Corkscrew

by Donald E. Westlake

  Supposedly, he was working on the screenplay of Double Impact right now, but that was seeming more and more like a waste of time. He'd written the script very fast, pleased with it as he went along, not even worried that it was a hundred fifty pages long instead of the hundred twenty the screenwriting textbooks recommended, knowing what he was doing was fast and meaty and solid, but then he showed it to Susan, and she read it and said it was wordy. Too wordy. Too much dialogue. Not letting the camera tell the story, but making the characters tell the story by talking each other's ears off.

  So it wasn't quite as easy as he'd thought. But now, going through it all Over again, trying to find great chunks of dialogue he could transmogrify into cunning paragraphs of instruction for the camera, he was learning to his distress that his imagination wasn't quite as visual as he'd always believed. But he refused to give up, at least not yet. I'll give it the month of April, he'd told himself, and if I can't do it by then, the hell with it.

  So in a way it was an agreeable distraction to have this enigmatic message from Bryce. Telling himself he had more to worry about from the screenplay than from Bryce, he dialed the number in Connecticut, and a motherly-sounding woman answered, saying, 'Proctorr residence.'

  A nurse? Had Bryce tried to kill himself? 'Oh, hi, uh… It's Wayne Prentice, Bryce called me.'

  'One moment, please.'

  He waited, not long, and then Bryce came on, still sounding manic and chipper, saying, 'Oh, damn, Wayne, Joe just left five minutes ago.'

  'Who was that? The woman who answered.'

  'Oh! You don't know, I took your advice. That's Mrs Hildebrand, the housekeeper.'

  For some reason, that news was encouraging, as though hiring a housekeeper were such a palpably sane thing to do it suggested he needn't worry at all about Bryce any more. 'Well, I'm glad you did that,' he said.

  'So am I,' Bryce assured him. 'And you'll be even more glad, the next time you come here. She knows lunch.'

  'Good.'

  'See, what it is,' Bryce said, his voice dropping, his manner suddenly hesitant, less sure, 'what it is, Wayne, Joe was here…'

  'Yes, you said.'

  'And he got sort of tough with me, I have to say, I didn't expect that, he was really very tough with me.'

  'About what?'

  'Well, he got it out of me that I haven't actually been working on the new book. I don't, uh, actually have a new book.'

  Wayne was surprised, but then immediately he wasn't. 'What did he say?'

  'Well, he wanted me to go into therapy,' Bryce said, 'but I can't do that, I mean, you know why I can't do that.'

  'No, I don't,' Wayne said.

  Bryce whispered, shrill and sibilant, 'You have to tell them the truth!'

  Oh, for God's sake. 'All right,' Wayne said. 'That isn't the reason you gave him, I hope.'

  'No! Of course not.'

  'You just said no.'

  'I just said no.'

  'And what did he say?'

  'He said, if I didn't do something to get help, get started, he was going to void my contract and demand the advance back. That's a quarter, I've already got a quarter. The last time, you know, my half was really one quarter on Two Faces and one quarter on this next book.'

  Two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars. A lot of money to have to give back. Wayne said, 'He would do that? I thought he was your pal.'

  'He is. He thinks he's being my pal when he's doing this. So I had to do something. So I told him, 'Wayne. He'll help me'. 'The voice dropping to a whisper again: 'Like last time.'

  'Ah,' Wayne said. 'Who do I kill this time?'

  'What?' The shock in Bryce's voice was so comical that Wayne could only laugh, and then Bryce, sounding deeply offended, said, 'That's not funny.'

  'Sorry,' Wayne said, 'I thought it was. So what's the idea? I already gave you Two Faces. The Domino Doublet.'

  'I have some outlines, story treatments, Joe says they're no good, they're like the interview…'

  'Oh, he told you about that.'

  'Yes. But that's okay, I understand why you told him, it's okay. And you did a great job, fixing it up. You did a great interview, I'm only sorry I couldn't have been there.'

  Again Wayne laughed, and this time he said, 'But you think there's something salvageable, right? In those outlines.'

  'I hope there is. I haven't looked at them, I've been afraid to look at them, but you could. The deal is, if you say yes, you'll help me, Joe's gonna back off. Then you can look at these things of mine, see if we can do something with one of them, actually get moving at last.'

  Possibilities shifted in Wayne's mind. 'I'll give it a shot, Bryce,' he said.

  'Oh, Wayne, thanks, I knew I could count on you, I knew I could count on you.'

  'You can.'

  'Joe wants you to call him, tell him what you're gonna do,' Bryce said. 'Not in the office today, he's going home from here. Around five you could call him.'

  'I will.'

  'And you could come up, could you come up tomorrow?'

  Thinking of the screenplay, not wanting to leave it because he did want to leave it, Wayne said, 'I've got my own stuff to do, Bryce. I could come up Saturday. Could I bring Susan?'

  'Sure! Stay over, stay the weekend, I'm invited to a party Saturday night, some people up here, I'll tell them I'm bringing houseguests.'

  'You don't have to do that.'

  'No, that's normal up here,' Bryce explained. 'People always bring houseguests, I've always been the oddball, I never brought any extra people around, you'll be my first houseguests.'

  'In that case, fine,' Wayne said. 'And Bryce, could you fax me directions? I'll rent a car and drive up.'

  'Absolutely. And call Joe, okay? He's worried.'

  'I'll tell him to stop worrying,' Wayne said. We'll all stop worrying, he thought, because all at once he knew what was going to happen. He was going to get to finish The Shadowed Other. He was going to get to see The Shadowed Other published. He was going to get to see The Shadowed Other on the best-seller list. Because he now had a secret pen name that was much better than Tim Fleet:

  Bryce Proctorr.

  •

  'There it is!' Susan said. 'That's the house!' She was very excited.

  'Yeah, that's it,' Wayne agreed, as they crunched slowly up the gravel drive toward the house in the rented Lexus. Eleven in the morning, sunny, cool, the columns on the front of the house gleaming white, like an old southern plantation.

  'We were so close to it, weren't we?' Susan said. 'That day we looked for it.'

  'You can't really see it from the road.'

  'Maybe we drove past it. Did we?'

  'I don't remember,' Wayne said, and parked by the garage, but just to the left, so the cars that used the garage could get in and out.

  They each had packed a small overnight bag which they carried from the car, and as they neared the front door it opened and an older woman in a dark blue skirt and pink ruffled blouse smiled out at them, saying, 'Good morning. You must be the Prentices.' She looked more like a widow on a cruise ship than a housekeeper.

  'And you must be Mrs Hildebrand,' Wayne said. 'We talked on the phone.'

  'Yes, of course, come in.'

  They entered the house, Susan looking around, her eyes sparkling, and Mrs Hildebrand said, 'Mr Proctorr is out walking, he likes to walk around the property. I'll show you to your room.'

  'I know where it is,' Wayne said, 'I stayed here before.'

  'Then I'll go back to doing lunch,' Mrs Hildebrand said. 'I hope you both like game hen.'

  Wayne laughed, and said, 'You can count on us, Mrs Hildebrand.'

  He led the way upstairs to the sunny large guest room he'd used before. When they were in the room, with the door closed, Susan said, 'It is like the apartment.'

  'I told you, but he doesn't see it.'

  'He's a strange man,' Susan said, and looked out the window. 'Here he comes.'

  Wayne went over to stand beside her, and look out. Up-slope fr
om here was the pool, almost at a level with this room, and beyond that a field, and beyond that thick woods leading uphill. Coming down across the field, skirting the pool, was Bryce, in a big bulky black car coat, with wood pegs instead of buttons. He wore it open and flapping, his hands in the pockets. He was bareheaded, and his expression was fixed, determined, like somebody trying to remember an important fact.

  'I'll go down and talk to him,' Wayne said.

  'I'll unpack,' Susan said, 'and see you at lunch.'

  Wayne went downstairs and found Bryce walking toward him down the hall, still wearing the car coat, hands still in the pockets. His face brightened when he saw Wayne, and he pulled his right hand from the pocket to extend it for a shake as he came forward, saying, 'Wayne! It's great to see you.'

  'And you,' Wayne said. He saw that Bryce was hyper, but controlling it.

  Bryce pulled off the coat, as though not realizing till now he was wearing it, and stood there with the coat draped over his left forearm. He said, 'It's an hour till lunch, maybe more. You want to look at this stuff, or wait? I know it was a long drive.'

  'No, it was easy, we rented a good car. Let's see these outlines.'

  'Get the suspense over with, right?' Bryce said, and gave him a broad grin and an awkward pat on the arm.

  'Right,' Wayne said.

  They walked together back upstairs to Bryce's office, where he dropped the coat on the black leather sofa and said, 'You know how to operate all this stuff.'

  'Sure.'

  'They're in there, the outlines. Twenty-three of them. Twenty-four, but Joe took one.'

  'Not the best one,' Wayne suggested.

  Bryce's laugh was a little too explosive. 'He wasn't looking for the best one,' he said. 'Not by then. Listen, I'd be kind of uncomfortable in here, you reading those things. And better for you, too, if I'm not around.'

  'Sure.'

  'I'll see you at lunch,' Bryce said, and fled.

  Wayne moved toward the desk, and Bryce appeared again, an embarrassed smile fluttering at his mouth. 'My coat,' he said, and pointed at it, and picked it up, and waved goodbye, and hurried away.

  When he learns his wife had a sex-change operation years before they met, he leaves her. She pursues, and he flees into Canada, where he becomes a monk in a monastery that secretly smuggles political refugees into the United States. He falls in love with a Chinese girl who used to star in propaganda films and now wants to become a model in New York. His wife, pursuing, must disguise herself as a man.

  That was the shortest of them. Some were more than three thousand words long, but most were only three or four pages. They were all hopeless.

  This was not a surprise, not after he'd been told Joe's reaction to these things, but it was still depressing. What had gone wrong with Bryce? Was it really Lucie's death, guilt feelings, the lack of closure because he hadn't been the one to do it himself?

  Or was it something from earlier, maybe not even connected to Lucie at all. Maybe Lucie left him because he was turning weird, and not the other way around.

  Whatever it was, and whatever profit there might be for Wayne in it, he still found the situation sad and depressing. He liked Bryce, had liked him in a casual way in the old days, had admired and envied him from afar for a long time, and had felt many different things toward him in the last six months. But he still had to identify with Bryce as another writer, another storyteller, and how horrible it has to be when the stories won't come. When this static is all you can find.

  Wayne knew what should happen next, but he also knew it would be a very delicate crossing to get there. Bryce's hope, despite Joe's reaction, despite his own inner knowledge that kept him from looking at this junk himself, was that there was something here, some spark, some tiny slender filament of thread that could be picked up, and followed, until it led to a complete, full, valuable novel.

  No. There was nothing in Bryce's mind but static, shards, jumbled wreckage. But Wayne couldn't tell Bryce that, couldn't let Bryce suspect it. He didn't want a Bryce Proctorr in despair, he'd be useless then. He needed a Bryce Proctorr who still retained hope.

  Looking at the computer screen, he could sometimes see some faint reflection of himself. It wasn't until he turned away, at the end, that he spoke: 'I have to give him a reason to do what I need him to do. I have to give him his own reason.'

  •

  Mrs Hildebrand had not only transformed lunch, she'd transformed the dining room as well. The silver pieces on the sideboard gleamed from fresh polish, the spring flowers on the table seemed to sparkle with their own inner light, and even the dishes she used were a better set, more fanciful, than the utilitarian plates and bowls Bryce had provided last time for Wayne and himself.

  Wayne was the last to walk into the dining room, finding the other two in awkward conversation at the table, both of them looking at him with relief when they were no longer alone. Wayne knew Bryce didn't care for Susan, and that Susan was distant to him in return, and he was sorry about that, but he didn't know what to do about it. He and Susan were going to be here a lot, if things worked out as he hoped; maybe Bryce and Susan would get used to one another, would stop making each other uncomfortable.

  In addition to relief, Bryce looked at Wayne with hope in his eyes, but Wayne shook his head. 'I'm sorry,' he said, and turned away from Bryce's pained reaction.

  He sat down, and Mrs Hildebrand brought in the three game hens, and the side dishes, and asked if anyone would like wine. Wayne looked to see what Bryce would do, but Bryce said, 'None for me today, Mrs Hildebrand,' so Wayne said, 'Not for me, either,' and so did Susan.

  Mrs Hildebrand left the room, and Bryce said, 'Nothing? None of them?'

  Wayne shook his head. 'You knew that already,' he said. 'You knew that when Joe told you. Come on, Bryce, you knew it before then, when you wouldn't even look at them.'

  'This is delicious,' Susan said.

  'We should eat,' Bryce said, and picked up his knife and fork.

  They all ate for a little while, and then Wayne said, 'I have suggestions to make, if you want.'

  'I'm grabbing at straws,' Bryce said.

  'Well, I hope this isn't a straw. I think what the problem is, you're too isolated here.'

  'This started before I moved up here full-time,' Bryce said.

  Wayne said, 'The outlines?'

  'No, you're right, I did those here.'

  'Before you came up,' Wayne told him, 'you were distracted by too much stuff happening, but now you've cut yourself off, it's almost like you're in exile up here.'

  'My Elba,' Bryce said, and laughed, and said, 'I can't go back, you know, I can't get that apartment back.'

  'We're in it,' Susan said.

  Wayne and Bryce both gave her astonished looks. Bryce said, 'You're in it?'

  Calmly, Susan said, 'Didn't Wayne tell you?' Of course, she knew he hadn't. 'When we found out you were leaving,' she explained, 'we looked at it, not for ourselves, but because we needed a bigger place, and we wanted an idea about rents and space and all that. And then we fell in love with the place. We moved there, and Joe and Shelly moved into our old apartment.'

  'They don't want to leave the Village,' Wayne said. He trusted Susan to know the right move to make, but this was all so tricky now, was this really the right time to add this complication?

  Bryce looked from Susan to Wayne. 'Why didn't you tell me?'

  Wayne said, 'It felt — I felt uncomfortable, like I was taking something that was yours.' He grinned, and shook his head, and said, 'If it was up to me, I wouldn't have done it, for that reason, but Susan just loves the place.'

  'We don't feel strange,' Susan pointed out, 'about Joe and Shelly moving into our old place.'

  Bryce said, 'My furniture?'

  'We're getting rid of it,' Susan told him, 'replacing it, bit by bit. If there's anything you want…'

  'No no no,' Bryce said. 'I don't want any of that, I left it there, let it stay there.' With that fitful fretful smile that had bec
ome a part of him lately, he said, 'I can come visit it. Visit the place. Visit you two. Next time I'm in the city.'

  Which was, Wayne saw, his chance to get the conversation back on track. 'Bryce,' he said, 'when was the last time you were in the city?'

  'What? I don't know, a while ago.'

  'Some time in February, wasn't it? Early February. You left before your lease was up.'

  'Around then,' Bryce agreed. 'Listen, this hen is great, if we don't eat, Mrs Hildebrand is gonna come in and ask us what's wrong.'

  Again they all ate, but Wayne kept thinking about the conversation and where he needed it to go and how to get it there. At last, he said, 'You're too cut off here, Bryce, that's what it comes down to. You need input, you need to get back on track.'

  'Living in New York isn't gonna—'

  'That's not my idea,' Wayne told him. 'My idea is, we work together the way you told Joe we were working together. Only this time we do it for real.'

  Bryce ate hen, chewed, frowned at Wayne, and said, 'How?'

  'I come up here every weekend,' Wayne said. 'We talk. You think during the week, make notes, we discuss the ideas on the weekends, shape them, focus your thinking.'

  'Focus,' Bryce echoed. 'That's the word Joe used. Or maybe I did.'

  'That's what we need,' Wayne said. 'Maybe Susan could come up with me sometimes.'

  'Sure,' Bryce said, indifferently. 'If she won't be bored.'

  Susan said, 'When do you open the pool?'

  The look Bryce gave her, Wayne saw, was almost hostile. He said, 'Early in May.'

  'Then that's it, then,' she said. 'I love to swim, I'm a fish.'

  Wayne, needing to push his idea forward, said, 'However long it takes, Bryce, every weekend we work on it, honing your ideas. You're a very talented guy, a very successful guy, you just got derailed somewhere, the two of us can get you back on track. However long it takes.'

  The repetition of that phrase finally produced the response Wayne needed. Bryce said, 'It can't go on and on, you know. Joe says I'm a year late already. We can't just sit here every weekend forever and talk. I need a book.'