Mr. Murder

“He gave me his spare copy of the new People,” Marty said.

“Uh-oh. You say that as if he handed you a bag of dog poop.”

“Well, it isn’t what I was hoping for.”

“It’s not as bad as you think,” she said.

“How do you know? You haven’t even seen it yet.”

“But I know you and how you are about these things.”

“In the one photo, I look like the Frankenstein monster with a bad hangover.”

“I’ve always loved Boris Karloff.”

He sighed. “I suppose I can change my name, have some plastic surgery, and move to Brazil. But before I book a flight to Rio, do you want me to pick up the kids at school?”

“I’ll get them. They’ll be an hour later today.”

“Oh, that’s right, Monday. Piano lessons.”

“We’ll be home by four-thirty,” she said. “You can show me People and spend the evening crying on my shoulder.”

“To hell with that. I’ll show you People and spend the evening kissing your breasts.”

“You’re special, Marty.”

“I love you, too, kid.”

When she hung up, Paige was smiling. He could always make her smile, even in darker moments.

She refused to think about the strange phone call, about illness or fugues or pictures that made him look like a monster.

Appreciate the moment.

She did just that for a minute or so, then called Millie on the intercom and asked her to send in Samantha and Sean Acheson.

6

In his office, he sits in the executive chair behind the desk. It is comfortable. He can almost believe he has sat in it before.

Nevertheless, he is nervous.

He switches on the computer. It is an IBM PC with substantial hard-disk storage. A good machine. He can’t remember purchasing it.

After the system runs a data-management program, the oversize screen presents him with a “Main Selection Menu” that includes eight choices, mostly word-processing software. He chooses WordPerfect 5.1, and it is loaded.

He doesn’t recall being instructed in the operation of a computer or in the use of WordPerfect. This training is cloaked in amnesiac mists, as is his training in weaponry and his uncanny familiarity with the street systems of various cities. Evidently, his superiors believed he would need to understand basic computer operation and be familiar with certain software programs in order to carry out his assignments.

The screen clears.

Ready.

In the lower right-hand corner of the blue screen, white letters and numbers tell him that he is in document one, on page one, at line one, in the tenth position.

Ready. He is ready to write a novel. His work.

He stares at the blank monitor, trying to start. Beginning is more difficult than he had expected.

He has brought a bottle of Corona from the kitchen, suspecting he might need to lubricate his thoughts. He takes a long swallow. The beer is cold, refreshing, and he knows that it is just the thing to get him going.

After finishing half the bottle, confidence renewed, he begins to type. He bangs out two words, then stops:

The man

The man what?

He stares at the screen for a minute, then types “entered the room.” But what room? In a house? An office building? What does the room look like? Who else is in it? What is this man doing in this room, why is he here? Does it have to be a room? Could he be entering a train, a plane, a graveyard?

He deletes “entered the room” and replaces it with “was tall.” So the man is tall. Does it matter that he is tall? Will tallness be important to the story? How old is he? What color are his eyes, his hair? Is he Caucasian, black, Asian? What is he wearing? As far as that goes, does it have to be a man at all? Couldn’t it be a woman? Or a child?

With these questions in mind, he clears the screen and starts the story from the beginning:

The

He stares at the screen. It is terrifyingly blank. Infinitely blanker than it was before, not just three letters blanker with the deletion of “man.” The choices to follow that simple article, “the,” are limitless, which makes the selection of the second word a great deal more daunting than he would have supposed before he sat in the black leather chair and switched on the machine.

He deletes “The.”

The screen is clear.

Ready.

He finishes the bottle of Corona. It is cold and refreshing, but it does not lubricate his thoughts.

He goes to the bookshelves and pulls off eight of the novels bearing his name, Martin Stillwater. He carries them to the desk, and for a while he sits and reads first pages, second pages, trying to kick-start his brain.

His destiny is to be Martin Stillwater. That much is perfectly clear.

He will be a good father to Charlotte and Emily.

He will be a good husband and lover to the beautiful Paige.

And he will write novels. Mystery novels.

Evidently, he has written them before, at least a dozen, so he can write them again. He simply has to re- acquire the feeling for how it is done, relearn the habit.

The screen is blank.

He puts his fingers on the keys, ready to type.

The screen is so blank. Blank, blank, blank. Mocking him.

Suspecting that he is merely inhibited by the soft persistent hum of the monitor fan and the demanding electronic-blue field of document one, page one, he switches off the computer. The resultant silence is a blessing, but the flat gray glass of the monitor is even more mocking than the blue screen; turning the machine off seems like an admission of defeat.

He needs to be Martin Stillwater, which means he needs to write.

The man. The man was. The man was tall with blue eyes and blond hair, wearing a blue suit and white shirt and red tie, about thirty years old, and he didn’t know what he was doing in the room that he entered. Damn. No good. The man. The man. The man . . .

He needs to write, but every attempt to do so leads quickly to frustration. Frustration soon spawns anger. The familiar pattern. Anger generates a specific hatred for the computer, a loathing of it, and also a less focused hatred of his unsatisfactory position in the world, of the world itself and every one of its inhabitants. He needs so little, so pathetically little, just to belong, to be like other people, to have a home and a family, to have a purpose that he understands. Is that so much? Is it? He does not want to be rich, rub elbows with the high and mighty, dine with socialites. He is not asking for fame. After much struggle, confusion, and loneliness, he now has a home and wife and two children, a sense of direction, a destiny, but he feels it slipping away from him, through his fingers. He needs to be Martin Stillwater, but in order to be Martin Stillwater, he needs to be able to write, and he can’t write, can’t write, damn it all, can’t write. He knows the street layout of Kansas City, other cities, and he knows all about weaponry, about picking locks, because they seeded that knowledge in him—whoever “they” are—but they haven’t seen fit also to implant the knowledge of how to write mystery novels, which he needs, oh so desperately needs, if he is ever to be Martin