The Dwelling: A Novel (16 page)

“We’re good,” said the older fellow.

“You know, your wife said there was a stain on the wall,” said the other one. The older man looked plaintively at him when he said it, but said nothing. Dan checked out the walls. The west wall had a coat of pinkish paint. The rest of the room was more or less white. Faintly under the white, Dan thought he could still see yellow. It had been a rude sort of yellow.

“Yes?” Dan said politely.

“Well, I’m just saying—we painted over it with primer. I dunno. It looks a little like—” He didn’t finish. Dan peeked around the corner where the man was looking. He didn’t see anything.

“I really don’t know anything about it,” Dan said. “This is going to be my wife’s office,” he said apologetically.

“Yeah, I know. Just letting you know. We primered and we’ll paint over it. In other words, I guess we’ve kind of done all we can. If there’s something in the drywall, there’s not much we can do about it.”

Distracted, Dan just nodded. “I’m getting some stuff together and then I’m taking off. Did my wife tell you about locking the door?”

The older guy said in agreement, “Yup. We’re aware,” he said. He took a bite of what looked like a big, thick roast-beef sandwich. Dan was suddenly hungry. There wasn’t time. He’d grab something at Jester’s.

“Great,” he said, and nodded his good-bye. He would just get his stuff and go.

He loaded the car. He put the bags into the trunk and Becca’s change of clothes on the passenger side of his car. He would stick his portfolio in the back, propping it in the back footwell. It was stand-up. It was hard-sided. Nothing would get bent.

He just had to get the portfolio and his sketches. Then he could leave.

On the street, everything was quiet. People at work. It was a beautiful, sunny near-summer day.
Nothing bad could happen on such a day,
he thought. And then he wished he hadn’t. It sounded to him too much like a threat. The last words uttered by a prom queen in a slasher movie. Strictly B grade. Like good porno, the plot is predictable, but satisfying.

He had a smoke on the back step. He had considered taking it in the living room, rationalizing that the smell of paint would cover everything for the next few days—
not to mention I’m not coming back here
—but decided to take up his peaceful, pleasing perch in the back.

When he was finished, he tossed the butt into the yard. So far he had been snuffing them out on the concrete step and putting them carefully into a pile for later disposal, much the way he had done at their other place. Beside the step was a tidy little stack of butts, faded and damp. He flicked it away, but felt bad after. The yard was okay.

There was, of course, a plan of attack as he opened the screen door and let it swing shut unaided behind him. When it clicked into place, he locked it.

The door to the studio was open, and had been all day.

(come in)

He flicked on the overhead light. A quick look. Business. His portfolio was propped against the west wall. The sketches were in a pile on the table. He would grab just one of the Reporter off the wall. He had decided on the wide-eyed, innocent one, the one where she was unsmiling and pensive. It was, at that moment, the sketch that was least offensive to him. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, but his skin was dry. Like his mouth. His throat. He tried to take a deep breath, but couldn’t.

He went in through the door without incident. He looked only straight ahead, feeling foolish and stupid but—
at least I don’t have a
—very focused. Becca might have been proud, if she had known. He went directly to the portfolio. It was zippered shut and he opened it. This was all done in a smooth, unfettered motion, and went well. He propped the portfolio on the little table, now devoid of his paints and inks and pencils.

He stuffed the stack of sketches straight into one of the pockets. He would make it nice and pretty once he got to Jester’s.

Just get out of here.
That was all. Job one. Job infinity.
Get out of here.

Just as he was thinking that, the door to the studio swung closed. Dan turned, heart nearly stopped in his chest, body on alert—
alert! alert!
—and stared at the door, breathing shallow, not daring to move.

“I’m not staying,” he said, his voice loud in the room. Firm. His eyes swung around, lighting on every little thing. The overhead bulb shone indifferently into every corner. The room was empty. Something tickled in his abdomen, like fingers. He shut it out. He turned slowly back to his portfolio. He grabbed the sketch off the wall, pulling it so that the tape tore. He checked the edge with deliberation and tucked it into another pocket. His hands shook. He closed the portfolio and zippered it shut.

He walked to the door. Behind him, a cool breeze whispered. He heard the remaining pictures on the wall shudder. Temptation aside, he did not look back.

(Hello, big boy)

The door opened for him. A tug. He shut off the light and closed the door behind him. As he walked down the hall to the front door, the sound of the men moving around upstairs, the smell of paint heavy in the air, he became aware of his hard-on, almost like an afterthought. His nipples, sensitive always, pressed against his shirt. There was a familiar languidity in his belly that threatened to climb. His mind was tight. Afraid.

I’m not coming back,
he said, a whisper, to himself.

Becca wasn’t at her desk when Dan arrived (flushed and pleased, and finally anticipating the meeting with the kind of focus that he needed) at her office with her change of clothes. He walked past Reception—a new girl—and into the inner offices, not much more than cubicles, doorless rooms with standard equipment. He stuck his head into hers and she was not there. Her purse was not in evidence either.

“Can I help you?” asked the young girl he had passed at Reception.

“I’m looking for my wife,” he said. “Becca Mason. Do you know where she is?”

The girl peeked over Dan’s shoulder into her office. “She’s not at her desk,” she said pointlessly. She looked quite young, probably fresh out of secretarial college with all the infirmities and authority conferred there.

He smiled indulgently, hurriedly. “I’m just going to leave her some things. I’ll write her a note. When she comes back you can tell her I was here, all right?” The girl looked at him dubiously, at his denim shirt and jeans with the permanent black slash across the right thigh. He could hear her think it:
Rebecca
Mason’s
husband
? She took in the small black duffel bag that hung from his hand. Her eyes narrowed.

He lifted it. “It’s a change of clothes. The Uzi’s in my
other
bag.”

“What?”
she asked alarmed.

“Joke.
Joke,”
he said. The clock on the wall behind her gave him fifteen minutes to get across town. “I’ll leave this by her desk. And a note. Just tell her I was here,” he said, and brushed past her into the office, dashed a quick note to Becca and dropped the bag beside her desk. He was back in traffic in five minutes.

Rebecca was coming down the hall from the coffee room when she saw Dan pass the reception desk. She ducked into a bathroom and waited. She peeked out only once, and saw him talking to Heather at the door to her office. She waited another ten minutes in the bathroom, then felt it was safe to leave, her cheeks red with the anticipation of running into him.

It just wouldn’t be right.
Not with Huff’s office at the end of the hall. She had no idea if it would have any effect on their arrangement—if it was an arrangement at all (although she was sure now that it was)—but she did not want to (
Miss Mason
) take the chance.

When she returned to her desk Heather buzzed her and told her that her husband had been in and had left a note and a bag. She thanked her.

“So that was your husband, huh?” Heather said with interest.

“Yes, thank you, Heather,” she said, and hung up before the girl asked the obvious
what does he do?
question. She could just imagine:
He’s an artist. Oh, yeah? Like what kind? He draws comic books. Oh, yeah? I read them.
Her lip curled into a sneer.

The note said, “Hey baby, guess I missed you. Here’s the change of clothes. Meet us at Jester’s right after work. We’ll wait for you.
Do Not Go Home.”
“Do Not Go Home” was underlined, twice, in heavy strokes. The note would read through on the next page, and maybe the page after that.

She opened the black bag at her feet. Inside was a pair of jeans she hadn’t worn in months and a blue T-shirt she thought was a little too tight. There was also a full change of underwear and pantyhose. What exactly did he think she did at work? She rummaged through the bag. There were no shoes. She went quickly through the bag again, looking even into the pockets on the sides. No shoes. On her feet at that moment was a pair of high heels. She had a change of shoes in the car, but they were also high heels that she had worn at the beginning of the week. At home there were a cute pair of tan shortie boots to wear with casual pants. She would just have to go home and get them. And shower, and change.

*  *  *

Max was waiting for him at Jester’s. He jumped up when Dan walked into the place—noticing first the low, dim lighting and thinking,
Not exactly a place to show sketches
—and stuck out his hand, grabbing Dan’s and pumping it wildly. His other arm came around and slapped him on the back. His face was split in two with his grin. Dan had the idea, horribly, that at any minute he was going to start jumping up and down like a little girl. But he didn’t. Instead he pulled out a chair for Dan and had him push another table over to make enough room for them, the Apex guy and the portfolio on the table.

“This is fucking amazing!” he said. His excitement was catching and Dan signaled the waitress for a beer. They checked their watches in unison, then laughed about it.

“Ten minutes!” Max said. The two of them tried to relax, tried to drink their beers, but their heads swiveled to the door every time it opened. Dan flipped through a copy of the proposal and read the synopsis of the first book. Max had done a synop for ten other storylines.

“This is totally impressive,” Dan said.

“You think so?”

Dan nodded reverently. “Oh, yeah.”

The Apex guy’s name was Gib Sanchez and he was fifteen minutes late. He had a Vandyke and a nose piercing in the soft nib of flesh between his nostrils. He wore a T-shirt with B
RAT
B
OY
emblazoned on the front.

Max exclaimed over it. “Man! I love Brat Boy!”

“Oh, yeah? I’ll get you a T-shirt,” Gib said generously.

Gib explained how it worked. He wanted to see what they had for pictures, and hear the storyline, plus a few from the series, and a projection on the length of the series. Max gave him a copy of the synopsis. At the back of the booklet were character descriptions and relationships.

The Apex guy took his time reading. Without commenting on it, said he wanted to see the pictures. He kept calling them the pictures, and Dan caught on right away and referred to them ever after as “pictures.” He thought it might be an industry thing.

He brought out the character sketches first, one by one, in order of importance, starting with the Headhunter. The Headhunter full-length sketch went over very well, getting a grunt and a nod.

“He’s a good-looking frame,” Gib said mysteriously. Dan and Max exchanged confused looks, and grins.

He liked Malicia a lot and speculated as to a need for Hanus. “I love the name, man.
Love
it. But a chick bad guy is supersweet right now.” He ducked the picture of Hanus under the table onto a chair seat and added, “I don’t know about the chick-prick team-up, it’s sort of Rocky Bullwinkle, you know? Like with Boris and Natasha. Chicks don’t need an evil partner anymore. We should talk about that later. Love the name, man, Hanus. Malicia’s good too, but Hanus.” He laughed. “Chick is great. She is so sweet. Could do a bit more with her body, though,” he said, gesturing at chest level with his hand. Dan nodded, unconvinced.

He went through the sketches one by one, asking about this one and that, remarking only that the weasel-faced WTO guy would make a great recurring character. “He’s a bad guy, right?” Both Dan and Max nodded.

He looked over everything again, reading parts of the synopsis.

“This is great. It’s completely underlooked. Totally original. Nice deal. Nice.
Love
the concept,” he said, nodding. “I’m taking this back with me. I’m in love with it. Totally in
love
with it. I will show it to the boys and I’ll be calling you in a week, maybe less. Tad’s on vake, but he’s back Tuesday. We’ll probably meet on the whole thing on Wednesday. I can try and call you Thursday. No promises but, you guys, it’s totally original and love the sketches. They’ll want to meet with you too, probably—no, for sure—and then we’ll talk some more. Cool? Anything you need to know?” He stood up and tucked sketches and synopsis into his own portfolio and Dan had a moment of panic.

“Um, could I have a card?” he said. Max nodded.

Gib dug around in his back pocket and pulled a grimy card out of his wallet, handing it to Dan. Almost with hesitation, he pulled out another one and gave it to Max. “That’s my last one,” he said. The card said,
Apex Point Publishers, Gib Sanchez Associate Publisher;
there was a phone number and address, and under that in smaller, groovy script was
illustrated works of fiction and comic books in Spanish and English.
Dan felt Max sigh beside him. They stood up with Gib and shook hands, thanking him for looking at their work.

“You guys are going to be great,” he said, and smiled. His teeth were very white and gave him somewhat of a smarmy look.

The whole meeting took less than twenty minutes. Gib hadn’t even had a beer.

They waited until they saw him pass by the length of the window, then jumped up in the air, high-fived and screamed, like little girls. Little girls after the big game.