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CHAPTER 15
If the baron had seen her, he gave no sign. He bowed slightly andgesturedChilde to precede him. They went down the hall--no Dolores there--andwere back in the dining room. O'Faithair was playing wildly on the grand piano. Childe did not recognize the music. The others were sitting at the table or onsofas or standing by the piano. Glam and the two women had cleared off thetable and were carrying off the dishes from the sideboards. Mrs. Grasatchow was nowdrinkingfrom a bottle of champagne. Magda Holyani was sitting on an ironskeletal chair, her formal floor length skirt pulled up around her waist to exposeher perfectlegs to the garter belt. Dark-red hair stuck out from under thegarter belt. Ahalf-smoked marijuana cigarette was on the ashtray on the table byher side.
She was looking through an old-time stereoscope at a photograph. Childe pulled her skirt down because the sight of her pubic hairs botheredhim, and hesaid, "That's a curious amusement for you. Or is the picture...?"
She looked up, smiling, and said, "Here. Take a look yourself."
He placed the stereopticon against his eyes and adjusted theslide holdingthe picture until the details became clear and in three-dimensions. The photograph was i
"One of them looks like me," he said.
"That's why I got this album out," she said. She paused, drew indeeply onthe marijuana, held the smoke in her lungs for a long time, and thenpuffed out. "That's Byron. The others are Shelley and Leigh Hunt."
"Oh, really," Childe said, still looking at the picture. "But Ithought...Iknow it...the camera wasn't invented yet."
"That's true," Magda said. "That's not a photograph."
He did not get a chance to ask her to explain, because twoenormous white arms went around him from behind and lifted him off his feet. Mrs. Grasatchow, shrieking with laughter, carried him to a sofa and dropped him on it. He started to get up. He was angry enough to hit her, and had his fist cocked, when she shoved him back down. She was not only very heavy; she had powerfulmuscles under the fat.
"Stay there, I want to talk to you and also do other things!" shesaid.
He shrugged. She sat down by him, and the sofa sank under her. She held his hand and leaned against him and continued the near-monologue she hadbeen maintaining at the table. She told him of the men who had lustedafter her and what she'd done to them. Childe was begi
A moment later, he was sure of it. He had seen the baron walk tothe doorwayand looked away for a second. When he looked back, he saw that thebaron was gone. A bat was flying off down the hallway.
The change had taken place so quickly that it was as if severalframes of film had been spliced in.
Or was it a change? There was nothing to have kept the baron fromslippingoff around the corner and releasing a bat. Or it was possible thatthere was, objectively, no bat, that he was seeing it because he had beendrugged andbecause of the suggestions that Igescu was a vampire.
Childe decided to say nothing about it. Nobody else seemed tohave noticed it. They were not in shape to have noticed anything except what theywere concentrating upon. O'Faithair was still playing madly. Bending Grassand Mrs. Pocyotl were facing each other, writhing and shuffling in a parody ofthe latest dance. The redhead beauty, Vivie
The baron had sauntered over to behind the baroness and had leaned over to whisper something to her. She smiled and cackled shrilly.
And then Magda ended her crazy whirl on Childe's lap. His headwas pressedforward against her breasts. They smelled of a heady perfume andsweat and something indefinable.
Mrs. Grasatchow shoved Magda so vigorously that she fell offChilde's lapand onto the floor. She looked up dizzily for a moment, her legs widespread to
reveal the red-haired slit. "He's mine!" Mrs. Grasatchow shrilled. "Mine! You snake-bitch!" Magda got to her feet unsteadily. Her eyes uncrossed. She opened
her mouth and her tongue flickered in and out and she hissed. "Stay away!" Mrs. Grasatchow said in a deeper voice. Had shereally grunted?
Glam entered the room. He scowled at Magda. Evidently he did notlike to see her in the almost-nude and making a play for Childe. But the baronfroze him with a glare and motioned for him to leave the room.
"Stay away, huh?" Magda said. "You have no authority over me, pig-woman, noram I afraid of you!"
"Pigs eat snakes," Mrs. Grasatchow replied. She grunted--yes, shegruntedthis time--and put one flesh-festooned arm over his shoulders andbegan to unziphis fly with the other hand.
"You've eaten everything and everybody else, but you haven't, andyou aren'tgoing to, eat this snake," Magda said, spraying saliva.
Childe looked around and said, "Where are the cameras?"
"Everything's impromptu tonight," Mrs. Grasatchow said. "Oh, youlook so much like George."
Childe presumed that she meant George Gordon, Lord Byron, but hecould not be sure and he did not care to play her game, anyway.
He pushed her hand away just as she closed two fingers on hispenis, which, to his chagrin, was swelling. He felt nothing but repulsion for thefat woman, yet a part of him was responding. Or was it seeing Magda and alsosharing in thegeneral atmosphere of excitement? The drug, which he was sure he hadbeen given, was basically responsible, of course.
Magda sat down on his lap again and put her arms around his neck. Mrs. Grasatchow, snarling, raised her hand as if to strike Magda, but shelet it dropwhen the baroness called shrilly across the room. At that moment, apair oflarge doors swung open. Childe, catching the movement at the cornerof his eyes, turned his head. The baron was standing in the doorway. Behind himwas the billiard room or a billiard room. It looked much like the first one he had seen. The blond youths, Chornkin and Krautschner, were playing.
The baron advanced across the room and, when a few paces behindChilde, said, "The police don't know he's here."
Childe erupted. He came off the sofa, tossing Magda away and thenleapingover her and ru
As if he were a small child, he was led into the room, Glamholding hishand. The baron said, "Good. Good for him and good for you. Yourestrained yourimpulse to kill him. Very commendable, Glam."