Childe did not smile. Heepish shrugged.
There was a large blow-up of Rodder tacked to an upright. Inheavy black inkbelow: TO MY FIRST FAN AND A GREAT FRIEND, MISTER HORROR HIMSELF, WITH INTENSE AFFECTION FROM NIM. The thin, pale face with the collapsed cheeks, sharp nose, and the huge-rimmed spectacles looked like that of a spooky andspooked primateof the Madagascar jungle, like a lemur's. And lemur, now that Childeconsidered it, originally meant a ghost. He grinned. He remembered the entry inthe bigunabridged dictionary he had referred to so often at college.
Lemur--Latin lemures nocturnal spirits, ghosts; akin to Greeklamia, adevouring monster, lamas crop, maw, lamia, pl., chasm, Lettish lamatamousetrap; basic idea, open jaws.
CHAPTER 7
Childe, looking at Rodder's photograph, grinned widely.
Heepish said, "What's so funny? I could stand a little laugh inthese tryingtimes."
"Nothing, really." "Don't you like Rodder?" Heepish's voice was controlled, but it contained a hint of a
well-oiled mousetrap aching to snap shut.
Childe said, "I liked his Shadow Land series. And I liked hisunderlyingthemes, aside from the spooky element. You know, the little manfighting bravelyagainst conformity, authoritarianism, vast forces of corruption, andso on, thelone individual, the only honest man in the word--I liked thosethings. Andevery time I read an article in the newspapers about Rodder, he'salwaysdescribed as honest, as a man of integrity. Which is really ironic."
Childe stopped and then, not wishing to continue but impelled to, said, "ButI know a guy..."
He stopped. Why tell Heepish that the guy was Jeremiah?
"This guy was at a party which consisted mainly of science- fiction people. He was standing within earshot of a group of authors. One was thegreat fantasywriter, Breyleigh Bredburger. You know of him, of course?"
Heepish nodded and said, "After Rodder, Monk Lewis, and Bloch, myfavorite."
Childe said, "Another author, I forget his name, was complainingthat Rodder had stolen one of his magazine stories for his series. Just liftedit, changedthe title and few things, credited it to somebody with an outlandishGreek name, and had, so far, refused to correspond with the author about thealleged theft. Bredburger said that was nothing. Rodder had stolen three of hisstories, givingcredit to himself, Rodder, as author. Bredburger cornered Roddertwice and forced him to admit the theft and to pay him. Rodder's excuse wasthat he'd signed to write two-thirds of the series himself and he wasn't up toit, so, indesperation, he'd lifted Bredburger's stories. He didn't say anythingabout plagiarizing from other people, of course. Bredburger said he'd beenpromisedpayment for the third stolen story but so far hadn't gotten it andwouldn't unless he vigorously pursued Rodder or went through the courts.
"A third author then said that the first would have to stand in line behind about twenty if he wanted to sue or to take it out of Rodder's hide.
"That's your D. Nimming Rodder. Your great champion of the littleman, ofthe nonconformist, of the honest man."
Childe stopped. He was surprised that he had run on so. He didnot want to quarrel. After all, he was to be indebted to this man, if this grandtour ever ended. On the other hand, he was itchy with anger. He had seen toomany corruptmen highly honored by the world, which either did not know the truthor ignoredit. Also, the irritation caused by the smog, the repressed panicarising fromfear of what the smog might become, Colben's death, the frustratingscene with Sybil, and Heepish's attitude, undefinedly prickly, combined to wearaway theskin and fat over his nerves.
Heepish's gray eyes seemed to retreat, as if they were afraidthey mightcombust if they got too close to the light and air. His neckquivered. Hismoustache drew down; invisible weights had been tied to each end. Hisnostrils flared like bellows. His pale skin had become red. His handsclenched.
Childe waited while the silence hardened like bird lime. If Heepish gotnasty, he would get just as nasty, even though he would lose accessto the literature he needed. Childe had been told by Jeremiah that Heepish had gottenthe idea for his collection from observing a man by the name ofForrest J Ackerman, who had probably the greatest private collection ofscience-fiction and fantasy in the world. In fact, Heepish had been called the poorman's Ackerman, though not to his face. However, he was far from poor, hehad much money--from what source nobody knew--and his collection would somedaybe the world's greatest, private or public.
But at this moment he was very vulnerable, and Childe was willingto thrust through the crack in the armor.
"Well!" Heepish said.
He cocked his head and smiled thinly. The moustache, however, wasstill swelled like an elephant seal in mating season, and his fingers weremaking asteeple, then separating to form the throat-holding attitude.
"Well!" he said again. His voice was as hard, but there was alsoa whine in it, like a distant mosquito.
"Well!" Childe said, aware that he would never know what Heepishwas goingto say and not caring. "I'd like to see the newspaper files, ifpossible."
"Oh? Oh, yes! They're upstairs. This way, please."
They left the garage, but Heepish put the photograph of Rodderunder his arm before following him out. Childe had wondered what it was doing outin the garage, anyway, but on re-entering the house, he saw that there weremany morephotographs and paintings and pencil sketches and even framednewspaper andmagazine clippings containing Rodder's portrait--than he had thought. Heepishhad had one too many and stored that one in the garage. But now, asif to show Childe his place, to put him down in some obscure manner, Heepish wasalso bringing this photograph into the house.
Childe grinned at this as he waited for Heepish to lead himthrough thekitchen and hall-room and turn right to go up the narrow stairs. Thewalls were hung with many pictures and paintings of Frankenstein's monster andDracula and an original by Hannes Bok and another by Virgil Finlay, all leaningat slightlydifferent angles like headstones in an old neglected graveyard.
They went down a short hallway and into a room with the wallscovered with paintings and photographs and posters and movie ad stills. There werea number of curious wooden frames, sawhorses with castles on their backs, which held a series of illustrations and photos and newspaper clippings on woodenframes. These could be turned on a central shaft, like pages of a book.
Childe looked through all of them and, at any other time, wouldhave been delighted and would have lingered over various nostalgic items.
Heepish, as if the demands on him were really getting to be toomuch, sighedwhen Childe asked to see the scrapbooks. He went into an enormouscloset the walls of which were lined with bookshelves stuffed with largescrapbooks, manyof them dusty and smelling of decay.
"I really must do something about these before it's too late," Heepish said. "I have some very valuable--some invaluable and unreplaceable-material here."
He was still carrying Rodder's photo under one arm.
It was Childe's turn to sigh as he looked at the growing hill ofstuff to peruse. But he sat down in a chair, placed his right ankle over hisleft thigh, and began to turn the stiff and often yellowed and brittle pages ofthe scrapbooks. After a while, Heepish said that he would have to excusehimself. If Childe wanted anything, he should just holler. Childe looked up andsmiled briefly and said that he did not want to be any more bother than hehad to be. Heepish was gone then, but left an almost visible ectoplasm ofdisdain and hurt feelings behind him.