The Fictional Man (33 page)

Then she sank to her knees and started crying in earnest, great wracking sobs that burst out of her, shaking her whole body.

“Iyla...” Niles started, unsure what to say. “Iyla, please... Bob wouldn’t want...”

“G-get out,” she sobbed, not looking at him. “Just... just get out. Get out of my life, Niles.”

So he did.

M
AURICE ALSO HAD
a funeral. It was a lavish affair, crowded with celebrities, producers, publishers and paparazzi, with Aline Zuckerbroth in the central role, vamping for any camera that came along. No previous wives or massage therapists were in attendance.

Niles stayed for fifteen minutes into the service, then quietly stepped out. Later, he returned to the diner, the last place he’d seen Maurice. It was closed, the door boarded up, tape crosses over the windows.

On one of the empty tables was a single glass of water.

H
E’D BEEN EXPECTING
Mike to call on the trip to Weaverville, and then on the drive back, after the ambulance had collected Bob’s body. He was looking forward to telling Mike to shove his pitch up his ass.

But instead of Mike, it was a pleasant-sounding woman named Kourtney, “with a K,” who rang that evening. Mike was “very excited about his new position with the studio,” which sounded ominous, and Kourtney-with-a-K was now in charge of the
Mr Doll
project. She’d read a few of his novels – she made it sound like she actually
had
read a few of his novels, which was very flattering of her – and would he like to come in and pitch to them the next day? She understood if he couldn’t make it, of course.

“Why not?” Niles had said, and the next day he met up with Kourtney, whose last name, delightfully, was Katzenjammer, and who looked a great deal like a mathematics teacher he’d once had. They met in a meeting room garnished with a few tasteful posters for films which had been medium-to-large hits, and one which had been a medium-to-large flop, which suggested a refreshing honesty on her part. It was by far the friendliest exchange he’d had with the studio yet – she offered him coffee and asked how he was doing, and he told her a lie that would save everyone needless bad feeling.

“Well, then,” she said, smiling, “let’s get to it.
Mr Doll.
Tell me what you’ve got.”

So Niles gave her his pitch.

“H
MM
,” M
S
K
ATZENJAMMER
said, bringing the knuckle of her index finger up to her lips. “It’s... interesting, I’ll give it that.”

“Thank you,” Niles said, smiling. He sipped his coffee.

“I’ve got a few notes right away.” She looked down at her ultrabook, which she’d been tapping on occasionally while he’d been pitching
Mr Doll
to her. “All right, first note, and it’s a
bit
of a biggie – no spies, no ’sixties retro, no explosions.” She looked at him over her half-moon glasses. “That’s what I call
‘ignoring the brief,’
Mr Golan. Not the kind of thing we encourage.”

Niles shrugged.

“Oh-
kay,”
Ms Katzenjammer said. “Now, all this about Fictionals and the nature of fiction – that’s nice. A little
highbrow,
but maybe we can work with it. If we did go ahead with this, though, and it is a
huge
if – we absolutely have to lose the Fictional-slash-real sex scene. I mean,
ew
.” She made a face. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s
very
daring, but believe me, Mr Golan, it’ll never play in Peiora.”

Niles coughed quietly. “Well, I don’t consider Mr Doll to be a Fictional, exactly. I feel that, er, he becomes real over the course of the film.”

Ms Katzenjammer flashed him a look. “No. Lose it.”

Niles shrugged.

Ms Katzenjammer ignored him, tapping the screen of her ultrabook with a fingernail. “Ditto this. The female character, the one who wants to be a Fictional.”

“What about her?”

“For a start, no she doesn’t. I know we wanted a
little
kink in there, just to spice things up, but that’s veering into the absurd. People don’t
want
to be Fictionals, and if they do, there’s something wrong with them. Just have her into some light spanking or something. Go for the
Fifty Shades Of Grey
audience. The movie, I mean, not the book.”

“Is there a movie?” Niles hadn’t heard.

“There will be. There always is.” She gave him another look. “More importantly – her story just seems to peter out. Does the protagonist ever go back?”

“I don’t know,” Niles said. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Yes, well,
that’s
what I call
‘not having a finished pitch,’
Mr Golan,” Ms Katzenjammer said testily, “and
that’s
not the kind of thing I encourage either. You’re on very thin ice right now. It’s only because I think the themes you’ve worked into it have such potential that I’m going to give you another chance at this.”

Niles shrugged. “All right.”

“All right,” Ms Katzenjammer sighed. “If I think of any other notes, and I probably will, I
can
send you an email, can’t I?” She nodded to herself. “Yes, I can. Now, remember, we want secret agents, lots of sex – sex that’ll play in Peiora, mind you – and if you could, a nice big exploding volcano base. And absolutely oodles of ’sixties retro.” She frowned. “You can keep the, ah,
existential
elements if you absolutely must, but let’s not make the next one such a downer, shall we? And bring me a finished pitch next time with all the plot threads tied up in a neat little bow.”

Niles nodded, and stood up to leave.

“And this time make sure it’s got a
happy ending
!” Ms Katzenjammer said, getting up to shake his hand.

Niles smiled tightly. “I’ll do my best.”

W
HEN HE TOOK
the bus to Liz’s apartment building, a burly man in overalls was bringing in two tins of paint and a roller, and he held the door open for Niles in contravention of all the building security regulations. Niles thanked him kindly, and then ended up following him all the way up to the fourth floor.

Liz’s apartment was empty.

Every trace of her was gone – the books, the VHS cassettes, the piles of dishes. Even the smell of cigarette smoke was gone. Without the clutter, the apartment seemed vast. Most of the walls were now a gleaming white, and the painter Niles had followed up the stairs and into the apartment was getting to work on one of the few that were still the old colour.

“Sorry, friend, can I do something for you?” He said, eyeing Niles suspiciously.

Niles blinked, trying to take in the change. “I’m sorry, do you – do you know the woman who was here?”

The painter shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t. I’m just here to do the place up for the next tenant. You could ask the landlord about her, I guess.”

Niles nodded. “Have you got his number?”

The painter looked at him for a moment. “Sorry, friend, I don’t. But I could maybe pass you on a message.” He stood up, still eyeing Niles. “You got her name?”

Niles shook his head. “Sorry,” he said, “I don’t.”

The painter looked at him for a moment, shook his head, then went back to his wall without another word. Niles wandered out onto the landing, digging his phone out of his pocket.

He looked through the numbers, and one by one, he deleted them – all the people he’d driven away – until only one number remained. The last person in the world who’d actually want to hear from him.

“Kourtney? It’s Niles Golan. Listen, about the new pitch – I don’t think it’s going to have a happy ending after all. No... no, I don’t think there is anything I can change.” He nodded. “Mmm. Well, I’m sorry too. No, I don’t think I’m going to be going back to novels. It turns out I’m not very good at them.” He smiled. “Well, nice to have met you.”

He swiped his finger to end the call, then deleted everything from the phone. The phone itself he left in the stairwell, along with his wallet.

He smiled, feeling suddenly very calm, and walked out of the building in the direction of the Victoria. She wouldn’t be there. He understood that. But someone would be – someone who could write him into something.

The evening light of Los Angeles was turning the world into a movie set. The fictional character who’d once been Niles Golan took a deep breath, smiled, and quickened his pace, already excited. He wondered who he’d be.

He couldn’t wait to find out.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to thank Richard E Hughes and Dave Gabrielson, original creators of
The Black Terror
.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Al Ewing
is a fictional character invented by playwright and syndicated columnist Dwight Augenheimer. A background character in many of Augenheimer’s bedroom farces, he appears as the protagonist of the 2012 play
The Reluctant Insomniac
, in which he claims to have written for comics such as
2000 AD
,
Avengers Assemble
and
Jennifer Blood
, as well as writing a number of “critically-acclaimed” novels for Abaddon Books, including
Gods Of Manhattan
and
Pax Omega
.

Over the course of the play, Ewing struggles with – and finally completes – a sprawling metafictional novel called
The Fictional Man
; however, a final attempted bit of cleverness in the biography section of the book leads, through a series of bizarre coincidences and mishaps, to the writer being marooned naked in the wilds of Alaska, pursued by a bear. Augenheimer has expressed a desire to further humiliate the character in future works.

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