That half-hypnotized stare is one you cultivate until you can switch it on and off at will . . . at least you can when things are going well. The intuitive part of the mind unlocks itself when you begin work and rises to a height of about six feet (maybe ten on good days). Once there, it simply hovers, sending black-magic messages and bright pictures. For the balance of the day that part is locked to the rest of the machinery and goes pretty much forgotten . . . except on certain occasions when it comes loose on its own and you trance out unexpectedly, your mind making associations which have nothing to do with rational thought and glaring with unexpected images. That is in some ways the strangest part of the creative process. The muses are ghosts, and sometimes they come uninvited.
My house is haunted.
Sara Laughs has always been haunted . . . you’ve stirred em up.
stirred, I wrote on the refrigerator. But it didn’t look right, so I made a circle of fruit and vegetable magnets around it. That was better, much. I stood there for a moment, hands crossed over my chest as I crossed them at my desk when I was stuck for a word or a phrase, then took off stirr and put on haunt, making haunted.
‘It’s haunted in the circle,’ I said, and barely heard the faint chime of Bunter’s bell, as if in agreement.
I took the letters off, and as I did found myself thinking how odd it was to have a lawyer named Romeo —
( romeo went in the circle)
— and a detective named George Kennedy.
( george went up on the fridge)
I wondered if Kennedy could help me with Andy Drake —
( drake on the fridge)
— maybe give me some insights. I’d never written about a private detective before and it’s the little stuff —
( rake off, leave the d, add etails)
— that makes the difference. I turned a 3 on its back and put an I beneath it, making a pitchfork.
The devil’s in the details.
From there I went somewhere else. I don’t know where, exactly, because I was tranced out, that intuitive part of my mind up so high a search-party couldn’t have found it. I stood in front of my fridge and played with the letters, spelling out little pieces of thought without even thinking about them. You mightn’t believe such a thing is possible, but every writer knows it is.
What brought me back was light splashing across the windows of the foyer. I looked up and saw the shape of a car pulling to a stop behind my Chevrolet. A cramp of terror seized my belly. That
was a moment when I would have given everything I owned for a loaded gun. Because it was Footman. Had to be. Devore had called him when he and Whitmore got back to Warrington’s, had told him Noonan refuses to be a good Martian so get over there and fix him.
When the driver’s door opened and the dome-light in the visitor’s car came on, I breathed a conditional sigh of relief. I didn’t know who it was, but it sure wasn’t ‘daddy.’ This fellow didn’t look as if he could take care of a housefly with a rolled-up newspaper . . . although, I supposed, there were plenty of people who had made that same mistake about Jeffrey Dahmer.
Above the fridge was a cluster of aerosol cans, all of them old and probably not ozone-friendly. I didn’t know how Mrs. M. had missed them, but I was pleased she had. I took the first one my hand touched — Black Flag, excellent choice — thumbed off the cap, and stuck the can in the left front pocket of my jeans. Then I turned to the drawers on the right of the sink. The top one contained silverware. The second one held what Jo called ‘kitchenshit’ — everything from poultry thermometers to those gadgets you stick in corncobs so you don’t burn your fingers off. The third one down held a generous selection of mismatched steak knives. I took one, put it in the right front pocket of my jeans, and went to the door.
The man on my stoop jumped a little when I turned on the outside light, then blinked through the door at me like a nearsighted rabbit. He was about five-four, skinny, pale. He wore his hair cropped in the sort of cut known as a wiffle in my boyhood days. His eyes were brown. Guarding them was a pair of horn-rimmed glasses with greasy-looking lenses. His little hands hung at his sides. One held the handle of a flat leather case, the other a small white oblong. I didn’t think it was my destiny to be killed by a man with a business card in one hand, so I opened the door.
The guy smiled, the anxious sort of smile people always seem to wear in Woody Allen movies.
He was wearing a Woody Allen outfit too, I saw — faded plaid shirt a little too short at the wrists, chinos a little too baggy in the crotch. Someone must have told him about the resemblance, I thought. That’s got to be it.
‘Mr. Noonan?’
‘Yes?’
He handed me the card. NEXT CENTURY REAL ESTATE, it said in raised gold letters. Below this, in more modest black, was my visitor’s name.
‘I’m Richard Osgood,’ he said as if I couldn’t read, and held out his hand. The American male’s need to respond to that gesture in kind is deeply ingrained, but that night I resisted it. He held his little pink paw out a moment longer, then lowered it and wiped the palm nervously against his chinos. ‘I have a message for you. From Mr. Devore.’
I waited.
‘May I come in?’
‘No,’ I said.
He took a step backward, wiped his hand on his pants again, and seemed to gather himself. ‘I hardly think there’s any need to be rude, Mr. Noonan.’
I wasn’t being rude. If I’d wanted to be rude, I would have treated him to a faceful of roach-repellent. ‘Max Devore and his minder tried to drown me in the lake this evening. If my manners seem a little off to you, that’s probably it.’
Osgood’s look of shock was real, I think. ‘You must be working too hard on your latest project, Mr. Noonan. Max Devore is going to be eighty-six on his next birthday — if he makes it, which now seems to be in some doubt. Poor old fella can hardly even walk from his chair to his bed anymore. As for Rogette — ‘
‘I see your point,’ I said. ‘In fact I saw it twenty minutes ago, without any help from you. I hardly believe it myself, and I was there. Give me whatever it is you have for me.’
‘Fine,’ he said in a prissy little ‘all right, be that way’ voice. He unzipped a pouch on the front of his leather bag and brought out a white envelope, business-sized and sealed. I took it, hoping Osgood couldn’t sense how hard my heart was thumping. Devore moved pretty damned fast for a man who travelled with an oxygen tank. The question was, what kind of move was this?
‘Thanks,’ I said, beginning to close the door. ‘I’d tip you the price of a drink, but I left my wallet on the dresser.’
‘Wait! You’re supposed to read it and give me an answer.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘I don’t know where Devore got the notion that he could order me around, but I have no intention of allowing his ideas to influence my behavior. Buzz off.’
His lips turned down, creating deep dimples at the corners of his mouth, and all at once he didn’t look like Woody Allen at all. He looked like a fifty-year-old real-estate broker who had sold his soul to the devil and now couldn’t stand to see anyone yank the boss’s forked tail. ‘Piece of friendly advice, Mr. Noonan — you want to watch it. Max Devore is no man to fool around with.’
‘Luckily for me, I’m not fooling around.’
I closed the door and stood in the foyer, holding the envelope and watching Mr. Next Century Real Estate. He looked pissed off and con-fused — no one had given him the bum’s rush just lately, I guessed. Maybe it would do him some good. Lend a little perspective to his life. Remind him that, Max Devore or no Max Devore, Richie Osgood would still never stand more than five-feet-seven.
Even in cowboy boots.
‘Mr. Devore wants an answer!’ he called through the closed door.
‘I’ll phone,’ I called back, then slowly raised my middle fingers in the double eagle I’d hoped to give Max and Rogette earlier. ‘In the meantime, perhaps you could convey this.’