The Stars Are Right: The Irish Rose: Rhyner Interview

Unsurprisingly he takes you straight back to the building you just left. The boy knocks, then opens the door and holds it for you.

Things are not too different from when you were here before. The dishware has been cleared away, and another carafe of water and new glasses sit in their place. The bottle of brandy is still there, as well as the scattering of papers. The fire has burnt down a bit, and the lamps throw pools of light across the table, leaving the rest of the room in dim shadows. Hannelore Rhyner looks up when you enter, setting aside a pen and paper. Regarding you frankly from where she sits.

"Mr. Lovejoy. Thank you for coming. I wasn't sure you'd accept." She makes a gesture towards the nearby chairs around the table. "Please, be as comfortable as you can." Her voice is warm without being intimate.

Lovejoy tips his hat, not without irony, and slouches into a chair. He makes a little ceremony of taking out his notebook, turning to a fresh page, licking his pen. "So," he says. "You wanted to see me?"

A fleeting expression of bemusement crosses her face, as she folds her hands on the table top. "Mr. Lovejoy, I prefer honesty over politeness, even as I recognize there is a proper place and time for both. I'm going to make some presumptions, and I hope you will correct me any place that I get things wrong. You seem to have little or no personal stake in what happens to us as a whole. I suspect that if you never came back to the Seelie Court - it would be of little consequence to you. As a newspaper man, there must be -- as they say -- 'bigger fish to fry', outside in the Shallow World. Corruption, greed, scandal, wrong doing to redress . . . yet . . ."

She pauses, and the brief smile is disarming. "I find you consistently mixed up with us. Risking your life in some cases to be of value to people whom you have little in common . . . and I suspect . . . probably don't even like much. Doctor Parkhurst sets great store by your integrity. I can understand, and certainly appreciate a man who does not compromise his integrity. What I have a more difficult time understanding is why." She tilts her head just a bit to regard you with open appraisal. "Mr. Lovejoy, why are you bothering at all about us?"

He spreads his hands. "You're not wrong. Most of what I've seen here paints all of you as freaks, crazies, outcasts and monsters. You hold yourself above and beyond people while relying on them for survival in ways that are ... parasitic isn't a kind word. Far as I can tell you're a danger to yourselves and others -- but that's okay. That's what I make my living on. I don't like you, but that doesn't mean I can't sympathize with you. And then I'm a journalist. Maybe not a good one, and certainly not a well-paid one, but I try. And partly that means being willing to look, and listen, and delay judgment."

He leans forward. "And you're people. You may not think you're human -- or that you're some different kind of human, I don't know -- but humanity's not a badge you turn in just because you get sick or are born different or on anyone's say so. That makes you part of my crowd, part of everyone's crowd. You -- some of you -- live in my city. You're friends or enemies with some of my friends or enemies. When you pull out your knives and your hoodoo and your claws and go to war with whoever it is, some of that plays out in my city, or my country, or my world. Should I look away from that just because I don't like you?"

"I don't like these Jewish punks and their friends that have been running Detroit into the ground since before Volstead got his bright idea, but should I look away from them, too? Should I not talk to them, listen to them, write about them, just because I don't like 'em and they don't like me? You talk about bigger fish to fry, and maybe they're bigger than you are, or maybe not, but I tell you I'm not the only one covering that particular beat, and I seem to be the only one covering this one."

"You say I've put my neck out for you, and I guess that's maybe true, but it ain't anything I wouldn't do for anyone else. Axler, maybe he'll drop me in the lake and good riddance to me, but if Capone made off with his wife and I knew about it I'd pass the word along. He asks me to come watch the fireworks I'd say sure. It'd wind up in the papers and I'd tell the Hart's boys about it before anything happened, but I'd go. I don't see as how you folks are much different." He leans back. "'Course, I don't know as you're much better, either, but I guess that what I'm here looking to find out."