Free An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe Page A

talk about something else if you want to talk.”
    Donny returned bearing a tall and narrow glass thick with frost. Solemnly he passed it to Cassie, who sipped, shuddered, and sipped again.
    “Would anyone care for ugly news?” Donny inquired. “Perhaps everyone has already heard? Am I to know shame because
I
had not?”
    Cassie wet her lips from the glass and licked them. “It depends on what bad news you have in mind. My God! I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this stuff.”
    “You weren’t planning on two?”
    “Lord no!”
    “Are you going to be displeased because I bribed the man to mix it to my own specifications?”
    Palma touched Cassie’s elbow. “I had supposed you celebrating, Cassiopeia darling. I see how mistaken I was. Rest assured, I beg you, that your friends—and everyone at this table is your friend—will stand by you through thick and thin.”
    Norma had taken out her compact and was studying herself in its mirror. “The cavalry’s not coming, Vince. You’ve made westerns. I know you have. The Apaches are closing in, and back at the fort nobody knows. You’ve got to learn to listen.”
    Donny raised an eyebrow. “Listen to . . . ?”
    “You weren’t here.” Norma snapped her compact shut. “To Alexis’s dresser. Cassie sent her to the colonel, but she couldn’t find him.”
    “This is my personal thing.” Firmly, Cassie set the frosted glass down. “Whatever you’ve heard, Donny, wasn’t. Or I don’t think it was. So tell us.”
    Margaret returned with a glass, sat, and sipped primly.
    “Well, I um . . . ?” The scarlet dots of Donny’s pimples stood out like bloodstains on a sheet. “Was the security guard back at the theater a, er, special friend of anyone here? I believe his name was Jeremy? I, ah, perhaps you thought I knew him?”
    “I consider him a friend,” Cassie said. “I did and still do. Has he been fired? He always seemed like such an honest, cheerful sort of man.”
    Margaret spoke more loudly than usual. “He was, Miss Casey. I knew him about as well as I know anybody. James K. Warshawsky was his name, and he’s passed away.”
    In the silence that followed, she added, “Or that’s what they say. I think that’s probably what Mr. Duke heard at the bar.”
    Donny nodded.
    “Let me guess.” Cassie closed her eyes. “They found him in the alley outside the stage door, and he’d been shot. Maybe stabbed. Is that right?”
    “Oh, shit!” Norma spoke under her breath, adding, “I’m back in the show.”
    “I didn’t hear about shooting or stabbing,” Donny said, “did you, Margaret?”
    She shook her head.
    “Quiet, everybody! Quiet!”
The voice was India’s; she was standing in the middle of the room, speaking into a mike.
    It had the desired effect.
    “Thanks! We call this the cast party, but it’s not all cast. Some of us were never onstage, but we’re all in showbiz and that’s what this’s really about. Now I’d like to introduce you to a gentleman you really ought to know. He’s in showbiz, too, or he soon will be.”
    There was a subdued buzz of talk. Cassie gulped her drink.
    “It always seems like big stage musicals are few and far between,” Indiacontinued, “but the legitimate stage is coming back. Maybe it’s just a cyclic thing. That’s what some people say. Maybe it’s all these hoppers, and people vacationing on barren worlds. Honeymoons on the moon, when grandpa was happy just to do it on his honey. All that shit. I don’t pretend to know, but I do know that lots and lots of the old movie theaters are reopening as legitimate playhouses, where people can sit and watch talented people like you onstage doing a show.” She fell silent, looking toward the door.
    “Some of you may have heard rumors about a big new musical called
Dating the Volcano God
. Okay, if you want to know more we’ve got the man right here.” She motioned urgently to a big man in a pin-striped teal suit. “Let’s have a real standing