Chapter 6

June 1987

LINDY

Old acquaintances vanished, dispatched to eternity by the stroke of the DELETE key, taking their pieces of the story with them. New people were born full-grown and imperfect. Slowly, painfully, the characters who survived shifted into new attitudes, their speech patterns changed along with the words they spoke, their motives dissolved and reformed in glowing green letters on the monitor screen.

Lindy Grant leaned back in the chair and looked at her work. "Shit," she said. "Sonofabitch."

She glowered at the screen for a moment longer, then punched the keys that would erase the scene she had spent the last two hours rewriting.

"How come you get to talk that way and I don't?" Nicole said.

Lindy swiveled in her chair to see her daughter standing in the doorway of the small storage room that served as her office.

"You didn't hear that," she said.

"Script not going so good?"

"The script is going lousy, and I'd have a few more choice words for it if you weren't around."

"Lighten up, Mom. Parents don't have to talk like Ward and June Cleaver anymore."

"I know that," Lindy said testily. "But somebody's got to maintain some kind of moral standards around here."

Nicole shrugged. An irritating habit she had picked up recently. "Okay. So who's the sonofabitch?"

"His name is Lou Davidoff. He knows as much about story values as Daffy Duck. Less. If I make my people do what he wants them to this script is going to make less sense than one of your Beastie Boys records."

"So why do it, then?"

"Because we want to eat. To eat well, we need a successful movie. For a movie to be successful it has to get into the theaters. Mr. Davidoff represents the people who can put it into a lot of theaters."

"But if it's a bad script nobody will go see it."

"You are beginning to perceive one of the basic principles of Hollywood."

"God, you live a glamorous life."

"So what are you doing home? Did they close the mall?"

"Nobody's around. Becky's spending a week with her father, Kim has to go to summer school, Tracey's got the flu or something. There's no sun for the beach, and I haven't got a thing to do."

"Want to try reading a book?"

"Get serious, Mom."

"You would think that the daughter of someone who depends on the written word to make a living would now and then take the time to crack a..."

She broke off, listening. From the street out in front of the house came the faint scrape of metal on metal. "You can go down and get the mail."

"It's not here yet. I looked when I came in."

"Trust me, it's here."

The girl cocked her head and squinted at her mother. "God, how do you do that?"

"A writer's ears are delicately attuned to the sounds of the mailman. His coming is the high point of the day - arrival of residuals and rejections. An acceptable excuse to take a break. Go see what he brought."

Nicole sighed and shrugged again and walked back out of the office.

Lindy's expression grew serious as she watched her daughter go. Since the troubling incident of the strange voice and the utterly foreign expression the other day, Nicole had been her normal self. Still, Lindy watched the girl closely. You could never be sure what the kids were into these days.

She turned back to her work, paging back through the marked-up script Lou Davidoff had messengered over. She held the bound copy gingerly away from her body as though something slimy might fall out.

"Eleanor needs to be stronger," he had written.

Jesus, everybody wanted women characters strong these days. Sigourney Weaver had birthed a race of Amazons. There was nothing wrong with Eleanor as written. She was smart, resourceful, reasonably courageous, and still feminine. But she was in fear of her life, dammit. Davidoff wanted some combination of Rambo and Miss Piggy. If that's what he thought would bring women into the theaters, he was wrong-o.

She punched the scene up on the monitor again and poised her fingers over the keyboard. Gratefully, she put everything on hold when she heard Nicole come back in the front door.

"Nothing from your agent," Nicole said, shuffling the envelopes as she came back in.

"Oh, thanks, mess up the one bright spot of my day. You could have let me go through the pile slowly, keeping the possibility of good news alive a little longer."

"God, you are in a mood." Nicole handed over the envelopes. "Maybe I'll go see if Tracey's feeling any better."

"Good idea. You can cheer her up now that you've taken care of me."

With a last shrug Nicole sauntered out. Lindy smiled fondly after her. Considering the fact that Nicole's father had bailed out suddenly without bothering to marry her mother, the kid had turned out pretty well. She was glad now that she had not yielded to the urging of her friends to give the baby up for adoption.

"Somebody else could give her a good life," had run the arguments, "and she'll only drag you down." Well, Lindy did not feel dragged down, and she was confident that Nicole had a pretty good life too.

She stood up to stretch her legs and carried the mail out to the living room, sorting it as she walked.

There was a credit card bill from Chevron, another from Bank of America for her MasterCard.

Cable TV bill. She reminded herself to cancel either HBO or Showtime. She would save twenty dollars a month, and they had the same movies anyway.

Announcement of a furniture sale at Levitz - for "preferred customers." She had bought a coffee table there a year ago, which apparently qualified her.

The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety. Even before you picked up the telephone in Hollywood, you read the trades.

Calendar of events from the Writers Guild. Who had the time to attend those seminars, anyway?

This week's catalog from Publishers Central Bureau. That would cost her another twenty dollars or so. Lindy could never resist bargain books.

A handwritten letter. No return address. Postmark: Wolf River, WI.

Wolf River?

Lindy sat down suddenly on the sofa. She had not thought about Wolf River for a long time. Not consciously. Sometimes images from her childhood would sift through her dreams like oily smoke. Those were the nights when she woke up staring into the darkness, willing her heartbeat back to normal while she persuaded herself nothing was there.

She held the envelope from Wolf River by the edges, turning it over slowly. The paper was soft and smooth, like dead skin. The light in the room seemed to dim, though outside it was mid-afternoon and the sun was beginning to break through the cloud cover.

Since Ida Krantz had suffered her stroke there was no one in Wolf River Lindy had kept in touch with. Her father, as far as she knew, was still in Madison with his new wife. Friends from high school were scattered, forgotten, or dead.

Why me? she thought. Why now?

Why not open the letter and find out? asked the sardonic inner voice that sometimes called Lindy to attention.

"Yeah, why not," she said aloud, but without conviction.

She carried the mail back to her office, laid it out on the desk, and drew the Wolf River letter to her. She slit the envelope neatly with a silver letter opener and slid out the single sheet that was inside.

The message, like the name and address on the envelope, was written in careful script with a black felt-tip pen.

Dear Lindy,
Remember the Wolfpack? How could you forget! On Saturday, July 11, the Fabulous Class of '67 will hold its 20th reunion at the Wolf River Inn. Be There or Be Square.

Carefully, as though it might slither away, Lindy laid the sheet of paper down on her desk beside the computer keyboard. She stared down at it, rereading the short, unsigned message.

What the hell was this, some macabre practical joke?

No. No joke. Could it be serious? Well, why not? Twenty years was traditional class reunion time. Buy why her class? And for God's sake, why her?

Lindy picked up the page with thumb and forefinger and dropped it into the trash basket beside her desk. The anonymous sender of the invitations had no way of knowing, but the Pope would marry Whoopi Goldberg before Lindy Grant would return to Wolf River, Wisconsin, for a high school reunion. Or any other reason.

She returned to the rewrite of her script, but could not get her mind back into the story. The cozy little room she used as an office felt cold. Shadows of Wolf River kept getting between Lindy and the glowing green letters on the screen.

ROMAN

Holy shit, what a headache.

Roman Dixon rolled over and shoved his face into the pillow, trying to smother the pain that lanced like a redhot poker straight through his skull from temple to temple.

No good. It still hurt.

He rolled over on his back, and his stomach spasmed. Maybe if he could puke.

Roman lurched to his feet and shuffled across the bedroom and into the bathroom. He knelt in front of the beige toilet and retched. It seemed the lining of his stomach would rip loose and splatter out of his mouth, but all that came up was a dollop of bitter yellow bile.

Roman flushed the toilet and staggered to his feet. He was definitely going to have to cut down on his drinking. Maybe go dry for a couple of months.

This time he meant it.

Really.

He made his way back to the king-size bed and fell across it, squeezing his eyes shut and praying for just one more hour of sleep that would ease his torment.

"Aren't you going in to the store today?"

Stephanie's voice sliced through his pain like a chain saw. He groaned.

"Shall I call and tell them you're not coming?"

"I don't have to call anybody. I'm the boss."

"It would be nice to let them know."

"They know it by now," he mumbled into the pillow.

Silence for several seconds, but he could feel her still standing there in the bedroom doorway, looking at him with those sad, sagging eyes of hers.

With agonizing effort he rolled over on his side to face his wife.

"Do you want some coffee?" she said.

"Jesus, no."

"An aspirin?"

"Not in this stomach."

She stood uncertainly for a moment. "The mail's here."

"So take care of it. You've got a checkbook."

"There's a personal letter addressed to you."

Something in his wife's tone pierced the pain and the nausea and made him shiver. "Who's it from?"

"There's no return address. Do you want me to bring it in here?"

"Never mind. I'll come out."

Stephanie looked at him for a beat longer, then turned and left the doorway. To Roman's aching eyes, her image seemed to remain standing there, slowly fading.

Never a beautiful woman, Stephanie Dixon had not aged well. At forty-three she was five years older than Roman but looked fifteen. Her body was flaccid, and her face sagged. Roman had encouraged her to exercise, and even suggested cosmetic surgery, but Stephanie resisted. She thought people looked the way they were supposed to, and tampering with it would be wrong.

He swung his feet out of bed and stood up, sweating and nude, on the thick bedroom carpet. He closed his eyes to let the wave of vertigo subside, then walked back into the bathroom. He stepped into the shower stall and turned the pointer to COLD, adjusting the head to needle spray.

The icy water raised goose bumps on his flesh and shriveled his pores, but after enduring five minutes of it he began to feel a little better. He turned on the hot water, soaped his body, rinsed, dried with a rough towel, and wiped a clear spot in the steamy mirror to look at himself.

Even with the slight pouchiness around the eyes, he was still a damn good-looking guy. Thick hair, good eyes, strong jaw. He tried a smile, but it didn't quite work.

Who would be writing him a letter? His first thought was that someone had seen him at the motel with Kathy Isles or one of the others. But what if they had? Stephanie knew about his fooling around. She didn't exactly like it, but as long as he kept it reasonably discreet, and played the part of husband and father when necessary, she tolerated it. Her father might not be so forgiving, but what could the old man do? The stores were in Roman's name now, part of his reward for marrying the plain daughter of the sporting goods magnate and taking her two kids.

His stomach tightened again at the thought of the boys. Brian and Eric. A couple of good manly-sounding names, but one was a sullen punk rocker type and the other a redheaded geek with thick glasses. Roman hated it when they had to go out together and people would assume they were his natural sons.

He pulled on a shirt and a pair of jeans and went out to the hall table where the mail lay. He picked up the hand-addressed envelope and scowled at the Wolf River postmark. It was not the old man's shaky handwriting, and nobody else back there would be writing to him. Nobody.

Stephanie was idling around in the living room where she could watch him open the letter without seeming to watch. Roman took it back to the bedroom.

He sat on the bed and tore open the envelope.

Dear Roman,
Remember the Wolfpack? How could you forget! On Saturday, July 11, the Fabulous Class of '67 will hold its 20th reunion at the Wolf River Inn. Be There or Be Square.

He read and reread the short message. Reunion? Why in the name of God would he want to go back to that miserable town for a reunion? Any good memories of his days as a high school hero had died in that terrible senior year.

A couple of duty trips back to Wolf River to check on his old man was as much of the town as he could stand. After an hour or so of "How've you been?" they had nothing to say to each other. Roman would pass the old man some money and make some excuse to get the hell out of town.

Now they wanted him to go back for a high school reunion? Not fucking likely.

"Anything important?"

Stephanie was in the doorway again, watching him. Always watching, reproaching him with those sad, droopy eyes.

"No," he said. "I think I'll go into the store after all." He crumpled the letter, jammed it into a pocket of his jeans, and went to the closet for his waterproof windbreaker. He left the house without saying good-bye. The rain was cold on his bare head. Colder than usual.

ALEC

It was past eight o'clock when Alec McDowell walked up 55th Street past Eighth Avenue to his apartment building. The hooker on the corner of Eighth who used the pay phone there as an office leaned out as he passed.

"Hi, honey. You're getting home late. Need a massage?"

"Not tonight, Georgia, I'm too tired."

"I could wake you up."

"I'll bet you could, but I've got to work."

"Hell, ain't it," she said, and eased back inside her booth.

Not to Alec, it wasn't. Work was the one really meaningful thing in his life. He had no hobbies, no relatives closer than cousins, no friends to speak of, no sex life other than an occasional quick coupling with Georgia or someone like her.

The work he did might not rank in importance with curing cancer or clearing the slums, but it was all he had, and it kept him from crumbling into dust.

His mind tonight was filled with his current project - electing Bo Walton, an unqualified clod, to a position filled currently by Anton Scolari, a well-qualified crook. Alec had spent the afternoon and early evening talking to his client.

The talking was done at Walton's midtown club. Since the unsettling experience with the cleaning woman, Alec had avoided his own office at night. He came away from the meeting convinced that his client had the IQ of a radish. Luckily, elections were seldom decided on the basis of the candidates' intelligence. Alec had got hold of something much more useful - a juicy little scandal concerning Scolari. The public will forgive a certain amount of thievery in public office, but woe to the candidate who deviates from the sexual norm.

At the entrance to his building he glanced around automatically to make sure no one was following him, then he let himself into the foyer. There he keyed open the mailbox and gathered up the contents. Without bothering to look at the mail he headed for the elevator.

His studio apartment on the fourth floor was tidy, as he had left it. Alec always tensed as he opened the door, wondering if a burglar had rampaged through his rooms, stealing whatever he could carry and destroying the rest. Or worse, the burglar might still be there.

Nothing frightened Alec more than physical confrontation. He could hold his own in a battle of insults. Words were his business, talking was his forte. But the threat of violence to his person jellied his knees. He had engaged in just one fight in his life. As a high school sophomore he had made the mistake of teasing a classmate about his flagrant acne. The classmate punched Alec just once in the nose, and the fight was over. Soon after that Alec made it his business to become Roman Dixon's friend - a situation that made it unnecessary for him to fight again.

Since there was, on this occasion, no burglar or other threatening presence, Alec snapped on a light and eased his narrow buttocks into a chair. He sorted systematically through the mail, placing the bills in one neat pile, magazines in another, newsletters next to magazines, junk mail in the basket, letters... a letter?

Wolf River? What the hell? Nobody in that town would write to him, even if they remembered him, which was doubtful. His parents were dead and buried. Had been for a good many years. There was no one else.

Carefully he slit the envelope and read the message inside.

Dear Alec,
Remember the Wolfpack? How could you forget! On Saturday, July 11, the Fabulous Class of '67 will hold its 20th reunion at the Wolf River Inn. Be There or Be Square.

A sick joke? Who wanted to be reminded of that horrible year? Who would renew those disastrous friendships? Not he. Not Alec McDowell. More reason than most to stay away had Alec McDowell.

He tore the letter and its envelope into neat strips and let them flutter into the wastebasket. He brewed a pot of strong coffee and tried to concentrate on a campaign for his dull-witted client, but a dark part of his mind kept drifting back to Wolf River.

THE FLOATER

Mischief, thou art afoot.

The effort expended in preparing the letters of invitation was well repaid in the reactions of the three recipients. Let them squirm a little and wonder. Let them start to worry even as they destroyed the letters. Let them enjoy the last few days before the start of the pain.

If the Floater had had a voice, he would have laughed.