by Robert Bloch
“I’m not prepared to discuss it at the moment.”
“Meaning you don’t trust me either?”
“I don’t know you.” Claiborne tempered his words with a smile, gesturing toward the surrounding tables. “I don’t know anyone yet.”
“Your first time in a studio?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, let me give you a guided tour.” Ames followed Claiborne’s gaze. “The people over there are part of management. Don’t let the jeans fool you; they’re top echelon. You’re one of them, you dress like a slob, do the I’m-just-another-working-stiff routine. But when you leave the studio you make damn sure everybody sees you’re wearing a twenty-five-thousand-dollar car.” He grinned. “We live in an autoerotic society.”
Claiborne smiled, knowing the reaction was expected, but he sensed that this was not the first time Roy Ames had used the line. Now he nodded toward a group at a window table whose dark suits, white shirts, and carefully knotted neckties seemed to invalidate the writer’s explanation. “What about those people over there?”
Roy Ames followed his gaze. “Visitors. Probably network execs from back east. They come out from Mad Avenue looking for new ideas—to steal. Of course, what they usually settle for is stealing old ideas.”
Claiborne singled out a group of exceedingly hirsute young men across the aisle. “And those kids?”
“I’d say they’re into tapes and LPs. That’s where the action is today. One platinum record is worth a ton of Oscars.”
Someone brushed past them and halted before an adjoining table. There was a disturbing dichotomy about his appearance; his potbellied, middle-aged body was surmounted by a bronzed and youthful face. He said something to the seated group, laughed loudly, waved, then moved on.
“Table-hopper,” Roy Ames said. “If you see an actor who’s laughing it up, you can bet he’s unemployed. The tired-looking ones who don’t talk at all are working.”
Claiborne nodded and turned his attention to the menu. “What do you recommend?”
“Going somewhere else for lunch.” Ames smiled. “But as long as we’re stuck here, you’re safe with a sandwich.”
“That’s odd. I expected the food would be good.”
“Once upon a time it was, or so they tell me. Now nobody seems to care.” Ames put his menu down. “You know the old saying, ‘You are what you eat’? If that’s true, then most people must be coprophagists.”
Claiborne thought about the remark as the waitress returned and took their order. Again he had the feeling that what he’d heard hadn’t been improvised on the spur of the moment. Roy Ames wasn’t a table-hopper, but he was definitely trying to make an impression.
“Coffee now,” Ames called after the waitress when she moved away. Then he glanced at his companion. “Met anyone else on the picture?”
“Not yet. Paul Morgan’s playing Norman, isn’t he?”
“Supposedly. Up to now he’s never played anything but Paul Morgan. Mr. Mucho Macho.” Ames paused as his coffee arrived. “If you ask me, our culture is suffering from jock-shock.”
“Then how did he get the part?”
“Ask Vizzini.” Ames lifted his coffee cup. “On second thought, don’t bother. Vizzini doesn’t make suspense pictures anymore—just spatter-films. That’s what the kids want. Plenty of special effects, and lots of punk rock during the car crashes and murder sequences. It’s like the good old days in Rome—the musicians play louder when the lions eat the Christians in the arena.”
More pat phrases, but they didn’t answer Claiborne’s question. He leaned forward. “If that’s the way you feel, why did you write the script?”
“Money.” Roy Ames shrugged. “No, that’s not true. Or only partially. I saw something in this—a chance to reach the audience with the real thing instead of just grabbing them with gimmicks and grossout.” He dumped sweetener in his coffee cup. “Maybe you’ll understand when you read it.”
“I’ll give it a try,” said Claiborne.
And that afternoon, back at the motel, he did just that.
The day had turned sultry and the air conditioner complained as the sun beat down against the west window, but Claiborne didn’t notice because he wasn’t really in the room.
He was inside the script, in a world two thousand miles and twenty years away.
The writing was uneven; in spite of what Roy Ames said, he hadn’t entirely eliminated the elements he professed to despise. There was still plenty of shock sequences, and the emphasis was on murder rather than motivation.
But it worked. The innocent young girl and the cunning madman were stereotypes, yet somehow they carried conviction. Perhaps the girls weren’t all that innocent today, but the madmen were more cunning than ever. And more numerous. There was nothing in the film that wasn’t duplicated daily in the news reports. Especially out here, Claiborne reflected, remembering the Skid Row Slasher, the Hillside Strangler, the Freeway Killers, and all the other mass murderers glamorized by the media’s fancy labels. But there was nothing glamorous bout their condition or their activities—sick people, hung up on homicide, OD-ing on death.
Claiborne sighed as the phrases flashed. He was falling into the trap, beginning to sound like a scriptwriter himself. The thing to do was eliminate those touches from the dialogue, let the contrast between appearance and reality speak for itself.
As the sunlight subsided he switched on the lamp, took a pad from his briefcase, and started making his notes.
Now the air conditioner droned in darkness, but the lamplight above the table haloed his head as he scrawled away, losing himself in the limbo of another time, another place. Norman’s world.
The rapping on the door returned him to reality.
“Yes?” He rose, moving across the room. “Who’s there?”
“Tom Post.”
Claiborne opened the door and the old man grinned at him. “I remembered to knock this time. You busy?”
“No.” Claiborne shook his head. Nosy old bastard—what did he want?
“Noticed your light. Just thought I’d stop by and offer you a beer.” Post nodded at the cans he clutched in his left hand. “Compliments of the house.” He chuckled.
For a moment Claiborne hesitated, but the sound was a signal he’d learned not to ignore. The chuckle, the nervous laugh, wasn’t an indication of amusement but of defense—an attempt to conceal the real emotion underneath. What was Tom Post hiding?
“Come in.” Claiborne stepped back. “I’ll see if there’s a clean glass in the bathroom.”
“Don’t bother on my account.” Post moved to a chair, put the containers on the table, and punctured the tops with a left thumb. He held out a can to Claiborne, waited until the younger man seated himself on the edge of the bed, then raised his own can. “Cheers.”
“Thanks.” Claiborne drank.
“Weather like this, beer hits the spot.” Again the chuckle sounded. But the gray-green eyes were searching the room, finally focusing on the tabletop.
“Script?” he asked. “Thought you weren’t in the industry.”
“I’m not. Just looking it over for a friend.”
“I see.” Post tilted the beer can again. “What’s the story like? Or shouldn’t I ask?”
“No secret.” As he spoke, Claiborne watched the wrinkled face. “Come to think of it, you may be interested. The main character is Norman Bates.”
“The hell you say.” Tom Post wasn’t chuckling now.
Claiborne leaned forward. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that remark last night. How come you know about the Bates Motel?”
“I thought everybody did. Don’t you read the papers or watch the news?” Post’s tone was explanatory rather than defensive. “Matter of fact, there was an item about Coronet making a film on the case.” He glanced toward the table. “I take it your friend did the script.”
“That’s correct.” Claiborne was casual. “You used to write for pictures. Care to look at it?”
To his surprise, Tom Post shook his head. “Waste of time. I don’t understand movies nowadays. All those sex scenes—people in bed rolling over and over. Try doing it that way and you’ll end up with a broken back. And then, when he’s finished, the stud pops out from under the covers and damned if he isn’t wearing boxer shorts! That sure as hell isn’t the way we did it in my day.”
Now the chuckle sounded again. “Of course, times change. Take censorship. Maybe four-letter words are in, but other words are out. You don’t believe me, try getting up in public and singing the second line of ‘My Old Kentucky Home.’ ”
He sloshed the liquid at the bottom of his can. “Junk food, junk films. Writers have too much power nowadays.”
“That’s not what my friend tells me,” Claiborne said.
“I don’t mean pictures.” Post finished off his beer. “But think about this. Some politician gets up and reads a speech. His opponent reads a rebuttal. Then a TV commentator reads a report explaining what the two men read. All of it—the speech, the rebuttal, the explanation—is the work of some anonymous writers in the back room. And we call it ‘news.’
“Ten days or ten months or ten years later, another writer comes out with a book exposing everything they said as a lie. And that’s called ‘history.’ So when you come right down to it, whether they’re dealing with fact or fiction, all writers are professional liars.”
He set the empty container down on the tabletop. “How about another beer?”
“No, thanks.” Claiborne glanced through the window at the darkened patio beyond. “Time for me to go out and eat.”
“Wish I’d thought of it sooner,” Post said. “I fixed dinner early tonight. Should have asked you to join me. Must be pretty dull, eating alone when you’re away from home.”
“That’s all right. I’m used to it.”
“You’re not married?”
“No.” Claiborne forestalled further questions by rising and moving to the closet for his jacket.
Tom Post switched off the lamp and followed him to the side door. “Plenty of restaurants around here,” he said. “But you could buy a few things at that supermarket down the street and stash them away here in the refrigerator.” He gestured toward the cupboard behind the unit. “You’ve got dishes in there, and a hot plate. Comes in handy for making breakfast.”
“Thanks for the tip.” Claiborne opened the door and stepped out.
Post followed, nodding his approval as the younger man closed the door and locked it. “That’s the ticket,” he said. “I try to keep an eye out in case anyone comes prowling around here, but these days you can’t be too careful.”
He started down the patio, toward the office, and Claiborne waved farewell, meanwhile inhaling the odor of night-blooming jasmine from the clump of shrubbery bordering the alleyway. Then he turned and headed for the street, where the floral scent was lost in the traffic fumes.
He breathed the stench until he entered the little steak house a block away. Here it was replaced in turn by the reek of charcoal-broil, onion rings, hash browns, and fries. But even that was preferable to the emanation from the armpits of his red-jacketed waiter. Post was right; it would be better to prepare a snack at the motel. Follow your nose.
Good enough, but what did the other sense organs convey? Post’s nervous chuckle echoed in his ears. And when he closed his eyes there was a retinal recall of Tom Post watching while he locked the door of the room. Nosy old bastard.
Noses again, but there was more to it than that, something else lurked behind the chuckling and the curiosity. Post must have a passkey; he could be in the room right now, going through Claiborne’s belongings. Or the script. He’d been eager enough to learn its contents—then, when he found out, even more eager to change the subject. Why?
Come off it, Claiborne told himself. Of course there was a reason. The elderly often chuckled self-consciously to disarm possible rejection. It was a signal, a way of saying, “Look, I’m not really a serious threat, don’t get angry with me for speaking to you.” And many of them were inquisitive about other people’s affairs merely because their own lives were empty.
It must be a dismal existence for a man still in full possession of his faculties to just sit there in a rundown motel day after day and night after night. Judging by the absence of other vehicles in the parking slots, Claiborne was presently the only tenant. No wonder Tom Post brought the beer to his room, asked questions, talked a blue streak. The old man was lonely.
Either that, or damned devious. What was that remark he made about all writers being professional liars?
Roy Ames was a writer too. Full of facile phrases. Claiborne recalled the intuitive suspicion that his glib one-liners had seen service before. Like the table-hoppers, he’d trotted out his jokes seeking approval.
But for what reason? On the face of things, he must know that Claiborne was his ally; he saw eye-to-eye with him about toning down the script. Though, if so, why hadn’t he fought harder, earlier on, to do the job himself? He was the one responsible for the violence in the first place.
That too could be a masking mechanism. In a sense, the Norman of the script was Roy Ames’s creation. He supplied the character with his own frustrations, his own furies. And if spilling it out on paper wasn’t catharsis, then it might be cathexis, a means of strengthening an unconscious attachment to Norman’s persona. Which could be dangerous.
All writers are professional liars. A statement made by a writer. Which meant it was also a lie. But everyone lied, including his own patients, whose problem was that they lied not only to him but to themselves. In a way, they were the most professional liars of all. And he was a professional truth-finder.
Truth-seeker, he amended. And is search wasn’t always successful; Norman was a case in point.
After finishing his meal and leaving the restaurant, Claiborne moved along the boulevard. Automatically, as he thought of Norman, he caught himself glancing around for the sight of a figure that wasn’t there.
The cars sped by, the vans and Broncos and Jeeps, as well as an occasional motorcycle snarling through the snarl. Youth on the prowl.
But not on the sidewalks. Claiborne squinted at his watch; scarcely nine o’clock, and he was the sole visible pedestrian.
In spite of the gas situation, everyone drove. Walking city streets by night was too risky; even the cop on the beat made his rounds on wheels. Police were suspicious of strolling strangers, people like himself.
Passing by the darkened shopfronts, Claiborne peered at the unlit passageways between the buildings, knowing as he did so that his apprehension was absurd. Norman wasn’t going to pop out from one of the passageways. Norman wasn’t here. Or was he?
Damn that script! Reading it had brought everything back with a vengeance. Vengeance was the rationale.
Either that, or the whole thing was a paranoid delusion. If Norman had preceded him out here, he should have found his way to the studio by now. In the interval between psychotic episodes he was certainly capable of making plans, taking action to implement his vengeance. But everything pointed to one inescapable conclusion: Norman was dead. It was only the script that brought him to life again.
Even so, Claiborne found himself hastening toward the shopping mall looming ahead on his left. He turned into the parking area, welcoming the lights, the sounds, the presence of people.
Crossing the lot, he qualified his reaction. The presence of people wasn’t all that welcomed a phenomenon, now that he observed their cars. You are what you eat, Roy Ames had said. Perhaps you are what you drive would be a more accurate observation. One can judge people by their motor-reflexes.
He noted the frantic maneuvering of vehicles entering the lot; the way in which aggressive drivers jockeyed for position, impeding the movement of those behind as they competed for vacated spaces close to the store entrance while other motorists hurled mechanical curses at them with their horns. The banged fenders of cars already parked attested to prev
ious encounters, and the ultimate contempt for common courtesy was evident in those that occupied positions in the Absolutely No Parking zone.
In the market itself, the pattern continued. Old ladies with dyed orange hair squeezed the dyed oranges at the produce counter, blithely blocking the passage with their shopping carts. Tank-topped, barefooted beach bums crashed down the aisles, aiming their carts like weapons. Mom-and-Pop couples crowded single customers away from the displays of brain specials, though in nearly all instances it was bulldog-jawed Mom who took the initiative while little old dried-up Pop stood meekly by. They also serve who only pay the freight.
Claiborne took a quart of milk from the dairy shelves, brushing against a Japanese youth in a mesh blouse. The young man hissed and shook his head, causing his earring to bob about furiously.
At the deli counter he selected a modest assortment of packaged cold cuts. Picking over the cellophane-wrapped cheese, he found a small slab, but as he reached for it, a hand snaked around from behind and snared the prize. He turned to confront a grinning girl in a bumpy T-shirt emblazoned with the classic motto: Up Yours.
Moving on to the next section, he halted there to pick up a dozen eggs, waiting patiently while a middle-aged housewife in curlers opened cartons to inspect their contents while lipping a cigarette.
The smoke was acrid, and Claiborne turned away. Never mind the eggs, he could do without. Right now all he wanted to do was leave. It had been a long day and he was tired—tired of people, tired of noise and lights and confusion. The smarmy strains of amplified music dulled his hearing, the overly bright fluorescence made his vision blur.
As he reached the bakery goods display, he cast an irritated glance upwards, seeking the source of the piped-in sound. But the big rounded discs hanging at intervals between walls and ceiling were not amplifiers; their shiny surfaces reflected the movements of the customers below. Spotting devices, installed to detect shoplifters. And when he looked up, the long, livid fluorescent tubes cast a glittering glare.