Particularly Mr. Pinkham. Emma always included Mrs. Pinkham in her nightly prayers, though she sensed from Mr. Pinkham's drab mood that chances for Mrs. Pinkham's survival were pretty slim.
Greg Wagner always read her diary. This required no great skill on his part. Because both computers had modems, he could simply link up and read away. Emma not only knew about this but encouraged it as well. One of the reasons she'd wanted a computer (she'd wanted to pay for it, but Greg insisted it was a gift) was so that she could learn to write. She was a great fan of horror fiction, and someday she wanted to write a novel that would 'scare the willies' out of everybody. She especially liked strong female protagonists, the way they could be both tender and tough when need be. This was how she saw herself, she'd often confided to Greg. In truth, of course, she wasn't tough at all. She let her pimp, Kellogg, run her life completely.
Three times Greg had offered to loan her the money to start life anew (life had been both malicious and charitable to Greg; true, he'd been born with spina bifida, but he'd also inherited about 3.2 million in real estate). And she'd almost made it, once especially. But Kellogg was a charmer-not only handsome but cunning and pleasing in the way of many sociopaths. And so, again she would fall back-'Just a few more appointments, Greg, I promise, and then I'll quit for sure.' But she never did. She wrote at her novel every day-she'd read an old John Steinbeck interview wherein Steinbeck recommended three pages a day for those 'serious about writing,' and so, virtually without fail, she did three pages a day in the saga of her life.
And once a week or so Greg, finished buying new movie icons and viewing shipments of videotapes (he'd recently finished a run of serials set in the jungle, Jungle Jim and Nyoka the Jungle Girl being especially good), would tap into her computer and read what she'd written. Then he'd write her a page or two of criticism. Gentle, constructive criticism as to how she might improve this sentence or better begin that paragraph. How appreciative she was-soft, moist, grateful kisses on his cheeks and forehead, as if she were trying to prove to him that she found him perfectly acceptable the way he was…
In fact women did find Greg quite handsome, whatever the rest of the world might think about him. He was, of course, desperately and painfully in love with her. This was an affliction suffered by many men, men with spina bifida included-invariably falling in love with perfectly formed women who could be theirs only in fantasy. There was a ludicrous side to this-in none of the various versions did the Hunchback of Notre Dame ever win the woman-but there was also a tragic side. Greg had seen other men in wheelchairs like his become suicidal over the fact that they could never possess the beautiful woman they'd fallen in love with. During his therapy sessions with Dr. Stephenson Greg had learned that he was attracted to gorgeous normal women so he could punish himself. ('Couldn't it be that I just like good-looking women?' Greg had said laughingly to the doctor.) But this was before he'd met Emma, before he'd rented her the other side of his duplex, before he'd fallen so helplessly in love with her. After that it was to hell with Dr Stephenson's maxims. It was better to love somebody unobtainable than to love nobody at all. For all the grief there was a commensurate joy-having her stop over a few times a day, always calling before she went out in the evening, many times getting home early and sitting up with him and watching some old movie with Alice Faye or John Hodiak. Yes, it was better to love somebody unobtainable than to love nobody at all. This was Greg's deepest truth.
In the morning Greg had sweet rolls for breakfast Two of them and with large wipes of butter. The doctors at the therapy centre were already grousing about his weight You've got to exercise more, Greg. But that morning he was so tired, he needed a sugar high to get going. In addition to a caffeine high, that is. He also had a Diet Pepsi and two cups of coffee.
He was ready.
Sometime during the night-half-awake, listening for her familiar footsteps next door but realizing, too, that she was gone from him forever-sometime during the night he'd suddenly recalled something she'd said to him about a very strange thing that Kellogg had wanted her to do. She'd pleaded with Kellogg that she didn't want to do it, but he'd said it was important, and that she'd damned well better do it
But Greg couldn't remember what it was.
Something…
His only real hope was the computer. Perhaps she'd written about this, and he could tap into it
After being properly charged by all the sweets, he rolled into his book-lined den. Indian summer had spoiled him. He was used to a flood of warm sunlight splashing across the hardwood floor. But not that day. Grey sky and chill temperature boded snow.
He moved over to the computer, turned on the power, and proceeded, over the next forty-five minutes, to tap into her diary.
It was almost shamefully easy, the way he found what he was looking for so quickly.
Around three-thirty that afternoon, after a lunch of sliced-ham sandwiches and a piece of pumpkin pie, and a good crime movie called The Falcon Goes to Hollywood, he phoned the guy.
He did it right, too. He put a handkerchief over the receiver, and he lowered his voice.
And he scared the hell out of the guy.
That was the one thing Greg could tell for sure. How scared the guy was.
Then, when he was finished, he lay back in his wheelchair and closed his eyes and thought of Emma, her face and her soft skin and the gentle way she'd always treated him. He knew he'd never see her again.
In the afternoon Brolan looked at girls. Ordinarily this was the favourite part of his job. And why wouldn't it be? You sit in a fashionably appointed screening room and look at videotapes of women of every description looking their best. The object was to find a new Stolda's ice cream TV pitchwoman, the former one having landed a part in a cable-system sitcom. You look at films of women, videotapes of women, glossies of women-and sometimes the local talent agencies even send women over live. Today, however, they were all on tape.
Sometime after lunch he had started smoking again. At first it had been a few puffs on a mooched cigarette. Soon enough he'd asked one of the couriers to go get him a pack of cigarettes. His plans were to put in a reasonably full day-be no more or no less cheery than he ever was-and then to start backtracking the dead woman by going to the bar where he'd met her. Maybe the bartender there could at least give him a name and therefore a starting point. ‹
'She's gorgeous,' Tim Culhane, the production manager said.
Brolan's attention returned to the screen. 'She is gorgeous. Too gorgeous.'
'You want frumpy?'
'Not frumpy. Just somebody who won't put other women off.'
Actually the woman on the screen reminded him in some dark way of Kathleen. Desire and anger worked through him as he recognized the similarity between the women. He still couldn't believe that even when he was so deeply in trouble, Kathleen could have this effect on him.
'Why don't we look at the next one?' Brolan said.
Brolan sat at the front of the sloping screening room. There were twenty movie theatre seats. In front of the large movie screen was a forty-five-inch video screen. This was what they'd been using the past hour.
The next one up was cute and perky. Brolan did not usually like cute-and-perky, but since it was the polar opposite of Kathleen, cute-and-perky looked great.
'How about her?' Brolan said.
'Her?' Culhane sounded surprised. Tall, muscular, thanks to weight training and running, Culhane still wore his blonde hair shoulder-length-but it was sculpted hair, Hollywood hair, and bore no kinship to the sixties or flower power or any of that. He was handsome in a somewhat overly dramatic way, always posing, and given to the sort of loose-fitting, expensive sports clothes you found on the West Coast. Brolan and Culhane had never gotten along, but the past six months had been especially bad. Brolan, who was solely in charge of promoting creative people, had passed Culhane over in favour of someone else for an executive job. Culhane was neither a forgiving nor understanding man. 'She looks like the girl next door.'
'She's cute.'
'Last time I checked, you hated cute.'
Brolan sighed. 'All right. Next one, then.'
The next one was redheaded and had the sort of reckless beauty that always got to Brolan. The most beautiful woman he'd ever seen in films was the young Rita Hayworth, and anybody who remotely resembled her was welcome to come into Brolan's life at any time.
'God,' Tim said. 'She's great.' He looked at the sheet that identified where each actress was from.
