost smiled. “No one.”
    “You—you slick little bastard! I thought we were friends.”
    He nodded. “As did I. May I add that I haven’t tapped it?”
    “You didn’t know I was coming here? This is pure coincidence? I don’t believe it.”
    “I knew. I came here to meet you and Sharon Bench. May I explain?”
    “It had better be good!”
    “It will at least be truthful. This morning it struck me that you had called someone named Sharon as soon as you had read my note. Thus it was reasonable to suppose that you might call her again on awakening. When you two talked last night, you implied that she worked on a newspaper.”
    Gideon paused, glancing back at his menu, until Cassie had nodded. It was a reluctant nod, but a nod nonetheless.
    “Since you clearly knew her, it was also reasonable to assume that Sharon’s paper was local. Three newspapers are published here. You look surprised.”
    “I am,” Cassie said.
    “Two are quite small, and one of those is given away. As it happens I know—or at least I believe that I know—everyone who works on the other small one. Thus it seemed likely that Sharon was on the large one, the
Sun-Tribunal
. I called their offices and asked to speak with Sharon. The operator asked whether I wanted Sharon Wilks or Sharon Bench. Forced to guess, I said Sharon Wilks.”
    Cassie grinned.
    “When I had Sharon Wilks on the line, I explained that I was a friend of yours and that you had mentioned your friend Sharon in my hearing. Sharon Wilks told me she had never met you—though she knew who you were—and gave me a number for Sharon Bench. I called her, and she asked for an interview.”
    Slowly, Cassie nodded. “Begged for one, I imagine.”
    Pad in hand, a waitress cleared her throat.
    “We’re waiting for the third member of our party,”