Westlake, Donald E - Novel 50 by Sacred Monster (v1.1) Page A

him. Dear fuzzy drink, fuzzing around through all my suburbs, turning
me on like neons at nighttime. "My friend,” I say, "you just used a
word that has no meaning.”
                 His
face is blank. "I did?”
                 “Cynical. You see, my friend, it's a
spectrum,” I say, and spread my hands like a fisherman lying, and very nearly,
very nearly, very damn nearly spill
the remains of my fuzzy drink, but recover in time and continue: "It's a
spectrum,” I say. "Here at this end is the romantic, and over here at this
end is the cynic. So wherever you are on this here spectrum here, you're the
realist, and everybody on that side is too much of a romantic, and everybody on
that side is too much of a cynic.”
                 "Is
that right?”
                 "That's
right,” I say, seeing no need to disagree with myself. "More
examples. You take a normal interest in your job. Everybody on this side of you is lazy, and everybody
on that side of you is a workaholic.
Or everybody on one side is frigid, and everybody on the other side's a
nymphomaniac. Or everybody over here's—”
                 "I
get the idea,” he assures me loudly, interrupting a fine flow, a fine
fuzzy-drink-induced flow, and then he hurries on to keep that fine flow from
starting up again, asking me, "Did you get another part in a play after Last Seen in Tupelo closed?”
                 "No,”
I tell him, clouding over slightly, the fuzzy drink beginning to curdle within
me at the memory of that empty time in my life, Buddy pressing me to bring in
some money, the great lethargy creeping over me, all my troubles and woes, the
memories I hadn't learned how to jam. . . . "Jack Schullmann's blackball
against me was still alive then," I explain to this button-eyed interviewer,
"and during that time I was with George I did more drinking than maybe I
should have at such a tender age—not like now! Hah!" And I finish the
fuzzy drink!
                 "So
what did you do?" this dull fellow asks me.
                I radiate pleasure in his direction.
"I got married,” I say simply.

 
           FLASHBACK
9
     
     
                 On
her way home from the studio, Marcia picked up her dry cleaning, then continued
on up and over Beverly Glen Boulevard out of the Valley and into Westwood to the
furnished rental she’d taken while shooting Tupelo . The house was modified mission- style, one
story high, with red tiled roof and beige stucco walls, the structure sprawling
over most of the available property, with neat lawn and shrubbery in front and
a large swimming pool filling the space in back.
                 Hooked
to the visor of the rented Porsche was the box that controlled the door of the
attached garage; Marcia thumbed the button on that box as she made the turn
into her driveway, and the broad blank door folded up and back, receding into
the open mouth of the garage like a piece of stage magician’s equipment. Marcia
drove from the sunny exterior to the dark oily-smelling interior of the garage,
unnaturally bare and neat inside (this being a short-term rental), and behind
her the door slid out and swept down, as though the house had just ingested
another victim.
                 Marcia
collected the plastic dry-cleaner bag, which had been draped over the back of
the passenger seat, then climbed from the car and went through the connecting
door into the kitchen. She passed through the kitchen and out the other side,
then moved diagonally across one corner of the long, low living room with its
low beige furniture and broad, chrome-faced fireplace. A long hall led from
there, with more rooms to the right and a wall of glass on the left overlooking
the swimming pool and its redwood surround. Walking down this hall, the dry-
cleaner bag held over her shoulder like Frank Sinatra's jacket, Marcia glanced
leftward and saw, in profile, Jack