Corkscrew Read online

  This was the first they'd actually seen each other since that day in the library, the day Bryce had suggested this substitution plot. It was strange to think about that, to realize how much had happened since then. They'd talked a number of times on the phone, Bryce had arranged for him to go see that play, he'd signed the contract, he'd done… what was required of him, now he'd read Bryce's version of The Domino Doublet — he didn't care for the title change, but let it go — but in all that time they hadn't actually been in the same room together. A month, a little more than a month.

  'Mr Proctorr,' the receptionist called, 'Mr Katz says to please give him ten minutes.'

  'Okay, fine, fine,' Bryce said, and to Wayne, 'Come on, sit over here.'

  They sat catty-corner on the sofas, and Wayne said, 'Good, I wanted to talk to you about something else today anyway, this gives us time to do it.'

  Why did Bryce look so worried? Though all he said was, 'Sure. What?'

  'Well, money,' Wayne said.

  Relief from Bryce; what had he expected? 'Oh, sure,' he said. 'It'll be coming to my accountant as soon as Joe puts through the okay, and that'll be after I do the changes based on the meeting today.'

  'So in a week or two.'

  'At the longest,' Bryce said. 'You know, it isn't even a check any more, it's an electronic transfer straight to my accountant. Then he pays my agent's commission, pays my bills, puts money in my checking account every month, and takes care of everything else. He can transfer your part to your accountant or however you want to do it.' With a shaky grin, he said, 'It's going to be a little too much to just deposit in your checking account.'

  'Oh, I know that,' Wayne assured him. 'What I was thinking, Bryce, I'm not all that tied to my accountant, I've changed accountants three times the last eight or nine years, I'm never a big enough deal for them. If you wouldn't mind, why don't I switch over to your guy? You could introduce me, and then they just keep the whole thing in the one firm. Fewer people to know about it.'

  'That would be perfect,' Bryce said. 'My guy there is Mark Steiner, I'll give him a call this afternoon, explain the situation, tell him you'll call.' He pulled out a pen, ripped off part of a page of The Economist, and wrote 'Mark Steiner' and the phone number on it. 'Wait till tomorrow,' he advised, 'so I'll be sure to have talked to him.'

  'Thanks, Bryce,' Wayne said, and pocketed the scrap of paper.

  Bryce gave him piercing sidelong glances, faintly disturbing. 'Well?' he said. 'What did you think of it?'

  'Oh, the book?' Wayne felt awkward all at once. How do you react to the man who ate your book and regurgitated it as his own? 'I liked a lot of the stuff you did,' he said. 'The new opening is absolutely right.'

  'Oh, thanks,' Bryce said. 'I really think the Henry-Eleanor thing is the only time I thoroughly messed it up.'

  'Absolutely,' Wayne assured him. 'It's fine.'

  'Mr Proctorr, could you go in now?'

  'I sure could,' Bryce said, and jumped to his feet, then waited for Wayne.

  They went down what would have been a wide corridor, except that secretaries' desks stood out perpendicular from the left wall, next to office entrances, and crammed book-cases covered the right wall; there was not quite room left for two people to walk abreast. Wayne followed Bryce to the end, where a half-open door showed part of a window showing sky.

  This end room was Joe Katz's office, he being the senior editor. It was a large corner space, with big windows facing north and east; buildings and a bit of Madison Square Park to the east, building roofs and a bit of sky to the north. In addition to a massive dark-wood desk and four large soft armchairs — no sofas — the room was as cluttered as an attic. An Exercycle, a pinball machine, a doctor's office balance scale, an English-pattern dartboard, a spinet, a TV plus VCR, all elbowed one another for space along the walls.

  Joe Katz came smiling around the desk to greet them. A short man, he was slender except for a surprising potbelly, as though he'd swallowed a lightbulb. Above a hawknosed face he'd mostly borrowed from Leon Trotsky was a tangle of black-and-white Brillo hair. His glasses were rectangular, black-framed, and halfway down his nose, so that usually he looked over them rather than through them. His hand was already out in greeting.

  'Joe Katz,' Bryce said, 'may I introduce the skeleton in my closet, Wayne Prentice.'

  'I knew you had one,' Katz said, grinning, grasping Wayne's hand. His handshake was strong, affirmative. 'Everybody does.' Peering over his glasses at Wayne, he said, 'Don't tell me yours.'

  'I won't,' Wayne promised.

  Katz released his hand and patted Bryce on the shoulder, having to reach up to do so, and the gesture reminded Wayne of somebody patting a favorite horse. 'Come on and sit down,' Katz said. 'What have you and your alter ego figured out? No, first — Sit, sit.'

  They all sat in the armchairs, turning them to make a group, Katz ignoring his desk. Leaning forward, hands clasped together, elbows on knees, small feet just touching the gray carpet, he said to Wayne, 'I don't think I ever read anything of yours, remiss of me.'

  'You're not alone,' Wayne assured him.

  'Well, I looked you up, found The Bracket Polarity.'

  The fourth of Wayne's novels under his own name, and the beginning of the downhill slide. The first downhill slide. 'Oh?'

  'Well, it was terrific,' Katz said.

  Wayne was delighted. 'You think so?'

  'I had no idea Louie was a mole! Usually I see those things coming. I mean, my God, I'm an editor, I'm supposed to see those things coming, but I absolutely did not! And it was fair, too, you didn't cheat. How'd the book do?'

  'Moderate,' Wayne said. What else was there to say?

  Katz shook his head, disliking that. 'Shitty marketing, it must have been,' he said. 'Don't blame yourself.'

  'I don't,' Wayne told him.

  Katz sat back and his feet came off the floor. 'Now,' he said, 'turning to today's disaster. Bryce tells me you never did want Harry to leave that diner.'

  'Not without Ja — Eleanor.'

  'And there are ways in which you are right,' Katz told him. 'If he'd never left, it wouldn't have bothered me. But now I see we can goose that part of the book, make it better, give it a little jolt from the thruster, if we can get Henry and Eleanor back together without bending ourselves out of shape.'

  Doubtfully, Bryce said, 'Maybe he could phone her the next day, apologize, grovel.'

  'Too late,' Wayne said. 'By the next day, she's cement, she's hardened, she won't even answer the phone.'

  Katz nodded. 'I'm afraid you're right about that,' he said, and scratched his chin. 'I used to have a beard,' he explained, 'and I shaved it off last year, and I still feel the damn thing. What was the point shaving it off?'

  Bryce said, 'Grow it back.'

  'Then I'd have to look at it, too,' Katz told him. 'It's bad enough to have to feel it.'

  'Anyway, you don't have to trim it,' Wayne said, feeling they'd wandered into some conversation from Alice in Wonderland.

  'That's it,' Katz told him. 'Always look on the positive side. For instance, what can we do about our suddenly impulsive Henry?'

  'I was thinking about that on the walk up,' Wayne started, because that was the other thing he'd been thinking about.

  Katz said, 'Walk? From where?'

  'West Village.'

  'Where?'

  'We're on Perry, between Bleecker and Fourth.'

  'My God,' Katz said, 'I'm around the corner from you on Fourth. I do my best thinking on that walk, back and forth, every day.' To Bryce he said, 'Two people live in the same neighborhood a hundred years, walk all over the place, never meet once. That's New York.' Back to Wayne, he said, 'So what did you think, on our walk?'

  'I think he gets as far as the car,' Wayne said. 'Bryce has it that he leaves the car for her to use and takes a taxi, and she stays in the diner and broods about the relationship, and then drives off. We can keep all of her thoughts, that's the good part, but I think he only got as far as the c
ar, and then got into the car on the passenger side.'

  'Oh, nice,' Katz said.

  'That's the apology right there,' Wayne said. 'She pays the check, she's mad, she steps outside, he's submissive. In the car on the passenger side, ready for her to take over.'

  Katz said, 'She gets into the car. Eleanor doesn't make flamboyant gestures like hailing a cab.'

  'No no,' Wayne agreed, 'she gets into the car.'

  'And what does he say?'

  'Nothing,' Wayne said.

  Bryce said, 'Wouldn't he apologize?'

  'He won't do anything at all until she gives him permission,' Wayne said.

  'That feels right,' Katz said. 'So what happens?'

  'She puts the key in the ignition,' Wayne said, 'but she doesn't start the engine. She looks at Henry, he's in profile, he just keeps looking out the windshield, waiting. She says, 'Feel better now?' He says, 'No.' She says, 'Good,' and starts the engine, and drives them home.'

  Bryce said, 'We don't have to go home with them.'

  'Bryce, you're right,' Katz said. 'They drive off, and then, when we meet them again, we know everything, we understand everything. Wayne, you're a very productive walker.'

  'Thank you,' Wayne said.

  'Now,' Katz said, bouncing forward to get his feet on the floor so he could stand, 'we still have a few more little pleats in the fabric. Bryce? Did you share these with Wayne?'

  'I didn't feel he needed to sweat them,' Bryce said. 'I figured, let him think about Henry and Eleanor.' He grinned at Wayne and said, 'I know you didn't like what I did there, but you made it come out just perfect.'

  'Thanks,' Wayne said. 'So we were both right, it needed the action, but it also needed to be undone.'

  Katz had gone over to his desk, and now he came back with a clipboard with several manuscript sheets on it. Bouncing into his chair again, feet off the floor, he said, 'Let's begin.'

  The next half hour contained little for Wayne to do. It was his novel they were discussing, and yet it wasn't, and he was expected to have either no input or at best the occasional kibitzer's remark. It was a strange position to be in, so after a while he got to his feet and spent his time instead studying the various artifacts with which Katz had filled his room.

  At one point, Katz called to him, 'Shoot a little darts, if you feel like it.'

  'I'm very bad at darts,' Wayne told him.

  Katz said, 'Take a look at the holes in the wall. You won't be the first duffer we've had. I'm not that great myself.'

  So Wayne pulled the darts out of the board, and had added a few more holes to the wall by the time Bryce and Katz were finished. Then they both rose, Katz bouncing out of his chair again, and Katz said, 'Twelve-twenty. How about lunch?'

  'I can't, Joe,' Bryce said. 'I'm supposed to meet Isabelle, we're moving more of her stuff over to my place.'

  'By God,' Katz said, 'it's nice to see things finally begin to turn around for you, Bryce. A good woman, a good friend' — with a gesture at Wayne — 'and at last a good book. How about you, Wayne? You on for lunch?'

  'Sure,' Wayne said.

  Although you couldn't see anything on Bryce's bland surface, Wayne knew he wasn't happy to leave these two alone together. Wayne was ecstatic.

  •

  Over lunch, Wayne found himself telling Joe Katz his secret. They were in Union Square Cafe, one of the trendy lunch places that had sprung up once the publishers moved into the neighborhood, and their conversation was interrupted from time to time when Katz had to return a hello from some other passing diner, but still, in this crowded noisy public place, Wayne found himself telling another person his secret for only the second time. Bryce had been the first.

  Katz had trouble getting it. 'Wait a minute, you're Tim Fleet?'

  'Yes.'

  'But I've read you, you're very good. But what's the big secret? It's a pen name.'

  'The publisher doesn't know,' Wayne said. 'My editor didn't know.'

  'Didn't know it was you.'

  'Didn't know it was a pen name.'

  Katz shook his head. 'I'm not following this,' he said. 'Pitch it to me like an outline.'

  'Writer has successful novels,' Wayne told him, 'sales begin to slide. The big chains' computers turn against him, cut orders, sales get worse, finally he can't get a decent advance, nobody wants him. He rigs up a phony identity that only his agent knows, claims to be living in Italy or wherever, submits the next book as a first novel by Tim Fleet. The computer doesn't know Tim Fleet, so it can't put the hex sign on him. But after a while it does know Tim Fleet. End of story.'

  'And you're telling me your publisher has no idea it's you.'

  'They've never met me,' Wayne said. 'For all I know, they've never heard of me.'

  'That's fantastic,' Katz said.

  'Joe,' Wayne said (they were on a first-name basis by now), 'it's happening all over town. It's like the blacklist, writers hiding behind fronts, except, instead of Commie hunters, it's the computer they've got to hide from. What was tragedy the first time comes back as farce.'

  'It can't be happening all over town,' Katz said. 'How many people could pull a thing like that?'

  'Joe, do you have any writers you've never met? They live in some remote place, you communicate by E-mail, everything comes strictly through the agent, you don't really have a useful address for them?'

  'Well, two or three,' Katz said, 'but, you know, not everybody can live in New York.'

  'More than you know can live in New York.'

  'You're creating terrible doubts in me,' Katz said. 'But why go through all that? Why lie to the publisher? Why not just do a pen name?'

  'Because of the sales staff,' Wayne told him, 'and publicity and advertising, all those people you need behind you. If they know Tim Fleet is Wayne Prentice, even though it's supposed to be a secret outside the publishing house, it has that stink of failure on it already. But if they think Tim Fleet is Tim Fleet, really think that, and he's brand-new, and he's never failed because he's never been tested before, they can be excited. They can do wonders, when they're excited.'

  Katz nodded. 'You're right about that,' he said. 'I'll tell you truthfully, Wayne, if I have a reconstituted virgin somewhere on my list, I'd rather not know about it. I'm sorry you told me as much as you did.'

  'It's probably not as prevalent as I think,' Wayne reassured him. 'I'm aware of it, you know, because I did it.'

  'And what of Tim Fleet now?'

  'Dead,' Wayne said.

  Katz was startled. 'Really? But he's very — you, I mean — you, he, whoever you are, you're very good.'

  'Sales aren't.'

  'You have a new book?'

  Wayne almost said, I did have, but you have it now. Instead, he said, 'Part of one. But my publisher doesn't want it.'

  'Let me not promise you anything, Wayne,' Katz said, 'but this afternoon, when I get back to the office, let me crunch some numbers, talk to some people in sales, see if there's anything we can do.'

  'That'd be great.'

  'No promises,' Katz said. 'You know, I can't argue with the computer, either.'

  'Why did we give up autonomy, do you suppose?' Wayne asked.

  'I hate to say it,' Katz told him, 'but it's too late to ask that question.'

  •

  When he walked home, Wayne felt as though he were floating above the sidewalk. What a great guy Joe Katz was! And how many good things he'd said about Wayne's own work! If there was any way at all to get around the computer, Wayne knew, Joe Katz would be his next editor. He could hardly wait for Susan to come home, tell her about his fantastic day.

  The answering machine light was blinking. He pressed the button, and heard, 'This is homicide Detective Arthur Johnson, trying to reach Wayne Prentice.' He left a phone number, and said he would try again.

  15

  Isabelle had changed her mind. When Bryce got to her place, a one-bedroom, elevator building, third floor, no view, furnished minimally and decorated with travel posters, she was s
eated on the sofa, drinking coffee, and had done no packing. 'We have to talk, Bryce,' she said.

  He said, 'Don't you have to get back to work?'

  'Eventually. But first we have to talk.'

  He looked around the room. 'You haven't packed anything.'

  'It isn't working out,' she said.

  'What isn't working out?'

  'You and me. When I thought about actually moving over there, out of here, I realized it. It isn't working.'

  He sat beside her on the sofa. She looked at her coffee rather than at him, and he tried to think of what he should say.

  It was true, they'd been growing farther apart, but he had no idea why. She seemed to be holding herself aloof from him, in a way that hadn't used to be true. He said, 'Is it because I talked about moving to Spain?'

  She smiled, sadly, and shook her head, still not looking at him. 'It's nothing at all,' she said. 'It's you and me, it's everything.' Now she did look at him, and he saw that she was sad but also remote. She said, 'It stopped being good when Lucie died. I know it should have worked the other way, but it didn't. The … whatever it was we had, it seemed to need Lucie to keep it going.'

  He knew at once that she was right, though he hadn't realized it before, had very successfully managed not to notice, and couldn't begin to understand why it should be true. He said, 'Isabella, we can't let Lucie come between us now.'

  'But she is between us. You dream about her, lying in bed with me.'

  'I do? No, I don't.'

  'In your sleep,' she told him, 'you moan and you make muttering sounds, never words, and you thrash around as though you were hitting somebody.'

  'Me?' He hadn't been aware of that. He'd known he was feeling more tired lately, less alert when he woke in the mornings, but he didn't remember bad dreams. He'd known they were there, really, the dreams, but he never remembered them. He said, 'Why do you say it's about Lucie? If I don't say words.'

  'Who else would you be beating?'

  'Beating?' He sat back, as far from her on the sofa as he could get. 'Isabella,' he said, 'you know where I was when Lucie died.'