``Wait a minute--1939.'‘
`It might even be 1940. Am I right?'‘
I said nothing, but I felt my face heating up.
``Don't feel bad, Clyde; you don't know because I don't know. I always left it vague. The time-frame I was trying for was actually more of a feel . . . call it Chandler American Time, if you like. It worked like gangbusters for most of my readers, and it made things simpler from a copy-editing standpoint as well, because you can never exactly pinpoint the passage of time. Haven't you ever noticed how often you say things like `for more years than I can remember' or `longer ago than I like to think about' or `since Hector was a pup'?'‘
``Nope--can't say that I have.'' But now that he mentioned it, I did notice. And that made me think of the L.A. Times. I read it every day, but exactly which days were they? You couldn't tell from the paper itself, because there was never a date on the masthead, only that slogan which reads `America's Fairest Newspaper in America's Fairest City.'‘
``You say those things because time doesn't really pass in this world. It is . . .'‘
He paused, then smiled. It was a terrible thing to look at, that smile, full of yearning and strange greed. `It is one of its many charms,'' he finished.
I was scared, but I've always been able to bite the bullet when I felt it really needed biting, and this was one of those times. ``Tell me what the hell's going on here.'‘
`All right . . . but you're already beginning to know, Clyde. Aren't you?’
``Maybe. I don't know my dad's name or my mom's name or the name of the first girl I ever went to bed with because you don't know them. Is that it?’
He nodded, smiling the way a teacher would smile at a pupil who's made a leap of logic and come up with the right answer against all odds. But his eyes were still full of that terrible sympathy.
`And when you wrote San Diego on your gadget there and it came into my head at the same time . . .'‘
He nodded, encouraging me.
`It isn't just the Fulwider Building you own, is it?'' I swallowed, trying to get rid of a large blockage in my throat that had no intention of going anywhere. ``You own everything.'‘
But Landry was shaking his head. ``Not everything. Just Los Angeles and a few surrounding areas. This version of Los Angeles, that is, complete with the occasional continuity glitch or made-up addition.'‘
``Bull,'' I said, but I whispered the word.
``See the picture on the wall to the left of the door, Clyde?'‘
I glanced at it, but hardly had to; it was Washington crossing the Delaware, and it had been there since . . . well, since Hector was a pup.
Landry had taken his plastic Buck Rogers steno machine back onto his lap, and was bending over it.
``Don't do that!'' I shouted, and tried to reach for him. I couldn't do it. My arms had no strength, it seemed, and I could summon no resolve. I felt lethargic, drained, as if I had lost about three pints of blood and was losing more all the time.
He rattled the keys again. Turned the machine toward me so I could read the words in the window. They read: On the wall to the left of the door leading out to Candy-Land, Our Revered Leader hangs . . . but always slightly askew. That's my way of keeping him in perspective.
I looked back at the picture. George Washington was gone, replaced by a photo of Franklin Roosevelt. F.D.R. had a grin on his face and his cigarette holder jutting upward at that angle his supporters think of as jaunty and his detractors as arrogant. The picture was hanging slightly askew.
`I don't need the laptop to do it,'' he said. He sounded a little embarrassed, as if I'd accused him of something. `I can do it just by concentrating--as you saw when the numbers disappeared from your blotter--but the laptop helps.
Because I'm used to writing things down, I suppose. And then editing them. In a way, editing and rewriting are the most fascinating parts of the job, because that's where the final changes--usually small but often crucial--take place and the picture really comes into focus.'‘
I looked back at Landry, and when I spoke, my voice was dead. ``You made me up, didn't you?’
He nodded, looking strangely ashamed, as if what he had done was something dirty.
``When?'' I uttered a strange, croaky little laugh. `Or is that the right question?’
`I don't know if it is or isn't,'' he said, `and I imagine any writer would tell you about the same. It didn't happen all at once--that much I'm sure of. It's been an ongoing process. You first showed up in Scarlet Town, but I wrote that back in 1977 and you've changed a lot since then.'‘
1977, I thought. A Buck Rogers year for sure. I didn't want to believe this was happening, wanted to believe it was all a dream. Oddly enough, it was the smell of his cologne that kept me from being able to do that--that familiar smell I'd never smelled in my life. How could I have? It was Aramis, a brand as unfamiliar to me as Toshiba.
But he was going on.
``You've grown a lot more complex and interesting. You were pretty one-dimensional to start with.'' He cleared his throat and smiled down at his hands for a moment. ``What a pisser for me.'‘
He winced a little at the anger in my voice, but made himself look up again, just the same. ``Your last book was How Like a Fallen Angel. I started that one in 1990, but it took until 1993 to finish. I've had some problems in the interim.
My life has been . . . interesting.'' He gave the word an ugly, bitter twist.
``Writers don't do their best work during interesting times, Clyde. Take my word for it.'‘
