Stryker steadied the pistol. “Sorry, Russ. I’ll miss you. Hope you can understand.”
The Victrola behind them made a rattle and whir. There was an audible clunk as the heavy tone arm descended.
Stryker looked toward it for an instant. Russ started to go for him. Stryker nailed him through the upper left shoulder with his first shot. Russ collapsed.
I dream of that night with you…
“Going to be a tough job of suicide now,” Mandarin whispered.
“I’ll figure something,” Stryker assured him.
Blue were the skies
And blue were your eyes
Stryker leveled his pistol again. “Very interesting.”
Come back, blue lady, come back
“There are too many dead!” Russ managed. “She’s grown too strong.”
“I never really believed in ghosts,” said Stryker, lining up on Russ’s heart.
Don’t be blue anymore.
There was a sudden scraping at the fireplace behind them.
From its brackets, the Parker shotgun swung away from the stone wall. It seemed to hesitate an instant, then slowly fell to the hearth, stock downward.
Stryker turned to stare at it, open-mouthed in wonder. He was still gaping into its double barrels, looking down into the blackness within, when both shells fired at once.
SILTED IN
The pain in his chest was back again. Perhaps it was worse this time, but he couldn’t remember.
He leaned against the sink, trying to belch. The kitchen counter was stacked high with dishes: to his right dirty ones; to his left clean ones, waiting to dry themselves. He rinsed the suds from his hands, staring at them as the suds peeled away. Were the wrinkles from the dishwater, or had he grown that much older?
He sat down heavily at the kitchen table, remembered his cup of coffee. It had grown cold, but he sipped it without tasting. That was enough of the dishes for today; tomorrow he’d make a fresh start.
He hated the dishes. Each one was a memory. This was her coffee cup. This was her favorite glass. They drank together from these wine glasses. They’d picked out this china pattern together. This casserole dish was a wedding present. This skillet was the one she used to make her special omelets. This was the ash tray she always kept beside her favorite chair.
Her chair. He shuffled into the living room, collapsed across the swaybacked couch. Her chair waited there for her, just as she had left it. He wouldn’t sit in it. A guest might, but he never had guests now.
A broken spring pressed into his consciousness, and he shifted his weight. Not much weight now. Once he had enjoyed cooking for her. Now every meal he fixed reminded him of her. He left his food untasted. When he cleaned out the freezer, her dog had grown plump on roasts and steaks and chops, stews and soups and etouffees, fried chicken and roast goose and curried duck. After her dog died, he simply scraped the untouched food into the dog’s old bowl, left it on the back porch for whatever might be hungry. When his stomach gave him too much pain, he made a sandwich of something, sometimes ate it.
The mail truck was honking beside his mailbox, and he remembered that he hadn’t checked his mail all week. Once he had waited impatiently each day for the mail to come. Now it was only bills, duns, letters from angry publishers, some misdirected letters for her, a few magazines whose subscriptions still ran.
He was out of breath when he climbed back up the steps from the street. He stared at his reflection in the hallway mirror without recognition, then dumped the armload of unopened mail onto the pile that sprawled across the coffee table.
The phone started to ring, but his answering machine silently took charge. He never played back the messages, used the phone only now and again to order a pizza. No one comes up into the hills at night.
“Why don’t you answer it?” Bogey asked him. He was working his way through a bottle, waiting for Ingrid to show up.
“Might be my agent. He’s been stalling my publishers as long as he can. Now I owe him money, too.”
“Maybe it’s her.”
He ignored the poster and found the bathroom. He took a long piss, a decidedly realistic touch which was the trendiest verism in horror fiction this season. So inspired, he groped his way into his study, dropped into the leather swivel chair she had bought him for his last birthday. He supposed it was a gift.
He brought up the IBM word processor and hit the command for global search and replace, instructed it to replace the phrase “make love” with “piss on” throughout the novel. Yes, go ahead and replace without asking.
While the computer sorted that out, he fumbled with the bank of stereo equipment, tried to focus his eyes on the spines of a thousand record albums. He reached out to touch several favorites, pulled his hand away reluctantly each time. Every album was a memory. The Blues Project album he’d played while they made love for the first time. The Jefferson Airplane album she loved to dance to: Don’t you need somebody to love? And not the Grateful Dead — too many stoned nights of sitting on the floor under the black lights, passing the pipe around. Hendrix? No, too many acid trip memories.
“You’re burning out, man,” Jimi told him.
“Better to burn out than to fade away,” he answered. “You should know.”
Jimi shrugged and went back to tuning his Fender Stratocaster.
He left the stereo on, still without making a selection. Sometimes a beer helped him get started.
The dishes were still waiting in the sink, and Jim Morrison was looking in the refrigerator. He reached an arm in past Jimbo and snagged the last beer. He’d have to remember to go to the store soon.
“Fucking self-indulgent,” Jim said.
“What was? Oh, here.” He offered Jimbo the beer can.
Jim shook his head. “No. I meant changing ‘fuck’ to ‘piss on’ in the novel.”
“It’s the same thing. And anyway, it’s so New Wave.”
“How would you know? You’re past forty.”
“I was New Wave back in the ’60s.”
“And you’re still stuck in the ’60s.”
“And so are you.”
“Maybe so. But I know that I’m dead.”
“You and all my heroes.”
Back in his study he sipped his beer and considered his old Royal portable. Maybe go back to the roots: a quill pen, or even clay tablets.
He rolled in a sheet of paper, typed I at the top of the page. He sipped the rest of his beer and stared at the blank page. After a while he noticed that the beer can was empty.
The battery in his car was dead, but there was a 7-11 just down the hill. His chest was aching again by the time he got back. He chugged a fresh brew while he put away the rest of the six-pack, a Redi-Maid cheese sandwich, a jar of instant coffee and a pack of cigarettes. The long belch made him feel better.
James Dean was browsing along his bookshelves when he returned to the living room. He was looking at a copy of Electric Visions. “I always wondered why you dedicated this book to me,” he said.
“It was my first book. You were my first hero — even before Elvis. I grew up in the ’50s wanting to be like you.”
James read from the copyright page: “1966.” He nodded toward the rest of the top shelf. “You write these others, too?”
“Fourteen hardcovers in ten years. I lived up to your image. Check out some of the reviews I stuck inside the books: ‘The New Wave’s brightest New Star.’ ‘Sci-fi’s rebellious new talent.’ ‘The angriest and most original writer in decades.’ Great jacket blurbs.” James Dean helped himself to a cigarette. “I don’t notice any reviews more recent than 1978.”