The Blumhouse Book of Nightmares

by The Blumhouse Book of Nightmares- The Haunted City (retail) (epub)

  Katherine? A completely different situation. Katherine…completely different. Katherine. Self-made, diffident, confident, far too confident, and she’ll learn that the hard way, the way all women learn that their beauty is momentary, ephemeral. She has her own people. Doesn’t need me. She wants me. Celina…needed me. Celina fucked up my head. We picked out a beach to get married—Oh, Christ, forget Celina. She’s gone. Looked for her a few years back. How stupid that was! Living in L.A., married to an attorney. Of course. They always start with writers, these chicks, and end up with attorneys. Stability. Bullshit. Katherine doesn’t have that power. Really. Katherine? Laughable. Katherine can’t fuck with my head. Cline was right about me and Katherine. I own this relationship!

  Who wrote those goddamned seven words on my computer?

  Katherine?

  V exited the kitchen and hurriedly walked into the living room, entered the space where Jackson was sitting, staring at the sea, going inside.

  “She’s still out. Shopping,” V said.

  “What?” Jackson said. Oh, for Christ’s sake, did I say Katherine’s name out loud? Am I that man now? The man who cannot distinguish what he keeps and what he gives away? No. I am not that man. A mistake. Hilarious, when that happens. Too hilarious.

  Not that man.

  Jackson smiled. “Oh, okay, V. Thanks.” Definitely don’t want V to think, even momentarily flirt, with the idea I am that man.

  She looked at him, perplexed.

  “What?” he asked, a touch too strongly for V.

  “Excuse me? What?” she replied.

  “You were just looking at me strangely. You know? Weird.” He redefined words for V. He did this every day. Made words, sentences simpler. “Strangely” to “weird.” V’s English is fine, really, but let’s be honest, she lies, she pretends to understand more than she does. Peculiar after all the years she’s been in the States. But fine, really. However “strangely” could be misinterpreted. “Weird?” Not precise. But simpler.

  “No, I wasn’t.” She smiled. That smile. That goddamn smile.

  “Uh, yeah, you were.” He smiled. Jackson nodded. Yes. Definitely yes. Does she not know how well I read people? A writer reads people.

  “I’m sorry…”

  “Oh, V! Don’t be sorry. Nothing to apologize for,” he said. Get out while you can, V. We know what’s going on here.

  V went back into the kitchen. She got paid far more than other men pay women who take care of their Settings, their Routines, their Processes, their Formulas. And was so for reasons long-ago, if not remembered, decided. Like Cline said, you cannot really put a price on a woman like V, a woman who runs your life. And she did: V ran the show, kept the place clean, the coffee coming, the meals prepared, the guests greeted, the bags packed. V was more than a housekeeper. She was chief of staff. She had power, and as such, Cline made her sign some agreement. Nondisclosure? Something. Could Jackson fire her? Of course. But why would he? She did her job and did it well. Yet…he wondered for a moment: Can I really fire her? Or would I? The two questions blended into one hazy question or thought, which gave him a momentary chill for no ascertainable reason. Anyway, it was of no import.

  Of great import, however, was V’s access to his study, to his computer. She simply would never do that. V was intimately involved with his life. He knew, everyone knew, that V worshipped him. His craft. He was a successful writer. And her culture respected successful writers. Did I ever ask where she was from? Of course I did. Uruguay? Paraguay? Why was V’s English not perfect? Why would I expect it to be? God, I am beginning to sound like one of those golf-course bigots in Carmel with their Pebble Beach bullshit and their non-Caucasian caddies. His mind was racing; he was shuffling too many ideas around. The same ideas. The same questions. Goddammit. Yet had he not the right? Fourteen bestsellers? Then…nothing. And seven taunting words. Yes, he had the right to let his mind race, yet it was not healthy.

  In any event, he knew for certain that V treated his craft, his success, as it should be treated. As high art.

  V returned with his eight p.m. cocktail (at six p.m.), a jigger of expensive bourbon, five ice cubes, a dash of bitters, a splash of soda. Jackson forced a chuckle.

  “It’s so funny, I drink one or two of these at eight. Not six.”

  V reached for the cocktail.

  “It just looked like you were done for the day,” she said.

  “I’m not ‘done for the day,’ ” he said.

  Jackson blocked her hand from retrieving the cocktail. He was determined to simply, casually play it off. V had power, for sure, but there were limits Jackson imposed on her power; chief among these limits was the implicit ban on second-guessing Jackson.

  “Wait. You got me, V. I am done for the day. I’ll drink this one now, and I’ll—Jesus, I’m talking to you like you’re a waitress. I’m sorry, V.” Do I always speak to this woman as if she’s a waitress? My god. I should watch that.

  “It’s fine, it’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine. Come on. Let’s go have a smoke.”

  Having a cigarette with V was a ritual after six or seven hours of writing. Jackson wasn’t even certain she smoked but for the end-of-day Dunhill he proffered. He motioned V to the outdoor deck.

  “Let me grab my sweater,” she said.

  Jackson walked outside onto the deck, summer sunlight still bright. He looked at the binoculars mounted on a tripod and the telescope. Katherine thought this all a good idea. And it probably was. A view of Point Lobos. Whale watching. All those things that one, with an expensive, spectacular view of the ocean, engages in with expensive, spectacular gear.

  V walked out, bundled up, onto the deck.

  “It’s not that cold,” he said, almost smirking. Why does she play the victim so often? I give her everything she wants. I have given her everything she needs.

  “I’m anemic.”

  “Yes, I know, but…never mind.” He didn’t know. Maybe he knew at one time. Maybe he knew where she was from, maybe he knew what family she had, maybe, at one time, he knew what hardships she had to endure to get herself, her four sisters to this place. Then to pack up and move four times with him. This loyal woman who devoted her life to him. He knew the price of loyalty. He felt that. How to repay such loyalty? Easy. Share a secret. After all, she worships me. He offered her a cigarette and lit it. And shared himself.

  “This morning, shit, this week, I just…didn’t have it. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t perform.”

  She looked deliberately perplexed.

  “Christ!” He laughed. “That’s not what I meant!”

  “I know what you meant.” She smiled. “Look, the best writers have an off day. Or they wouldn’t be the best writers.”

  She did know what was wrong. Her answer leapt out too quickly. And where the fuck did she pick up that cliché? And for how long has she been hiding it, waiting to use it? Do not hate her. She is attempting to calm me. Does she hate me? Why would she? Her loyalty is compensated.

  “That may be true—”

  “It is true,” she said.

  She put her barely smoked cigarette into the tall sand-filled ashtray and began to walk inside. She turned around.

  “The messenger was here. I didn’t bother you. I figured you weren’t ready—”

  “What messenger?” he asked. “Ready for what?”

  “He said he was to pick up a contract? You have to sign it.”

  “I know,” Jackson said. Have we done this dance before? V inserting herself in my business? Perhaps. Telling me I have to sign contracts? All right, innocuous enough.

  Yet, for a moment, Jackson went back inside himself: Did the rules just change? Is she not the subservient and I the dominant? Or the other way around? And if so, has it always been like this? Maybe it has, this power she possesses, controlling my Routine. My Process. But I gave her this power!

  “V, this afternoon, my computer was screwed up.”

  V looked frightened. Jackson had opened
a door he would never again be able to close.

  “I would never—”

  “I don’t mean you did anything to my computer. Maybe you saw something or…Forget it.”

  “I didn’t see anything!”

  “I said forget it. Where’s Katherine?”

  V sighed heavily. “Shopping. Remember? She left around noon.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know…or see her.”

  V smiled. “I know. I know you didn’t.” It was an odd time for V to smile. In fact, it was an odd smile. And a thought suddenly occurred to Jackson: Maybe this woman secretly hates me. She lies for me. She has lied for me. Maybe she resents lying for me. Perhaps doing my bidding disgusts her. Perhaps she’s capable of anything.

  V’s potential hatreds and resentments, though a powerful thought, passed quickly through Jackson’s mind. There were more profound matters on the table.

  —

  When Katherine returned three hours later, Jackson was four cocktails in; the last he poured for himself. V had prepared an uneaten meal and retired to the guest house an hour earlier, also part of the routine. Katherine set her bags down.

  “Where’ve you been?” he asked blandly.

  “Shopping,” Katherine said, as if it was obvious, indicating her bags.

  “It’s fucking Carmel, Kat. Shops close at seven. It’s nine.”

  “You’re drunk, Jackson.”

  “I’m not drunk!”

  “You always call me ‘Kat’ when you’re drunk. I went shopping, met some friends for dinner—”

  “You became Katherine when I introduced you to my people—”

  Katherine put up with a lot; she had to. But the idea that doors were opened for her by Jackson truly annoyed her. She began to walk away.

  “You were ‘Kat’ when you booked your first gig. Anyway, what friends? What dinner?”

  “We’re going to do this again?”

  “Do what again?”

  “Have a bullshit drunken argument?”

  “Why don’t you bring your ‘friends’ over? We can have a bullshit drunken argument with your ‘friends’ right here. And have dinner too. V cooks.” A dare. A threat.

  “I know what V does!”

  Instinctively, Katherine looked out the window at the guest house and saw V’s profile pressed heavy against the lace curtains. Katherine and V had eyes on each other for a few seconds. Then V moved away from the window. There was a pecking order, albeit insincere, in Jackson’s world. V had blinked.

  “So…your ‘friends,’ ” Jackson said.

  “Have my friends over? To see my drunk, depressed man who doesn’t speak all day?”

  He stared at her for a beat.

  “You’re fucking somebody,” he said, clinically.

  “My god, you are really messed up—”

  “I know how this works. I know the formula here. It’s how I got you.”

  “Got me?”

  “A little over a year ago I was fucking somebody else, you were fucking somebody else, we were both speeding up the food chain, then I started—”

  “You’re really disgusting.”

  Katherine had endured his rage during the past four nights when Jackson could not deliver. Not on the literary proposition, and certainly not on any sexual proposition. She took her bags to the bedroom while he sat on the couch, ruefully shaking his head. She reentered the living room.

  “Do you want me to be fucking somebody else, Jackson? Or do you want me to tell you I’m fucking someone else? Do you want me to pretend to be? Would any of that make life easier for you? More…definable? Justifiable?”

  “Oh, please.”

  “Whatever makes life simpler for you, Jackson!”

  “You’re babbling. Don’t be stupid.”

  She hated him at that moment, during all the moments he questioned, he challenged, he offended her intellect.

  “I have a shoot tomorrow.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “I’m back Sunday.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Goddammit! Why are you such an asshole?” She began to storm off, then caught herself. “I was supposed to leave tomorrow. Fuck that! I don’t want to be here tonight.”

  “Well, that’s easy, Kat. Go have ‘dinner’ with your ‘friends’ again.”

  Moving from the couch only to pour himself another, Jackson heard Katherine on her phone, he heard bags being packed, other calls being made, doors opening, words yelled at him, a car pulling up, doors slammed.

  Who cares?

  Jackson got up and walked to his study. He unlocked the door and saw the computer, the screen, the keyboard, the whole setup exactly as he’d left it.

  With one exception: his computer screen. Bold, the font much larger, all caps, with a rainbow of colors, blinking:

  YOU’RE A WEAK, FRAGILE MAN, JACKSON GREY. WEAK. FRAGILE. PATHETIC. YOU OUGHT TO OWN THAT TRUTH. THAT TRUTH WILL PROVIDE YOU COMFORT WHEN YOU FINALLY REALIZE THE NEXT BOOK WILL NEVER COME. NOVEL FIFTEEN? DEAD ON ARRIVAL.

  Jackson immediately called Cline.

  —

  Cline did not take client calls on his cell phone at ten p.m. In fact, Cline did not give out his cell phone number to clients. Except in the case of Jackson Grey. Anyone associated with the Jackson Grey industry took his calls and answered his e-mails, immediately, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

  Cline knew this call was coming, and Cline did not want it. His Friday nights were as routine and processed as Jackson’s days. Leave the office at three p.m., nap, massage, poker game (thousand-dollar buy-in, a game he was studiously engaged in when the call came). Leave the table at one a.m., an after-hours spot, pick a girl, sugar-daddy that girl until early Sunday morning. Cline worked on Sunday afternoons. Years ago, Cline told Jackson, “I go dark at the end of the week. I’ve earned it.” And years ago, Jackson did not care to know what “going dark” meant. He speculated: Prostitutes? Drugs? Now, years later, there were other, more serious matters at hand.

  Cline took the call in an adjacent room.

  “This is not a big deal, Jackson.”

  “It is a big deal. A big fucking deal!”

  Cline was soothing. “You think it’s a big deal. Trust me, it’s not.”

  Jackson took the first deep breath he had taken in five days. This man could calm Jackson down. That is why he needed people like Cline. That was their purpose. Anyone could make a deal. Only people like Cline, people with power, only they could truly calm him down.

  “So what do I do?” Jackson asked.

  “Jackson, you have to change it up now and again. Too much routine. And lock it down.”

  “Katherine left,” he blurted out. Six? Seven drinks in?

  “I know Katherine left,” Cline said. “She called me.”

  “Why did she call you? What did she say? What did you say?”

  “Calm down. It didn’t get that far, Jackson. I don’t discuss my clients’ business with anyone. Especially the people that my clients are sleeping with. You know that.”

  Jackson did know that. Or believed it. Or had to believe it.

  “So…?” Jackson said, begging for a nugget.

  “I figured you’d call tonight—listen, Katherine always leaves…And Katherine always returns,” Cline said, as he peeked back into a room flush with cash, his cash, sitting on a table doing exactly nothing. “Look, if you want a prima donna—I mean, if you want somebody like Katherine hanging on your shoulder, you have to take the bullshit with it. It’s a whole package. You know that.” Concluding each sentence with the phrase “you know that” was a low-rent trick Cline picked up years ago. And it worked. Cline enlightening the ignorant and in the process convincing the ignorant that he was already ripe with the knowledge he pursued.

  “Okay, so…change it up?”

  “Get out of that fucking house, Jackson. You’re too inside your own head. And that house is where that head resides.”

  “Okay, but wait. The lock-it-down thing…”
>
  “Let’s talk ‘lock it down’ on Monday,” Cline said hurriedly. “I’m in a game.”

  “A game? Fuck the game! How about now?” Jackson said.

  “It’s not the game, Jackson. It’s the privacy. Monday I’m in my office on a secure line, in a private attorney-client setting. Which I am not in now. I’m at a poker table,” Cline said. It was declarative, not an offer, not a question. And it made sense to Jackson. Everything Cline said made sense to Jackson. Other people did not need to know Jackson’s business. That was true.

  “Yeah, okay, Monday,” Jackson said meekly.

  “I’ll call you,” Cline said, fully aware of who called whom was a matter of power and politics and one that Cline happily conceded. “And sign that goddamn contract, Jackson. I busted my ass working the terms. Your publisher’s not exactly the fucking pope when it comes to these matters.”

  “Yes. Okay. I know. I’ll sign it.”

  “Good. And look, as far as that other business, your computer thing, it’s just some childish prank. Some jealous asshole. In the meantime—”

  “I know. Change it up.”

  “That’s right. Have some fun. And remember, this has happened before.”

  This has happened before? Five, six years ago Jackson would have debated the point with Cline, with anyone. But it was true. It had happened before. Not the taunting words written on his computer…but the block.

  As Jackson was about to disconnect the call, he heard Cline yell, ostensibly to the players at the table, “I’m all in.” And one of those players laughing. “You haven’t seen your cards yet, Cline!”

  He heard Cline yell right back. “I said I’m all in!” and trailing off, with a sigh, “I’m all in…”

  Jackson had no right to hear this, but it did make him smile. Cline was a player. A power player. A banger, a baller. And, as Cline looked at his phone and realized he had forgotten to disconnect, they both, perhaps simultaneously, had the same thought: Cline was getting sloppy. It was a minor thought and, by both, quickly forgotten. Cline began to charge toward the poker table, then realized there was still business left unsettled. He returned to the private room.

  He dialed Marlene.

  And just as Cline took Jackson’s calls under these unwritten rules, so did Marlene take Cline’s.