by Zev Chafets
“I’m only asking what if,” said Herman.
“A genuine snuff diary by a well-known author? With the right promo, it could be bigger than the Kennedy assassination. Bestseller, movie, TV series, it might be worth fifty million. Hell, these days the sky’s the limit.”
“I could retire.”
“Keep dreaming,” Jeff said.
“That’s my right as an American.” There was another silence and then Herman turned to his cousin and said, “Would you be interested?”
“Like I told you, it depends on how the book does. I don’t buy unpublished novels.”
“What about if it comes with a corpse? Would that interest you?”
“Herm, this is heavy stuff—”
“Look,” said Herman, lowering his voice, “here’s how I see it. Green’s writing the diary one way or the other. The only question is, will he be alive or dead when it’s finished? You care if Mack Green lives?”
“I’ve never even met Mack Green,” said Jeff.
“I rest my case,” said Herman. “If you saw in the paper that Mack Green dropped dead tomorrow, you wouldn’t even bother reading his obituary. Am I right?”
“Yeah, but he’s not going to drop dead.”
“Yes he is,” said Herman. “For that kind of money, he’s going to kill himself, guaranteed.”
“Okay, I’ll ask again. What’s in it for him?”
“That’s not the question,” said Herman. “The question is, what’s in it for you? Half of fifty million bucks is the answer.”
“Why half?” asked Jeff.
“Because I’d be in for the other half,” said Herman. “Plus my 10 percent agent’s fee. But the flick, the TV, anything else, we’d go down the middle. Green delivers the book, I deliver the body and you take care of the show biz.”
“They have capital punishment in California,” said Jeff. It was a statement of fact, not an objection.
“Michigan doesn’t. Besides, that’s only for murder. Green’s going to commit suicide.”
Jeff Reggie rose laboriously from his deckchair, walked around the pool gulping large lungfuls of lemon-scented air and then returned to his seat, lowering his large behind into the pool of water he had left. “Okay, yeah. If this’s all I need to know, I’m interested,” he said.
“Good. Set us up a production company, something that can’t be traced directly to the name of Reggie. Get a front man. Can you do it?”
“No problem. I got a Jew lawyer could set up a phony country if he had to.”
“You and your damn ethnic stereotypes,” Herman said. “What difference does it make if the lawyer’s a Jewish-American?”
“None, none,” replied Jeff impatiently. “Forget I mentioned it.”
“Okay. I’ll sell you the film rights, television, the whole package for, say, a hundred thousand dollars. That sound about right?”
“For an unfinished Mack Green novel? It’s outrageous.”
“Good, that means it’ll motivate him to finish quickly. From what I understand he’s a quitter.”
“Why not wait until he’s dead?”
“Because I need his signature on the contracts, otherwise we could get tied up in all kinds of probate problems. Oh, and make the offer through Tommy Russo. I don’t want anybody knowing I’m connected to this.”
“Except Tommy. He’ll know.”
“I’ll deal with Tommy.”
“You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?” said Jeff with admiration. “Tell me, how’s Green going to kill himself?”
“Does it matter?” asked Herman. “I mean, as far as the movie’s concerned?”
“Not really,” said Jeff. “I’m just curious.”
“Don’t worry about it, then,” said Herman, draining the last of his spritzer and daintily wiping a speck of coke from one nostril with the back of his plump, liver-spotted hand. “He’s a writer. He’ll be creative.”
Sixteen
Mack sat at his desk watching the cold autumn drizzle run down the window, remembering the last time he made love to Linda Birney, here in this room, more than twenty years before. It had been raining then, too, a warm, sexy summer rain. He could see himself lying naked next to her, eyes closed, running his hands over her soft skin, and he felt a great surge of tenderness for the young man on the bed, which was interrupted by the jangling of the telephone.
“Hey, Macky, what’s happening?” Buddy Packer’s salutation hadn’t changed since high school.
“I’m what’s happening,” Mack replied automatically, annoyed that his reverie had been interrupted.
“No, as a matter of fact I’m what’s happening,” said Packer. “And I’m happening in about half an hour. You still game for a little fo-ray?”
Mack glanced at the clock on his desk. “Can’t it wait till after dinner?”
“This is an afternoon fo-ray situation,” said Buddy. “Something you might appreciate.”
“Well—”
“I’ll pick you up at three-thirty. You got a dark suit?”
“Yeah. Is this a formal occasion?”
“Not exactly,” said Buddy. “More like a humanitarian type deal.”
Mack hung up, lay down on the bed, closed his eyes and thought about the last time he had spoken to Linda. He had been a junior at the University of Michigan, she was a freshman at Vanderbilt. Even after all these years he could recall every word of their conversation.
The subject had been Christmas vacation. Linda said she wouldn’t be able to get back to Michigan to spend it with Mack, as they had planned.
“If you can’t get away, I’ll come down there,” he said. All semester they had been meeting in the middle, in Covington, Kentucky, where they spent long weekends in a motel. Nashville was a serious drive, especially in the snow, but Mack didn’t care. He was twenty years old and in love.
“I don’t think so,” said Linda. “I’ve got a lot to do.”
“Come on, this isn’t your parents you’re talking to. How busy could you be?”
“Busy,” said Linda tightly.
“Jesus, Linnie, what’s going on down there? Are you seeing somebody else?” Until that moment the thought had never crossed his mind, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew they were true.
Her silence confirmed it. For twenty seconds, the only sound on the line was two people breathing.
“Who is he?” said Mack.
“Mackinac, I’m sorry,” she said in her throaty voice. “I really am. It just happened.”
“Who is he?” Mack screamed softly into the phone; he was calling from a booth in the lobby of the Student Union.
“Just a boy. A football player.”
“A football player? What kind of football player? What position?”
“What difference does it make?”
“It makes a difference,” said Mack. “I want to know, is he a great big hairy linebacker? Or a skinny little pass receiver? Or maybe it’s one of those muscle-bound linemen with no neck—”
“Don’t piss me off, Mackinac,” Linda said. “I feel bad enough already.”
“What fucking position does he play?” Suddenly it was the most important question in the world, because it kept him from asking what he dreaded to find out—if she was lost to him.
He heard her sigh. “He’s a quarterback.”
“Not Gregg Flanders?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. How did you know?”
Green felt a wave of angry misery wash over him. “He’s an All-American, Linnie.”
“Mack—”
“Jesus, I can’t believe you went off to college and fell in love with a quarterback. It sounds like some movie from the forties. What next? You going out for the cheerleading squad?”
“If I feel like it,” she said coolly.
“Linnie, I’m sorry. Listen, let’s get married. I’ll be down there in eighteen hours and we can go to Nevada—”
“I don’t want to spend Christmas break with you, how can we get
married? I don’t love you anymore. I wish I did but I can’t help it, I don’t.”
“So, you want to just be friends, is that it?”
“No,” said Linda. “I want us not to be in touch.”
“Okay, no problem,” said Mack. “If that’s the way you feel.” He heard the phone click, and then he put the receiver against his forehead and began to cry. He cried until a fat kid began tapping on the glass booth with a quarter. He gave the kid the finger and went home.
Mack opened his eyes and sighed. It would make a great scene for the Diary; the hero, laying quietly in his old room, longing for a girl he had loved years ago. He sighed again, climbed out of bed, sat down at the keyboard and began to write, working steadily until he heard Buddy’s horn. He quickly slipped into his suit and went outside, where he found Packer slouched in the driver’s seat of his T-Bird, smoking a joint and listening to a Patsy Cline song on the radio.
“I was right in the middle of a great erotic scene,” Mack said, taking a hit off the joint. “This better be good.”
“It will be,” said Packer. He was in high good spirits. “What’s it like, making up stories about pussy? Do you have to be horny to do it, or does it get you horny as you go along?”
“You should know.” Mack laughed. “You’ve been making them up long enough.”
Packer let the jibe pass. “Tell me something—you ever written about lawyers?”
Mack nodded. “A couple of times. Why?”
“Irish Willie’s got a little legal problem and seeing as how you’ve got the gift of tongues, I thought you might be able to help him out.”
“You want me to impersonate a lawyer?”
“No big thing,” said Buddy. “I’ll fill you in on the way.”
They drove out the north side, past the abandoned auto plants and boarded-up stores into the green, damp, semirural countryside, Buddy talking all the way. After twenty minutes or so, Packer pulled into a small subdivision of ratty-looking wood shacks no bigger than double-wide house trailers. “This looks like it,” he said, parking his car in the weedy grass in front of one of the shanties. “Remember now, you’re a lawyer. Act snooty.”
Packer knocked on the door and waited. After a minute, it opened and a thin man of about forty with a nasty-looking scar on his deeply sunburned neck stood glaring at them.
“If this is about the electric, I sent in the money,” he said. The ripe aroma of marijuana and rotting garbage wafted past him onto the tiny concrete porch.
“No, it’s about your daughter, Ivy,” said Packer. “My name’s Buddy Packer, Willie Torres’s manager. And this is my attorney, Mr. Green.”
The man’s eyes narrowed and the scar on his neck seemed to throb. “You tell that little Spanish-speaking nigger to stay the hell away from Ivy or I’ll cut his fuckin’ cock off with a butcher knife.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” said Mack smoothly. “From what Mister Packer tells me, he’s a good lad.”
“Good lad my ass,” said the man, stepping back inside. “I got nothin’ more to say to you, mister.”
“Wait,” said Packer, catching the door with his foot. “I’d ask to come in, but it stinks. What I drove all this way for was to tell you that Ivy’s pregnant.”
The man stood speechless with fury. “Congratulations, Mr. Twilley, you’re going to be a grandfather,” said Mack.
“That little fucker’s going to jail,” said Twilley in a rage-choked voice. “Ivy’s not but fifteen years old. That’s underage.”
“Yes, but she’s a very mature young woman,” Mack said, in an urbane tone that made Packer glance at him with approval. “Due to your upbringing, I’m sure.”
“This is my property and you’re trespassing,” said Twilley. “Get your ass out of here. Right now.”
“You see, the thing is, Willie and Ivy were hoping to get married,” said Mack, unperturbed. “And since, as you just pointed out, she’s underage, she needs your consent.”
“Soon as you leave, I’m goin’ down to the police station, fill out a warrant against your nigger,” Twilley said to Packer.
Mack coughed. “I was afraid you’d say that,” he said. “You see, Ivy mentioned something about, well, a sexual relationship between the two of you, and I—”
“Sexual relationship? Are you saying that I fucked my own daughter?”
“I don’t blame you,” said Packer blandly. “Hell, I’d probably do the same in your position; Ivy’s a real fine piece of ass. But daughter-fucking happens to be illegal in the state of Michigan, isn’t that so, counselor?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mack. “Not to mention incest, sodomy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, sexual harassment and abuse, statutory rape, ah, violation of fiduciary responsibility—”
“How much time is he looking at, Mr. Green?” asked Packer.
“Perhaps ten years,” said Mack. “Maybe more.”
“I got nothing to worry about,” said Twilley uncertainly. “You got no proof.”
“Ah, but I’m afraid that under the prevailing writ of mandamus and the Dred Scott Decision, the court will be predisposed to accept your daughter’s deposition as, ah, empirically conclusive,” said Mack. He looked at Packer out of the corner of his eye and saw that he was fighting hard against a snicker.
“I ain’t got money for no lawyers,” said Twilley, in a low, defeated tone that Mack imagined he had used often. Packer took a piece of paper and a pen from his inside jacket pocket and handed them to the man. “Sign this, Mr. Twilley, and there won’t be any problems.”
Twilley looked at the document suspiciously. “Is it legal?” he asked.
“Perfectly legal,” said Mack.
“Well, in that case, fuck it.” He took the pen and scrawled his name. “I got other daughters,” he said.
“That was quite a fo-ray,” said Mack over drinks at Stanley’s, where he and Packer had gone to celebrate their legal triumph. “Did what’s-her-name, Ivy, really tell you her old man was screwing her?”
“She didn’t need to. I know these ’necks out here. It was an educated guess.”
“You’re unbelievable,” said Mack, shaking his head.
“You weren’t bad either. The fucking Dred Scott Decision. Where’d you come up with that one?”
Mack shrugged modestly and Packer slapped him on the back. “You know something, Macky? You turned out all right. I thought you might have gone a little uptown on me, but you and me, we make a good team. I think you should reconsider about going into business with me.”
“Going into business?”
“That offer I made you about a piece of Irish Willie still goes.”
“No thanks,” said Mack. “I’ll stick to being his lawyer.”
“Yeah, well, fuck it,” said Packer. “I’ve got other possibilities. Too bad Willie didn’t knock up a rich girl, I could have got the dough from her family.”
“Were you born this way or did you have to work at it?”
Packer laughed. “Just comes natural. Now let me ask you something—are you horny by any chance?”
“As a matter of fact I am,” said Mack. He was—thinking about Linda that afternoon had made him want a woman—but even if he hadn’t been he never would have admitted it to Packer. “Why, you pimping on the side?”
“Not exactly. This thing is, Jean’s hot to meet you—she read one of your books at the junior college. It’s required reading in some course she took on Michigan writers.”
“I’m required reading?”
“Yeah, like fucking Hiawatha. Anyway, she’s got this friend, Debbie. I figured I could get her to make it a foursome.”
“I’d have to call Joyce, tell her I’m not coming back for supper.”
“Goddamn, Macky, you already had one fucked-up childhood out here, wasn’t that enough? Why don’t you move into a hotel like a grown-up?”
“I like it where I am,” said Green. “What’s she look like? Debbie?”
“She’s a fox
. Works as a model at Hudson’s out in West Tarryton. Dumber than dogshit, but who cares? Anyway, I figure if you have to spend a night listening to Jean tell you all about what a big man you are at the junior college, the least I can do is get you laid.”
“Sure,” said Mack. “Give her a call.”
The two women arrived an hour later. Jean was a dark-rooted blond with large breasts and a resigned attitude; just the kind of convenient girlfriend Mack expected Buddy to have. Debbie looked like a young Faye Dunaway, with long brown hair, high cheekbones and full, pouty lips. Mack got excited just watching her saunter across the room.
“It’s a real honor to meet you, Mack,” said Jean. “I’ve never met an author before.” The words had a stiff, rehearsed sound.
“I have,” said Debbie brightly. “This girl I work with at Hudson’s? Sherrie Lyle? She wrote Firm Thighs in Fifty Minutes? They sell it in the supermarket.”
“Mack’s a novelist,” said Jean, showing him that she appreciated the difference.
“Well, Sherrie’s book did real well,” Debbie bubbled. “She said they sold, um, three hundred thousand. Does that sound right?”
“Probably,” said Mack, mentally calculating the royalties, which, he guessed, came to roughly five times more than he had earned on his last two novels.
“We call her Jane,” said Debbie. “After Jane Fonda.”
“I forgot to bring my copy of The Oriole Kid,” said Jean. “I wanted you to autograph it for me.”
“Next time,” said Mack, looking at Debbie out of the corner of his eye, hoping she’d be impressed. He didn’t feel like working too hard.
“Some of my favorite books are when people write about their hobbies,” said Debbie, who didn’t seem to care if Mack autographed novels or not. “Like—” She paused, trying to think of one, and then smiled. “Well, you know. Do you have any hobbies, Mack?”
“He does impersonations,” said Packer.
“I play the mouth organ,” said Debbie. “My dad taught me. He says that the mouth organ’s the hardest instrument in the world to play. Know why?”
“Ah, no,” said Mack, avoiding Buddy Packer’s eyes. “Why?”
“Because you can’t see the holes!” She took a small silver-plated harmonica from her purse, rapped it once on her palm and played a few bars of “For the Longest Time.” “See what I mean?”