Jack Ketchum

Sheep Meadow Story

"Let's go have hamburgers on a beach, surrounded by mermaids flapping their wings."

-John Hinkley to Jodie Foster

THURSDAY

"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones."

-Proverbs 4:4

Stroup took the cell phone off his belt. He hated the goddamn things but sometimes they came in handy. He dialed. She answered.

"Lesvos Taverna. May I help you?"

"I'm gonna get you, Carla."

"What?"

"I'm gonna get you."

"Who is this?"

"I'm gonna get you NOW!"

He hung up. He swung the pump shotgun out from under his raincoat and stepped across Columbus Avenue. Traffic swerved and skidded. Not even the cabbies cursed him. Not with the shotgun.

He stepped through the open glass door and looked around. The hostess screamed so he shot her in the face. The bartender screamed so he shot her in the tits. Some Indian or Pakistani busboy didn't scream, just stood there holding a full tray of empties. Stroup shot him anyway.

Patrons dived for cover beneath their tables. He'd disturbed their lunch. Waiters and cooks and kitchen staff hit the floor. Women screamed. Men shouted. He figured she'd be hiding in the office. Like some STAFF ONLY sign was going stop him. He checked the toilets anyway, pushed open the stalls. Nobody on the shitters.

He walked through the empty back room to the door and tried the doorknob but it was locked. Like some locked door was going to stop him. He blasted the shit out of it and pushed it open. Carla was cowering behind the desk. She looked nice there. He almost felt like fucking her.

"Stroup! Oh jesus, Stroup, it's YOU! Why are you DOING this?"

"It's not me, baby. People don't kill people. Guns do."

"Are you CRAZY?"

She was close to hysterical. It was something new at least. "You've fucked with me for the last time, Carla."

"PLEASE, Stroup!"

"You called me an incompetent nobody, Carla."

"I didn't mean it, Stroup. PLEASE!"

"You own this dyke souvlaki joint now, right? You're such a hot shit? Well, own this."

He pumped the shotgun. She tried to rise so he shot her in the legs. They were good legs. Once. She went down screaming even louder and in a different way than he was used to and even though he more or less liked the sound of it he put the barrel into her open mouth and fired again.

She painted the walls and floor and furniture.

Stroup turned and walked away.

Some guy at the bar was sipping a martini.

"You're Stroup?" he said.

"What's it to you?"

"My name is Maxwell Perkins."

The guy was old and dressed in a nice clean suit.

"I'm a big fan, Mr. Stroup. I've read everything you've ever written, in fact. I think you're a genius. And I'd like to offer you a three-book deal. Would a million per-book advance be acceptable?"

"Make it two million and you got a deal."

Stroup ejected a shell. Maxwell Perkins smiled and extended his hand.

"Done," he said.

Stroup woke up smiling.

***

It didn't last.

He looked at the clock. The clock was set for 9:00 but it was only 8:45. Good fucking dream but it had him up fifteen minutes early.

In the bathroom he splashed water on his face and lit a cigarette and exhaled and went to nuke the coffee. The coffee was three days old and tasted like a rat had recently died in it. It was hot though.

He sat on the edge of the bed drinking his coffee and considered a shower and shave or at least brushing his teeth and a change of shorts and then considered what he had on his plate today and growled and decided all of that could wait. He had work to do. Yesterday he'd rejected two short stories, a coffee-table photo book-naked pictures of some guy's geriatric wife-a self-published Mormon genealogy and Lillie Mae Hipps' poetry collection A BOWL FULL OF LOVE. It was all handwritten and the title poem had a funny misspelling-a bowel full of love-but that wasn't why he rejected the thing. He rejected it because it was shit.

They were all shit.

Fifteen years now he'd been working as a reader for the Cosmodemonic Literary Agency and not once had he come across anything that wasn't shit. Maybe the other readers got the good stuff. He didn't know. Out of the hundred-fifty-dollar, two-hundred-dollar, or three-hundred-dollar fee the Agency charged he got to keep ten percent. For that he had to write a two-to-four page letter explaining why they wouldn't be taking on THE HAUNTED DENTAL CLINIC or the autobiography of some illiterate junkie or CARLOS, THE FARTING CAT for literary representation.

He had to encourage them to try again and write some more miserable swill and send more money.

At least with computers and the net these days he could e-mail copy for the boss' approval or disapproval and got to work at home.

He could roll out of bed and knock it out. He'd started in a room with a dozen kids fresh out of college all pounding on their IBMs and the sound in there was like eight hundred tap dancers all working on different routines at once. You could smell the fear-sweat to produce and do it fast like rotten eggs.

He'd been the oldest guy working there. He guessed he probably still was.

The phone rang. His answering machine picked it up.

"It's your quarter," his voice said. "Leave a fucking message."

Whoever was calling didn't. Either he'd scared them off again or it was some goddamn solicitation. At nine in the morning. The machine was on twenty-four hours a day. He hated solicitations.

He took the coffee over to his desk. Saw the inevitable pile of manuscripts. He picked them up once a week. On top was something called APPLE KNOCKERS' DELIGHT. The cover-letter said it was a novel. The hero was a guy named Jimmy Ballocks who was a hundred-ten years old and was fucking a twenty-year-old schoolteacher. He credited his staying-power to organic gardening. To apples in particular.

Two-hundred-fifty pages.

Jesus.

***

By four-fifteen he was ready to wrap it.

He'd taken a break to shave, shower and shit and another for his midday beer. He wasn't the drinker he used to be but that beer was always good.

The phone had rung four more times, all hang-ups. Maybe he should include some heavy weapons-fire on the message.

The final manuscript of the day was another book of poems by Martin Wellman. Old Marty had already been to Stroup's well five times before but kept plugging away at getting himself some representation. Stroup's personal favorite had been the poem TOILET from the last batch. He'd kept a copy.

It's always there when I'm in need

You'll find that the Toilet is a true friend indeed

It never complains or nags about what you put in it

It just sits there to accept and spin it

Too much to drink and your stomach will reverberate

But you got the Toilet there to eat what you ate

Don't mention bladder problems

Sometimes the outside of the Toilet will get drowned

So you took some Castor Oil and you've got to defecate

It splatters against the walls of the Toilet and still The Toilet don't make a complaint

And now you've got to pee

The Toilet says, "squirt it in me"

Yeah, you bathe in there too every now and then

Can you name the times it's been your friend?

Yes, it's always there when we're in need

The Toilet is a true friend indeed.

Talking toilets. He'd encouraged Wellman on that one. Only complained about the obvious meter difficulties and mentioned that problems didn't rhyme with drowned. What the hell. If ravens could talk why not a crapper? Maybe the guy had read his Edgar Allan Poe.

While he was dressing he turned on CNN. The Republicans were behind in the polls. In Georgia a guy and his wife were arrested for dragging the family dog half to death behind the rear bumper of their car. The dog wouldn't come when they called him. In Florida another kid had walked into another high school with another Glock and shot up the halls. A teacher and a sixteen-year-old girl were dead. Six others wounded. No wonder he'd had that dream last night. It was in the fucking air.

He finished tying his shoes and got up thinking he ought to change the sheets next week and walked out of the apartment and four floors down to the street.

He was meeting Marie at her place at six. Same as every Thursday. An hour and a half to drink.

Some asshole drug-money gold-chained darkie had the windows of his brand-new BMW open as he crossed Broadway on the northbound side and the speakers were blasting rap. Thunkthunkthunkthunk. Unintelligible street-nigger lyrics. He thought he heard his name mentioned but that couldn't be. Martin King died for this. Made a man wish for a hand grenade. Just pull the pin and toss it into the passenger seat. Exit thunk, exit asshole darkie. He counted seven respectable white citizens on their cell phones on the single block between 68th and 69th. One of them a chunky young female jogger, her tits bound tight by a running bra, her tits mashed down into her chest. He wondered how she heard who she was talking to with that fucking walkman on her head.

Between Broadway and Columbus he counted seven strollers, two of them double-wide. He had to walk right into the street to get around the three black nannies walking side by side. What he really wanted to do was plough through them like a bowling ball through the four, eight, and seven pins. Little white baby-bodies flying. The mothers all looked like they used tanning salons and Starbucks decaffeinated coffee. They summered in the Hamptons and not one of them had lost her figure in the slightest during childbirth. Immaculate conceptions maybe.

He stepped into the End of the World Cafe and sat down at the bar at the corner where he could watch the window if he wanted. Liana knew what to pour him. He lit a cigarette and sipped his Dewars rocks and stared at the rows of bottles. The bottles at least were friendly.

The bar was dead. Just one old rumdumb down at the end with his eyes on Liana. Stroup couldn't blame him. Liana was from Jamaica and taller than god and had smooth cream-and-coffee skin. But the bar was going to hell in a handbasket despite her. At this rate it'd be lucky to last the summer. Their Happy Hour consisted of half-price beer and well-drinks and Stroup drank Dewars. Their Happy Hour meant nothing to him.

He reflected that Carla's place was only a block north. Taverna Lesvos was doing fine.

Carla had gone dyke on him in '86.

He never went there.

He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. With what these babies cost he was going to have to cut down.

Sure.

The door opened and two women walked in. Girlfriends. Laughing. The thin one in the short skirt had good legs and no bra.

Not bad. Her girlfriend was the usual. Overweight, with everything on her a size too small except maybe the shoes. They always travelled that way. Fat and skinny had a race, and no race at all.

They sat down at the bar in front of the window so that he had to look at them if he wanted to look out the window and ordered frozen Margueritas. A couple of minutes later the blender was roaring, giving him a headache and Stroup was growling deep into his chest. Had to stop that so he did. Liana brought him another Dewars. That was better.

He inhaled and blew out smoke.

"Excuse me?" said the one with the legs.

"What can I do for you?" Stroup said.

"Do you think you could put that out, maybe? Or at least blow your smoke in another direction? I'm sorry. I'm allergic."

They were all allergic these days. All Manhattan had developed sudden desperate allergies.

Liana brought them their drinks. They smiled. At least the blender was finished.

"I'm looking out the window," he said.

"I'm sorry?"

"The smoke is blowing toward you because I'm looking out the window. You're sitting in front of the window and I'm looking out of it. You see? See that one with the tits there? I'm looking at her. That's why the smoke is going in your direction."

"Tits?"

"Tits, yes. She's gone now. You just missed her. Too bad."

She looked like she just found a turd in her marguerita. She turned and whispered something angry to her friend. Her friend was scowling, nodding. The roll of fat on her neck ebbed and flowed. Stroup sighed.

"Listen, ladies. This is a bar. People still smoke at bars in this City. It's a fact of life. Now, you've got this whole fucking empty bar here and you're sitting right in front of me. See all that space down there? Or else you got the tables. Why not try a table? It's cozy. There's no smoke. There's probably nobody around uses the word "tits" in mixed company. Though yours are nice by the way. I notice you're not wearing a bra. Good thinking."

"Stroup," said Liana.

"Aw, hell, Liana. You want me to leave, I'll leave."

"I didn't say you should leave. Just be nice."

"I am being nice. I told her she has good tits. She does."

"Stroup."

"All right."

He finished his cigarette and did not immediately light a third one. Then he did. He blew some smoke. The woman with the legs sighed and shook her head and the two of them took their drinks to a table far away.

Ralph walked in and took their place. He ordered a beer. Now he had to look at Ralph to look out the window. The women were better. Ralph was always going on about some rotten movie he'd just seen or his rotten new haircut which was rotten because he'd paid some kid in barber school five bucks for it or else he was telling bad jokes. He looked a little like George Burns and maybe that was why. The difference was Burns was funny. Ralph was about as funny as stillborn puppies. He was sixty-five and called himself a senior citizen. Stroup was only twelve years younger and would call himself a senior citizen when the Reform Party took the White House or Liana decided to fuck him, whichever came first.

"You hear the one about the doctor, asks this old lady patient of his how long she's been bedridden? 'Not for about twenty years,' she says, 'not since my husband was alive."

"No, Ralph. I hadn't."

"You hear the one about the doctor puts his stethoscope to some old lady's chest and says 'big breaths' and the lady says yes, they used to be?"

"You got something against old ladies today, Ralph? Or is it just me you hate?"

"You hear the one about the doctor asks his patient how he's doing with his medications? Guy says fine, except for the Patch. Doctor says what's the problem with the Patch? Guy says you told me to put a new one on every twelve hours and I'm running out of places to put them."

"Fuck you, Ralph. You're the goddamn village idiot."

Ralph laughed. Stroup finished his Dewars and ordered a third one and drank half of it.

"When are you going to fuck me, Liana?" he said.

"When hell freezes over, Stroup."

"Or the Reform Party takes the White House?"

"That's right."

"That's what I thought."

***

Two drinks and five more doctor-jokes later he was headed up Amsterdam toward Marie's. He made a stop at the Pathmark for smokes. The Indian woman with the gold tooth waited on him which was good because the Indian woman knew he smoked Winston red softpack and the others didn't know Winston red softpack from Virginia Slims green in a box. They were smokers themselves some of them but the cigarette rack seemed to baffle them. The Indian woman always smiled and handed him the change right. The others didn't. The others were stupid as goats. They handed you change of a twenty with the ten on top face-up and the singles on the bottom so you had to reverse the order to put them the hell in your wallet. He wondered where that started but almost everybody did it now. As he was walking out the door he thought he heard his name mentioned but that couldn't be.

Marie lived in a brownstone up on 78th Street. Only two floors up so even Stroup could make the stairs. Marie was a Personal Trainer and semi-professional bodybuilder and worked at a Fitness Center which used to be called a gym. Her pecs were better than Stroup's had ever been. She said that Stroup was the first man she'd gone out with who wasn't in shape. He said don't worry about it, he'd get in shape someday. Just not now.

She was a native Norwegian without an ounce of fat on her unless you counted the small smooth tits and her body was lithe as a snake. Not too massive like some of them. Some of them looked like they'd shoved footballs down the front of their thighs. He liked to watch her work out naked standing at the full-length mirror, the muscles making sudden unexpected appearances, the sweat running down those long sleek legs, the tiny vertical-shaved slit of pale blonde pubic hair glistening.

He rang the bell and waited.

He imagined her working out right now.

His hard-on browsed his pants leg looking for a way out. He rang again.

"Who is it?"

He talked into the speaker. "Rudy Giuliani. You're fucking under arrest. It's Stroup. Who else?"

She buzzed him in. He climbed the stairs.

He tried not to show her he was winded.

"I called you," she said. "I kept getting the machine."

"That was you? I thought it was some bastard trying to sell me something."

"I kept getting the machine."

He walked over and kissed her and she didn't smell like herring for a change. She had her countrymen's weakness for pickled herring which was sometimes an almost fatal weakness to Stroup's way of thinking. They'd be fucking and it would pour off her like a Stavanger sewer.

She was wearing grey sweatpants and a tight blue tank top. She looked great.

"Why didn't you leave a message?"

"I do not like to use the machine."

"You've used it before."

"Yes, but I do not like to."

"What're these?"

He pointed to the two dozen long stem roses on the coffee table.

"Roses."

"I know that."

"That's why I do not like to use the machine."

"Because of the roses?"

She sighed. Stroup let go of her.

"I do not want to tell you on the machine. It's not right. I am getting married, Stroup. I am sorry."

"You're kidding."

"No, it is truth. I'm sorry."

"To who?"

"Raymond. These are Raymond's flowers."

"Who's Raymond?"

"A client. A black man. You know I always like the black men. He is in very good shape. Very strong. He proposed to me today. I told him yes."

"Is he rich?"

"A little."

"How can you be a little rich?"

"Please, Stroup. Do not make this difficult. I am very fond of you, you know. But you know, we have never been, what would you say, exclusive."

He guessed that was true enough. He was seeing Brauna tomorrow night as usual.

Still he felt oddly lonely standing there. Maybe it was the abruptness of it all. You go out expecting dinner and a good hard fuck and what you get is walking papers. Or maybe he'd just miss her. The past three months they'd had a lot of laughs-she was a pretty funny woman for a bodybuilder. She thought he was funny. She told him he was great in bed. He knew she was.

She gave him a hug. A peck on the cheek.

"I am sorry, Stroup. It's been nice."

"It has. I'll miss you, Marie."

It was true. He would. He turned and walked away and down the stairs and out the door.

He wouldn't miss the herring.

***

The air conditioning at the Food Emporium was doing its impression of late December. He walked up the fresh meats aisle just to see if they had the plate of broiled Italian sausages out and they did. He impaled three on a toothpick and walked over to frozen foods. He got a Swanson Hungry Man dinner out of the freezer and dropped the toothpick on the floor.

The girl at the checkout counter looked at the Hungry Man dinner and looked at him. Then she scanned the box. You bought a single Hungry Man dinner, they knew you were alone. She handed him his change. Ten on top face-up, singles below, receipt on top of that, and on top of that, the coins. He tilted the bills so that the coins slid off into his hand and pocketed them and reversed the order of the bills and shoved them in his wallet. He threw the receipt on the counter.

He realized he was growling.

The Hungry Man dinner was dark-meat chicken, corn, whipped potatoes and apple-cranberry-crumb dessert. The closest thing you could get to KFC in this goddamn yuppie neighborhood. While it was cooking he poured himself a drink and then another. He checked his e-mail. Two distant relatives had sent mass e-mails of a religious nature. He deleted without opening. Ralph had sent more doctor-jokes. He deleted without opening. He had an e-mail from Brauna confirming tomorrow night.

That was something.

He ate watching CNN. The Democrats were behind in the polls. The kid with the Glock in Florida said he was only fighting back, that there was an organized plot at school to impregnate his twelve-year-old girlfriend with the child of Behemoth Yuggdoroth Nit. A Cornell research group had just published a paper finding that inept, basically useless people tended to be confident-even dead certain-that they were smart, witty, and always in the right. The truly talented, on the other hand, tended to underestimate themselves. Figured that they were really pretty ordinary, that if they could do it, anybody could. The scary thing, the report said, was that you could always talk to the talented and convince them they were better than they thought. But the inept were intractable.

When he got up to dump his chicken bones he thought he heard his name mentioned but that couldn't be.

He poured himself an after-dinner drink and decided to work on the story. He turned off CNN and fired up the Gateway. The story was about a nosebleed he'd had in Florida. The nosebleed had been intractable too. He'd needed surgery.

The story was a comedy.

A half hour into it the phone rang. "It's your quarter. Leave a fucking message," his voice said.

"Stroup?" said Carla. "Pick up, Stroup."

Jesus. No way.

"I know you're there, Stroup. Ann saw you walk into the building. Don't make me come over there, Stroup."

Ann was his upstairs neighbor. A mousy little friend of Carla's and a goddamn snoop who seemed to have no life whatsoever. He'd caught her once going through the landlady's garbage. Maybe it came as a result of being named after an indefinite article. He didn't know. He picked up the phone.

"What," he said.

"You know what," Carla said.

"No I don't. Hurry it up. I'm working."

"On what."

"A story."

"A story. You call that working?"

"Yes I do."

"Working is what a person does for a living. Has any story ever made you any money?"

"This one will."

"You know why I'm calling."

"The other money."

"What?"

"The other money. The money I owe you. Not the money I'm going to make on the story."

"Six months back rent, Stroup. Your half. That's two thousand, seven hundred and six dollars and ninety cents. You've owed me now for nine months, Stroup."

"I know."

"What do I look like, a credit card?"

"You should never have left home without it."

"Goddammit! I need that money. I need it now."

"Why now?"

"What?"

"Why not yesterday? Or last Thursday? Why now?"

"That's none of your business, Stroup."

"You want my money it is."

"It's my money. I carried you for six months, remember? So you could pay off your goddamn medical bills after that stupid nosebleed."

"What stupid nosebleed?"

"Don't be funny, Stroup."

He sighed. So did she. Here they were, sighing together. It must be love.

"Randi and I want to go on a vacation," she said, "if you must know. We need a vacation. The restaurant is driving us nuts."

"I hear great things about the calamari."

"To hell with the calamari. What about my money? You signed a note, Stroup."

He had. He was drunk. Drunks are stupid.

"You'll get it."

"When?"

"Soon. Tomorrow. Next week. The week after next."

"WHICH, goddammit!"

"TOMORROW OR THE WEEK AFTER NEXT. Whichever I say it's going to be, you get it? I put twenty long years into your ass so don't you piss on me for a couple thousand bucks and don't you yell at me again or I'll come over and fry you, you understand me? Now go tickle Randi's titties or whatever the hell it is you two do and don't call again. Goodnight. Goodbye. Fuck off, Carla."

He hung up the phone.

It didn't ring again. He half expected it to but it didn't. He wondered if she really needed him to pay her. The business was supposedly doing well but what did he know.

He went back to the story but couldn't get it down. He had another drink.

He had no chance at all of getting her the money.

He was barely breaking even here. He'd have to quit drinking. And smoking.

No chance at all.

Turner was running MARNIE. He thought Hitchcock was a crock. THE BIRDS was okay and REAR WINDOW and the first half of PSYCHO but he was also the guy who introduced QUE SERA, SERA into the canon. IFC was running NOSFERATU, THE VAMPIRE so he lay back on the bed and watched that, Isabelle Adjani doing all her silent-movie poses, all beautiful wide dark eyes and melodrama. It was just slow enough to bludgeon him to sleep.

FRIDAY

"Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

-John 14:27

By quarter after four he was ready to e-mail his daily rejections to Cosmodemonic for approval. Olgie Lamar from Arkansas after eleven months had finally sent in the last five dollar payment on the one-hundred-fifty bucks for her book about her husband who had been killed by a drunk on a snowplow. Some months she hadn't sent anything at all, she said, because the goats hadn't given enough milk.

The book was illiterate from the first line. So was the letter about the goats. So were all her letters.

Stroup encouraged her to try again.

He had a novel outline from Walla Walla State Prison from Joseph Johnson.

A small boy at the age of five, who had experience sex with his sixteen year old babysitter.

A woman get raped and have her hair pulled clean out her head. The main character get in touch with a seven-year-old pimp who get them some girls. Later find out the girls are male foggies.

One of the main character get tricked into having sex with a corpse.

Another getting the Blue Ball Claps and his penis grows to length of four feet by two. They cure him by smashing it with a sledge hammer.

The four main character meet this gorilla guy who they shoot, cut, hit, and run over with their car but he just keep getting up. One of the characters catch lice from a prostitute.

Another character get kidnapped and his ass raped and get an overdose of heroin. That near the end, the most touching part of the book.

The novel was called COOL AS SHIT and the author's cover-letter informed him that if he ever wanted to read "a good sexyassed book, which wasn't dirty at all but funny," then COOL AS SHIT was for him. "It's a magnificent book," Johnson said, "all it needs is publisher. Who is daring enough to make a millions of dollars."

Stroup told him to try again.

He had a short story collection written from the points of view of a varied group of backyard insects. ANIMAL FARM with an ovipositor.

He had something called DIARY OF AN ANAL-RETENTIVE HOUSEWIFE.

Stroup told them all to try again.

***

On the divide in the middle of Broadway half a dozen kids about five or six years old ran around him giggling playing tag or some damn thing like he wasn't even there. Maybe he wasn't. Their twenty-something mother or babysitter or whatever the hell she was looked on and smiled. Except for the fact that he was standing there he could have wished for an out-of-control beer truck to jump the divider.

The reek of stale popcorn and warm fake butter wafted out at him from the Sony Multiplex on 68th. He vowed he'd never eat that stuff again. The vow sounded very familiar.

On Columbus a pair of teenage girls, ballet students, duck-walked right into him and damn near knocked him into traffic.

Lincoln Center was trying to kill him here.

The End of the World was empty again. Stroup took his usual seat. Liana poured him the usual drink. He was meeting Brauna at eight. They were going to a party. Plenty of time.

The bar had their radio on and the song was bothering him. Something about video killed the radio star. Who gave a shit about video or radio for that matter. Video killed the radio star over and over. What bullshit.

"Liana, could you switch stations maybe?"

She shook her beautiful head. "Sorry, Stroup. Manager says this station only. Light Rock. Easy listening."

"Easy listening? You call this easy?"

"It attracts the customers."

"You don't have any customers, Liana. Just me."

"We will, though."

"When? How old am I gonna be then?"

"How old are you now, Stroup?"

"Fifty-three. And don't change the subject. What about the CD player?"

"Out of order."

"Tape deck?"

"Busted."

"Jesus, Liana. You're presiding over a goddamn wake here." The song ended. HARVEST MOON came on. He more or less liked that one.

"I hear you got dumped last night," Liana said.

"Jesus, Liana."

"Marie was in with her boyfriend."

"Fiancй."

"Fiancй, then. Sorry to hear it, Stroup."

"I'm sorry you heard it at all. Can't anybody keep their mouth shut in this town?"

"It would have been obvious anyway. He's black. You're not."

"Good-looking?"

"Very good looking."

"Shit. You want to pour me another?"

"Sure."

Ralph came in and started bitching about his haircut.

"I don't want to hear about it, Ralph."

He was right, though. Whoever cut it had let the hair grow over one ear and clipped it short over the other. Ralph was lopsided.

"You ever eat at Vinnie's?"

"Where's Vinnie's?"

"Third and 59th."

"That's the East Side, Ralph. I don't go there."

"The food was lousy. Don't go there."

"I won't, Ralph."

There was a woman of about thirty on the sidewalk outside talking to a pair of guys who looked ten years younger than she was and the guys with their baseball caps on backwards were standing in his way with their backs to him so he had to shift to try to see around them which he did because the woman was a looker. Long wavy auburn hair which she was primping with both hands smiling brightly at them. V-neck cleavage of the best kind and no bra, tight ass in the jeans, tight shirt over the tits. The woman glanced in his direction a couple of times and seemed aware of him watching. If she was aware of him watching then why didn't she tell these two bozos to move? You just couldn't figure a woman.

Take Liana now. An ex-model. What the hell was she doing slinging drinks and bowls of goldfish to the likes of him and Ralph? It was like hanging the Mona Lisa from an oil derrick.

He watched the woman walk away, the hair swaying, the tight ass swaying. The two guys were watching her too, turning to each other, saying something. He knew what they were saying. He could see it in their eyes. My cock right now is the lonesomest sonovabitch in the world is what they were saying.

He could sympathize.

A guy walked by with a wide bright swirl-patterned tie, yellow and green and orange.

He hated wide bright ties. He hated ties in general. He'd see one and want to turn it into a noose then and there.

Ralph said, "You hear the one about the…?"

Oh, jesus. Oh, forgive me,god, for I must have heartily fucking offended thee. Oh, shit.

***

On the way up Columbus to Brauna's a delivery boy on a bike going against traffic almost hit him, a kid on a skateboard going against traffic almost hit him, and a rollerblader going against traffic almost hit him. That was only three near-misses over the course of a six-block walk. Stroup figured he was lucky.

Brauna designed hats for fancy boutiques and lived in a doorman high rise and they knew him there. Nobody even questioned him now. He was King of the Walk one or two nights a week. He nodded to the doorman and the guy behind the counter. They smiled. They could afford to smile. They had a union. They made more than Stroup did just by standing there. At Christmas time they got enough tips to fly to Tahiti.

He took the elevator up to four and Brauna opened the door. She was wearing a smile and nothing else so Stroup went right at her. He grabbed her wrists with one hand and pulled them over her head and pushed her up against the closet door. She liked to have her nipples pinched, they were already stiff waiting for that so Stroup took one between his thumb and forefinger and pinched and twisted it hard and she gasped against his mouth and then moaned as he put his tongue inside her and rolled her ass against the door on one side and her cunt against his cock on the other. He pinched the nipple until his fingers ached and then let go. He'd get to the other one in a minute.

He let go of her and unbuckled his belt, unzipped his fly and slid his pants and shorts down over his ass and assumed the position. She was already wet so getting in was nothing. She moaned and bucked. Stroup realized he was growling. He cut it out. He pumped her hard and then took both nipples between thumb and forefinger and pulled them until his fingers and her nipples were nestled in his armpits. She started to scream. He couldn't remember if she'd shut the front door. He looked. She had. She came and he came and Stroup zipped up again.

"Hi, baby," he said.

"Hi, baby. You want a drink?"

He lit up a cigarette. "I sure do."

She went into the kitchen and poured them each a scotch on the rocks. They sat down on the couch from Bloomingdale's.

"Thanks, baby."

"My pleasure. That was good, Stroup."

"I know."

"God, my nipples hurt!"

"They damn well ought to."

"I love it when you do that. I can feel it run straight down to my cunt. Like it's electric, know what I mean?"

"We'll have to wire you up sometime."

She laughed. "Wire me up. I'm already wired up."

"That you are. Suppose it wasn't me?"

"Huh?"

"You came to the door stark naked. Suppose it wasn't me?"

"I cheated. I used the peephole. I had a robe handy in the closet just in case."

"Nice surprise."

"Mmmm." She finished her drink and stood up. "I'm having another. You?"

"I already had a few. In a couple minutes maybe."

"Okay."

He watched her fine dimpled ass vanish into the kitchen. She was shorter than Marie, a brunette, not quite the racing model Marie was but beyond the funny little mole on her chin that sprouted the occasional wiry black hair you couldn't fault her.

"There," she said. "I'll finish this one and start to get ready."

"What's the party all about, anyway?"

He didn't go to parties much. Too many people there.

"My friend Zia's got herself a new apartment. She wants to show it off."

"Zia? Your broker?"

"Uh-huh."

"Jesus, Brauna."

"You've never met her, Stroup. She's very nice. You'll like her."

"Where is it? Soho?"

"The east side. Just off Madison."

"Jesus, Brauna."

"Oh, stop bitching." She slapped his arm. "You make it sound like Wisconsin."

"It is Wisconsin. Dead River, Wisconsin."

"What are you so grouchy about anyway?"

"Carla's hitting me up for money again. I may have to kill her."

"Forget Carla. We'll have fun. I've never taken you to a party. You want something? I've got some 'hides and some pretty good dope. I was going to buy some coke but Zia says not to bother, there'll be plenty at the party."

"Another drink is all. I'll get it. You go and get ready."

The East Side, for chrissake.

Maybe they could grab a bite at Vinnie's.

***

He'd read somewhere that dirt was just something out of place. A cigarette in a pack wasn't dirt but a butt on the living room floor was. Fur on a cat wasn't dirt but a tuft of it lying in a corner was. Dust was mostly composed of flakes of dry shed human skin. Misplaced.

Dirt.

By that reckoning Stroup was dirt.

Zia's apartment was huge and minimalist-modern. She'd crammed it with people who ordinarily Stroup wouldn't have given the time of day. Nor they him, had he not come in with Brauna. Lawyers. Brokers. Surgeons. Bankers. Agents. They moved through the rooms like a lolling school of sharks and you knew that if somebody so much as pricked a finger there was going to be blood on the waters. He had never seen so many ties and suspenders in one place in his life. It looked like the casting call for AMERICAN PSYCHO.

He kept drifting back and forth to the wet bar hearing things he didn't like. Sensational and far and away and at this point in time and awesome and by the very same token and be that as it may and worst of all as far as Stroup was concerned the exact same thing. The only thing that was exactly the same about them was that they were all smug assholes with far too much money.

He kept hearing about their fucking plans, their aims, their long-term goals.

The only goal Stroup had in life was to outlive Al Sharpton.

Brauna kept disappearing on him. And every time she'd disappear she'd come back a little more manic-sounding. Coming out of this bedroom or that bathroom. Bolivian Marching Powder. Stroup abstained. He didn't like to mix his poisons. Brauna on the other hand was mixing Quaaludes, scotch, wine and coke and god knows what else. Brauna was having a hell of a time. With what she was nearly wearing and those nipples at attention she was very popular.

Finally he cornered her.

"Sniff," he said.

"What?"

"You're getting messy with the white stuff. Left nostril. Sniff."

She did.

"None of my business but do you think you should be doing too much more of that? You're spilling your scotch."

She was.

She exploded at him anyway.

"You're fucking RIGHT it's none of your business! JESUS, Stroup! FUCK YOU! Who do you think you ARE? YOU to be telling ME what to do? You goddamn LOSER! You write fucking AD COPY for a living!"

"It's not exactly ad copy, Brauna."

"YOU MADE ME PAY FOR THE FUCKING CAB, STROUP!"

He hadn't. She'd volunteered the money. He just hadn't refused it, that's all. He made it a point never to refuse money. And hell, she could buy and sell him.

People were looking. Fuck them. Time to get out of here. He took her arm.

"Listen, Brauna…"

She pulled away. For the second time that night her ass made contact with a wall. It was a tight ass and a soft wall. You could hear the thump over the Whitney Houston.

"Don't you tell me to LISTEN! I'm not your WIFE! I'm not your ANYTHING! YOU'LL FUCK ANYTHING THAT WALKS, Stroup, you asshole. And you want me to LISTEN?"

"That's not true. I won't fuck anything that walks. I am polyamorous, though."

That seemed to confuse her. Then she made a comeback.

"Get the fuck OUT of here, Stroup! I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN! You understand?"

She headed for the bathroom.

He turned and saw suspenders. He didn't try to stop her.

***

In the cab across town which this time he did have to pay for he thought he saw Carla at the corner of Central Park West and 66th but it turned out to be the movie actress Lori Singer. Singer was a blonde and Carla was a redhead so he wondered how he'd got that wrong. He thought he heard his name mentioned over the dispatch radio but that couldn't be.

He had the blues he guessed. He told the cabbie to let him off at 66th and Columbus just so he could walk the rest of the way. It was warm and breezy. The air would do him good.

At the corner of 66th and Broadway a couple of kids in their twenties wearing jeans and teeshirts and both of them slightly overweight were necking in front of the bank. They looked happy. Probably they were in love. Love was a Wonderful Thing. Three tall jocks in the latest Gap sweatshirts walked by. Once they'd passed the kids necking by a few yards and just as Stroup hit the curb opposite one of them turned around.

"Take it INSIDE!" the guy said.

The kids stopped necking and looked.

"You WISH you had something to take inside," Stroup said, "except for your miserable excuse for a cock. Fuck you, handjob! You useless piece of SHIT!"

The lovers were looking at him now. A crazy man amidst them.

"Carry on, kids," he said.

SATURDAY

"Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave."

- Song of Solomon, 8:6

Midway through ADVENTURES OF A CAT-TLE-BUR-GLAR the doorbell rang.

Stroup peered through the peephole. Some guy with a backpack.

"Yeah?"

"Mr. Stroup?"

"Uh-huh?"

"Messenger service."

He opened the door. The guy handed him an envelope, a receipt and a ballpoint pen. Stroup signed his name.

"Have a nice day," the guy told him. Have a nice day was an imperative. He didn't like it.

He closed the door and opened the envelope. A summons. Carla was taking him to small-claims court. He was told to appear in person on such and such a day at such and such a time. The fucking Stairmaster-using, aerobic-sweaty cunt-lapping shaved-twat nympho bitch. She was taking his ass to court.

He tore it in two and then thought better of it and Scotch-Taped it back together again. The last thing he needed was trouble with john law. He tossed it on his desk.

Midway through MY HOLE AND I the phone rang. He heard his boss' voice on the other end. His boss was calling on a Saturday. That was unusual. His boss was telling him to pick up. So he did.

"Max?"

"Stroup? Glad I caught you."

Like he had a life, maybe. Like he was going somewhere.

"You're calling on a Saturday, Max. That's unusual."

"I know. Listen, Stroup. There's no way to say this but straight out. You've been downsized."

"What?"

He was small enough already.

"Downsized, Stroup. The agency's tightening its belt. You and three others."

"Which three?"

"That doesn't matter. I'm sorry, Stroup. You always did good work. You got it in on time. I appreciate that."

"So why are you firing me?"

"I'm not firing you. You've been downsized. We can get kids who'll do the work for less."

"Less than ten percent? Are they crazy?"

"Ambitious, Stroup. They want to work for a prestige agency."

"That's what we are, a prestige agency?"

"No need to be bitter, Stroup."

"After fifteen years you're dumping me and I'm not supposed to get bitter."

"It's my day off, Stroup. Give me a break."

"I'm sorry to spoil your day, Max."

"Could you mail us back your manuscripts? Naturally we'll pay you for whatever work you've completed."

"Naturally."

He hung up. ADVENTURES OF A CATTLE BURGLAR was worth twenty dollars to him. MY HOLE AND I was worth thirty. THIS GUN SWEATS WHEN IT GETS HOT was worth another twenty. He had a handful of short stories worth fifteen each.

He threw them in the garbage.

His phone rang. Max again.

"You wouldn't throw those scripts away, would you Stroup?"

Stroup hung up on him.

He looked out the window. It was a nice sunny day.

***

He made himself a tuna sandwich and turned on CNN. He felt distracted. He could hardly pay attention. He kept glancing at the dresser drawer.

The Republicans were behind in the polls.

The kid with the Glock in Florida had confessed tearfully that it was he and not his schoolmates who'd impregnated his twelve-year-old girlfriend with the child of Behemoth Yuggdoroth Nit. He'd shot up the school so that somebody would stop him from doing it again. Stroup thought that was considerate of him.

In Connecticut some guy was suing the police department. He'd taken the test to become a police officer and they turned him down because his score was too high. The New London Deputy Police Chief said that anybody that smart would probably get bored with the job.

When he got up to bring his plate into the kitchen and passed his desk with the summons on it he thought he heard his name mentioned in connection with the New London story but that couldn't be.

He sat down again. He lit a cigarette and watched more CNN. He glanced at the dresser drawer. The Democrats were behind in the polls. Some diabetic in L.A. went into the hospital to have his ulcerous foot removed and they took off the wrong one. The diabetic was switching hospitals.

In Pakistan a court ordered an eloped teenage girl and her school-bus-driver boyfriend to be given a hundred lashes prior to being stoned to death. Her father evidently agreed with the courts. He'd reported the elopement.

The news was getting to him. He started surfing channels with the good old universal remote. He got a college football game and a tennis game and a goddamn New York Yankees game. He got Super Sabado. He got an antique show and a cooking show and MURDER, SHE WROTE and some wildlife thing about snails and tree frogs and Weather On The Ones and NAVY SEALS and MATLOCK and MOMMIE DEAREST.

Fuck it. Back to CNN. He thought for a moment that he'd clicked on in the middle of Willow Bey saying something about his sex life but that couldn't be.

He considered calling up a buddy. But then he couldn't recall having any buddies. Must be one or two around somewhere. Or maybe not.

He went over to his desk and re-read the summons. That was his name, all right.

He looked up Carla's number at the restaurant. Some woman answered.

"Taverna Lesvos. May I help you?"

He realized he was growling. He had to quit that.

They had the ball game on. He could hear it in the background. Classy joint.

"Carla there?"

"I'm afraid not. Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Randi around?"

"I'm afraid not."

"What exactly are you afraid of?"

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind. Any idea when she'll be back?"

"Carla?"

"Yes."

"May I ask who's calling?"

"Her ex."

"Oh. I really don't know. Probably not until this evening I guess. They took a picnic over to the Sheep Meadow. It's such a lovely day."

"The Sheep Meadow?"

"Uh-huh."

"I thought they were supposed to be working their asses off over there. I thought you were always fucking swamped."

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Hell, yes. I don't care what you did."

He hung up on her. He walked over and re-read the summons. They even had the amount he owed in there. Two thousand, seven hundred and six dollars and ninety cents. She was hitting him for the ninety cents. He glanced at the dresser drawer. He opened it and took the.38 revolver out from under his socks and underwear. He'd arranged to have the revolver straw-purchased for him in Pennsylvania some years ago when he still thought New York was a dangerous place and not just an annoying one.

He checked the chamber and put it in his pocket.

He took the remote off the bed and put it in his other pocket and then he left the building.

***

The bar at Taverna Lesvos was packed. Up front near the TV they were standing two-deep. Everybody riveted on the Yankee game. Perfect.

New York had invented baseball. Who the hell were this new generation? Hadn't anybody ever told these assholes that the entire point of a baseball cap was to keep the sun out of your eyes? Maybe wearing them backwards was some anti-redneck maneuver or maybe a form of rebellion. Like refusing to eat your spinach.

He stood at the far end of the bar as far from the game as possible and ordered a scotch. The bartender was a blonde who had to be all of seventeen. He waited until the bases were loaded and the Yankee pitcher was winding up and then took out the remote and turned on the Food Channel. Strawberry soufflй, it looked tasty. The boys at the bar moaned and shouted and pointed at the TV like Donald Sutherland pointing at Brooke Adams in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. The bartender didn't seem to know what in hell was going on. She looked flustered. By the time she got hold of her remote and switched they were pitching Bud Lite.

More moaning and groaning.

After awhile the place settled down again.

Meanwhile Stroup pocketed the remote and waited until somebody hit one deep into left field and the Yankee fielder was running hard to get under, hustling real good. He turned on the Home Shopping Network. They were selling jewelry there. Nice stuff. Young executives-and-CEOs-to-be yelled and stomped their feet and raised their fists into the air like Nazi Youth watching a parade of orthodox Jews go by.

The bartender was doing something with ice and a shaker but she was a little faster this time and got to the remote just in time for everybody to watch the players retire the field.

Guys groaned and bitched and finally quieted down again.

He ordered another drink. Smoked a cigarette.

He waited until the Yankee first baseman was rounding third and headed for home on a terrific grounder to right field and turned on the Weather Channel. It was pouring in Duluth. Sunny in California. California needed rain. There was serious rage in the room this time. Well-bred wasps turned into Chicago gangsters before his eyes. They were screaming at the bartender to fix the fucking TV, dammit! what the fuck is going on? They spilled beers and slapped the bar with their baseball caps which at least was a decent usage for the damn things and leapt and roared.

He felt like a bullwhip in a herd of cattle.

When he switched to The Learning Channel on what looked to be a Yankee homer the place went the rest of the way to hell and somebody shouted SCREW this shit! I bet they got the goddamn game on at the End of the World. Yeah! somebody else said, LET'S GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! and they did.

The exodus pleased him.

It got nice and quiet in there.

He sat awhile with the remote in his pocket thinking how much Liana hated baseball and how these guys were going to be disappointed there too and finished his scotch and paid and tipped and left the bar.

***

He crossed Central Park West at 67th and walked through the parking lot at Tavern on the Green. Tourists walked in and out past the liveried doorman. Half-lame carriage horses stood blinkered and waiting, hoping not to die in traffic. What a life.

He dodged sweaty long-distance runners and bicycles on Park Drive and walked past the hot dog vendor and through the cyclone wire gate to the narrow dirt path and gazed out over the wide green grass below. He checked the trees nearby.

No Carla. Just a pair of blonde three-year-old kids and their Indian nannies. Strollers by Armani.

Carla was lazy as a grub when she wasn't either working or eating pussy. She also had delicate skin. The day was bright. She'd go for the trees.

He dropped the remote into a garbage can.

He wouldn't need it anymore.

He headed east along the northern border. Smelled fresh-cut grass. The grass smelled good. But how these sun-crazy fucks could stand the humidity he didn't know. The guys all had their shirts off and the women all wore halters or bikinis. Too bad it wasn't the other way around but still there were a lot of tits out there. He saw headphones and strollers and blankets and Frisbees and kites. He thought one of the kites had his name on it but that couldn't be. He saw black kids and white kids playing together. They were running around a tree, laughing. He thought one of them called his name but that couldn't be.

The area across from Mineral Springs' red brick refreshment stand looked like a good bet to him. There was a low outcropping of rock surrounded by a dozen or so tall trees and it was just a short walk from there through the gate to get a frozen yogurt or a smoothie or a bagel or a pretzel or bottled water or a lemonade or a hot dog or whatever the hell you wanted. He saw people in the shade in front of every tree he came to, dozens of them, happy or sleepy or having fun or all those things together. He saw a woman blowing bubbles for a tiny wide-eyed baby in a carriage. One popped on his nose. Soap-spit.

And then he saw Carla. She and Randi were on a blanket and propped against an oak tree a few yards away. Carla was feeding her potato chips. They were laughing. He realized he was growling. There was no point in stopping now so he didn't. He put his hand in his pocket and walked over.

They still hadn't noticed him but he was about to change that radically when his eye went to a blonde kid in a varsity letter-jacket, green, number thirty-four according to the jacket who was standing leaning against a tree maybe forty feet away from them and he was thinking what the fuck is some asshole doing in a letter jacket in all this heat? is he nuts? when the guy pushed away from the tree and opened his jacket and pulled out something short and black that looked like a combination pistol and machine-gun and started spraying the field and trees left to right.

Stroup hit the dirt. He saw the woman with the bubbles go down with red exploding from her shoulder and a guy with headphones double over like sombody'd kicked him in the stomach. He saw a kid maybe seven years old take one high in the forehead and then his father lurching toward him before his hip burst open.

People were screaming. Scrambling for cover.

The guy's automatic was moving toward Carla. They hadn't even gone down. They were holding one another, wide-open targets, the dumb lezzie bitches.

This guy was gonna do it for him, he thought.

This guy was gonna shoot the hell out of them.

The fuck he was.

He had the.38. He flicked off the safety and aimed and squeezed.

The guy yelped and stumbled back surprised as hell and then looked down at his belly. His belly was a mess. Stroup had made it that way. The guy screamed. Stroup squeezed off another one and the guy's balls were gone. Stroup was shooting in a nice vertical pattern he thought, down the guy's body. Had to finish it up higher, though. The guy was still howling when his jaw splashed against the tree.

Stroup pocketed the gun and stood. Carla was looking at him. He walked over.

"I saved your fucking life, Carla," he said. "Didn't I?"

Carla was white as paste. So was Randi.

"Y-yes," she said. "Yes you did, Stroup."

"You want to forget the rent now?"

"Uh. O-okay." She nodded.

"Thanks, bitch."

He turned and walked away.

***

He was watching New York One that night when his boss called. He was watching coverage of the shooting for the fifth time. He was drinking scotch. It looked like the black kid and his father were going to live and the bubble-lady too but the guy with the headphones was a goner. So was the shooter. The shooter had been identified as one Will Obey, originally from Center Cut, Texas. He'd told friends just the day before that he was six months pregnant with the child of Behemoth Yuggdoroth Nit. They hadn't believed him. So far nobody had mentioned Stroup's name but that couldn't be.

He turned the volume down. He had to do it manually. He was going to have to get a new remote, goddammit.

"Stroup?"

"You're calling me on a Saturday, Max. You're calling me for the second time. That's unusual."

"I know."

"You can't fire me, Max. You did that."

"Downsized, Stroup. Downsized."

"I don't care what you call it."

"Listen, are you watching the news, Stroup?"

"Matter of fact I am."

"Carla called me."

"Who?"

"Carla. I know it was you, Stroup. Carla told me everything. You're a hero, Stroup. You saved people's lives out there."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think we can get a book deal."

"A what?"

"A book deal. It was Carla's idea, but I think she's dead right."

"At least she's dead something."

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

"Look, we do it anonymously, under a pseudonym. Nobody's ever going to find out."

"They found out about Ed McBain, Max. They found out about Richard Bachman. And what's his name? Ketchum or something."

"We'll be careful. Those guys weren't. Those guys were clumsy. I know plenty of writers who've never been found out. You're not a bad writer, Stroup. This book could be the beginning of a new career for you."

"And Carla gets a piece of it, right? That's the deal?"

"Well, yes."

"She mention a figure?"

"Well, yes she did."

"It wouldn't be something around two thousand, seven hundred dollars, would it?"

"Thirty five hundred. But look, advances for this kind of thing are crazy these days. We do it strictly true-crime. If it were fiction we'd be lucky to make a nickel. But we do this thing right, you could make a million dollars. Would that be acceptable?"

"Make it two million and you got a deal."

"I think I can safely say, done."

Stroup went to bed. And woke up smiling.