“Todd?”
Todd returned to reality.
“Sorry.”
“If Tom does want you, it won’t be for a week or two. His people book well in advance,” said Nora. “So just forge on with the tour for now.”
“Will do,” said Todd. Then he remembered.
“I’ve got another reading tonight,” he said. “Cleveland, Ohio. I’d better get going.”
“Okay, Todd,” said Nora. “Drive safely. Remember you’re more than an author now, you’re a star.”
Yeah, thought Todd, a star investment. He put the phone down and walked into the corridor. Mr. Franco was waiting there, a coy look on his face and a book in his hand.
“I have to run,” said Todd.
“I understand,” said Franco. “I wondered if you might just—”
He proffered the book.
“It’s not for me,” he said. “I prefer the classics. My wife, though—” He made a gesture as if to imply that Mrs. Franco read the cheapest shit imaginable.
Todd took the book. A cold shock ran through him.
“This isn’t—” he began.
It wasn’t his All My Colors. It was Jake Turner’s All My Colors, same as in the bookstore in Chicago. The only difference was that the Chicago book had the latest edition, a brand new copy, whereas this All My Colors was, as Todd might have expected from a library book, old, shop-soiled, with a cloudy cellophane cover and much-thumbed pages.
“Strictly speaking, it’s the library’s copy,” said Franco. “But it’s so old, I thought I could justify taking it out of circulation and ordering—”
“Is this a joke?” said Todd.
“Excuse me?” Franco said.
“I said, is this a fucking joke?” Todd was angry now. “Who put you up to this?”
“I don’t understand, Mr. Milstead,” Franco stuttered. “Would you rather I asked you to sign a new copy?” He was backing away from Todd and Todd understood that this was because Todd was advancing on him.
“I really didn’t mean to offend you!” Franco said. He stepped back, tripped, and fell over.
Todd stood over him, holding the battered book.
“This,” he shouted, “is not mine!”
“Get a grip, man!” shouted Franco from the floor.
He was about to bring it down on Franco’s face throw the book away when he stopped. Eddie had appeared in a doorway, looking a lot bigger than Todd remembered.
“You okay, Mr. Franco?” he said.
“I think so,” said Franco, scrambling up again. He looked Todd in the eye.
“Mr. Milstead is just leaving,” he said.
Todd said nothing. He brushed past them both and headed through the door to the street.
It was only when he was buckling himself up in the Volvo that he realized he still had the library book with him.
SIX
At about the time Todd was storming out of the public library in Charlene, Timothy was considering closing up Legolas Books early so he could go home and make what he liked to call his famous chili con carne. He had it all planned: a bottle of Chianti, his famous chili con carne, and an old movie (Timothy had already checked the TV Guide, and was delighted to see that he had a choice between All About Eve or The Rocky Horror Picture Show: for such a crashing bore, he had great taste in movies).
Timothy looked at the store clock, then his wristwatch. They both confirmed what he knew already: no fucker was coming by his store this afternoon. He flipped the WELCOME STRANGER TO OUR BOX OF DELIGHTS sign over to CLOSED and was about to pull down the blinds when he heard a loud noise that soon became an ear-thumping roar. A motorbike engine.
Timothy despised motorbikes and their riders. Noisy, polluting assholes who lurked around corners just waiting to charge out and scare the living bejasus out of people. The engine was so loud he could barely think.
“Shut UP!” he shouted, and looked around in case anyone had heard him. Timothy had no desire to be pummeled to crap by an angry biker.
And then it stopped, so abruptly that the sound echoed for a moment before it vanished. Timothy sighed with relief.
The shop bell dinged.
“We’re closed!” said Timothy. You’d think a person who wanted to visit a bookstore would at least be able to read, he thought to himself, and went to bolt the door to make clear his point. He stopped at the door: it was already bolted and latched too. Don’t recall doing that, he thought.
There was movement behind him. He turned, to see a woman standing at the counter. She had blonde hair and she was wearing a blue print dress.
“How did you—” he began, more irritated than angry.
There was something in the way the woman was looking—not at him, but almost through him—that made Timothy change his tone.
“Can I help you?” he asked the woman. The words seemed to float from his mouth like balloons. He felt like he was up to his waist in molasses.
The woman looked him in the eye now.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m looking for a hacksaw.”
Timothy knew this was a strange thing for the woman to say, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember why.
“What kind of hacksaw?” he asked, knowing deep down that this was a strange thing for him to say, too.
“It doesn’t matter,” said the woman. “I just said that to get your attention.”
And before Timothy could say another word, she had reached into his mouth and pulled out his tongue.
That’s my fucking tongue, was Timothy’s unhelpful thought as he watched her grab the red, fat object and drop it onto the counter like a piece of sushi. He put a hand to his face and it came away bloody. The odd thing was, Timothy thought as he tried to feel for his absent tongue in his mouth but he couldn’t, ha fucking ha, because he hadn’t got a tongue, that it didn’t hurt. He felt fine, apart from the weird sensation caused by there being nothing in the middle of his mouth anymore.
He looked at the woman, and for a moment it seemed that she must have been moved by Timothy’s puzzled expression because she said, “You can’t be trusted, you see. You’re a talker.”
Timothy wanted to explain to the woman that he could be trusted, that whatever it was she didn’t want him to talk about, he wouldn’t. But how could he tell her? He reached for his pen and grabbed a postcard.
“Oh, that’s right,” she said. “You can write.” And she slashed his throat open.
Timothy’s last thought, as he stumbled to the floor, choking and gushing, was: she had a hacksaw all the time.
* * *
Todd ran into his motel room. He threw the library book on the desk and, without stopping to take his coat off, sat down with his reading copy. Now there were two All My Colors in front of him: his copy, brand new, slightly used, printed by Franklyn and Sullivan and with the words BY TODD MILSTEAD prominently displayed on the cover and spine; and the library copy, at least a decade old, battered if not well-thumbed, printed by The Whitney Press, and credited to JAKE TURNER.
Todd looked at the Jake Turner version of All My Colors. It was an unsettling experience, like seeing Spock from Star Trek with a beard, or one of those British Beatles albums with the wrong name. There was nothing wrong with the actual book; if it was a forgery, it was an amazing one (but what’s to forge, Todd’s mind asked, there’s only me thinks it exists).
Maybe, Todd thought desperately, this isn’t my book. Maybe it just has the same title. Like when two movies come out with the same title (Todd couldn’t actually think of two movies that had come out with the same title, but he was sure it happened). He remembered, from a long-ago seminar on the English comic novel, that when P.G. Wodehouse had written a book called French Leave, he had jokingly said that he hoped it would be the best book written called French Leave. Todd had never seen French Leave by P.G. Wodehouse or anyone else but he did have both versions of All My Colors. He opened them at the same time.
Chapter One, page one.
Todd’s All
My Colors began:
The hardware store was empty. Jimmy the store clerk was clearing away some boxes when he noticed the woman standing at the counter. She was in her early thirties, good-looking with blonde hair and wearing a blue print dress.
Jake Turner’s All My Colors began:
The hardware store was empty. Jimmy the store clerk was clearing up boxes when he noticed the woman standing at the counter. She was in her early ’30s, blonde and good-looking in a blue print dress.
Todd picked a page at random—106—and compared again. Todd’s page 106 began:
and, when Helen asked, Harry just said no.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Honey, there’s no why not,” said Harry. “Because there’s no why.”
Jake’s page 106 began:
and, when Helen raised her head to ask, Harry said no.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Honey,” said Harry. “There’s no why not. Because there’s no why.”
Todd was about to go for best of five when he saw how pointless it was. The two books were, to all but the most pedantic, identical. Any differences could be put down to a copier’s bad memory. Because that’s all I am, Todd said to himself, a bad copier. It felt irrational—it was irrational—but in all the time Todd had been stuck at that typewriter, letting the book flow out of him, even though he’d been nothing more than a faucet gushing words and pages, some part of him had hoped, had even believed, that he, Todd Milstead, was adding to the book in some way, some extra layer or some new ingredient.
But now, looking at the two books side by side, Todd realized he was no more than a stenographer taking dictation. And not a very good one either, he realized.
* * *
Todd sat there looking at the two books for quite some time. Then he picked up the older book (he refused to call it the original) and opened it at the back flap. There was no author photo, which Todd found suspicious, but there was a brief biography.
“Jake Turner,” Todd read out loud, “was born in Pontiac, Michigan and held down a variety of jobs before finally realizing that he was a writer. All My Colors is his first novel.”
That was it. Todd didn’t know what he’d been expecting—”Jake Turner is a fucking ghost who is going to get you for this,” perhaps—but something more than this flat, disingenuously not-really-humble piece of nothing. Todd noted also that the blurb contained exactly one piece of information.
Still, one was better than nothing. Todd went over to his grip, rummaged around for his telephone address book and went back to the desk and picked up the phone.
It was answered by a coughing fit. Todd briefly recoiled from the mouthpiece and said, “Behm? This is Milstead.”
“Milstead,” said Behm when he was finished coughing. “I thought we were done.”
“I’m not calling about Janis,” said Todd.
“Well, that’s good, I guess. How can I help you?”
“I want you to track someone else down for me.”
Was that a sigh at the other end of the phone? Todd wasn’t sure.
“Got a name?” asked Behm.
“Jake Turner.”
“Someone you know?”
“No. And that’s all I know about him.”
“Just the name? That’s not ideal, Mr. Milstead.”
“And his place of birth. Pontiac, Michigan.”
This time there was a definite sigh at the other end of the line.
“That narrows it down, a little. Okay. Is there a time limit on this?”
“Soon as possible.”
“Great. Nice and vague. Is there anything else, Mr. Milstead? Like what the guy does for a living?”
Todd took a deep breath.
“He’s a writer,” he said.
Behm rang off, and Todd decided to get some fresh air. The night was surprisingly chilly, and he was about to go back inside when he saw the bike parked across the road.
It was a Harley. The same kind of bike Janis and her (lover) partner were riding. Whether it was also the actual same bike Todd couldn’t be sure. The Harley was picked out plain as day under a streetlight, like it was in an Edward Hopper painting. Todd forgot all about going back inside and crossed the road stealthily, or as stealthily as a man can cross a major road at night with cars flashing past.
The bike was cold to the touch. Whoever it belonged to had left it here for at least a couple of hours. Todd looked around to see if there were any (lesbian bars) bars in the vicinity, but there was nothing, just a few random stores which had all shut up for the night. Todd had no idea what to do next—he was hardly going to leave a note on the windshield—so he just turned around and crossed the road again, feeling far from intrepid, and went back to his room.
Todd went to bed, but he couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking about the book. He turned on the light and went back to the desk.
The book was gone. Todd’s was still there, but the other All My Colors wasn’t where he’d left it. Cursing, Todd looked on the floor by the desk. Nothing. He stuck his head under the desk and got nothing for his troubles but a banged head. He widened his search. The book wasn’t under the bed, and he hadn’t kicked it into the bathroom or the closet.
Todd spent a half hour investigating every nook and cranny in the room before finally giving up. He turned on the TV and went over to close the drapes. The bike was still there. He watched TV for a few minutes—a local news station whose stories would have been interesting to only the very local—and then gave up the day as a bad job. He got ready for bed. One last trip to the window showed him what he knew already. The bike was still there. Goddammit, Todd thought. He didn’t take kindly to being intimidated.
The book, he thought. She took it. While I was out looking at the Harley, the Dyke on the Bike must have come in here and taken the book. It was the only logical explanation. Todd turned off the room light and went over to the window again, a lone figure in pajamas glaring out into the night. The bike hadn’t moved. Todd didn’t know what he was expecting to see but he felt disappointed. Is that it? he thought. Well, screw you, I’m not leaving it here.
For the second time, Todd got out his old address book. He looked at his watch. Not too late for a call.
* * *
“Todd?” Janis’s voice said.
“Hi, Janis.”
“Todd, do you know what time it is?”
“I know what you’ve been doing.”
“Are you drunk, Todd?”
“I said, I know what you’ve been doing.”
“You don’t answer my calls. You don’t answer my lawyer’s calls. And then you decide to pick up the phone in the middle of the night and—”
“I saw you.”
“What?”
Todd thought he could detect fear in Janis’s voice. Yeah, I got you now.
“You looked happy, Janis, I’ll say that for you.”
“Todd.” Janis’s tone changed, less harsh. “Todd, I am happy. Okay? Shall we just leave it there?”
“You have the nerve to come down on me and Sara when all the time you were—”
“What, Todd? All the time I was what?”
“Seeing someone else.”
“You’re pathetic, Todd.”
“One rule for you, is that it, Janis? One rule for you and another for me?”
“I’m not even going to begin to discuss this with you.”
“I want to speak to her.”
A pause.
“Excuse me?”
“I want to talk to her. I know she’s there. Put her on.”
“Todd,” said Janis. “I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I saw you, Janis. With her.”
“I’m going to hang up now.”
She rang off. Todd had the feeling that the conversation hadn’t entirely gone his way. He went to bed.
* * *
At around about four o’clock in the morning, Todd got up to use the bathroom. He studiously ignored t
he curtained window. He finished peeing, turned out the bathroom light, and was about to get back into bed when ( fuck it, one look won’t hurt) he went over to the window and pulled back the curtain.
She was there.
The bike hadn’t moved but now she was sitting on it, like she was posing for a magazine cover. She was holding something. Todd was not surprised to see that it was the book, All My Colors by Jake Turner. She stuck the book in her jacket, looked Todd straight in the eye and gave him the finger. Then—finger still vertical—she started up the Harley and roared off into the night.
After a few minutes had passed, Todd put on his coat and went outside. He crossed the road to where the bike had been. There was no sign that anything had been there. He went back to his room, where he didn’t sleep at all.
* * *
The next day, after a breakfast of chips and soda from the candy bar dispenser in the lobby, Todd called Sara.
“Hey,” she said, someone actually pleased to hear his voice.
“It’s good to hear your voice,” Todd said, and he meant it.
“When are you coming back?” she asked.
“I have one more date on this leg,” Todd said. “Cleveland, Ohio, then I’m coming home.”
“I can’t wait,” Sara said. “I hate to admit it but I miss you.”
An image of Leah came into Todd’s mind. She was naked and she had his cock in her hand. It was so sudden and startling that he forgot what he was doing for a moment.
“I said I miss you,” said Sara.
“No, I heard you,” Todd said, and the moment the words left his mouth he knew they were the wrong thing to say.
“Okay then,” said Sara tightly. “Well, let me know when you’re coming back and we’ll speak.”
Looks like everyone’s hanging up on me, thought Todd.
* * *
He got back in the Volvo and consulted his itinerary. The sheet was crumpled now, and torn, and his map was no longer the neatly folded rectangle that it had once been. The car, he noted, looked more like a garbage dump on wheels, being half-full of empty cartons, paper bags, and cups with straws in them.
All My Colors Page 16