Over the following weeks the writer follows several of the students home, and writes about their possibilities as victims. The lecturer calls in the police, they read the work- in-progress but say there is nothing they can do unless the writer commits an offense. During the next reading of the work-in-progress, the writer considers the possibility of the lecturer as the victim. The writer discovers that the lecturer is having an affair with a young girl on the course. That too goes into the book. The writer becomes increasingly isolated, the rest of the class either fear or ridicule him. The girl who is having an affair with the lecturer vanishes, though her apartment is covered with her blood.
The police question the writer, and go through his manuscript, but they can't believe that anyone would actually write what is in effect a detailed confession before committing a murder. Then they discover his fingerprints at the crime scene and arrest him. The writer is a warped genius, and the cops are unable to get a confession from him. He has an explanation for his prints being at the crime scene - he says that he was having an affair with the girl. The cops don't believe him, but eventually they have to release him and he goes back to the creative writing course. His book is almost finished.
The police, acting on an anonymous tip-off, discover part of the girl's body in the lecturer's apartment, along with the murder weapon. The lecturer is arrested, charged and found guilty, though the rest of the girl's corpse is never discovered.
The writer finishes his book, and it's an instant bestseller. Rumors abound that he has gotten away with murder and that the clues to the whereabouts of the girl's body parts are hidden in the book. Sales boom. The last scene is of him signing copies of his novel - called The Bestseller - in a book shop. A young wannabee writer asks him how to write a Bestseller. ‘Easy,’ says the writer, ‘you just have to kill for it....’
It's perfect. I get dressed and rush down to a print shop on 38th Street and get a dozen copies made, then back in the apartment I put them in envelopes addressed to studio execs, agents and producers in LA. I get a sudden brainwave, the movie would be perfect for Brian DePalma, it's just his sort of thing. I love Body Double, it's one of my all-time favourites. I rip one of the envelopes open and take out the synopsis, then hurriedly type out a personal letter - Dear Mr DePalma, you don't know me but... - and sign it with a flourish. I post the LA letters first, then catch a cab down to Fifth Avenue and stop outside his apartment building. His apartment is at number 25, I've dropped stuff off there before, even got a personal reply once. He was really nice, explained that he was too busy to take on another project and gave me the names of a couple of studios to try. I followed his advice, but of course I hit the secretarial wall straight away. This time it's going to be different. He's going to love The Bestseller, I know he is.
It's only when I get out of the cab that I realise that I'm not really dressed for visiting a prestigious Fifth Avenue address - I was so excited about the story that I just pulled on the first clothes I found, faded blue jeans, an old sweatshirt and a pea coat, and I didn't bother shaving or showering. The doorman looks at me like I'm a wad of chewing gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe. ‘Whaddya want? he snarls.
I give him the boyish smile and hold up the envelope. ‘I'm delivering this for Mr DePalma,’ I say.
‘Ya don't look like a fucking mailman,’ he says.
I nod and widen the smile. ‘It's personal,’ I say.
He holds out his hand. The nails are bitten to the quick and ingrained with dirt. Before he can take the envelope I pull it back. There's a crafty look in his eyes and I don't trust him. ‘If it's all the same to you, I'd rather put it in his mailbox,’ I say.
‘You can't. All the mail has to go through me.’ He makes another attempt to grab the envelope, but he's too slow, too clumsy.
‘Surely I can put it in his box?’
‘No. Only the mailman has the key.’
‘Come on, are you telling me that you can't open it?’
He folds his arms across his chest. He looks like a former boxer, a nose thickened by too many punches and a large chin that he juts forward as he speaks. ‘It's me or nothing,’ he growls.
‘Okay, so what if I take it up to him?’ I say, even though I know he's not going to let me inside his precious lobby.
He shakes his head. ‘No. No way.’ He holds out his hand.
I'm not sure what to do. I just know that he's not going to pass it on to DePalma. As soon as he disappears inside, the envelope is going to go straight into the trash can. I'm fucked. I know it and he knows it, but I don't have any choice. I give it to him. He weighs it in his huge hand like it was a piece of bad meat. ‘I'll make sure he gets it,’ he says with a savage grin.
Yeah, right, I think, but I smile and say thanks. Thanks a lot.
I walk all the way back to my apartment. I'm not angry, I'm cold. Like ice. I'm determined to get my own back on the doorman, but I'll do it calmly, clinically. Revenge is a dish best served cold. It's an old saying, but it's true.
When I get back I sit down at my typewriter and write a letter to Brian DePalma, telling him what happened. I redo it several times, making sure that it's just right, then I put it into an envelope with another copy of the synopsis. I go down to the Post Office and send it by registered mail.
* * *
The questions come thick and fast, but you don't answer any of them. It's true what they say: knowledge is power. And it's important that she realises that any power she once had has been stripped away. She has to do everything you say, without question. Obedience, that's all you require. She must do as she's told.
‘Who are you?’ she screams. ‘What do you want?’
You smile at her and press your finger against your lips, telling her to be silent. Her tone becomes more strident, more aggressive, as if raising her voice is going to make you bend to her will. She's used to dealing with children, or a husband who can be cowed by a hot temper or the threat of a cold bed. She doesn't understand yet, so you smile. You smile and press the finger to your lips. ‘Shhhh,’ you say. There are beads of sweat on her brow and the front of her blouse is damp. You can see her breasts rise and fall as she pants and the sight makes you ache between your legs. It's a longing, a need that you want to satisfy then and there, but you've learned from experience that it's better to wait. The longer the better. You used the first few too quickly, and any fulfillment you felt soon faded. Slow is better.
‘You can't keep me here,’ she shouts. ‘I have to go home.’
The shouting phase doesn't last too long. Shouting works the lungs too hard, too much oxygen goes into the blood and they start to hyperventilate. That's when they stop shouting and start talking. They usually start off by threatening you, then bribing, then pleading. By the time they get to the third stage, they're ready to listen.
Sarah doesn't stop screaming for a long time. For a while she goes hysterical, her cries become yells and she begins to thrash about, pulling against the chains so hard that the bed moves. You don't want her to hurt herself so you take the stun gun out of your pocket and hold it in front of her. She doesn't react and so you think that maybe she doesn't know what a stun gun is, the damage it can do. You could explain to her, you could tell what 65,000 volts does to the body's neuromuscular system, but she clearly isn't going to be receptive so you decide to give her a demonstration. You hold it up and wave it from side to side to get her attention. It doesn't look much, that's for sure, matte black and hardly bigger than a pack of cigarettes, with a couple of steel prongs like the antenna of some predatory beetle. You press the trigger and blue sparks crackle and sizzle between the prongs and she starts to scream all the louder. That's happened before, but you know that you have to carry on, you have to show her that you're serious or she won't believe the threats you make in future. She has to know that whenever you say you'll do something, that you mean it and won't be talked out of it. She tries to roll away but the chains hold her fast as you step forward, holding the stun gun like a torc
h. Part of you wants to really hurt her, to push the crackling prongs against the soft white skin of her breasts and hear her scream. Her breasts are wet with sweat so the conduction would be almost perfect and you know the pain would be exquisite but you don't want to mark her. You go up to her right leg and hold her ankle with your hand. She tries to jerk the leg out of your grasp but the chain is already taught and all she does is grind the metal into her flesh. The shiny metal glistens with blood and there are red drops on the sheet. You smile at her, press the contacts against the back of her leg and switch it on. Her whole body goes into spasm, her mouth open like she was in orgasm, her back arched like she was experiencing pleasure beyond anything she'd ever known before. When you take the gun away she slumps onto the bed, breathing heavily and dribbling from the side of her mouth.
You stand by the side of the bed and run the back of your hand against her cheek. She feels soft. So very soft.
* * *
I'm working on a scene in the casino in Checking Out, trying to build the tension between the casino owner and the hero, an LAPD bomb disposal expert turned blackjack dealer, when the doorbell rings. There isn't a doorman downstairs, the building is too cheap for that, but there's a security system and visitors aren't supposed to be able to get in unless they're admitted. I put the chain on the door. ‘Yeah? Who is it?’ I shout.
‘Police,’ says a voice.
‘Yeah? I've already given.’
‘Given?’
‘Yeah. At the office. Thanks anyway.’
I go and sit down in front of the coffee table and continue typing. The doorbell rings again. And again. I get up and go back to the door. ‘Who is it?’
‘Are you Marvin Waller?’
‘Who wants to know?’
‘NYPD.’
‘NYPD?’ I'm starting to enjoy this. Whoever this cop is, he's obviously none too bright.
‘New York Police Department. Can you open the door?’
‘Sure I can,’ I say, and go back to my chair. This time he knocks on the door, hard. ‘What is it?’ I shout.
‘I'm getting fed up with talking through this door,’ he says.
I get up again. ‘So go away.’
‘You said you'd open the door, Mr Waller.’
‘No I didn't.’
‘Yes you did.’
‘Oh no I didn't.’ Yeah, this is fun all right. I can spin this out for hours.
‘Mr Waller, can you please open the door?’
‘Yes I can.’ I fold my arms and lean against the wall, grinning to myself. I wonder how long it'll take him to get the grammar right. I hear voices. Muffled whispering.
‘Mr Waller. Will you open the door?’
‘Sure - now that you've asked properly.’ I unlock the door and open it. I'm surprised. The guy's black, and he didn't sound it. He's well over six feet tall, big shoulders and a squarish face. It'd be a severe face if it wasn't for the tortoise-shell spectacles that give him the look of a schoolteacher. Behind him is a woman, dark-haired and pale-skinned with the bluest eyes I've ever seen. I give them the boyish smile. ‘Yes?’ I say.
The guy looks me up and down. He doesn't seem impressed. ‘You're Mr Waller? Marvin Waller?’
‘I am?’
‘What?’
‘What do you mean, what?’
He frowns. He's confused. The woman steps to the side. She's smiling. Her eyes really are amazingly blue. ‘Are you or are you not Marvin Waller?’ she says. There's a hint of Irish in her voice.
‘I am.’
‘Can we come in?’
‘Not without a warrant, no.’
The guy opens his wallet and shows me his shield. ‘We're detectives,’ he says.
‘I'm impressed.’
‘I'm Detective Sergeant Turner. This is Detective Marcinko.’
Marcinko? That ditches the Irish theory, I suppose. ‘Pleased to meet you, but I've got work to do.’ I go to close the door but the guy puts his foot in the gap.
‘We'd like a word,’ he says.
‘Trespass,’ I say.
‘Trespass?’
‘Yeah. It's a word. It means being where you're not invited.’
‘I know what trespass means.’
‘Okay, what about mephitic?’
‘Mephitic?’ he repeats, confused.
‘Yeah, do you know what mephitic is?’
The guy looks at the woman. Then he looks back at me. ‘Are you fucking with me, Waller?’
‘Not without a condom, no. Now would you please take your foot away?’
The woman puts a hand on Turner's shoulder and he steps to the side. The woman smiles at me like she wants to take me to bed and lick me all over. ‘Mr Waller, you'd really be doing us a favour if you'd let us in.’ I bet the smile has the bad guys swooning at her feet. She really is pretty. Not drop-dead gorgeous, but the sort of girl you'd take home to meet your mother. If you had a mother. Her hair is as black as night and there's a glossy sheen as if she's just washed it. I bet it smells like apples.
‘I'd rather not.’
‘We're the police,’ says Turner. ‘Do you have a warrant?’
‘Why would we need a warrant?’ he says.
I smile and tell him. ‘The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.’ I flash him a knowing smile. ‘Amendment Four of the United States Constitution, made in 1787. You need a warrant. And you need probable cause.’
‘Are you a lawyer?’ he asks.
‘Why? Do you treat lawyers differently?’
He ignores the question. ‘We'd still like to come in,’ he says.
‘I am not giving you my consent. If you keep putting pressure on me you run the risk of my consent not being truly voluntary and an infringement of my constitutional rights. It's up to you, but personally I'd just go. Unless you've got probable cause.’ I smile at the woman. ‘Do you have probable cause?’ I ask.
‘Mr Waller, all we want is a few moments of your time,’ she says.
‘Marvin.’
‘Marvin?’
‘Yeah, call me Marvin. Mr Waller always reminds me of my father.’
‘Okay, Marvin. Can we come in?’
‘Only if you say the magic word.’
‘The magic word?’
‘Yeah. The magic word.’
She smiles. She gets it. ‘Please,’ she says.
‘I've had enough of this shit,’ says Turner. He begins pushing the door with his foot. I take the pressure off and allow the door to open. He steps across the threshold.
‘You realise, Sergeant Turner, that anything you see or hear from this moment on is tainted. There could be a corpse lying on the bed with my knife in its chest and there'd be not one thing you could do about it. I could have a kilo of cocaine in there and I couldn't be charged.’
‘Fuck off,’ he says and walks into the middle of the room. He looks into the alcove where the bed is as if to reassure himself that there isn't really a body there.
The woman closes the door. ‘Mr Waller, did you visit an apartment block on Fifth Avenue yesterday?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you delivered an envelope to a resident?’
‘I gave it to the doorman, yes.’
‘Later you wrote to the resident?’
‘Mr DePalma, yes.’
‘And in that letter you made several disparaging comments about the doorman?’
‘I pointed out what an inefficient little shit he is, yes.’
She looks at a small notebook. ‘Last week, on Wednesday, you were waiting outside 200 Central Park South.’
‘I was?’
‘According to the patrolman who stopped you, yes.’
‘If I was waiting, he wouldn't have had to stop me. Waiting implies I wasn't moving. S
o he wouldn't have to stop me, right?’
She smiles patiently, like a mother with a disobedient child. ‘But you were outside the building?’
‘That's right.’
‘Would you mind telling us what you were doing there?’
‘I was waiting to give a script to Dino de Laurentis. It's a horror film I'm working on.’
‘So you're a writer?’ she asks.
I nod.
‘Had anything published?’ asks Turner.
‘I'm a screen writer, not a novelist.’
‘So have you had anything filmed?’ he asks.
I ignore him and look at Marcinko. ‘I was waiting in a public place. I wasn't committing an offence. The patrolman asked me for identification and I showed him my drivers licence. He asked me why I was there and I told him. That's it. End of story.’
‘You've been reported waiting outside other buildings in the city.’
‘So?’
‘So we'd like you to stop bothering people.’
‘I'm a writer. I have to get my work to the right people.’
‘That's what the mail is for, Waller,’ says Turner. ‘These people don't want you hanging around outside their homes like a bad smell.’
‘Have you had complaints?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Several doormen have complained.’
‘The doormen don't own the buildings. I haven't committed any crime.’
‘Look Marvin, this city has a problem with celebrity stalkers, you know that. People in the entertainment industry are getting nervous, and they don't want strangers standing outside their buildings. It doesn't matter that your intentions are good. You're a stranger. You make them nervous. We're asking you to take their feelings into consideration, that's all.’
The Basement Page 3