Armageddon Rag by George R.R. Martin Read Free Book Online Page A

wouldn’t mind, he thought. Not unless she had changed beyond recognition. Sandy reached for the phone and dialed.
    The number, as he’d expected, was disconnected, but Cleveland information still had a listing for a Margaret Sloane. Sandy wrote down the number and hoped it was the same Margaret Sloane. He placed the call anyway, and listened to it ring.
    On the tenth ring, someone picked it up and a familiar sleepy voice groused, “Yeah?” into the receiver.
    “Hi, Maggie,” he said quietly. “It’s Sandy.”
    “My God,” she said. “Sandy? Sandy
Blair
!” With every word she seemed to be coming a bit more awake, and Sandy was pleased as hell by the sheer delight in her voice. “My God, is it really you? Are you in town? Tell me you’re in town!”
    “Afraid not. I’m in Maine, of all places. Believe it or not, I’m working for Jared again.”
    “That cretin.”
    “Yeah, well, it’s only a one-time thing. Jamie Lynch got himself killed and I’m doing the story on it. Everyone on the
Hog
staff these days sprang full blown from Jared’s forehead in 1976, so I’m the only one that’s qualified. I’m about to go interview the Nazgûl, wherever they may be, and I thought maybe I might pass through Cleveland.”
    “And you damn well better stop and see me, you hear? What has it been, three years? I’ve read your books. Sarah was me, wasn’t she? In
Kasey’s Quest
?”
    “Hell, no,” Sandy said. “All my characters are fictional, and any similarity to real persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. It says so right under the copyright.”
    “You asshole,” Maggie said affectionately. “At least you said she was good in bed.”
    “She was.”
    “But you
killed
her!” Maggie wailed.
    “Don’t you think it was more poignant that way?”
    “I’ll give you
poignant
. Are you really coming out?”
    “Maybe,” Sandy cautioned. “Don’t count on it. I have no idea where the Nazgûl have gotten themselves to. If they all live on Guam now, I’ll have to fly out and take a pass. But if it’s humanly possible, I’d like to drive, and stop and see you on the way.”
    “Driving, huh? You coming in the Hogmobile?”
    Sandy laughed. The Hogmobile had been a green 1966 Mustang, covered with leftover flower decals from the ’68 McCarthy campaign. He’d put nearly 180,000 miles on her before she finally gave up the ghost and went to wherever dead Mustangs go to pasture. “She passed away some time ago,” he told Maggie. “I’ve got a new car now.”
    “Sigh,” said Maggie. “I liked the old lady. Ah, well. What do you call the new one?”
    “Call?” Sandy said. “I… well, I guess it doesn’t have a name.” It seemed a strange admission even as he said it. He’d bought the Mazda almost two years ago. When had he stopped naming his cars? he wondered. He’d
always
named his cars, ever since the very first one, a rusted-out black VW Beetle he’d gotten when he was seventeen and immediately christened Roach.
    “Nothing’s wrong, is there?” Maggie asked. “You sound odd all of a sudden.”
    “No,” Sandy said, a bit ruefully. “Nothing wrong. I was just sitting here talking and all of a sudden I realized that I was maybe getting older than I like to admit. But never mind about that. What are you up to these days?”
    Maggie told him, and they talked about mutual friends who’d gone this way or that, and then about the old days, and somehow it got to be five in the morning with Sandy hardly noticing. “This is going to cost a not-so-small fortune,” he said finally, as they were hanging up. “Good thing Jared is paying for it. I’ll be seeing you as soon as I can.”
    “You damn well better,” Maggie replied, and when he put the phone back into its cradle, Sandy felt quite good indeed, and very tired, and he had no trouble whatsoever falling at once into a deep, dreamless sleep.
    The phone woke him just before noon. “I want to order a pepperoni pizza, and hold the