Christmas Stalkings (22 page)

Susan could not believe her ears. “You want to give a Christmas party for Matthew Zimwi—the Monster of Mazigaziland? Peter, either you’re joking or you’re crazy.”

“I fail to see that either term applies, Susan. He was very hospitable to me when I went on that expedition to Mazigaziland back in ‘85. That’s when he presented me with that beautiful tapestry that’s hanging temporarily on the third floor until I can find a suitable place for it downstairs. It seems to me only fitting that I should try to repay his kindness.”

“He’s a sadist, a murderer, a cannibal. And that tapestry, as you call it, is an eyesore.”

“Different cultures have different norms. You mustn’t judge either the Mazigazians or their art by our standards.”

“Apparently he was judged unworthy even by Mazigaziland standards: They threw him out, didn’t they?”

“That was just politics,” Peter scoffed.

“Politics or not, I’m sure, when you think it over, you’ll see for yourself that it would be most inappropriate for you to give a party for him,” Susan insisted. And when he opened his mouth, she added, “We’ll talk about this after we come back from the gala. We’re late already.”

The subject of Matthew Zimwi inevitably came up at dinner, as subjects one is trying to avoid so often do. No one had a kind word for him. Tony Turtle, the fashion designer, told the other guests at the table that he’d wanted to visit Mazigaziland some years back to study native dress. “... But the State Department strongly advised against it. They said, off the record, because Mazigaziland is one of our country’s good friends and allies, that I stood a good chance of being eaten if I went.”

“Well, you are a succulent little thing,” said Mimi von
Schwabe
, who had been born a Fitzhorn, hence was hostess not only of the table but of the whole event. “I could eat you myself.”

Everyone laughed dutifully, except Susan, who felt that she had done enough by paying two thousand dollars for the tickets, and Peter, who stuck up for all cultures except his own. “I don’t see why everyone keeps harping on the Mazigazians’ alleged cannibalism,” he said testily. “Yes, they were cannibals once—as most
peoples
were if you go back far enough—but they gave it up generations ago. I know there’s talk that Zimwi still went in for it, but nobody was ever able to prove a thing.”

“How could they?” said a pudgy man whose name Susan hadn’t caught but whom she’d seen on television either being let out of prison for insider trading or being put in prison for outsider trading. “The evidence was eaten.”

“Whatever became of this Zimwi person?” Mimi asked. “Did they put him in the pot or did he get away?”

“He got away just in the nick of time,” someone obscured from view by the floral centerpiece said. “He’s said to be hiding now. Anyhow, nobody knows where he is.”

“Hard for someone who’s—what did
Time
say?—six feet, six inches tall and weighs three hundred pounds to hide,” Tony Turtle observed.

“I understand there’s quite a substantial price on his head,” the financier added wistfully. Financiers were always in need of capital. Besides, everyone could use a little extra cash at Christmas.

“I gather you know where Mr. Zimwi is,” Susan said to Peter after they’d gotten back to the apartment; “otherwise you wouldn’t have thought of giving him a party. Don’t you see, though, that if you give him a party, everybody will know his whereabouts. There will be curiosity seekers, reporters, bounty hunters.”

“I haven’t told—I mean, I’m not going to tell—the guests whom the party is for. Afterward
Zimwi’s
going directly to Washington—he’s come here to seek asylum, you know—so let the reporters and curiosity seekers and bounty hunters bay at the Foundation’s door; he won’t be here for them to harass.”

But you will be, she thought, and I will be. Not here, of course; I’ll be sure to stay away for the next couple of weeks or months, but there’s nothing to keep the reporters—she didn’t worry about curiosity seekers and bounty hunters—from baying outside my apartment house. Over the years she had grown used to publicity, which was the natural concomitant of a successful artistic career; but, even if she was no longer able to keep her low profile, she had at least been able to keep her elevated image. The presence of Matthew Zimwi in the Melville Building would not enhance that image. Of course she could say she had nothing to do with inviting Zimwi, but people would either think she was lying, or that she was repudiating Peter.

She sighed. “Is Mr. Zimwi in New York at the moment?”

“Well, I don’t suppose there’s any harm in telling you—yes, he is.”

“Where is he
staying
? I can’t believe any hotel would have him, especially after what happened at the
Mazigazi
Hilton the year before he was thrown out.”

“He’s staying at a friend’s apartment.”

“I didn’t know he had friends in New York. Or anywhere, for that matter. Anyone I know?”

Peter avoided her eye. “If you must know, he’s staying in that old apartment of Roland’s on the third floor of this building. I told the workmen to keep away from that floor until after the holidays. They have enough to do on the other floors. You’ve never objected to my letting guests stay there before, so I was sure you wouldn’t mind now.”

She’d never objected to his having guests there; she’d never objected—at least verbally—when he stayed there the night himself on occasions when he said he had to work late. The truth was, Susan had always suspected that he was dallying with his assistant, Dr. Katherine Froehlich, celebrated ethnologist and bimbo. She was furious but naturally she did not show it. “This is just a little different, Peter. Matthew Zimwi is not an ordinary guest.”

Peter assumed his martyred look. “Of course it’s your building and your Foundation. As director, I’m merely your employee, so to speak. If you’re absolutely set against my letting him stay, there’s nothing I can do. In the morning—I assume you won’t mind if I wait until morning—I’ll tell him he has to go.”

That effectively stopped her, as he had known it would. He was an anthropologist; he knew the customs of her tribe. If she had been married to him, she could have put her foot down, but he was her lover— had been her lover for more years than most marriages endured in her circle—and so she had an obligation to him that would not have devolved upon a wife. “No, Peter, you’re the director of the Foundation. Yours is the final authority. Although, strictly speaking, the apartment is not part of the Foundation. Remember, that’s why we’re renovating the place, so we can put the upper floors to use. And, speaking of renovations, I don’t see how you can possibly think of giving a party with the place in such a mess.”

“It isn’t in nearly as much of a mess as it looks. All they’ve really done downstairs is dump that stuff in the foyer, and I’ve told them to put it down in the basement when they knock off for the holidays. That is, if I have your permission to tell them to put the stuff in the basement; that isn’t part of the Foundation either, strictly speaking.”

“Don’t be silly, Peter. You know you’ve always been free to use the basement.”

All except the back room. From the start Susan had reserved the back room as hers. In it she’d stored some bits and pieces that no longer fitted in her apartment but that she was reluctant to throw away. Mostly she’d wanted it as a place where she could keep her guns. The locked suitcases on the closet shelf in the apartment had become inadequate, not only for security reasons, but because one suitcase, or even two, would no longer be enough to contain them. Once she had discovered how easy it was to get guns in the South, she had found herself picking them up whenever she traveled, the way other people picked up antique napkin rings. In order to explain the maximum-security lock she’d had installed on the door, she’d let it be known that she kept some of her paintings there. Since Susan Melville’s paintings sold well into the six figures, that was explanation enough.

She kept on trying to dissuade Peter from his ill-advised project. “How can you possibly expect to get a party organized at such short notice?”

He smiled in a superior sort of way. “This will be a quiet little private party, not one of those elaborate affairs you’re always going to. I haven’t even—I’m not going to send out invitations. I’ve—I’m just going to call up a few friends and colleagues—no more than thirty or forty or so—and ask them informally.”

“Won’t people already have made plans for Christmas Eve?”

“Not
  
people
   
like
  
these—scholars,
   
academics, intellectuals—simple folk, not your jet-setters and-social butterflies, who make their plans weeks, even months, in advance. And most of the people I’m asking would jump at the chance to attend a party at the Foundation.” Peter seemed very confident. But of course he was. He had already made sure of his guests before he sprang the party on Susan.

She sighed. “I can’t stop you from giving your party,” she said, which was not quite true, but she was reluctant to have a showdown with Peter, especially at Christmas. “But don’t expect me to act as hostess.”

“That will be a great disappointment, but I wouldn’t want you to do anything that goes against your conscience. I’m sure Dr. Froehlich would be happy to act as hostess.”

Susan went to bed and dreamed that she was chopping Dr. Froehlich into very small pieces with one of the primitive weapons with which the Foundation’s offices abounded. When she awoke she found that Peter had already gotten up and was in one of the guest rooms contemplating his
Oupi
warrior outfit, which he had laid out on the bed. “It’s getting to look a bit grungy,” he mused. “I wonder whether I dare send it to the dry cleaner’s.”

“It has always looked grungy. Don’t tell me you’re planning to wear it again somewhere?” A dreadful suspicion hit her. “This party of yours—it isn’t going to be a costume party, is it?”

“Oh, didn’t I mention that it was going to be a costume party? I always think costume parties are so much more festive than—
er
—non-costume parties. And I’d like to know what happened to my spear!” He rummaged in the closet. “Oh, there it is. It looks as if somebody had been sticking things with it If that housekeeper of yours—”

“Don’t you dare say anything about the spear to Michelle. She’s going to be upset enough about those feathers you’ve gotten all over the bed.”

The costume was ridiculous. Peter was ridiculous. He had looked a fool in it when he’d been young— well, younger—and still had his waistline and most of his hair. Now . . . Susan didn’t like to think of how he would appear in it. But what did she care? He probably wouldn’t look any more ridiculous than many of the others.

“I’ve asked all the guests to dress up in the costumes of their specialties,” Peter went on. “For instance, Dr. Nestor will be an
Ojibway
chief and Dr.
Rappaport
a Mongolian tribesman. Dr.
Kimmelman
says she’s coming as an Egyptian of the Middle Period. I don’t know what Dr.
Pastore
will do—he’s a bone man, you know—but I expect he’ll think of something.”

“He could come as a fossil,” Susan suggested. “Which means he can just come as he is. What is Mr. Zimwi going to come as? Some sort of native garb? Which wouldn’t exactly be a costume, would it?”

There was a pause. “He’s coming as Santa Claus,” Peter said.

She thought she must have heard wrong. “You mean he’s going as some mythological Mazigazian figure with a similar name? Or a similar function?”

Peter shook his head.

“You don’t mean he’s coming as our Santa Claus, old Saint Nick, red suit, bag of gifts, ho, ho, ho? You don’t mean that.”

Peter said he did mean it. “Ever since his days at missionary school, Matthew told me, he’s dreamed of being Santa Claus at a Christmas party but he never had the chance before. You’ll have to admit he’s the right shape for it. Strange, isn’t it, that obesity, which is otherwise regarded by Americans as equivalent to, say, leprosy or
pediculosis
, is considered not only acceptable but endearing when it comes to Santa Claus? Now among the
Magugu
of Lower
Gambogia
—”

“Forget the
Magugu
. You’re not going to stand there and tell me that Mr. Zimwi is going to be Santa Claus at this party of yours?”

“Why not?”

Susan was shocked. How dared the Monster of Mazigaziland dream of impersonating one of this culture’s most cherished icons? And how dared Peter abet him in this act of sacrilege? She had been wrong to think that once Matthew Zimwi was deposed, he was powerless to commit any more significant atrocities. It would be the greatest atrocity of all if he were allowed to go through with this. That was when she decided that, holidays or no holidays, it was her moral duty to put an end to Matthew Zimwi.