Corkscrew

by Donald E. Westlake

  'Yes, I know about those,' she said, since she'd been around the publishing world for years, through him.

  'So this is just that again,' he said. 'I can't get The Domino Doublet published myself, under any name. This way, instead of not being worth a nickel, it's worth half a million dollars.'

  'I guess… I guess you should say yes.'

  'But there's one extra kicker to it,' he said.

  She waited. 'Yes? What?'

  'Something he wants.' It was very hard to actually say it in words.

  'Something he wants?' That little leering smile again, and she said, 'What does he want, droit de seigneur?'

  He laughed, suddenly realizing how tense he'd become, as rigid as crystal; tap me, and I'll shatter. 'No, that would be an easy one, I'd just tell him to go to hell.'

  'Good,' she said, still smiling.

  He didn't feel like smiling. He looked at his uneaten dinner in the candlelight, pale cod, pale potatoes, acid-green broccoli. 'He wants me to kill his wife.'

  'What?'

  Now he looked at her astounded, disbelieving face. 'Essentially, what it is, that way, I'd be getting her half of the money,'

  'Wayne, what are you talking about?'

  'If she's alive, she gets half his advance for the book. If I get the other half, there's nothing for Bryce, no reason for him to do it.'

  'He's paying you to kill his wife.'

  'Yes.' Wayne shook his head. 'And for a book.'

  They were both silent, neither eating, she frowning at him, he miserably looking everywhere around the candlelit room except at her. The wall clock in the kitchen was battery-operated, and the minute hand clicked at every second's jerk forward, a sound they almost never heard, but which both could hear now, as loud as a metal spoon being tapped on the table between them.

  'What did you tell him?' Said so softly he barely heard it, above the ticks.

  'I said I had to meet her.'

  That surprised her. 'Meet her? Why?'

  'Well, he was describing how awful she was, greedy, nasty, a real bitch. If she was that bad…'

  'It would be a little easier. Oh, Wayne.'

  'I know, I know. But the point is, he agreed. He's going to figure out a way for me to meet her. In the meantime, I'm supposed to send him the manuscript. Tomorrow.' He shook his head. 'I'll send out some of those resumes at the same time, might as well get back to reality a little bit.'

  'No.'

  He looked at her. 'No? What do you mean, no?'

  'Don't send out any resumes,' she said. 'Not yet.'

  'Why not?'

  She didn't say anything. He watched her, waiting, and she said, 'Wait till you've met her.'

  His breath stopped. They gazed at each other, both unblinking, and he thought, she wants me to do it! He'd been so sure she would pull him back from the brink, sure of her solidity, her disdain for fantasy. They stared at each other, and he read the grim set of her jaw, and he said, 'And if it turns out he's wrong? She's a decent woman, someone we'd like?'

  'Then you send the resumes,' she said, and looked away from him, and said, 'You're not eating your dinner.'

  'Neither are you. Susan, why do you want me to wait?'

  She nodded, still looking away, then faced him again to say, 'I've been feeling awful about this college idea.'

  'I know you have. I have, too.'

  'Wayne, it's the end of the marriage, I know it is, but what could I say? What was the alternative? You can't live on me. Of course, you could, but you can't. The life you had for twenty years just dried up, and it isn't your fault, I know it isn't. The markets change, the rules of the game change, everybody knows that's true, nobody ever thinks the axe is going to come down on him. But it comes down on someone, and this time it was you.'

  'Not the end of the marriage, Susan.'

  'We'd hate each other in Fine Arts Gulch, sweetie, you know we would. We'd hate ourselves, and we'd hate each other, and one day I'd pack up and come home, and you wouldn't be able to.'

  'But what we're talking about doing here, I mean, you know, this is—'

  'You don't have to say the words, sweetie,' she said. 'We know what we're talking about.'

  'Susan, I thought you'd—'

  'I want us, Wayne. I want this apartment and this life. I want my job, I want what I do. I don't want the world to be able to kick us apart like some sand castle.'

  He looked down at his plate. He picked up his fork, but didn't do anything with it. Then he looked up again, and Susan was watching him, impassive. He said, 'What if she turns out to be a nice person?'

  Her eyes glittered. 'We'll see,' she said.

  3

  The Ambien wasn't working. Bryce didn't want to open his eyes, didn't want to acknowledge that he was still awake, but finally boredom and exasperation and worry all combined in him with sufficient force to drive his eyelids up, and the red LED letters on the bedside clock read 4:19. Oh, damn.

  If Isabelle could have stayed over, surely he'd be asleep now. With her beside him, somebody beside him, a warm and companionable body, the insomnia would not come back. But Lucie had hired private detectives — he'd have known that even if lawyer Bob hadn't warned him about it — and there was only so much he dared do before the divorce was complete. He could date Isabelle, have dinner with Isabelle, but sleep alone, or not sleep, but alone, night after night.

  Sometimes he got up and read, sometimes he got up and drank, sometimes he got up and watched a tape, but usually he just lay in bed and worried or raged or felt sorry for himself. Sometimes the sleeping pills worked, and then he would get up in the morning feeling fine, almost his old self. Sometimes they didn't work. Tonight it wasn't working.

  And tonight he had a fresh worry to rasp and grate inside his brain, claw at him in the dark. What stupidity it had been to make that offer to Wayne Prentice! How could he have exposed himself that way, made himself so vulnerable to somebody he barely knew, didn't really know at all?

  What if Prentice talks? What if he were to go to Lucie? What if he were to decide the way to kick his career back into life was with publicity, telling everybody in the world that Bryce Proctorr had offered him half a million dollars to kill his wife? The theory of rocketry: you go up by pushing down. Wayne Prentice goes up by pushing Bryce Proctorr down.

  It was as though he'd been plotting a story, making something up he could use as part of a book; but not a very good book. Prentice must have thought he was insane, and maybe he was. This sudden little scheme pops into his head, and he acts as though it's real, for God's sake. Plays out a scene. Behaves as though fiction could ever be fact. Leave that stuff in your office, he told himself, but it was too late.

  Could he deny it? If Prentice went public, could he say, 'What a stupid idea. I'd never make a suggestion like that, and certainly not to somebody I don't even know, haven't seen for over twenty years. The man's just a publicity hound, that's all, and if he repeats his accusations I'll have to make a complaint with the police.'

  Be stern, be confident, be outraged. I'm the star, he told himself. Who is Wayne Prentice? Nobody. Less than nobody. Not even Tim Fleet any more.

  When the clock read 5:04, he got up and roamed around the apartment, turning on all the lights. From the spacious living room, decorated by Lucie and Bloomingdale's, he could look out and down at Central Park, and the buildings of Fifth Avenue over on the other side. The dining room, at the south-east corner of the apartment, had the Central Park view as well, but also had the terrace on the south side of the building, fifteen stories up, looking down toward midtown.

  He stepped out there, dressed only in his gray robe, barefoot, but there was a mean wind coming over from New Jersey, and tonight he didn't like the sense of height, the proximity of empty air hundreds of feet above the pavement. If I ever kill myself, he thought, I'll do it here, dive over that rail.

  He wouldn't kill himself, he had no need to, he never would, but tonight he could feel that draw, almost tidal, the tugging on his arms,
the gentle push in the middle of his back. You'd sleep, he found himself thinking, and went back inside.

  It was very bad to be this alone, for this long. It made him afraid of himself on his own terrace, a place he normally loved. It made him blurt out foolishness to a stranger, leaving himself open to God knows what.

  The 'study' was what he called the room that was part library and part entertainment center. His big-screen TV was hidden behind antique-looking mahogany doors, flanked by shelves of books, but the giveaway was the leather sofa against the opposite wall. Bryce wandered into the study, after coming in from the terrace, and opened the mahogany doors. Then he stood dull-eyed awhile, exhausted but not sleepy, looking at his dim reflection in the TV screen. Finally, he stooped to pull open one of the drawers under the TV where the tapes were hidden, and chose Singin' in the Rain.

  Part-way through, he fell asleep.

  •

  For two nights after his blunder with Wayne Prentice, the insomnia was worse than ever, so that he roamed around all day feeling logy and sapped of energy. These were the times when he felt, Give her everything, bring it to an end, sign anything, agree to anything, let her have it all, the past and the future, I'll start over with nothing, what do I care? But it couldn't work that way, the lawyers and the judges wouldn't let it work that way. The grindstone had to turn at its own slow pace. Then, on the third day, he got two pieces of mail that changed his mood. The first was the manuscript, in a big manila envelope. Wayne had actually sent him the manuscript. Six hundred twenty-three pages, The Domino Doublet, by Tim Fleet. Dedication page: For Susan. That would be the wife. And an unheaded unsigned note on a blank sheet of typewriter paper:

  I have to meet her.

  He's going to do it.

  Bryce sat at the dining room table with his mail, sunlight on the terrace to his left, which had lost its menace. He's going to do it, he thought, and saw that he had been astute, he'd chosen his man well, he'd made a brilliant move.

  The other piece of mail that mattered was an invitation to the premiere of a play, off-Broadway, a little theater downtown on Grove Street. The play had been written by Jack Wagner, who was mostly a magazine journalist. He'd interviewed Bryce ten years ago, and they'd been casual friends ever since. This was Jack's first produced play, about which he was very excited, though it was unlikely that so many as a thousand people would ever see it, and there was certainly no profit to be had from it, not for Jack and probably not for the theater either. But Bryce understood Jack's pleasure and pride; profit wasn't why you did it.

  It was nice to get this invitation, but Bryce didn't at first realize it was significant, nor that it was linked to the manuscript that had also come in today's mail. Then he noticed that, in addition to the phone number printed on the invitation with its request for an RSVP, there was a handwritten different phone number and note: 'Bryce, Please call me before you reply. Jack.'

  Now, why would that be? The nearest phone was in the kitchen. He went in there, pulled one of the ash-blond stools over from the island, and made the call: 'Jack? It's Bryce.'

  'Oh, good. Listen, I don't know if this is awkward or not, but I thought you ought to know.'

  'Yeah?'

  'Our director, Janet Higgins, is a friend of Lucie's.

  The idea that Lucie could have friends never ceased to amaze. Bryce said, 'Oh. You mean, she's invited?'

  'I'm sorry, Bryce, you know I want you there, but if it's a problem…'

  'Well, yeah, it is,' Bryce said. 'I'll come the second night, all right?'

  'I'm sorry, I know what you're going through.'

  No, you don't, he thought, but then he had another thought, and sat up straighter on the stool as he said, 'Wait. Jack? Will you wait a second? I have to go get something, I'll be right back.'

  'Sure.'

  Leaving the phone, he dashed next door into the dining room, grabbed the manila envelope the manuscript had come in, with its Priority Mail stickers on it, and carried it back to the kitchen.

  'Jack?'

  'Here.'

  'There's a guy I'd like to see the play, I think he'd be interested in it. He doesn't know Lucie, so there's no problem there. Could I ask you to invite him instead of me?'

  'Well, sure, if you want.'

  'Not instead of me, I don't mean it like that. I'd just like you to invite him.'

  'Fine. Who is he?'

  'He's a writer, a novelist, named Wayne Prentice.' He read Jack the return address from the envelope.

  Jack said, 'Do I know his work?'

  'Maybe from some years ago. He's been blocked for a while, poor guy.'

  'Ooh.'

  'Maybe you'll inspire him.'

  Jack laughed. 'You mean, he'll say, Christ, I can do better than that, and there he is, unblocked.'

  'That's it. Thanks, Jack.'

  'No problem.'

  'And thanks for the warning.'

  'May you have better days soon, Bryce.'

  Bryce looked at that name and return address on the envelope. 'Maybe I will, Jack, thanks,' he said.

  There was a Manhattan White Pages kept in the kitchen, under the phone. Wayne Prentice was in it, at the address on Perry Street. He dialed, listened to Wayne's voice on his answering machine, and after the beep he said, 'You'll meet her. Accept the invitation to Low Fidelity.'

  That night, the pill worked. He slept through until morning.

  4

  When Susan came home, Wayne kissed her, but he was distracted. 'I want you to hear something,' he said.

  'What?'

  She followed him into the kitchen, where they kept the answering machine, while he said, 'I went out to the deli to get some lunch, and when I brought it back there was one message.'

  He pressed Play: 'You'll meet her. Accept the invitation to Low Fidelity.'

  'That's Bryce Proctorr,' he told her. 'That's his voice.'

  'Play it again.'

  He did, and she listened with pursed lips, narrow eyes. 'He sounds arrogant,' she decided.

  'He isn't arrogant,' Wayne said. 'He could be, with his success, but he isn't, not really. He's just sure of himself.'

  'Play it again.'

  After the third time, she said, 'It isn't arrogance, it's nervousness. He's tense, and trying to hide it.'

  'He doesn't know if I'll do it or not. He should have The Domino Doublet by now, that'll tell him, at least, that I'm thinking about it.'

  'What's Low Fidelity?'

  'I looked it up in New York,' he said, and gestured at the magazine he'd left on the kitchen table, propped open with a carving knife. 'It hasn't opened yet, it's going to be in this neighborhood, over on Grove Street, opening next Thursday.'

  She stood over the magazine to read the pre-opening notice. 'A new comedy. Never heard of Jack Wagner.'

  'Around three-thirty,' he told her, 'I got a phone call from the theater. Nu-Arts, it's called.'

  That surprised her. 'They called you?'

  'I guess she was the cashier or a secretary, I don't know. She said I'd been added to the guest list for the opening night at the request of the author, and I'd be getting an invitation in the mail, but since time is short they wanted to be sure I knew about it.'

  'Bryce Proctorr waves his magic wand, and you get invited to the opening of a play.'

  'Off-Broadway.'

  'Still.' She looked at the notice in the magazine again, then gave Wayne a quirky smile as she said, 'Do you suppose that's his pen name? Jack Wagner?'

  'Who, Bryce?' Wayne laughed. 'No, why would he?'

  'It sounds like a pen name.'

  'Bryce Proctorr doesn't use a pen name,' Wayne said, certain of that. 'Besides, if it was something he wrote, she wouldn't be on the guest list.'

  'I suppose.'

  The pre-opening notice offered very little, no plot summary, no previous history of the author or anybody else connected with the play, but Susan kept going back to it, as though it contained the answer to a problem that was puzzling her. Wayne watched
her, then gestured at the answering machine: 'Do you want to hear it again?'

  'No. You'd better erase it.'

  'Right.'

  That was a strange feeling. You always pushed the Delete button to get rid of old messages, but this time it felt different, like being in a spy movie. Or a murder story, getting rid of the evidence.

  Beep, said the machine: Your secrets are safe.

  She was still frowning at the magazine, but after that beep she transferred her frown to him. 'It's so weird,' she said, 'that he can just do that. Reach out and pluck someone.'

  'He knows people, that's all. Susan, we know people, too.'

  'Well… You told her you're going.'

  'We're going. The invitation's for the both of us, or, you know, I can bring a guest, so I said I would.'

  'Oh, no,' she said. 'You do this on your own. Next Thursday? I'll have dinner with Jill.'

  Jill was a long-time friend, now divorced, a sweet, rather vague woman, with many small unimportant problems. Whenever Wayne had to be away or wasn't available, Susan had dinner with Jill. Wayne's equivalent was a friend from college called Larry, who'd been a crotchety old bachelor from the day of his birth, but whose sardonic sense of humor made him fun to be with, in small doses. Wayne and Susan had kidded a few times about getting soft Jill and hard Larry together, and what a disaster that would be!

  But Wayne didn't like the Jill idea now. 'Why?' he asked. 'Don't you want to see this famous Lucie?'

  'Absolutely not,' she said. 'And I don't want to meet Bryce Proctorr, and I don't want to know any more details about what you're, what you're going to do than you absolutely have to tell me.'

  'What is this, deniability?' he asked. He was grinning, but he wasn't amused.

  'No, of course not,' she said. 'Wayne, this is your decision, because it's your burden, whichever way you choose. If I'm part of the decision, it isn't yours any more, and you'll never trust it. Years to come, you'll still have doubts.'

  'But you are part of the decision. You say our marriage won't last if I take a teaching job at some college, and goddam it, you're probably right. So you are part of it.'