The Hook

by Donald E. Westlake

  “If I think there’s something promotable in it,” Joe said, “maybe we can work something out. You know what I mean by promotable.”

  “Princess Di should be a character in it.”

  Joe laughed, but he said, “It wouldn’t hurt. Promotable is absolutely distinct from quality. I know your work, I know you’ll produce good readable prose, I know you’re good with plots and good with characters, so let’s just call all that a given.”

  “Thank you,” Wayne said.

  “This isn’t compliments,” Joe told him. “I’m discounting everything we know you’re good at. What I want you to do is go home and look at that part of a book you have, and say to yourself, ‘Never mind Joe Katz. What will the publicity department see here? What will the sales department see here? What’s the hook?’ You understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes,” Wayne said.

  Joe shook a finger at him. “I’m not asking you to bend your book out of shape,” he said. “In the first place, I wouldn’t be able to make it worth your while. So don’t add Princess Di.”

  “Okay,” Wayne said.

  “But if you think,” Joe said, “without destroying the integrity of the work, you can find a promotable element in it, call me and tell me. And then I’ll look at the book. And if it’s got all your normal strengths, plus you’re right about it being promotable, I’m permitted to offer you ten thousand dollars.”

  Wayne could think of nothing to say.

  Joe finished his wine in a gulp, and signalled for a second glass. Wayne pointed at his own glass, and Joe showed the waiter two fingers. Then he said, “The idea is, if we can get behind this book and promote it, and kick you up above the computer’s expectations, then next time we can offer a little more and try even harder and make another increase in sales.”

  Wayne said, “You’re talking about building a career from scratch, the way it used to be, when writers and publishers stuck with one another for the long haul.”

  “Except,” Joe told him, “the way the game is played now, we begin in sudden-death overtime.”

  Wayne sipped his second glass of wine. There was nothing promotable in The Shadowed Other. You could only promote it as a novel, a story, something you might like to read. He said, “I’ll think about it.”

  “Good,” Joe said.

  “And I want to thank you, Joe,” Wayne said. He was sincere, and hoped it showed. “I know you did your best.”

  “We can only do what we can only do,” Joe said.

  Twenty-one

  Bryce had arranged with Linda, the once-a-week cleaning woman in New York, to pack up his mail every week, the stuff she thought he’d care about, put it in a manila envelope, and send it to him in Connecticut. The Thursday after New Year’s, he got such an envelope, and one of the items it contained was a brisk letter from the management firm that handled the building containing his apartment. The letter was addressed to Bryce Proctorr, and it informed him that the management firm had become aware of the fact that the leaseholder of the apartment was deceased. If Bryce cared to negotiate a new lease, he should phone Ms. Teraski at the above number as soon as possible. Unfortunately, it would not be acceptable for him to remain in the apartment without a lease.

  What a strange thing to realize, that even though Lucie had been the one to move out at the breakup of the marriage, it was still her name on the lease. Mark Steiner, his accountant, had had reasons of his own why Lucie should be a New York resident and lease the apartment while he should be a Connecticut resident and own the house. It had seemed unnecessarily complex at the time, in the way that tax laws lead to unnecessary complexity, but now it seemed grotesque.

  They understood the leaseholder was deceased. That was the most bloodless way yet to describe the circumstance by which the life had been pounded out of Lucie’s body.

  He didn’t call Ms. Teraski, not yet, because he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. He supposed he should call Mark at some point, find out what the tax laws and the accountant thought best for him at this juncture, but he didn’t feel ready for that call, either.

  Then, two hours later, Mark himself phoned Bryce. “I just wanted you to know, the Pegasus money is in.”

  “Oh, good,” Bryce said.

  “I’ll be calling Wayne Prentice next.”

  “He’ll be glad to hear from you.”

  Mark laughed. “I suppose he will,” he said. “You know, I still think this is the most insanely generous deal I’ve ever heard of.”

  “He was worth it, Mark.”

  “I bet he would have taken less. If you’re ever tempted to make another deal like this one, Bryce, please talk to me first.”

  “It won’t happen again. But I needed him right then. I wasn’t working, it was going on too long, it was going to hurt the career, the reputation. He’s worth the money, Mark, because the truth is, if it weren’t for Wayne, Two Faces in the Mirror would not exist.”

  “And you’re sure of him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I know he’s a friend of yours,” Mark said, “and he’s a nice guy, I like him—”

  “Uh huh.”

  “But what about the future? I mean, he isn’t going to come along some day and claim that book is his, is he?”

  “Absolutely not,” Bryce said. “I know I can trust him on that, Mark. I trust him absolutely on that.”

  “Well, you usually know what you’re doing,” Mark said. “I’ll call him now, give him the good news.”

  Bryce hadn’t asked this before, and it really wasn’t any of his business, but he suddenly wanted to know: “What’s your arrangement with Wayne, anyway? I mean, you’re handling his finances now, right?”

  “It’s essentially the same deal I have with you,” Mark told him. “That’s what he asked for, and that’s what he’ll get. I assume he’ll have further income to back it up.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he will,” Bryce said, and it wasn’t till after he’d hung up that he realized he’d forgotten to talk to Mark about the apartment.

  Well, he knew what that meant. That meant he wasn’t going to keep the apartment. Not negotiate a lease, not live there, fifteen stories up, all alone. He’d move his furniture, what he wanted, up here, throw the rest away. Most of it he wouldn’t want anyway; Lucie’d picked it all out. It was hers.

  * * *

  The phone call and the decision about the apartment, if that really was the decision, had left him restless, so that afternoon he drove to Brenford, the gourmet grocery store in this part of Connecticut, the place where you went for New York–style foods you couldn’t get in a supermarket. At New York–style prices, too. There were things Bryce could only get at Brenford, the coffee he liked, a salmon dip, some other things, and it had been a while since he’d gone there.

  Early Thursday afternoon in midwinter and the parking lot at Brenford’s was half full, mostly of Jeep Cherokees and Toyota Land Cruisers and the like, with here and there a Volvo or a Saab or a BMW like Bryce’s.

  When all else failed, it was pleasant to receive this occasional reassurance, these visual signals that one is not alone, one belongs to a tribe, and one is firmly in the territory controlled by that tribe. The license plates were more than half Connecticut, the rest New York and a few Massachusetts. In summer there were New Jersey plates as well, but one knew they were not real courtiers, but merely bumpkins visiting the court.

  The shopping carts came in two sizes, plus small hand-carried baskets for those who weren’t really serious. Bryce compromised with a smaller-size cart, and the glass door slid out of the way as he approached, greeting him with a puff of warm air smelling vaguely like a bakery.

  Usually he didn’t like shopping, but preferred to hurry into a store, grab the first things he saw that approximated what he wanted, and hurry back out again. Today, though, he felt a kind of underwater stillness inside himself, as though he’d been swimming hard but now didn’t have to any more. Now he could coast.

  Ev
erything was finished. Detective Johnson had phoned earlier this week, but only to get the names and addresses and phone numbers of some of Lucie’s relatives in Kansas and Missouri; he was haring farther afield, he had not found the murderer’s spoor. Pegasus-Regent had paid for Two Faces, Joe Katz had accepted it as a work by Bryce Proctorr, the distracting and harrying divorce process was eliminated, Wayne Prentice was content. His relationship with Isabelle had stalled, but maybe that merely meant it had gone as far as it could, that he and Isabelle would never be any closer to one another, that she was not at last the answer to what he would do next in that department.

  “Excuse me.”

  “Yes?”

  An attractive face framed by soft waves of ash-blond hair, and the kind of wide innocently eager brown eyes that suggested plastic surgery. A short dark fur coat open on a dark green blouse and tan wool slacks. She seemed hesitant, but not really afraid of rejection. She said, “Aren’t you Bryce Proctorr?” Her voice was throaty, as though she smoked cigars, or liked to laugh at dirty jokes.

  “Guilty,” he told her, with his meet-the-fan smile.

  “I thought so!” She extended a slender hand in which the bones were outlined beneath pale skin. “I was told you lived somewhere around here. I’m Marcia Rierdon, I’m a huge fan of yours.”

  “How do you do,” he said, taking the hand, which was quick and strong. He’d had encounters like this before, one step beyond normal fandom; the follow-through depended on the circumstances. “I always like to hear positive words,” he assured her.

  Smiling, she said, “Well, I have one negative word for you, Mr. Proctorr. Where’s the next book? Your readers are waiting.”

  “June,” he promised her. “I guess there’ll be books in the stores in May. It’s called Two Faces in the Mirror.”

  “I will buy it at once. I think I have every book you’ve ever written.”

  “Well, good.”

  “In hardcover!”

  “Even better,” he said.

  She leaned forward, a sudden hard hand on his forearm, where he was holding his cart. “Could you—” she said. Then she retreated, hand off his arm, shaking her head. “No, it’s too much to ask.”

  “Is it?” he asked. “How do I know if I haven’t heard it?”

  “I live nine miles from here,” she told him, “toward Amenia, New York.” Looking in his cart, she said, “I don’t know how much more shopping you have to do—”

  “I’m almost done.”

  A sidelong smile. “Shopping for one,” she said.

  He grinned, nodding his agreement. “That’s what I’m doing.”

  “I’d think a person—” Then shock changed her face, she pressed carmine fingertips to her mouth, she said, “Oh, my God, your wife!”

  “It’s okay,” he assured her.

  “Oh, what a terrible thing, I completely forgot, I am so sorry!”

  “No, it’s fine,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. I forget myself, sometimes.”

  “Well, now I’m embarrassed,” she said, “now I can’t ask you.”

  “You want to know if I’ll follow you to your house,” he said, “and sign your books.”

  “Oh, would you?” Her hand was on his forearm again, tighter than before.

  “I’d love to,” he said. “Give me five minutes.”

  “I’ll be by the registers,” she told him, and permitted her bright-eyed smile to turn just a little coquettish as she lifted her hand beside her face to give him a tiny ta-ta wave, then turned away.

  He didn’t have that much more to find in here. Walking the aisles, finishing the selections, he thought about this as a scene in a novel, where it would always have seemed a little opportunistic and now would seem outdated as well. Twenty years ago, these hills were full of stay-at-home wives during the week, childless or their children away at school, their husbands living and working in New York, coming up only for the weekends, some of the wives on the prowl for ways to make country life more interesting while the breadwinner was away. Most of those wives were gone now, either to jobs of their own in the city—almost all of the couples Bryce knew up here had two jobs and traveled to and from New York together—or at the very least they found life in the city during the week more stimulating than life alone in the country. But there were still a few, a minority, maintaining the traditional structure, the woman tending the fire in the cave while the man was out contending with the mastodon.

  And hitting on a famous person only because he’s famous was an evergreen activity.

  So this had happened to Bryce before, over the years, though not often; this would be the third time. The first one, he’d been happily married to Ellen, and he’d been polite and friendly, honored by the attention, but unfortunately stuck with an appointment with his wife; a lie, but it doused the fire.

  The second time, he’d been sleeping with Lucie but not yet married to her and she was still resisting the idea of spending time with him in Connecticut, so then he’d been happy to follow the lady home, eventually taking her out to dinner, going back to spend the night. She’d given him her phone number, which he’d immediately thrown away, and wouldn’t have been able to find that house again today on a bet. Nor did he remember her name, nor much about what she’d looked like. Oddly, the rejected first one was a little clearer in his memory.

  So what was the program this third time at bat? She was attractive, she was intelligent (she did, after all, admire his books), he was completely unattached, and she was unlikely to be a problem in the future, since she already had a man who provided her this place within the tribe. If Bryce didn’t want to see her again, it would be just as simple as the other time.

  I’m going to follow her home, he thought, but the frisson that gave him was a strange one, almost a revulsion. Wasn’t she sexy? Certainly she was sexy. Beneath the uniform of the tribe, she would be very fit indeed.

  Somehow, he couldn’t imagine forward to that moment. Part of sex, of course, is anticipation, imagining what is yet to be, but his mind was dull, he could only think of the here and now, we have two cars, she’s waiting by the cash registers, I will follow her toward Amenia, New York.

  Yes, there she was. She waved as he unloaded his goods onto the moving black belt, and then pushed her cart full of bagged groceries outside. He paid, wheeled his own stuff out, and she was across the lot, standing beside a gray-green Jeep Cherokee with Connecticut plates. Again she waved, and he waved back. She got into her car, he loaded his and got behind the wheel, and their two-car convoy left the parking lot and turned left.

  All the roads around here were two-lane, winding, hilly, upscale suburban. The houses were set well back, most of the trees still in place, new plantings, fences, hedgerows, tennis courts, swimming pools, multicar garages angled beside Colonial stone. The Cherokee ahead of him glided like a dream through the landscape, and Bryce followed.

  Lucie. This had been Wayne and Lucie, just two people getting to know one another, strangers in that engrossing time before sex when every sense is heightened, every gesture has meaning, every slant of shadow across cheekbone is to be analyzed, the world to be discovered approaches across the universe. And then the explosion.

  Why am I thinking about Lucie? he asked himself, and clenched hard to the wheel. Am I going to spoil things? Am I going to go in there and be a pathetic grieving widower, impotent in his sorrow? What sorrow? I don’t grieve for Lucie, I never have, I never will. I hate it that she made it all necessary, but she did make it all necessary, she did that. I did nothing.

  He wanted to know. Lucie had been his enemy, his demon, his succubus, and he should have been there, he should have experienced it for himself. It was only to avoid suspicion that he hadn’t been there, that someone else had done what he should have done. He knew, in the dreams he never remembered, he knew he was trying to create the scene, imagine the scene, but it wasn’t working. He wanted to know.

  Marcia Rierdon. The looseness of her smile, the brightness of
her eyes. What would she look like—

  Why can’t I visualize having sex with her? He forced himself to see a white pillow in a dim room, her smiling face, bright-eyed, looking up from the pillow. But where was he?

  His fist smashed down. That nose, which has also been fixed, is fixed again. The fist lifts, the wide eyes are wider, but what does it look like? What does it sound like? What is it like?

  His eyes snapped open just before he would have driven off the road into an old stone fence. He righted the car, and saw the Cherokee slowing toward a Stop sign ahead, the right-turn signal on. Keep your eyes open, you have to drive with your eyes open.

  She stopped at the Stop sign. He switched his right-turn signal on. She turned right. He stopped; he turned right.

  Oh, God, is that what I’m going to do? He could feel it coming over him, knowing what it was but not wanting to know what it was. He would never have sex with this woman, this Marcia Rierdon. There was heat for her, but it wasn’t in his loins, it was in his shoulders, the straining muscles of his arms, in his legs.

  I wasn’t there because I couldn’t be there because they would suspect me, but I should have been there, it’s incomplete if I’m not there. I don’t know this woman, she doesn’t know me, no one will ever know I was in her house, never know I was this far west in Connecticut, never know anything, at last I can be there because I cannot be a suspect.

  Sweat ran down and out from under his hair, onto his forehead, down in front of his ears, into his collar in back. He was panting, his hands were clenching and unclenching on the wheel.

  You can’t do this. You don’t need to know. You don’t need to know. You can’t hurt Marcia Rierdon, she isn’t Lucie. She isn’t Lucie.

  She’s married, she’s self-indulgent, she’s faithless, she’s evil, she is Lucie.

  Is not having the memory worse? Or is having the memory worse?

  He seemed to be his own prisoner. He watched helplessly, hoping he could stop himself, hoping he wouldn’t stop himself, hoping he could come out of this, whatever this was, just come out of this with his mind intact. Just not hurt himself.