Black Rock
Page 26
Now he wasn’t so certain. Having a mental movie screen appear in your mind’s eye was something, but starting to hear voices that spoke independently of your own mental processes was something else again. This wasn’t nervous breakdown territory, this was the stuff schizophrenia was made of. Hearing voices was not something to be taken lightly. Especially when the voice seemed to speak in the tones of the woman you loved. If Martin had been able to believe in telepathy - which he didn’t - he might have thought he was picking up Essenjay’s thoughts. Probably not ones that she was sending directly to him, but her unconscious thoughts. But even if this had been the case there was still a problem. Whoever was sending him those thoughts spoke about Essenjay in the third person. ‘She will have softened up by then,’ the voice had told him. Not, You will have softened me up by then. And there was one last thing that ruled out the possibility of those thoughts belonging to his own subconscious or Essenjay’s: the person transmitting them claimed that he owned a brand new Porsche 911 twin turbo. Martin had never in his life given so much as a thought to the possible acquisition of any kind of a Porsche. Porsche didn’t enter into his mind in any context especially that of fast cars. As far as he was concerned, there was only one race of people who made real sports cars and those people weren’t Germans. They were Italians. He’d never had any desire to own a Porsche and he most strongly doubted that Essenjay had a yearning for one either.
Which left him with a dilemma he was quick to spot. Years of editorial practice had sharpened his mind to a point at which even a minor inconsistency in plot or motivation would leap out from a manuscript and hit him in the face as soon as his eyes lit on it. The process here was similar. It ought to be answerable to logic. And as he trudged down the road towards the yellow sign, feet squishing in his wet shoes, his mind started to work out the options.
Logically, he told himself, if you haven’t gone mad, you must have become telepathic. Your mental ice block showed you pictures of Essenjay trip and fall down a steep drop earlier today, and you didn’t question that at all, did you? And since you believed what you were seeing, you must believe in telepathy.
There’s still something wrong though,’ he mused.
No there isn’t, his mind told him. So far we’ve established that you believe in telepathy - or at least some kind of unusual method of communication, call it what you will. Therefore you’re hearing a voice from elsewhere. The only remaining inconsistency is that Essenjay seems to refer to herself in a strange way. As if she’s a different person. This is easily resolved if you quit believing you’re hearing the voice of her subconscious. Or any voice of hers at all. There is only one way all this shit fits, and that is if the voice is not hers after all. Essenjay doesn’t have a Porsche and as far as you know, doesn’t want one. Even if she did, she wouldn’t think those things. But if it was someone else thinking those things, it all fits quite neatly. So forget about believing that the voice belongs to Essenjay, because it doesn’t. If you think about it, you’ll realize who that voice really belongs to. And if you think about it for two seconds longer, you’ll realize who would drive a Porsche 911 twin turbo.
Martin thought about it long and hard. He knew exactly who would drive that make and model of car. And he also knew that this person would send Essenjay red roses every day and have her put on his car insurance so she could drive that Porsche.
That person was Peter Perfect, of Black Rock, Tintagel.
The only problem was, that person was fictitious.
What do you always tell your authors? the voice asked him, and Martin stopped dead in his tracks because he always told his authors that their characters shouldn’t be cardboard cut-outs with no motivation. He said that if you wanted your readers ensnared in your characters’ problems, you had to make them rise from the page, living and breathing.
This is bullshit! That’s only speaking metaphorically. They should live and breathe in the reader’s mind. Book characters cannot live and breathe in real life.’
And if anyone presented me with a book in which a fictional character came to life, I’d say, read King’s The Dark Half because it’s already been done, he added mentally and began to walk again.
That wasn’t the piece of advice to which I was referring, the voice said, no longer sounding as if it had ever belonged to Essenjay. It was a male voice for one thing.
‘So what were you referring to?’ Martin asked aloud, no longer believing he was sane. You didn’t have conversations with book characters.
The piece of advice I was actually going to remind you of was this: ‘In order to convince your reader, to take them with you and your characters, you have to blur the boundaries between real life and fiction, so they no longer know which is which.’ Sound familiar? It should do. You’ve said it to hopeful writers at enough literary seminars. And I don’t think I ever claimed to be a work of fiction, did If Isn’t Peter Perfect the name of the writer of Black Rock? Isn’t the lead character in Black Rock called Mister Winter? You see Martin, my writing’s good enough to force you to blur the boundaries between reality and fiction. You no longer know what to believe and what not to believe. Which means I’ve succeeded in what I set out to do.
Martin could almost read the lettering in the big yellow sign up ahead now - it was a hotel sign. For a long, shocked moment he read the words as: ‘Black Rock Motel.’ The voice in his head chuckled and Martin felt as if he might soon scream. It was only as he approached the glowing sign that the wording swam and resolved itself until it read ‘Beech Lock Motel’.
At which point the unwanted voice said, And here’s another snippet of extremely useful information. Don’t bother with the old red rose routine. You’ll be wasting your money, honey. It’s too late, you see, because tomorrow your little Essenjay will be mine and mine alone. For ever and ever, Amen. I claimed her long before you did - and I’m the one who will have her to love and to cherish.
‘Who the hell are you?’ Martin said irritably.
Peter Perfect, Black Rock, Tintagel. Writer of stories. Writer of my own story and yours too. And most especially, writer of that lovely lead character Snowdrop Dresden. Essenjay didn’t write Black Rock, Martin, I did. Remember that. I made it real. And I’m still writing it, Martin, even as we speak. I’m writing your bit now. I bet you’d love to know what happens!
Martin knew what was going to happen. He was going to turn into the hotel driveway, hammer on the door until someone let him in, get a room, get a bottle of Scotch and drink it until the voices and the ice block faded into insignificance. He’d been under tremendous pressure, he’d brought himself on a huge wild-goose chase and he had thrown one or two cogs. And when he’d drunk himself to sle
ep those cogs would find their way back to each other and begin to mesh. And when he woke up the following morning, everything would be running smoothly again.
Yeah, so it might be, the voice told him. But by then it’ll be too late. Exactly as I’ve planned it to be. Think on this, Martin: what if I put the thought into Essenjay’s head that she ought to trick you into going to Scarborough? Why would I do that? Ask yourself as you lay down to go to sleep.
And the voice vanished.
The ice block, however, stayed exactly where it was.
Martin thanked God for small mercies and tried the door of the hotel.
It was open.
Twenty minutes later, as he lay naked on his bed watching his sodden clothes dripping onto the floor while he sipped the third miniature of Bells from the mini-bar, Martin began to wonder about the what-if the voice had mentioned.
The voice purported to be not a book character who’d come to life, but a real-life person who was, to all intents and purposes, changing him and Essenjay into fiction. It was ridiculous whichever way you looked at it, but a large part of Martin had begun to believe it was true.
Because of the what-if.
Martin had barely been able to believe that Essenjay would play such a spiteful joke on him, and now that he had the what-if to consider, it followed that it might not have been her idea. If the idea had been forced upon her, everything fitted neatly into place again if the mystery author had coerced Essenjay.
That author could be a writer whose work he’d once rejected and whose shoulder had carried a large chip ever since. It wouldn’t be the first time an editor had been threatened by a disgruntled writer.
But it would be the first time an editor has been contacted telepathically by that writer, his rebelling mind added.
The biggest of his worries was that this author intended to attack - and perhaps kill - Essenjay simply because he assumed he was going to hurt Martin by doing it. And when push came to shove (tomorrow if the voice was to be believed) Martin was going to be too far away to help. He’d been tricked into leaving the battlefield.
But, Christ, I’m only in Scarborough, not the other end of the world. I can get back down to Bude before anything has time to happen, cant If Unless it happens tonight, I can be there in time to … Save her?
But now he thought about it he doubted it. If there was anyone who knew how stories worked, it was Martin Louis Dinsey. It wasn’t going to be as easy as that. If it was, Peter Perfect wouldn’t have made himself known so early. He would have waited until it was too late for Martin to be of any use.
Which presented him with a perfect way of checking out whether or not he’d gone crazy. If everything he’d thought since the ice block had formed in his head was delusion, it had all happened internally. And if it had all happened internally, that meant it would have had no effect on the outside world. Which meant that if he tried he would easily be able to get the Ferrari going, get in it and drive to Bude. Nothing would happen to stop this. It might prove he’d cracked, but coming to terms with this would be easy when compared to the alternative: that Essenjay was really being stalked by a lunatic.
Whereas if he was still sane, and all this shit was external and consequently real, he wasn’t going to be able to leave quite so easily.
So check it out! he told himself, and found that he didn’t really want to.
He drained the remainder of the whisky, picked up the telephone, dialled nine for an outside line, then dialled Essenjay’s number. While he waited, he opened a miniature of Gordon’s gin and poured it down his throat.
‘Sarah-Jane cannot come to the phone at this precise moment because she is currently in her boudoir being entertained by several members of the Chippendales. If you would like to leave a message and your number, she will call you back as soon as possible - if she isn’t too tired, that is!’
‘Damn and blast it!’ Martin spat. He waited until the bleep stopped and then began to shout because Essenjay always kept the answering machine turned up loud, and if she was awake she’d be able to hear him leaving the message. Perhaps she would even come to the phone.
‘Essy! It’s Martin! Look, I need to talk to you. Now. I think there’s someone coming after you. Don’t leave the house and don’t let anyone in until I get there. Phone the police and tell them I’m in receipt of a letter threatening to… threatening you. I’m on my way!’
She isn’t there, he thought as he cut the connection. Has he got her already? But the voice he’d heard had said, tomorrow your little Essenjay will be mine. The question was, since he’d heard the voice after midnight and it was Friday already, did tomorrow mean during the daytime of Friday, or not until Saturday? There was no way of telling. All Martin could do was act now, as quickly as possible.
He went to his dripping - and ruined - Savile Row jacket and retrieved the piece of paper on which he’d written the number of Mrs Algar, Essenjay’s fictional sister. He dialled, chewing the insides of his cheeks in frustration, until the connection was made.
‘I need to speak to Sarah-Jane Dresden,’ Martin said. ‘It’s urgent!’
‘Sorry dear, I can barely hear you,’ a woman replied. She sounded ancient. Much too old to be Essenjay’s sister. Perhaps it was another relative.
‘Sarah-Jane. Get me sarah-jane!’
‘You’re very faint dear. Are you calling from a long way away?’ the woman asked.
‘are you MRS algar?’ Martin asked.
‘Mrs who?’
ALGAR. A-L-G-A-R!’
‘No dear, this is Mrs King. Maida Vale Two Seven Five,’ the woman rasped. ‘It’s raining out. I don’t know where the cat is. My husband is in prison, y’know. Left me high and dry. The devil got into him, I suppose. He murdered a Spanish girl. People keep on telephoning me and asking if this is the police station. Pranksters, you see. They know about my husband. A girl keeps ringing me.’
Martin cut the connection, his heart sinking. Here we go, he thought. Back into the crazy hole. They haven’t had numbers like that since the dark ages. You just imagined that conversation. People don’t tell strangers that their husbands are in prison.
Except that in a Davey Rosenburg novel they would be very likely to do just that.
But we’re not in a Davy Rosenburg book, are we? he asked himself and dialled again.
‘What’s wrong?’ a male voice replied, almost instantly.
‘Mr Algar?’
‘Yeah. What’s wrong?’
‘I need to speak to Sarah-Jane Dresden. Urgently.’
Then I suggest you dial the right number next time,’ the man said gruffly and rang off.
Martin dialled again. ‘What now?’ the same voice barked.
‘Can I speak to your wife?’ Martin asked.
‘If your telephone can patch in�
�to the afterlife you might be able to, but otherwise you’re out of luck, pal. She’s been gone fifteen years.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Martin said.
‘I’m not,’ the man replied. ‘I’m only sorry you’re keeping me from sleeping. Some of us got work tomorrow. Anything else I can help you with before I go back to bed?’
‘Could you tell me, did your wife have a sister?’
‘Yeah, so what?’
‘Could you tell me her name?’
‘You’re phoning me in the middle of the night to ask me what my sister-in-law’s name was?’
‘Was?’
‘Yeah, she’s dead too. Christ, she died before my wife.’
‘Well, what was her name?’ Martin asked.
‘Whose? My wife was called Snowdrop and her sister was called Barley, for some unknown reason. Used to be common for girls to be named after flowers, but why they chose a cereal for poor old Barley I’ll never know. That do you?’
‘You don’t have any friends or relatives called Sarah-Jane Dresden then?’
‘You got the wrong number pal. Never heard of her. I’m going back to bed now and I won’t be very happy at all if you ring me again. Bye.’
Snowdrop, Martin told himself. This is all one big complicated joke. Either that or you have gone crazy.
He dialled reception.