Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

"No. I've been thinking the same thing. I don't think it will spoil anything, but it'll make everything more complicated. We're both loners, and that's a lot different from being one of a pair. But it feels good so far, so let's run with it."

"Okay. It feels good to me, too, but it's strange. Maybe we can help each other along with this, until we can get used to how it feels."

"Suzy, think about how we made love. We didn't have to ask for anything, it all just came naturally."

"You're right. We just seemed to fit together." She was silent for several seconds. "I'm glad it worked out this way."

"Me, too. I guess."

Chapter six

Around two the next morning, I got out of bed quietly, trying not to wake Suzy. I went to the computer and found that the words came smoothly, just as they had when I had written the other novels. Just as they had before Carol left. Better, in fact. There was no groping for just the right word, no questioning whether this or that sentence ought to be turned around. I was Superwriter! I didn't want to laugh out loud so I had to suppress a giggle when I imagined myself in a blue leotard with a big red S on my chest. It was especially absurd because I was sitting there without a stitch of clothing on, blue or red or any other color.

It was almost seven when there was a light touch on my shoulder, and I looked up into Suzy's face. She was reading over my shoulder and smiling. "Jack, you're good! This is wonderful!"

"I owe my publisher twenty thousand words, and at this rate I might get it all out in a few days. That's enough to get my editor off my back for a while and then I can leave with you for Virginia, or wherever we need to start our search. How's that sound?"

"Great! I'll go make some coffee."

"Thanks. I'll join you as soon as I get this gunfight scene finished. I've been building up to it for two thousand words, and I can't just get out of it with 'The saloon suddenly went silent and Henry looked around to find that all the bad guys were dead.' I've got to describe every shot or my readers will feel cheated. So please go ahead with the coffee, and maybe there are some waffles in the freezer, too."

Henry raised up on his knees and looked over the upended table that he was using for cover, then quickly pulled his head back down as he saw the man in the light blue shirt turning toward him. Without making a sound, Henry crouched low and moved to his left to peek around the side of the table, his face barely a foot off the floor. He quickly checked the cylinder of the big Taurus. Five of the eight chambers were still loaded, which ought to be enough to finish off the blue shirt and the other guy, the one in the brown pants. Now he could see blue shirt's head and shoulders, facing toward the front door. If only he could get a clear shot at the man's chest he could . . . Wow! What was that? A gunshot had come from the direction of the bar, and the blue shirt seemed to be frozen in space. Then blue shirt's pistol fell to the floor with a clatter and he collapsed slowly forward, out of Henry's sight, until his head met the floor with a solid thunk.

Where had that shot come from, and where was the guy in the brown pants? Over to the right there was movement, as the brown pants guy emerged from behind a table and swung his gun hand around, looking for Henry. Realizing that he was well camouflaged by the chair legs he was peering between, Henry stayed where he was, not moving a muscle. He had a pretty good view of the room from the front door to the middle of the bar, but he still couldn't see who had shot blue shirt. Had to be somebody behind the bar, he guessed. Did he have an unseen ally, or was the bartender down behind the bar, popping up to take random shots at anything that moved? If only he could stand up straight he might get a look at the space behind the bar reflected in the mirror. Brown pants had the same idea, and slowly straightened, his six foot height giving him an advantage. Now Henry had a clear view of the man's left side. He could get a shot at his chest, if only he'd move his left arm. There! Brown pants reached to move a chair out of his way. Henry fired. The roar of the 357 going off only a foot from his face sounded more like a cannon than a handgun. The bullet that went into the man's chest from the side ought to hit his heart or the blood vessels coming out of the top of it, but he didn't go down. Now the head and gun were turning Henry's way, probably moving quite fast but seeming to be in slow motion as time almost seemed to stand still. The man's shoulders turned toward him, giving Henry a clear shot at his whole chest. He fired a quick double tap aimed for the shirt pocket. The gun arm stopped rotating toward him and went upward instead, as the man began to fall to his left, dropping out of Henry's sight. Henry supposed the man was dead, but he couldn't tell if he had hit the floor or dropped his gun, because the whole world had become silent as his ears protested those three shots fired up close and personal.

He stayed motionless, waiting for something or someone to move. The mystery shooter that he thought was behind the bar must be doing the same thing, he thought. But Henry was in no hurry, and hoped that he could stay down until his hearing recovered. All he could hear was his own pulse, thudding like the footsteps of a sprinter. He began to move back behind his table, half an inch at a time, while turning his head to the left to check his unguarded flank. Good! No one there! Now if he could just get back far enough to reload. He must have two left and six empties in the cylinder of the Taurus. Gradually he drew himself up into a sitting position, and used his folded right leg to cushion the fall of the empty cases so the clatter of brass hitting the floor wouldn't give away his position. He loaded the cylinder and tried to swing it home without an audible click; he couldn't hear how well he did but it felt smooth enough. Then he lay out almost straight on his right side as he moved to get a clear view around the other end of the table, five feet from where he had just been shooting. Gun first, then outstretched arm, and finally his eyes cleared the table and he scanned the saloon for movement.

Over at the bar, something popped up and then back down. Henry aimed the revolver at the place where it had appeared, and tried to relax his arms and upper body so he wouldn't be too cramped to move quickly when he next acquired a target. There it was again, a few feet to the right this time. He moved the big revolver not to the right, but to the left, to aim at a spot where he guessed it would appear again, and smiled when a head appeared almost exactly in his sights. The head was topped with red hair, almost the color of a chestnut gelding he'd once owned. This time it stayed up, just far enough for the eyes to see over the bar. Then slowly it rose, until Henry was looking at a very pretty young woman. A very pretty young woman holding a Glock. She was saying something, but he couldn't hear a word. Check the lips. ". . . with your hands up," she seemed to be saying. He thought about that. Didn't seem like a good idea. She wasn't facing directly toward him, and he realized that she didn't know where he was. If he moved she'd hear him and point that Glock at him before he could get into a posture he could move quickly from. He scanned the bar, and spotted a pitcher of beer standing over at the far right, about ten feet from the redhead. He slowly put his sights on the pitcher, held that sight picture, took a breath and held it, and squeezed the trigger.

The pitcher flew into a thousand shards in a spray of stale beer. But Henry wasn't watching it. He quickly pulled himself into a tuck position, got his feet under him, and exploded to his full height with the Taurus aimed at the redhead's chest. She had jerked to her left reflexively as the beer pitcher exploded, and now she twisted her head back around to see where the shot had come from. But the Glock was lagging behind, and she found herself looking down the barrel of Henry's Taurus before she could aim in his direction. Her lips quivered, she looked undecided, and then laid the Glock down on the bar.

Henry was now looking into her eyes, as she stood in front of the big mirror that had somehow escaped damage. Nothing was moving in the mirrored image of the barroom. He stepped to his left, around the tables and chairs, and walked to the bar. He sidestepped to his right, keeping the Taurus aimed at the redhead while he scooped up her Glock with his left hand and dropped it into his pants pocket. Then he slowly holstered the Taurus and tried to make sense of what she was saying. He waved at his ears with both hands, and she got the idea that he was still deafened from the gunfire. They stood, staring at one another, until she turned and picked up a bottle of Jack Daniel's and two shot glasses. The universal language of the bartending trade said it all, and they raised their glasses in a silent salute, then drank the whiskey down.

That was the stopping place I had been heading for. I saved the text and uncoiled from my seat, feeling stiff as I stood up for the first time in a few hours. I'd better remember this, I thought; this is how Henry must feel after being curled up all that time behind the table.

Breakfast was simple, relaxed, and satisfying. We were learning to enjoy our acceptance of each other, and it felt good to sit there across from a gorgeous girl and know that she trusted me and I trusted her. Well, I thought I knew that. Hoped I did, anyway. A little voice of caution was playing in the back of my head, and I ignored it. I had spent too many years hedging every bet, double and triple checking everything I was told, looking for ulterior motives behind everything I was given. Of course the paranoid way is the safe way, but you can usually bank on the old saw that nothing lasts forever, whether you spend your days calculating the odds or not. Relationships are nature's way of nourishing our souls, and just as with other kinds of nourishment, there's a risk that even the tastiest food will give you a case of heartburn. Or maybe ptomaine poisoning.

I was thinking all these thoughts while Suzy was talking to me, and when she got to the part where I should have commented I was caught unprepared. "Huh, what? Oh, I'm sorry, my mind was racing in circles and I lost the thread of what you were saying."

"I was saying that I thought I might use this time well, while you're writing, by going to the library and doing some research. What do you think?"

"Absolutely. Great idea. I'll dig out my notes and you can check some of the references I used, and then take it from there. Providence is loaded with libraries, but probably the one on Empire Street would be your best bet. I'd suggest looking on the internet and calling the librarians before chasing all over the place. And be sure to ask them about parking."

"I'll look into it as soon as I finish my coffee. I looked over your gunfight scene while you were in the bathroom, and I think it's wonderful. What's Henry going to do with the good looking redhead?"

"I haven't decided yet. Henry doesn't realize it, but when he dove for cover as the first shots were fired, he got nicked on the left arm, and it's bleeding. The redhead will bandage it for him, and if she does a good job she might get to stick around for a few chapters. A lot will depend on whether Henry stays there or gets back on the road. And of course, maybe she'll go with him. So the possibilities are endless and we'll just have to see what develops. What do you think I ought to do with the good looking brunette?"

"You mean the one with the cute round ass and big tits?"

"Yeah, that one. The one that makes good coffee."

"Well, if you'll just stack your dishes in the sink, maybe I can give you a few suggestions."

Needless to say, we took the conversation to the bedroom, and her suggestions turned out to be excellent. We paused to catch our breath around eleven, but we couldn't keep our hands off each other even then. We went from lying on our backs side by side to being all wound up in arms and legs, holding on as if to keep each other captive. I pulled my head back to look at her, and we both spoke at once.

"I'm sorry, Suzy. What were you trying to say?"

"Just that I love you even more than I thought I did. Jack, I've never felt this way about anybody. What's going to become of us? Are you going to take advantage of me while I'm young and then toss me aside as soon as I develop crows' feet and frown lines?"

"If we both give all we can to our relationship, it can last forever. But if we milk it for all we can take from it, then it might not last till Christmas. The myth is that we can never tell what direction a relationship will take, but the truth is that we can steer it just like steering a fire truck."

"Fire truck? What's that all about?"

"Well, the biggest fire engines are the high ladder trucks. They're built like eighteen wheelers, but the trailers are longer so they can carry those enormous ladders to get to the top of big buildings. The catch is that the tallest buildings are downtown, where the city blocks are short and the streets are often crooked and narrow. It's so hard to get get those trucks to where they're needed, that they're built with a driver's seat in the back, with its own steering wheel to steer the wheels of the trailer. The guy back there used to be called the tiller man. The whole deal depends on fantastically close cooperation by the driver up front and the tiller man in the rear. They've both gotta be heading for the same fire."

"So which one of us is the driver, and which is the tiller man?"

"That's another thing about the big city departments: there's so much riding on the way they handle those rigs that the guys train in both seats. They get to be such a close knit team that they can anticipate each other's moves, and the whole thing becomes one big, smooth running machine. Think we could be like that?"

"I think I'd like to try. I mean, try really hard. Will you help me?"

The answer was another example of our highly developed non-verbal communication. Positively eloquent!

Chapter seven

Henry kept getting in deeper and deeper, the longer I sat at the keyboard. His hearing recovered and he and the redhead had a good, long talk. They wound up half smashed on Jack Daniel's and lay down together on one of the two beds in her room. I merely hinted at the biological details, knowing that my editor was going to ask for more description to make the book sell to the young mothers and bored divorcees. Asking for those changes would involve the editor more deeply in the story and provide an incentive for her to work hard to make it a best seller.

Being an author these days demands a fair amount of game playing. First you have to get an idea for a story. If you've done this before and your earlier books have sold well, then you just copy the plot line with different names and locations, and everybody's happy. But if the central character has become popular with the readers, then you keep him and his friends and just create new corpses, killed by different methods. Check the last few mysteries you read by your favorite author. The first murder will be by gunfire. The next will be blunt trauma. In the old days a stabbing came next, but that makes the reader cringe, so it's gone out of fashion and the weapon will more likely be poison. Poison is very dainty, very neat. No mess and no fingerprints. After that, the author gets desperate so the John Doe may get electrocuted or run over by a car. Somewhere in there you might find a beating or strangulation. Then the cycle will repeat. You won't find many deaths by arson because it's so hard for readers to accept. The same goes with drowning, unless the victim goes into the water unconscious.

The author's literary life may not be a whole lot different from his love life. If you lose your leading lady, you look for another one just like her. And if you get your hands on one that's a real keeper, you hang onto her with every means at your disposal. Then comes the magic: a really satisfying love life makes your writing just sail along, and the book buying public (read that as women) will relate to the story and beat down the doors of the book shops for more, more, more. Look at Earle Stanley Gardner. He never even let Perry Mason pat Della Street on the ass, but the chemistry was there and the ladies loved it, so through a run of what seemed like a thousand novels, Perry never fired Della to get a younger secretary with a cute round ass and big tits. He wouldn't dare!

Authors and editors are natural enemies, but they have to collaborate seamlessly to make a story really great. As for how an author ought to deal with his editor, there are a lot of theories. Get a bunch of novelists together and if they've had enough to drink, which translated means if somebody else is picking up the bar tab, the subject of how to treat your editor is bound to come up. They word it in different ways—after all, they're writers—but the central question is whether or not it's a good idea to take her to bed with you. And then there are the subordinate issues, like whether you ought to fuck her on the first novel, or wait till the second or third. If you can imagine a group of coeds sitting around a table in their favorite wine bar, it's the very same conversation; only the names are changed. If you can stay sober enough to keep up with all that's said, you might even be rewarded with that most entertaining twist, as two authors realize they've been bedding the same editor. Here again, they're just like the coeds, who sometimes find out that their football hero knows how to play more than one position on the field. Oh, the predictable foibles of people who delude themselves into thinking they're in full control of their lives!

I never went in for true confessions with my peers. For one thing, I realized from the start that authors compete in what is essentially an individual sport. Oh, they have some help, but when I put my name on the front cover, it means that I'm out there competing with all comers, like a tennis player or a golfer. I don't have ten other people on the field taking the hits for me, like football. I try to be cordial to other writers, but I'm not such a fool as to think they admire me or even like me. What I want from them is stronger than admiration: more like fear and envy. Watch customers looking around in a book store. What they're looking for is something pleasant to help them waste a few hours, and they may wander through every section of the store until they settle on a purchase. That means I am competing with every author in the business, not just the few who write my kind of stories. I write murder and adventure, but my readers also like to read biographies and cookbooks. I have to be the whole world for every reader. My customer is more likely to be a frumpy housewife than a buttoned-down businessman. Next time you travel by commercial airline, walk up and down the aisle and see if you can figure out what everybody's reading. Tom Clancy action novels will show up in the hands of prim, feminine little grandmothers. At a book club meeting they may discuss some deep, meaningful novel that's Oprah's latest pick, but given the anonymity of a park bench or a lunch counter they'll read what they find exciting. They want murders, sex, action, sex, suspense, sex, and heroes who are big, powerful, handsome, and well hung -- and to hell with what Oprah thinks. With her millions Oprah can attract all the well hung hero types she wants, but the book store customer has to get hers in paperback at $8.95 a copy.