The man in the doorway smiled. "It'll come to you, Fugghead."
"My God!" whispered George Woodard, peering at the stranger. "It's Pat Malone!"
Pseuicide-The fannish term for faking someone's death. Since most of fandom is conducted by mail, hoaxes are relatively easy to perpetrate.
"What was that all about?" whispered Marion when the door to the reception closed behind them.
Jay Omega shrugged. "I guess they knew him. What shall we do now? Call it a night?"
Marion glanced at her watch. "Not until I find out what's going on. Why don't we go out to the lobby and get some coffee? That way, we can waylay Erik when the party breaks up, and try to find out what's going on."
Her companion stifled a yawn. "All right. If you insist, but I don't see-"
"Shh!" Marion gestured toward the closed door of the banquet room. "Someone may come out unexpectedly. It would be a considerable blow to my self-esteem, not to mention my professional standing, if someone came out and caught us loitering in the hall like a couple of groupies. Let's talk about it over coffee."
Several minutes later, Marion had commandeered the coffee shop booth with the best view of the lobby, and she was hunched over a steaming mug of black coffee with the furtive air of an unindicted co-conspirator. Jay Omega, whose attention had been captured by a piece of Dutch apple pie, was doing his best to humor her.
"I'm sure they didn't mean to be rude," he said. "They seemed quite upset."
"It's all very strange," she murmured, stirring furiously. She kept casting sidelong glances at the hallway to the banquet room as if she were expecting a stampede, but all was quiet.
"He's another one of the Lanthanides, isn't he?" said Jay. "When we met him in the lobby, and he said that he was Pat Malone, I assumed that he was an editor or a film person, and that he was joking, but Woodard seemed to recognize him."
Marion scowled. "Woodard called him Pat Malone, which is ridiculous. Pat Malone has been dead since 1958. Everybody in fandom knows that. I know that and I wasn't even in fandom in 1958. I was in diapers!"
This was something of an exaggeration, but Jay wisely did not correct her arithmetic.
"I admit that it sounded like Woodard said 'Pat Malone,' but it's impossible. Pat Malone is dead. All the books say so."
Jay smiled. "That would explain the shocked looks on the faces of the rest of them."
"It certainly would," snickered Marion. "Pat Malone! I wonder how he found out about the reunion?"
"Ouija board?" suggested Jay Omega, trying to keep a straight face.
Marion, who had gone back to trying to figure things out, acknowledged his wit with the briefest of smiles. "Very clever. Actually, his knowing about the reunion is probably the least part of the mystery. Thanks to the dramatic effect of the drained lake, and to Ruben Mistral's excellent publicists, this reunion has been covered in everything from computer bulletin boards to the National Inquirer. You'd have to be dead not to know about it."
"I wonder if Elvis will show up," Jay mused. "He's from Tennessee, too, isn't he?"
"Don't be silly," said Marion. "Elvis Presley is dead."
"That doesn't seem to have stopped Pat Malone," he pointed out. "Can you explain that?"
Marion nodded. "I think so. Mark Twain said it best: All reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Actually, in fandom such misinformation isn't even uncommon. Fans chiefly correspond by letter and by hearsay, so it's very easy for someone to start an unsubstantiated rumor, which soon gets repeated as fact farther along the grapevine."
"Somebody said he was dead, and nobody checked?"
"Hardly anybody ever checks anything in fandom. Remember all the garbage that came out in fanzines after Bimbos of the Death Sun first came out? People thought 'Jay Omega' was a pseudonym for half of SFWA."
"I told you not to read the amateur commentary on my book," said Jay, downing the last of his milk."It only upsets you. Even good reviews upset you."
"I couldn't believe how shallow most of those reviewers were," said Marion, momentarily distracted. Then, noticing her companion's amused smile, she decided to jettison the tirade. "Well, never mind about literary criticism! The subject at the moment ought to be history. Apparently we have just witnessed the debunking of a death hoax of thirty years' standing."
"Hoax?" Jay looked bewildered. "So you're saying that somebody deliberately made an announcement that Pat Malone was dead, and everybody just believed it and let it go at that?"
"Something like that. Given the mentality of fandom, death hoaxes are inevitable occurrences. Some people do it as a practical joke; some declare themselves dead in order to get rid of people who otherwise will not go away; and some people do it in order to annoy the person they report as dead. Back in the fifties, fans were taking up a collection to bring the brilliant Irish fan Walt Willis to Chicon II in Chicago, and a neofan named Peter Graham sent out postcards announcing Willis' demise." "Why?"
"Apparently because Peter Graham felt like it, and because his parents had given him a postcard mimeo and he wanted to use it. He knew that it would cause a sensation because Willis was so popular. Most people realized that the postcard was a hoax at the time, because he had misspelled 'diphtheria,' and because it seemed strange that an Irishman's death announcement should be postmarked San Francisco."
"I suppose Walt Willis was pretty upset about it."
"I hear he wasn't. People said that when he got to the U.S., he charmed everyone by answering his telephone, 'Peter Graham speaking.'" Marion smiled at the memory of one of fandom's finest hours.
"But, of course, you don't approve," said Jay solemnly.
Marion looked stern. "Death hoaxes are cruel and pointless. I wonder who started this one?"
"I wonder why Pat Malone didn't bother to set anyone straight?"
"That may be what he is doing right now." Marion sighed. "I wish Erik Giles would come out. That is one conversation I'd give anything to hear."
"You may get your chance tomorrow," Jay told her. "Someone is going to have to explain his presence to the media people. Still, thirty years is a long time to wait to correct a mistake like that, don't you think?"
"I don't know. From what I hear about the personality of Pat Malone, he may have staged the hoax himself. And I know why everyone was so quick to believe in it."
"Why?"
Marion sighed. "Wishful thinking. Before Pat Malone died, he created a stink in fandom that lasted for decades. A lot of people will be dismayed to hear that he's back."
Alluvial-Volume 7, Number 4 June 16, 1958
***Special Issue of ALLUVIAL dedicated to Pat Malone ***
IN MEMORIAM PAT MALONE
By George Woodard, Editor
One of the most powerful, if strident, voices in fandom has been stilled by no less a censor than the Grim Reaper himself, who swept down with his black wings in the night, and carried off Patrick B. Malone, on June 8 in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Word has reached me here in Maryland that Pat Malone has died, and, since this information has not been generally released and since it concerns a fellow Lanthanide, I consider it my somber duty to relay that which I know concerning his passing to the late, great Pat's many associates in the realm of science fiction fandom. According to Jack L. Bexler (editor of JACKAL'S MEAT), he (Jack) received a letter from his (Pat's) widow, Ethel Lucille Malone, who resides in Cupertino, CA. (She did not write to me, one of Pat's oldest friends in fandom, but that is another matter.) Why he died in Mississippi is not clear to this writer. Bexler relates that Pat Malone had been sick for a number of years with a tuberculosis-related illness of some kind, and that he finally died of it this month, in great pain. His body was donated to the Washington Medical School, by his own instructions.