A Matter of Taste

he paused. 'Hell, I wouldn't have let them in anyway. I couldn't.'

She sighed. 'Did you ever get through to Joe?'

'I left a message on his phone. That's all I could do. I know Joe and Kate sometimes turn off the ringer on the extension in their room at night.'

A wise move, Angie thought silently, for someone like Joe Keogh, who counts a vampire among his friends, and has married into a family where they call a vampire uncle. Who would be insane enough to do a thing like that?

Angie raised her hands, spread her fingers out, and looked at them. Suddenly she found herself wondering what it would do to you, inside, to have a couple of those little parts of yourself hacked off or torn off or whatever. She was going to have to get the story from John, someday, in detail.

At least her hands weren't shaking. But there had been moments during these last few hours when she'd had trouble deciding whether she was awake or asleep. Or simply losing her mind.

The phone in the alcove rang. John hesitated, gave her a look as if warning her to be on guard, and answered.

'It's Joe,' he said a moment later, and she saw his shoulders slump with relief.

Angie at the moment was too tired, too seriously disconnected from events, to feel much of anything. Sitting down on the sofa, she listened to John relating, in the manner of one who expected to be believed, the events of the night just ended. Then, marvelously, what Angie could deduce of Joe's responses to this story suggested strongly that Joe did not think they were crazy. Joe was evidently not demanding to know why the police had not been summoned. It even sounded as if he were ready to give them some kind of help.

At this point Angie began to come out of her dazed state.

Presently John hung up the phone. Obviously he had found his talk with Joe enormously reassuring. Now he announced in an almost normal voice that Joe had promised to come around as soon as possible, probably within a couple of hours. Angie began to be comforted; even if Joe thought he was only humoring a couple of lunatics, something would be resolved now, decisive action would be taken.

While they were waiting for Joe Keogh to arrive, John stalked from room to room of the locked and sealed apartment. He paused frequently to listen at the front and back doors, flicking the viewers on and off. Only once was there someone in the hall, an innocent passerby apparently. He paused also to look out of the windows. Outside there continued to be nothing but grim Chicago weather, once more turning foul enough to hide most of the city even in broad daylight. Several times in the course of his restless prowling John went into the one room where the curtains were still drawn against the daylight, where Uncle Matthew still lay in silence. Twice Angie followed him.

On the third of these visits they paused beside the bed. Now she thought, and John agreed, that the patient's color was a little better. But his lips still looked very dry.

'Shouldn't we get him a drink of water? Or—

'No. He only drinks one thing.'

Angie was about to ask John again whether he was serious, but bit back the question just in time. Then she suddenly remembered something. 'John?'

'What?'

'I've been thinking all along that I've heard the name 'Matthew Maule' somewhere before. I just remembered where. It's in Hawthorne.'

John looked at her, uncomprehending.

'Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables. Matthew Maule is the old wizard who's burned at the beginning of the book. What was the curse he called down on the Pyncheons, the people who'd destroyed him? 'God has—' ' She suddenly bit her lip.

'What?'

' 'God has given him blood to drink.' That was it.'

The two of them stood looking down at Uncle Matthew.

Angie said: 'I think he definitely looks a little more—normal.'

'Yes, I think you're right. Despite the fact that it's daytime, which ordinarily makes him weaker. God, I hope he's starting to come out of it.' The last sentence had the sound of a fervent prayer.

Taking Uncle Matthew by his limp right hand, speaking clearly and distinctly, John did his best to pass along the good news that help, in the person of Joe Keogh, was on the way. But the dried lips would not speak in response, the glassy eyes remained unfocused.

At last John dropped the pale hand and straightened up. 'I don't have any idea if he hears me or not. I hope he understands.'

'At least he does look a little better. And Joe's coming.'

They retreated to the kitchen, where Angie on an impulse began looking into the refrigerator and cupboards.

Somewhat to her surprise she discovered clean dishes and silverware, unopened containers of untouched food, including a fresh carton of milk. Sink and dishwasher were empty. It looked to Angie as if the apartment had just been cleaned up and stocked with supplies in anticipation of guests. The coffeemaker sitting on the counter was new, and as far as Angie could tell still entirely unused. She decided to brew a pot in an effort to stay awake. She still wasn't hungry, but once the smell of coffee hit the air, John decided that he was starving. He found a melon in the refrigerator's vegetable bin and cut it up, then started to open a package of bacon and a carton of eggs. Bread came out of the freezer. Morning daylight, food, and domesticity could hold nightmares at arm's length.

Angie joined in the breakfast preparations, moving about the kitchen chores mechanically, her mind still trying to fight free of terror and shock. Coffee didn't help very much. When she'd had two cups and had eaten something without really being aware of what she swallowed, she sat in the living room and tried to rest while John methodically took care of the dirty dishes. But every time her body started to relax, her eyelids began to sag, an onrush of unreasoning terror came to jerk her wide awake again. The memory of Elizabeth Wiswell's face, her bloodstained throat, her voice, her feeble pounding on the door, would not be exorcised.

Not only was Angie's exhaustion growing, but anger swelled up in her too, making room for itself by forcing layers of fear aside. Several times she asked John: 'But what did they want with him?'

'All I know is somehow they managed to—poison him. Drug him. And then while he's knocked out they come around and try to get at him. So what they want can't be anything good.'

'How did they poison him, do you suppose?'

John only shook his head.

Giving up for the moment on her attempt to rest, Angie walked to a window and looked out past the wide- open curtains. There was the lake, three or four blocks away horizontally and a comparable distance below. At such a remove, in a momentary patch of sunlight, the water looked tranquil.

She said again, more hopefully this time: 'Maybe they've really gone away.'

John snorted. 'Maybe they want us to think so. I wouldn't bet on it. I wouldn't bet on it at all. Maybe they hope we'll run out on the old man while we have the chance. But I think they'll be back, when the sun goes down if not before.'

'And Liz?'

'I don't know what happened to her. I just don't know. But we couldn't have helped her last night. There was nothing we could have done.'

'Anyway, you think we're safe in here for the time being?'

'If they couldn't break in last night, I don't think they can do it now.' John turned his gaze toward her and his shoulders slumped. He looked exhausted. 'I'm sorry, honey.'

'Not your fault.' Though deep inside, justly or unjustly, she felt angry at him for getting her into this. And for not trying somehow to help the waitress.

John started thinking aloud. 'One thing that worries me is that not all of them are vampires. That Stewart wasn't.'

'You said that before.'

'Yes. That means some of them will be as active as we are during the daytime.'

'We're going to have to sleep sometime!'