“Marjorie.” Carter shook his head disapprovingly.
He expected servants, but there were no other signs of life as Fewick led them through the house and into a combination library-study.
“Stupid of me,” their host was saying, “keeping that on my person.”
“Yeah, it was.” Ashwood feigned interest in the crowded bookshelves that lined the walls.
“You must know something of how RW-CDs function because you got in deep enough to unearth my name and address.”
“I work with optical storage myself,” she told him. He looks like a surfing snowman, she thought. Only pink instead of white. All he needed was black eyes instead of brown and a carrot sticking out of his mouth. Instead of waddling when he walked, as she would have expected, he covered ground with a sort of athletic mince.
Unlike his companion, Carter found the room fascinating. The only time he’d ever seen more books in a private residence was in the mansion of a major producer who’d been considering him for a role. Every book there had looked brand-new, probably because not one of them had been touched by human hands since they’d left the bindery. In contrast Fewick’s all looked thoroughly perused, unevenly packed on their shelves, sometimes stacked in horizontal haste instead of having being returned to their proper niches.
A huge antique desk dominated one corner of the room near a window that overlooked sand and salt grass. Gilt decorated its clawed feet and edges. Two other tables stood nearby. The top of one was inclined forty-five degrees and displayed sheets of paper. It was illuminated from within. The other was home to more than a dozen wide, shallow drawers of the type one might find in the office of a professional cartographer.
Sculptures and other arcane objects were scattered about the room: on shelves, pedestals, the carpeted floor. Carter found himself standing next to a gargoylish human figure which had been boldly hacked from black wood. Decorated with feathers and beads, its cowrie-shell eyes seemed to follow him around the room. He thought the fist-sized ball of amber on the desk much more attractive, despite the dozen or so insects entombed within. It rested next to a small solid sterling sculpture of a nude woman and a swan, whom the artist had captured in the middle of an act not likely to be depicted anytime soon on the Disney Channel.
“Lotta books,” Ashwood observed. “You read ’em all?”
“At least in part,” Fewick replied pleasantly.
Carter turned from the desk. “Mind my asking what kind of business you’re in?”
Fewick beamed. “Why, the best sort of business there is.” A gargled, choking noise emerged from his throat, which, since he was evincing no obvious signs of external distress, could be nothing other than a laugh. “My parents are obscenely wealthy. They are also painfully sophisticated, extremely intelligent, and dull as dishwater. Which is why, as soon as I came into my inheritance from my grandparents, who were, if anything, even duller people, I immediately moved out of the family manse and set myself up down here.”
“Where’s home?” Ashwood asked him.
“Boston. Have you ever been to Boston, Mr….?”
“Jason Carter. I’m from Minnesota myself. About fifty miles west of Minneapolis. A town called …”
“How extremely interesting,” Fewick said with unseemly haste. As their host smiled it struck the actor that he wasn’t being intentionally rude. It was simply his manner. At least he was straightforward, which was more than could be said for the average executive producer or axe-murderer.
“If you would be so kind as to restore my property to me?”
Ashwood removed the plastic-wrapped CD from her purse and handed it over. Fewick took it delicately, holding it by the edges.
“Thank you,” he told her with feeling.
“Why is it so important?” Ashwood asked him, tact being one of the few, four-letter words with which she was not comfortable.
Instead of replying, Fewick went to his desk and opened a side drawer. The disc slipped into a vacant slot alongside dozens of others. The storage capacity represented by the contents of that single drawer, Carter knew, must be immense.
“There was something on there about a reward?” Ashwood said pointedly.
Fewick shut the drawer. “Oh, that’s old information. I should have erased that long ago.”
Her expression narrowed and she adopted a tone that startled Carter. Suddenly she didn’t sound like good old Marj, the wardrobe lady.
“Old information? You handled that sucker like it was yesterday’s prostate scan.” Her voice softened. “Besides, would you really try to cheat an old lady?”
“Oh, very well.” He sighed. “I suppose that to your way of thinking you have gone to some trouble. I will give you … a hundred dollars.”
“The disc said a thousand.”
“Two hundred, then.” A large rust-colored tomcat suddenly materialized atop the desk. Carter decided it had been sleeping in the leg space beneath. It rubbed up against Fewick, who reached down to stroke its back. Half-closed Persian eyes regarded the visitors.
“This is Moe.” Their host was enjoying himself, Carter saw.
“Nine hundred,” said Ashwood.
“Three.” Fewick continued to stroke the cat. “My best friend. Have you ever noticed how much nicer cats are than humans? I truly believe they are our only equals.” He eyed the immovable Ashwood. “Unlike Moe, I do not have a lot of time to waste in play. Five hundred.”
Ashwood muttered something under her breath. “All right.”
Fewick had a very small mouth which all but disappeared behind bunched cheeks when he smiled. Seating himself behind the desk, he wrote out a check, then rose to hand it to Ashwood. She was watching him warily.
“How do I know you won’t stop payment on this soon as we’re out the door?”
Fewick clasped his hands together delightedly. “What delicious cynicism! Madam, I could easily have given you nothing. This I offer for your time and out of the goodness of my heart.”
“I have this feeling that your heart is full of goo, not goodness.”
Fewick pursed his incongruously small lips. “You wound me deeply.”
“I ‘wound you deeply’? Y’all been watchin’ too many bad movies, bubbles. You need to get clear o’ this mausoleum more and out into the real world.”
“Marjorie!”
