"The guy says, 'Bob, you'll never believe who I've been fucking!' "
We all laughed. Frannie shook his head. "That's a Hollywood joke: Nothing's real unless there's an audience!"
Sitting in a companionable silence with the others, watching cars pass by, I thought about the joke and how it applied to most of the people I was hanging around with. Pauline had cheated on her high school English essays so she'd be seen as the best student in class. Durant was obsessed with showing the world who his son really was. Veronica tried so many different ways to make me want her, including becoming one of my fictional creations. And nothing was more important to me than telling this story accurately and with integrity to an unknown bunch of readers. Nothing is real unless there's an audience.
The day began to cool down toward night. I got up and asked if anyone wanted a drink. They put in their orders. As I was walking into the house, I stopped and said, "I'm really glad I know both of you. I know everything's fucked-up these days, but all that aside, I'm very happy to know you."
While I was in the house fixing our drinks, I heard a car pull up in front and a door slam. Paying it no mind, I finished what I was doing and walked back outside.
There were three boxes from Pizza Hut stacked in the middle of the porch floor. Both men looked at me and smiled.
"When'd you order these, Sam?"
I looked at Frannie and shook my head. "I didn't order anything."
"Well, neither did I. Edward and I've been sitting out here the whole time."
We looked at Durant, who shrugged. "Not me."
McCabe reached forward and pulled the top box onto his lap. Opening the lid, he peered in and made a face. "Anchovies! I hate anchovies. Jesus, I'm not eating this. Just smell it!"
I opened the second. Inside was another topped off with a whole school of those vile little fish.
Durant's arm shook as he reached for the last box. I knew it wasn't fear that caused it. What strength and courage it must have taken him to come to the house today. Now something odd was going on and he didn't have any reserves left to deal with it.
He lifted the box top, looked inside, closed it again. "This one has pineapple. There's a note that says, 'Hi, boys! Dig in.'
My bowels froze. He was here, somewhere near enough to see us. He was here. I looked up and down the street and saw no one. Was he the guy zooming by on the motorcycle, or the thin man driving the red Dodge truck?
I grabbed all of the still-warm boxes and threw them as hard as I could toward the street. Cheese, tomato paste, pineapple and anchovies flew everywhere.
"Fuck you, asshole!" None of the stuff had made it to the street. McCabe's small front yard was suddenly a mess of color. I kicked one of the pizza boxes, then anything nearby. I kept kicking and I didn't know what I was doing and kicking didn't make me feel any better but I had to do something. Anything.
The fax was humming away when I walked into my office in Connecticut a day later. Sheet after warm sheet dropped into the basket. I looked at one. It was part of a rap sheet on Herman Ranftl. I picked up all the papers and shuffled them into order. The fax was from Ivan and had everything about Herman Ranftl, Bradley Erskine and Francis McCabe and Edward Durant Sr.
He'd already given me the rundown on Veronica, so this completed the cast of characters in my life at that point. I was awed by his thoroughness. Where he got all of his information was a mystery to me, but he was as meticulous as a tax collector. I already knew much of what he had gathered, but Ivan's research filled in certain important blanks. I started with Ranftl and Erskine.
By the time I was finished reading about them, my head was filled with the filthy lives of two very bad men. Bradley Erskine, murderer, was a shit as a kid and went downhill from there. Ranftl was a lot smarter and an even greater monster. McCabe had once given me his argument for capital punishment. "All the studies say it doesn't stop criminals from killing people and that's probably right. But you know something? Gas these criminals and they won't kill anyone again." Thinking about Ranftl and Erskine, I knew the chief of police had a point.
To my dismay, Frannie's biography revealed something new and disturbing. While serving in Vietnam, McCabe had undergone drug rehabilitation twice. When he got out, he'd been treated two more times. Did he still do drugs? Was that why he was so thin and pale? I wanted to talk with him about it, but knew it was none of my business. Especially while he lay around all day in his pajamas, hypnotized by karate kicks on television. The only thing I could do for him now was keep him company and be his friend in whatever ways he needed.
In contrast to the others, Edward Durant's biography read like an Eagle Scout's. Awards, honorary degrees, an adviser to governors . . . success after success, but when you spoke with the man, he saw himself as a failure who had only one hope left – to "save" his son.
Pete the postman came up the walk and I opened the door. "How're you doing, Pete?"
"Fifty-fifty. Not much for you today, Sam. Only one big envelope. Here she is." A brown manila envelope, my name and address written in her unforgettable script. I noticed at the top left corner she had written only "Veronica Lake."
"Austria, huh? Always wanted to go to Vienna and see those white horses. You know, the ones that dance around on their back legs?"
I looked at him questioningly.
"The postmark. Austria?" He pointed to the package in my hands. What the hell was Veronica doing in Austria?
When he left, I continued standing there, looking at the package. I gave it a gingerly squeeze and shake. Felt like a book or a video. The last two videotapes I'd watched had sent my life into serious fibrillations: The first had introduced me to Veronica's porno career, the second had documented the end of David Cadmus's life. I wasn't sure I wanted to see what was on this one. But Veronica in Austria was too intriguing and I knew I had to look.
I opened the envelope and took out the tape. There was no label, nothing describing what was on it. Wrapped around it was a handwritten letter in the emerald green ink she liked so much.
Sam,
There are over five hundred people named Bayer in the Vienna phone book, but I found who I was looking for. You'll understand if you watch this. I hope you do. It's only the rough cut, but it'll give you an idea of what I'm trying to do. Working on it made me miss you so much I sometimes couldn't breathe. But I've done so many things wrong that this separation now is the best thing.
I hope your book is going well. I treasure the memory of that sunny morning in Seattle when you told me the idea for the first time. I kept saying to myself, "He is telling me the story of his new book. The one he hasn't even begun yet!"
Thank you for making many dreams come true. Thank you for watching this film, if you do find the time. Even if we had never met, it would make me so proud to know Samuel Bayer spent part of a day watching something I did. I mean that with all my heart.
I put her tape right into the machine.
It began with toast. That familiar scratchy noise of someone buttering a piece of toast. Black screen, scratchy sound. Then a male voice starts to speak and, recognizing it even before his face appeared, I hooted with glee.
"Samuel Bayer is a dreadful writer! He was also a dreadful student in class. It amazes me how successful he has become with those tepid little thrillers he writes." My old high school English teacher (and Pauline's) Mr. Tresvant stops buttering. Sighing, he shakes his head. He is in a bathrobe with a pattern on it that looks like 1950s wallpaper. The robe is open at the throat. His scrawny neck and old man's wattles are sad and unattractive. There are a bunch of moles across his chest, things we students never saw because Mr. Tresvant's shirts were always buttoned right up to the top. He takes a bite of toast. Crumbs fall down around him but he pays no attention. How did Veronica convince the uptight fuddy-duddy to go on camera in his robe and pajamas? One of the most controlled people I'd ever known, he looks here like a bum in an eleven-dollar-a-night Utah motel room.