Corkscrew (15 page)

'It can't be happening all over town,' Katz said. 'How many people could pull a thing like that?'

'Joe, do you have any writers you've never met? They live in some remote place, you communicate by E-mail, everything comes strictly through the agent, you don't really have a useful address for them?'

'Well, two or three,' Katz said, 'but, you know, not everybody can live in New York.'

'More than you know can live in New York.'

'You're creating terrible doubts in me,' Katz said. 'But why go through all that? Why lie to the publisher? Why not just do a pen name?'

'Because of the sales staff,' Wayne told him, 'and publicity and advertising, all those people you need behind you. If they know Tim Fleet is Wayne Prentice, even though it's supposed to be a secret outside the publishing house, it has that stink of failure on it already. But if they think Tim Fleet is Tim Fleet, really think that, and he's brand-new, and he's never failed because he's never been tested before, they can be excited. They can do wonders, when they're excited.'

Katz nodded. 'You're right about that,' he said. 'I'll tell you truthfully, Wayne, if I have a reconstituted virgin somewhere on my list, I'd rather not know about it. I'm sorry you told me as much as you did.'

'It's probably not as prevalent as I think,' Wayne reassured him. 'I'm aware of it, you know, because I did it.'

'And what of Tim Fleet now?'

'Dead,' Wayne said.

Katz was startled. 'Really? But he's very — you, I mean — you, he, whoever you are, you're very good.'

'Sales aren't.'

'You have a new book?'

Wayne almost said, I did have, but you have it now. Instead, he said, 'Part of one. But my publisher doesn't want it.'

'Let me not promise you anything, Wayne,' Katz said, 'but this afternoon, when I get back to the office, let me crunch some numbers, talk to some people in sales, see if there's anything we can do.'

'That'd be great.'

'No promises,' Katz said. 'You know, I can't argue with the computer, either.'

'Why did we give up autonomy, do you suppose?' Wayne asked.

'I hate to say it,' Katz told him, 'but it's too late to ask that question.'

When he walked home, Wayne felt as though he were floating above the sidewalk. What a great guy Joe Katz was! And how many good things he'd said about Wayne's own work! If there was any way at all to get around the computer, Wayne knew, Joe Katz would be his next editor. He could hardly wait for Susan to come home, tell her about his fantastic day.

The answering machine light was blinking. He pressed the button, and heard, 'This is homicide Detective Arthur Johnson, trying to reach Wayne Prentice.' He left a phone number, and said he would try again.

Isabelle had changed her mind. When Bryce got to her place, a one-bedroom, elevator building, third floor, no view, furnished minimally and decorated with travel posters, she was seated on the sofa, drinking coffee, and had done no packing. 'We have to talk, Bryce,' she said.

He said, 'Don't you have to get back to work?'

'Eventually. But first we have to talk.'

He looked around the room. 'You haven't packed anything.'

'It isn't working out,' she said.

'What isn't working out?'

'You and me. When I thought about actually moving over there, out of here, I realized it. It isn't working.'

He sat beside her on the sofa. She looked at her coffee rather than at him, and he tried to think of what he should say.

It was true, they'd been growing farther apart, but he had no idea why. She seemed to be holding herself aloof from him, in a way that hadn't used to be true. He said, 'Is it because I talked about moving to Spain?'

She smiled, sadly, and shook her head, still not looking at him. 'It's nothing at all,' she said. 'It's you and me, it's everything.' Now she did look at him, and he saw that she was sad but also remote. She said, 'It stopped being good when Lucie died. I know it should have worked the other way, but it didn't. The … whatever it was we had, it seemed to need Lucie to keep it going.'

He knew at once that she was right, though he hadn't realized it before, had very successfully managed not to notice, and couldn't begin to understand why it should be true. He said, 'Isabella, we can't let Lucie come between us now.'

'But she is between us. You dream about her, lying in bed with me.'

'I do? No, I don't.'

'In your sleep,' she told him, 'you moan and you make muttering sounds, never words, and you thrash around as though you were hitting somebody.'

'Me?' He hadn't been aware of that. He'd known he was feeling more tired lately, less alert when he woke in the mornings, but he didn't remember bad dreams. He'd known they were there, really, the dreams, but he never remembered them. He said, 'Why do you say it's about Lucie? If I don't say words.'

'Who else would you be beating?'

'Beating?' He sat back, as far from her on the sofa as he could get. 'Isabella,' he said, 'you
know
where I was when Lucie died.'

'Detective Johnson thinks we were there on purpose.'

'Johnson? He talked to you? When?'

'Tuesday. Day before yesterday.'

'I thought he was done, I thought that was all over.'

'I think it's just starting, Bryce.'

'But why? You
know
I didn't have anything to do with Lucie's death!'

'But I don't know it,' she said. 'Nobody knows it, because nobody knows what really happened. They'll find out, the police will find out, and then maybe it'll be all right again. But now… Bryce, you're frightening, with those dreams, your shoulders moving, punching under the covers, muttering, frowning. And when you're awake you're depressed, there's no joy in you. Not since we came back from California.'

'That's why I want to go away for a while,' he said. 'Somewhere warm. It doesn't have to be Spain.'

'I can't go away with you,' she said. 'I can't live with you. I'm sorry, Bryce, I've been thinking about this all week, and I think about moving into that apartment with you, and it's like I'm moving into a grave.'

'Oh, God, Isabelle, don't say something like that.'

'It's what I feel.' She put down her coffee cup at last and held his left hand in both of hers. 'We have to stay away from each other for a while,' she told him. 'There's something you have to work through, I don't even know if you know what it is yourself but you have to work through it, and I can't be there. Later, when you feel better, when Detective Johnson knows what really happened, then maybe we can get back together. I'd like to. We had fun a lot of times. The weekends…' She trailed off, looking away from him, but still holding his hand.

He'd never told her he loved her, because he wasn't sure he did, and he was afraid of what the word might entail. He almost said the word now, but stopped himself, knowing it wouldn't be real, it would only be a tactic to try to hold on to her. And knowing, too, that she would see it for what it was, and turn away from him even more.

He said, 'Isabella, the idea of not seeing you—'

'For a while.' She looked at him again, squeezed his hand. 'I hope, for just a while.'

He looked around the small characterless room. This is where she preferred to be. He said, 'We were going to have lunch.'

'I'm not really hungry, Bryce, I'm sorry.'

He smiled a little and shook his head. 'I don't think I am, either. First time in my life, I bet, I'm not hungry for lunch.' He looked at her again. 'I'm going to miss you.'

'I already miss you,' she told him. 'The you from before.'

Suddenly restless, realizing he was becoming angry, not wanting to be angry, not wanting Isabelle to know he was angry, he pulled his hand from hers and abruptly stood. 'I miss the me from before, too,' he told her. 'God knows I don't want Lucie back, but I want something back. Is it okay if I phone you sometimes?'

'I hope you will,' she said.

He nodded. 'Maybe we could date, after a while. Dinner and a movie.'

'And a kiss goodnight,' she said.

He laughed. 'Oh, I think just a handshake at first.'

She stood. 'I wish you'd kiss me now,' she said.

He kissed her, holding her too tight, aware of her struggle to breathe, and finally forced himself to let go. Her eyes looked frightened, but she still smiled as she said, 'I'll see you.'

'See you,' he said, and left, knowing, at the end there, he'd wanted to hit her. The way Lucie was hit.

Three-thirty. He sat at his computer, in the apartment, trying to think of a story.
Two Faces in the Mirror
was virtually finished now, once he did the little Henry-Eleanor insert and a few other things. Half a day's work, he'd probably do it in Connecticut this weekend. Alone in Connecticut this weekend, but to be alone here would be even worse. He had weekend friends, sometimes dinner invitations on the Saturday. Nothing this weekend, but somebody could still call. And in the city, on the weekend, nobody would call.

What he had to do now was think of the next book. It had been over a year and a half since he'd written anything — the rewriting of Wayne's book didn't count — and he felt all those muscles were stiff now. He had to get limber again.

Most books began for him with a character abruptly being put into motion. Sometimes the setting was important, too, but the main thing was to find a character, somebody he could stay with for six hundred pages, and give that character a reason to get moving. So what he was doing at the computer now was trying to find that character, the entry, the starting point.

A doctor? He'd have to do an awful lot of research, but that was all right. He'd never written about a doctor before.

A doctor who finds a disease where it shouldn't be, something that's only found above the Arctic Circle, say, and his patient has never been north of Tarrytown, and…

Not a doctor.

He hadn't known he was dreaming about Lucie, but Isabelle must be right about that. Beating Lucie in his sleep. And then the dreams were always gone in the morning, leaving nothing but a sense of heaviness, weariness, sorrow.

Life was supposed to be better without Lucie, that's what it had all been about. And it was better, the financial crunch was over, the aggravation was over, the book deadline had been solved. He was the only fly in the ointment, he was the only reason things weren't better. He was doing it to himself.

A real estate salesman finds drug money hidden in the basement of a house he's offering, and the drug dealers want it back. No; older money. Prohibition money from the thirties, a third-generation private eye has been looking for it, like his father and his grandfather. Yesterday and today, linked. Neither of them has any right to the money, so both of them have the same right. But the private eye is tough and ruthless, and the real estate agent is just an ordinary guy, trying to keep from being swallowed up.

Is the real estate agent a woman? No. Bryce didn't think he'd ever successfully written from a woman's point of view, not for more than a few pages at a time. He'd get too many things wrong. He didn't even want to think about the sex scenes.

He and Isabelle hadn't had sex for almost two weeks. He hadn't even noticed, not till this second. Nothing in Connecticut last weekend, nothing here since, nothing here last week. Connecticut, two weeks ago. Her idea. And he hadn't noticed.

These characters weren't characters, they were wallpaper. He breathed on them, and they failed to stir into life.

Maybe he should just take the train to Connecticut today, not wait till tomorrow, see if the change of scene—

The phone rang. Isabelle, he thought, though he knew it wouldn't be. He picked up, and it was Wayne. 'Oh, hello,' Bryce said.

He'd felt strange today in Joe's office, with Wayne, almost as though he were jealous, as though he didn't want them to get along. It was irritating they lived in the same neighborhood, he wasn't sure why.

Wayne said, 'I just got home, and—'

'You and Joe got along great, I see.'

' — your Detective Johnson was on my answering machine!'

Oh. Isabelle was right, Johnson wasn't finished. Bryce could hear panic in Wayne's voice, and panic was the last thing Wayne should do right now. Making himself sound calm, unconcerned, Bryce said, 'Yeah, he's making the rounds, Isabelle told me, he talked to her on Tuesday.'

'But what does he want with me? Why does he even know about me?'

'Well,' Bryce said, 'my guess is, he talked to Janet whatever her name is, who directed that play—'

'Higgins.'

' — and from there to Jack Wagner, and Jack would have said he'd introduced you to Lucie at the play, so now he wants to know what you and Lucie talked about, and did you ever see her again, and you never did.'

'I never did.'

'Have you called him back?'

'Not yet, I wanted to talk to you.'

'It's not a big deal, Wayne,' Bryce said. 'He's following every lead, that's all, that's what his job is. You won't give him any reason to look twice at you, and he won't look twice at you.'

'I guess so.'

'Call him now, Wayne. If you don't call him back, he will look twice at you.
⁵

'All right. I'll call him now.'

They hung up, and Bryce continued to sit at the computer, but he'd stopped trying to think of a character. He was thinking about Wayne instead.

Wayne had done what Bryce had sent him out to do, and it was supposed to stop there, but it wasn't stopping there. Wayne kept moving, acting, and Bryce didn't like the ways he was going. Cozying up to Joe Katz. And now, going into a panic, just because a cop wanted to talk to him. Cops had talked to Bryce, cops in Los Angeles and cops here, and he'd handled them all with no problem, no problem. Why can't Wayne do the same? Johnson's just following his leads.

But Johnson was a good detective, Bryce was sure of that. Would he smell something on Wayne, see something, sense something? Don't the good detectives begin with that sixth sense, the feeling that something's wrong, not yet knowing what?