by Kate Wilhelm
As the waiter arranged food on the table, finger dishes and tiny towels, she moved her hands to her lap and turned off the tape recorder.
The lobster was succulent, tender, and delicious. “No pizza today,” Eve said after a bite or two. “It’s wonderful.”
“Told you so,” he said. “See, here’s this hick kid in La-La Land, where caviar and diamonds are the daily fare, and all he can do is gape and stumble over his own shoe strings… How was I supposed to know that when you ask for a table for two, you should have a ten-dollar bill at the ready to hand over to the guy? I mean, you can look in and see a lot of empty tables, but none for you and your lady friend.”
He told several self-deprecating stories that had her laughing again and again. There was a lot of the salad left when she shook her head at his offer to serve her more. She felt certain it would not be good form to ask for a doggie bag, and she regretted that. When the waiter appeared, Earl said, “Wrap the rest up and we’ll take it for a midnight snack. Keep it cold until we’re ready to leave.” The waiter said yes sir, and that was that.
“Now, champagne? Wine? Brandy?”
“No, thanks. I’m a working girl, remember.” She placed the tape recorder on the table.
“Okay. I have to warn you that I can’t talk about my novel. I get tongue-tied, or forget characters’ names, or my own name. So anything but that. Your move.” He leaned back in his chair smiling.
She turned on the tape recorder again. “I’ve read that you were still attending college when you wrote your novel. How did you manage to find the time?”
“Well, the fact that I’d been in school for four years already and still had no degree says something about managing time, doesn’t it? I’d skipped some of the required classes, so I had at least another year to go. I never did get around to finishing. I was not in the top ten percentile of my class,” he said with a deepening smile. “Or the top half, either.”
“Is it true that the first editor who saw the novel accepted it?”
He nodded. “Shannon Ulmann. She was an assistant editor at the time, and she passed it on to her senior editor who agreed and actually accepted the novel.”
“How long did it take you to write the novel? You were in school, newly married, and yet you were able to produce what is considered to be one of the best novels of recent years.”
“How long is an interesting question. One I’ve wrestled with a lot. Does thinking time count? Or just time putting ideas and images, characters down on paper? The answer varies. Maybe several years, maybe a year and a half, two years. Do time-outs count, because something isn’t working right or the plot has twisted itself into knots? Unanswerable question, I’m afraid. I don’t know.”
Eve nodded. “Mr. Marshall, one of the—”
He held up his hand. “This ends here and now if you call me mister anything again. It’s Earl. And you’re Eve. You have gorgeous bones, Eve, one of the most beautifully expressive faces I’ve ever seen. Don’t ever go to Hollywood or you’ll be swooped up in a great big net and never be turned loose again.”
She drew back sharply. “Please, you’re embarrassing me.”
“Sorry. You think I’m playing games when I’m not. Look, let me just tell you how it was, and if you have questions after that, okay.”
“Good,” she said stiffly.
“I wrote the damn thing, had a draft, and then Andrea drowned. You know about that. Dorothy said she told you. I couldn’t stand the house, our room, Dorothy, the town, anything. I kept hearing Andrea laughing, moving around. I’d look up and almost see her, never completely, just almost. I was losing my mind and I picked up everything I could carry and got the hell out of there.” He had started talking with his gaze fastened on her, but it shifted and fixed on a point over her shoulder. His voice was low and intense.
“I found a cabin for rent in a place called Hawley, in the Pocono Mountains, and I moved in. I burned the manuscript, every scrap of paper. I bought a gun. I intended to smash the computer, and shoot myself. But I was a coward and I kept putting it off. Then, out in the woods one day, a scene came to mind and I knew it needed just a touch, a few more words. I got the computer out. The novel was all still there, and I was dragged back in and finished it. Really finished it. Then Shannon took it. She told me to get an agent to negotiate the contract and I did that. They had me signed up for a book tour. A whole year on a damn book tour, flying in, signing books, flying out to somewhere else until it all was just a blur. Give a canned talk, read a few pages, smile at the people, sign here, fly out and do it all again, and again. Jesus! A whole year. Then the movie deal came and out to Hollywood for me as a consultant. They called me that, and threw money at me, and beautiful women for the taking—or being taken by, as it turned out. I was a consultant who wasn’t consulted. I was allowed to sit in the back row and keep my mouth shut. Another two years gone before I woke up.”
He stopped and looked at Eve again. “And that’s my story. I’d like for you leave out the part about being suicidal. It’s no one’s damn business. Now question time.”
“One of the conceits of my thesis is the question of what instant success does to the writer,” she said after a moment. She felt as if she already knew the answer to that one. “Do you think it helps or hurts to have such recognition and such rich rewards so early in one’s career?”
He laughed. “Money is good,” he said. “I never had real money before. It had been in the family in the past, but that was then. No one can pretend it isn’t good to be well paid, even if it kills the writer. To die rich is better than to die poor. And money is equally a curse. Flip the coin for yourself. Probably not—good tips the scales. You know, you gotta suffer, struggle, starve in the garret, freeze your ass off in winter, all that crap to earn your rewards. And be humble after you earn your rewards.”
Eve drank the rest of her tea. It was nothing more than slightly flavored cold water with a disagreeable aftertaste.
“No more?” Earl asked. “Can we put the recorder away now and talk about you, about us, about dinner later?”
“One more,” she said. “You were in Hollywood when they shot the movie. Did you see the rushes? Did you read the script, try to change it in any way, voice any objections?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Did you approve of it?”
“Sure,” he said. “I love the movie. It made a ton of money because a lot of people liked it. What’s your point?”
“I wasn’t thinking about the money,” she said slowly. “It’s your title, but not your novel. I watched it again over the weekend to refresh my memory. They turned your novel into a melodramatic thriller with a damsel in distress theme. A homicidal mother, a beautiful, innocent girl who doesn’t have brains enough to grasp the danger she’s in, other sinister shadowy characters, a family fortune up for grabs.”
“Eve, all that’s in the novel. They just put a different slant on it.”
“Some of it is there,” she said. “But that’s not what the novel is about. It’s about the girl growing to adulthood, struggling with a poorly understood memory of an injustice. It’s about loyalty and love, conscience and guilt. It’s about awakening and accepting reality.”
He shook his head. “It made a ton of money and people liked it. That’s good enough for me. They bought it and they owned it, to do what they wanted.”
She bit back her response: But the character you brought to life in your novel couldn’t ever have made a statement like that. Not in a million years.
“We should be getting back,” she said, turning off the tape recorder. “I still have a lot to do before I start work next week.”
6
“STUART,” CHARLIE SAID AFTER CONSTANCE took Tricia out to the terrace, “before we go to inspect the garage, one little detour.”
“Sure,” Stuart
said. “Where to?”
“Paley.” They walked through the hallway to the closed door. Charlie tapped, then opened it. He left it open as he entered, motioning for Stuart to come along. Paley was seated at the desk with an open book, writing in a legal pad. He stood and frowned at Stuart as if to invite him to leave. “He’s with me,” Charlie said. “You have something for me?”
“Mr. Meiklejohn, I think we should talk a minute in private,” Paley said.
“Haven’t you heard that transparency is the key word of the day? I have no secrets.”
“I must inveigh upon you that to breach the conditions we all agreed on might cause considerable consternation,” Paley said without moving.
“Right. Now the key if you don’t mind. I have errands to run.”
Moving like an automaton, Paley walked around the desk as Charlie approached with his hand outstretched. With obvious reluctance Paley reached into his pocket. He palmed the key as if to hide it from Stuart and dropped it into Charlie’s hand. His lips were a thin line and he looked as if he were in pain.
“Ah, the magic key,” Charlie said. “Have you had a talk with Mac?”
“I informed him,” Paley said.
“No searches of me or my wife. No interference from the other guys. I trust you will have a little chat with the other two watchmen.”
“I’ll talk to Hanson when he arrives, and I already called Leib, the midnight shift.”
At that moment Pamela ran into the room. “You’re giving him a key to the joint?” she cried. “He can come and go when he wants to? You can’t do that! Are you out of your mind? How do we know he won’t find the checks and walk out with them?”
Paley made a deep moaning sound.
“You don’t,” Charlie said. “Okay, Stuart, now we can take that little tour. See you later, Mr. Paley.”
“Stop him!” Pamela screamed at Paley. “I want to talk to your boss about this.”
When Charlie took Stuart by the arm and headed for the door, Pamela whirled about and yelled, “Lawrence, stop him! He has a key to the house! He can come in late at night and do whatever he wants to.”
Lawrence was standing in the hall, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “I don’t think Mr. Meiklejohn wants to be stopped,” he said. “Pamela, you’re screeching in a very high octave. Do you sing soprano?”
She glared at him. “You sniveling pissant!”
#
When Charlie stepped into the hall, Lawrence made a mocking salute and Pamela ran toward the kitchen. Charlie saw Alice step back out of sight. At the other end of the hall by the entrance door Mac was watching them all with a stony expression. He moved aside when Charlie drew near, but turned apologetically to Stuart.
“Sorry, Stuart.”
“No problem,” Stuart said and didn’t move as Mac patted him down.
The two-car garage was detached from the house with a covered walkway to a side door. “It’s unlocked,” Stuart said. “Guess they think there’s no point in another lockdown out here.”
Inside the garage Charlie agreed with his assumption. The garage was empty except for a dolly and a four-year-old Infiniti. Retailers had gone over it. It gleamed like a new car.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Stuart said after Charlie’s quick glance about the space.
“Did what?” Charlie asked, peering into the spotless interior of the car.
“The key business, no search. You want everyone to know. You’re pushing buttons, aren’t you? See who jumps and how high.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Charlie said with a grin. He drew back from the car and took another quick look around at the empty space.
“Sure,” Stuart said. “Enough out here?”
“Yep. Let’s take a ride to town. I want to buy a few things. My car’s around the front of the house.” They walked around the house to the front parking area. “Whose car is that one?” Charlie asked pointing to the Camry.
“Pamela’s. Dad gave her a new Acura when they married, but she probably sold it when she left and bought that, pocketed a little cash in the deal. I don’t think she knows there are carwashes in most places.” The Camry had what looked like several years of accumulated grime.
When Charlie unlocked his car and got in, he moved Constance’s purse from the passenger seat to the armrest on his side. Stuart got in and Charlie started the car. “Fill me in on you, your father, Pamela.”
Stuart was silent for a minute. “Not much to tell,” he said. “You know my mother was killed by a hit-and-run driver—twenty-six years ago, when I was two. Stolen car, no one ever pulled in for it. After that my grandmother was with us off and on for the next couple of years. I have little memory of any of that,” he said. “Then my grandfather died. Sepsis,” he said. “Ruptured appendix, infection, like that. Grandmother moved down to Orlando when I was four and she was my mother until she died five years ago. Dad has an electrical installation company. It was doing pretty well, I was in graduate school, electrical engineering, and he met Pamela somewhere. They were married within a couple of months. She was in trouble with bad checks or something and he bailed her out. But there was never quite enough money for her. That lasted eight months before he caught on and turned off the money spigot. A couple of months later she took off and stayed gone until now. When the economy went sour, really sour down in Florida the company was in trouble. We’d been gearing up to go all solar installations, investing in equipment and stuff. It’s a natural for down there and would have done great. Instead, Dad had to let people go and he went back to installation himself and fell off a roof. That was eighteen months ago. Two surgeries so far, another one probably in the works for the near future, and the bills are ceiling high. That’s about it.”
Charlie nodded. “When did Howard appear on the scene? You said you were still in school and didn’t meet him.”
“That’s right. I never met him, Lawrence or Ted, either, until this all came up. It was in the spring, just about when Dad and Pamela were slugging it out, three years ago. I got my degree later that spring.”
“What do you know about Howard’s visit?”
“Just what I said before. He got there on a Saturday afternoon, turned down dinner, went back Sunday and stayed an hour or so and left. Dad said there was so little conversation, he had to wonder why Howard bothered. He didn’t even find out why Howard was in the area.”
“Did your father talk about the past, about his brothers and sister?”
“Just about Tricia. Her family came down twice and stayed with us for a few days. They were doing Disney World. The girls are great kids. We’ve kept in touch.”
“Your father didn’t get a divorce, did he? Why not if the marriage was kaput?”
“No forwarding address,” Stuart said. “When she left, she loaded the Acura he bought her with as much as it would hold, probably to hock it all. She trashed the house and was gone when he got home from the office.” He stopped for a few moments, then said, “I would have hunted her down, had her arrested and sent to prison for theft.”
Although Charlie agreed with that sentiment, he didn’t voice his opinion. They had reached Stillwater and the supermarket. “I’ll add a bit to the stash in the refrigerator,” he said in the store, picking up beer. He bought gin, bourbon, mixers, and a powerful flashlight. Stuart eyed the flashlight with a thoughtful expression but did not comment.
“Back to prison,” Charlie said when done shopping. “Anything you want in town first?” Stuart said no and they headed back to the Bainbridge house.
#
“I’m making drinks with gin and tonic water or bitter lemon,” Charlie said later at the door to the library, where Lawrence was reading a magazine. He had left the bourbon in the car. That was not for public consumption. “Or there’s beer. What will
you have?”
Lawrence followed him out to the worktable in the kitchen. “Gin and bitter lemon,” he said. Stuart had already opened a beer and Pamela had a glass of gin and tonic.
“Happy hour,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “What? No chips, nachos, or at least peanuts?”
“Next time,” Charlie said. He poured drinks for Lawrence and himself. Then, with a nod to Pamela and another to Stuart, he said, “Why don’t you kids amuse yourselves awhile. Come on, Lawrence, back to the library. I have a hankering to look at picture books.”
Alice was busy at the sink, casting quick glances at them, then away. “Help yourself to whatever you’d like, Alice,” Charlie said, going to the door with Lawrence right behind him.
“I don’t use alcohol,” she said. “God-fearing people don’t need that poison.”
“Well, there you are,” Charlie said. He and Lawrence went on to the library, where the chairs were very comfortable, he thought approvingly. Howard had believed in comfort above style and so did he.
“Actually,” Lawrence said, “I’m sure Alice drinks like a fish. I’ve smelled booze on her more than once.”
“I wonder,” Charlie said in a musing way. “Do fish drink?”
“Damned if I know,” Lawrence said with a laugh.
“Yeah, me too. Do you fear God?”
“No. I made a deal with god a long time ago. I ignore him and he ignores me. It works out pretty well. It must be hell to think that an ever-watchful, never-blinking eye is on you at all times, and to know that when the score is tallied you’re going to burn forever. I’d be scared to death, too.”
Then, surprisingly, he said, “I studied theology for a year and, after I dropped out, I gave various religions a try. Catholicism, evangelism, Judaism, Buddhism, even spent time with the Koran and Islam. When the point came that I found myself either giggling, or my attempted suspension of belief breaking down, I’d drop it for another one.” He drank deeply. “Good. Thanks.”