Part 6 (1/2)

The problem was that every time they met she slipped. On his first trip to New York they had lunch and in the cab she'd rubbed his crotch and directed the driver to a hotel in Manhattan. Rick went with the flow. In the months that followed they indulged in each other whenever the chance arose, but things never went further. She remained his agent, she handled his publis.h.i.+ng affairs and everything was hunky dory. The more time pa.s.sed, the less he was nervous about it. Maybe it was unprofessional to be engaging in an affair with her client, but their s.e.x life was unrelated to their business life. That was all the justification he needed.

”I got in town late this morning,” Rick said, trying to sound casual. He gave her a quick summary of his trip, the accident, and his meeting of a few of the locals. He could tell she was frowning as she conveyed her concern. ”Are you okay?” She asked. ”You weren't hurt that bad, were you?” Rick a.s.sured her that everything was fine, that he'd already made at least one new friend, possibly two others. He quickly told her about Melissa Peterson and at the mention of another woman, he heard a sharp intake of breath on the other line. He quickly changed the subject to what the weather was like in town and she seemed to forget about the blunder. She's jealous.

”So you think you'll be able to start working on the book soon?”

”I'm gonna try to get to work on the book tomorrow morning.”

”You know, you could have moved to New York for a new locale,” she said. She sounded coaxing. ”You didn't need to move all the way to the boondocks. How am I supposed to see you?”

”I came up here to get away from the normal, day-today surroundings I had in Philly,” Rick said. ”I needed a change of pace.”

”Like I said, you could have come to New York.” It sounded like she was smiling on the other end. ”You could have stayed with me.”

Rick cringed at the thought. Since the bigger deal had gone through, words that had been absent in her vocabulary began to make their presence with alarming regularity. Words that hinted at marriage entrapment. The last time they spoke she'd ended the conversation with a love you. Rick managed a smile. ”I wouldn't have gotten any work done.”

”Hmm, you're probably right,” Cynthia breathed. G.o.d, but she had a s.e.xy voice. Too bad she was so G.o.dd.a.m.n possessive and smothering. It made him not want to have anything to do with her. He hadn't been involved with her s.e.xually for three months, and she was still pursuing him. Business calls always included some attempt at coercion. The vibe he was getting now echoed that their personal life was now crossing over into his publis.h.i.+ng deals. Especially since the bigger deal had come through. The minute that happened she began steering him toward a more commercial novel. ”Something like what Dean Koontz writes,” she'd said. Maybe now was the time to switch agents.

”Listen, I'm gonna start the new book tomorrow.” Rick began, trying to get the conversation back onto business. ”I'll call you.” He looked at his watch calendar. ”I'll call you Friday afternoon and let you know how far I've gotten.”

”Do you think you'll have twenty pages down?” An abrupt switch in tone to business.

”I don't see why not, if I can get ten pages a day done, including rewrites.”

”If you do by the time we talk, you might want to send them over.”

”Okay.”

”And maybe if you get a quarter of the way done by say, the end of the month, you can come down to New York for the weekend. We'll spend it together.” Her tone had changed back to that seductive purr again.

Six months ago, Rick would have jumped at the chance. But now that he was seriously thinking about changing agents he knew that wasn't going to be the case. Still, he had to provide an illusion of slight interest until he figured out a way to talk to her about the direction she was trying to take him in. The world didn't need another Dean Koontz. ”Sounds good,” he said. ”We'll see how it goes.”

”Okay.” Her voice was a throaty purr. ”Bye, Rick. Talk to you soon.”

”You, too,” Rick said, and they hung up.

Rick sighed as he sat at the desk, the caress of her voice ma.s.saging his brain. Yep, he definitely needed to have a little talk with her. p.r.o.nto. He shouldn't have slept with her in the first place. That had been a mistake. On both their parts.

With that bit of business out of the way, he rose and strode into the kitchen to see what he was going to do for dinner.

Starting work the next morning was tougher than he thought it would be.

He stared blankly at the screen of his laptop. About the most he had done thus far was boot his system and go into Microsoft Word. He'd written the words PROLOGUE in the middle of the page, center s.p.a.ce. Now the cursor was sitting at the left of the screen, waiting for the words. But none came. At least not yet.

Rick drummed his fingers on the desk. He'd called out for a pizza last night and chowed down in the den. There was a big screen TV, along with a big, comfy sofa. He'd popped in one of the Friday the Thirteenth movies that he found lying around and settled down for a couple hour's worth of mindless, splattering entertainment. Once the pizza was consumed, he raided the refrigerator. Not much to be had, so he hiked to the local mini-market down the road and came back with a case of Black Label beer, two liters of c.o.ke, a loaf of bread, lunch meats, ground beef, and some fruit. He also nabbed some microwave popcorn. He spent the rest of the evening watching VH1, drinking c.o.ke and eating popcorn. He wanted to drink beer, but he'd taken the first of the prescribed painkillers Dr. Jorgensen had given him last night and he couldn't drink alcohol while on them. Tanking up on ma.s.sive quant.i.ties of carbonated beverages was the next best thing.

He fell asleep on the sofa in front of the big screen TV.

After a quick breakfast, a pot of coffee and a shower, he headed straight for his office. Got his files together. Read over some notes he'd made for the next novel. Fired up the computer. And promptly proceeded to stare at the screen for the next thirty minutes.

It just wasn't happening. He had a stunning idea for a ghost story, one that involved past life regression and New Ageism. Cynthia had suggested doing something along those lines. He'd balked at first, but an idea sparked in his head not too long afterward. He'd tried plotting it out, but it wouldn't come together no matter how hard he tried. Great idea, but no meat.

His thoughts started wandering and he fired up the CD player, which he'd set up in the office. Rush's Hemispheres filled the room with its intricate melodies and progressive chord changes. Still, nothing.

He decided to call the garage about his car. He should have heard from them by now. He turned the stereo down and hunted in his wallet for the phone number Rusty had given him for Carl's Garage before he had left the drugstore yesterday. He found it, and punched in the number.

A rough voice answered. ”Carl's.”

”Hi, I'm calling about my car.” Rick gave him the vital stats, and the guy told him he'd be right with him. Rick waited.

”Sorry for the wait,” the guy said a few minutes later. ”But I'm afraid I've got some bad news. Your car's shot to s.h.i.+t. I'm not only going to have to replace the entire radiator and fan as well as all the belts, but you're gonna need some extensive body work on it. The whole front grill is crushed and the side paneling is smashed. The body work alone is gonna run over two grand, and I'll tell ya right now that your insurance company will probably just write the car off as a complete loss. You call them yet?”

”No, I haven't.” He had forgotten all about it in all the excitement.

”Well, I'd check with them before you authorize me to do anything else.”

”Okay. I'll do that right now.”

”Talk to you later.”

Rick replaced the receiver with a sinking feeling in his chest. Great! No car, and he was miles from home. It would be at least two weeks before he could get a new set of wheels after the insurance people started their machine. What a great day this was starting out to be.

Rick rose and went into the kitchen. The mid-day sun brought streaks of light through the curtains. It bathed the kitchen in warmth. No hint at all of the rainstorm that had hit last night. It was too nice to sit in the house all day and work. He had a severe bout of writer's block and he didn't have a car. The depression he felt over that pretty much took the wind out of the writing sails for today. And it really was too nice to stay cooped up inside. He hadn't really seen Phillipsport yet, and he was dying to see what kind of burg he'd settled into for the winter. Besides, a walk might be just the thing to get the creative wheels grinding.

He grabbed his wallet and keys from the desk and stepped outside. He put his black leather jacket on and zipped it up. He looked up at the clear blue sky, blinking as he put his sungla.s.ses on. My, but it was a fine, fine day.

He set off down the road toward town with a contented smile on his face. He didn't even notice the tall, dark storm clouds ama.s.sing behind him from the north.

Chapter Eight.

Rick decided to head to the beach.

He made the decision after a quick lunch at a cozy little delicatessen near the center of town. He had stopped in for a quick bite to eat and discovered they made the best submarine sandwiches north of New York City. By the time he left the deli, it was a quarter after twelve. The weather was overcast but warm, heavy with humidity. When Rick turned up Highway 1 upon leaving the house, he noticed the big, black storm clouds ama.s.sing from the north. Gonna be a huge storm, he thought as he reached the crest of town. Hopefully he'd get home before the worst of the downpour hit. The cloud ma.s.s looked like it was still a good few hours away.

Now the entire sky was becoming cloudy as the cloud ma.s.s moved in. As he hit the boardwalk he pa.s.sed a few weathered locals and smiled at them. They gave glancing nods or ignored him altogether. They didn't recognize him as being local. They probably never would even if he decided to settle down and live here.

He walked along the boardwalk, noting the storefronts of fish and chips eateries, tourist traps, fish and tackle stores. Halloween decorations adorned the window-fronts of all of them. The wind picked up slightly and the sky turned a sudden gray. Rick's shadow, which had been keeping abreast of him, suddenly vanished in the sepia of the afternoon. Rick looked up at the sky to check the progress of the clouds and noted that the entire horizon seemed to have clouded up faster than he would have imagined. He stopped in mid-stride, gazing up at the sky in wonder as a raindrop hit his eyeball. Smack!

He started, both eyes shut tight. He rubbed the offending moisture out of his eye as bigger raindrops began to pitter-patter the boardwalk.

A loud cackle to his immediate right caused him to steer toward the sound. It sounded like a gorilla trying to cough up a furball. He blinked. It was just an old man sitting on a rickety rocking chair on the porch of the Fish and Tackle store. The man had skin like leather and looked like he was eight hundred years old.

For a moment, time seemed frozen. Rick stared at the old man. The old man cackled again, his mouth resembling a cesspool; his handful of remaining teeth were the color of lacquered oak. The man's leathery skin, his moldy-hued gray hair, his weathered face, all looked like it had been chipped from the bark of a pine tree. His sinewy arms and legs were twisted branches that snaked at crazy angles. Stick him out in the woods and he'd be the haunted tree of the forest.

Rick almost expected to see dead leaves dropping off the man as he s.h.i.+fted his weight in the rocker. ”Y'know...only turkeys is dumb enough to look up in a storm.” It took a moment for Rick to realize the old geezer was talking to him. The old man cackled again. ”Ya look up too long, an' yew'll drown!”